KESSEL (Joseph). [Chaliapine]. Unsigned autograph manuscript. Circa 1938. 7 leaves in-8, 13.5 x 21 cm, handwritten on the front. Draft of an article (?) with erasures and additions. Paperclip mark, ink lightened in lower right-hand corner. Kessel oscillates between reportage and storytelling; he begins by painting a portrait of the Russian opera singer, Fedor Ivanovich Shalyapin (Kazan, 1883-Paris, 1938), who received him in his beautiful flat on the Avenue d'Eylau. "I've retained an enchanted memory of this conversation, which lasted several hours". Recalling that strong voice, Kessel remembers: "I felt transported by heroic shadows (...) every word conjured up images (...)": Don Quixote, Prince Igor, Boris Godunov... Kessel then veers towards the fairytale, to tell the story of Ermak, the 16th-century Russian explorer, and the conquests of Ivan the Terrible. The reporter then returns to Shalyapin, his alcoholism like that of Gorky: "it was the price of their genius, a genius that belonged entirely to the elemental forces, to the steppes as endless as the sea...".