Dear Madam and Friend,
thank you for the article! I’ve corrected a few words in it. The sentence on the Austrian officer, etc.1 made me laugh. It seems to me the aristocratic genius of the French language is opposed to personal professions of faith—just as the genius of German seems to call for them. In French it comes across as “too personal.” Ah, how I wish I could write in French! Now, at almost forty, I’m at last beginning to understand that writing in just one language is like having only one arm. Having two fatherlands, I ought to be able to master two mother tongues. But I am old! And the language of a country is still more difficult to know than its inhabitants! This is all too difficult for me to say—I am shaping the expressions in German in my mind.
Once again: thank you for your goodness to little Manga!2
You are good, good, good. I will always be put to shame.
Your old Joseph Roth
1. In the series une heure avec, the journalist Frederic Lefèvre had conducted an interview with JR, to which he had given somewhat fantastical replies. See no. 244.
2. Manga: Manga Bell’s son went by that name.
268. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)
Hotel Beauvau
Marseille, 7 June 1934
Madam and dear friend,
thank you for your letter and please excuse the typed reply. I spend all day writing, and am simply too tired to take pen in hand.
Yesterday I finished my story for the Nouvelles Littéraires. Tomorrow I’m getting it typed, and you’ll have it the day after. I hope it’ll be of interest to your readers. Myself, I think it’s good enough to go in my next collection of novellas that is now under discussion.
It will contain three novellas, and I make so bold as to ask you, madam, to translate two of them; half of the third was translated some time ago by an old friend of mine, Madam Vallentin. I will also ask you to show the letter here enclosed to Monsieur Lefèvre. I hadn’t read the interview with him. Thank you for having sent it.
It seems to me he took me for a Trebitsch-Lincoln type,1 rather than a Joseph Roth. As far as the public is concerned, he’s probably right. (All this between us, please.)
Madam and dear friend, you are very dear to me, but I won’t be able to write to you again for a fortnight, not before I’ve finished my three novellas, the first of which you’ll have in your hands tomorrow or the day after. But please write to me yourself, in the meantime, if you’re not angry with me.
If the novella seems too long, please tell me right away. I have the feeling it’s all right as it is.
My sincere and heartfelt greetings to Mr. Gidon.
Your already aged friend and more
Joseph Roth
1. a Trebitsch-Lincoln type: Ignaz Tebitsch-Lincoln (1879–1943), a rather adventurous journalist, Buddhist monk, and political agent. If Lefèvre came to such a conclusion, it will no doubt have been with the encouragement if not the connivance of JR.
269. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)
Hotel Beauvau
Marseille
14 June 1934
Madam and friend,
thank you with all my heart for your letter. If women were to think my novella1 is directed against them, I would be sorry. It’s not informed by misogyny—it’s simply my conviction that a woman finding a man incapable of loving her as she would like to be loved will one day become a plaything of the devil’s. That would be a possible title for my poor little tale: “The Devil in Miss Gwendoline.” Of course, not a serious possibility. I hope it’s not too long to be published.
I will write to you once I’ve finished my third story, and am in possession of a contract. Forgive me for not writing you a longer letter today—and forgive me too for turning to you for practical advice.
I would like to enroll Mrs. Manga Bell’s son in a military academy. Since he was born in Paris—and hence France—the son of a French protégé from Cameroon, it ought to be easy. I don’t have any more money to keep him, nor does Mrs. Manga Bell. I don’t have the feeling he’s any more [sic] gifted than I am, and I made it to officer.
It’s all rather urgent. The little fellow has finished the year at school, and I can’t pay his fees any more. He must be in the military academy 4 weeks from now, or 8 at the outside.
I know I’m allowed to abuse your kindness, madam. But if I am presuming too much, perhaps Mr. Poupet could assist?
As for Mr. Breitbach,2 he has, as we say, made his bed and must lie in it. It’s a typical literary feud. Mr. Breitbach discussed his article with Mr. Kesten. Mr. Kesten discussed it with the (Communist) Mr. Weiskopf in Prague. And so it comes about that the Communist—they are in a hurry, because the World Revolution keeps not happening—has dashed off an article in response to an article that has yet to appear.
