Eugène IONESCO.

La Photo du colonel. Paris, May 1955. Signed autograph manuscript of 15 ½ pages in-4, numbered from 1 to 16, on lined paper, with some corrections and erasures, handwritten annotations for composition and printing. Final autograph manuscript having served for the composition of the emblematic news of Eugene Ionesco. It will give the title to the collection published by Gallimard in 1962. Ionesco, short story writer, describes the drift of a "beautiful neighborhood" prey to the murderous attacks of a serial killer, known to all, but that no one can stop: Slowly, I took out of my pockets my two pistols, pointed them, silently, for two seconds, on him, who did not move, then lowered them, let my arms fall along the body. I felt disarmed, desperate: for what can bullets, as well as my weak strength, against cold hatred, and obstinacy, against the infinite energy of this absolute cruelty, without reason, without mercy? Like most of Ionesco's short stories, The Colonel's Picture is the starting point for one of the author's most famous plays: Killer Without a Hitch (created in 1958).