PROUST Marcel (1871-1922). Original DRAWING with autograph captions and autograph dedication signed "Bucht" to Reynaldo HAHN, [ca. 1904-1905?]; one recto-verso sheet (17.5 x 22.8 cm), in black ink, tear at one corner with a quarter of a page missing, the drawing voluntarily following the curve of this tear. Amusing letter illustrated with a drawing, unpublished, for his friend the musician Reynaldo Hahn. Proust represented on the first page of this letter "André Mayrargues conducting a choir of his friend Fd Halphen". Mayrargues, visibly delighted, conducts a group of four musicians (cello, flute, drum and violin) and three singers, "mouths wide open because they are singing", all perched on a platform overhanging the tear, on the edge of which hangs a ninth little figure and from which flies a bird. Above the silhouette of Mayrargues, Proust noted: "To notice also how much in the drums the difficulty to subject the instrument is destructive of a too big aesthetic exaltation reserved from then on for the violin. The drum presented here, that of the buttocks ". And at the bottom of the page: " Truth of the way of holding the stick (of Mayrargues)/Beautifulness of the eye (of Mayrargues)/Truth of the end of the nose (of Mayrargues)/Truth of all deserved of Bouncht ". On the back, the dedication is enriched with two verses: " London and its wonders/Will not offer you anything similar " (verses assonancés) / To the Master Reynaldo Hahn / His old friend of art/Bucht ". A new comment follows: " The lunar truth of André Mayrargues' gesture is that while conducting this so pathetic choir he seems to be looking for something in a chandelier by saying to him at the end and a half. Also to be noticed is the expression of artful optimism of the first singer (starting on the left, in front of the spectator immediately after the flute) ". [André MAYRARGUES, poet and musician, had been Proust's companion during his military service in the 76th infantry regiment in Orleans in 1889-1890. Several of his poems were set to music by Fernand HALPHEN (1872-1917), who had won the second Grand Prix de Rome in 1895 and had been Reynaldo Hahn's classmate at the Conservatoire]. Provenance : Christian BERNADAC collection (June 9, 2004, n° 204).