Pierre LOUŸS (1870-1925) L.A.S. "Pierre", [May 18, 1891], to Jean de Tinan; 4 pages in-4 in blue ink, envelope. Beautiful letter to Tinan, about their mistresses. The letter is preceded by a Warning: "This letter must be read in the most affectionate tone." "It is perfectly true that I do not have a fatal passion for Thérèse. I spoke to her, a little at random, in Bullier, when you had just told me: I've fallen out with her. And you offered her to me, at that moment, instead of Suzanne, who wasn't free. - I take her to my table, I invite her: you blow her away. So I left in my turn, and ten minutes later you caught up with me only to ask me to pay for the drinks. [...] An hour later, three times in a row, and with an insistence that proved I didn't want to work underneath you, I told you: I won't have dinner with you if you take her. You replied three times: I have no desire to take her. - So I really wasn't very happy when I saw you standing like a husband in the car [...] Since you sleep with everyone, I'll never be able to find a woman in the neighborhood who doesn't belong to you and is still drinkable. You have all the advantages since you live in the neighborhood and I don't. When one of your wives doesn't please us, you abandon her. So it is with Mimi, Jeanne and others. - When we like her, she becomes your 35th great lover, and we're not allowed to think about her anymore. - Choose, I beg you, a mistress, but choose her once and for all, and say: it's her. We'll know. But above all, please remember what you say. Once before, with a woman whose name I've forgotten, you first said to us: If I could only leave her! and then you made a scene because we'd dismissed her (scene in front of a hat shop, in November). Now you offer me a woman you don't want anymore, and as soon as I accept her, you not only take her away from me but accuse me of dirty tricks! I'm not offended, because it's your doing, but all the same, it's very incoherent [...] From now on (because there's a way to fix everything) I'll ask you every day when I get to the neighborhood: What's the name of your mistress, the one who doesn't look like the others and whom you love as you've never loved before? Is it Jeanne, Stéphanette, Blanche-Marcelle, Juliette, Yvonne, Margot, Stella, Irmine, Mimi or Thérèse? - You tell me, and I won't touch it. I promise. Are you happy?"...