Even better than the unduly famous ‘Proust questionnaire’ 📝, there are self-portraits that are entirely…

Even better than the unduly famous ‘Proust questionnaire’ 📝, there are self-portraits written entirely by Marcel himself, from around the same age. For example, in a letter 💌 to Daniel Halévy dated 10 September 1888, here is how Proust, aged 17, imagines people talking about him at the Lycée Condorcet 🏫:

🖋️ “Do you know X, my dear, that is to say, Mr P.? I must confess that I find him rather disagreeable, with his constant grand gestures, his flustered air, his intense passions ❤️‍🔥 and his endless adjectives. Above all, he strikes me as either very mad or very insincere. Judge for yourself. He’s what I’d call a man of grand declarations. After a week, he lets you know that he feels a deep friendship for you and, under the pretence of loving a friend like a father, he loves you like a woman. He goes to see him, proclaims 🗣️ his great affection far and wide, never loses sight of him for a moment. Chats are not enough. He needs the mystery and regularity of secret meetings. He writes you… feverish letters. Under the guise of mockery, of making up phrases and parodies, he lets you know that your eyes 👀 are divine and that your lips 🫦 tempt him. The trouble, my dear, is that having left B, whom he doted on, he goes off to coax D, whom he soon leaves to throw himself at E’s feet and, straight after, onto F’s lap. Is he a b..., is he mad, is he a charlatan, is he a fool? I reckon we’ll never know. Come to think of it, perhaps he’s all four at once. I don’t know whether all this is odious, ridiculous or sincere. I’m more inclined to believe it’s insignificant. In any case, my dear, never respond to these flames 🔥, should he ever set them alight near you… Anyway, he holds the key 🗝️ to quite a few little romances. I’d quite like to have a very serious chat with him for an hour. But no, he’d end up kissing me.”

Bizet, Havévy, Dreyfus… Do you know who Proust’s classmates were at the Lycée Condorcet?

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