Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters
Page 33
Thank you so much, my friend, for the novella. Please write and let me know when you’re coming. I hope to be able to start work tomorrow or the day after. I have many private woes in addition to my illness, but I am reluctant to dictate them to you.
Sincerely, your old
Joseph Roth
1. the catastrophe in Austria: 12 February saw the beginning of an uprising by the Social Democrats in Austria in Linz. A countrywide general strike followed. Fighting in Vienna and Graz led to the dissolution of the SPÖ (Socialist Party of Austria) and to the Dollfuss dictatorship on 1 May.
2. novella: Angst (Fear).
3. some rather worn adjectives: Zweig and Roth were both (rightly) of the view that Zweig was not a tenth the writer that Roth was. Zweig—to do him credit—was quite open about it, and would say as much to anyone who cared to hear. In JR it takes the rather tortuous form of combining (as here) excessive praise of the whole with copious criticism of details to appease his—unappeasable—literary conscience. Or he could be (alas!) straightforwardly duplicitous, talking behind Zweig’s back. Roth would explain to friends that he was a friend of Zweig’s, and they would therefore have to forgive him for having to read his books; Zweig’s Beware of Pity was as little a great novel as its author a great writer. And so on, and so on. It seems to me that Roth—always needy, always manipulative—plays Zweig like a big fish he’s not quite sure he wants. Several decades later, strange to say, there is a creeping inability to distinguish between Zweig and Roth, which is basically illiterate and unpardonable.
246. To Stefan Zweig
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
Hotel Foyot
6 March 1934
Dear esteemed friend,
I think you’re being a little unfair on Matveev.1 Remember, he’s forty, and a painter, and he won’t straightaway understand some of the technical points. Also, I think—it happens to me sometimes—that one is slow to find something tragic because it’s too personally upsetting. Then, when you take a second look, you come to see that the upsetting doesn’t preclude the tragic. I am saying, I suppose, that we always react personally and humanly, in spite of our line of work. At any rate, I’ve gotten to know Matveev, and have spoken to him. It seems to me he’s invented more things than he’s actually experienced, which of course speaks for him, in literary terms. Don’t you think Huebsch could be interested?
Write me something of what’s happening to you personally. I’m appending a few handwritten lines. Also, albeit a little reluctantly, the final galleys of Tarabas, and what appears to me a rather nasty review from London.
Tell me if I’m mistaken.
Sincerely
Your Joseph Roth
8 March. Dear friend, my life is still more complicated than you think, even though you seem to have a lot of understanding for me. I think it’s my foe, the Antichrist, hatching little plots to cripple me. And I can, following your advice, retire all I like, he keeps running the doors down. Let me be a little less cryptic. I have an old friend, one Konstantin Leites,2 a 56-year-old Russian, an important person (he was a financial counselor under the tsar). Some 8 months ago, his wife lost her mind. Of late, she was doing better. I advised him against taking her out of the asylum. The doctor was in favor. He followed the doctor and his own sentiment. He rented an apartment for her, and spent many hours there with her. Well now, a couple of days ago she threw herself out of the window. Terrible hours with my friend. A terrible funeral. I spent two whole days in bed, unable to do a stroke.
But lest this tragedy lack also the most banal awfulness: my friend many times offered to lend me money—I always refused. The tragedy happened on the day that for the first time, I had to accept. I called him to that end—and caught the tragedy instead.
I am completely done in. I have to live somewhere, eat something. I owe you, my dear friend, the following sum—but I could be wrong about that:
2,000 marks
4,000 francs.
Would you be able to lend me more? Do you have it handy? Things with de Lange are serious. I have to deliver on the 30th.3
This is, putting it crudely, so crude that I remind myself of Beierle, but what am I to do? Lack of funds makes one crude. And no amount of stylistic finesse can prettify that ugly reality. Promise me you’ll tear up this letter. Don’t hold it against me. (Even the most decent of men can make mistakes.) Write back.
Your old
J.R.
1. Matveev: Michel Matveev, painter and Yiddish writer, a friend of Roth’s then living in Paris.
2. Leites: Konstantin Leites, a Russian financier and publisher of Russian writing. Went to Paris in 1933.
3. deliver on the 30th: i.e., The Antichrist.
247. To Félix Bertaux (written in French)
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
8 March 1934
My very dear friend,
I just read in 19341 the preface you wrote for the excerpt from my novel. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know—and this isn’t a figure of speech—you demonstrate more than an “understanding” of me—it’s already more like a divination. Friendship has taught you much about me. And it’s friendship too that is the basis of my deep gratitude.
I am sad not to have heard from you for many months. I was sick then, and I’m sick now. I can’t make myself understood on the telephone. And, as before, I am very unhappy, and very impoverished. I can’t describe it to you.
