The manuscript of the poems is preceded, bound in at the front, by the preface Jean Paulhan wrote for the edition published in October 1941, on 3 pages (135 x 210 mm), in black ink on pink paper, likewise copied out by Éluard.
The poems themselves are set out on four leaves (128 x 270 mm), with several corrections that match the definitive text, suggesting that this set represents the final state before publication, later than the original manuscript, which Éluard kept for his own copy and to which he added one of the 36 copies printed on Japanese paper, enriched with Jean Paulhan's manuscript. The poems showed numerous variants and autograph corrections, faithfully reproduced here. This Éluard copy, after the poet's death, passed into the Yves Breton collection (Paris, Hôtel Drouot, June 1954, no. 138, Surréalisme et poésie contemporaine catalogue), then the Daniel Filipacchi collection (Paris, I, April 29, 2004, no. 98). The present copy has no established provenance, but was carefully bound by Georges Gauché, active in Paris from 1937 to 1983, who “excelled in classical binding and half-bindings” according to Fléty. It almost certainly dates from the same period as the edition itself: comparison of this set with Éluard's shows strong similarities in ink, handwriting, and even paper. It is probably a fair copy of the working manuscript, perhaps even the one used for printing.
The poems are set out on four leaves (128 x 270 mm), all of the same format, with matching fold marks, and written in the same ink. This group was thus preserved for a long time in folded form, before being bound by Gauché. The manuscript of the preface, copied out by Éluard, is written in the same ink.
On the first leaf, the title is written in capitals and underlined twice, followed by “Aussi bas que le silence,” “Première marche la voix d’un autre” and “Le rôle des femmes.”
On the second leaf, Éluard wrote, almost at the center and alone: “Patience.”
On the third leaf, “Un feu sans tache,” which includes corrections: Éluard first wrote the second and third lines of the fourth quatrain identically to the Georges Blaizot manuscript (Œuvres complètes, I, p. 1597): “Et les fiers vainqueurs vacillaient / Après leur besogne amoureuse,” which he corrected to: “Et les vainqueurs dans un baiser / s’évanouissaient sur leurs victimes.”
On the last leaf, “Bientôt” and “La halte des heures.”
Œuvres complètes, p. 1596.