MODERN EVIDENCE
Marcel Proust
FILIAL SENTIMENTS OF A PARRICIDE *
When M. van Blarenberghe the elder died several months
ago, I remembered that my mother had known his wife very well.
Since the death of my parents I am
(in
a sense which it would be
irrelevant to describe here) less myself, more their son. Without giving
up my own friends, I turn more readily to theirs. And the letters I
write now are for the most part ones I think they would have written,
ones they can write no longer, letters of congratulation or condolence
to friends of theirs whom I often scarcely know. So when Mme. van
Blarenberghe lost her husband, I wished to tell her of the grief my
parents would have felt. I recalled that some years earlier I had occa–
sionally dined with her son at the houses of mutual friends. To him
I wrote, speaking more for my late parents than for myself. I got
in
reply the following beautiful letter, conspituous for great filial love.
I think that this document should be made public because of the
meaning given it by the drama that followed so shortly, especially
the meaning it gives to the drama. Here is the letter:
LEs TIMBRIEux , PAR JossELIN (MoRBIHAN)
September 24, 1906
I deeply regret, dear sir, that I was unable to thank you sooner for
the sympathy you showed me in my sorrow. But my grief has been so
great that on the advice of doctors I have been traveling for the past
four months. I am only now, and with painful effort, beginning to take
up my regular life again. Surely you will forgive me.
I wish to tell you, however belatedly, that I was much moved by
your remembering our old and excellent relations and profoundly touched
by the sentiment that inspired you to write me and my mother in the
*
This piece was first published in the February 1, 1907 number of
Le Figaro .
91
