Proust's second stay in Venice

Proust’s visit to Venice in April/May 1900 with his mother, Reynaldo Hahn and Marie Nordlinger is well documented. But all the biographies and published time lines claim that he made a second visit to Venice in October 1900. This is based one one single piece of evidence - a signature in the guest book of the Armenian monastery in San Lazarro dated 19 October 1900 which was first discovered and published in 1931.

Personally I have never believed that this signature was Proust’s. It looks nothing like any of Proust’s signatures I’ve seen, and the letters don’t even appear to spell P-R-O-U-S-T. Our good friend and founder Marcelita also expressed her scepticism about this second trip ever taking place. But an article from December 2018 in German, by Reinhard Pabst, convincingly argues that the signature is not Proust’s but is actually that of Marcel Rouff, a writer from Geneva living in Paris. Rouff was also intending to write about Lord Byron who had been a frequent visitor to the monastery the previous century. Which adds extra weight to the probability of Rouff visiting San Lazzaro. www.faz.net/aktuell/karriere-hochschule/...rewigt-15923271.html In which case there is no evidence whatsoever to show that Proust visited Venice in October 1900.I would now like to add two observation’s of my own to Pabst’s arguments. Not only does the signature not look like Proust’s writing, neither does the date: Proust always wrote the number nine with a curling tail, not straight as in the register. There are only two other visitors who signed the register on 19 October, Julien Landeau from Le Mans and Juliette Shani Amondriez/Amondruz? from Geneva. It would be unusual for a woman to travel alone at that time I think, so it is quite possible that the other two gentlemen were her travelling companions - one of whom may also have come from Geneva. Another possible connection?But I have one caveat. The only two examples of Marcel Rouff’s signature that I have been able to discover so far do not look like the signature in the register. So you take your choice and make up your own mind.