Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  Saturday, 27 March

  In Tunisia, after some early successes, the British have clearly been shaken by Rommel’s counterattack. But the offensive is continuing, at present through fierce air and artillery clashes. In Russia the communiqué does not mention anything new across the whole front. The thaw is general. Will it lead to a kind of cease-fire until the ground dries? Or will there be new developments between now and May? In any event, the war is no longer in a dramatic phase.

  This evening I have reread Insula. It was instructive. Act Two doesn’t work even in the new version; I haven’t dumped enough ballast. But I do think I am seeing things clearly. I need to make some huge cuts. Some twelve pages will go by the board—pages of reverie and lyricism. A month ago, when I was too close to the text, I couldn’t have borne the thought of eliminating them, but now I can do it without feeling bad. The play will be brisker, more coherent, more simple and concise. I may be wrong, but I have a sense that this time je suis dans le vrai.7 I also have a clearer picture of Act Three. I shall divide it into two tableaux, as I originally planned. I’d like to write it quickly, not only to wrap up Insula but above all so that I can get started on “Ursa Major,” which has recently taken clearer shape and become just too tempting.

  Monday, 29 March

  Chesterton about Thomas Hardy: “I will not pretend to sympathize with his philosophy as a truth, but I think it is quite possible to sympathize with it as an error; or, in other words, to understand how the error arose.” This is a possible motto for a portrait of a friend in the opposite camp. But is such friendship still possible?

  Tuesday, 30 March

  In Tunisia, Rommel has again turned to a war of movement. The British have crossed the Mareth line and occupied Gabès. I don’t have a map to follow the situation, nor do I have enough information. I can’t work out the possibilities and perspectives, but if the British and Americans are bent on a serious fight, you wonder what is left for Rommel to do. Resist? Counterattack? Take to ships?

  Saturday, 3 April

  Nothing new at the fronts. The communiqués say nothing. Standstill in Tunisia, thaw in Russia. And it is already April.

  I visited Ortansa Gulian yesterday evening. No news of Emil. Is he a prisoner? Or dead? The poor people are consulting fortune-tellers, who read things in cards or coffee grounds, and arranging for masses to be said. I stayed until Anca (Emil’s daughter) said her evening prayers for “Daddy.” It was harrowing.

  Saturday, 10 April

  Terribly tired. Almost sick with tiredness. I fear that last year’s insomnia is returning. Some nights I sleep only two or three hours. I am also working too much at school: twenty-three hours of classes (sometimes eight a day) is too much for my level of stamina. I get home dizzy, hoarse, incapable of two consecutive thoughts. I await the Easter holidays as a period of convalescence. I’d have liked to go to Corcova, but Antoine— to whom I sent a letter—doesn’t seem in any rush to receive me.

  Camil is performing Mioara at the “Studio.” I had no choice and went along yesterday to a rehearsal, or rather to the preview. People getting worked up, plotting against one another, trading insults and praise. I feel completely indifferent to it all. In a way, maybe I should feel scared. Am I so old, so lethargic, so disgusted that this game—in which I too used to take part—no longer means anything at all to me?

  By a stroke of good fortune I have been able to reread my journal for January-June 1941, which for a moment I thought I had lost. The big surprise was that it seemed so uninteresting: too dry (despite the dramatic nature of the events), too cold, too impersonal.

  In Tunisia the Anglo-American offensive resumed a few days ago and is expanding in every sector. Rommel is retreating in the south and is also yielding ground in the center. The resistance seems stronger in the north. Yesterday evening’s German communiqué, as well as today’s, say that the enemy forces are several times larger. From now on it looks as if it is just a question of time. Three weeks? A month? Two months? In Russia there is nothing new.

