Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  “But what about France?” I asked timidly.

  “France will also go along with Germany. I told the Germans: you guys have got to do a deal with the French—otherwise it won’t work. And then Schacht went to Paris.2 Look, I’ll tell you something that will really amaze you. But be careful: nothing must leave these four walls. I negotiated for the French with the Germans; I had a mandate to do so. And do you know who gave it to me? Léon Blum. Only things are not going so well now with Léon Blum. But when a Daladier government is formed, it’ll all be settled straightaway. Look, I’ve got a letter here from Daladier. When he becomes prime minister, I’ll be off to Paris.”

  Friday, 8 January. Sinaia

  I’ve been here at Roman’s villa since Monday evening. It’s a splendid house. At first it struck me as both sumptuous and severe, but I’m beginning to make friends with it. I think I could spend a whole lifetime here. But I’ll leave on Sunday—and go back to a Bucharest where I feel so disoriented. . . .

  I came with the idea of writing, but it hasn’t been going too well. The day before yesterday, in some four hours of work, I barely managed to write three pages or so—and even those were full of corrections. Since then, nothing. My writing difficulties really trouble me, and I so much envy Mircea’s prolificness. My pen encounters so many obstacles, so many misgivings, so many hesitations. That’s not how a novel is written. Besides, I have to agree that novels are not my line. I can write delicate things marked by reflection, revery, and soliloquy—but I don’t find it easy to keep darting between characters and let them get on with their lives.

  I thought a lot about this yesterday on a walk in the mountains. I have a certain lack of spontaneity, which no other quality can ever overcome. What I write is a little schematic, linear, and abstract, even when it is graceful and suffused with emotion (for I am so sentimental). So I can create stories of two hundred pages, with the tone of a private diary, but not a novel. I also think I could write very well for the theatre; it has a number of standard routines that help me along, because I am so lacking in imagination. Also, the distances are shorter in the theatre. . . . If I were not a Jew and my plays could be performed, I would most likely have become a “dramatist” and nothing else. As it is, though, the experience of my first play is quite enough.

  As to the book I have started to write, I do not yet have a clear picture of it. All I have at the beginning is a vague, highly vague, overview and a clear plan for the first chapter. Further than that, I see nothing and know nothing. I am hoping that things will become clearer as I write. But I find it so hard to get moving! And I have so many other work obligations! Who knows how long I will be held up by this trifle of a book, which I thought might come out this spring! My slow work rhythm has always spoiled the best-laid of my literary projects. Still, I shall try to get down to work in Bucharest (no more going out, hardworking afternoons, sensible evenings), and from time to time I’ll take a short working holiday and spend it in Breaza or Sinaia.

  Saturday, 9 [January]

  My first day’s skiing. I’d never have thought it would be so easy. I felt a kind of childish vanity installed on the skis, in a perfect regulation outfit that I had improvised on the day I left Bucharest—but I didn’t think I would ever manage anything with my equipment, which looks rather like in the movies.

  The day before yesterday in Predeal, where we had stopped for a few minutes at the Manolovici villa, I rather bashfully asked to be given detailed guidance (there were so many people there who had been skiing for years). Someone asked if I was going to learn or not: “Are you scared?”

  And I answered quite frankly, without beating about the bush: “Yes.”

  “Well, you’ll never learn then,” he answered, cutting short the discussion.

  I did learn, though, by a kind of hit and miss. Feeling sure that I’d fall after a few meters, I stormily (yes, I like to say stormily) covered the beautiful slope of the Stîna Regală—and, funnily enough, I did so without falling down. Then I performed a lot of other bewildering “exploits.” We were descending for much of the way back, on skis—falling quite often, it is true, but in the end moving quite skillfully for the first day.

  Wendy, who was my instructor, said:

  “Bravo. You’ve got talent.”

  And I wasn’t ashamed to feel flattered by this good mark, handed down with objectivity from the teacher’s desk.

  What a happy morning! Life still has some things to say to me.

  Friday, 15 [January]. Bucharest

  Since I got back on Sunday evening, there has been nothing in my personal life.

  The book has remained where it was; I’ll try to start work again this evening.

  I don’t see anyone. Nothing happens to me.

  Mota and Vasile Marin have died in Spain.3 It’s hard for me to talk about that with Mircea. I sense that he’s in mourning. As far as I’m concerned, I feel sad when I think about what has happened. There’s more blindness than humbug in their camp, and perhaps more good faith than imposture. But then, how is it possible that they don’t realize their terrible mistake, their barbarous mistake? What aberration explains it?

  I haven’t seen Marietta for a fortnight—nor am I in such a hurry to see her now. She’s been having an attack of anti-Semitism, which I haven’t witnessed myself but which Gheorghe told me about in detail: “The yids are to blame,” shouted Marietta. “They take the bread from our mouths; they exploit and smother us. They should get out of here. This is our country, not theirs. Romania for the Romanians!”

  One day I’ll calmly try to explain to her why a woman who can think like that is completely and utterly unsuited for the role in my play.

