1. Mr. van Alfen: Philip van Alfen (1894–1969), on the death of Gerard de Lange in 1935, took over the publishing firm of Allert de Lange; previously he had been in charge of an advertising agency.
2. his girlfriend: Thea Sternheim (who was furthermore addicted to drugs at the time—see no. 393).
3. at Gottfarstein’s: Gottfarstein was a Talmudist, a Yiddish journalist in Paris, and a devoted friend to JR.
375. To Stefan Zweig
Sunday
22 March 1936
Amsterdam
Eden Hotel
Dear friend,
thank you for your kindness and promptness. You are quite right, of course an elevator attendant here is better than a parliamentarian in Africa. But, to explain Mrs. Manga Bell’s behavior, what was at stake for her was readying her son for a not inconsiderable inheritance. I can’t say how great or small his expectations are, or what his repulsive father has already sold or hocked. But the mother has the duty, really, to prepare the son in class terms in case he one day comes into the inheritance. Negroes won’t have the same respect for a servant. There’s nothing to be done about that. No, the one thing I do hold against her is that never in all those years did she think to enter him in a military academy, or in the navy, or, as I tried once, in a monastery. [. . .] and she’s more afraid of discipline than he is. I understand her when I think of my own mother, and the way she looked the first time she saw me in uniform. Outside the barracks on the main street . . . I don’t remember if I told you that my wife, in those days when I was writing desperately around the clock, came down with pleurisy, and was suddenly lucid, and asked after me. I was so rattled. I sent my sister-in-law a little money. Now it’s gotten better—i.e., worse—again. I couldn’t have borne it if my wife had died sane, and me not with her.—That just by the by.—I don’t know why I am so tormented.—Why someone torments me further when he can see that fate is already doing enough to finish me off.—I am so feeble, so wretched, it’s really true.
You’re right, we do weigh others down, but when we leave them, they are devastated.1 I’ve seen it myself.
I’d like to be alone for three months, but how, and where? In Vienna I’d run into all my wife’s relations, all 60 of them, and I’d have to visit her in the asylum, and so forth. I wouldn’t mind Salzburg, except I’d be reminded of you wherever I went. That wouldn’t be relaxing. Maybe Marseille—I tend to work quickly and well there.
Mr. van Alfen is a problem, the new publisher. He doesn’t know what a book is, or an author. Nor does he care about time, just money. (For me they’re the same thing.) He’ll give me at the most—I’ll learn finally on Tuesday—money to see me through to September. Which means the book must be done by September. And here I have at least another 2 weeks of patching the old one. I CAN’T send it to Huebsch as it stands. I can only send something when it’s properly finished! And if Huebsch doesn’t stand by his word, I’m done for. How do I get out of that?
Amsterdam is terribly expensive. I live terribly cheaply. (I cut the pages you wrote on out of the notebook, and send them to you.) I’ve seen that, for myself alone, I get through about 2,500 French francs a month. I’ve also seen that my advance is only 1,000 gulden. The accounts for the goddamned Hundred Days aren’t in yet, and I have the second novel, which I’m just finishing now. I don’t see why I am being continually tormented on all sides. Useless little writers get as big an advance as I do. People exaggerate my lack of responsibility. They exaggerate my strength.
I’m afraid of London. Maybe, without my fear, I might have had a chance of escaping from all my worries, with a film. I have lots of “ideas.” But how, how, with my fear? You’re right, I don’t belong there. But how are you going to get here in time? How I need you, and how far away you are. And you go and put further miles between us, God knows, why do you do it.
You are unfair to me, you exaggerate my drinking and my foolishnesses. You have your own foolishnesses, you know. I am fairer to you than you are to me.—I’ll write you on Wednesday, after the meeting with the publisher on Tuesday. But write to me in the meantime! I need it urgently.
Sincerely,
your Joseph Roth
Please give the enclosed letter to your wife.
Please write to me. I will need to be very strong on Tuesday, when I see Mr. van Alfen.
Also, please let your wife read what I write to you. I want her to see it—I want you both to see everything.
