Thursday, 20 [August]
It seems funny to write it, but when something slightly unfamiliar happens to you, you always have a sense of absurdity and implausibility—so monotonous and well managed is the life we lead.
Well, I have been the victim of an act of banditry. For five minutes or so I was in the movielike situation of having a gun pointed threateningly at me: “Hands up!”
To be honest, he didn’t say “hands up.” I was with Gulian7 and his wife, up on Great Tohard. We had reached the summit and were admiring the landscape (which is exceptionally broad and rich in views). I was sauntering along when I heard a voice in front shout out:
“Don’t move!”
I didn’t realize what was happening; I thought it was Emil’s voice or some hiker fooling around. Then, after two or three seconds, the penny dropped. A tall guy was standing in front of us, with a forester’s coat, a Mephistophelean beard, a spiky moustache (both beard and moustache certainly false, though quite well stuck on), and a hunting rifle (double-barreled, I think) pointed at us. “Don’t move!”
He made a loading action, no doubt to impress us. There was no need. We were sufficiently impressed.
“Take your clothes off!”
We took our clothes off. We didn’t feel like arguing. By happy forethought we were wearing bathing suits underneath. We left our clothes in a heap and moved off a few meters. Still following us with his gun, he ordered us to lie at full length in the grass. As I was staring at him, he asked me a couple of times:
“What are you gaping at, eh?”
Then some terrible words:
“Don’t look round, you bunch of motherfuckers!”
He had a rasping voice, with a Hungarian accent. I heard him searching through the pockets—and wondered what else could happen to me. I saw again the events with Terente in 1925.8 For a moment I wondered whether he might take one of us and try to extort some money. But I was calm enough to joke to Emil:
“Well, it’s an experience, after all.”
Hortansa Gulian, who has a smattering of Hungarian, told the man to take what he wanted and leave. (Obviously she did this without turning her head and looking at him—which had been forbidden.)
“Olgos,” he replied in Hungarian. “Shut up!” Then I heard him munching something: he was eating some chocolate and rusks he had found in a handkerchief. Finally I heard:
“Okay, now come and get dressed!”
When I turned my head, he had vanished.
The balance sheet: he had taken my watch (which I greatly regret— clearly I am unlucky with clocks and watches), my tracksuit top, and roughly eighty lei that I had had in my pocket. Emil lost a silver cigarette case and about five hundred lei. It’s funny he left us the other things: beret, sunglasses, trousers.
Then we went back, half frightened, half amused. Our entry into Ghilcoş was priceless: the conversation with the gendarmes, the people looking at us, some wanting details, or smiling with a touch of disbelief, or beginning to feel worried. We are famous. Maybe they’ll write about it in the paper.
When I think about it now, my bandit was probably a dilettante. And if we didn’t feel too good in his company, he was also a little scared by the operation—afraid to approach us even for a moment. Hortansa was wearing earrings worth tens of thousands of lei, and each of them—of course—a wedding ring. We saved them. I think that if I had had a little cunning, and above all a little presence of mind, I could have saved my watch while I was taking off my trousers.
I also wonder whether his gun was loaded, and whether—had we rushed him with our walking sticks—we might not have put him to flight, or caught him—what a victory!—and taken him down with us to the police. But the gun might have been loaded after all, and it was not worth trying a glorious experiment to save the little we had to be stolen. Only if he had come close to us would I probably have done something.
Now the gendarmes are looking for him in the surrounding area. I’d quite enjoy having a chat with him.
I have begun Act Three after a lot of fumbling. I’m still not completely clear about it. I’m advancing slowly, illuminating short distances as I cross them but not knowing where I will go next. There are days when I write nothing, and others from which I select no more than three or four of the written pieces of dialogue. But I no longer have the distressing feeling of a few days ago—about which I spoke to both Marietta and Mircea— that I won’t be able to write any more at all and shall be left with a never-finished play.
It is moving with great difficulty—but it is moving.
Saturday, 22 [August]
I think it has become clearer. It was very hard, but now I sense that I have really achieved clarity once and for all.