  Monday, 18 [January]

  Holban was cremated yesterday.4 It’s impossible to grasp that he has actually died, that I’ll never meet him again in the street or see him in a concert hall.

  Also yesterday, a letter came from Blecher—a kind of “testamentary letter” giving me various instructions for his manuscripts after his death. He thinks it must now be very close. I wrote back with difficulty.

  On Saturday night I stayed with Camil until two at the Splendid Parc; we talked about Leni and “our past sufferings.”

  On Sunday morning there was a woman’s voice on the telephone:

  “I should like to thank you for lnimi cicatrízate,5 which I have read on your recommendation.”

  She wouldn’t say who she was.

  “That’s all. I just wanted to thank you.” And she hung up.

  Sinaia. Saturday, 30 [January]

  Back in Sinaia. I arrived this morning: Dinu Noica was waiting for me at the station. (His extraordinary delicacy, his smooth gestures, his measured speech: what an admirable type of man. Compared with him, I feel hasty, vulgar, and insensitive. . . .)

  I am renting a room opposite the park, modest but clean and pleasant. I want to stay until Wednesday—and above all I want to write. That’s why I’ve come. But will I be able to? Will it work?

  Sunday, 31 [January]

  The snow is beautiful as it gently falls. Ideal weather for skiing. But I won’t allow myself a Sunday’s skiing unless I earn it by working enough.

  Yesterday I wrote all afternoon, and I also wrote this morning. It goes very slowly. Every sentence takes an enormously long time. I don’t know whether I’m too lazy or too punctilious. I’d like to be able to wander a bit, to give myself some space and be carried along by the flow of things, so that I’m not always looking back at what I’ve done and carefully calculating every step forward. If I go on at this rate, I’ll need a year to finish the book. Besides, I shouldn’t forget that these four days away have been altogether exceptional. Nor should I forget that I’m still on the familiar ground of the first chapter, to which I have given a lot of detailed thought. What will I do later, when I move on to the parts of the novel that are still unclear?

  I don’t know. I would so much like it to come out for the Day of the Book, at the end of April, but I can�
�t believe it will. I can see myself still working at it this summer—and being forced to postpone other projects yet again. . . .

  But don’t let’s moan and groan too much. I’m pleased to have this short break away from Bucharest. I’m alone—and as happy as I am still able to be.

  Monday, [1 February]

  I don’t know if I deserved this morning’s skiing. Anyway, I allowed it to myself, and I don’t feel any remorse. . . .

  I was up on the Opler: the skiing area is much smaller and the slope much gentler than on the sheepwalk. I no longer had a giddy feeling. Everything seemed less fantastical than at the beginning. But I’m still enough of a child to be happy with so little.

  As for work, I wrote more than six pages yesterday—in exactly seven and a half hours. It’s not a record, of course: it’s a smooth and normal output. I’ll certainly write all afternoon today as well. But as I spend more time at my desk, I realize that it’s going to be a long haul. I must stop setting deadlines and schedules for myself in advance. The only sensible plan is to work at a steady pace, without thinking about when I’ll finish. Anyway, I don’t think there is any chance of having it ready this spring.

  Tuesday, 2 February

  This morning I got carried away with the review for Reporter (I fear I was too harsh with Dem. Theodorescu) and the article for bide pendent a.6 But I worked all afternoon until eight, and then from 9:30 till midnight, when I am writing these lines. Even so, the day’s yield is derisory: just three pages. Not even three.

  I’m really furious with myself. It’s not admissible to write so slowly; not admissible to sit for hours to describe a single gesture. Will I never acquire greater ease, greater fluency? At my present rate, God knows when I’ll finish a book of two hundred pages, of which I don’t think I’ve written twenty up to now.

  Friday, 5 [February]

  I came back from Sinaia on Wednesday evening. Am I content with the amount I worked? Yes, in a sense. The twenty pages I’ve written up to now are certainly not a lot—but they’re enough to make me feel that “the ice is broken.” Now I know that if I work systematically for forty days or so (“free days,” as they say in court, because I’m not counting the inevitable breaks), I’ll be able to finish this little story. I’m beginning to see it more clearly. I’m also beginning to take an interest in what happens. And some unexpected little things are indeed “happening” by themselves, through the course of events. Maybe it will finally result in a little book of which I don’t need to feel embarrassed.

  One possible title is The Accident. It’s not too evocative, but I’ve never been good at choosing titles.

  Yesterday evening there was a Kreutzberg dance festival. I can’t fully assess the value of it, because there must be a whole technique that may in the end successfully replace inspiration, emotion, and natural talent.

  But the guy seemed extraordinary. I thought it a happy personal coincidence that the program included the romance from the Kleine nachtmusik. He danced it with the utmost grace. I thought of my play—and in Kreutzberg’s movements I saw what I would have liked to achieve in the way of rhythm and style.

  There are curious aptitudes in Kreutzberg: now a mime, now a gymnast, now a true clown. There were moments when he reminded me perfectly of Grock. But in Till Eulenspiegel he was a figure out of Breugel.

