Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  I think there is much else besides to be learned from Dubnow.

  People are never more interesting than at moments of sudden political change. Overnight they abjure, modify, attenuate, explain, fall into line, justify themselves, overlook what they do not care to see, remember when it suits them. If this is all done with a little cynicism, it is still bearable. But there is a demon of consistency that forces people to show that both yesterday, when they were for the old regime, and today, when they are against it, their attitude has remained “in principle” the same. No one beats Camil in this respect. Sometimes he is amusing: no one is more disoriented than he is, more convulsed with fear, more hysterical at moments of uncertainty, more catastrophic in his forebodings—and then, with his old triumphant smile, he explains not only that he foresaw everything but that he could have prevented it “if people had listened” to him. To the Legionaries he gave every banal assurance (that too, though, via second fiddles, secondhand women, young down-and-outs). He didn’t even hesitate to write, and then spread around “confidentially,” his deplorable September memorandum in which he showed that he had always been a Legionary and that, though he had been friendly with me, so too had Nae Ionescu (which was no doubt enough for it to become a precedent in case law).

  But today he claims, as stoutly as ever, that he was never a Legionary and that (in his own words) he could not feel better than under the present regime, which is the regime of national values.

  The most pronounced feature in that man is his blithe lack of awareness—for only that can explain how he can talk about something he did a while back without realizing how odious it was. When Poldy Stern2 asked him to take home some personal papers and hide them, not only did he refuse, but he telephoned and reported it to Zavoianu, the chief of police at the time, adding that he, Camil Petrescu, declined all responsibility and could not say for sure whether the papers in question were merely business contracts or dollars! What a vile act of denunciation! And Camil does not even have the awareness to understand this and to take fright!

  A month ago, when Zoe left my place at night, she almost never forgot to remind me that no one should know we were seeing each other. “You see, my brothers are Legionaries, and I don’t want to make things awkward for them.” But today she rang me, asked me to go round, and when I hesitated on leaving to pass through her brother’s room (he being there), she told me not to worry.

  “Go on, darling. What does it matter?”

  Indeed, it doesn’t at all.

  Haig is still under arrest.3 Yesterday Margareta Papagoga—who is also acting at the National Theatre—told me some funny things about the satisfaction with which people there learned of Haig’s departure, and especially of the much-hated Marietta’s sudden downfall. It has been impossible to collect signatures for a petition in support of Haig. (He seems to be in a serious predicament because he allowed speeches to be made from a megaphone attached to his balcony. Frankly, I think it will be sorted out, and there is no way Haig will be made a martyr. Nor would I want him to be.)

  It was a terrible thing that Natasa Alexandra said aloud at a rehearsal in Marietta’s presence: “Wherever the General is, I kiss his balls, I suck his cock, for delivering us from the Legionaries.” You can’t get more enthusiastic than that!

  Thursday, 6 February

  I keep thinking of my play about the Grodeck family. I should make up my mind to write. A few months ago the idea of writing literature would have seemed to me an aberration, and in fact even today I wouldn’t dare or feel like writing anything other than plays—that is, slightly mechanical pieces that you do somehow “by rote.” “Grodeck” would be especially easy to write, both because the first two acts, like the scenario, are already clearly defined, and because, by contrast, the direction, meaning, and denouement of the last act—or the last two, if there are four altogether—are still very uncertain. Thus, having set out with firm ground under my feet, I would have enough space ahead of me for surprises and enough room for maneuver.

  But I should make up my mind. How much longer will my relative liberty persist? By spring, will things be as favorable for solitude, reading, and writing as they are now? Are not fresh calamities in store right now, without our yet being able to see them?

  For some time now (several years) I have been thinking of a comedy that takes place in the editorial offices of a newspaper. At first I imagined a simple one-act comedy set on a summer’s day (1928-1929) at the height of the political holiday season, with no events, no news, a short print run, bored reporters not paid for weeks, expectations about a major political figure who has been at death’s door for some time and whose final passing will require a special edition that is already set and waiting to roll. The obituary is written, the photograph measured to page, the biography assembled—only the dead man does not want to die. And this goes on for several days.

