PROUST, Marcel (1871-1922)

PROUST, Marcel (1871-1922)

Autograph letter signed « Marcel Proust » to Fernand Gregh
N.p.n.d., [Paris, 13 Aug. 1903], 3 p. small in-8° on laid paper
Old tab mark on the fourth page, one word crossed out
Watermark: “Au Printemps Paris – Nouveau Papier Français”
Included: Autograph envelope, stamped and postmarked

Uncle Weil, a figure of Proust’s happy childhood, soon to be under the care of Doctor Dubois, the model for Du Boulbon in The Search

« Cher ami, j’ai un oncle très malade de l’estomac depuis plusieurs années, neurasthénique extrêmement, mais aussi dilaté, etc., qui va peut-être (?) essayer de ton médecin [le docteur Dubois]. Tu serais excessivement gentil de me dire son nom et son adresse pour si mon oncle se décidait. Mais quand on n’est pas seulement neurasthénique, qu’on est très malade de l’estomac, et pas seulement nerveusement, vous soigne-t-il encore ? Vous guérit-il tout de même.
Pardonne-moi de te demander un moment de tes journées fécondes, quelques lignes de ton écriture précieuse, pour un simple renseignement. Mais il aura peut-être pour résultat d’épargner de la douleur physique et toutes les tristesses qui en résultent autour de celui qui souffre. Que si le renseignement demeure superflu inutile, tu ne m’en accuseras pas, mais le mauvais esprit d’un malade qui veut et ne peut pas guérir.
Ton reconnaissant Marcel Proust »

Denis-Georges Weil, the brother of Proust’s mother, maintained a very friendly relationship with young Marcel. He often engaged in long literary conversations with him, sometimes to the point of forgetting the time to go to the courthouse, where he served as a magistrate. Uncle Weil perfectly exemplifies the close family bond that Proust experienced in his childhood, marked by a shared domestic life and a mutual love of conversation. He was also co-owner, together with Madame Proust, of the building on Boulevard Haussmann where Proust would come to live starting in 1906.

Reality Transposed into The Search:
Dr. Paul Dubois, a renowned professor of neuropathology of the time, ran a clinic in Bern and published several works, including The Influence of the Mind on the Body (1901). Fernand Gregh had been treated by him in 1900, and Proust, who considered consulting him in 1905, recommended him to his uncle Denis-Georges Weil. Proust, who cites Dubois’s theories in the notes to his translation of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, also transposed the episode of his uncle’s visit to the doctor into The Guermantes Way: Dubois tells Weil that he is not ill, and the latter immediately feels better—just as the Narrator’s grandmother does after seeing Dr. Du Boulbon. Finally, Proust has his fictional character die of the same uremia that claimed his uncle’s life.

Fernand Gregh (1873–1960) met Marcel Proust in January 1892, among the students of the Lycée Condorcet who ran the literary review Le Banquet. He soon became the director of this periodical, while Proust published there some of his first important literary and theoretical texts. Together with two other Lycée students and fellow members of Le Banquet, Louis de La Salle and Daniel Halévy, Proust and Gregh embarked in 1893 on the writing of a four-handed novel. This collaborative text, conceived in the model of La Croix de Berny (written by Gautier and three other authors), was never completed, but Proust was its main contributor and already introduced themes that would later resurface in In Search of Lost Time. Fernand Gregh then devoted himself almost exclusively to poetry, winning a prize from the French Academy in 1896. He played a certain role in literary life through his position as managing editor of the Revue de Paris (1894–1897) and as editor of Les Lettres (until 1909). His friendship with Proust, however, was marked by intermittent strains, notably due to aesthetic disagreements. Moreover, like many “established” writers, Gregh initially regarded Proust with a touch of condescension, while Proust in turn mocked the somewhat “charming” ridiculousness of his friend’s character. Fernand Gregh entered the French Academy in 1953 and left behind significant literary recollections, including a volume entitled My Friendship with Marcel Proust (1958), in which he published the letters he had received from the author of In Search of Lost Time.