The Sabbath

ORIGINAL EDITION. One of 35 numbered copies on alfax Navarre paper, the second best paper after 6 copies on Johannot vellum.

A life lived in complete ambiguity - even in the title of this work - autobiography of a man of all unsuccessful attempts and all debacles: moral, spiritual, and material. Born Jewish, homosexual, man of letters (friend of Gide, Max Jacob, Cocteau), twice converted: first to Catholicism by Jacques Maritain (he would be expelled from the seminary for homosexuality) then to Protestantism - this time out of self-interest - Maurice Sachs would waver throughout his life, constant only in inconstancy and flight.

Prevented from publication in 1939 due to the declaration of war, Le Sabbatwas finally released only in 1946, after the conflict ended and the reputation of its author - who died in 1945, shot by an SS after 3 years of service in the Gestapo - was permanently tainted: resistance fighter-collaborator, collaborator-resistance fighter, proof that labels never stick for long to this character.

"Could this small work escape my destiny? Will I, myself, escape ill fortune? Perhaps I am only leaving to try once more to tear myself away from the infernal round of the sabbath. For my past is this sabbath."