MAX JACOBThe minute violin of a mosquito goes on and on. One could believe that a
person was playing alone in a house at a remote distance... Insects fall with a
sidewise fall and writhe gently on the table. A butterfly yellow as a wisp of straw
drags itself along the little yellow valley that is my book...
A big clock outdoors intones drearily. Memories take motion like children
dancing in a ring...
The cat stretches itself to the uttermost. Its nose traces in the air an impercep-
tible evolution. A fly fastens its scissors in the lamp...
Kitchen clatter mounts in a back-yard. Argumentative voices play at pigeon-
vole. A carriage starts up and away. A train chugs at the next station. A long
whistle rises far-o√...
I think of someone whom I love, who is so little to be so separated, perhaps
beyond the lands covered by the night, beyond the profundities of water. I am
able to engage her glance...
—wallace stevens
Max Jacob 1876–1944
quimper, france
J
acob was a painter and poet, a writer and critic, and a leading figure in
Cubism and in the literary group surrounding Apollinaire. His dream-
inspired work forged a link between Symbolism and Surrealism. Born to amiddle-class Jewish family in the Breton town of Quimper, he worked at a variety
of jobs before devoting himself to writing, which led to friendships with Picasso,
Cocteau, and other creative giants of the period. In 1909 he purportedly saw a
vision of Christ and six years later converted to Catholicism, choosing Picasso as
his godfather. His conversion, however, did not prevent him from being arrested
by the Gestapo in 1944 while attending mass at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, the abbey
to which he had definitively retired. Jacob died of pneumonia at Drancy shortly
after being detained. Principal works: La Côte: Chants brétons, 1911; Les Oeuvres
burlesques et mystiques de Frère Matorel, 1912; Le Cornet à dés, 1917; La Défense de