I am sad about this. I wanted to write a reply myself—and can’t because that would be making common cause with the Communistic Weiskopf. (I haven’t read his article.) At any rate, I would have written a different sort of reply, and I would first have shown it to Mr. Breitbach.
If you see him, tell him this. Apart from that, it wasn’t exactly noble of him to write an article like his at precisely this moment. Certainly, I am more “reactionary” than Mr. Breitbach. But anyway, it’s in poor taste to go singing German songs now. I have never associated with left-wing Jews like Mr. Breitbach. And now he denounces them to the French public for being “not German”! It’s so childish. And not at all noble. [. . .] And then if someone like Breitbach claims to know “real Germans” [. . .] and begins in the manner of his literary heroes, by loving his dim “blond Gretchens”—well, between ourselves . . .
Excuse me, dear friend, for talking to you thus frankly.
Greet Mr. Gidon for me.
I remain your loyal and appreciative friend
Joseph Roth
Mrs. Manga Bell sends you her very sincere regards.
1. my novella: The Triumph of Beauty, whose leading female character, Gwendoline, is a relentless flirt.
2. Mr. Breitbach: Joseph Breitbach (1903–1980), playwright, novelist, journalist.
270. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Beauvau
Marseille
14 June 1934
Dear friend,
your letter made me as happy as it is possible for me to be in the circumstances in which I have now been living for many months. I believe my Antichrist is an honest outcry, not a book, I know how bitter my life is becoming for universal reasons—and unfortunately also for personal reasons—but it’s basically all one; I wrote my Antichrist out of private need. Very private.
Film is not just a contemporary phenomenon. It may make people happy, but the devil sometimes does that. I am unalterably persuaded that the devil shows himself, so to speak, in living shadow play. The shadow that speaks and acts is what Satan is. The cinema marks the beginning of the twentieth century. It ushers in the end of the world. Please don’t underestimate that. Telephone, radio, aeroplane, are nothing in comparison to it: the separation of the shadow from the man. It’s a turning point in human history, more significant than the Russian Revolution with its so-called liberation of the “proletariat.” (If only it had freed people instead! But of course it couldn’t do that.)
You’re right: I didn’t plan the Antichrist, but simply wrote it out, and for the first time in my life, I felt detached from this world. I got a sense of what a saint might feel, if such a one ever sat down to write. I was simultaneously furious and ecstatic. I’m sure a few trivial and irrelevant things will have made it into the book. But I still have the feeling that it’s not a book of mine, rather as though someone had dictated it to me. I don’t have the right to do more than correct the misprints.
I read what you told me about Salzburg1 with astonishment and indignation. If it hadn’t been you telling
me these things, I wouldn’t have believed them. If we pooled our imaginations, we still couldn’t come up with such vileness. What was it? The revenge of jealous people? There was certainly no simple-minded credulity involved. It was malice, insane malice.
I understand why you can never go back to Salzburg.
For purely selfish reasons I am very unhappy that you are going so far away. Of course I am pleased for you as well, but let me tell you straight: here you are my most influential friend and—even if that’s not what I like you for—I do find your power pleasant and soothing. You don’t know, you have no idea how I live. Your great and shining cleverness doesn’t recognize me, can’t see me, even though I’m one of your most honest friends. Between us too the Antichrist has cast his shadow.
I beseech you now—and don’t make me mention it again—it costs you so little to get me an advance from an English publisher. They will listen to you. I beg you, I implore you to take this trouble upon yourself! Take the rope off my neck that’s on the point of choking me! Please, please understand. I’m going down, I’m already wallowing in filth. All sorts of ugly private painful humiliating things on top of that. I cannot WRITE to you about them. In spite of that, I’ve completed 2 novellas, each of 40 pages. I’m working like a pack-ass. I have worries, such worries, and I’m so UNHAPPY. Please, please secure a little freedom for me. I can’t live like this any more, it’s killing me. Absolutely. Is that what you want? Do you think I’m blackmailing you? I’m writing to you in desperate need. Please will you talk to the publishers.
