2. Becher: Johannes Becher (1891–1958), poet, playwright, novelist, and member of the Independent Social Democratic Party.
3. Schotthöfer: Fritz Schotthöfer, worked on the Frankfurter Zeitung from 1900. Retired in 1943, died in 1951.
4. Löbe: Paul Löbe (1875–1967), member of the Social Democratic Party.
23. To Bernard von Brentano
Paris, 11 September [1925]
Dear friend,
I got your two letters before I left. I’ve been in Paris again since yesterday. I’m working very hard, starting my travel book tomorrow, and hoping to finish it by the end of the month. Hence just a few lines now. My address is the same. Please tell me right away that you’re better. I worry about you, not just for your sake, but because it’s important that decent people remain alive and in good health. My liver’s already packing up. The fools aren’t to remain unsupervised, and in the happy knowledge that the good people are getting sick and falling away. My relationship with the firm is being decided now. I’ll probably take the finished book with me to Frankfurt.
Write if you must. I imagine you’ll have been paid, in accordance with the snail’s pace of everything in Frankfurt.
Send me a detailed note.
My best to your wife.
Get well.
When is Guttmann back?
Your old
Joseph Roth
24. To Bernard von Brentano
29 November 1925
Dear friend,
let’s start with your affairs:
1. I’ve checked with R., I won’t be able to hear you speak in Offenbach. The paper doesn’t run to that kind of thing.
2. Reifenberg will bring up your 5 mss. with Nassauer.1 There shouldn’t be a problem.
3. Come here, I would be delighted. So would Reifenberg.
4. Your articles will be out soon. The film [piece?] wouldn’t fit in the politics [section?].
As for me, or rather my book,2 I’ve withdrawn it, and offered it to Dietz.3 Thus far — it’s too early still — no word. I wouldn’t have left it with this lot for all the tea in China. R. once remarked it was a pity I’d already sold it. R. apparently upset about the rejection. Upset is about as good as it gets with him. The degree of his upset might have made a difference, but probably not much. I’m still not sure who turned it down, even though I know Dr. Claassen,4 the editor. He’s a little Galician Jewish egghead — with German education, formerly a tutor in Simon’s employ. It’s possible the decision was his. Everything is possible.
I’ve only had one conversation with Simon, which was chilly, almost hostile. He’s depressed that he isn’t allowed to spend any money. It’s very hard for me to get a wage rise put through here. A freeze has been slapped on everything, the atmosphere in the firm is gloomy. I’m unable to suggest any more jaunts, they all cost money. There is as yet no Paris correspondent in place.5 They are so desperate to make economies, they hope to find one who will double as a feuilleton writer, and all for 800 marks. I have half a mind to quit. Through my personal friendship with Nassauer, I might be able to get a few advances that I could earn out later. But I’m not looking for favors. I am looking for practical, material acknowledgment from the firm. But it’s in no position now to treat itself to what it sees as a luxury.
I don’t know what course is more sensible: to sit tight and get out of Germany, or to resign and stay out of Germany in less comfort. The whole FZ looks to me like a microcosm of Germany. My loathing for it is growing all the time. I don’t have a publisher there, I don’t have readers, I don’t have recognition. But nor do I feel pain, because nothing makes me sad there; or disappointment because I have no hopes; or melancholy, because I am just cold and indifferent. It’s snowing here constantly, the world looks like a German bakery, sugar-sweet and sickening. I have nothing to do with the landscape, nothing to do with this sky. Nor anything with the technology, with the paving stones and the construction of the buildings, with the society, with the art. It’s very hard to change anything in the feuilleton. They keep running German nature scenes, they pile up here, and they’re all taken. It’s only really when I’m here that I see how poorly we fit in. I’ve given up the struggle. There’s no point. I just want to finish my Jewish book.6
The German brutality of your chauffeur is no worse than the German mildness of the culture. There’s nothing to choose between them. Cultural Germany lies between Ullstein7 on the one side and the FZ on the other. God punish it!8
We’ll see each other over a glass of wine.
Shall I book you a room?
Kiss your wife’s hand for me.
I remain your
Joseph Roth
Please, if you can, bring me as many of the reviews of me as you can lay hold of. I haven’t looked up Mr. Stuffer yet. Why would I? I only ever get to see Binding.9 Yet more Bindings?
1. Nassauer: Siegfried Nassauer (1868–1940). From 1906 on the board of the parent firm that included the FZ, the Illustriertes Blatt, and the book-publishing firm.
2. My book: the never published “The White Cities.”
3. Dietz: a Berlin press, which published two novellas of JR’s, April and The Blind Mirror, both in 1925 (see Collected Stories).
4. Dr. Claassen: Eugen Claassen (1895–1955), son of a Russian emigrant; not a Jew. Head of the book-publishing firm until 1934, when he started the Goverts Verlag with Henry Goverts, later Claassen and Goverts, and from 1950 the Claassen Verlag.
5. no Paris correspondent in place: and when there was, it wasn’t Roth, to his enormous chagrin.
6. My Jewish book: The Wandering Jews (1927).
7. God punish it: a bold variant on the German World War I refrain Gott strafe England!
8. Ullstein: Berlin “Konzernverlag”—synergetic and avowedly capitalist combination of a book-publishing house with many newspapers and magazines, among them the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Zeitung. Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues—for decades the best-selling book of all time — was published by Ullstein in 1929.
9. Binding: Rudolf Binding (1867–1938), poet and short story writer.
25. To Bernard von Brentano
Frankfurt, 19 December 1925
Dear friend,
don’t waste your time thinking useless and foolish thoughts. Dr. Kracauer1 is a poor wretch. Once every ten years he’s given his head, and is allowed to visit Berlin for a week or just a weekend, but — on account of his speech impediment and his un-European appearance — he’s never allowed to represent the paper abroad. He has a clever and ironical mind with no imagination, but in spite of so much understanding he remains naïvely likable. Help him to the best of your ability, take him under your wing, and you’ll be able to learn a lot from him. I myself am always learning from him, I just muster the patience to wait for half an hour while he stammers out his pearls of wisdom. It’s worth it, believe me.
You say something about some woman or other you claim to be in love with. This condition is known to be delusory, and ends in bed, just as pink elephants go away when you have a drink. Just call a spade a spade and I’ll understand you better. If you want to sleep with her, don’t come telling me you’re in love with her. I might have believed it from Clemens Brentano, but not from Bernard. That’s “literature”—i.e., unworthy of a writer. You must never take a woman as seriously as, say, mounting debts. Only the latter can make us lose a night’s sleep. I am sufficiently old-fashioned as to hold marriage — not that I overestimate that either — in higher regard than “love.” In marriage, coition isn’t the be-all and end-all, rather it’s a whole string of intercourse, which may as much take the form of looks and conversations, as that of so-called physical union. I appreciate that it’s upsetting not to have one’s way with a woman. But a fat man put on a diet by his doctor is much more upset, and with far more substantial reason. If you can unmask your “love” as a minor irritation, your unhappiness will be greatly reduced.