My health is so-so. Next spring, I should like to take a cure in Vichy or Karlsbad.
Regards to you and the children, from your
Son M.
1. parents: Selig (1875–1958) and Jenny (Jente) Reichler (1876–1954), née Torczyner. They lived in the Leopoldstadt in Vienna, and in 1935 emigrated to Palestine, where they died.
2. Hedi: Friedl’s sister; she left Austria in 1938 for exile in London.
54. To Félix Bertaux
Hotel Excelsior, Munich
21 December 1927
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your letter before today. I’m so grateful to you for your kind words—they filled me with a childish glee. I really don’t know whose verdict on my book1 could have had more importance than yours. Only French Europeans of your stamp are still in a position to recognize the European tradition of stylistic purity—certainly not the American Germans in whose midst I write. If it hadn’t been for your letter, I would have despaired at the stupidity of all the German reviewers, all of whom praised me, but for things I don’t see. Except for one piece of advice, which I am unable to follow: to write in French. They all talked about my “Latin clarity.” You may see thereby how far the Germans of today are fallen from their own literary traditions. It’s the country where the British and American authors have the biggest print runs, and the greatest successes. Whereas I—according to my German reviewers—am a “one-off in German literature”! The feeling of not belonging anywhere, which has always been with me, was borne out.
I am glad you recognized Rohan.2 Oui, c’est ça, c’est lui!
May I tell you I am now working on a novel on the postwar generation.3 I hope the material will be of interest to you.
I’m going to be in Berlin in February. I will be delighted to seek out your son. Before that, though, there’s a chance—a probability, even—that I’ll be in Paris. End of December—I’ll try to see you, if you have time.
Once again: my best thanks!
Please give my regards to your wife.
I remain, as always, your
Joseph Roth
1. my book: Flight Without End.
2. Rohan: presumably Prince Karl Anton Rohan (1898–1975), editor of the European Review, and a proponent of good Franco-German relations.
3. novel: Right and Left (Berlin: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1929).
55. To Georg Heinrich Meyer
Paris 16e
152–54 rue de la Pompe
27 December 1927
Esteemed Mr. Meyer,1
you will have heard by now that I have concluded a new contract with Kurt Wolff. I had hoped to see you in Munich, and talk to you once more. I’ve been more convinced than ever, since Frankfurt, that your memoirs would be an important book. If you do write them, then be sure to mention me as your newest acquisition in nonpareil at the back.
Are you pleased with my book? Happy New Year, and a great success for Flight Without End from your old
Joseph Roth
1. Meyer: Georg Heinrich Meyer (1869–1931), editor with Kurt Wolff. The book JR asks after—already, before exile, before Friedl’s diagnosis, he is knocking them out at a dangerous rate—is Zipper and His Father, which Wolff brought out the following year, 1928.
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. novel: 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.
Yesterday I sent you a piece from “Cuneus.”1 I’m afraid it may step on a few political toes. Maybe it could be given to a tame pol.2 I also hear that the Saarbrückener Zeitung came up with a couple more attacks on the 19th or 20th last. Send copies, if possible. If Matz comes back for more, following the mild cuffing I gave him, then I’ll beat him up good and proper, for all my manifest disgust with these roaches.
To me the Frankfurter Zeitung isn’t so much a springboard, more a sort of spring mattress, of the kind we used to see in variety shows, with zebra-striped ticking. It’s my only home soil, and must do for me as fatherland and exchequer. All I want now is time to write my books. Here enclosed—to be returned at some convenient time—is an offer from Fischer. He has also asked Annette Kolb—who wrote me a lovely letter—to ask about my availability. Nor is he the only one. The Verband der Bücherfreunde has been in touch. I won a humiliating victory over Zsolnay. He wrote me an abject letter of apology. In the event of a good offer, I’ll swap Wolff for Fischer, if less good, I’ll just play them off against each other. My stay in Paris is very important just now, because I can follow up the translation, and make connections with the literary establishment here. Unfortunately, my French isn’t quite good enough. The pax with S.3 is opportune because otherwise he could have been a (small) hindrance here. Diplomacy. Don’t you hate it. It’s as much trouble as 3 books.
[. . .]
Cottage or apartment in the environs of Paris as cheap (or dear) as near Frankfurt. Only made expensive by travel (40 marks per person, 60 for wagon-lit, 80 for luxury train via Cologne). But why not. Polish newspapers available here for your mother-in-law. (Convey regards, please.) Air is best in May. Possible trips to the Alps, etc. My wife is asking for precise details of Meudon. I’ll let you know. Best New Year wishes from us both.