Yesterday and today—though not very productive in terms of the number of pages (one and a half yesterday, four and a half today)—have sharpened the contours of Act Three. It has turned out quite different from what I planned, but I’m glad I have recovered a serious tone after the scenes with Bogoiu and the Major, which took it off in a direction that was too crudely comic. It won’t be a comic act. I have, for example, given up the scene with the fish caught by the Major—a scene I enjoyed so much in my first outlines. In fact, the Major and Mme. Vintila no longer appear at all in this act. I didn’t pack them off; they went of their own accord, through the inner logic of things.
The play is closing in around Leni, Ştefan, Bogoiu, and Jef. All three love her—each in his way—and when Leni leaves she will abandon all three. I am rediscovering a very old memory from a film I saw in childhood: The Three Sentimentalists. It is an emotion regained.
I am surprised at the psychological meanings that Bogoiu and Jef have acquired during the months that I’ve been writing the play. Originally intended as quite episodic characters with a mostly comic function, they have become linchpins of the whole psychological action.
So far I have written the first three scenes of Act Three, leaving unfinished (at 7:30 p.m.) the scene with Bogoiu and Leni. A summary outline has been done for the whole act.
The only danger is that the elimination of the Major and Mme. Vintila will leave the act too short. But I am determined not to let this influence me for the moment. I am writing the play as it compels itself to be written. Later, when it is performed, I shall make the strictly necessary amplifications—if any are indeed necessary. I have the impression that, especially given the length of the first act, the play could be divided into two parts, with a single interval after Act One. Acts Two and Three would then be performed almost straight through, with a single five-minute break between them.
I am thinking of various titles (“Holidays” is too flat): “A Sunny Day,” “The Game of Holidaymaking,” “Playing at Happiness.”
I think I have regained the joy of writing. For a moment (which lasted some ten days), it deserted me. If I remain in the mood for work, I shall stay in Ghilcoş until I finish—that is, if necessary, even after the first of September.
Tuesday, 25 [August]
I am halfway through the eighth scene, the high point of Act Three in which Leni and Ştefan have it out. From now on, the rest will be perfectly straightforward. I realize that if I work harder and make a more concentrated effort, I could finish everything in a single day.
But, on the one hand, the rain is back, and since yesterday morning we have again been in mid-November. I miss the sun so much . . . I’d grown used to working on the balcony—especially between five and seven in the afternoon, when Mount Ghilcoş right in front of me passed through the most delightful glow of twilight. And the presence of Teodoreanu, also bent over a desk on his balcony, was friendly and reassuring. . . .
On the other hand, I am still being bothered by the investigation into what happened on Ţohard. They have summoned me a few times to the police station to show me various suspects. In the end they settled on a guy who, so to speak, offers the highest guarantee of being guilty. I can’t swear he is the one, but I do know that his stare frigh
tens me. Now they have summoned me to the preliminary hearing in Miercurea-Ciuc. Obviously, I won’t go. But all these parleys, all these trips to the police station, all these statements I have to make (always with the fear of getting an innocent person into trouble) irritate me and, by interrupting the flow, prevent me from working.
All the same, I can now consider the play virtually complete. Two days more, or five or six, and it’ll be over. But I should like to finish it here, so that I don’t have to leave a single line until Bucharest.
Thursday, 27 [August]
No, I won’t finish it either today, tomorrow, or Sunday. I don’t know when I’ll finish. Although the eighth scene is now over—the one with Leni and Ştefan, which seemed the hardest in this act—not all the difficulties have passed. The very next scene, for example, between Ştefan and Jef, is putting up considerable resistance. I struggled with it the whole of yesterday afternoon, and again the whole of this morning, without coming away with more than five or six snatches of dialogue. Strange how resistances appear when you are least expecting them.
But I haven’t got myself worked up about it. I am waiting. The finale is shaping up splendidly, with a wealth of nuances that I didn’t suspect ten days ago, when the whole third act seemed lifeless. But will I be able to bring out all these nuances? If I don’t extract a moment of great delicacy and refined emotion from the penultimate scene (Leni, Ştefan, Bogoiu, Jef), the only explanation will be that I don’t have an ounce of talent.
