Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters

by Michael Hofmann

  Yes, you strike me as very cheerful, and it makes me glad. Your words are full of cheer.

  If only you knew how I felt! How ringed with darkness! For days at a time, I fear for my reason, and presentiments come back that I haven’t had since boyhood: that I will go mad at the same age as my father. My dear friend, my sufferings are appalling! Work is flight, for me. I have written 3 novellas and 6 articles, and many private jottings for myself. I am horribly beset with mortal and immortal darknesses. Write to me right away, at Kesten’s address. As soon as I’ve found a cheap hotel, I’ll give you that address.—I wish I could throw my arms around you. The business with Gollancz made good sense, I am so, so fond of you. Rescue me please, believe in me, believe in my reason not least!

  Your old J.R.

  1. L. and L.: Landauer and Landshoff.

  2. pajamas: A slightly frivolous-sounding but inalienable principle of the self-styled “hotel-patriot” Joseph Roth.

  276. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)

  Grand Café Glacier

  Marseille

  11 July 1934

  Madam, dear friend,

  you can’t have known how much I would panic on learning that you lent me 500 francs in 1934. How will I ever get out of my debts! At least write and tell me how much the Weekly Review is paying you! This is awful! Write to me—quickly! Urgent!

  The address of Mr. Moreaux is Vauxvain [?], Oise, près Gisors, Eure, 75 km from Paris.

  But he’s already written, Mrs. Manga Bell will write to you. I am leaving, to stay with my friend Hermann Kesten, 199 Promenade des Anglais, Nice.

  Here, I’ve completed 3 novellas and 6 articles, I must write another 6 articles and a novella before I can get on to my novel. Write to me! And remember to look up my friend Fuchs at the Austrian embassy, well in advance of your departure for Austria. If practical, take Mr. Poupet with you. He is a good friend, a good politician, a good sort—but he won’t write to me. You always have to go and see him and speak to him. He is “concrete” like a good many of my compatriots: they’re not good at physical distance.

  [Joseph Roth]

  277. To Walter Landauer

  Hotel Nordzee, Zandvoort

  [Nice, no date]

  Wire right away what to do stop Zweig is writing Gollancz heard from Heinemann that contract exists between Heinemann and Huebsch for Antichrist as Huebsch has rights to next two books stop wire Zweig 11 Portland Place London my innocence stop check contracts send Zweig and me copies address Kesten Nice

  Roth

  278. To Stefan Zweig

  11 Portland Place, London

  [Nice, no date]

  Inform Gollancz immediately that according to information from Kiepenheuer and Landshoff Antichrist rights free stop wire him also stop preserve my honesty at all costs stop Huebsch subcontract with Heinemann only applies to novels am in despair wire me address Kesten 119 promenade des anglais Nice

  Roth

  279. To Victor Gollancz

  London (written in English)

  [Nice, no date]

  Assure by my honor that conforming to informations of my German publisher Antichrist free and agreement Viking and Heinemann does not apply Antichrist stop near explanations follow

  Joseph Roth

  280. To Stefan Zweig

  Nice

  13 July 1934

  Dear friend,

  I am writing to you in high excitement, half an hour after wiring you and Gollancz.

  I enclose a letter from my publisher Landauer—proof that I couldn’t have known of the agreement between Huebsch and Heinemann about Antichrist.

  I implore you, please explain this to Messrs. Gollancz and Huebsch and Ginzburg. I am an innocent victim—I’m terrified that I’ll be seen as a swindler.

  I am writing to you in high excitement, I am washed up. 40% of 100 pounds does not represent salvation.

  I am finished.

  I’ve telegraphed away the last of my money, including to Gollancz, in wretched English. Please, I care desperately about preserving my honor. Help me! It’s all I can do to keep stammering those words.

  Please believe me. You know me. Landshoff and Landauer told me Tarabas was the last book that I had under contract to Viking.

  [. . .]

