Description
CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand Letter aut. s. to "Mon cher vieux" [Jean-Gabriel Daragnès]. [Korsør] "Le 22" [c. 1950] 8 pp. on 4 ff., 34 x 21 cm, num. 244d-247d in pencil by another hand, blue ink on laid paper, s. "LF Céline", countersigned "Lucette" (slight creases due to mailing). Exceptional letter from Céline in exile with his wife Lucette in Denmark after his trial for treason in 1945. He spent the first three years in Copenhagen, where he was interned. In 1948, the couple moved to a farm owned by Céline's lawyer, Thorvald Mikkelsen. The letter begins gently, thanking his correspondent and friend, probably the Montmartre painter and engraver J.-G. Daragnès, for his and his wife's support "after so many years! Enough to weary the angels!", then he adds "Oh don't worry about the little cold with Mik[kelsen]! My God, he's a big, spoiled 67-year-old baby! Never suffered a second in his long life, and it's already quite extraordinary that he tolerates us in his home! From the 2nd page onwards, the tone changes abruptly, and the author lets his misanthropy burst forth without restraint: "Psychology and morality are [...] sports for arch-rich, arch-fuckers, trifles for cocainomaniac socialites. The animal, my dog [Bessy], my cat [Bébert], don't give a damn about my psychology [...]"; "Oh là là mais alors tu penses si j'ai l'horreur des pamphlets même de vague allure politique! Bisque! Triple bisque! That's for others to do! I couldn't care less. Long live the Jews! Long live Capital! Long live the Commune! Long live the Moon! Long live Quinquin! Long live the one who will leave me in peace! I no longer have any opinion on what men fornicate, none at all [...]". He angrily evokes his ex-friend Oscar Rosembly, who robbed his apartment "as a team" (along with other members of the F.F.I.) during the Liberation of Paris: "None of these valiant men would think of going up to [Yvon] Morandat's apartment to ask him if he might have a pair of sheets left! which I really need! Morandat, a leading French Resistance fighter, occupied Céline's requisitioned apartment after his escape. Céline accused him - falsely - of having "stolen" his manuscripts. "I'd say to myself: this is my personal hysteria, if I didn't know that if 100,000 and 100,000 in my case feel exactly kif! Oh what dangerous potential! If you only knew! This hatred stronger than death and life! May the dam burst oh the bourgeois don't know what they'll see [...]. I like you, you know. I esteem you, the only one. I tell you: the frightful danger is there, the devil, that nihilist! [...] "I kiss you well, Lucette kisses you, all our gratitude and a thousand gratitudes to your wife". With export certificate for cultural property.
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CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand Letter aut. s. to "Mon cher vieux" [
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