Catherine Pozzi, publishing so as not to be plundered
Libération, Sophie Robert, 6 septembre 2021
"She is a woman. Those three words will weigh heavily, alas, on Marie Jaell's work: for a long time they will be the reason those who could understand her will not read her books." From the publication of her first article, Catherine Pozzi raises the question of the fate of women's works. In "Le probleme de la beaute musicale et la science du mouvement intelligent" (Les Cahiers alsaciens, January 1914), she does so with regard to the composer and musicologist Marie Jaell, who taught her piano and her method. The quote resonates strangely today, because it can also be heard about Catherine Pozzi's own work. One could even extend the parallel to their posterity, since Marie Jaell's journal has just been published.
Catherine Pozzi (1882-1934) became aware very early of her status as a woman, notably because she had every opportunity to compare the education received by her brother Jean and her own. Their father Samuel Pozzi (1846-1918) was nonetheless an enlightened mind. A surgeon, first holder of the chair of gynecology at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, he moved in literary, artistic, and social circles (1). While her brother studied at Lycée Condorcet and then at the Sorbonne, Catherine Pozzi's training was far more fragmented: she had to make do with governesses, tutors, or private classes for young ladies. Yet, aware of her gaps, she never stopped improving, passing the first part of the baccalaureat at age 36 and the second at 45. She then studied biology and reflected on heredity and links with ancestors in an essay published under the title Peau d’ame (Correa, 1935). As a child and young girl, she kept a diary, interrupted it when she married Edouard Bourdet, then resumed it and kept it until the end of her life. The edition was established by Claire Paulhan in 1987 for the years 1913-1934 and in 1995 for 1893-1906. Her journal, philosophical essay, and poetic work remained posthumous. During her lifetime, she published only seven articles, one poem, and a short story titled Agnes.
Agnes was first published in La Nouvelle Revue francaise under the sole signature C.K. Even editor-in-chief Jean Paulhan did not know the identity of the author he was publishing. Paul Valery had first offered the anonymous manuscript to Marguerite Caetani, Princess of Bassiano, patron of the review Commerce, before Jean Paulhan accepted "this fresh marvel." The February 1, 1927 table of contents was especially prestigious: C.K. appeared after texts by Rilke and Larbaud and just before those of Gide and Proust. In hindsight this is a happy coincidence, since Catherine Pozzi and Rilke, Paul Valery's translator, knew each other, and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge probably inspired the writing of Agnes.
This issue stirred real excitement in literary circles, everyone trying to guess who hid behind those initials. Since the only known information was Paul Valery's role as intermediary, rumor quickly spread that he himself was the author, or perhaps his daughter Agathe. One might think Jean Paulhan was already mocking theories of feminine writing when he wrote to Paul Valery: "Common opinion is that C.K. is a man; yet people also say that Agnes resembles a canvas by Marie Laurencin." Only Anna de Noailles suspected the truth, having recognized Samuel Pozzi in the portrait of the father.
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...the history of Agnes's publication joins that of its writing and further exacerbates Pozzi's rivalry with Paul Valery and her own contradictions. While the public wonders who C.K. is, that signature is in fact transparent to her intimates, since they are the initials of her first name and one of her nicknames, "Karin." The autobiographical material of the short story becomes obvious. The narrator of Agnes, a solitary young girl in her bourgeois family, whose worldly father is absent most of the time, draws up a self-improvement program and invents an imaginary being to whom she writes. As a child and adolescent, Catherine Pozzi practiced these epistolary forms, setting up a dialogue with a double she dreamed of meeting.
This soul mate, Catherine thought she had met several times: in Audrey Deacon, to whom Agnes is dedicated (only in the non-commercial edition), or Andre Fernet, both of whom died prematurely, and finally in Paul Valery in the early 1920s. Sharing his interest in mathematics and philosophy, Catherine Pozzi put herself at the service of his work by sharing her research with him and by sorting and annotating his Cahiers.
At the beginning of their affair, in 1922, she drafted a first version of Agnes. She would later confess: "I could write only because for a moment I had loved myself." Paul Valery expressed admiration, but she did not feel encouraged to continue. Four years later, "I suddenly decided to publish it, after reading in one of Valery's notebooks an 'arranged' version of my work that he was going to publish one day, just as I saw printed in Eureka pages from my pages, or in Rhumbs certain passages" (April 21, 1927). Paul Valery's use of their shared reflections hurt her more and more.
She revised, finished, and wished to publish, but the trap closed again around her since, after a refusal from a review director approached by Marie de Regnier, it was from Paul Valery that she asked help - the very man she accused of plundering her. One better understands why, despite her taste for anonymity, she decided to reveal her identity to Jean Paulhan at the moment rumors suggested Agnes was the result of a collaboration with Paul Valery.
In 1931, Catherine Pozzi underscored even more clearly the autobiographical nature of Agnes by adding a short sequel, the account of a wedding night (August 10, 1921 in her journal), and by wishing the whole to be placed at the head of her journal beginning in 1913, four years after her marriage to Edouard Bourdet. This epilogue can be read in Lawrence Joseph's posthumous edition of Agnes (La Difference, 1988). Still, one should not reduce the autobiographical reach of this short story to her sole disillusionment as a young bride, which Edouard Bourdet himself staged in Le Rubicon (Fasquelle, 1910). She also calls herself "Agnes" in her journal, notably during 1927.
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By highlighting Paul Valery's contradictions, she rekindles her own, often moving without transition from modesty to pride and arrogance: "I know I am worth as much as you" (January 10, 1927). Yet for Catherine Pozzi the question of publication and signature surely goes beyond the problem of intellectual and social domination: "I cannot get used to reading my name at the bottom of a poem; as with Agnes, which was also a game of soul and chance" (3).