Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. L.A.S. "L. Destouches", [December 1932, to M. and Mme Lucien Descaves]; 3pages in-fol. Double letter on the success of Voyage au bout de la nuit after the scandal of the Prix Goncourt. [Lucien Descaves was one of Céline's most ardent supporters, and stormed out of the Académie Goncourt, which awarded the prize to Guy Mazeline for Les Loups on December 7, 1932]. Céline first addresses the "Dear and venerated master": "Really, I can't stand it any longer. I can't open a canard without seeing my dirty tetter, I like reading too, but it's all about me"... He leaves for Germany to do a tour for the S.D.N. "for unemployment medicine", passing through Geneva where he will leave his mother... He hopes to be forgotten on his return... "I'm fed up with journalists and photographers. They haunt me. [...] I'm told they sell more Voyages than Loups. Thanks to you. It's all too much for me. I'm going to let my beard grow. Even Le Figaro is giving me a push! What a crane I am! Then he writes to Mme Descaves: "This time I've become completely delirious for good. I don't know where to put myself anymore. I'd kill myself at the drop of a hat, I'm so overwhelmed by it all. All this noise, this vulgarity, 'real' this time... [...] Your husband, absolutely admirable in his courage and talent as always, is so devoted to my humble cause that I don't know how to keep up with him. Thanks to him, we sell (miserable worry) better than the Goncourt"... Lettres (Pléiade), 32-47 and 32-48.