  Suddenly there is a sensational event (I’m not yet sure whether a murder or a tempestuous romance), which makes the whole staff sit up and momentarily gives the paper all its old bustle. When the telephone rings with the news that the famous dignitary has finally passed away, the editor briefly orders it to be mentioned somewhere on the back pages—and the curtain falls.

  Not much of a story, you might say. But I would be interested mainly in the milieu, the atmosphere, the character types—which I know so well from Cuvântul. Altogether I think something very funny could come out of it.

  I don’t know why I was reminded today of this old project (which up to now has remained so vague that I haven’t felt moved to write any notes about it). But not only did everything suddenly become more coherent; the material itself seemed richer than for a mere joke in one act. Why not a full-length play? Why not try to capture, in a newspaper milieu, some changes in the general social situation? That, of course, would imply something quite different from a light comedy. But this inclination of mine to write for the theatre is encouraged by the thought that I would not be caught in the vise of three acts. I have made up my mind to write (if at all) with the greatest freedom to cut between scenes (a lot of very brief tableaux), with much moving about on the part of the characters.

  I am so light-minded that I forget all that has happened, all that is still happening, all that is in store, all that is awaiting us! No, I don’t forget. But I too get carried away by an evening’s calm.

  I have resumed the English lessons that I gave up nearly two years ago. I am doing them with quite an interesting American, but I’m not yet sure how much he will help me learn. Meanwhile I continue to read (Shaw’s Man and Superman). It is strange that I read English much more easily than I do German. My German vocabulary is certainly much richer than my English (and I can still utter a sentence fairly intelligibly in German, whereas I find it quite impossible to put three English words together), and yet I read Shaw fluently—or almost fluently—but have to struggle quite hard with Dubnow. The wild thing in German is the syntax. You can go four or five lines until you find the subject or complement relating to the definite article with which the sentence begins.

  In today’s papers there is a new law aimed at political repression. It surpasses everything so far devised on the matter.

  Friday, 7 February

  Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, has fallen. A very large town for Africa: 65,000 inhabitants. After Bardia, Tobruk, and Derna, I think this will be the end of the Cyrenaica operation. It is hard to imagine that General Wavell4 will try to go any farther. There are another thousand kilometers of desert before Tripoli. The Italian empire is coming apart at the seams. But it goes without saying that the whole of the war in Africa (however interesting and dramatic) is only a sideshow. The struggle is between the British and the Germans; that is where everything will be decided. The closer we get to spring (longer days, less and less cold, almost no more snow), the more my feelings of last year come back. Will there again be a heavy blow in March, April, May, or June? Bad health. I regret it. I ought to be stronger and more resilie
nt for everything that may happen from now on.

  Monday, 10 February

  The British legation is pulling out of Romania. Today Hoare5 delivered a letter of protest in justification for the departure. I don’t yet know whether it means that diplomatic relations are being formally broken off. Yesterday evening there was a blackout everywhere in the city: no light of any kind from shop windows, offices, cars, or anywhere else; no street lamps on. From today, strict lighting restrictions will be in force. “A British air attack is expected,” everyone was saying yesterday. It seems that a German attack on Bulgaria (or through Bulgaria) is imminent, if it is not by now a fait accompli. Yesterday evening, Churchill said in a radio speech that the Bulgarian airports have been occupied and that German troops have crossed the Danube. A Bulgarian denial this morning declares that there are no German troops there but does not mention the airports. In any event, with or without Churchill’s declaration, with or without the Bulgarian denial, all the signs are that in a few hours or days the long-prepared German operation will be unleashed. There will certainly be consequences for us in Romania, perhaps major changes in our lives. Everything, absolutely everything is still in the realm of the provisional.

