Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  Today I read Act Two of Insula after a week’s break, and checked my first impressions. I think it really is good. But now I must keep working at it.

  With the thirty thousand lei I got from Birlic, I could breathe easily for three weeks, maybe even four. But if it proves true that I have to pay military taxes (nearly forty thousand lei for Benu and myself), what will I do then?

  Thursday, 4 February

  In Germany there are three days of national mourning and recovery for the divisions lost at Stalingrad. The whole press has a solemn, majestic tone, as in a funeral hymn. A kind of tragic grandeur, probably by directive, conceals the questions and doubts concerning political and military affairs.

  Friday, 5 February

  A possible title for an essay: “On the Physical Reality of Lying.” It would be shown that lying, however arbitrary, grows, branches out, becomes organized and systematic, acquires definite contours and points of support; and that once a certain level is reached, it substitutes itself for facts, becomes a fact itself, and begins to exert inescapable pressure, not only on the world of others but also on the one who originated the lie.

  Saturday, 6 February

  Starting on Wednesday, evening performances will begin at seven and end by ten at the latest. Shops will close at five, theatres at ten, and streetcars will no longer run after eleven. Soon we shall probably have a general curfew, as one of a series of sweeping measures of civil defense. Everyone is obsessed with the thought of heavy bombing. The raids on Turin, Milan, and Genoa have brought the specter of air war closer to us. The Casablanca Conference, the Adane negotiations, the events on the Russian front, the approach of spring: all together create a sense that Bucharest is becoming a vulnerable target in a wider field of operations. This is leading to a certain nervousness and a few early signs of panic. There is talk of large-scale evacuation of the city, in which case Jews would be isolated in ghettos. After a lull in anti-Semitism, there is again worry, fear, and insecurity.

  Tuesday, 9 February

  The war on the Russian front is growing ever more intense and spreading to new sectors. The German communiqué rarely gives more than vague geographical details, but these are enough to indicate a shift toward the Oskol, Shakhty, the mouth of the Don, Zheisk. We can’t know exactly what is happening—both because there is a lack of news and because the front keeps moving. In the Caucasus the retreat continues on two separate fronts: one toward Rostov, the other toward Taman, the last two bridgeheads. Rostov is under attack on all sides. In any event, the game now seems over in the Caucasus. The situation is perhaps more acute in the north, in the region of Kharkov and Kursk, where the Soviet offensive is reaching places that were part of a stable front in Autumn 1941. Is the pace of events speeding up? Are we already on the slope leading to the end? Or could there still be halts, recoveries, turnarounds? Have the scales tipped for the last time, or will there still be movements this way and that? I don’t know. But the questions are becoming possible.

  Saturday, 13 February

  “Ursa Major” is a possible title for my latest scenario—if I give up the idea of a farce and go for a delicate comedy. “Ursa Major” because the provincial math teacher has a passionate interest in astronomy. He has a telescope at home. The book that is waiting for him at the station is a treatise by James Jeans. The woman in evening dress, who will spend the night in his house, will be fascinated by his talk of the sky and the stars. And Act Three, in which the cynical lover appears, will see him fall from sky to earth. The play thus has a nicely rounded structure. But I can’t yet know whether I shall have a free hand with my scenario. First, when Septilici returns, I have to get out of our agreement to work on it together.

  Meanwhile I am writing Act Three of Insula. It is going much too slowly. I work too little and am too disjointed. I think that if I could again have a month of calm and solitude somewhere in the mountains, I would enjoy working and make rapid headway. For all my theatrical projects, I would need a few months of steady hard work. Then I could get down to more serious things.

  The snow tax for Benu and myself is fourteen thousand lei. I have to pay another forty thousand in military taxes by 23 February, and in March the rent will be a terrible problem. Where will it all come from? How will I find it? I dare not think.

  Monday, 15 February

  The Russians have retaken Rostov and Voroshilovgrad, a day or two after Krasnodar, Shakhty, and Novocherkassk. The Caucasus front has been wound up. The battle is now advancing ever westward, along the Sea of Azov to Taganrog, and up toward Kharkov. All the territory gained by the Germans in their summer offensive has been won back. The zone of operations is extending to places that have long seemed “out of the question.”5 It is hard to look further ahead and make any predictions; the pace of events is too fast for our brains to keep up.

  Tuesday, 16 February

  I called on Longhin. He is stunned by events, neurasthenized, thrown into panic. He thinks that there can be no stopping, even at the Dnieper, and that the situation is serious for Jews. He has been told—from the best of sources!—that the Germans are demanding the organization of a pogrom, and that a new series of anti-Semitic measures will anyway soon be passed.

  “Be careful,” he said to me. “In case of danger, come and hide at my place.”

  He set me thinking. He is given to panic, I know, and today he was incredibly on edge. But I remember that both in August 1939, at Stîna de Vale, and in June 1940, in Bucharest, he was pretty well informed.