  I am beside myself, at the end of my tether, finished, I am feeling close to suicide, for the first time in my life.

  I beg you, my dear friend, your

  J.R.

  1. Orcovente1

  You remember this exotically named company set up by my friends: Landauer, Landshoff, and Schottländer (garment dealer in Berlin) after Hitler’s accession, and on my behalf, as Landauer told me at the time.

  Apparently, this company shelled out 6,000 Swiss francs to Kiepenheuer Verlag, to free up my foreign rights.

  So all the moneys for my foreign rights were paid in to “Orcovente.”

  In the meantime, Viking had sent 2,000 dollars to Kiepenheuer [. . .]

  In the meantime, as you will recall, little Rosner2 became a fixture in my house, and—voluntarily, as I believed at the time—my secretary.

  He had also become—by my agency—because I took him to be poor and honest—Landauer’s secretary.

  He lied to me, he couldn’t even type—and Mrs. Manga Bell did all his typing for him.

  One day Kesten became aware of some inconsistencies,3 and threw him out.

  (I paid half his tab at the Hotel Foyot—750 francs.)

  [. . .]

  Kindly note, from the top part of my letter, which I have drawn up with all my available papers, to the best of my ability, and with the assistance of the very conscientious Mr. Kesten, that I am not so stupid as I might sometimes appear.

  2. Kindly note, further, that, for all the friendly feeling between us, you would do well to avoid looking at your best friend in too predictable and summary a fashion: I am not just a Jew inclined to “lostness” but also a savvy Jew; I am not just a disinherited lieutenant of the old army, used to shelling out 60% of everything, but also one of those used to lending money to officers of my type; it’s not Huebsch on the one side (caricature version thereof) and me (caricature version thereof) on the other.

  3. Straining myself to the utmost, in feverish agitation, tormented by the thought to whom and why I have to pay money in 8 days’ time—terrible, terrible—you have no idea how terrible!—I am writing to you with colored crayons, and in the hope you might break free of the iced-over notions of me that you have formed. (This isn’t a game, you know.)

  4. I have always told you the truth. What I didn’t like about you, what I did. But desperation and torment and what has offended and hurt and upset and destroyed me was never so strong as now, in all the time I’ve been fond of you. And I tell you now, with the justification of the condemned friend that you are unfair to me, unfair, UNFAIR!!—You do NOT have the right to judge me from your privileged knowledge of my person in the way one (you too, alas) judges other people whose external situation may resemble mine.

  5. Even if I’m pissed, I’m still sufficiently sober to understand who’s trying to diddle me and who isn’t.

  6. You’re smart. I’m not. But I see things you can’t, because your smartness blinds you to them. You have the grace of reason, and I of unhappiness. Don’t give me any more advice—help me, act for me. I’m going under.

  Is it possible you have so much brilliant insight into dead figures—and none for your living friend? Or am I dead to you? Listen, I am still alive, I am a human being, I can see for instance that Gollancz shows solidarity with Heinemann, and is therefore withdrawing his offer.

  And you have no right to distrust my insight as if it were some grocer’s.

  Oh, what do I care! Just tell me you don’t like getting letters from me.

/>   I know the process:

  Gollancz doesn’t want to antagonize Heinemann.

  The Antichrist could be a success!

  They don’t want to step on each other’s toes. Solidarity! You withdraw your offer and call a man of honor a cheat.

  Not with me you don’t!

  I DON’T WANT YOU going through my affairs with a publisher.

  Believe me or don’t believe me. See for yourself! And while you’re going through my affairs, just set aside for a while your preconceptions regarding my character.

  Don’t you worry, I’m as clever as your Huebsches, your Gollanczes, your Heinemanns and your Landauers!

  I was just lazy, and easily deceived.

  I’ve had it anyway.

  In my will I will write down the names of all those I mistrust.

  (I’ll send you a copy.)

  None of my tormentors will take any pleasure in my end.

