JACOB, Max (1876-1944)

JACOB, Max (1876-1944)

Autograph poem signed « Max Jacob » to Pierre Lagarde
St Benoît sur Loire, 17th August 1936, 1 p. in-4°
Central fold, pencil typographical annotation

A touching poem in free verse, enriched with an original drawing depicting two ships at sea

« Les voiles gonflées du même côté
les côtés se regardaient amoureusement
les deux vaisseaux allaient sans dire autrement que par les cymes et les voiles
et le même vent d’ouest les poussant vers l’aurore dorée.
Quel vent mauvais sépara les voilures.
Quel nuage noir a coloré la mer.
Quelle brume a séparé les voiles.
Me voici dans la vallée qui ouvre les verdures sur la mer dorée. Reviendra-t-il, l’amour ?
Si je montais en haut de la colline et de la lande apercevrais-je la galère qui accompagna la mienne.

Max Jacob »

A central figure of the Montmartre and Montparnassian avant-garde, Max Jacob converted to Catholicism in 1915 and left Paris in 1936 to settle in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire in the Loiret region. He led a monastic life there. His poetic and mediational works, partly taken up by Pierre Lagarde in his admirable work Max Jacob – Mystique et martyr, are close to the quietist current. From then on, he assumed his life as a fisherman as a condition for his redemption. His Jewish origins led to his arrest by the Gestapo six months before the liberation of Paris, a fate he accepted as a martyr. He was interned by the French gendarmerie in the Drancy camp and died there five days later, a few hours before his scheduled deportation to Auschwitz.