As for the title, I think I’ll stick with Joucul de-a vacanţa [The Game of Holidaymaking].
Saturday, 29 August, 4 a.m.
I have finished. To whom shall I wire, as in my first year: “Passed exam. Am happy”?
But have I passed the exam? I’ll find out later.
Balcic. Sunday, 6 September
I have been here since yesterday. My accommodation (the Paruseff Villa), a poor Bulgarian’s home, is little more than a hovel. Very clean, though, and literally at the water’s edge. The waves break three meters from me. A yard, some chaises longues, and the sea stretched far out before me. I think I am at the midpoint of the bay.
The ceaseless sound of the waves has a rhythmic evenness that lulls me to sleep. My slumber was deep, even, and long, as never happened in Ghilcoş. Yet the roar of the waves never stopped, and my window was wide open all night.
This morning, my first dip in the sea. Rediscovered the great pleasure of swimming. And I swim so badly.
A circle of actors and painters, long lazy conversations, an idle, trouble-free, couldn’t-care-less atmosphere that is truly relaxing. Iancovescu, Ţoţa, Marietta Rareş, Lucian Grigorescu, Paul Miracovici, Baraschi, Mützner. Today we all had lunch together at Judge . . . (I’ve forgotten his name), and in the afternoon, with the sea in front of me, I listened to Bach (the Third Brandenburg,) Mozart (a violin concerto), Vivaldi, and Beethoven.
Evening is drawing in, I am alone in the house, and the waves still keep breaking alongside me. . . .
I won’t write here about what happened when I passed through Bucharest. Four quite tiring days. I didn’t see Leni, and perhaps I won’t see her any more. She asked me to visit her on Wednesday—and I didn’t find her at home. I’m fed up with it all. I don’t want to begin again the ordeal of telephone calls, waiting, suspecting, scheming. It is all such old hat, and so pointless. In a way, that incident will make it easier to find a solution for the play. I’ll give the part to Marietta—regretfully, but without hesitating. She’ll make of it what she can. I’d like her to act it with Iancovescu at least—but I fear that even that won’t be possible and that I’ll have to accept Toni in the end. In that case I’ll be heading for certain disaster.
On Wednesday evening I read the second and third acts to Marietta, Haig, the Nenişors, Mircea, and Nina, and by chance the Pencius. A dubious outcome: the first impression was rather depressing. But then I pulled myself together. There are a mass of criticisms that I should like to record here. But my ink has run out, and besides, it is too nice outside. Maybe tomorrow.
Monday, 7 [September]
Act Two might work in its present form. Maybe not even the scene with Leni and Jef needs anything more to be done to it. But the final scene absolutely must be reworked. In fact, that was what I felt right at the start, when I first wrote it.
The scene immediately after the two intruders leave is also quite inadequate. The idea is excellent (one of the best things I came up with in the whole play), but the goods are not delivered. I realized this myself, but it was Haig, in particular, who drew it to my attention.
The whole episode with the two stowaways works very well. They were all ears and laughed a lot.
That’s all I find at the moment to say about Act Two. The picture is much more complicated for Act Three.
Friday, 11 [September]
I leave this afternoon. I haven’t written anything, or read anything. I lay in the sun—that was just about all. A few happy days. Being lazy is my highest pleasure. That is why I haven’t noted anything here. It doesn’t interest me.
The sea is calm—a mirror.
Bucharest. Tuesday, 15 [September]
I saw Leni and told her I had decided to give the play to Iancovescu and Marietta. Only if that doesn’t work out will I be able to offer it to her again. She took the news with self-restraint, but the emotion was visible. Maybe not “emotion.” Surprise, annoyance, regret—and, very far off, an urge to burst into tears. Such is the stupid logic of the game we are playing with each other. So long as she knew that’ the part was hers, that I was writing and preserving it for her, she was thoughtless to the point of indifference. Now that she has lost it, or is threatened with losing it, the part becomes necessary for her and she suffers at no longer having it.
