Horovitz1 of the Phaidon Verlag offers me 3,000 marks for a book. It’s to be called “The Orient Express,” and is to be about the train, the passengers, the hotels, and stopping-off places. First I had to get Kiepenheuer’s permission for this breach of faith. He isn’t able to give me any more money, but the Horovitz money won’t be here for another ten days at the earliest, and who knows if the contract won’t be such that I can’t put my name to it. This year, apart from Job, I have written a ragged novel, 50 solid pages for the Kölnische, and about 80 articles, and I’m sitting there in perplexity, thinking it would have been better not to work and not have gotten sick, as I have. I literally can’t wait for Job to succeed. It won’t happen before January, and that’s fully three months away.
In case I am able to come to an agreement with Dr. Horovitz, that’ll see me through 2½ months maybe, but then I’ll need to work again, because he wants his book on March 1.
Thank you very much for the Mesmer. I’d like to read it tonight, and send you notes on it tomorrow. I don’t think you’ve forgotten how to write quickly; rather, I think it’s the fault of the material, if you have to do lots of revisions. I’m dying to see your Freud. When will that be ready?
I mentioned the Insel Verlag2 because I’m afraid Kiepenheuer will run out of money, and I need to live. I am too sick to live plainly. I can’t mortify myself in literature without indulging myself a little physically.
Cordially ever
your [Joseph Roth]
1. Horovitz: Bela Horovitz (1898 Budapest–1955 New York), founder of the Phaidon Verlag in Vienna and, later, in exile, the Phaidon Press in London. Roth’s book on the Orient Express was never written; instead Horovitz agreed to take on the second edition of Roth’s novel Hotel Savoy (first published in 1924 by Die Schmiede.)
2. the Insel Verlag: publisher of Zweig, among others (Rilke). Roth’s scorched-earth policy with publishers means he is already thinking of moving on.
106. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
Tuesday [23 September 1930]
Dear esteemed Stefan Zweig,
I’ve been trying for a week not to write this letter, now, after a conversation with Kiepenheuer I have no alternative. My wife has been taken to a sanatorium again, I am waiting for a call from Vienna. Kiepenheuer can offer me no further advances. I want to be gone, even before the 3,000 marks from Horovitz get here that I mentioned to you yesterday. Every wasted day is precious. Please please excuse me for introducing such ugliness into our friendship. I urgently need to send money to Vienna, close my tab here, and leave, far away, I don’t know where. I enclose a letter to Dr. Horovitz, asking him to send you the 3,000 marks. And I’m asking you now please to send me part of this amount here, or get it transferred even more quickly. All my endeavors with my wife have failed. I’m exhausted, finished. You will forgive a man in my condition the crudeness of misusing a truly noble friendship. I’ve just been interrupted. The call from Vienna. Another change of plan, I need to send money there, the last vestiges of my peace of mind depend on it. Please will you ask Dr. Schacherl to intervene, I’ll wire you at the same time. Excuse my abruptness, I must stop.
Cordially,
your humble Joseph Roth
107. To Bela Horovitz
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
Tuesday, 23 September 1930
Dear Dr. Horovitz,
would you have the kindness to send the 3,000 marks (three thousand) owing to me as per our contract to Mr. Stefan Zweig.
I don’t know whether I’m going to be in Paris—where I’d originally asked you to send the money—hence this change of arrangement.