  Gollancz has offended me—I am going to challenge him. What do I care about his “bond” with Heinemann. Heinemann gave bad information. Landauer and Landshoff never gave me any statements.4 I destroy all my manuscripts. I’m making a will. It won’t be any good for anyone if I die. But before that, I’m going to kill at least 2 grocers who have the cheek to accuse me of cheating. No apologies! And that’s called “solidarity.” It’s the Antichrist. Mr. Reece is in the picture. I’ve lost because I was careless—lost my life. Well, soit. The war was no fun either. I was doomed 15 years ago.—Write to me straightaway, and tell me you wash your hands of me. Go with God. I am very fond of you. I embrace you. Believe me,

  your J.R.

  1. Orcovente: The laws governing foreign exchange, and the efforts of the Third Reich to seize the funds of exiled German writers, made the arrangements of such companies as Orcovente too complicated for their beneficiaries and authors to follow.

  2. Rosner was a young Communist and protégé of Egon Erwin Kisch; he fell on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

  3. inconsistencies: Hermann Kesten writes, “I do not recollect any ‘inconsistencies’ on Rosner’s part, and I certainly didn’t throw him out, being neither his employer nor his hotelier.”

  4. L. and L. never gave me any statements: Here, Kesten—a onetime publisher as well as author—writes, “Like many authors, Roth was sometimes subjectively right and objectively wrong in his remarks about his publishers, sometimes objectively right and subjectively wrong, often plain right, and often plain wrong. In conversation, one could listen to his polemics against his publishers, and either agree or disagree with him. So far as Landshoff and Landauer were concerned, there were not many publishers who were so close to their authors, and there was no author for whom they took more trouble and expense than Joseph Roth.”

  281. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth

  [July 1934]

  [. . .]

  I implore you, don’t1 do anything in your present state, don’t post letters without showing them to a friend first, you are overstrained. Don’t send any telegrams at all, pretend the telegraph has been disinvented. It won’t make the desired impression, it will do you harm. It will disadvantage you, because others will feel your impatience, your inability to wait. I beg you: please calm down! Don’t drink. Alcohol is the Antichrist and money, not the wretched cinema. They’re not stealing your shadow, it’s you making yourself into a shadow, a pale shadow of yourself, by your drinking—please, my friend, take my offer, take a cure for a month, and under strict supervision. . . .

  1. don’t: Zweig might as well have written to Don Quixote, asking him to desist. The expression “dialog of the deaf” comes to mind. At the bottom, at the root of everything is temperament.

  282. To Carl Seelig

  Nice

  c/o Hermann Kesten

  119 Promenade des Anglais

  17 July 1934

  Dear Mr. Carl Seelig,

  thank you! My friend, Hermann Kesten, invited me here; how long I’ll be able to stick it out, I’ve no idea. I’m feeling so wretched, I’ve no alternative but to endure everything. I’m penniless, otherwise I’d be back in Rapperswil. The Antichrist is paid for. I’m not getting anything more out of it. I’m morally washed up too—so people tell me.

  Oh, I’m so wretched! I can’t write it all down.

  Allert de Lange will send you the Antichrist.

  Sincerely,

  your old Joseph Roth

  283. To Stefan Zweig

  [Summer 1934]

  [. . .]

  my friend Kesten, as a suitable representative in my business affairs. Only, Kesten is a close friend of Landshoff’s as well. In addition, he’s a writer himself, who rates me—as a writer, not as a human being—much lower than he does himself. Part envy, part inferiority. You know human beings are not straightforward, nor do they want to be. And all that’s easily squared with friendship. I can SEE it.

  So he can’t be my representative.

  None of which matters.

  What matters is this:

  What matters, and this is all that matters, is that I have a guaranteed income between 1 August 1934 and 1 August 1935.

  Only that will allow me to draw a deep breath, and begin to think.

  What if Huebsch together with one of those English publishers were to leave you a sum of money to last me a year, and you send me a fixed amount each month—I’d be happy with that!