  Wednesday, 14 April

  In Tunisia, Rommel’s retreat has become headlong in the past few days. Kairouan, Sfax, and Sousse have fallen in turn. Resistance is taking place only in the north, in a kind of semicircle containing Tunis and Bizerta. The campaign has entered a new phase, in which there is no longer room for strategic retreat. That formula, possible up to now, has been overtaken by events. From now on the alternative is quite simple: either resistance or surrender. We can’t be sure how things will work out in the immediate future; for that we would need to know what forces have been committed.

  In Paris, the seventy-four-year-old General Mordacq has thrown himself into the Seine. No identifying papers were found on the corpse. The dispatch gives no more information, but what a tragedy must lie behind it!

  Thursday, 15 April

  An unusually forceful statement was issued this morning about Marshal Antonescu’s visit to the Führer. “The common struggle against bolshevism and the Anglo-American plutocrats.” “The mobilization of all forces. . . The Romanian people will wage this war until the final victory . . . This historic contribution will be the foundation and guarantee for the future of the Romanian Nation.” Is something being prepared? What? War in the Balkans? An attack on Turkey or from Turkey? There is a silence that betokens major new events. With the exception of the Tunisian front, the war is passing through one of those quiet periods from which it may suddenly burst out again, in one of a number of unexpected directions.

  Thursday, 22 April

  I leave for Corcova this evening. I don’t know how this rather improvised “séjour” will work out, but a few days’ holiday will do me a power of good. I’m in bad shape, tired and miserable, and I have great hopes for this week of rest.

  Sunday, 2 May

  I returned last night from Corcova, where I spent nine blissful days. I am suntanned, calm, and relaxed. I know I’ll soon lose this sporting “form”—Bucharest and the war grind it all out of me—but the fact that these few days in the open air were enough to restore me suggests once again that my health has not been deeply undermined. A sick person would not respond so readily to the first call of life. My reflexes are still healthy. In Corcova I gave a lot of thought to all manner of personal and other problems (literature, the war, etc.), but I won’t record it all here. For that I would need a few hours of solitude—which is what I lack so much in Bucharest. (I keep thinking of my studio flat, where I could be alone when I needed to be.) I amused myself in Corcova by keeping a diary in English: thirteen pages, with an entry for each day, more for the fun of writing in English than for the actual record.

  Any journey is a stimulus for me. In the carriage between Corcova and Strehaia, I saw a lot of new things for my future novel. The “Princess Stana” chapter, in particular, has grown richer in incident. I’ll put some notes about this into the file with material for the novel.

  Antoine forced me to talk about one of my scenarios, and so I gave him a brief outline of “Ursa Major.” I grew excited as I talked, and again it seemed to me that the scenario offered good chances of success. He was even more excited. “Ecrivez tout de suite. II le faut. Tout de suite. Pas un moment a perdre. ”8 I have come back with the idea of working as much as possible in the theatre. I’ll finish Insula, get down to “Ursa Major,” dramatize Comăneştenii. With so many projects, I may succeed in having a play put on this autumn and earning a few hundred thousand lei to pay the rent and the household expenses. Come the end of the war, I’d like to have in my suitcase two or three plays that might go down well in New York or London. I don’t say I’ll succeed. But I have to try, especially as I don’t know many other games and would find it hard to get used to any.

  What Corcova mainly meant for me was nine days out of the war—as if I had slept for nine whole days. Then I woke up and found things as I had left them: nothing new on any front.

  Friday, 7 May

  I am quickly returning to my daily routine, which t
ires me and grinds me down. I have lost my “holiday form.” On Monday and Tuesday absolutely everyone was amazed when they saw me. I was “unrecognizable.” Now, alas! I am more and more easily recognizable. I tell myself that the life I lead must be seriously wrong if in five days it can bring me to this state: rings around my eyes, pale cheeks, frequent headaches, insomnia. My health is too unreliable a machine for such a way of living.

  In Tunisia, after three weeks of inconclusive fighting, the Americans have broken through the German positions in the north and center. Mateur was abandoned a couple of days ago. The advance is approaching Bizerta and Tunis, which are likely to be cut off soon.