Humble greetings from
your Joseph Roth
108. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
Thursday [September 1930]
Dear highly esteemed Stefan Zweig,
there was more to your Mesmer than I first thought, and I have only just gotten to the end of it. There’s no point making separate notes. Things that were strikingly wrong or that I very much disliked I didn’t find, and you’ll be able to see to other things yourself. The proof is very bad and full of errors. Lots of things are thrown together, with commas where I’m sure you didn’t put any. The beginning is a bit sticky, not like a beginning, stylistically more like a middle. You can’t easily make your way into it. It’s more as though you’ve opened it somewhere at random. I would shorten the sentences and break them up. Soften the tone a bit. Start to tell what is an extraordinary story. You assume too much of the reader at the outset. Even so, it’s not medias in res, so much as medias in scientias. But then, but then! It’s much better than Christian Science, and on the last pages it’s quite splendid. Some passages made me shiver. “Where now, old man?” That got me. And the final paragraph—apart from the use of imperfect instead of perfect—is of a really classic beauty, reminded me of Burckhardt’s1 prose, it has that lightness and massiness of something really good. Habitual mistakes: you put “as” for “than” in comparisons, you don’t use the semicolon enough, you connect syntactically things that are connected only in thought, and you are careless with tenses. Recherché comparisons, analogies, etc. are too frequent and rarely clinching. A half-resemblance, say, to Columbus, you try to make into a whole. Sometimes the wealth of associations at your fingertips tyrannizes you. But then. Then. You display more concentration than ever before. Another writer would have spun it out to 1,000 pages. And that must be praised, especially in you: to know so much, and throw so much away! Dear, dear, esteemed master. In the first 30 pages you should make your richness, your glitter, your fullness more porous, softer, gentler, and also harder. In your beginnings—and I know that’s to do with your kind nature—you are incapable of restraint. At the beginning you come across as positively voracious—but you take the reader’s voracity away. The wonderful last paragraph, I wish it were longer, and I wish the style and feeling of it were somehow also longer.—By the way, this is not an objective critical wish I’m expressing here. It’s my own feeling.
My cordial thanks.
This morning I got your letter, last night your wire. Do you mind if I talk about money one last time. I’ve got to do that job for Phaidon. I’m going to be seeing you. I refuse to borrow money from you while I’m capable of earning it, and as long as I don’t share your optimism that things will look up for me. I’ve just had to send 1,000 marks to Vienna, my wife is in Rekawinkel,2 and once again the doctor there doesn’t think it’s schizophrenia. So quite plainly and objectively this situation can go on costing me enormous sums—and as Kiepenheuer can’t pay me any more, and as my wife remains my first priority, because I can’t forget about her—then I can’t, in banal self-interest burden our friendship with that crap that money is. I’ll work till I drop. My letter to you must have been terrifying, I can’t remember, it was a terrible situation. Calls from Vienna, appeals to Kiepenheuer, who refused, I couldn’t catch myself, I lost my bearings, please forgive me. And I know, I know exactly how much good you do, and that there are other people as well, and that my torments mustn’t be overstated, even though I can feel them garroting me, I can see my last hour before me all the time. But you know about a lot of these torments. And they are all equally important. And I should like to loan Lidin3 some money myself, and please let him know that he can count on me.
I’ve just announced my visit to Königstein,4 where Dr. Simon is lying ill. He is the only one who knows Pagenstecher. I will try, if his fever isn’t too high (pleurisy) to talk to him about Lidin. I know it’s possible to get the price reduced. I’ll wire you if there’s any chance of that. But in any case I’m at Lidin’s disposal.
I’ve just heard that Landauer,5 Kiepenheuer’s managing editor, is coming here, either tonight or tomorrow mo
rning. It seems I am in conflict with the firm after all. It’s shitty that money can wreck something, and that it’s such a force. Maybe I’m being unfair. But my wife is so important, if I am to remain alive! Perhaps you won’t accept that either. You don’t know what it’s like.
I’m going tomorrow, first to Cologne. My mail will be forwarded. I’m meeting Reifenberg in Cologne. My next six months will be filled with shit work, for the newspaper and God knows, all for money. But maybe I’ll be able to get a trip to Russia out of the FZ. And that would rejuvenate me.—Do you still want to do that?
I get the feeling your wife is mixed up. I wrote her yesterday. Kiss her hand for me.
Cordially as ever,
your old Joseph Roth
Another thing: sometimes you have this construction “in the same measure as . . .” That’s not good. “as well as . . .”
And: too many gerunds (verbal nouns), even where authentic nouns are available. As for instance “being near” instead of “nearness” and so on . . .
1. Burckhardt: Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), considered one of the greatest historians of the nineteenth century.
