COCTEAU (Jean) Magnificent praise addressed to Marie Bell on 1 page (21x27) of 29 lines. Framed under glass. "February 3 [January (crossed out)] 1952 Which racehorse, which thoroughbred would present the pace, the moire, the caprices of a true tragedienne? Marie Bell has it all, even losing the race if she wants to, or winning it by ten lengths if she finds the grass [also ... (words crossed out)] fresh, the sun bright, the jockey light. We saw her under the purple of Phèdre, under the finery of Prouhèze, under the veils of Armide. We saw her, in the city, in pants and coat of [panther (striped)] leopard. We saw her rehearsing with her cigarette smoker and her basset hound under her arm - and we never lost the feeling of being in front of a [striped] racehorse whose nostrils smoke and whose side eye does not accept any order. And yet docile - docile and obedient like a little girl and stubborn like a mule and laughing and serious - in short, a woman, with all the wonder and danger that entails. If Marie Bell is not the [small (scratched)] Cleopatra, like a skinny cat (Shaw's, sitting between the legs of the Sphinx - with that faculty of indifferent mischief peculiar to cats) she [scratched word] shows us the typical woman of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra - in a sublime play that Gide read and reread while herborizing and chasing butterflies on the banks of African rivers. Jean Jacques Rousseau and the encyclopedists were mixed in his strange person, making him cruel and credulous. He was the hunted man and the man who hunts. He stalked himself and while he confessed and hid, he waved a green net. There he [catches (scratched)] catches beauty like a skull butterfly. Long live Marie Bell who removes the pin, frees the butterfly from its cork and allows it to resume its flight. Jean Cocteau (with his star) " TEXTE DE PREMIER JET avec des raures.