Читать книгу Letters to the Lady Upstairs - Марсель Пруст, Марсель Пруст, Lydia Davis - Страница 17

[October 1914?]

Madame,

It is always a very great pleasure for me to receive a letter from you. The latest was particularly sweet for me in these terrible times in which one trembles for all those one loves, and I do not mean by that only those one knows. It is however permitted without being too selfish to have exceptional worries, and the fate of my brother who is operating in the line of fire, has had his hospital bombed, the shells falling even on the operating table so that he has been obliged to take his wounded down into the cellars, is particularly close to my heart. Happily he has been completely safe up to now and has been mentioned in the army’s ordre du jour.¹¹ I hope that you too have good news of your family. As for me I will imminently be going before the military service review board. I don’t know if I will be taken or not. I had wanted to write you last summer to hear your news. But even well before the War I was overwhelmed with worries. First, I was more or less completely ruined, which I found extremely painful. But shortly afterwards my poor secretary was drowned by falling from an aeroplane into the sea.¹²