2. Rekawinkel: small woodland spa in the hills outside Vienna.
3. Lidin: Vladimir Lidin (1894–1979), Russian author, residing partly abroad. Typical of JR: to be dependent on charity himself, and simultaneously extend it to others.
4. Königstein: spa outside Frankfurt.
5. Landauer: Walter Landauer (1902–1945), publisher, first with Die Schmiede, then from 1928 Kiepenheuer. Went into exile in 1933, became (with Roth’s support) editorial director of the German exile publishing part of the Dutch firm Allert de Lange, in Amsterdam, who, with Querido, and later De Gemeenschap, published Roth’s literary output. Murdered in Bergen-Belsen.
109. To Jenny Reichler
Dom Hotel, Cologne
Sunday [September 1930]
Dear Mother,
in November there will be money coming from America at last. 1,000 dollars initially, but that will do for a start, and I hope that you and Friedl will feel better as well.—I’m going back to Paris till then, to resume working for the newspaper. Write to me at Hotel Foyot, 33 rue de Tournon, right away please.—Don’t worry if Friedl blames you for all kinds of things, and don’t be offended, just go to her.—I am hopeful that I might finish my novel, and be in Vienna soon.
Hugs from me, and kisses, especially to dear father.
Your son.
110. To Jenny Reichler
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
Saturday
[September/October 1930]
Dear Mother,
thank you. I’m going to Strasbourg till tomorrow evening, Hotel Diebold for any wires. Please write and tell me if Dr. Schmitt made a good impression on you, and if you’re prepared to entrust Friedl to him. I’m loath to trust my own judgment in such an important matter.
What does Father think? What about Sandi?1
Hugs, your M.
As soon as I hear from Dr. Schmitt, I’ll pass on his opinion.
1. Sandi: Alexander Pompan, Roth’s brother-in-law, husband of Friedl’s sister Hedi.
111. To his parents-in-law
Hotel Foyot, Paris
Friday
[October 1930]
Dear parents,
I didn’t learn that it was Yom Kippur till I was back in Paris. Otherwise, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so crass as to announce my trip to you on that day. Please forgive me.
Write to me here. I have jaundice, and was very sick when I came back.
May God help us finally.
Hugs
your loyal son
112. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot, rue de Tournon
Paris, 8 October 1930
To Mr. Stefan Zweig, Salzburg, Kapuzinerberg 5
Dear esteemed Stefan Zweig,
on the way to Paris I fell ill in Strasbourg. That’s why I haven’t written to you for so long. I thought long and hard about your last letter. Perhaps you’re right in what you say about my wife. I still haven’t gained any perspective on it all. At least I’ve gotten this far, that I can no longer continue to be as sensitive to her condition as I am now—not if I’m to go on myself. I’ll write you in greater detail later. I just heard from Lidin, whose letter followed me here, it probably crossed me at Wiesbaden. He’s still in Paris, it seems, and I’m seeing him tomorrow. I’m leaving on the 13th. A tour of German cities for the Frankfurter Zeitung. My book is out the day after tomorrow. I assume you’ve been sent a bossy letter about your review from the publisher. I hope you won’t blame me. I’d be very glad to hear from you again before I leave.
In old cordiality
your Joseph Roth
113. To Jenny Reichler
Hotel Foyot, Paris
Thursday
[October 1930]
Dear Mother,
thank you for your letter. Milan Wileder’s1 visit appears to have been very useful for Friedl. Even though she didn’t react, I’m sure she will have felt something. If there’s another occasion, please describe it for me in just as much detail. Thank Hedi for writing, and for the article. I don’t think there’s anything to be done about my sadness. I’m through with life, for good. I can’t wait around any more for miracles. I have become an old man, and have gotten used to the absence of joy. In my own life, that is. If Friedl pulls through, I will be far older than she is. Just as soon as I feel really old, she will snap out of it, I know she will.
Hugs from your loyal son
Joseph
1. Milan Wileder: an old (female) friend of Friedl’s.
114. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
23 October 1930
Dear esteemed Mr. Zweig,
thank you so much for your kind letters. Of course I found myself staying longer on the road than I should have done; but perhaps it was necessary after all. I haven’t seen the announcement for my book. If you should happen to have a copy, please send it to me, but you must stop getting annoyed about it. Every word you write about me is written out of friendship; and because I am waxing metaphysical, let me add that only things that are done out of friendship have any effect.
