Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  4. General Archibald Wavell: then commander of British troops in the Middle East and North Africa.

  5. Reginald Hoare: British ambassador to Romania.

  6. Paul Sterian: poet.

  7. Constantin Ignatescu: writer.

  8. Dem. Theodorescu: journalist.

  9. Stepdaughter of Mircea Eliade.

  1. Leon Jouhaux: French trade union leader.

  2. Who benefits?

  3. Bogdan Filov: prime minister of Bulgaria.

  4. “A clear, idyllic piece that has been compared to the lovely and modest sonata in E-flat.”

  5. Eliade was not transferred to Madrid: he remained at the Romanian legation in Lisbon.

  6. Gheorghe Nenişor was a relative of Titulescu’s.

  7. Sacha Roman: Titulescu’s secretary.

  8. How changed from what he once was.

  9. Sebastian started work in 1940 as teacher in a Jewish school established in the fall of 1940 when Jewish children were expelled from Romanian schools.

  1. A Romanian literary movement of the early twentieth century.

  2. Yasuke Matsuoka: foreign minister of Japan.

  3. Tudor Teodorescu-Branişte: journalist and writer.

  4. Richard (Ricci) Hillard: journalist, friend of Sebastian’s.

  5. Italian name for the town of Durres.

  6. We shall have something new.

  7. The die is cast.

  8. A nickname for the aesthetician D. Caracostea.

  9. The Iron Guard Workers Corps leader, Dumitru Groza.

  1. Viorel Trifa was president of the students’ faction of the Iron Guard. He was later a Christian Orthodox bishop in Detroit and was expelled from the United States following a court decision. Both Groza and Trifa were accused by the Antonescu regime of being Soviet agents.

  2. Everything is at stake.

  3. A brilliant historian and essayist.

  4. “These people, forever beaten, are forever optimistic about their fate. They keep believing that things can’t turn out too badly in the end.”

  5. This History of Romanian Literature was nonetheless published in full.

  6. Tudor Vianu: literary critic.

  7. Dionisie Pippidi: historian.

  8. And yet we are still here.

  9. The war will not take place!

  1. Henri-Ferdinand Dentz: French general.

  2. Franklin Gunther Mott: head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Bucharest.

  3. Riccardo Begoghina: Italian businessman.

  4. British ambassador in Moscow.

  5. Inopportune.

  6. In English in the original.

  7. “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Marx/Engels, Selected Works (London, 1970), p. 100.

  8. The Romanian name for Kishinev.

  9. Alf Adania: translator of the works of Eugene O’Neill and of other American authors.

  1. The Romanian name for Czernowitz.

  2. Tall stories.

  3. Graphic artist.

  4. Wealthy businessman and collector of modern art.

  5. Prison in Bucharest.

  6. River, former border between Romania and occupied Bessarabia.

  7. Sebastian quotes from the official communiqué that followed the pogrom in Iasi (June-July 1941). Actual numbers were closer to thirteen thousand victims in the city itself and in two death trains.

  8. The train is leaving Chitila/Taking Stalin off to Palestine./The train is pulling out of Galaţi/Full of hanged Jews.

  9. The point is to go on living.

  1. Robert Coulondre, French ambassador in Berlin.

  2. As planned.

  3. "A great exhibition canvas."

  4. What an opportunity!

  5. “I shall tell the deputation (of boyars) that I did not and do not want war, that I made war only on the deceitful policy of their court, that I like and respect Alexander, and that in Moscow I shall accept peace terms worthy of myself and my peoples.”

  6. The “Jewish Autonomous Region” created in eastern Siberia in 1928, on Stalin’s orders, as a “homeland” for Jews.

  7. "Not only have you saved Russia, you have saved Europe."

  8. The Romanian news agency.

  9. The Italian news agency.

  1. Can lead to anything. And perhaps never withdraw from it.

  2. What poverty in everything he says.

  3. Nicolae Mazarini: Romanian general.

  4. Constantin D. Nicolescu: general, former defense minister.

  5. French anti-Semitic magazine.

  6. How slow are the days; how slow is life!

  7. The obligation to wear the yellow star was enforced only in certain areas of Moldavia and in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transnistria.

