Jean COCTEAU – Poem in homage to Charles Ferdinand RAMUZ.
"Of the devil and the diablerets / Ramuz knows the car / Blood red is its paint / The stripes of its red zebras"
Sold
"Of the devil and the diablerets / Ramuz knows the car / Blood red is its paint / The stripes of its red zebras"
Sold
Jean Cocteau (1889.1963)
Unpublished autograph poem.
A page in-4° with frayed edges.
Residual trace of stamp.
Slnd.
Amazing poem in first draft – with erasures and corrections – in homage to his friend, the Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz.
________________________________________________
Of the devil and the devils
Ramuz knows the car
Blood red is his paint
Of its red zebras the rays
Of the devil and the devils
The sedan carries five wheels
The white road it wheels
It looks like a stick
The mustaches, the eyelids,
Careful choice of words
Hide the secret of the stones
And animal spirits
The fühn (spring wind)
Blow and sow delirium
But, calm, Ramuz waits
Let the trees know how to read.
Cocteau places his friend Ramuz here in perfect harmony with the surrounding Swiss mountains. Indeed, before being called the Tour Saint Martin, one of the summits of Diablerets (station in the canton of Vaud) was known under the name Quille du Diable. The many legends about this Alpine devil inspired Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947) for his novel Derborence.