JACOB Max (1876–1944).

Three poems and a meditation. The young lady’s letter, five numbered and renumbered quatrains (the top of the page – a letter of which only a few words and the signature remain – has been torn off), with the note in red pencil: ‘given to Nicolas’. “Come back again despite my letter Which a demon wrote for me You will enter through the window If you do not have the key to the house”… Untitled poem, consisting of 5 tercets: “Your eyes closed, your weary hand Your hand that passes Over the slate sundial”… The final line: “My love for you, Léonor” has been crossed out and replaced by “The presence of God whom I adore”. 75839+75840

Reply to Manon, a highly polished draft of this 19-line poem included in *L’Homme de cristal* (1946); on the reverse, a drawing of a man running. “I am the old Rampart who sings at high tide The eternal survivor, the spinning top of the Most High”… Draft of a prose meditation, with a few small sketches in the text, and on the reverse with the title Meditation on the Removed Robe. “You have run the jet of the blowtorch between my ribs, the demons’ whip. Ouch, oh oh, the blood is flowing”…