Below, the fascinating fragment of a (now lost) letter from Marcel Proust to Robert Dreyfus, high school friend and renowned historian of the Third Republic. The identity of “Z.” remains unknown.
TO ROBERT DREYFUS
November 29, 1913
Cher Robert,
………………………………………………………………………………………Z., delightful writer that he is, wrote me an agreeable but unjust letter. He says: “You report everything!” But this isn’t so; I report nothing. It is he who is the reporter. Not once does a character of mine close a window, wash his hands, put on an overcoat, or go through the forms of introduction. If, indeed, there were anything new in this book, that would be it, although not at all deliberately so; it is just that I am too lazy to write about things that bore me………
Marcel Proust