I finally got to be introduced to Gide. He Olympian, I merely snotty. He was in Berlin to give the standard talk on mutual understanding. I told him what I thought about it. Who’s covering it for us? Brentano? Was asked later what I thought of Gide. C’est un acteur, n’est-ce pas? — said Paulhan.4 And I: il est plus qu’un acteur, il est une actrice!
Dear Mr. Reifenberg, I’ve long owed you thanks for your violets. It was excellent, save one clearly intentional childish note. What should have been someone’s distant recollection sounded like the zoom of a fresh close-up. A “plus serré” would have fixed it. But perhaps then the lovely, mysterious to-and-fro would have been lost!
I’m uneasy about you. What’s happened? Something must have happened! Something unexpected!
Sincerely, your old
Joseph Roth
Please don’t forget money and censorship!
1. Dr. Drilclass="underline" Robert Drill, with the FZ since 1896, dismissed in the Third Reich, died in South African exile in 1942.
2. Gide and the Congo: The travel diary Voyage au Congo (1927), by André Gide (1869–1951), the French novelist and essayist.
3. Benda: Julien Benda (1867–1956), philosopher, novelist, and essayist, whose treatise La Trahison des clercs appeared in 1927.
4. Paulhan: Jean Paulhan (1884–1968), essayist, literary critic, and director of La Nouvelle Revue Française.
62. To Stefan Zweig
Cologne, 24 January 1928
Till 30th at the Englischer Hof, Frankfurt
Dear Mr. Zweig,
I was very glad of your letter. If anyone has a right to demand perfection of me, then surely you, who write so cleanly and immaculately. There’s much I could tell you about my Tunda.1 You’re right, though, it was an intentional break. The book switched from the first person to the third. While one might not sense any tragic quality in the narrator, then perhaps in the “hero” he talks about. But I had qualms, I have qualms about that “tragic” component, I think our postwar man no longer has that “classical” capacity for tragedy, which is no longer a component of character but is still present in the “historical view.” Which means there is perhaps tragedy in the way we view the fate of someone like Tunda, even though he himself won’t see it or feel it.
At Easter another novel2 of mine will appear, carefully written. I will send you a copy if I may. Right now, I’m busy on a third,3 on the young generation in Germany. I have drafts going back to 1920, half-written manuscripts that I didn’t have time or leisure to complete. Now I’m at least able to live respectably and write like a madman. Unfortunately, I’m still not able to give up the journalism. My articles probably get in the way of those “creative pauses” that a writer needs. But even though publishers are queuing up to offer me little 3,000-mark advances in return for 2 or 3 years’ work, not one is really willing to back me, which means freeing me of the necessity of writing for the paper. I’m still waiting, in effect.
I would very much like to meet you.4 But then I’m always back and forth, without a fixed address. I wrote to you in November when I heard you were coming to Paris (I was there in December), but I didn’t get an answer, and thought you were probably traveling. But it’s also possible you never got my letter. I’m going to send this one by registered mail, at the risk of interrupting your work just to elicit your signature. When will you be in Paris? I have an address there which will be valid till mid-February: Paris XVI, rue de la Pompe, 152–54. Perhaps you could write me there, and let me know your whereabouts in spring?
Yours with heartfelt thanks,
Joseph Roth
1. Tunda: Lieutenant Franz Tunda, hero of Flight Without End.
2. another noveclass="underline" Zipper and His Father.
3. busy on a third: Right and Left.
4. In the event, JR didn’t meet Stefan Zweig, the man who underwrote his last ten years on earth, until May of 1929, in Zweig’s house in Salzburg.
63. To Félix Bertaux
St. Raphaël, 13 February 1928
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
your card has just been forwarded to me here — because I suddenly had to up sticks and head south with my wife, who was feeling poorly. I hasten to thank you, my dear esteemed Mr. Bertaux. To me at the beginning of my literary career, I know of nothing better or greater than for my words to be translated into the language I love, and the one that is used by the greatest contemporary authors. It really is reason to wax pathetic — forgive me, if this is happening to me. But let me tell you how deeply grateful I am, and that I thank heavens for the fortune that brought us together.
I will write to Kurt Wolff tomorrow about the rights for Gallimard,1 and concerning Monsieur Betz.2 In any case, I hope I shall have the honor of knowing my book will be scanned before its appearance by you. It’s my belief that in France people still listen to the word—as opposed to Germany, where if you write passable German they call you French. I can’t say I mind.
I am still negotiating with S. Fischer about rights to future books. I hope we come to an agreement, even though it would be Wolff’s loss. But it seems to me that, in Germany, I need the full authority of the Fischer imprimatur.
I heard (while in Germany, for January and early February) that the Nouvelles Lítteraires published an essay about me. Did you get a chance to read it?
I’m here till the 16th, and then taking my wife to some other place where they have no mistral. She is doing better today already, and sends her regards.
I hope to meet you in Paris at the end of the month.
For the time being, I remain, with regards to your wife and self,
your grateful and obedient servant
Joseph Roth
Villa Alice (Var)
Thanks again for the essay in the NRF!
1. Some of Roth’s novels were published in French translation in the Nouvelle Revue Française imprint of the famous house of Gallimard.
2. Maurice Betz (1898–1946), noted French translator, of Rilke, among others.
64. To Félix Bertaux
St. Raphaël, 24 February 1928
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
thank you for your card. My wife is feeling better. She thanks you for your concern, and sends her regards. She is staying here while I go back to Paris today, for 2–3 days, and then probably on to Berlin, to draw up a contract with Fischer. I would be glad indeed if Dr. Bermann turned out to be the excellent person I seem to see in his letters.
Kurt Wolff has written to Gallimard. I have written to Betz, using your name — I hope that’s not unwelcome to you?
Your question regarding Ulitz1 refers to Franz Blei’s review, I take it. Where you and I are both praised. In my view: c’était de la politique. Döblin: un juif, Musiclass="underline" 2 juif-Viennois, moi: encore moins qu’un juif. On a du nommer au moins deux Allemands de “pur sang.” Blei is a real tactician, a literary diplomat, of Semitic cunning. Ulitz is a Silesian writer, bags of pathos, big heart, small head, perspective narrowly provincial (he used to be a primary school teacher in Breslau). But at least he writes correct German. Morals: excellent. Mental capacity: below average. Industry: praiseworthy.
What did please me was the reaction of your son Pierre. I will seek him out in Berlin. He seems to have inherited his father’s eye — and if he has your conscientiousness, and your extraordinary flair for a phrase, then German literature will have a rosy future in France.