Please. And let’s meet BEFORE you go. Definitely.
I embrace you,
your old J.R.
1. about Salzburg: i.e., the searching of SZ’s house for weapons. Soon after, Zweig moved to London.
271. To Stefan Zweig
Marseille
Hotel Beauvau
22 June 1934
Dear true friend,
I know I ask too much of you. I am writing to you again today, even though I wrote to you only yesterday. I want to thank you first for your letter about Gollancz.1 I have no agent, Landauer and de Lange didn’t try to sell the Antichrist in England. It might not be easy for you—or pleasant—to hear all the acts of folly I perpetrated since you left Paris—all under the pressure of repulsive experiences. I know how difficult it is even for a great understanding to cope with a small derangement. But I still beg you to continue to think of me as a sensible person subject to occasional fits of madness but broadly in control, and as a conscientious friend who only writes like this in hours of clarity. I have debased and humiliated myself. I have borrowed money from the most impossible places, despising and cursing myself as I did so. And it was all because never in my life have I had anything like a secure financial base, never a bank account or savings. Nothing, nothing, just advances—expenditure, expenditure, advances, and until the Third Reich, I had publishers. (And I’ve paid all my debts in Germany.) When you were in Paris, I only had 2,000 francs of debts. Since then it’s risen to 11,000 urgent, pressing, terrible debts. I feel obliged to come before you quite naked, my dear friend. Whatever you do, you cannot judge me more harshly than I do myself. I abuse you too, with the desperate selfishness of someone putting the life of his friend in danger by clinging to him like a drowning man clinging to his rescuer. I can think of no other image! If anything is able to exculpate me in your eyes and in my own—which are probably more indulgent—then it will be this: that I am working every day, that here in Marseille I’ve written 3 half-decent novellas, each of 35–40 pages. At the beginning of October I need to hand in my novel, which is just one-third written. I can’t go out any more. I’ve felt the rope around my neck for months now—and if I haven’t been throttled, it’s purely because every now and then some good-natured individual comes along and allows me to push a finger in between my neck and the rope. And straight after, the rope draws tight again. With the rope around my neck like that, I work for 6–8 hours a day. If you knew what commitments I’d incurred, you would laugh. But my dear friend, I must be free, just once, the relaxing of the noose isn’t enough, it has to be taken off. Oh, please, I need 12,000 francs by the end of August. Maybe an English publisher will provide them. Maybe, maybe! I am working, it’s all I can do, I can’t do more! Please, please don’t forsake me! Don’t take anything here amiss! Picture me lying flat out on my deathbed. Forgive me. I have drunk nothing while writing this to you. I am stone-cold sober.
I embrace you fervently,
your J.R.
1. Victor Gollancz (1893–1967) was a British publisher, who gave his name to his imprint.
272. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)
Hotel Beauvau
30 June 1934
Marseille
Madam and dear friend,
forgive me for interrupting your painstaking labor, but it’s to do with the article about Breitbach. Hermann Hesse is Swiss, and I would certainly not have written that he has become Swiss. He wrote to me very kindly about my book, and I would risk losing a friend who is very proud of his nationality just as, in fact, Switzerland is very proud of him. I risk losing other Swiss friends. Mr. Breitbach can hardly say he is “of Swabian extraction.” All German Swiss are of Swabian extraction. Just as all the Swiss from the canton of Geneva are of French extraction. The Swiss from the Ticino are of Italian extraction. We, the Austrians, are of Bavarian extraction. No, it’s impossible to claim that Hesse has become Swiss. One might as well say that Mr. Gidon was of “Norman” or Germanic extraction. Or that Rilke “was Czech” and “had become Austrian.” [. . .] It’s the desire to conquer the whole world on account of its Germanic roots, as far as the Italians of Milano, who are of “Vandal extraction.” No, Hesse is Swiss, just as Rilke, Kafka, and I are Austrians—for the whole world, except [. . .] and Breitbach.
