Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  Fighting is continuing in southern Italy. Badoglio’s capitulation took the Italian armies out of play (they were effectively paralyzed anyway), but the conquest of Italy is an objective that the Allies will only now begin to achieve, probably slowly and with difficulty.

  Thursday, 16 September

  Heavy fighting at Salerno, where American troops met stiff resistance when they came ashore. Yesterday and the day before, the DNB press was jubilant. Big headlines announced “a new Dunkirk,” “a new Waterloo.” What a great catastrophe! What a great disaster!

  Today the tone is more subdued, the attitude more prudent. Montgomery is advancing from the south. If he meets up with the Americans, the situation will be consolidated.

  In Russia a DNB dispatch yesterday reported the evacuation of Bryansk. The news has not appeared in the official communiqués. The offensive continues in every area affected. Kiev is becoming a possible objective.

  Yesterday I read Balzac’s La vieille fille splendidly incisive. As a provincial portrait it perhaps stands alongside Pierrette, though it caricatures the oppressiveness of life in a way that somewhat detracts from the tragedy of the story.

  Friday, 17 September

  I have been home for a fortnight and still have not managed to return to a normal life, to organize a work schedule of writing and reading. I live haphazardly, go out too much, pay visits to people, accept invitations, walk in the street, allow all kinds of trifles to pull me here and there.

  I haven’t found an hour of solitude to collect myself and work out a clear picture.

  What I lack most is a place of my own. Two and a half years have passed since I left Calea Victoriei, but I still keep thinking about it.

  On the evening before I left Corcova, I went for a last walk alone in the vineyards and forest that was perhaps the most troubling hour I spent there. I felt the shiver of autumn coming from afar through the grass and trees, approaching and traversing me. It was a painful and nameless melancholy, which I had never felt anywhere before, because I had never looked autumn in the face as I did there.

  Saturday, 18 September

  Yesterday evening’s German communiqué speaks of “a broad correction of the front” in Russia, in the south and center, and reports the evacuation of Bryansk and Novorossiisk.

  In Italy the Allies have gone on the attack again at Salerno, which seemed for a moment to be slipping out of their grasp.

  The war is everywhere in a phase of large-scale movement. It is a question not only of the front lines but above all of profound dislocations that are probably occurring (even if we do not see them) in the whole structure of the conflict. Somewhere beyond the speeches and the dispatches, great events needed in the coming period are struggling to be born; they may take a while longer to appear, but they may also burst forth from one day to the next.

  In this time of unease, with its barely disguised anxieties, our own fate hangs by an invisible thread on some incident that we cannot foresee.

  Thursday, 23 September

  Poltava has fallen, and Melitopol is about to fall as well. Everywhere the Germans are hastening to the Dnieper. All the DNB dispatches call it a methodical retreat (and it is true that the Russians never mention a large number of prisoners), but the official communiqués, including the one this evening, keep referring to “powerful Soviet attacks,” “growing intensity,” and “heavy fighting.” We still don’t know the general significance of the operations, but the war has rarely—perhaps never—been through such a dramatic phase.

  The day before yesterday, Camil and Rosetti saw gloomy prospects ahead—bombing, destruction, collapse—if the war gets closer and actually comes to Romania.

  My own great worry relates to the domestic situation. If the Germans are capable, this autumn or winter, of mounting a desperate action that places their own frontiers in question, they won’t hesitate to lay Romania waste. The closer the front comes, the more likely they are to brush Antonescu aside and take over the country themselves “to cover their backs,” perhaps making use of a Legionary government hastily assembled for the purpose. The blow in Denmark can be repeated at any time. And the experience with Badoglio will not make them likely to exercise caution.

  Who knows if the blow is not already being prepared somewhere in the shadows?

  The fact is that I know nothing. But sometimes I suddenly feel a kind of anxiety—an anxiety that has never really left me throughout the war. From time to time, however, it nods off and leaves me in peace, so that I can forget it for a while.

  Sunday, 26 September

  Yesterday the Germans pulled out of Smolensk, after holding it for two years. If you think back to the dramatic battle of September 1941, you get a sense of the ground that has been covered since then.

  The Bibescus have returned to Corcova, after three weeks at the Athénée Palace during which I spent a lot of time with them (lunches, dinners, correspondence, explanations). They were extremely nice to me at Corcova, but in the end they become tiring. I had some tense moments with them, once even a quarrel that seemed to me irrevocable. I realize that he is, if not mad, then at least “loony,” and that nothing lasting can be built with such a person.

  But he is still one of the most interesting people I have known.

  I begin teaching tomorrow. At the same time I’d like to start a regular work schedule again.

  Saturday, 2 October

  Too much time-wasting, too much disorder in my life. I fall into the habit of doing meaningless things. I let myself be dragged along by petty obligations, which I accept out of carelessness, politeness, or indifference.

  If I had a place of my own, I would probably lead a more orderly existence. But in any event I shouldn’t make my fragmented life worse by being reckless or thoughtless.

