Lot n° 230
Estimation :
600 - 800
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 515EUR
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl (1848-1907).
Set of 6 pieces: 5 L.A.S. and an autograph visiting card, addressed to the lawyer and friend of naturalists Gabriel Thyébaut (1854-1922). [Paris, Fontenay-aux-Roses], 1881-1882. 11 pp. in-8, in-12 and in-16 oblong. Two headers of the Comédie humaine. A preserved envelope. "If you have nothing better to do, would you like to come Sunday to J.K.'s house in Fontenay-aux-Roses. We will take some intimate walks. Here's the order of things to do: Leave, if you have the courage, by the tramway to St. Germain des Prés [...] ruelle des écoles, you go down it and fall into the rue des Ecoles where I live. You turn left, arrive in two strides at n°3, turn the knob, go up to the second floor where you will find on the right, on a door colored of clay, my name dear to the bourgeois. This is the mathematically naturalistic route to follow [...]." [4 August 1881].
He evokes the publishers Charpentier and Kistemaeckers "for my Mr. Folantin" [A Vau-l'eau], the "battle waged with men with sideburns and hats", the Vatard Sisters, the "rotten weather", "the absurd mediocrity of the office", "these wet and black times which make the rooms moist and sinister", "the fickle Céard, buckled like a gendarme's belt", evokes his readings and comments on them without shame "Literature has produced here, 2 volumes, during your absence; a book by a young man of 19 years, L. Descaves, la calvaire d'Héloïse Pajadou, a furious pastiche of Zola and a bit of me too - Not great - . The second is funnier. It is Harmon's obscene volume, and contains some inenarrable verses. I cheered up a bit with this. Needless to say, there are extraordinary rhymes and sometimes, unexpected, charming epithets [...]. From the carnal point of view, I will not insist, for my part, on the already known weakness of my genitals. It is getting worse, which does not displease me [...]". He goes to work at the State Council "Damn, I'll have to learn my trade at least for a few months" and adds "apart from that, I'm still going on quite happily. I have my devil of a piano out of tune. It's always these rascals of nerves that work on me and play tunes in my temples or in my stomach [...]".
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