  8. Sandu Eliad: theatre producer.

  9. Agnia Bogoslav: actress.

  1. That much has been gained.

  2. Churchill and Roosevelt met in Newfoundland between 8 and 11 August and adopted the Adantic Charter, which called for national self-determination.

  3. Manfred von Killinger: German ambassador in Bucharest.

  4. Victor P. Vojen: extreme right-wing, pro-Nazi journalist.

  5. The Antonescu government forced Romanian Jews to pay special taxes in household items.

  6. How much? Five hundred?

  7. You have to hang on. That's all there is to it.

  8. Italian journalist.

  9. Demetru Ceacăru: journalist.

  1. Wilhelm Filderman: lawyer, chairman of the Federation of the Union of Jewish Communities in Romania, the principal Jewish umbrella organization.

  2. The Romanian equivalent of Führer, referring to Antonescu.

  3. I. Ludo: Jewish novelist.

  4. Marshal S. K. Timoshenko of the Red Army.

  5. Germany’s official press agency.

  6. “Country Guesthouse. Alt. 600 meters. Peaceful surroundings. Large orchard. Carefully prepared cuisine.”

  7. Trial of miners who participated in a 1929 strike.

  8. Sebastian's great-grandfather who supported the 1848 Revolution.

  9. Pavel Belu: journalist.

  1. Liviu Rusu: aesthetician.

  2. Alexandru Ciorănescu: literary historian.

  3. Alexandru Şafran: wartime chief rabbi of the Jewish Communities in Romania.

  4. One of the color-coded districts into which the city of Bucharest formerly was divided.

  5. Hotel in Geneva where Sebastian had stayed.

  6. “So that is why your daughter is mute.” The exact quotation from Molière’s Le Malade imaginaire is: “Voilà justement ce qui fait que votre fille est muette.”

  7. Eugen Ionescu.

  8. Jacques Byck: linguist, director of a wartime secondary school for Jewish children from Bucharest who had been forced out of the Romanian schools.

  9. For the sake of conscience.

  1. Art merchant.

  2. Last phrase in English in the original.

  3. The Struma was due to take on board more than seven hundred emigrants bound for Palestine.

  4. Gaston Antony: lawyer.

  5. Vasile Timus: theatre administrator.

  6. Unwitting.

  7. In English in the original.

  8. Corin Grossu: writer.

  9. All imagination.

  1. The creation of the “Jewish Central Office” was decreed by Ion Antonescu. Filderman’s Federation of the Union of Romanian Jewish Communities was dissolved.

  2. H. St. Streitman: journalist, first president of the Jewish Central Office.

  3. A. Vilman: journalist, member of the leadership council of the Jewish Central Office.

  4. Radu Lecca, commissar for Jewish affairs in the Antonescu government. His chief duty was to supervise the Jewish Central Office, but he oversaw many government operations related to the deportation and forced labor of Jews.

  5. Walter von Brauchitsch: German field marshal.

  6. I am worth nothing.

  7. With never an end to it.

>   8. "It's to do you a favor, because otherwise, you know, I've got heaps and heaps of translators."

  9. One ban is worth a hundredth of a lei.

  1. “They are children’s books, because I give serious books to better-known translators. I have a Pierre Bénoit, for example, which is being translated by Mr. lacobescu.”— “Who is Mr. lacobescu?”—“What do you mean who is he? He’s a writer, very well known. He’s translated a lot of things.”

  2. “It’s work that needs doing, I assure you. Not too well paid, of course, but if you work a few hours a day, you can finish a book inside two weeks. I’ll give you one to start with. You should send us a sample of a few pages, which we’ll pass on to Mr. Ciorănescu. You see, I don’t know about these things, but Mr. Ciorănescu makes the judgments, and if he thinks it’s all right, then we’ve got a deal.”

  3. A type of satirical costume drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its mad characters alluded to aspects of the age.

  1942

  1 January 1942, Thursday

  Days pass slowly, but years quickly. Now it’s 1942! How distant it seems to me, how problematic and unreal! “The war will end in ’42,” people said at the beginning, a year or two ago—and I was terrified that it might last so long. “The war will end in 1942” was for me like “the war will never end.” 1942 was the opaque future, the remote unknown, the inscrutability of chance. And now here we are in 1942—with all our old questions and terrors.

