I discovered, from reading Guy Davenport’s A Balthus Notebook, that when Balthus was 13 a book of his illustrations was published.  It’s a story told in images (pre-Max Ernst’s La femme 100 tetes, as Davenport points out), and the preface was written by Rainer Maria Rilke.  The book is called Mitsou. It is the story of boy meets cat, boy loses cat.

I got it out from the library, and now I’m going to have to buy it. It’s so unique and charming.  A few bits from Rilke’s preface will follow this post.