Kracauer demanded his chapter back. What’s he doing? Best regards.
Health, luck, blessing,
Your old
Joseph Roth
Am writing generation novel.
Have a thick notebook with yellow paper set aside for you.
1. Cuneus: Latin for “wedge,” and Roth’s pseudonym for the politically delicate series on Lorraine and the Saarland.
2. tame pol: i.e., a colleague from the paper’s political section who will vet it permissively?
3. S.: Sieburg.
59. To Félix Bertaux
Paris, 9 January [1928]
Esteemed Mr. Félix Bertaux,
I was thinking for a long time about your inspired translation1 of “Neue Sachlichkeit,” and came to the conclusion that “l’ordre froid” is far too good for that ugly label, which seems to have reached German literature by way of German painting. It exalts all the productions that sailed under that flag to a level they don’t deserve. The French reader will be inclined to think more of that objectivity than he should, simply by dint of your splendid term. If I were you therefore, I would note that the translation (“l’ordre froid”) is better than the original (Neue Sachlichkeit), and refers not to the achievement but the orientation of most of the so-called Objectives.
Please excuse the advice, and the following too. You will probably be unable to avoid connecting the absence of a truly German novel (in the French sense) with the absence of a truly German society (in the French sense). In this context, can I draw your attention to the newest novel by Annette Kolb (published 1927, chez S. Fischer)?2 It describes nothing less than the last remnants of a cultivated German society. It’s exemplary, less a novel than a symptom, last sign of life of people who no longer exist.
Enclosed, you will find the review by Franz Blei,3 not so much for itself, as for the way it stands in for very many other reviews.
Once again, thank you for your great, humane, and just sympathy.
Ever your
Joseph Roth
1. translation: in Bertaux’s survey, Panorama de la littérature allemande contemporaine.
2. The novel in question is Daphne Herbst (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1928).
3. Franz Blei (1871 Vienna–1942 New York), short story writer, essayist, humorist, editor, and translator of Gide and Claudel.
60. To Félix Bertaux
Monday [early January 1928]
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
just got your card! Of course. I’ll be honored and delighted to read your survey,1 even if I’m quite sure you won’t have perpetrated any solecisms. You certainly have finer instincts than German literature professors, so even if you happen not to know something, you’ll be correctly oriented.
I’ll give you my next address in Germany—or is there any
chance you can get me the proofs by Wednesday?
I enjoyed myself very much at your house yesterday, and hope to be in a position to invite you to a home of mine one day, if royalties should permit me ever to have one.
Please convey my regards to your wife. I remain your grateful
Joseph Roth
1. Félix Bertaux’s Panorama.
61. To Benno Reifenberg
Kaiserhof, Essen
17 January 1928
Esteemed Mr. Reifenberg,
I got your forwarded letter, thank you! I’ll answer the reader’s letter after this. If it’s physically possible, I’ll try and do corrections and cuts myself. Maybe on the galleys. It’ll save you the trouble, and the awkward entry into a different sentence rhythm. The question mark you allowed to stand is part of the signals of our correspondence: a private code emerging from our conversations—don’t be surprised if others don’t get it. Why didn’t Dr. Feiler go over this feuilleton? Why give it to Dr. Drill1—and for how much longer does the political desk (i.e., not the editorial conference) intend to supervise our feuilletons? If it’s to be a form of censorship, then let it be according to the views of the whole board, not the more or less reactionary—or revolutionary—views of a single politician, whom as an individual I will not allow the right to represent our age better than I do. (I’m not referring to Dr. Drill, whom, as you know, I rate very highly.) I’m going to raise this matter of censorship—if it’s agreeable to you. Or I will make the perfectly reasonable demand that the political correspondents submit their pieces to me for censorship. This absurd supervision is wholly unjustified. We represent the paper no better and no worse than the leader writers.
I enclose something for the books pages, very topical, highly controversial. If you have any doubts about it, feel free to add an editorial preface.
I am writing two more articles for the books pages, namely: Gide and the Congo2 (in a fortnight) and on Benda’s Trahison des Clercs.3 Linguistic analysis in Frankfurt. Could you send me the money for the three articles, so that I get it on or before 20/21. Because on the 23rd I will have to be in Frankfurt again, but I need money here, before that. If so, please wire me that it’s coming, so I’ll be sure to be at home.
Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters Page 12