Catherine Pozzi: "I write not to die of loneliness"

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Just 35 pages, for what else, in the shadow of an enigmatic name: Agnès . More than a book, it would be said a flying leaf, an urgent text written breathlessly . Pure passion, pure discouragement. "My dear, dear love, my love with a hard smile: I am writing to you; too soon. But there is a good chance that I will not send this letter to the mail this year, my love."

Who writes this? Who is it for? It is Catherine Pozzi (1882-1934), a bewildered woman who has already separated, who has met the revered poet Paul Valéry. It is 1920. Only 1920. A "violent, blinding and disturbing passion" arises as a shot, Jean Paulhan, director of the Nouvelle Revue Française and the first editor of the text will later say.

"All that love that nobody picks up, who knows where it goes?" Yes, where is that blinding light of a young woman aimlessly going . For now to a paper, then it will be seen. First he has to quell the flame that consumes it. The recipient does not know only that something consumes and overflows it. "I will give you all the letters as soon as I find you, as soon as you really exist. That way you will know right away if I deserve love or not. Maybe in a long time ... Then the package of letters will be huge. What will you think?

Agnès is a glow that looks at times to God and others to Paul Valéry. Maybe at the same time too. How to know Who could know well that young woman of the high bourgeoisie of a century ago , daughter of a prestigious gynecologist who could inspire Dr. Cottard, character of Marcel Proust. Who could know the uprooting he felt after the death of his friend Audrey Deacon, "a beautiful and capricious American whom he had met during his 1903 vacation." Audrey will die a year later in Florence. Nothing will be the same. To her Agnès dedicated. Then it was groping in the fog. Shout to be heard, to be answered. God, Valéry ... It's not the same but maybe for her.

The silhouette of Catherine Pozzi must also be traced for her poems, scarce, very scarce, only six. Their titles fit almost in one hand: Vale, Ave, Maya, Nova, Scopolamine, Nyx . "The great love that you had given me / the wind of days has broken its rays; / where the flame was, where the destination was / where we were, where we shook hands ...". This is how Vale starts, according to the translation of Misael Ruiz Albarracín in The double exile. Poems and correspondence with Paul Valéry (suspicious animal editor, 2018). From that book we know that eight years was united with the author of The Marine Cemetery , which was born at number 10 of Place Vendôme and that tuberculosis was undermining it for years until it strangled it. But intimately? This is what Valéry wrote about her on May 11, 1924: "Karin has an enormous interest in Good, the Beautiful and the True. When they press her, her voice becomes sharp and she raises her finger, shakes and even lengthens; surprises, intrigues and restless ... But time changes; it falls into a black well. It collapses and folds back on itself. Its eyes become almost imperceptible. "

The Impedimenta publishing house recovered in 2014 Agnès for the efforts of its editor, Julián Rodríguez Marcos, who died just over a month ago. The label plans to publish part of its bulky Diaries (1913-1934), which must be very juicy according to the quotation included in the prologue about the authorship of Agnès , which was published with initials, which unleashed various speculations; including the possibility that it was Valéry who was behind. "Any work that I publish [writes on May 9, 1927] will always be him [the author], since it is thought that we worked together and are not usually attributed to the influence of the moon, in general, the sun's brightness. Agnès is me, completely me; and I love her as I love myself. Since yesterday, I have stopped loving myself. "

The mystery of authorship added to the rapid success of the book. More when Valéry himself paid a later edition of luxury. It was convenient for the poet to ignore the author, because if the truth were discovered , it would be known that the relationship between them goes ahead and would jeopardize their marriage. Catherine doesn't shut up, she doesn't hide. He can not do it. In a note for a possible posthumous reissue to Agnès, he writes: "I sit on her knees. My dress is not pretty. I did not want to wear a couture dress, a dress that only gets a voice. Besides, all that It didn't matter. The white satin hangs, it covers us both, makes flights around the chair. I'm sitting there like a clumsy girl who, at a party, just recited a compliment without grace. "

Catherine Pozzi, the friend of Colette and Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Schwob and André Gide, who had swords like lips, was called, in the mouth of Valéry, sometimes Beatriz, other Bice, K, Eurydice, Laura or Venus. As if it didn't exist, as if it didn't have to exist, as if it bothered, as if it had to be kept secret. Catherine Pozzi, the young woman who studied at Oxford and married the dramatic author Édouard Bourdet, from whom she divorced as soon as her son Claude was born, "was a tall, thin woman, elegantly dressed; she spoke English and German, and had a longing incessant to form "(Misael Ruiz Albarracín). Catherine Pozzi relied on literature not to catch fire . He made it clear, in his own way, in Agnès , and in his diary: "I write not to die of loneliness."

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