PROUST, Marcel (1871-1922)

Autograph letter signed « Marcel Proust » à Marie Scheikévitch
[Paris, after February 7th, 1922] 3 p. in-8° on light grey paper

« There is a good chance that you did not notice that I was at Princess Soutzo’s the other evening »

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PROUST, Marcel (1871-1922)

Autograph letter signed « Marcel Proust » à Marie Scheikévitch
[Paris, after February 7th, 1922] 3 p. in-8° on light grey paper
Old paper clip traces, slight missing bit of paper on upper margin of second folio (without affecting the text)
Period fold mark, some browning
With autograph envelope, some notes in black pencil on verso (by an unknown hand)

Proust evokes an evening spent at Princess Soutzo’s and admits to having discreetly withdrawn in the middle of a conversation between Abel Bonnard and his correspondent

Marcel Proust’s last known letter to Marie Scheikévitch, nine months before the writer’s death


« Chère Madame,
Ce seul mot (que je ne dicte pas à la machine bien qu’ayant maintenant une “machiniste”)¹ est pour vous dire ceci :
Il y a mille chances pour que vous n’ayez pas remarqué que j’étais l’autre soir chez la princesse Soutzo², plus encore si vous l’avez remarqué que ma “fuite” ait passé inaperçue à vos yeux. Mais, en supposant le seul risque d’une de ces deux hypothèses concordantes, je veux vous dire que si je ne suis pas resté auprès de vous, c’est parce que vous m’avez semblé avoir à parler à Abel Bonnard³. Je l’admire et je l’aime, vous le savez. Mais vous êtes beaucoup plus liée avec lui qu’avec moi et je ne voulais pas avoir l’air de me mettre entre vous.
Excuse ridicule d’une attitude qui vous est si indifférente.
Veuillez agréer ma respectueuse amitié.
Marcel Proust »


[1] The “machinist” mentioned here is Yvonne Albaret, niece of Odilon, Céleste’s husband. It was at the time of the writing of The Prisoner that Proust announced his intention to hire a typist after Gaston Gallimard had pushed him to clean up his writings. Yvonne Albaret therefore took up her duty at the very beginning of February and moved in with the writer on rue Hamelin, around the 20th. It was she who typed The Prisoner and The Fugitive.

[2] Allusion to the evening spent at Princess Soutzo’s on Tuesday, February 7, 1922.

[3] It is in all likelihood that Proust and Bonnard were put in touch through Marie Scheikévitch. Although Bonnard went rather unnoticed by the literary public of the time, he nevertheless received strong congratulations from Proust for his sumans Le Palais Palmacamini and La vie et l’amour. The two men share the same aesthetic criteria, their idea of the novel is identical. In a letter to Marie Scheikévitch dated 1 January 1914, Proust did not hide his admiration for his colleague: “If you see Bonnard, tell him how much I love his novel. What makes it the greatest value is naturally what we do not perceive, which makes us perhaps unjust to it. But he had the nobility to prefer this hidden beauty. I often talk about his book but particularly willingly with you who admire and love him.”

An intimate of Proust who did much effort in using her network for the publication of the first volume of The Search :

Marie Scheikevitch (1882-1964) was the daughter of a wealthy Russian magistrate and art collector who settled in France in 1896. George D. Painter described her as “one of the smartest and most prominent ladies of the new generation.” Patron of artists and writers, she frequented salons and then founded her own. She was friends with Jean Cocteau, Anna de Noailles, Reynaldo Hahn, the Arman de Caillavet family, among others.
A feeling of singular quality united Marcel Proust to Marie Scheikévitch. Although they met briefly in 1905 in Mme Lemaire’s salon, it was in 1912 that they really get to know eachother. There followed a correspondence that lasted until 1922, the year of the writer’s death. Seeing each other “almost every day” as she would later say (friends writing all the less as they see each other more), we know only 28 letters from Proust addressed to her.
She opened to him the doors of her salon, frequented by all that Paris had of illustrious personalities in literature and arts, so that he paid tribute to her in Sodome et Gomorrhe under the veil of Madame Timoléon d’Amoncourt, “a charming little woman, of a spirit, like her beauty, so ravishing, that only one of the two would have succeeded in pleasing “.
A fervent admirer of the writer, she spent a great deal at the time of the publication of the first volume of The Search, trying everything to put Proust in touch with the Parisian personalities she considered most capable of helping him. It was she who recommended him to her lover Adrien Hébrard, the influential director of the newspaper Le Temps, to obtain the famous interview of November 12, 1913 by Élie-Joseph Bois, on the eve of Swann‘s publication: This was the first significant article published in the major press and devoted to The Search. To thank her, Proust sent her a major inscription (recently acquired by the BnF) when Swann was published.

Born Hélène Chrissoveloni, Princess Soutzo (1879-1975) was introduced to Marcel Proust on March 4, 1917 at the Larue restaurant through Paul Morand (whom the latter would marry ten years later, in 1927). The meeting between Proust and the princess remained memorable, the writer having suggested that she bring together the Poulet quartet at the Ritz to perform César Franck (Journal d’un attaché d’ambassade, 1916-1917 (1963), Gallimard, 1996, p. 171-172; Journal inutile, t. II, p. 131).

Provenance:
Catalogue Andrieux, 12 mars 1928
Previously in the collection of P.E.R.

Bibliography:
Lettres à Madame Scheikévitch (1928), p. 123
Correspondance générale, t. V, p. 267-268 (n°XXIX)
Correspondance, Kolb, t. XXI, n°32

Source:
Marcel Proust II
– Biographie, Jean-Yves Tadié, Folio, pp. 391-392