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Leducq Maison de Ventes aux enchères
105
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Alexandre DUMAS the Younger. Autograph signed letter to a wo…
See original version (French)
105
-
Alexandre DUMAS the Younger. Autograph signed letter to a wo…
See original version (French)
Estimate €100 - €150
Voluntary lot
Description
Alexandre DUMAS the Younger. Autograph signed letter to a woman. No place [Marseille], no date [July 1844].
4 pp. in-8.
‘Every wound heals, every pain fades, and there comes a day when one can fix… one’s thoughts on the other without causing blood or tears to flow, whilst giving thanks to God for replacing forgetfulness with hope and for allowing there to be things in Marseille that console one for Paris. Thank you for coming to spend a few hours of your time with my mother, who seems to me to be missing me a little whilst I am away. I may be back in Paris sooner than she realises, and she—who is in the habit of cursing any woman who crosses my path—would be quite forced to bless the one who brought me back with her. Imagine, there is a…… ’ May her mother ‘pray that I fall madly in love with this source of comfort, for then I would follow her to Paris, where she is leaving for in less than a week. ”
This is followed by a long poem of 40 lines: “… Do you, like us, feel that Provençal languor / On the seashore, beneath a starry sky / With a song so pure, so calm and so veiled / That it seems to echo the songs of Granada / Answer me! Do you have, in your cold Paris / the Mistral, that giant, that eldest son of Aeolus / A day ever serene, a night ever gentle / Inviting love like a song of houris… ’
The 20-year-old Alexandre would indeed return to Paris at the end of July in the luggage of an actress with whom he had fallen madly in love (Schopp, Dumas Fils, p. 67).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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