  End of October I’m to deliver my novel.1 It’s terrific material. I won’t tell you about it just yet. I was really into it. When that shit happened, I completely lost the thread.

  It’s done, I haven’t written a line for 3 weeks!

  You’re leaving Europe, and you’re my only real friend!

  You will leave, and I must have a secure income for a year, and with you not there, and your authority vis-à-vis others, and toward me, I’ll be up against it.

  Will you promise me the following:

  That you leave me 12,000 marks for one year, before you go.

  It’s the only thing that matters. Oh God, I can’t write a line without some security.

  And then I’ll promise you in return that I won’t put myself out for strangers any more.

  I will lock myself away. But I need to have that security.

  Surely I can have 1,000 marks, if I’m responsible for 8 people?

  If you like, I can make do on less, but I have to be able to rely on it.

  The “whip” is very bad. It’s at the point where it’s no longer driving me on, but killing me instead. How would you like to write my obituary?

  I’m through anyway, I’m too serious, you know, I wouldn’t be able to say something like that glibly.

  Give me your exact address for the near future. I’ll send you my will. You decide what’s to be done with it if you’re not there either. Will you be so kind? Please. Tell me, honestly.

  I beg you sincerely not to go away before I’ve got a year ahead of me. I can’t deal with Landshoff and Landauer any more. I’m finished. And I can’t write a line, unless I have some security.

  The most pressing debts are important! Please tell that to Huebsch!

  I embrace you sincerely

  Your J.R.

  I’d like to write a big novella before this next novel. It’s a lovely thing, and it’s been preoccupying me.2

  Please believe me, I’ve been so maltreated by Kiepenheuer.

  1. my novel: presumably The Hundred Days, published by Allert de Lange in 1935.

  2. preoccupying me: possibly The Leviathan.

  284. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth

  [July 1934]

  Dear friend,

  as your friend I’m going to be honest with you—for the first time, I’m really afraid for you. You’re overwrought, it’s alcohol or it’s
something else, I can see it in your (senseless) letter to Gollancz, in your whole being. I must beg you, please not to be so impatient always. Those wires going out every which way were a sign of it. A letter would have had the same effect—no, it would have settled the matter much more calmly and clearly. You can’t write to Gollancz like that. He never made a contract with you, he just declared himself in principle willing to pay you a certain amount, and then, when he learned that future books of yours are going to be with Heinemann, he took a step back. No contracts were signed; he never made an offer for your book, it was offered to him, and he tried to do the best he could. And then you write him an idiotic letter which is the first thing that could really harm you in this whole affair. I’m sure Kesten never saw that letter. A plea to him might have been a different matter, asking him to stick to his original position, but instead in the second part of the letter you start to threaten him! Left to ourselves, Huebsch and I could have come up with a compromise solution—but come on, you’re an examiner of souls, you must see that your wires and express letters are symptoms. You wanted everything quicker and more excitably than the natural course of things allows. You sought to force time, as you seek to force money. Just think how much energy you’ve wasted in this continual haggling and back-and-forth; I’ve been imploring you for years, adjust to the reality that as a German Jewish author nowadays you’ll only be lucky enough in certain exceptional circumstances to earn money, and that the writer’s life is historically a pretty unprofitable one. Don’t try to force an income for yourself that’s impossible, that’ll only get you into warped contracts, tangles, and these unceasing difficulties! For God’s sake, man, get a grip on yourself, since that Gollancz letter I’ve begun to really fear for you. You’ve got to stop boozing. You’ll have to go on a proper cure for a month and get dried out—please believe me. I wouldn’t say it otherwise. You know I’ve been urging you to do it for a year, only that can help you, nothing else.

  And calm down, my dear fellow! It’s your haste and panic and nervousness that makes everything so difficult. I can’t go back to Gollancz after your latest letter, but I will talk everything through with Huebsch, and think of what’s best to do as soon as he’s here.