Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. L.A.S. "Louis F Céline", [April 15, 1943], to Marie Bell; 2pages in-4 on blue paper. Admiring letter to the actress, after the premiere of Jean Cocteau's Renaud et Armide. "Dear Amie Wonderful evening thanks to you. A thousand graces and affectionate thoughts! Superb play, admirable actors, you the most beautiful, perfect. Less hot on the costumes [by Christian Bérard] more quazarts than fairylike. Misses. Yours in the second (feathered) costume is awful. It puffs up your face. Dingy train. The whole thing lacks luxury. Bérard's] decor bad. We want to see Armide's gardens. We find a disused coal mine. And then why see so petty not using your whole scene - always reducing your acts to curtain raisers... Ratatine everything. Are you tired? Not enough enchantment in this set, projections of flowers... de grâce... You're dragging yourselves through the coaltar, we'd imagine roses. We need more music. This play, like all great plays, is on the operatic slope - no atmospheric noises, the last act is very successful because, but the music is a little too muted - everything should come together, voice and music. Never forget that man sang before he spoke. Singing is natural, speaking is learned. The source of poetry comes from singing - not talking. Cocteau would have introduced a bit of drollery - he was bordering on Schaekspeare as it is, which is very pleasant - and you're up to the task [...] No Jews are celebrated here, apart from a bit of Ben Jesus. I breathe in it" .... He sends "a thousand kisses and a hundred thousand big, affectionate thanks". And he adds that he didn't like the prologue (two proverbs by Carmontelle), which "already overwhelms the audience with verses before you arrive! How clumsy! And then a diction contest! The three best young laureates of the Confrérie Vincent de Paul! Grotesque!" Lettres à Marie Bell (Du Lérot), n°1.