1. devastated: Friedl Roth, Andrea Manga Bell, but also the pending case of Friderike Zweig (see no. 388).
376. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
49 Hallam Street
London W 1
24 March 1936
Dear friend,
I hope I’ll hear good news from you tomorrow. My only fear is that you’ll show the people too clearly how much you depend on them. Perhaps I’ll get some word of you from Marcuse, who’s supposed to be over here. Seriously, try not to think too much about domestic matters. You have every right just to be ill for a fortnight, and not to correspond. And be careful with the novel too. What you refer to as “patching”1 seems not without its dangers to me. Your patching on the Antichrist didn’t do that book much good, it seems to me. And when you told me the story of your novel, it was beautifully clear in outline, ornamentation would only weight it down.
Think hard about where you want to be. I wouldn’t go for Salzburg, you would suffer in the atmosphere there, unless you were to go completely Catholic. Vienna wouldn’t do either, if you have relations there. I personally felt very well in Czechoslovakia, with Marienbad as a workplace, and I’m sure Yugoslavia would be excellent, and perhaps even better for you. I always have the sense that a Slav environment stimulates you. Budapest is an extraordinarily charming city, unbelievably cheap and full of cafés. For the likes of us, not speaking the language, it’s an ideal place to work. I thought about it once myself.
I need to read my proofs now, and am just feeling very dissatisfied. Well, I’ll see how I get out of it. Warmly
St. Z.
Please read the enclosed.
1. “patching”: Not that JR is a habitual “patcher,” but SZ prided himself on his technique of reducing, cutting, sweating out words; his first drafts could be many hundreds of pages long. No wonder he reacts so allergically to JR’s term. That remains the fundamental difference between the two writers: JR is fast and impulsive; in SZ one always hears the slowly ticking metronome.
377. To Stefan Zweig
25 March 1936
Amsterdam
Eden Hotel
Dear friend,
I have to tell you that I am absolutely washed up: de Lange won’t give me a contract. The new publisher left me in the lurch for 14 days before telling me. All my work is for nothing, my life, my crazy industry, my diligence: every little shit gets a contract from de Lange, I don’t. Alfred Neumann1 gets 500 gulden a month, Gina Kaus2 gets 300, but what can I say! Do you see now that I’m a beaten man, and don’t need any more censure from you. Please be good to me at least, I’m so badly in need of a real friend. I’m lost. I beg you for a word.
Your Joseph Roth
After 3 weeks’ work on the novel such a blow, such blows. I am being beaten. I’m finished, truly finished. It’s all up with me, I have no more ideas. I’ve had a temperature of 38 since yesterday. All I can do is get me to a monastery, because I mayn’t kill myself.
1. Alfred Neumann (1895–1952), novelist, playwright, and scenarist. Lived in Fiesole, near Florence, from 1933 to 1938, then Nice, then Los Angeles.
2. Gina Kaus (1894 Vienna–1985 Los Angeles), writer, biographer, went into exile in 1938 in Paris and London. Between 1933 and 1937, Allert de Lange published five of her books.
378. To Stefan Zweig
26 March 1936
Amsterdam
Eden Hotel
/>
Dear friend,
forgive me for burdening you like this. I just got your letter with the extract. I think it’s a report from the Reichspost1 and therefore a distortion. Everyone knows that the Reichspost has been bought by Papen. But that’s not to say that the Jesuits haven’t been caught up in the general folly.
Here, it was exactly as I told you: Landauer is powerless, like a little employee. Mr. van Alfen, the new executive at the house is an advertising agent [. . .] He’s never read a book in his life, he even boasts about it. Your letter to Landauer didn’t do anything, even though he passed it on up. All Landauer’s points about my silly life, and so forth, were unavailing. I’ve been here for two weeks for nothing, though at 800 francs expenses. I’ve worked for nothing, to get the Regular into shape. On the contrary: since it is finished, and is due to appear in autumn, no other publisher can come and offer me a new contract. You can tell me advances are ruinous or immoral till you’re blue in the face. It seems to me it would be more immoral to give up writing and living altogether. It’s just a fact that I don’t have any money. I can’t live without advances. Fate is oppressing me in a terrible and tawdrily symbolic way, as if it were aping a stupid romantic novelist. I’m even ashamed of the blows it deals me. Such low blows.
