SATIE Max JACOB / Autographed Letter Signed / Death of Érik Satie / 1925 / Italy

  
Signed autograph letter twice "Max" and "MX", to the Salacrou couple S. D [July 4, 1925], 2 p.

Just back from Italy, the poet reacts to the death of composer Erik Satie. I love you both and I am writing to tell you in two very short words: there were two hundred letters and packages in a basket. I randomly pick one, then another.

But my day of twenty-one replies is done and I rest while you two dear angels are and will soon be Christian angels, which will be infinitely beautiful. I cannot analyze the feeling that takes hold of me here: the horrible weight of destiny that forbids me the places where one fishes, the proud and pompous monasteries, and the cities where friends are hurt every evening in the corridor - the satisfaction of the peace of the fields in their ugliness, and the joy of the gentle faces of the house of horror of all the misfortunes one touches: widows, poor parents, diseases, infirmities that the journey forgets so quickly in the life of an aesthete. If I can manage to work, I will stay here for the penance of my faults. Deep inside, I love these people. I will finish with my last hundred letters. There are terrible things to "solve" in this package.

Celibacy and disorder that must be paid for. I no longer thank you, but the first gouache that I will make, I will send it to you with my heart as a signature. This letter constitutes one of the rare contemporary confessions of the musician's disappearance. Erik Satie, who fell ill during the first semester of 1925, was hospitalized at Saint-Joseph hospital.

He received, among others, a visit from Max Jacob. After several years of excessive consumption of absinthe, the composer dies at the age of 59 from cirrhosis of the liver. The relationship between the Salacrous and Jacob is extremely affectionate, which explains the beginning of the letter. From reading the text, it can be assumed that the Salacrous either acquired a gouache or helped to buy one, which would explain the large number of pending letters on Max Jacob's side. Max Jacob - Letters to the Salacrous, Gallimard (1953), p. We thank Patricia Sustrac for the information she kindly provided us.