Nor am I any different. I am rediscovering that “sporadic boorishness” of which Swann spoke. All it takes is a little uneasiness—some doubt, self-questioning, and the idea that I am indifferent to her—and I suffer at not seeing her and think of her day and night. But when it happens (as it did this morning) that I find her dejected, yielding, and ready to love me, then I suddenly regain my distance and stop loving her. This morning I felt she was ugly. Quite simply, I didn’t like her—for the first time since I began to love her. But I know it’s not true, and that even if it were, it wouldn’t be important. The truth is that this morning I and not she was running the show—which forced her to love me, and me not to love her. It is a childishly simple psychological mechanism, which always functions in the same way.
Besides, this doesn’t prevent her from being, as before, coquettish and duplicitous—innocent amid a whole structure of lies. I felt bad listening to her explain last Wednesday’s incident. My recent rereading of Swann has once again shown me how much our comedy resembles all the comedies of love. Leni too is any old Odette, and even more am I any old Swann.
Saturday, 19 [September]
Long intricate dreams tonight, not much of which I can remember.
I am living in a kind of old house with a lot of other people—a boardinghouse?—in some place or other that is certainly not Bucharest. I am courting a girl and bring her into my room. Someone who seems to be her brother or lover, and who has been watching us from the balcony, enters the room and surprises us. A rather confused drama ensues. The girl and the boy both die, either murdered or by their own hand. I am responsible. I too will have either to be killed or to kill myself. But a woman intervenes, and in a long monologue (which seems to take place at the graveside of those two or at some monument) she tells how it was she who killed them—so that I am saved . . . and wake up.
The second dream was even more confused. I am in a large room with a huge number of people. As far as I can make out, it is a memorial meeting. A little later, things become clearer: it is the anniversary of the magazine Nouvelles littéraires. People are holding up large placards with writing on them, all over the vast ballroomlike hall.
A woman is giving a speech. She is interrup
ted by a man, who shouts out:
“Enough! You’ve talked too much about the Hebrews. I’m surprised you don’t bring Niemirower here too.”9
At that moment an elderly bearded Jew who may actually be Niemirower protests. He takes out a book and starts to read a Jewish prayer. The heckler also takes out a book, from which he reads a Romanian prayer. In reality, nothing can be heard because of the surrounding racket, but one can see the two men reading with great fervor at the back of the hall, on a tall monumental staircase as in a pompous scene from an illustrated magazine.
Some heavy scuffles break out. I, together with a girl or a boy who has been sitting beside me, slip away from the crowd and quickly go home—to the house in my first dream. For a moment I anxiously wonder whether I shall find the door open. It is open. I prepare to run into my room, but I don’t have time—because I wake up.
Evidently both dreams were much more complicated, but I cannot remember any more.
Tuesday, 22 [September]
The evening before last, on Sunday, I was at Maryse’s to give a reading for Iancovescu. Marietta and Haig were also there, as well as the Nenişors, Ţoţa, and Ghiţă Ionescu.1
A good reading, which people found quite easy to follow. Iancovescu was boisterous in his enthusiasm:
“It’s the most fantastic thing I’ve heard for the last forty years. It’s a great moment in Romanian theatre. You don’t realize what you’ve done. It’s an honor for me to act in it. You don’t realize the paths you are opening. What technique! What dialogue! What a wonder!”
I listened with amusement, quite calmly. I am getting to know him. Everything for him is fantastic, unique, epoch-making. Everything: his vineyard in Balcic, his dog, the sunset at Surtuchioi (which was indeed marvelous—I regret not having written in Balcic about that walk). I know how much Iancovescu’s superlatives need to be toned down in order to gain a precise idea of what he wants to say. So I don’t let myself be taken in by his excesses of enthusiasm. I know my play better than he does. But he really does seem to have liked it a lot, and an honest commitment can be read beneath his downpour of admiration. It is a point won.
Journal 1935–1944 Page 11