  On the River Kuban, “renewed Russian attacks.” The German communiqué reverts to the formula: “heavy defensive fighting.” What is happening in Tunisia and on the Kuban does not, however, wipe out the general impression of sluggish expectancy. It may be that the last five or six weeks have been the dullest period of the war so far—as if the war were set to go on forever.

  Meanwhile, an article by Goebbels has reopened the anti-Semitic offensive, which had somehow become less topical.

  Saturday, 8 May

  Tunis and Bizerta have fallen, exactly six months after the Anglo-American landing in Africa. The campaign was unexpectedly long, but the denouement is unexpectedly short. Even after yesterday’s rather solemn German communiqué, which reported a deep penetration of their defensive system, I still thought that Tunis, and especially Bizerta, would be capable of holding out for another couple of weeks. In no way did an immediate collapse seem possible after such a long resistance.

  Camil Petrescu is affected by the Mioara affair as by a disease. He speaks of nothing else, is aware of nothing else. He reads the latest review for or against, organizes publicity, negotiates with those hostile to it. When I returned from Corcova and found him in his room buried beneath newspapers and magazines, I honestly had the impression that I was visiting a madman.

  This evening, after he had spoken for a whole hour about Mioara and Mioara, I asked him what had been happening in the war and was amused to realize that he had no idea. News no longer gets through to him.

  “Bizerta and Tunis have fallen!”

  “What’s that you say?”

  He put his hands to his head in a gesture of uncontrolled horror, then stood up, walked a few paces and stopped:

  “What will become of us?”

  Poor Camil! He feels a diffuse fear—a real fear, but he’s not quite sure of what. If he could stop everything as it is, so that the war continued and he kept his apartment and job, some money and personal security, he would be a happy man.

  I am afraid of a possible anti-Semitic campaign and wonder whether Goebbels’s article was not a signal.

  We Romanian Jews, I heard, have been told to come up with four billion lei. How can that much be found? If it can’t, what might happen next?

  Lunch at Mogoşoaia with Antoine, Elisabeth, and the Basdevants (the first time I have met them for some three years). It’s impossible to establish a relationship with Martha Bibescu. I don’t really want it, but since we talk to each other I’d like to be able to get some communication going. I am terribly awkward and uninteresting in such surroundings.

  Monday, 10 May

  Three years ago! I’ll never forget it.

  In Tunisia things have been suddenly wound up. The fall of Bizerta and Tunis has broken the whole front. I’m still not quite sure how it happened.

  I have translated A[ntoine] B[ibescu]'s Quatuor in two days, yesterday and today, dictating to a typist. It is very witty, but slight and unpolished.

  Thursday, 13 May

  The Africa campaign is over. The last German-Italian resistance in Tunisia ended yesterday. Capitulation. One chapter of the war comes to an end, after so many dramatic moments. In three years, how many times has one side or the other been inches away from victory or defeat?

  What will happen next? This is the only question preoccupying us. Will the Allies attempt a landing? Is it not too difficult, too risky? Are they well enough prepared? And if they don’t organize a landing now, will it not be too late next year? Will a year without major hostilities not give Germany the breathing space to escape its present crisis? It is only the middle of May. Ahead of us are four or five months in which anything is possible.

  Yesterday evening I met the Havas Agency correspondent, Ypert, for dinner at the Bibescus. He is a right-wing Frenchman, anti-Gaullist (without saying so), and strongly anti-Semitic.

  “Prince, aimez-vous les juifs?” he asked Antoine.

  “Pas de gaffe!” A. broke in. “Notre ami est juif. ”9

  A brief moment of stupefaction. For my part, I’d have preferred it if the guy had been allowed to speak.

  Two hundred and fifty young Jews belonging to what are called “mobile detachments” were taken yesterday from their place of work. Within a few hours they had been formed into columns and sent off for labor in Transnistria.