I am compelled to dictate this, and am sorry that I am therefore unable to respond to what you wrote about your family. I’ll get on to it as soon as I can. Please tell your dear wife that I am grateful for every word she writes to me, and that I will write to her in the next few days also.
The thought of the Balearics is extraordinarily tempting. Who isn’t disgusted by politics? You’re right, Europe is killing itself, and in a peculiarly slow and horrible way, because it is a corpse already. This ending is devilishly like a psychosis. It’s a psychotic’s suicide. The devil really is in the saddle. But it’s the two extremes I don’t understand, for that I’m too much the contemporary of Franz Joseph, I hate extremism; it’s the most fiery and disgusting tongue of this flame. Do please send me your Freud (and I’m glad you shortened the first part of the Mesmer).
You’re quite right, of course I have to visit the small towns; that was the newspaper’s proposal too. Maybe if I’d visited them before the election,1 the result wouldn’t have come as such a shock to the paper, and to others. I’m still unable to share your optimism with regard to Job; I know the book has captured hearts, but according to Kiepenheuer’s calculations, it won’t actually make any money until mid to late January.
Your telegram reached me too late, because I got to Frankfurt later than I’d planned. I am writing to the Insel Verlag, to ask them for the Chinese novel;2 thank you for the tip.
I’ll make sure that Dr. Moritz Scheyer gets sent a copy of Job too.
In old cordiality
your [Joseph Roth]
1. elections: the Reichstag elections of 14 September 1930, in which the Nazis won 107 of 577 seats (in 1928 they had just 12) and the Communists 70 (as against 54 previously).
2. Chinese novel: Kin Ping-Meh, published in German translation by Insel in 1930.
115. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel “Der Achtermann” and Niedersächsischer Hof
Currently in Goslar, 20 November 1930
Dear esteemed Stefan Zweig,
thank you very much for the Rocca.1 The same day I got a very sweet letter from him. I’ll reply today. I don’t quite understand what sort of issue the LW2 is putting together, and fear it may not be the ideal setting for Rocca. Willy Haas3 is among the very few life-forms whom the Germans view correctly—and his scandalous reputation of course rubs off on any magazine he edits. I’m sure Kiepenheuer, or Dr. Landshoff,4 would be prepared to put out a magazine like that, from business considerations alone. If the plan with the LW doesn’t work out, maybe we can take it to Kiepenheuer?
Please God you’re right about the print run for Job. So far, 8,500 copies have been sold, which is a lot for me. But not enough in view of the money problems of the Kiepenheuer Verlag. Neither Feuchtwanger nor Heinrich Mann is selling well. Glaeser is hovering around the 15,000 mark, he’ll probably get to 30 in the end. How I’d love to be working on my novel on the Dual Monarchy now! But I need at least 2,500 a month, and I bust a gut to make 1,000, and not even that, because I can’t manage 1,000 lines a month for the Frankfurter. That’s almost 50 a day, one would have to be a steam press to manage that. And the traveling on top of everything, and putting up in towns that defy the imagination. It’s a terrible thing, you know, never having more than 50 marks in your pocket. Kiepenheuer can only ever manage installments of 100 or 150 marks, just enough to pay the hotel, and the train fare and the next hotel. I never have enough to be able to settle somewhere for a fortnight, say. Unfortunately, I’ve also signed with Phaidon. Vienna needed another 1,000 marks, and it was a moment when Kiepenheuer had nothing at all. But the contract is more favorable, because I asked for and got only half the advance, and in return secured the right to hand in a different travel manuscript instead. So what I’m thinking of is a “New Harz Journey,” which is due to come out in the FZ anyway. Of which I haven’t written a line. I can hardly access the newspaper tone any more—my head is full of the novel (“The Radetzky March,” it’ll be called), set in the Dual Monarchy from 1890 to 1914.5 I’ll tell you the plot sometime we’re together.
Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters Page 18
