Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters

by Michael Hofmann

  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. Drill: 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 novel: 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, Musil: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.

  Dear, esteemed Mr. Bertaux, may I ask you to leave word at rue de la Pompe 152 on Saturday 25th or Sunday 26th when I can see you? I’ll probably be going to Berlin on Monday or Tuesday. And, as you know, to me you are both a literary patron saint and a warm and clever person who never fails to cheer me up.

  Kiss your wife’s hand for me!

  I am, as ever, your grateful

  Joseph Roth

  1. Ulitz: Arnold Ulitz (1888�
�1971), Silesian writer and poet.

  2. What Roth is saying here, its bluntness softened perhaps by being said in French, is that Blei’s selection of German writers was guided by tokenism, choosing Döblin, a Jew, Musil, a Viennese Jew, and himself, something less than a Jew (perhaps by virtue of being an Eastern Jew). Blei then saw himself faced by the need to name racial Germans, and came up with two further names, one of them Ulitz’s (See the essay list “Auto-da-Fé of the Mind,” in What I Saw, where Roth lists the Jews among the German writers of the period.) The intellectualist Robert Musil (1880–1942) and Roth did not get on. In point of fact, Musil was not a Jew, not even a Viennese Jew.

  65. To Félix Bertaux

  Grand Hotel Victoria

  Zurich

  26 March 1928

  Dear esteemed Mr. Bertaux,

  thank you for your kind letter, and please forgive me for being so tardy in answering it. My wife’s illness has upset all my plans. I had to accompany her to the Ticino, and am now on my way to Vienna with her. I hope to be in Frankfurt early in April. It’s too bad that you’re going back to Paris as early as the 3rd or 4th, and I lose the delightful prospect of seeing you and your son Pierre together.

  Please send or hand in the proofs and a possible accompanying note—which I would beg you to write—to the Feuilleton department at the Frankfurter Zeitung. They will give you an address for me in Vienna.

  My wife is feeling much better. She thanks you and your wife for your concern, sends her regards to you both, and will write as soon as she is up to it.

  Please don’t forget to call on Mr. Reifenberg at the FZ. And Dr. Kracauer too. There are not many such people in the whole of Germany.

  I look forward to seeing the proof1 and your accompanying words—kiss your wife’s hand for me, and give my regards to your son Pierre.

  Cordially as ever,

  your Joseph Roth

  1. Still, no doubt, of the Panorama.

  66. To Félix Bertaux

  Lvov, Poland, 31 May 1928

  Dear esteemed Mr. Bertaux,

  I hope your wife is better, and ask you for a few words to set my mind at ease.

  I’ve been on the road for the past 3 weeks, and have only had an address to give you as of today. It will be my main address while in Poland. In a few days, I’m going to Vilnius and the Polish–Lithuanian border.

  I am writing a series of “Letters from Poland” and at the same time working on my new novel. Fischer—I’ve grown fond of the old gentleman by now—will be pleased.

  Is it possible for you to send me your survey here?

  My wife is with me. Not well, but better.

  In old friendship and gratitude I press your hand, and remain your

  Joseph Roth

  P.S. Franz Blei urged me to drop the introduction for the French edition of Flight Without End. What do you think? And if you agree, would you be kind enough to let Gallimard know?

  The address:

  c/o Madame Helene de Szajnocha-Schenk,

  Lvov, Pologne

  Ulica Hofmana 7/1

  67. To Stefan Zweig

  Warsaw, 10 July 1928

  Esteemed Mr. Zweig,

  I am late in thanking you for your book.1 I read it on the road as I was passing through many small towns, and must thank you twofold: for your company in that somewhat bleak setting, and for the enjoyment of your book at all (the effect of it was intensified by my solitariness). I have the sense that I am closer to you now than if I had read you or met you, say in Berlin or Paris. All that remains to be sought is an opportunity and your permission to seek you out personally. Perhaps sooner rather than later, because on the 20th or 21st I’ll be in Vienna, where I have to see to a (for me very tedious) formality regarding nationality.2 I hope it won’t eat up the whole 5 days I’m there. I can be found c/o Mr. E. P. Tal,3 Vienna VII, Lindengasse 4.

  The Stendhal section was I thought the best part of your book—perhaps because he is such a sympathetic figure to me anyway. But, even though I know him well, I still have a sense that he comes out as a character in your pages. It’s a real portrait vivant that you’ve composed. What you are so masterly in, if I may make so bold, is the yoking of a cool and precise language to a warm and relaxed patience. You write a remarkably human literary history, but always with dignity and distance. I knew little about Tolstoy, and next to nothing about Casanova. I thank you for introducing me to the material, and assure you that I feel a colossal knowledge on every page. How industrious and exacting you are!

