La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France

The book features a poem by Cendrars about a journey through Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express in 1905, during the first Russian Revolution, interlaced with an almost-abstract pochoir print by Delaunay-Terk.

[7] Despite failing to sell a single copy, he pressed ahead with the second book, La prose du Transsibérien, published June 1913 (see 1913 in poetry).

"[The poem] describes the 16-year old poet’s epic, perhaps imaginary, train journey from Moscow to Harbin (in Mongolia) during the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian Revolution of 1905.

It is a long, oppressive ride through Russia with apocalyptic scenes of war and revolution, and descriptions of cold, hunger, death and devastation which worsen as the train follows its eastward course and are punctuated by the repeated, melancholy question of Jehanne, the poet's companion, "Dis Blaise, sommes nous bien loin de Montmartre?"

It was through Guillaume Apollinaire, a mutual friend, that Cendrars was to meet Sonia and her husband Robert Delaunay, members of the Parisian avant-garde, leading exponents of cubism, and inventors of the term Simultaneity.

[11] This new style had first appeared in April 1912 with Robert Delaunay's series of paintings of Fenêtres (Windows) followed closely by Sonia's abstract Contrastes Simultanés and was boldly taken up by both husband and wife for the rest of their careers.