Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. 3L.A.S. "LF Céline" (the... Lot 377

Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. 3L.A.S. "LF Céline" (the 2nd "LF"), Copenhagen July-August 1947, to John H.P. Marks [in Madrid]; 3pages and a quarter, 5pages and 3pages and a half in-fol. Reunion with his English translator. July 2. "What a joy to find your trace! I despaired of ever getting my hands on you again! There have been so many deluges and atrocities! I knew what your friendship had done for me... Your intervention was vital with the Americans... You gave confidence... to Milton Hindus who did admirable work on my behalf over there... I'm not talking about the torments my wife Lucette and I endured! All this is not to be stirred up. These are living wounds... 17 months in a cell on death row... and then this enigma... this absolute reclusion... the whole world drooling with hatred. What a horror! Mikkelsen, my lawyer here, has been stoic and admirable, just as my enemies have been filthy liars and cowards... In the French embassy here too, alas! In Montmartre, all the buddies have been very eager and efficient... Popol in particular and Daragnès and a hundred others. Many affections everywhere I practiced medicine, from Clichy, Bezons etc. At last we're beginning to see things a little more clearly, but my soul is shattered and my body in tatters. In prison, so dark, so damp, a hole, a disease called "pellagra". I lost 48 kilos! A revenant! My wife Lucette has been secretly giving Spanish dance lessons, and she's as infatuated with Spain as you are! It's her dream to go there! She plays castanets like a goddess"... Finally, he talks about his Spanish friend Zuloaga: "he organized my entire defense in France with friends and especially Maître Naud, Laval's lawyer"... August 20. He urges Marks to come and see him in Copenhagen: "Obviously, if you can get a gracious secretary to come up here, we won't be bored at all. It'll be real evenings à la chikeken! Rejuvenation, my son! True rejuvenation. Worth 25 Châtel-Guyon! 30 Carlsbad and 30 Aix-les-Bains. It's a wise man who's talking to you, and a doctor. No excess but joy! Never forget joy. I drink water, I don't smoke, I get my strength from nature. [...] To hell with grief! whining, blunders! Not a tear! That's where the hormones are - and young epidermis, beaume de tout. [...] get your dick sucked - the world is yours. [...] Gen Paul likes me and I like him. He has genius, and he's a brother - but he's demonically perverse, jealous"... He gives details of the watch he desires: "I've spent so many seconds, so many millions of excruciating seconds, that I've caught the time fetish. Time - God. I want to buy him the most beautiful watch I can find. He mentions his American defenders: Milton Hindus, "a Jew", and the lawyer Cornell... August 22nd. He tells her how to meet Zuloaga... "I'm a hostage here - no means of travel. Prisoner on parole. We're going to remove Voyage en français in Lyon. Milton Hindus did wonders for me in the USA. If you meet Abel Bonnard, former Minister of Public Instruction, give him my warmest regards. I cared for his mother right up to the last moment at Sigmaringen [...] I loved him very much, he was a great heart and a magnificent spirit. He must have suffered a great deal. At last he has escaped the worst! the cell! I'm preparing Féerie for another time - but alas, with great difficulty". He denounces Morandat, the occupant of his apartment in the rue Girardon, who "hatefully threw away all my manuscripts in progress, including Guignols II. We'd have to start all over again!"... He goes on to speak of Marie Canavaggia's dedication, of the "putrid" Max Vox who replaced Denoël, who was murdered...