  For some three days I have been translating a play by Achard (Je ne vous aime pas). I don’t know what Birlic will do with it, but he has paid me, and this will give me some material security for another three weeks or so.

  The war goes on: quite slow in the case of Italy (Naples was occupied by the Allies yesterday); more lively, and sometimes more intense, in the case of Russia, so that you have to wonder whether major events are not in store for the autumn.

  What is called “the Battle of the Dnieper” is in full swing. If the Germans can halt the Russian advance here and organize a relatively firm defensive line, then their deep retreat—though still representing a battle lost—will not be a disaster and the war will enter a new period of waiting. But if the Dnieper does not become the front line, if the Russians (who already have a few bridgeheads on the right bank) manage to press even farther, then everything is possible.

  Rains could slow the advance and mire the whole war for a few weeks, but there is no sign of any. It is a warm, clear, sometimes torrid autumn, with afternoons as in July, even if the mornings and nights are cooler.

  I am still worried about our fate. I keep fearing that the Germans will do something on their own authority to restore the faltering political morale throughout the southeast. A sudden pogrom is still a possibility.

  Monday, 4 October

  Yesterday evening I read The Merchant of Venice, and today As You Like It. I have returned to Shakespeare after a break of nearly a year. It has been enthralling: there is nothing lighter, more graceful, more enchanting. Even in The Merchant of Venice, the figure of Shylock is overshadowed by the glorious game with the handkerchief. And As You Like It takes you right into fairyland. There is something dancelike in a Shakespeare comedy. Floating movements detached from reality—as in a ballet.

  The Jews in Denmark are being annihilated. A DNB dispatch leaves no doubt about their fate.

  And once again I shudder.

  “For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe,” says Shylock.

  Tuesday, 5 October

  It seems that the German front is holding on the Dnieper, and that the Russian offensive is losing momentum. The DNB press speaks of the “Melitopol dam,” “the
natural barrier of the great river,” “solid defense” from new positions.

  The major battles have been scaled down to “local fighting.” If the Soviet summer offensive really is over, then the pause on the eastern front will take the war out of its dramatic phase and—for one, two, or three months or more—remove that decisive aspect it has seemed to have since the 25 th of July.

  Should we be preparing for another hibernation?

  I have to translate Melo for the Baraşeum. It will give me no pleasure at all. Anonymity enables me to translate anything without scruples for Sică. I’d like to have nothing to do with the Baraşeum and not to sign anything—even a translation—for the duration of the war.

  Monday, 11 October

  Saturday was Yom Kippur.

  I do not try to put any order into my “Judaism.” I fasted, and I went to the synagogue in the evening to hear the sound of the shofar. Reading over someone’s shoulder, I tried to intone the “Avinu-malkenu.”3

  Why? Do I believe? Do I want to believe?

  No, not even that. But it is as if, in all these unthinking gestures, there is a need for warmth and peace.

  On Thursday evening I listened to Camil’s play at Rebreanu’s.

  I hesitated a lot before going—and later I was furious with myself for having gone. I shouldn’t have done it.

  It’s better to wait until the war is over before meeting Rebreanu. Now I have nothing to say to him—especially in his home.

  It is a weakness, an act of carelessness on my part, which already holds out the prospect of forgetting everything, of compromising on everything.

  Will I go back to those people? Wdl the war have come and gone without breaking anything, without inserting anything irrevocable or irreducible between my life “before” and my life “tomorrow”?

  So why? What is the point?

  In Russia the new Russian offensive has resumed right across the front after a pause of three to four days. Moreover, a new area of operations has opened northeast of Vitebsk, where Nevel has already fallen.

  The DNB propaganda, which had focused on solid defense and the halting of the Soviet offensive, is going through some difficult moments.

  Autumn is more and more in the air, however. (Yesterday was very cold, and this morning could have been November.) Maybe a pause will nevertheless develop sooner or later.

  But things are dragging on too much for the state of our nerves.

  Tuesday, 12 October

  Cold, windy, autumnal.

  A warm, cozy house in which I can read and write beside a woman I love—an unrealizable dream after which I have always hankered, especially on days like today.

  A long meal just with Branişte, from lunchtime until seven somewhere on the Şosea. He drinks slowly and methodically, like a man on a long journey. Conversation about war and peace, but still basically café chatter.

  Friday, 15 October

  The Russians have retaken Zaporozhye. How will the southern front now hold? Hasn’t Melitopol been left somewhat in the air? We shall see in the next few days.

  It is by no means certain that the Dnieper will form a solid line of resistance. The Russians claim that the so-called “Battle of the Dnieper” is over and that “the river has been crossed at all points.” The German attitude on this matter is vague, euphemistic, and insecure.

  Tuesday, 19 October

  The situation on the German front at the Dnieper seems more and more serious. A breakthrough at Kremenchug is on the point of cutting the whole bend of the river, in a great encircling movement similar to last year’s at Stalingrad. The whole of the southern front is tottering. The offensive is almost equally powerful at other points, especially at Kiev and Gomel. For several days the DNB communiqués and commentaries have afforded some glimpse of the seriousness of the situation.

