Roger PEYREFITTE (1907-2000). 2 L.A.S. "R",... - Lot 141 - Ader

Roger PEYREFITTE (1907-2000). 2 L.A.S. "R", Alet November and end 1940, to his friend Henry de Montherlant; 4 and 2 pages in-4 filled with a small tight handwriting in green ink (the 2nd with 2 clippings glued at the head). Long letters after his forced resignation from diplomacy for an affair of vice. 4 November. Montherlant's letter pulls him out of pain, but he does not know what to think of Henry H.'s silence [Houssaye (1912-1970), known as the "Chevalier"]. He jokes about the postal controls, and about the Black Cabinet in Voltaire's time... As his friend wished, he began "the project of writing something about the adorable years whose regret continues to haunt us. I have, on occasion, given you a glimpse of what they had been for me, but what other things, what novels they were! You, no doubt, have been fortunate enough to do infinitely more ... Having "lost some of my prejudices against myself", and encouraged to make something out of these "charming stories", he started, "but what a difficulty literary composition is! I am supported by you, as you are, and by me, as I was [...] No kidding, I am amazed at what I was writing then, at the accuracy and finesse of my observations, my letters and my duties as a schoolboy"... He still has one last chance: "I wish I didn't have to tell myself [...] that I could try to stay on the ship, where, at least, I was sailing quite safely and without much stirring of the oar (counterpart: meagre "pay", and, despite everything, relative deprivation of liberty). Do you advise me, then, to write, as one of my chiefs, a long epistle, you would say in what sense, and on the encouragement of the changes of several that occurred at V[ichy]? But here it consists in recognizing, and by a discovery at a more or less short notice, my dislikes in advance. I also make it a question of dignity "? - He speaks of Vigneau [his publisher]: "he was not told anything about you or anyone else, and about me, other than what I told him about the case, so that he would take care of it from time to time". And besides, for him, "the 'thing' does not exist: it is a discrepancy, which curious minds allow themselves"... He asked Vigneau to deliver his last message to M. de Robien, personnel manager at the Quai: "It was with him that I stayed in this Tournon paradise" (Admit that it was fatal that the man who had been my strongest support, who had knowingly pulverized the history of Athens, - missed that fateful day last October). I therefore wanted to seize this last opportunity, before his departure, which would deprive me of the only friend I had left among my leaders...". Returning to Vichy, "the city that will have counted in my life", he recommends an itinerary from his hotel on Boulevard de Russie to a bazaar, where he invites him to enter under the pretext of some kind of purchase to see a curious "object whose acquisition (or attempted acquisition) I would have paid for the price of my studies and my hopes. ... we kill ourselves for people who are not worth it. It was, quite simply, an "occasion", in the style of the place. All that will be left for you to do is to sacrifice the black sheep, devoted to Pluto, in Styx [...] The evocation of all these memories, which you will encounter, fills me with a kind of gentleness, my faith. O resources of the human heart, and the blessing of time! "»...