Louis-Ferdinand CELINE / Signed autograph letter / Codfish / Nazi / Denunciation

  

Signed autograph letter "LD" to Jean-Gabriel Daragnès Copenhagen, March 19 [19]47, 2 p. In-4° in blue ink on brown lined paper Small marginal losses and tears without loss of text. With persistent rancor, Céline paints a damning portrait of the woman he suspects of having denounced him to the authorities.

For the sake of history and a good laugh. Everything eventually comes to light.

10, 1945, I was indeed met in the streets of Copenhagen, but not by a Frenchman, but by a Danish woman married to a Frenchman, Coudert's mistress, the surgeon, she cried on my shoulder about the death of her two men who were victims of the Nazis. At the same time, she made advances towards me. Bored to death at her parents' house in Copenhagen... If I had taken her up on her offer, she would have kept quiet. Finally, she jumped to the embassy, chattering.

Popol [Gen Paul] had introduced her to me a few times before I left. In her forties, with hyena eyes, a thug, common, vaguely a dancer, hostess, the typical giver. I felt the threat from the first glance. I felt what was to come - She was a fish to be dealt with without mincing words - but the game wasn't worth the candle, I was done for in any case.

Besides, I didn't hide. That wasn't my style. The fool lived in luxury -! Only the courage of a donkey was lacking?

It wasn't me who ever gave anyone, but I was given - I'm telling you, for the sake of history. Have fun if she comes sniffing around without being enlightened. She will inevitably come to sniff around.

The assassin always returns to the scene of the crime. You will have a good laugh. I don't seek revenge, I have something better.

To you, dear old friend, and affectionately yours, LD ». Céline had already mentioned this unfortunate encounter with Mrs. Dupland in the streets of Copenhagen in a letter to Marie Canavaggia dated October 8, 1945, before his arrest: "I met a Danish woman married to a Frenchman in the street here 3 weeks ago who knew me from the village. I got out of it as best I could [... But that was enough to create a chill!

The writer, who places this encounter three weeks ago, would therefore mean that it would date around September 10, 1945 rather than December 10. On December 17, Céline was finally arrested at the request of the French legation. He spent fourteen months in detention at Vestre Faengsel prison in Copenhagen. He met Céline through Gen-Paul and Marcel Aymé, but only became close to him late, when the author of. Journey to the End of the Night.

Generous as a doctor, he provided care to his seriously ill mother. Daragnès is one of the first people Céline writes to after his incarceration in Denmark.

He becomes his trusted man in France, his informant in Montmartre, his intermediary with publishers, and even agrees in 1949 to personally act on his behalf with the Court of Justice. Daragnès went to Denmark twice in 1948, as commissioner of the French Book Exhibition in Copenhagen, and did not fail to visit the exile. When he died suddenly in 1950 following an operation, Céline lost one of his strongest supporters. In an intermediate version of his novel.

Written in Denmark, he describes him as "the greatest engraver in France." Autograph sale, Drouot, June 5, 1992, expert Frédéric Castaing, n°36 Danière Collection Patrice Campesato Collection. All CÉLINE 4, Liège, 1987, "unpublished" p. 87 (partial transcription) Letters, ed. Henri Godard and Jean-Paul Louis, Pléiade, 2009, n°47-16.