GIDE (André). - Lot 124

GIDE (André). Born in Paris. 1869–1951. Writer, co-founder of the NRF in 1908. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947. Autograph letter signed “André Gide” to “Dear Friend” [François-Paul ALIBERT]. No place, no date; Thursday [Paris (?), September 27, 1928] 2 pages, in-8 format, on pink vellum paper (tear along the center fold, pinholes). A lovely letter to the Carcassonne poet François-Paul ALIBERT, a longtime friend of André Gide whom he had met in 1907. Gide will do ...everything possible to come and spend a few days near you at the end of October. If only I could see you sooner! That little road trip would have been wonderful, and yesterday I was considering whether I could meet you in Toulon or Marseille... But I must first go to Cuverville… to be with his wife. Returning to an earlier discussion, he clarifies: …I hope you didn’t misunderstand me: “beyond” did not mean “above.” I’ve never claimed to “be in control of the situation.” It’s just that, as life went on, I moved past it; and once I’d rounded that dreadful cape of storms, I never felt quite the same as before. Since then, as I’ve told you, it seems to me that I’m merely pretending to live, and death won’t catch me off guard anymore... He continues: ...I’m supposed to see Malraux in the next few days [...]. What you tell me about our “classical prejudice” delights me, and that need to say nothing except out of reticence. Yes, that is exactly what I’m rebelling against today. But your entire letter exhilarates me and stokes my desire—my need—to see you again...In a postscript, he adds: …I had “Tales of Samurai Love” [by Saikaku Ebara, first translated into French in 1927 by Ken Sato] sent to you in Carcassonne… He points out an … amusing typo in your *Jeux d’eaux de la Villa d’Este* […]. Instead of *Amintas* by Tasso, no doubt by mistake, you wrote *Amyntas*… Finally: …Everything you say about d’Annunzio is excellent…Gide notes in his Journal on October 30, 1927: “I have no friend with whom I feel more perfectly at ease—that is to say, with whom I need to be less cautious when speaking.”François-Paul Alibert (born in Carcassonne, 1873–1953) was a poet, writer, and playwright. Close to the poets of the neoclassical revival at the dawn of the 20th century, he identified with the École romane and Jean Moréas. Fr.-P. Alibert published his first collection of poems, *L’arbre qui saigne*, in 1907, the year he met André Gide. Gide remained his friend for forty years. Every year, Gide organized a trip to the Midi with Alibert, during which the two friends shared their literary discoveries and their taste for “Corydonian” love. Meanwhile, the two men exchanged a very extensive correspondence (published in 1982). His body of work includes some forty titles, to which two erotic stories may be added. His contemporaries ranked him on a par with Paul Valéry. After retiring from government service in 1933, Alibert devoted himself to the Théâtre de la Citée, the ancient theater in Carcassonne, of which he had become director in 1930.Bibliography: “Correspondence between André Gide and François-Paul Alibert: 1907–1950,” edited, introduced, and annotated by Claude Martin (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1982); this volume includes more than 400 letters from Gide to François-Paul Alibert.