[659] ADK notes. Hanna von Fuchs-Robetin wrote to her brother in August 1941: “Now, in the pain that we are all feeling, I am certain that he went in order to make it easier for poor beloved mother... Will she have the strength to survive all the complications of this trip? Will she be able to travel at all?” (M-W Coll.).
[660] Author’s conversation with Riccarda Zernatto of Vienna, widow of the politician and author Guido Zernatto.
[661] Author’s conversations with Anna Mahler and Albrecht Joseph.
[662] See Thomas Mann, Tagebücher 1940-1943, op. cit., p. 378 (January 15, 1942): “The evening with Werfel’s novel, with a degree of indignation.” In this context, Gottfried Reinhardt told me: “Thomas Mann and Werfel met at Salka Viertel’s place in L.A. Mann said he did not understand why Werfel claimed in the book that Bernadette had seen the mother of God. Why hadn’t he said that Bernadette Soubirous had imagined that she had seen the Virgin? A vision... And Werfel said, ‘Because she saw her!’ Thomas Mann got very excited, in his brittle, northern German, puritanical fashion. That someone could have the chutzpah to claim that Bernadette had seen the Virgin! But Werfel didn’t give an inch. It was a wonderful afternoon.”
[663] Unpublished letter from FW to his mother, 1942, in DB.
[664] Unpublished letter from Zweig to FW and Anna Mahler-Werfel, November 20, 1941 (UCLA): “I had... a regular nervous breakdown. [The fact] that I could no longer find my identity in all the absurdities that this time imposes on us — to be a writer, a poet in a language in which one is not permitted to write,... detached from everything that was home,... dragging suitcases from one place to the next, with no books, no papers... — all that depressed me horribly, and on top of that... that I was unable to work in this nomadic life with a storm overhead and coming through the seams of the tent... So I managed to write my life story [Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday)] — or as much of it as I care to tell others” (UCLA).
[665] See unpublished letter from Stefan Zweig to FW and Alma Mahler-Werfel, December 25, 1941 (UCLA).
[666] Unpublished letter from FW to his mother, 1942, in DB.
[667] “Stefan Zweigs Tod,” ZOU, pp. 459ff.
[668] At the time FW was already collaborating with his friend Friedrich Torberg (1908-1979); in an unpublished letter of October 1941, FW tells Torberg to set the story wherever he wants: “India or China, I don’t care” (Friedrich Torberg Archive, Marietta Torberg, Vienna). FW and Torberg were apparently also planning a very different kind of movie project. Torberg wrote to FW on July 9, 1943: “The next thing was yet another offer by Skirball to pay a writer’s advance of $3,000 for the Czech aviator film; in case nothing came of that film, the $3,000 would be a down payment on another ‘Werfel property,’ and once again, and quite clearly, he was thinking of the Zorah Pasha script” (M-W Coll.). FW paid Torberg regularly for his collaboration. I thank Marietta Torberg for the information about her late husband.
[669] The 170-page typescript is in the possession of Marietta Torberg.
[670] Telegram from Ben Huebsch to FW, May 28, 1942, M-W Coll.
[671] Unpublished correspondence between FW and Mizzi Rieser, M-W Coll. How perturbed FW really was by this incident becomes evident from a passage in a letter to Hanna von Fuchs-Robetin, dated August 22, 1942 (DB): “As you know, dearest Hannerl, I had to endure some unpleasant nervous crises (on her part) and correspondence with Mizzi a while ago. She and especially Ferdi accused me of being cold and indifferent toward them and that I, in my boundless ambition (to which Alma is ‘welded’ — that’s a quotation), have done nothing and will do nothing for Mizzi’s Eugenia. This whole business, even though it isn’t ‘all that serious,’ as you wrote, has bothered me quite a bit. The accusation is unjust... There’s no doubt that Mizzi isn’t only very talented but also of a passionate, torn, ecstatic temper. She is only deficient in certain prerequisites that are hard to acquire later on: reading, education, criticism, intellectual order... Please write me what you think and what I should do.”
[672] See SU, pp. 49, 87: “Because of the previously mentioned fear of the sun, the houses of this city were not built above, but deep down under, the ground... The more personal and the more intimate the purpose of a room, the deeper it lay buried in the bowels of the earth, quite the reverse of the custom of a period that located its bedrooms on the upper floors. The more private these people wished to be, the farther they withdrew.”
[673] Fritz Kortner (1892-1970): Austrian character actor and director who returned to Germany after the war and had a distinguished film and stage career.
[674] Leonhard Frank (1882-1961): Novelist and short story writer best known for Der Mensch ist gut and Links, Wo das Herz ist. In 1937 he emigrated from Austria to Paris, and in 1940 from Paris to Los Angeles, where he met Werfel.