  Superfluous to remark that I’m giving you poor words in return for good ones. But you will have seen from my books that I would be ashamed to be untruthful—and already I am ashamed to have uttered such a sentence. Please disregard it.

  I wish you happiness and industry! Where will you be this July and August? Till the 19th inst. my address is as below:

  c/o Frau H. von Szajnocha-Schenk

  Lvov (Poland)

  Hofmana 7/1.

  With warm and grateful regards

  your Joseph Roth

  1. book: Zweig’s Drei Dichter ihres Lebens, lives of Stendhal, Casanova, and Tolstoy.

  2. nationality: Roth was attempting to get Austrian citizenship. See no. 69.

  3. E. P. Tal: a Viennese publisher.

  68. To Benno Reifenberg

  Hotel Imperial, Vienna

  [July 1928]

  Dear kind Mr. Reifenberg,

  I was very glad of your short letter because it was yours, even though I understood almost nothing of it. Why don’t you ask to see a carbon of it, and read it back to yourself. It has an unnatural laconicism and a hortatory tone and makes it clear that you are doing your duty in running the feuilleton section, while I am writing a novel. That’s not you, that’s not your tone, and the gravitas in which you fail to say anything about yourself is almost more pathos-laden than that of someone talking about himself. Why not tell me? Why conceal yourself “behind your job”? I’ll tell you anytime that you are much more important than the feuilleton section, than the whole of the Frankfurter Zeitung and all German Jews and the ridiculous “duty” we are allegedly performing in Germany. You know I’m not offended or hurt by your brevity. If you’d written me nothing but: I’m out of cigarettes!—I would have recognized you. But now fulfilling duties and beavering away at Europe or Germany or the whole world in those tawdry editorial offices—well, I don’t recognize you. Your latest very good feuilleton about Frankfurt regrettably starts off with a Faustian paragraph about heaven and hell—by way of a so-called introduction—and what you say there is unnecessary because it’s between your lines anyway, all it is is the outpouring of a homesick heart, and it recalls the song of the archangels, and has a gentle parp of trombone. What’s keeping you, my friend? I don’t know where to find you any more, it’s as though we were both standing in a pitch-dark room. The cuts you undertook yourself soothe me, but just a little. You’re not cheerful, you’ve spent too long in that self-important office—and it’s time you knew that I’m convinced that you and you alone (not you with me or you with Kracauer) will save the FZ from the fate of becoming a General-Anzeiger. Germany is one General-Anzeiger: It’s all they know.

  Be well, I pray that you might not have become so humorless as to take umbrage at my directness.

  I’m not too well myself. (We’ll talk.)

  Your old

  Joseph Roth

  Regards to your folks. A word about Jan and your mother-in-law, and a smile from your wife is worth more than all the duties of German newspapers and books.

  69. To Benno Reifenberg

  Hotel Imperial, Vienna

  30 July 1928

  Dear Mr. Reifenberg,

  thank you for yours. A few more words on your article. You know I write with exactly the same intention
s and the same means as you do. The reason I took against your introduction has nothing to do with that chronically misunderstood term “objectivity.” You’re right to be Goethean—it’s the only way of writing well in German. What I was critical of was the irrelation between introduction and subject—your private view of Frankfurt can’t be permitted to set the tone. The archangels’ song is in Faust and not Werther—not to compare the worth of the two works, but the value Goethe wanted to give them. An article about an exhibition for instance can’t be used “naïvely” as an occasion to vent one’s private feelings or moods too crudely. You violate the rule that demands information. If you wrote more regularly, you would come to the conclusion all by yourself that an impulsive rush of writing will match the object maybe 2 or 3 times in the course of a lifetime, and that those times when you write freely and with pleasure are precisely those times when you have to be extra careful you don’t give yourself away. Rush and pleasure have to be confined in or to the subject, for that to acquire a sort of sheen. That’s the only way. But in your article, Reifenberg gets more gloss than Frankfurt—which is surely the last thing you wanted. And because you started off with Reifenberg, you used up your whole tank of fuel, and ended up pushing your vehicle by hand. You understand me, don’t you? If you don’t write often, it’s necessary to write a lot to write better. You will draw such security from it that you won’t have need of any mornings, or any vainglorious moods.

  I am in critical difficulties.

  Firstly, I will shortly have to move my old friend Mrs. Szajnocha in with me. Which means founding a household. She can’t stay in Poland for many reasons—and I am her only material prop. Secondly, I need to come up with an arrangement for my wife. Where? What with? How? Where am I going to put these two women?

  3. I need to begin a new life. The time has come once more when I must transform my entire existence, go away, be gone by myself—to America, or Siberia, for that matter. I am so dependent on reality that in the most ordinary sense of the word, I need to experience something, to have something to write about.