Louis ARAGON (1897-1982). Autograph manuscript signed, Stendhal en URSS ou le miroir vivant, [September 1957]; 3 and 13pages in-4 (paginated 1-3 and 12-24). On Stendhal as seen by Russian critics. The article appeared in two parts, in Les Lettres Françaises of September 19 and 26, 1957 (nos. 688 and 689). Aragon reacts to a study of Stendhal by Ilya Ehrenbourg, vigorously criticized by N. Tamantsev. Although Aragon was accustomed to arguing with Ilya Ehrenbourg, because "We differ on everything but the essential", this time he took his side against Tamantsev... Aragon, a convinced "Rougist", defends Ehrenbourg's point of view and explains how, faced with a work as well-known as Stendhal's, the two Russian Stendhalians will teach the reader more about contemporary Russia than about Stendhal... After this preamble, Aragon will publish Ehrenbourg's article (not attached to the manuscript). Le miroir vivant (continued). After Ehrenbourg, Aragon gives the floor to Tamantsev, "a vigorous defender of Stendhal. But against whom, against what?"... Aragon then defends Ehrenbourg at length, on the subject of Stendhal, then reacts to Tamantsev's accusation that Stendhal is "part of his faulty theory, the theory of samovyrajenié, of 'self-expression'"... Aragon dismantles this accusation, and shows that, deep down, Tamantsev doesn't like Stendhal, who doesn't fit in with his theory of literature. On the role of the writer, Aragon quotes Serafimovitch, "the author of The Iron Torrent, already one of the 'classics' of Soviet literature", then Fadeyev, before concluding: "One of Ehrenbourg's great reproaches is to have said that Stendhal did not live for literature, but that it was his life that enabled him to be a great writer. This is heresy for N. Tamantsev"... In the end, Aragon leaves the reader to make up his own mind about the Soviet writers' view of Stendhal...