  Eugen Ionescu, who doesn’t take long to get drunk, suddenly started talking to me about his mother after a few cocktails on Saturday morning. Although I heard some time ago that she had been Jewish, the issue had always been closed as far as the two of us were concerned. But as the drink went to his head, he started to “spill the beans” with a kind of sigh of relief, as if he had been gasping all this time under its weight. Yes, she had been Jewish, from Craiova; her husband left her with two little children in France; she remained a Jew until her death, when he— Eugen—baptized her with his own hand. Then, without a transition, he went on to speak about all the “Jews” who are not known to be such: Paul Sterian,6 Radu Gyr, Ignatescu,7 and so on. He mentioned them all with a certain spite, as if he wanted to revenge himself on them or to lose himself, unobserved, in their great number. Poor Eugen Ionescu! What fretting, what torment, what secrets for such a simple matter! I would have liked to say how fond I was growing of him—but he was too drunk for me to start being sentimental.

  What an unbearable style Mitica Theodorescu has on the radio!8 With the same phrases and epithets he used to serve three regimes, he is now serving a fourth. “Serve” is perhaps not the right word. Can anyone believe that that exclusive language, without measure or nuance, which outbids itself with each new sentence, corresponds to any genuine thought, any honest sensibility? He is a monstrous character, paralytic, evil-minded, cynical, without ideas, without likings or even real hatreds, without feelings or disgust for anything, who nonetheless speaks of a “new world,” a “youthful Europe,” a “powerful civilization,” a “vigorous regime,” a revolution of the victorious races, etc., etc. I don’t feel angered by his immorality, his endless versatility; it is simply his style that irritates me. His vocabulary, his syntax—everything is false, artificial, flashily inauthentic. I think the microphone also accentuates his contrived mode of speech. When I read him in Cuvântul, I found him merely “mannered,” but readable and sometimes even intelligent. When he is read aloud, however, he becomes squeaky, irritating, clownish. I have always thought that reading aloud is a tough test for a prose writer. And I wonder whether it is not absolutely necessary for critical purposes.

  Tuesday, 11 February

  Yesterday evening, as I listened to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (from Budapest), it sometimes seemed to me of an indescribable triviality, or banality. The opening, with that grave entrance of the cello heralding the later bass aria, is still very beautiful. But some parts of the chorus are aggressively vulgar: you’d think it was a chorus in an opera, or even an operetta; Verdi, or even Kalman. Yes, Kalman. It reminded me perhaps of the choruses in Silvia.

  Evening

  There is an atmosphere of war, of general mobilization. The city seems even darker than yesterday, with only an occasional street lamp on. The shop windows are covered with thick curtains or blue paper; all the shutters are drawn. By nine o’clock there is emptiness all around. A few pedestrians run after taxis, but these just speed past. The grey vehicles used by the German army are mostly full of mud; they come from afar and are heading afar. The German soldiers, who up to now have sauntered around as in a resort, look hurried and lost in thought. In the streetcars and the streets, people talk all the time of a possible air raid by the British. Strangely enough, though, I don’t see any concern—rather, a kind of lively curiosity, as if they are waiting for a show to begin.

  The Lassaignes leave tomorrow morning by plane for Sofia and Istanbul, and then on to Cairo. A sad farewell. I was more emotional than I should have allowed myself to be, given that our friendship is not all that old or close. But this sense of remaining in a world that is closing up! You feel abandoned. What you see is not just someone going away, but a bridge falling down. When will the bridges be rebuilt? When will contacts be established again?