What about you, though? And Mme Bertaux? And Pierre?
I am writing The Antichrist. And having to write 10 pages a day, so as to be finished on the 25th. Feverish and impoverished.
I remain
your old and sad Joseph Roth
1. 1934: a weekly publication, in Paris.
248. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
8 March 1934
Dear Madam Gidon,
I have just read the preface.1 I want to thank you with all my heart for the deep understanding you have of my work, and of my still poorer life. I found the quotations particularly well chosen. I want to say: how did you know?
And how is Mr. Gidon? How is he doing? Do you want to see me? I am writing The Antichrist, and must be finished by the 25th. Would it be possible to meet sometime after that?
Your ever grateful
Joseph Roth
1. The foreword (by Mrs. Gidon, and using the materials in no. 244, ones assumes) to the French edition of The Radetzky March.
249. To Carl Seelig
Joseph Roth
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
Hotel Foyot
12 March 1934
Dear Mr. Seelig,
thank you for thinking of me. I go to the cinema so infrequently that I am afraid I could embarrass myself with the accompanying statement.
I am very poorly. I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks. I have no money at all, and “spiritually” I am no better off. I heard from Polgar1 via the Austrian embassy. I haven’t heard from Max Picard for a long time now. My book, which I finished in Rapperswil,2 I no longer have any feeling for. I am writing a new one. It is called The Antichrist. Nevertheless, I will send you Tarabas as soon as it comes out. I am afraid to look at the proofs, which is delaying publication. Mrs. Manga Bell is at present not in Paris. She thinks of you sincerely. And that I do, you won’t need me to tell you.
Very sincerely,
your humble Joseph Roth
Please excuse the pencil. I am in bed, very ill, with a bad throat.
1. Polgar: Alfred Polgar (1875–1955), Austrian novelist, translator, reviewer, and, above all, author of feuilletons, where he was probably the most admired in t
he business. Roth liked to call himself a pupil of Polgar, who, in fact, published some of his early pieces in Vienna. Fled to the United States in 1941.
2. in Rapperswil: The Radetzky March?
250. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
26 March 1934
Dear friend,
Thank you so much. Mr. Alzir Hella1 brought me the money, I gave him a receipt for it.
a. I finished The Antichrist an hour ago. At last, for the first time in my life, I’m satisfied with a book.
You too, I’m sure, will be satisfied with it. It’s a thousand times better than Tarabas. I spent 10–12 hours on it every day, 8 on the writing, 2–4 preparing it.
I’m at the end of my tether, but very happy.
b. Forgive me for talking about myself first.
The embassy isn’t claiming that you publicly spoke out against Austria.
But a few weeks ago—or it could have been longer—you may have said something negative about the current state of Austria to a French journalist.
It’s nothing to worry about, in any way.
Nothing happens here concerning you, without my being consulted.
I think that what you say about your criticisms being broadcast through all the embassies is an exaggeration.
c. More important, to me much more important, is that there is a rumor going the rounds that you are reluctant to sign a new publishing contract, because you are still counting on Insel and on Germany.
Please write and tell me that isn’t so.
d. Just as important to me is our relationship. Or to put it another way: my fear that you may view me in a different way because I owe you money.
I know money can have that effect: it corrodes the noblest of relationships.
But I can’t help it. I’m living in abject poverty. (Some of it through my fault, if you like.)
You haven’t written to me about it—thus far—even though you must sense how awful it feels to me that you haven’t mentioned it to me. If it doesn’t suit you, though, to mention it, then please don’t.
I’ll send you the manuscript of The Antichrist, if you like.
Sincerely,
your old friend Joseph Roth
1. Mr. Alzir Hella, the French translator of Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
251. To Blanche Gidon (written in French)
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
Monday
[postmarked:
26 March 1934]
Dear Madam Gidon,
thank you for your kind letter. Rest assured, there is not a single cloud in our sky. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see you before you leave. I am in the Deux Magots almost every day, and write there at night.
(There we are, I’ve just been summoned to the telephone)
So it seems we’ll meet tonight!
All yours!
Greetings to Mr. Gidon.
Your Joseph Roth
252. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
[London] 27 March 1934
Dear friend,
thank you for your letter. You can imagine how furious I was when it was bandied about that I had made some political utterances in Paris that were directed against Austria—I gave an interview in Paris-Soir or in L’Intransigeant,1 I don’t remember, it was three months ago with the stipulation: not one word of politics, and I wanted to see it before it appeared, and it duly came out without a single word of politics. Every other account is a barefaced lie. You know yourself I was only there for a very short time, and that was taken up by publishing business (and one day, if you remember, at Fontainebleau for work).
