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Max Jacob

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Did Guillaume Die a Christian Death?

     I had so firmly believed that he was going to die that, in tears, I had drawn his death bed. I must admit that I even had artistic concerns. Next day, he was going about Paris robust and sublime. One morning at the Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre two big black cats hugged me. A voice said: “Don’t be afraid!” The Sacre-Coeur seemed to me like one of those pink fortresses that decorate the summits of Italian hills and he, Guillaume, was like a bird with a human head on top of it. Was he dead, the dear poet? My drawing wasn’t finished. I met him at the head of a group of disciples: was it he or Dante? Completely alive, oh definitely! Guillaume wasn’t dead. A tall and intelligent abbe said to me: “It’s impossible to be more alive than Guillaume Apollinaire. But finish the drawing of his death and put my silhouette at the bottom and to the left.”

 

Translated by Michael Bullock

Page(s) 18

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