CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). Autograph letter signed "Louis Fer - Lot 120

CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). Autograph letter signed "Louis Ferd." to Victor Carré. Saint-Malo, "le 17/8" [1942]. 2 pp. in-folio. "Too bad for you! I'm going to send you the cards again! We won't be back until the end of Sept[embre]. I'M STILL VERY SORE AND I'M LATE FOR WORK AGAIN! I STILL HAVE 3/4 TO FINISH! JUDGE A LITTLE! JE RAME! I'M GETTING OLD! I'M GETTING WORN OUT! I SEE DISASTER COMING, ALL THE WORK DONE! WHAT A DAMAGE! I don't know what to send you to make you happy. Lucette has an idea. Sumptuous weather here, and prices, alas, the same! Kif Paris par le fait! One train to Paris and at night, we kill ourselves! and they kill you! from the sky and from the elbows! It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience! I hope to be better by the end of September. We're thinking of you. You're happy up there, in the mountains, from ravin Mairie to ravin Lepic! [...] Louis-Ferd. [...] " CELINE IN A BRITTANY TOWN, WORKING ON GUIGNOL'S BAND. Fascinated by the sea, he spent the summers of 1942 and 1943 in Brittany, where he was granted access to this sensitive area of the German defense system. He lived in Saint-Malo, whose beauty he would later evoke in Féerie pour une autre fois. A MONTMARTROIS FRIEND OF CELINE, VICTOR CARRE was one of her neighbors on rue Lepic. Employed in a notary's office, he was also an amateur historian, and served as archivist for the Société du vieux Montmartre. During the war, he was in charge of supplies at the XVIIIth arrondissement town hall, which enabled him to provide Céline with food cards, and he was best man at Céline's wedding to Lucette Almanzor on February 15, 1943. In exile in Denmark, Céline did not forget him: he sent him copies of Casse-pipe and Scandale aux abysses, and referred to him in Féerie under the physical guise of the character Micronésime, even jokingly referring to him in an intermediate version of the novel as a historian of Montmartre counting the windmills.