“I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more proud.”

— Paul Bourget

The Age for Love
Context: I bore with the ill-humor of my chief. What would he have said if he had known that I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent look and I earn my thirty thousand francs a year, and more. I have never had the same pleasure in the printing of the most profitable, the most brilliant article that I had in consigning to oblivion the sheets relating my visit to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I wanted to, since, with all my laborious work I have never written a book. And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but infamous indiscretion, I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more proud.

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Paul Bourget 44

French writer 1852–1935

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Translation 2: I'm going to wash myself, don't kiss me yet, while I haven't washed myself yet. – You? even when I would rub myself with Byzantine oil, you wouldn't kiss me, unless I'd force you with magnetic powers. There's a certain power in nature. Today you will dream you are kissing me. Payback time for the bad dream you caused me last night.
Translation 1: Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376, pp. 109 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT109– 110 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT110.
da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna (19 November 2018). "An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/books/review/fyderyk-chopin-alan-walker-frederic-chopin-biography.html in The New York Times.
Oltermann, Philip and Walker, Shaun (25 November 2020). "Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims: Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters" https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/25/chopins-interest-in-men-airbrushed-from-history-programme-claims in The Guardian.
Picheta, Rob (29 November 2020). "Was Chopin gay? The awkward question in one of the EU's worst countries for LGBTQ rights" https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/29/europe/chopin-sexuality-poland-lgbtq-debate-scli-intl/index.html at CNN.
Chilton, Louis (30 November 2020). "Frédéric Chopin’s same-sex love letters covered up by biographers and archivists, claims new programme: Swiss radio documentary explored evidence of the great composer’s attraction to men" https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/chopin-frederic-composer-gay-letters-b1761548.html in The Independent.
From Chopin's Polish letters
Original: (pl) Idę się umywać, nie całuj mię teraz, bom się jeszcze nie umył. Ty? chociażbym się olejkami wysmarował bizantyjskimi, nie pocałowałbyś, gdybym ja Ciebie magnetycznym sposobem do tego nie przymusił. Jest jakaś siła w naturze. Dziś Ci się śnić będzie, że mnie całujesz. Muszę Ci oddać za szkaradny sen, jakiś mi dziś w nocy sprowadził.
Source: Polish: To Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn (1830-09-04) https://chopin.nifc.pl/en/chopin/list/675_to-tytus-woyciechowski-in-poturzyn at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.

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“I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more proud.”

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Paul Bourget 44

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