Jean LORRAIN. 12 L.A.S. and 1 L.S., [ca. 1884-1886], to Rachilde; 37pages in-8 or in-12, 3 on Divina belluis letterhead, 5 on mourning paper, one address. Beautiful, witty and gallant correspondence to the young novelist, author of Monsieur Vénus. We can only give a few extracts here. "Rachilde, o exquisite clown whose mad boniments and chastely hermetic jerseys make your person one of the most red-hot chillies, that ever flamed under the soft gums of an old banker short of... poetic arguments, in the process of loading his...? stomach with reinforcements. (You'll notice that I'm writing to you in blank verse, as Chateaubriand's harmonious prose alone was capable of applying itself by molding to the cadenced harmony of your forms) Rachilde, you who are willing to declare me too handsome to please men and not handsome enough to please women, which is an error in the first assertion. [...] will you lend me your place at the head of the Zig Zag just this once, as a beautiful page, monsieur, mademoiselle or... madame? to present this delicious ichtyausorien by Félicien Champsaur to the maitre d'hôtel, sprinkled with parsley (which would already be a case of death for him, parsley being fatal to parrots). [...] learn that I am a virgin and not at all a martyr"... Etc. He doesn't want to see her at Bullier: "But at your place, with or without a straw chair, as much as you like and even on the bed... Oh, with no ill intent, as good comrades that we are! Rachilde and Jean Lorrain, the two most chaste insexuals in contemporary literature, far too voluptuous to do anything, far too cunning to give others the idea, but as for them! Do you know, young monster, that I love you in evil, as one loves oneself at the bottom of a magical, sooty mirror. What we'll do, and what I suggest, is that you dress up like trendy boys, in blue blouse, cap and gown, and I'll do the same, and we'll go and dine at La Villette with my friends the beef stunners, and from there visit the barrier balls... oh, the success you'll have there... and what a change it will make for you... from the poets who are perverse, morphine-addicted and lacking in ists, and when you return around three in the morning in a fiacre, perhaps you'll let me touch you... just a little touch of the lips with shared permission that you're no longer Rachilde but the most exhilarating of young butcher boys, and I'm no longer Lorrain, decadent and suave poet, but a slaughterhouse marlou.... but only a kiss to keep our dream alive [...] Then, if you can identify with your role, you may understand Paris and Gomorrah!"... Etc. "Sir? I wholeheartedly accept your friendship and anything else you want to add, because I've seen you under the mask and without the mask, and you're one of the prettiest men I know... with talent, which you know, but what's the point of passing us the rhubarb and senna... we've understood each other for a long time, and we'll always be delighted to understand each other". Explanation about "Bas-Bleus": "it was difficult for me to hit them in the buttocks... I mean in the throat... under my guest name, gorged on lemonades and other lemonities, I took the name of Stick, an incognito that I reveal quite openly [...] I like to keep this name of Jack Stick for executions"... Etc. "Dear hermaphrodite I'll be Saturday from noon to one in the Luxembourg in front of the Cyclops fountain, known as the Medici, contemplating Galatea, who had your soul a little troubled, and Acis, who is frail and hipless like you. I will only have an hour to give you [...] I have cruel money troubles and the death of Louis II of Bavaria fills my soul with incurable sadness. He was the only person I loved. This knight of the swan ended up like the others, it's true that the goose of the Parthenon and Mr. Clemenceau remain to us"... "Mon cher ami Vous êtes un insupportable étourdi" (My dear friend, you're an unbearable stunner); he reproaches him for not having done what was necessary for Vie Moderne to publish his article... "Fix that quickly, pale-faced ephebe, with the candid eyes of a child. [...] I guarantee you'll be chaste, but with men at least. Perhaps you can guarantee the same for me with women. Farewell, Louise de Bavière, though without the swan of Lohengrin, for you will be no more than a vulgar Leda. I kiss the most discreetly placed sign of your slender anatomy. [...] I've just been given three short-haired, iron-grey Great Danes, which I immediately christened. Lesbos, Sodom and Gomorrah. I dream for them of silver necklaces ringed with turquoise and bracelets of