  Thursday, 18 February

  Act Three (of Insula) is proving harder than I expected. I wrote the first three scenes easily and quite fast, but now I have been stuck for several days. The difficulty arises from a change in the scenario. My plan last week envisaged two tableaux for this act, but I have given up that idea. I want to concentrate everything in one tableau, so that the play does not lose its lively rhythm. This removes some of the old material planned for this act (which will be replaced with new incidents), but the original structure has been lost in the process, so that I am now in a kind of “scenario breakdown.” I know the characters and the settings and the action, but I don’t know how things will hang together on stage. It is much easier to write in tableaux, but I don’t want to use that easiness here.

  Berlin denies the fall of Kharkov, which the Russians seem to have announced back on Tuesday. Yesterday evening’s German communiqué, however, reports fighting both in and around the city.

  I had a conversation with Ovidiu Lupaş (apparently in response to the one with Longhin). The Germans are enormously strong, he argued, and the Russian advance inconsequential. Hitler did make a mistake about the size of Soviet forces (he thought in November he was facing 25 divisions, when there were actually 520), but that can be corrected. The thaw will tie down the Soviet offensive, which is anyway due to lose momentum. Meanwhile the Germans are achieving a great concentration of forces which, if not in 1943 then certainly in 1944, will wind things up in Russia. At the same time they will take action in the west. The events in Tunisia are much more important than those in Russia. Rommel will crush the British and Americans—especially once German armies occupy Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar, as they will easily do in the summer with hardly any resistance. Submarine warfare will completely paralyze the Allies.

  Yesterday Maria Magda said to Camil: “In my view, the war will end in a compromise peace.” It might have been a witty remark if the girl were not a delightful little goose.

  Friday, 19 February

  The fall of Kharkov was announced in yesterday evening’s German communiqué. The dispatches and commentaries have been more optimistic of late. “Defensive successes,” “major Soviet losses,” “the approaching thaw” are the general themes. Amid all this good cheer, however, Goebbels’s speech last night sounds unexpectedly dramatic. Stalingrad represents a fateful moment: the Russian offensive is becoming catastrophic, and the whole situation critical. The Jews are once more threatened with extermination.r />
  Monday, 22 February

  Yesterday I outlined a scenario for Act Three of Insula, but then almost immediately I realized that my original plan was preferable. It is true that if Act Three is written in two tableaux, I risk a slowing of the pace, but in return the story will have more space, more perspective, more richness. This will make the transition to Act Four more natural. Strangely enough, in writing Act Three as a single tableau (with less material and a faster pace), I am actually involving myself in a digression. The basic line of the play would be more unified in the two-tableau solution. I regret that the thing is dragging on so much.

  I have read with delight Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It has the same luminous irony as Emma, the same gentle poetry, but it is even more sensitive, because the whole story is more rounded, better constructed.

  The German communiqués of the last two days indicate that as the thaw sets in, the Soviet offensive is slowing down.

  Wednesday, 24 February

  A dream last night. I am at a political meeting, in a hall which, though not large, is crowded with people. Goebbels is speaking, together with a tall, dark-haired man—probably Gunther. Someone (he looks like Coşoiu, a pupil of mine from 5th Year) shouts: “Hechter! Hechter!” I make desperate signs for him to be quiet. Goebbels comes up to me but is then again speaking at the rostrum. He seems to propose the formation of an action committee. Then Perpessicius appears from a neighboring room and says: “I’ll sign if you like, but I won’t work.” Goebbels consults his assistant in the first row and calls on everyone in turn: “And you are Aryan, and you, and you. . He stops in front of Camil Petrescu, hesitates, and smiles awkwardly: “Ah, I’m not sure about you. Maybe you’re not.” Camil is mortified. That is all I can remember. In fact, it was more complicated and richer in incident—and it was not even as coherent as my account suggests, though I think my broad outline is accurate enough.

  I have dropped Insula for the time being. It wasn’t working—so it’s best to leave it in peace. I’ll try again in eight to ten days, when I have some distance from it again. A play is always amazingly simple at first; the difficulties and resistance come later. In order to overcome them you have to do stubborn (almost physical) work that has nothing to do with inspiration. The worst is that, though I realize the qualities of Insula as a piece for the stage, it does not interest me directly, personally. I find it more pleasant to think of “Ursa Major,” though with that too, an early period of captivation will certainly be followed by similar frustrations.

  The press, the communiqués, and dispatches still indicate a gradual slowing of the Russian offensive. The optimistic tone is being systematically consolidated in readiness for the thaw.

  Saturday, 27 February

  German resistance in the Donbas is becoming sharper. They seem to have recaptured Kramatorsk a few days ago and to be counterattacking, with Stalino firmly in their hands. The Soviet advance has halted at the Sea of Azov, where Taganrog is still in German hands. But the Russians are still keenly on the offensive in the center and the north, in the regions of Kursk-Orel, Ilmen, and Ladoga. The situation in Tunisia is confused. The Eighth Army is advancing from Tripolitania, but the First Army is losing ground near the border with Algeria.

  An envelope from Aristide has calmed my money worries a little. I’ll try not to open it until the rent is due, and meanwhile search elsewhere for money to pay the household expenses and (most serious) the military taxes.