As for the lecture, I had promised Radio Paris a talk when I was in Salzburg, and wrote it, and had it translated into French at my own expense (I still have it)—proof of my best intentions. Then it turned out that some two years ago I had promised some learned society a talk on a different subject, and I didn’t want to deliver two lectures in Paris at the same time, because—as you know—I like to guard my anonymity when I’m there, and don’t want to be drawn into the social whirl. I asked the government councillor Hofman-Montanus whether someone else couldn’t be found to speak on my behalf, and was all set to give him the lecture—my intentions were the best, and of course I was giving my services for nothing, not even expenses.
The lecture that I canceled—to be honest, because of Germany—was a year ago in Strasbourg, shortly after Hitler’s coming to power. I would have made myself liable to attack if I, a German author, had spoken in French in Strasbourg of all places, where everyone understands German; Strasbourg friends of mine had told me under the then prevailing tensions it would cause embarrassment. I understood, as any sensible person would have understood it in my place.
This is all perfectly straightforward. But on the basis of it, and reports from Paris that were circulated against me in Vienna, I was made subject to a sort of inquiry, the newspapers were banned from publishing anything of mine, and there was tittle-tattle, as though I had been abroad, giving talks against Austria, about the latest developments. You will hardly believe that people can proceed in such fashion against someone who, as you know, both at home and abroad, has always been the most reticent of men, and discreet to the point of hysteria: but that is indeed the case, and it’s no fabrication of mine and no exaggeration. Surely to God, they must understand in official places in Paris, where they know about the spread of my books, and my position there, the lengths I’ve gone to avoid every public utterance since the political poisoning of the world, and what feats I perform to prevent a single word of mine coming to light that was capable of being politically exploited. Here in London, the papers leave me alone, but you know yourself how I have to hide myself in Paris.
Sincere regards from
Stefan Zweig
Please for God’s sake tell no one about this matter, otherwise it’s certain to end up in the French and émigré newspapers.
If you were to go to the embassy in person, and offer a vigorous explanation, you would be doing me a service, because the situation is serious.
1. Paris-Soir or L’Intransigeant: both popular Parisian newspapers.
253. Friderike and Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth
[London]
28 March 1934
Dear Joseph Roth,
Stefan says you’ve finished your book, and are pleased with it. I am very glad to hear it. Now you must reward yourself, and look to your health. If you are satisfied with your work you no longer have any excuse not to.
I send you my fond regards and all good wishes. There is so much we might talk about: I think you would understand how I view the situation, but there is too much of it, so I just send you my warmest good wishes
Yours, Friderike Z.
Dear friend, I didn’t reply to your question yesterday. I never think of money matters when I think of you1—that’s a complex of yours that you must shrug off. I am happy that you are for once satisfied with a piece of work, how good it must be for you, your own archenemy, to be proud of it!
You’re not seeing my situation in the correct light. It is very serious. I am the subject of an investigation in Vienna, none of my friends will tell me what’s going on, and the only cause is an accusation from Paris official channels concerning alleged talks, or public utterances given by me. Luckily I can prove that I haven’t given any lectures, and only one interview, with no political content, three months ago, I haven’t spoken to journalists, otherwise they would have fabricated an interview out of it, but how do you defend yourself against something when you don’t even know what it is, or whom it’s coming from. You’ll remember that I told you, one of my closest friends (you remember, I said: because you’re a drinker) that there are certain things of a personal or politi
cal nature that I just don’t want to talk about, and you laughed—but that shows you how circumspect I, by nature so open and candid, have become. The denunciation that forms the basis of the Vienna investigation (of course my absence from Austria is accounted “suspicious” too, though it’s to do with Mary Stuart2 and America), has come from Paris, that’s all I was able to find out about it; here too I have an official questionnaire to deal with, but evidently, because they know how I live and the manner of work that I do, they don’t think it’s worth accusing me in such a way. Oh, I’m so fed up with these torments, they always disturb my work, which is the only thing that matters to me.
1. when I think of you: not quite, and hard to see how he couldn’t. For instance, when the writer Joseph Breitbach told SZ in 1935 that he was lending money to JR, Zweig warned him that it would cost him his friendship with Roth.
2. Mary Stuart: Maria Stuart, published in 1935; Zweig researched it in the British Museum in London.
254. To Carl Seelig
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
Hotel Foyot
28 March 1934
Dear Mr. Seelig,
things are so bad, I have decided to ask you for help.
Perhaps you could advance me some or all of the fee the newspaper is to pay me for my answers to the questionnaire?
I don’t want to go into particulars. Awful things have happened. I am running around like a trapped mouse, there are no chinks between the bars, no way out.