Jean PAULHAN (1884-1968). Autograph manuscript signed, (1954); 2pages small in-4. On psychoanalysis, in connection with his book Les Paroles transparentes (Paris, Les Bibliophiles de l'union française, [1955], illustrated by Georges Braque). "This little story was written at the front, during 1916. Although psychoanalysis had not yet penetrated France at that time, I knew its essential features thanks to a young German writer, Johannes N., whom I had met in 1912. Johannes N. had been cured of pederasty, from which he had long suffered, by Dr. Freud himself. [...] Psychoanalysis is a curious science, which is ruined by the very movement that constitutes it. For it consists [...] in deciphering a secret language": the one we use to speak to ourselves, particularly in dreams, "of those things which propriety, social taboos and simple reserve prevent us from expressing openly. It goes without saying that a secret language, once deciphered, ceases to be secret. And if the umbrellas, balloons, ladders and other accessories of our dreams do indeed carry the meaning that psychoanalysis assigns to them, then our unconscious is reduced to forming new signs and constructing a new alphabet in order to maintain secrecy: forced to express itself with the utmost freedom. I hope that Paroles transparentes contributes to this freedom. As for Johannes N., he has unfortunately returned to his first tastes, and has separated from his wife".