PROUST, Marcel (1871-1922), A.L.S. “Marcel”, [13 février 1912], Paris 5 rue Greffulhe, à Madame Charles Nathan, enveloppe.
4 pages In-8.

A friendly letter about insomnia and medication.

"I didn't write to you because I was sure I was going to see you. And look how everything has turned against me. Being too bored with you and your lovely husband, I decided instead of taking my milk to take a medicine (Veronal) that I didn't know about and which I was told would make me sleep and enable me to go in the afternoon to see the people I so much wanted to see. We went to buy it last night at midnight. I took it straight away. My kidneys probably can't take it any more, because not only did it not make me sleep, but an hour later I was seized with an attack that would stay with me. It seems to be calming down at the moment (three o'clock in the afternoon). But feeling that it would be impossible to get up, I am sending you this little note of tenderness and remembrance while waiting for the next visit I will make to you, which I will ask to be possible on something other than the scratched veronal of my papers. Tender kisses on your four dear cheeks"... He adds that he was ‘deeply saddened by the death of Madame Crémieux’.

Mme Charles Nathan, née Laure Rodrigues-Ely, was a distant relative of Mme Proust, with whom she was very close.