—. It has been four days now that I have wanted to send you the vegetal reply to your Roses.36 The wait for the Major prevented me from sending it. At last I will be able to. —. But I am disappointed: you had promised me you would ask me for some books, some illustrated ones, some Ruskin? It is perhaps heavy on your bed … How I would like to know Madame how you are. I think of you all the time. Please be so kind as to accept my respectful gratitude
MARCEL PROUST
[Above the word ‘Madame’, on the first page] What I do not express to you because I am suffering so today that I can’t write, is my emotion, my gratitude for those letters you have written me, truly admirable and touching in mind and heart.
[November 1915?]
Madame,
I have been wanting for a long time to express to you my regret that the sudden arrival of my brother prevented me from writing to you during the last days of your stay in Paris, then my sadness at your leaving. But you have bequeathed to me so many workers and one Lady Terre37 – whom I do not dare call, rather, ‘Terrible’ (since, when I get the workers to extend the afternoon a little in order to move things ahead without waking me too much, she commands them violently and perhaps sadistically to start banging at 7 o’clock in the morning above my head, in the room immediately above my bedroom, an order which they are forced to obey), that I have no strength to write and have had to give up going away. How right I was to be discreet when you wanted me to investigate whether the morning noise was coming from a sink. What was that compared to those hammers? ‘A shiver of water on moss’ as Verlaine says of a song ‘that weeps only to please you’.38 In truth, I cannot be sure that the latter was hummed in order to please me. As they are redoing a shop next door I had with great difficulty got them not to begin work each day until after two o’clock. But this success has been destroyed since upstairs, much closer, they are beginning at 7 o’clock. I will add in order to be fair that your workers whom I do not have the honour of knowing (any more than the terrible lady) must be charming. Thus your painters (or your painter), unique within their kind and their guild, do not practise the Union of the Arts, do not sing! Generally a painter, a house painter especially, believes he must cultivate at the same time as the art of Giotto that of Reszke.39 This one is quiet while the electrician bangs. I hope that when you return you will not find yourself surrounded by anything less than the Sistine frescoes … I would so much like your voyage to do you good, I was so sad, so continually sad over your illness. If your charming son, innocent of the noise that is tormenting me, is with you, will you please convey all my best wishes to him and be so kind as to accept Madame my most respectful regards.
MARCEL PROUST
[November 1915?]
Madame,
I am extremely embarrassed that I have not yet thanked you. The real Truth is that I always defer letters (which could seem to ask you for something) to a moment when it is too late and when consequently, they are no longer indiscreet. Considering how little time it took to do the work on Ste Chapelle (this comparison can only I think be seen as flattering), one may presume that when this letter reaches Annecy, the beautifications of Boulevard Haussmann will be nearly done.
The real truth, I said, the ‘Truth’ as Pelléas says, is not to be found in the letter that was addressed to you, a fragment of which you wanted to communicate to me (I do not have it at hand, but will reproduce it for you). It is rather a dispatch from the Wollff Agency.40 In any case I am not very well placed to judge on my own. I feel no resentment towards Madame Terre [earth] (one does say the Sun King and Madame Mère [mother]).41 I have adapted for her, in honour of that Cybele who perhaps announces silence to the dead but not to the living, more than one piece of verse, beginning with the famous sonnet.
Alas I bear an evil whose name – well known – is Earth
This evil has no cure, and thus my lips are sealed
And she whom I lament knows nothing of my woe
Hereunder where I lie, I no doubt pass unseen,
Reposing at her feet and yet still quite alone,
And till the end I will have done my time on earth
Ne’er asking aught but stillness and receiving none.
She whom God has fashioned neither sweet nor kind,
Determined in her mind that I will have to hear
This ceaseless noise of hamm’ring now raiséd at her steps,
To holy Pity faithless every livelong day,
Will say when she shall read these lines so filled with her,
‘Who can this woman be?’ and will not comprehend.42
Besides, who knows? – I have always thought that noise would be bearable if it were continuous. As they are repairing the Boulevard Haussmann at night, redoing your apartment during the day and demolishing the shop at 98 bis in the intermissions, it is probable that when this harmonious team disperses, the silence will resound in my ears so abnormally that, mourning the vanished electricians and the departed carpet-layer, I will miss my Lullaby. Deign to accept Madame my respectful greetings.
MARCEL PROUST
[November 1915?]
Madame,
As Annecy was for me voiceless (if the Boulevard Haussmann was not noiseless), I do not know if you received my latest letters and especially those in which I passed on to you the respects of poor Clary.43 —. This one is just a quick note from a neighbour. I am forced to go out very ill and do not know in what state I will return! Yet tomorrow is Sunday, a day which usually offers me the opposite of the weekly repose because in the little courtyard adjoining my room they beat the carpets from your apartment, with an extreme violence. May I ask for grace tomorrow? Or when I do my fumigation let them know so that they can take advantage of that time. I hope that you will not find me too indiscreet and I lay at your feet my respectful regards.
MARCEL PROUST
Mme Williams and her harp.
[November 1915]
Madame,
Your letter fills me with gratitude (and sadness since you seem to believe there could be doubts on my part). The epistolary ‘silence’ for which it is too good of you to apologize had been accompanied by another silence which I perceived very distinctly for the past six days and which it was sweet for me to owe to you. The sweetness of your presence and your intention was incarnate in it, and I savoured it with thankfulness.
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