ÉLUARD (Eugène Grindel, known as Paul). Signed autograph manuscript entitled "Temps anciens, temps bénis". One p. in-8 prepared for publication, with red pencil and graphite notations (including date crossed out). Here dated Vichy, July 14, 1945, and dedicated to the publisher José Corti, who was close to the Surrealists, this prose poem originally appeared shortly afterwards with the same publisher in a collective work illustrated by him, Rêves d'encre. Paul Éluard included the composition in 1946 in the fourth, expanded edition of his collection Au Rendez-vous allemand. "In the transparent palace of pleasure, only the keyhole was obscure. And it was through there that unhappy men vainly tried to catch a glimpse of the wonders they came to believe invisible. The world was turning upside down, the tool before the hand, the jaw before the head, the road before the plain and work before awakening. Of course, morality and its train held life in contempt, and necessity - the need to dream, to know or to eat better - was blithely denied. But we still had a few drops of wine in our water, a few drops of hope in our veins. I didn't yet have all the evidence of hatred. The insult to another had not yet cut my heart in two... "