I don’t know what to do. (I know: it’s my refrain.) For a long time I’ve had the feeling you can’t stand to hear it any more. I have too much respect for your achievement not to understand that you don’t care for unlucky friends like me; that we might even do you harm. But all I say to you is, don’t keep it from me. That would be an unnecessary humiliation. Don’t do it. It would really be a sin.
I can’t go to Marienbad for the “season.” Spas are sterile. I hate Budapest. And in Yugoslavia I’d be afraid of war breaking out. It’s a barbarian country. I can only go to Austria. I know Belgrade, Zagreb, Dubrovnik very well. It’s a police state. I’d have to get a residence permit, and suffer searches, etc. I was a reporter there once for the FZ,2 they know all about me. In my condition police states are a non-starter.
But perhaps you’ll let me tell you about that on some future occasion.
Sincerely,
your old Joseph Roth
1. the Reichspost: a reactionary Viennese newspaper.
2. the FZ: the Frankfurter Zeitung. Roth was in Albania and Yugoslavia in 1927.
379. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
49 Hallam Street
London W 1
27 March 1936
Dear friend,
I can only hope what you wrote me was mistaken, perhaps based on some initial disappointment on your part. I can’t imagine that de Lange and Landauer would drop you like that, and I’m sure things will be sorted out to your satisfaction. You must remember that in the last resort these are business people, who do sums, and buy and sell wares. It’s the way of the world, and we can’t change it. Probably it’s just a sort of transition, and then they’ll make you an offer that’s more in keeping with their calculations. But don’t let yourself be driven mad, there’s only one thing that can save you, namely a good book, and I’m sure your new book will do the trick for you. And then you will have to switch over temporarily, and think film thoughts for a couple of weeks. That’s the only way of getting at larger sums, since our old seventy million readership has deserted us.
Stay as calm as you can. Lamenting won’t help, and you’ll need all your strength for your work. I’m sure Landauer, who knows you and likes you, won’t drop you. I wrote to him right away. I am more sanguine than you, and I’m sure it was just what theater people call a fausse sortie. Sincerely your
St. Z.
My dear friend, don’t despair. I, as a professional pessimist, have known for years that you are bound to go from one crisis to the next. But on this occasion I feel optimistic. They won’t drop you. But then, when it’s all right again, you will need to get yourself properly in grip. Perhaps the only reason they’re hesitating is to focus your mind properly.
380. To Stefan Zweig
28 March 1936
Amsterdam
Eden Hotel
Dear friend,
I’ve just gotten your nice letter. Unfortunately, you’re wrong. I’ve already written to you that it pains me in my soul if you spend time, ingenuity, and energy writing letters to the helpless Landauer. The only reason he didn’t write to say perfectly candidly that there was absolutely nothing he could do, was to save face. Perhaps he’s too punctilious. But he’s a mensch at least.
When will you finally believe that I have an incorruptible eye and an unerring nose for disaster! I can see Landauer being treated like a serf by the new boss. He’s worried for his job and salary. I can see it! How can you still think people always approach me in a spirit of pedagogy, like so many trainers!—I don’t understand you, you’re always right about everything else.—You don’t want to accept that, in spite of everything, I’m smart. I know Landauer! The janitor of the building he lived in for 20 years in Berlin always yelled at him when he forgot to wipe his boots in the corridor when it was raining—he stood for it. He is gentle and decent and submissive. He is a gentleman, but only among gentlemen. Otherwise he’s a serf to serfs. Just by the by. I only mention it, so that you don’t waste more of your time writing to a junior official. You demean yourself, and me with you. You don’t even hear me when I say something true, because I say so much that’s wrong.
