Description

touching signed autograph letter to max-pol fouchet after his wife disappeared on 9 January 1942 when the liner Lamoricière sank off the Balearic Islands. The young Jeanne Ghirardi, wife of Fouchet, was on her way to France to meet Aragon and Elsa Triolet.

"Monday, 
My dear, poor Max, I've just received Jean's telegram. We're devastated, to say the least: I feel an absurd sense of responsibility, because in the last note I wrote to you or to Jean I asked for this child's trip. Elsa, as soon as we heard about the disaster on the radio, said to me: "My God, I'm so sorry! You can say certain things, but you don't believe that certain disasters are for those you know. (Here, tear up this letter, I'm already rereading these few lines, and I desperately feel like I'm filling the silence, using words to fill the gap between what you can and what they say!)
My dear friend, we've hardly met before you're already touching everything that can't be undone. There is no shortage of bastards in this world to whom all misfortune is due, and who would pay only too well for their mischief. 
Old chap, old chap, there's no point in all the fine words, the assurances, the bullshit you find to say in these cases. it's shameful to talk about it. Old chap, take a deep, deep breath, that's all you can do to calm the pain, to soothe the heart. Breathe deeply, until it passes, because it seems that everything passes, and there are days when you believe it. We want to hold your hands, to be close to you. Uselessly, but we'd like to. I know what it's like, this time that doesn't pass, that gets stuck in your throat. It's about reaching the moment when time regains its dimension, when an hour is no longer a century. Remember that your misfortune will appear to you as part of the common misfortune, in which so many people need you. 
My dear friend, you are not alone. Elsa and I send you our love. 
Louis"

Aragon also offered the pre-publication of " Song to Elsa "I wrote to the director of Fontaine out of sympathy for his bereavement.

Reference : RECHERCHES CROISÉES ARAGON - ELSA TRIOLET, Unpublished correspondence between Aragon and Max-Pol Fouchet, 2002.