Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918). L.A.S., January 18, 1913, to Paul-Jean Toulet in Saint-Loubès (Gironde); 2 pages in-8 monogrammed, envelope. Beautiful, friendly letter to Paul-Jean Toulet, talking about his daughter Chouchou, who is learning music. No, my dear Toulet, I haven't forgotten you, and your friendship is too precious to me for me ever to stop believing in it. You'll have to believe me if I say, in front of the holly bushes melancholically lining my window, that I'm not yet used to this departure from you, which seemed like a flight from everything and anything else! I have never told you what it seemed to me to hide in hurt feelings, in bruised sensibility, for these are special moments when advice as well as consolation are of little use; they can even seem indiscreet, or hypocritical! To have the right to tell someone they're not on the right path, you have to be able to offer them a way out immediately, with the conviction that you're not deceiving yourself... It's a tricky business! Especially for you, whose health is complicated by the hard work you've put in, often imposing contradictory diets. In a disconcerting dualism, you have a taste for the world, while your mind secretly retains a more delicate taste for solitude... One could be embarrassed at the very least! I'm afraid that voluntary exile to St Loubès only satisfies one side of the question? - Forgive me if I'm hitting the wrong notes in my very timid attempt to understand you. I won't come back to it... Let's pass quickly over my delay in writing to you and let me express my dearest wishes for your health and peace of mind, while this month of January 1913 is still alive. Please include my wife and your fat-girlfriend-Chouchou, whose fantasy has recently been augmented by a piano teacher; a lady in black who looks like a drawing by Odilon Redon and a nihilist bursting with bombs... Correspondence 1913-17.