  Tuesday, 18 May

  A long visit to Marie Ghiolu, who talked to me about Creata and how she died. She had many absorbing things to add to their story, which is already pretty strange. I’d like to note them down. Maybe tomorrow.

  Two terrible dreams last night. In one I was with Hitler, who spoke Romanian and threatened me with dreadful things. In the other I was in Paris, the same German-occupied Paris of which I have dreamed a number of times. I felt horror, a choking sense of unease. Then I woke up terrified.

  I regret that I can no longer remember the details.

  Thursday, 20 May

  Marie Ghiolu talked about Creata as if she were still alive. She tries to meet her, waits for her, would not be surprised if she were to come.

  I have been thinking about the young Mrs. Grodeck. Unexpectedly, after such a long time, I found the whole story of the Grodecks still intact in my mind. Is it possible that I will one day write the play with Gunther? There was a time when the need to write it calmed me, gave me peace. Then I lost contact; I forgot it.

  But the afternoon at Marie’s has brought things back from oblivion. I think I could write it—in fact, I want to. This evening I reread some passages in Accidentul with Gunther, and they all seemed full of dramatic intensity.

  How strange, how implausible is the story of Maria and Creata, living the same loves in turn, as Marie took relationships further than Creata could because of her physical disability (“Elle pouvait à peine écarter les jambes”1—Marie told me, to show that Creata probably never slept with Allan). But this story of theirs depended on the incredible physical similarity between them.

  Zissu came yesterday morning to offer me seventy thousand lei, and to say how unhappy he had been a year and a half ago when he had been unable to meet my request for help.

  I refused to take the money and told him that I didn’t need anything. The man acts cheap theatre, and he does it badly. He claims to have ruined himself of his own free will, so as not to grow rich from oil under the Germans.

  Thursday, 27 May

  Had lunch at Alice’s. Aristide is looking for some refuge in the countryside. Several people (Alice, Branişte . . . ) have told him that we are approaching a crisis that could shatter the previous calm overnight. Nothing precise, but fears are secretly smoldering.

  I don’t know what to think, but the old anxiety suddenly gripped me.

  The war is again in suspense. Nothing has happened since the winding up of the Tunisian front. We are at a crossroads—rather like the situation in Spring 1941, only in reverse. Then we were anxiously awaiting a German push in an unknown direction; now we await an Allied initiative. The Axis frankly admits that it is biding its time, and does not suggest that it might take any action. The Russians or the British will be left to take the offensive themselves.

  The basic elements of the war have completely changed, but the danger weighing on us is no smaller—on the contrary, perhaps.

  In one day, one hour, one second, it could be all over for us.
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br />   I have lived the last few days in a kind of mindless euphoria, making grotesque plans on the basis of nothing more than an opinion, a word, a smile. Simply because Marie Ghiolu told me on the phone that she had discussed my Shakespeare translations with the Swiss ambassador, I childishly constructed all kinds of plans (including a job at the Swiss legation!). But when I saw Marie today, she didn’t remember any of it.

  No one can do anything for me, nor can I do anything for anyone. Relationships with other people, unless based on definite interests, are merely incoherent gestures. We each live in our solitude, as in a glass cubicle. We can exchange smiles and greetings—that’s all.

  I turn for help to all my friends and acquaintances (the Bibescus, Nenişor, Alice, Marie Ghiolu, Sică, Leni and Froda, Devechi, Zissu), and in none of them do I find more than shadowy figures of varying indifference or amicability. And in this daily comedy, I am not a more interesting character than they.

  Sunday, 30 May

  I read La Rabouilleuse with passionate interest (which brings me to the end of the third volume of the Pléiade Balzac). Strange that it isn’t considered one of his masterpieces. For everything in it is masterly: the construction, the range of methods, the characters, the atmosphere.

  I wonder whether Dostoevsky’s The Devils does not owe something to it. The group of “chevaliers de la désoeuvrance”2—veritable “devils,” with Maxence Gilet at their head—resemble Stavrogin’s people well enough to have been a starting point for them.