  2 January 1942, Friday

  A sentence from Hitler’s New Year message: “His [the Soviet enemy’s] attempt to overturn fate in the winter of 1941-1942, to move against us once again, must fail and will fail.”

  To overturn fate! Three months ago there could be no talk of anything like that. Today the problem is posed. It has become possible, humanly possible. It is credible, or at least conceivable, and anyway not absurd or excluded in principle, that the Russians will “overturn fate.” It is possible that the front will move off in another direction, possible that there will be a fundamental change in the situation. Since the fall of Rostov, the war has taken on a new aspect. Perhaps more than this: it is a new war, a different war. Personally, I am inclined to look at things calmly and soberly, without illusions. I tell myself that the German army is still a formidable machine; that the winter is an enormous trial for the Germans, but does not spell the end. Moreover, the Russian offensive does not seem to be of the scale and violence of the shock delivered by the Germans; I can well imagine a German recovery in the spring, and even six months of major German successes from April to October. Only then, on the threshold of next winter, will the crisis become acute again. But if this has been my view until recently, if I have never allowed myself to be carried away by sensational expectations, I have to admit that now there are also elements that justify such expectations. Rostov marked the final point of the German offensive and the obligatory shift from war of movement to war of position. The removal of Brauchitsch showed that this shift corresponds to a deeper crisis of command, conception, and general policy in the conduct of the war. The Russians, by taking the offensive all along the front, have demonstrated that they will not agree to a winter armistice. Finally, the blows at Kerch and Feodosiya show that their army has a certain capacity to deliver sudden shocks in a totally unexpected operation. These, unquestionably, are new factors. Will they lead to an “overturning of fate”? I don’t know—and I personally tend to think not. But the question is posed.

  Saturday, 3 January

  In the Philippines the Japanese have taken Manila. In Libya the English have taken Bardia.

  Nicuşor Constantinescu1 (whom I saw yesterday evening at Leni’s) has suggested that I write a play. He is prepared to sign it, to offer to have it performed by a theatre. The author’s share would be paid to me, and after the war the truth would be told. It is a moving gesture; I wonder whether I would be capable of it myself in such a situation. It is perhaps the greatest sacrifice a writer can agree to make. I tell myself that what literature means for N.C. is quite different from what it means for me; that he thinks of writing as something to be done for the fun of it; that nothing really engages him; that in the end he does not consider himself bound by any kind of artistic responsibility. I tell myself all this— and his proposal still seems of an unequaled devotion, disinterest, generosity. I want to use the opportunity he has offered me. It is a way of earning a few tens of thousands of lei, maybe even more. It could save me for a while, in terms of rent, debt repayment, housekeeping money, and so on. All day I have thought of nothing else. I must write a play fast. Fast! Will I be up to it? Not one of my older play projects can be used. “Freedom” is politically impossible: it could be performed only after the war. “Gunther” is also impossible, because it would give me away: it would be easy to see that the subject has been taken from Accidentul. That leaves Ultima oră and “News in Brief,” neither of which is well enough defined. Besides, Ultima oră might also create difficulties of a political order. And I fear that “News in Brief” is too serious for Nicuşor to put his name to it—implausibly serious, in fact. What is needed is a light comedy, not so much written as put together. It’s a question of dexterity, of professional skill. Will I succeed? Will I be up to it? Will I be lucky enough to come up with something? Will I be able to work so fast?

  The last few days I have been reading Pascal’s Les Provinciales. I gave them up today for Pagnol. I’ll read a few plays to get a feel for the theatre again. I am determined to have no scruples about this. But will that be enough?

  Wednesday, 7 January

  Fresh Russian landings in the Crimea, this time on the western coast. The Russians have retaken Yevpatoriya (which, to my surprise, I found on the map to the north of Simferopol), and also, apparently, the small locality of Erilgoch, eighty kilometers south of Perekop. But this evening’s German communiqué reports that the forces that landed at both Yevpatoriya and Feodosiya have been wiped out. In any event, what I am used to calling the psychological pendulum of the war has clearly swung toward London. I even feel there is again a quite exaggerated optimistic fever in the air. We shall see more of these, many more.

