MALLARMÉ Stéphane (1842-1898)

Monogrammed autograph postscript. Valvins par Avon (Seine-et- Marne), s.d. 6 pages in-12 in ink (horizontal folds and tears). Autograph monogrammed postscript following a letter from her daughter Geneviève to Paule Gobillard, painter and niece of Berthe Morisot. They have not forgotten her, but Geneviève has been working on the "big final collar of the Calendar, I wrote from morning to night during the last fortnight [...] It is finished now and I am dancing for joy all alone. How are we doing? Mother not too bad, though still suffering from the eyes; father, very fat [Mallarmé adds: "flute! SM"]; I am beginning to shake off my ridiculous summer illness. Ah! the runners! So we went to the seaside, kidnapped. [...] Valvins deserves its comical name of Valvins les bains. Yes, Etoile [a Danish friend] is at the farm and we are soaking together. The country is empty, no one has come yet: "Nothing happens, for the greatest happiness [Mallarmé adds: "however greater if you were there three SM"] of my old philosopher father who works a lot". They hope to see them soon: "you would be the nicest little girls to give us [Mallarmé crosses out and corrects: "(she had repeated give us and rambles)"] a day, so as to make this tedious separation of the whole summer seem less long"... Mallarmé in turn takes up the pen: "I will do better than to annotate my daughter's epistole, since I embrace you at the end, the dear child having left just the right amount of room; but you must come, the sooner, I form the paternal project of starting again on less distant cheeks. So we have repatriated with Monsieur Renoir? Julie [Manet, Berthe Morisot's daughter] no longer has her headband? I can't wait to hear about all these things: let's get moving [...]".