I went out and walked as far as the Alhambra, where Nora and Mircea are doing rehearsals. (It was as if I needed to be in an atmosphere where everything was bubbling behind the scenes.) But I felt out of place and returned home.
Now I have calmed down. I have put the scenario aside and will leave it for a while. I have other work that needs to be done (redoing Antoine’s play, rewriting Act Three for Potopul8). In a week’s time I’ll look again at the pages I wrote so hastily today and see what can be done.
If I write this play, I shall owe it to the idea of a stage set. That is all I saw at first: no characters, no conflict, no ideas — only the set of a house that is under construction in Act One, furnished in Act Two, and flattened by an earthquake in Act Three. All three phases of the set are dominated by a single sight in the distance, which serves to link and unify them.
Today all the living material of the play has grown up around this bare schema. A funny starting point.
Thursday, 10 August
Air raids last night and this morning. I don’t think Bucharest was the main target, but at least once last night the gunfire was deafening. I swallowed. And poor Mama, who suffers like a frightened child!
Friday, 11 August
It seems that American armor has pushed as far as Chartres!
I see again that Sunday in October 1937, with Poldy and Benu at Chartres, when we were so excited by the beauty of the cathedral. Paris is not far.
Sunday, 13 August
Nothing new on the western front. The Russian offensive has come to a halt, more or less at the 1939 frontiers. Riga, Memel, Warsaw, and Krakow are still to be reached. Is this a Soviet pause to regroup? Or a German attempt to use massive reserves to stop the advance to the frontiers of the Reich? A new assault may begin at any time, but for the moment the fighting (though still intense) is not of the same proportions as before.
In France, on the other hand, the battle is confused but is expanding in scale. We know nothing definite about Chartres, nor how far the thrust from Le Mans to Paris has actually reached. Bypassing Alen^on, it is aiming to strike the rear of the German front line in Caen — a sector that has been wobbly ever since the landings. If the operation succeeds, the invasion will become truly “invasive.”
It is a hot, enervating summer’s day. I am apathetic and cannot pull myself together enough to work. I have been redoing one of Antoine’s plays, but I am stuck on Act Four and find it impossible to move ahead. I also have to finish Act Three of Potopul for Beate9 and Finţi.1 All this has to be done double-quick, and I’m incapable of putting two words together.
Tuesday, 15 August
A Franco-Anglo-American landing in the south of France!
Thursday, 17 August
Alerts this morning and evening. They surprised us because we had been expecting a period of aerial calm following the landing in southern France. They’ve got so much to do there — and they still find time for us.
The landing force is advancing smoothly and rapidly across the south of France: Cannes, Nice, Saint Maxime, Saint Tropez.
In the north the Allies have taken Orléans, Chartres, and Dreux. Paris is on the horizon!
Yesterday evening the Comoedia had Steaua fără nume “in a new production,” as the poster put it.
I didn’t go — nor do I feel at all curious about it.
Saturday, 19 August
I am writing these lines during a morning alert. Our run of bad luck continues. We also had an alert yesterday morning. From the street you could see swarms of aircraft passing in the distance, with their metallic glitter in the bright sunlight. Sometimes, when they show up against a whitish cloud, they become dull and hazy. Yesterday and today they have been to Ploiesti. Today they seem to be heading for Brasov. For the time being.
The advance on Paris continues, with the Americans already at Rambouillet. But the front is too fluid for the shape of the battle to be visible.
I saw Steaua fără nume yesterday evening.
What a splendid auditorium the Comoedia has! At the Alhambra everything gets lost, as in a huge barn. But here the whole hall is like a wonderful sound box.
A surprise: Tantzi Cocea.2 She has quite a few false touches, but (though everything is rather “dreamed up”) also a mixture of frivolity and emotion which is quite similar to my Mona’s.
Monday, 21 August
The Soviet offensive in Moldavia and Bessarabia has been under way for two days. Apparently Ia§i has fallen.
The war is coming toward us. It is not the war that has weighed us down for five years like a moral drama; now it is physical war. Great turnarounds can occur at any hour or minute. Again our lives are on the line.
Everything is possible — and nothing is easy. Military resistance (however quickly things are over) means destruction, perhaps forced evacuation, perhaps starvation. Capitulation means (who knows!) a repressive German response, in the style of northern Italy.
In both cases, moreover, a pogrom once more becomes possible at any time. Our relative quiet is now a thing of the past. We are moving toward the center of the fire.
In keeping with their familiar practice, the Russians are attacking in the south now that their offensive has slowed somewhat in the center and north. They will push here as strongly and as fast as they can. The Balkans are ripe for things to be wound up; all the pieces are in place. Turkey is ready. Bulgaria (after the amazing coup de théâtre of Bagrianov’s speech3) is prepared for any change in the game. Together with Tito, and possibly also an Anglo-American landing (which is hardly necessary as things stand), the Russians can push the whole German front toward the Carpathians, Hungary, and Austria.
It cannot be expected that the Germans will rapidly pull back of their own accord. They will try to resist. I don’t know how much longer they can keep it up, but it may be enough for them to exterminate us.
In France the Anglo-American assault is continuing in the south and the north. Everything is unclear in the south: there is no front as such; Anglo-American thrusts have made deep inroads, but it is not said exactly where. The Maquis is a real force, with Annecy and Grenoble apparently in French hands.
In Normandy the battle has shifted right over to the Seine in the east. Paris may fall within the next few hours.
Tuesday, 22 August
Toulouse has been captured by French forces of the Maquis. Poldy may by now be a free man. But I still fear for him. I’m not sure how firmly the city can be held until Allied regular troops arrive.
Tuesday, 29 August
How shall I begin? Where shall I begin?
The Russians are in Bucharest.
Paris is free.
Our house in Strada Antim has been destroyed by bombs.
I am as tired as a dog. It is my lot not to be able fully to rejoice at the overwhelming events.