56. To Benno Reifenberg
Paris 16e
152–54 rue de la Pompe
27 December 1927
Dear Mr. Reifenberg,
I didn’t go to the Ruhr at all, of course, but to Paris. I couldn’t even stand Munich. If I had money, I’m sure I would have gone back to Frankfurt — Ruhr or no — for a day. But I didn’t get the whole of the sum I was counting on. Can I ask you please to take out the rest of my 400 marks for January on the basis of the accompanying letter, and keep them for me.
Nenikekomena.1 I am glad for once to be able to give you some good news. Through April I will be getting 700 marks a month from the Kurt Wolff Verlag. For another 4 months at least as much, if I give them my next novel (“The Younger Brother”).2 The publisher is compelled to take the book (unseen), but I don’t have to give it to him. As I’ve since had a rueful letter of apology from Zsolnay, regretting the loss of my Zipper through his little “zsenanigans,” I have reason to presume on Zsolnay’s interest in my next book, and thus be able to get more like 800–1,200 marks per month out of Wolff. Use your loaf! So for the next 7 months, I’ll be able to eat, with no newspaper work, almost like a prewar novelist. I don’t like admitting to you that it’s Zipper that is the cause of my first true independence — i.e., that I am able to live, without submitting to the censorship that any newspaper exerts. I’m glad, because it’s the novel I dedicated to you — you have no objection, I take it? I’ll make some changes. I’ll take out the somewhat mystical conversation with P. at the end; instead, the conversation will be between me and young Zipper. Following the conversation, and ending the book is the letter to him. In the middle a dialog between old and young Zipper. The character of the actress fleshed out a little. Dedication: to Benno Reifenberg, in warm and wary friendship. (only joking) What do you think?
It appears I made a favorable (i.e., unfavorable) impression on Kurt Wolff. Hence the contract. That, and the current view that I am among the 20 or so writers who can write German. At last I am making converts, having converted myself long ago — other people are always slow on the uptake. I really don’t want to write for the paper any more. Only on occasions, so I have to visit that accursed country less often. They spoil my enjoyment. But for you, I could stop just like that. Sometimes I wish you would leave, and I could follow you.
[. .]
Viewed churches, streets, and Annette Kolb3 in Munich with Hausenstein. Good tour guide, splendid churches, spring-summery, sparkling Miss Annette. Mrs. Hausenstein gets younger all the time. Younger and sweeter. Good eye. Child is a gifted little rascal. Flirty at bedtime. The evening at Wolff’s. Mrs. Wolff well-bred. A character — not in quotation marks either.
Introduced to A. M. Frey:4 nice. Schneider: ghastly.
Munich: Gothic and Baroque layered over Romanesque. Not a German city at all, a royal city.
Recommended Kracauer’s novel.5
Read Hauser’s book6 on the road. Little sleights of hand. Tries to create an atmosphere by enumerating and describing other destinies, local color, and water. Doesn’t understand that atmosphere doesn’t grow out of humanity but out of the facts. Still, competent enough. Technically, too, in spite of alternation between 1st and 3rd-person narration. Irony. Tension. Living language, if a little porous. Gave the novel to the publisher. Will present Hauser with my objections, though I know he’s not open to criticism.
Do you see Soma Morgenstern?7 I’d be grateful for his address in Frankfurt.
Liver flushed with calvados. Otherwise OK. Writing scene of Franz Joseph’s departure for Ischl. Very effective. 300 marks worth. Net.
Paris lovely, with thousands of naïve booths on the boulevards. A fair — the 12 days of Christmas. Little harlots down from Le Havre on vacation.
Christmas tree in Montmartre, little baby Jesuses in all the brothels. Currently resting happily on my laurels.
Happy New Year to you.
Tell your mother-in-law: Szczesliwy Nowy Rok!8 From me.
Is Liselotte with you? Greetings to Maryla and Jan.
Your old
Joseph Roth
1. Nenikekomena: perfect tense of Greek nikein — to win or conquer.
2. “The Younger Brother”: working title for Right and Left; perhaps as a result of JR’s maneuverings/sharp practice, it didn’t appear with Kurt Wolff, and he had some difficulty placing it at all.
3. Annette Kolb (1870–1967), Bavarian-French novelist of great subtlety and charm.
4. Alexander Moritz Frey (1881–1957), novelist.
5. noveclass="underline" Ginster, by Siegfried Kracauer.
6. book: the novel Brackwasser, by Heinrich Hauser (1901–1955), who also wrote for the FZ.
7. Soma Morgenstern (1896 Brody–1976 New York), friend of JR’s. Vienna correspondent for the FZ, novelist, and memoirist.
8. Szczesliwy Nowy Rok: the Polish for Happy New Year.
57. To Félix Bertaux
Paris, 5 January 1928
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
illness has detained me in Paris — and so your kind letter from Berlin only reached me today, after many detours. I’ll be here another couple of days till I’m restored; if you would let me know when you can see me, I’ll be very glad.
Fischer1 has written to me, and I want to thank you for your advocacy. In the meantime, though, Wolff has bought the book from me.2 Still, I’ve written to ask Bermann3 if he’d be interested in my next novel (should be finished in October). I’m waiting to hear. It’s about the new generation, and is called The Younger Brother. The generation of German secret associations, separatists, Rathenau murderers — in short, of our younger brothers, today’s 25-year-olds.
The version in which you read Zipper was not the final one. It’s missing a couple of dramatic scenes, and the conclusion, which takes the form of a letter from the author to young Zipper.
Kurt Wolff would be very happy for advice from you concerning translation rights. And I — you know this — would throw my arms around you, which I’d like to do anyway, for your wonderful humane interest in my literary fate. It makes me very proud.
I hope you found Pierre doing well in Berlin.
My regards to him, please.
I wish you a Happy New Year, and kiss your wife’s hand
Your devoted
Joseph Roth
152 rue de la Pompe
Hotel St Honoré d’Eylau
1. Fischer: i.e., the publisher S. Fischer, where Roth had hopes of being published at this time.
2. Kurt Wolff: Wolff published Flight Without End in 1927, and Zipper and His Father in 1928.
3. Bermann: Samuel Fischer’s son-in-law and designated successor on his death in 1934. He took the firm to Vienna, Stockholm, and New York, before relocating it in Frankfurt after the war.
58. To Benno Reifenberg
Paris, 8 January 1928
This letter doesn’t need an answer/
contains no questions!
Dear Mr. Reifenberg, I address this letter to you at home, in the hope that you’ll be resting for a few days, and not going to the shitty office. Don’t worry, I’ve been ill myself, and only recovered consciousness about 3 days ago, with an understanding of what it all means. It’s a residue of the animal in us, the hibernal instinct, strongest when the days are shortest. I could have burrowed myself into my nest, had no desire to eat, and am perfectly convinced that I could curl up in a hole and sleep uninterruptedly from December 21 to January 15. And if you don’t, and you stay awake, you fall prey to all sorts of diseases and nervous weaknesses. Neuralgia is rampant. So you should listen to your body, and sleep. Only an increasingly instinctless humanity has decided to begin each year at such a time, which is what makes our years so miserable.