  Monday, 1 March

  Yesterday evening’s German communiqué reports the recapture of two towns in the Donbas: Kramatorsk and Lozovaya. German resistance in this sector seems to be more and more active. On the rest of the front, the Russian offensive is continuing unremarkably, but with no loss of intensity.

  March! You can feel that spring is coming—and with it so many unresolved questions, so many worries.

  Thursday, 4 March

  In the south, after Kramatorsk and Lozovaya, the Germans have recaptured Slavyansk and are maintaining their counterattack in the Donbas. In the north, however, they are evacuating Damyansk and (surprisingly) Rzhev. The Russian offensive remains intense at Orel.

  Vague unease. Fears, forebodings, doubts. The evening papers published a new anti-Semitic law, with provisions for internment and deportation. Disturbing mainly as a symptom.

  I am patching up for Sică the third act of a Viennese play that he is not even sure he will put on. Will I do a good job? Will I get some money out of it?

  Tuesday, 9 March

  The Germans are attacking and gaining ground in the Donbas, to the south and west of Kharkov, but are defending and giving ground at Orel to the north. The names of small localities find a place on the asset sheet on both fronts. But one has the impression that the overall battle has lost much of its intensity. The dramatic climax was the fall of Kharkov. Since then the war seems to have entered one of its phases of transition and waiting.

  If the terms are right (that is, royalties of 10 percent), I might translate Pride and Prejudice. In principle it does not seem out of the question. In three days I have written a whole new third act for Sică’s play—quite skillfully, I think. Why shouldn’t I be able to work as easily for myself? I suppose it’s because I get overscrupulous about things and feel paralyzed by my responsibility. But when I am able to shut my eyes, I “let go” and it doesn’t work out badly.

  Friday, 12 March

  The Germans are taking back Kharkov. Yesterday evening’s communiqué reported that their troops have reentered the city and are engaged in street-fighting. In the center, on the other hand, “disengagement” operations are under way. Vyazma was evacuated last night.

  Monday, 15 March

  The street-fighting in Kharkov has ceased. Yesterday evening’s German communiqué announced that the whole city has been recaptured. On the other sectors of the front, it mentions only “reduced-scale operations.” Has the Soviet winter offensive come to an end? I don’t know. But there is certainly something to be learned from the latest twist: that nothing in this war is final; that any event, however important, is sooner or later lost in the general movement of the war; that a situation never changes instantaneously. The war is a slow accumulation of facts, some minor, some more sensational, which all merge into the general drama. Sometimes, when “a heavy blow is struck,” we feel dazed for a moment and get the impression (whether confused or excited) that everything may end suddenly, as if by a miracle, in one great triumph or disaster. But then the dust settles and everything looks less important. We return to the long slow succession of days, until the next “major blow” again takes our breath away for a moment.

  Meanwhile, our life passes by.

  Saturday, 20 March

  In the south on the Russian front, the initiative seems to have completely passed to the Germans. Yesterday evening’s communiqué announced the recapture of Belgorod. The German advance is continuing in the Donbas, even spreading in the area of Kursk. The official attitude is quite reserved, but there has been a clear change in the situation.

  I have enjoyed reading another of Jane Austen’s novels, Persuasion, though it is less vigorous than the first two.

  I have wasted a great deal of time on that act for Sicâ. I keep patching and patching—and never manage to finish. Together with Dickinson,6 I today began translating Jocul de-a vacanţa into English.

  Monday, 22 March

  Yesterday I had lunch at Mogoşoaia with Rosetti, Camil, an Italian prince, a French monk, and a Swiss diplomat. Martha Bibescu was simpler and less showy than before. She has an extraordinary way of leading a conversation, of trying out one, two, or three subjects until she finds the right one, of varying attitudes and bringing people together. In this sense she is a great actress. I myself was dull and silent. My French sometimes goes through a difficult period, and this was one of them. I didn’t have the confidence to start a sentence unless I could already see how it would end. Poor Camil cut a sorry figure as a Balkan writer, speaking in dre
adful French about his own work. I’d have liked to help him out, but his deafness amongst this group of complete strangers destroyed all the bridges between us. In the end, the nicest thing about it was the drive there and back, on a bright spring day with the fields colored in numerous shades of blue, violet, and mauve.

  I have read “Esther’s Letter” in the English Bible, and today Racine’s Esther (This too is a way of celebrating Purim!) Three centuries, a few millennia—and our story is still the same. What a fantastic mystery.

  Wednesday, 24 March

  In Tunisia the Anglo-American offensive began on Sunday and is in full swing. So far—at least according to the Axis press—nothing is known about the course of events. In Russia the German counterattack in the south seems to have stalled. The German communiqué of the day before yesterday reported a stabilization of the front. But fighting is continuing at Kursk, where the Germans are gaining ground in the battle for the city. As to Orel, yesterday evening’s communiqué presents the Russian offensive as completely smashed.

  The visit to Mogoşoaia transported me into the entire atmosphere of an episode in my future novel. The project has suddenly come alive again. I looked through the material in my files with great interest. It is a book that I feel obliged to write.