I’m sorry. But if he gets threatening letters I have to say he himself writes letters to all and sundry, foolish, imprudent letters. [. . .] I know that at bottom he’s a good boy. [. . .] He’s one of those people who will always have “contacts” and “acquaintances,” but never any friends [. . .]
Enough. It’s not worth the trouble. Forgive me, my dear friend. Each time I write to you, I congratulate myself on having found you. And as I have already once had the unhappy experience of showing you my fatal propensity for shamelessness, believe me equally when I say how fond I am of you and of Mr. Gidon.
Your loyal friend, Joseph Roth
273. To Carl Seelig
Marseille
Hotel Beauvau
7 July 1934
(good as an address, even though I’m leaving)
My dear, dear Mr. Seelig,
one day, in case we should ever meet again, I may be able to say to you how wretched I am. No—I’m still no better.
Thank you very much for your good opinion of my Tarabas. It’s a bad book.
The Antichrist—which I think is good—is going out to you in uncorrected galleys. (Lacking the quotations from Picard’s book, which need to be added.)
I am very fond of you, the longer since I last saw you, the fonder I become.
Write soon!
Your Joseph Roth
274. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
11 Portland Place
London, 10 July [1934]
Dear friend,
now the whole thing is fucked again, and it’s not my fault. I asked you expressly whether you had the rights to your book, and it turns out that you’re contracted to Heinemann1 for the next two. I now need to conciliate, so that Viking doesn’t take your doings amiss, and I will talk to Ginzburg,2 who is here at the moment, tomorrow, I hope. It’s such a pity, my dear fellow! If only you’d informed me correctly! I did my best for you, and was quite close to gaining my objective!
Your Stefan Zweig
1. Heinemann: William Heinemann Ltd., a London
publishing house.
2. Ginzburg: Harold Ginzburg, co-owner and (with Ben Huebsch) director of Viking Press, the New York publisher.
275. To Stefan Zweig
Dégustation Cintra
Marseille
11 July 1934
My dear friend,
thank you for your telegram and letter. Of course I wrote to Gollancz straightaway. It’s a great coup, only unfortunately my foolish publishers—how often you wisely warned me against my friends L. and L.!1—force me to pay 60% to de Lange. Of the 2,000 dollars that Huebsch was paid—for film rights to Job—Landshoff gets 1,600 gulden, and I barely 3,500 francs. You have no idea how furious I am with myself; much less how the others, taking advantage of my craziness and helplessness, are furious with me. It’s the story of Aladdin and the 40 thieves, only with a bad ending.
I’m leaving in two hours. My chum Hermann Kesten has invited me, because he’s seen how wretchedly off I am. His address will be the one, until further notice: 119, Promenade des Anglais (for J.R.). I won’t be able to stick it with him for long. He has his wife and mother with him. After two days I’ll have to move into a hotel. I can’t share a toilet with acquaintances, and be seen in pajamas2 and see others so dressed. Grisly! Sooner be completely destitute, as once before. No other possibility. I’m too sick.
Please give Mr. Gollancz my address sometime. At the time I wrote to him, I wasn’t sure when I was leaving.
Should I thank you? In what form? It would be so much easier for me to think up an entire novel, than a warm and yet dignified way of expressing my gratitude to you. When did I ever have a friend like you? As good? As noble? As natural? Since the time I got your first letter to me—here in Marseille—five or 6 years ago, I’ve had a sense of being happier (the feeling of a barge at sea, when it encounters a steamer, I imagine, naumorphically) and unfortunately also the feeling that I’m bringing you bad luck. And believe me, this friendship is very difficult to bear.
And I still have something more to beg of you, harder than everything I’ve sought from you so far: will you give me 10 lines or so from your latest book, Erasmus—unpublished, to set at the head of it, or to conclude the book with—that might fit (or fit by association) with my Antichrist. I am asking for quotations from friends, to proof it—call it superstitious of me—against hell.
Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters Page 35