  There is great concern in town. The dragon’s breath can almost be felt, though it is still far away.

  Basdevant (whom I visited yesterday with Antoine) thinks the Russians will be here this winter!!

  This morning I finished translating Melo. Bernstein’s technique infuriates me. It is so self-confident that it can simulate anything: even emotion, even depth, even gravity.

  But there is something profoundly trivial, I would even say obscene, in this falsely noble play.

  What a professional, though! What theatrical virtuosity! What a rogue! As I translated him, I saw more closely how the machinery works, but even I was tricked here and there by the dramatic pretense!

  I have been reading Coriolanus with some irritation. (I think I’ll finish Act Five tonight.) I can well understand now why it aroused such fury in Paris in 1934.

  Friday, 22 October

  Major battles in Russia. The breakthrough at Kremenchug is growing deeper. Another breakthrough has been announced at Chernigov.

  It is not to be expected that the whole operation will suddenly reach a climax. The “new phase” (which, this time, really is new) could last two or three months before all its consequences appear. Last year the breakthrough on the Don began in December, but Stalingrad fell only in February.

  The turnaround could be more dramatic at the level of politics and diplomacy. Anything can happen—at any time.

  Onicescu (so Devechi tells me) has made up his mind to commit suicide if Germany loses the war. He cannot resign himself to living in a Europe occupied by the descendants of Australian convicts and American emigrants, come back to destroy Western culture. He cannot accept the annihilation of culture.

  I asked Devechi to tell him on my behalf (I’d gladly tell him myself if I met him) that if culture is the issue at stake, he missed the right moment to commit suicide. It would have been much more appropriate on 31 January 1933 or 8 September 1940.4

  Balmus (a professor of Greek at Iaçi) told me once again—as Otetea did last year—how the Jews were butchered there on 29 June 1941. “It was,” he said, “the most bestial day in human history.”

  Saturday, 23 October

  “Greater optimism in Berlin,” reported the Universul correspondent today.

  All the commentaries are again much chirpier. “Soviet attacks driven off.” “Great defensive success.” “In the last twenty-four hours the enemy has not advanced one kilometer.”

  The German communiqué is more hesitant, more circumspect. It signals “heavy attacks,” “an attempted breakthrough,” “heavy fighting,” “temporary breakthroughs”—all repelled, crushed, or annihilated.

  As I have no information other than what I read in the papers, I can only conclude that there has been a temporary weakening of the offensive, but that its scale and directions, if not its intensity, remain the same as before. “Relative stabilization” is one commentator’s cautious expression.

  I finished Titus Andronicus yesterday evening. In Shakespeare, if not in the whole of world literature, dreadful acts keep piling up in the most absurd way. At times it is almost coarse and puerile, when it can no longer be tragic: hands and limbs cut off, heads severed, people falling dead in almost every scene. A Chamber of Horrors museum, with everything jumbled together. Beneath or above all this bloody machinery, however, the thrill of poetry can sometimes transfigure everything it touches. Now I am reading Antony and Cleopatra (with language difficulties that surprise me, because the last three plays have gone easily enough).

  Monday, 25 October

  The situation again seems tense at the fronts in Russia. Melitopol fell yesterday, after days on end of bitter street-fighting. You look at the map—and you no longer see what might happen in the Sea of Azov sector.

  On the other hand, the breakthrough at Kremenchug has penetrated almost as far as Krivoi Rog. Finally, yesterday evening’s German communiqué has reported that Dnepropetrovsk is under attack on all sides.

  An Indian summer, implausibly warm and clear, has made it possible for the whole operation to continue. A great encirclement, a major new retreat, or an energetic attempt to defend by counterattack: I try to visualize
these three scenarios by looking at the map. The last of them is improbable, while the first two open the way to all manner of possibilities, including the most extreme.

  Tuesday, 26 October

  Dnepropetrovsk seems to have already fallen yesterday, as the German communiqué reported this evening.

  Yesterday and today I have read Le cabinet des antiques, a lively short novel, fast-moving, ironical, and robust. It is Balzac at his best: concise in exposition, firm in design. The first part of the story still has a certain slowness—but the ending (with the delightful travesty of the Duchess of Maufrigneuse) feels like an excellent third act in a perfectly constructed comedy. The portrait of judicial life in the provinces is as accurate and as funny as that of ecclesiastical life in Le Curé de Tours.

  Friday, 29 October

  The breakthrough to the west of Melitopol is driving deeper. The Crimea is in danger of being cut off at the Perekop Isthmus. This is precisely why the Germans are trying to repel the attack on Krivoi Rog. If the front crumbles here too, the whole of the “Nogaic steppe” will be encircled.

  The situation remains very grave, but I still cannot believe it will lead to a rapid ending.

  Monday, 1 November

  A cold November, but clear and sunny Odd, unusual weather that defies the forecasters and the war. The fighting in Russia is continuing “with undiminished force,” as the communiqué invariably puts it.