But it’s even worse than that. I went to Querido. But he and Dr. Landshoff won’t give me a penny either. I won’t be given a contract, not by anyone. Querido would pay 1,500 gulden, for a finished manuscript. Well, it’s not finished, is it?—I can get a contract, if I want, from Querido, 1,500 gulden on delivery of a manuscript. What use is that to me? From the goodness of his condescension he bought one of my best stories1 off me for 200 gulden, with all rights, including film. What else could I have done? At least I’ve now paid for my stay here. My room costs 2 gulden. No less than 14 days de Lange’s successor made me wait, only to tell me that he didn’t want me. Landauer lent me 2 gulden a day on which to get by. Of course I’m grateful to him, but I also can’t forgive him for playing the “publisher” in front of you and Dr. Wolff and Leites. Yes, he likes me. But he’s a young dog, and a subordinate, and he likes to play at being something he’s not.
What do I do now? Rattle a can outside a church? Go to a monastery? They won’t have me there, you know, not until my affairs are in order. I’m so tired, and so clear-sighted at the same time. Crazy imaginings accompany my lucidity and my exhaustion.
You don’t believe me. Then there’s no point. If you’re my friend, why don’t you believe in my sense, the way you believe in my character and gift? We probably fritter away 50% of our friendship on that. Pity, eh?
I don’t know why you take me for a fool. A madman isn’t a donkey. You would know that best. I see clearer, straighter—personal things included.
But what’s the point of rehearsing all this now! I see no way out, and if you want to think fast and true for me now, then tell me. It’s a great sacrifice, I know that. I’m ashamed, too.
But, please, let’s not go on at cross-purposes. Trust me at last, won’t you. I beg you to, so that our precious friendship doesn’t break over it. I have nothing more to say except my dying words. I love you and don’t want to lose you, is what I’m saying. Just please stop not believing in my clarity of mind. Don’t talk past me any more.
I am your sincere
Joseph Roth
1. one of my best stories: The Leviathan, first published by Querido in 1940, after Roth’s death; the edition fell into the hands of the Germans, and was largely destroyed.
381. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
49 Hallam Street
London W 1
31 March 1936
Dear friend,
I see you’re subconsciously angry w
ith me for not coming up with any sensible ideas. You have the feeling that I don’t understand you, or appreciate the difficulties of your position. But, my dear friend, that’s the awful thing about it, it’s not that I don’t understand the position now, but that, like all your friends, I’ve seen it coming for years. Everything you’re experiencing now, we’ve experienced in advance for you, shared your worries, and more, we’ve anticipated the bad liver that drinking was bound to give you and the bitterness with which you will inevitably turn against us. You didn’t have to be a prophet to see it all coming. Dear friend, if you really want to be clear-sighted, then you must concede there is no salvation for you unless you lead an utterly secluded life in some very cheap place somewhere. Not Paris, not the Foyot, no metropolis at all, some voluntary cloister. You saw how shocked we were when you failed to get by on two and three times what you’re going to be reduced to now, and some secret sixth sense tells me you will begin to feel much better once you’ve left Paris, and are in some retreat somewhere, when you’ve performed the decisive adjustment you seemed not to want to undertake willingly. You must get it out of your head, the idea that we’re somehow being rough with you, or hard on you. Don’t forget we’re living in a period of general doom, and we can count ourselves lucky if we get through it at all. Don’t go accusing publishers, don’t blame your friends, don’t even beat your own breast, but finally have the courage to admit that however great you are as a writer, in material terms you’re a poor little Jew, almost as poor as seven million others, and are going to have to live like nine-tenths of the human beings in the world, on a small footing and with a tightened belt. For me that would be the only proof of your cleverness: don’t always “fight back,” stop going on about the injustice of it all, don’t compare your earnings to those of other writers who don’t have a tenth of your talent. Now is your chance to show what you call modesty. And if you reproach me with not thinking you clever enough, then I just say to you: all right then, prove it! Be clever enough finally to give up all your false notions of “obligations.” You have ONE obligation, which is to write decent books, and not to drink too much, so that you remain among us for as long as possible. I implore you not to waste your strength in futile rebellions, don’t go accusing other people, decent business people who calmly and quite rightly do their sums, which is something you never learned to do. Now or never is the moment for you to change your life, and maybe it will have been a good thing that you were finally brought to a point where the old road didn’t go on any more, and you were forced to turn back.
Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters Page 47