  Wednesday, 12 February

  The premiere of Mircea Eliade’s Iphigenia at the National Theatre. Of course I didn’t go. It would be impossible for me to show myself at any premiere, let alone at one which (because of the author, the actors, the theme, and the audience) was bound to be a kind of Legionary reunion. I’d have felt I was at a meeting in their “den.” Giza9 told me over the phone that it was a great success, but, without meaning to, she confirmed my suspicions. “I just hope the performances won’t be banned,” she said. I assured her that they won’t—and I am indeed convinced that nothing will happen. It is true that the text is full of allusions and ambiguities (which I already noticed when I read it last year), but it is rather difficult to ban an Iphigenia. The symbol does strike me as rather crude: the play might be called “Iphigenia, or the Legionary Sacrifice.” Now, after five months of being at the helm and three days of revolt, after so much killing, arson, and pillage, you can’t say it is not relevant.

  A visit to Lovinescu. (I hadn’t been to his house for some twelve years.) He is the same as ever. I found him patiendy listening to a young writer read a short story, and then coughing evasively. A little anti-Semitic touch caught in passing: we were speaking of Grindea and of my surprise at seeing him succeed in London.

  “Well, it’s race, it’s race!” he said laughing, but with obvious conviction.

  My American, who is giving me English lessons, is anti-Roosevelt, anti-British, pro-German. A kind of Senator Wheeler.

  Cioran, despite his participation in the revolt, has kept his post as cultural attaché in Paris, a post that Sima gave him a few days before he fell. The new regime has even given him a pay increase! He leaves in a few days. Well, that’s what revolution does for you!

  Friday, 14 February

  A concert from Turin (Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony), conducted by Igor Markevitch. How many times have I thought of him in recent months and envied his safe refuge in Vevey! Whenever I dream of a calm and protected place, favorable to solitude, reading, and writing, Lake Geneva comes before me as the very picture of happiness. Not Geneva itself, but somewhere higher up, more modest, and less well known: Vevey, for example. And when I say Vevey, the figure of Igor Markevitch appears as I knew him on that sunny Saturday afternoon in September 1931: so young as to be almost childish; excitable and full of life, friendly almost to the point of intimacy from the very first words. Suddenly I see it all again: the lunch with Marie Ghiolu, Creata, their respective husbands and Igor at that restaurant (Le Globe, I think) filled with politicians, including Jouhaux1 at the very next table. Then the long visit to the city museum (the first time I’d heard of Liotard), the long walk, the tea by the lakeside—and one of the few calm and clear evenings in that rainy September. So, Igor Markevitch is conducting in Turin. For him there is no war. Music, activity, career, successes—it all goes on. And we live clinging to memories.

  Dupront is going back to France on Tue
sday; he came round yesterday to say goodbye. With each new departure (Dupront after Lassaigne), the feeling grows that we remain here locked up, that the circle is constantly tightening around us, that we can no longer escape in any direction. “We should act as if the war did not exist,” said Dupront. “We should not think about it—just forget it, abstract from it, prepare tomorrow’s world.” In a sense, he may be right. The war is an obsession, an idée fixe—and, in that way at least, it is paralyzing. It would be good if we could forget it. But is that possible when our whole life, our whole fate depends upon it? I fear there is something a little bookish in Dupront’s attitude. Even the suggestions for action that he made to me, even his plan for “the best minds” to link up in a series of loops that form one big chain, are vague, ineffective, and unrealistic. And when I think about it, I wonder whether Dupront’s talk of forgetting the war, of treating it not as the key phenomenon of the present day, is not an unconscious attempt to excuse and compensate for the French defeat. For if the war is not the decisive event, the fact that France lost it is no longer so grave.

  As far as I am concerned, I feel that my whole being hangs on the war. I cannot detach myself from it, nor do I think I would want to.

  Sunday, 16 February

  The murderers at Jilava forest, who, according to the official report, killed ninety-three Jews in a single night, have been condemned to terms of one to twenty-five years of imprisonment with hard labor. Capital punishment exists in the laws of Romania. For whom? I wonder. How many people does someone have to murder before he is liable for the death penalty? Ninety-three is obviously not enough. In the next pogrom the murderers will know for sure that they are not risking their necks.