  Nae Ionescu was in a box. We chatted during the interval. Last week he was in Warsaw and Lvov, where he gave a couple of lectures for students. He spoke to them about the new Romania, basing himself—so he said—on the sacrifice made by Ion Moţa in going to Spain “not to fight but to die.”

  There was also a Parisian journalist in his box—Odette Arnaud, who has come to Romania to write an investigative piece. I arranged to meet her tomorrow morning, because she wants an interview or something like that.

  Nae spoke to her about his house, which he called “the finest in Bucharest.” He told us of the Florentine furniture he has bought for it, and two fountains he has had brought from somewhere or other. . . . There was something tactless and ostentatious in all this praise. I know how much childishness there is in it, but I think there is also a little boorishness. I felt it especially in the company of that Parisian, so modest and gracious without trying to be. . . .

  Friday, 12 [February]

  The day before yesterday I went out to a café with Radu Olteanu7 and Benu. Radu thinks quite seriously that the possibility of an Iron Guard coup in the next few days cannot be dismissed. He thinks it quite possible that the Guard, being mobilized in Bucharest for the funeral of Mota and Marin, well armed, stirred by fasting, pomp, and parades, will take power into its hands. The Bucharest Garrison—whose young officers at least have become “legionarized”—would not put up any resistance.

  I don’t take Radu’s fears too seriously. But I do register them. They are a symptom, if nothing else.

  Nae did not give a lecture, no doubt as a sign of mourning. Tomorrow Mircea won’t be lecturing either.

  Sinaia. Sunday, 14 [February]

  Again in Sinaia. I arrived this morning, but I don’t think I’ll stay later than Tuesday. Besides, my literary ambitions are very modest: I want to complete the first chapter. Even now it is still not finished, because I haven’t written a line since my last séjour in Sinaia.

  Apart from that, I want to do a little skiing—and to forget Bucharest.

  Tuesday, 16 [February]

  I’ve already returned to Bucharest this morning, in Roman’s car. Yesterday was taken up with skiing. Three hours in the morning with Air. Roman and Miss Lereanu,8 four in the afternoon with Thea.

  (I won’t write anything about Thea. It was the simplest kind of loving. But I have an intolerably serious way of behaving with women.)

  The skiing exercises in the afternoon were very exacting. I fell a number of times. On the way back I fell so badly—there were several meters of ice-—that I tore my trousers at the knees and came away with a minor wound, just as in the first chapter of the novel.

  As for the novel, I am ashamed to write about it. I have done absolutely nothing.

  Bucharest. Monday, 22 [February]

  I left Sinaia feeling embarrassed toward Dinu and Wendy.9 I thought that on Sunday—and again on Monday—the evening was too adolescent, too frivolous. As I stretched out on the sofa with Thea, kissing and embracing her, I had the stupid look of an eighteen-year-old boy off to the cinema to paw his little flirt—or who, even worse, hides himself away with her in a friendly and discreet house.

  Dinu and Wendy were our hosts, but I put them in the awkward situation of somehow patronizing a “louche” relationship with the wife of a friend of theirs. Everything was unclear: half joke, half excited pleasure. That’s a little demeaning for thirty-year-olds.

  I considered it was all my fault, and I was a little ashamed of myself. On the other hand, I could understand Thea very well, alone as she was for four weeks in Sinaia after a quarrel with a vulgar and indifferent husband. Why shouldn’t she accept friendship or perhaps courtship (or perhaps even an adventure) from a man about whom—for literary or other reasons—she had already begun to feel a certain curiosity? We said goodbye on Monday night in front of her house, with a kiss I had neither requested nor expected and for which there was no longer the pretext of a continuing joke, since we were there alone. Probably for her, my passing through Sinaia was the start of a possible love affair. That would explain why, the day before yesterday at eight o’clock, she rang me from Sinaia to wish me a good morning—a call that gave me so much pleasure. . . .

  I thought that was the end of the matter—nor did I consider it important enough to record at length in my journal—but then came yesterday evening’s conversation with Dinu. I ate just with him at the Splendid Parc and listened to a confession that was in many ways a revelation. I certainly won’t be able to capture all his hesitations, nuances, and details: I’ll just give a quick summary of what he said.

  So then:

  On Saturday 13 February
, Dinu—who for some time has been discreetly wooing Thea—sets off for her villa but resolves on the way not to go inside. Two factors make him decide not to pursue his advances: 1) a determination in principle not to be unfaithful to Wendy, even though theirs is a free marriage; 2) the fact that the funeral of Mop and Marin is taking place then in Bucharest, and that this is too grave an event for him to allow himself such frivolity on the same day. But Thea is at the window of her house and sees him passing by; she calls out—and he enters. Once inside, he forgets the two moral impediments and tries to kiss her. Thea refuses him. He leaves feeling depressed—not so much at the rejection as at his own sense of weakness. It is a blot on his honor that he has attempted such a light-minded adventure on the very day of the funeral (in which, he tells me, he participated with emotion).