  Otetea (whom I saw at Rosetti’s) spoke with emotion, stupefaction, and occasional fury about what happened in June in Iasi.2 Sometimes he covered his face with a gesture of impotence, fear, and loathing. His way of speaking moved me, but when I came away I couldn’t help thinking that he is still director of the Theatre in Iaşi. No two things are incompatible in this country.

  I never stop thinking and searching for the play I want to write. Until yesterday evening I had nothing in my mind’s eye. Only vague ideas, insufficiently connected to one another. A stage setting, a scene, a situation—nothing coherent. Then I read two plays (Savoir, Duvernois3) that stimulated my theatrical fantasy, without offering anything solid. I found a clearer lead in an old issue of Gringoire, which had a summary of a play, Jupiter, performed by someone just starting up in Paris. “I too could write a play like that,” I told myself. So yesterday afternoon, while I was watching a film, I suddenly felt that I’d “found” it. I had an idea, a title (“Alexander the Great”), and two characters. I left the cinema in a kind of optimistic excitement (as I always do when I “see” a plan for a book or play). On the way home the idea took on shape and substance—but at a certain point I realized that it was altogether too sketchy, too thin and shaky to fill up three acts. I don’t feel capable now of writing an intimately poetic play for the stage. I couldn’t even do another Jocul de-a vacanţa. No, I need something more solid, more earthy, more full of content. I need a firm structure with many characters and incidents, a proper plot, a wealth of detail that makes full use both of Nicuşor’s name and of the National Theatre’s troupe. Ultima oră could be, or could have been, such a play.

  I don’t know when (or indeed if) I had precisely these reflections. I don’t know how I came to link “Alexander the Great” and Ultima oră. I think it was all a question of a minute o
r even of seconds. Suddenly the two projects merged into one. Ultima oră became Act One, and “Alexander the Great” Act Two, of the same play. I don’t yet have Act Three— but there are so many comic elements in the first two acts that I think everything will sort itself out.

  Et maintenant il s’agit de travailler.4 Will I be able to? Will it come easily enough? Scruples, as I said before, are not a problem. I could just do with some luck.

  Thursday, 8 January

  I have paid the rent. Ten thousand lei from Papa’s end-of-year bonus. Five thousand borrowed from Manolovici. Five thousand from Uncle Moritz—though I later promised to give that back by tomorrow evening. So by tomorrow I have to find five thousand lei to repay Moritz and one thousand to two thousand for the house.

  The Wurm “coup,”5 which was supposed to happen today, has been postponed. I had so much faith in it that I made all kinds of calculations about how I would divide up the money. But I shouldn’t count on either “coups” or miracles. I must write the play. I must finish it at the latest by the first of February, so that it can be put on by the first of March. But until then I simply must get a loan of thirty to forty thousand lei from somewhere, to pay my most pressing debts and to have money for everyday expenses.

  Last night I finished the plot of Act Two (finding new, unexpected incidents). The play’s outline is now almost complete, and I must get down to some serious work. I deeply regret that my holidays are over and that I have to turn up at school tomorrow.

  Friday, 9 January

  I borrowed seven thousand lei from Marcu. I used five thousand to repay yesterday’s debt to Uncle Moritz—which left two thousand for housekeeping. Now I’ll have to find some money so that I can repay Marcel in a week’s time. That is how the days pass.

  My play is making great and rapid progress. Today I wrote six long pages. The first three scenes of Act One are almost ready. New things pop up with each piece of dialogue, as I am easily carried away by the tennislike rallies. I enjoy writing more than I expected. I feel I have found the right tone for the play (though it is true that I shall later have to execute delicate, perhaps difficult, changes of tone). For the moment, what I wrote today seems to me excellent. When I reread it tomorrow morning, a calmer, more accurate eye will doubtless spot things with which I am less pleased. I rang Nicuşor, feeling stupidly afraid that he might have reconsidered. Now that his plan is becoming a real possibility (a week ago I couldn’t see myself writing a play), I begin to have bouts of fear, impatience, and doubt. I’ll have lunch with him tomorrow and try to define our plan of operations.