All these fortunate circumstances helped mould a man who was not just someone always in-the-know, but who was also a citizen of the world, an inquisitor, a voyeur and a collector of civilizations. From 1918, once peace was declared, he would parade his curiosity more or less everywhere, resign from the diplomatic service, only to return once more, nevertheless, in 1939, as Président de la Commission du Blocus in London, a rather amusing about-turn for a man who, during twenty years of leisure activity between the two wars, had never stopped roaming the planet and bringing home books about ‘things seen’—Rien que la terre, Londres, Bucarest, New York, not forgetting his writings about China and both the Americas. A compulsive!
There is no reason for what followed to feature in this brief sketch of such a protean figure, apart from the fact that the three portraits etched in Tendres stocks herald works of fiction that bided their time impatiently, waiting for peace and the freedom to unleash their creator. Everything is in fermentation, including an unsparing self-portrait, L’Homme pressé, in which those who were close to him, as well as his readers, would identify him before the time came for him to bid farewell to everything that he loved, which he did in Venises (Venices, published in Euan Cameron’s translation by Pushkin Press), but also in the profoundly moving Le Flagellant de Séville which, regardless of its author, deserves to be ranked among the masterpieces of the twentieth century, as a masterpiece for all time.
Let there be no mistake — Morand was still writing about himself, just as he was in Tendres stocks.
2011