[675] Cyrill Fischer (1892-1945). See ZOU, pp. 468ff. According to ADK notes, Fischer resisted, from a Catholic viewpoint, both the Austrian Socialist “Friends of Children” movement and the Nazi experiments in the education of children and adolescents. Fischer, by the way, checked the Bernadette manuscript for theological mistakes.
[676] The Franciscan monastery, founded by Junipero Serra in 1786, is still one of Santa Barbara’s main attractions. A large Indian cemetery (the Indians had been converted by the monks) adjoins the mission building.
[677] Unpublished letter from FW to Hanna von Fuchs-Robetin, August 22, 1942, in DB. The Biltmore still stands, practically unchanged.
[678] Matthias Joseph Scheeben, Mysterien des Christentums (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1911), chapter 10, “Das Mysterium de Prädestination.”
[679] DD, vol. 2, pp. 241-340.
[680] Gottfried Reinhardt told me: “I told Werfel, in my father’s house in Pacific Palisades, ‘Herr Werfel, I think that that would be material for a terrific play, and my friend Sam Behrman is of the same opinion, but he thinks that you should write it.’ But Werfel said, ‘No, that isn’t my kind of thing, I can’t write that.’ And Alma was immediately hostile. She didn’t want him to deal with such mundane stuff. So then I suggested that Behrman and I would write the play — with the one request that we’d get together one more time for Werfel to tell us the whole story. Behrman, by the way, suggested that any proceeds should be divided fifty-fifty with Werfel. One of the main characters in the play was created by me — the female lead Marianne. She did not occur in Werfel’s story. I felt that we should have some love interest, so we came up with Marianne, a kind of incarnation of France.”
[681] Author’s conversations with Albrecht Joseph, Los Angeles. Most of the details on Jacobowsky are derived from these conversations. Joseph is of the opinion that the upsets and strains caused by the play cost FW years of his life.
[682] I have drawn on an unpublished manuscript by Marton, which his widow, Hilda Marton, kindly put at my disposal.
[683] Unpublished letter from FW to Hanna von Fuchs-Robetin, August 22, 1943, in DB.
[684] See “Vorwortskizze zu Das Lied von Bernadette,” ZOU, p. 525. (Adolf D. Klarmann’s translation of “Brief an den Erzbischof Rummel von New Orleans, Louisiana,” ZOU, pp. 892f., is inexact.)
[685] See unpublished notebook, UCLA. At the end of fairly extensive theological reflections (which would later return in the 1944 collection of fragments Theologumena), FW says, “These reflections do not belong to the novel proper. Alfred Engländer in The Pure in Heart would have been the man to voice them.”
[686] This unpublished letter, dated October 3, 1942, is preserved in the manuscript collection of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.
[687] See ML, p. 331.
[688] See Mann, Tagebücher 1940-1943, op. cit., p. 564 (April 17, 1943): “With K [Katia] and Erika at Romanoff’s, supper (bad duck) treated by the Werfels. Later at their house; reading of the final chapter of the Moses with strong impression in amusement and seriousness.” See also p. 482 (October 5, 1942): “For supper Werfels. Dramatic performance from his French comedy of catas
trophe, much enjoyed by the children.” Professor Ernst Haeussermann of Vienna told me that FW presented Jacobowsky and the Colonel, acting out all the parts.
[689] Some of these can be found in the Werfel Collection at UCLA.
[690] Unpublished letter in DB.
[691] See Mann, Tagebücher 1940-1943, op. cit., pp. 505f. (December 7, 1942).
[692] Clifford Odets (1906-1963): American actor and playwright; see Weltliteratur im 20. Jahrhundert: Autorenlexikon, ed. Manfred Brauneck (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1981), vol. 3, p. 961: “With the one-act play Waiting for Lefty (1935) Odets became the main American representative of proletarian drama concerned with the class struggle.”
[693] Unpublished letter from Alma Mahler-Werfel to Friedrich Torberg, Torberg Archive, Marietta Torberg, Vienna.
[694] The first page of first draft of the “travel novel” (UCLA) bears the title A Short Visit to the Distant Future (Ein kurzer Besuch in ferner Zukunft). See SU.
[695] FW abandoned not only The One Who Stayed but also a novel he had promised to write for the Baha’i religious community at a meeting with a Mrs. Chanler and a Mr. Mizza Ahmed Sohrab in mid-March 1943.
[696] “I wrote these 40 1/4 pages (106 typewritten pages) in the course of 5 to 6 days in May in the year 1943 in Sta Barbara in California, at the Hotel Biltmore close by the Pacific Ocean, where I could hear the surf at night while I was working” (insertion on p. 41 of the first draft of SU, UCLA). For a useful synopsis of the narrative see Lore B. Foltin and John M. Spalek, “Franz Werfel,” in Spalek and Joseph Strelka, eds., Deutsche Exilliteratur seit 1933 (Berne, 1976), pp. 644-67.
[697] “For the wedding of his sister Hanna Fuchs-Robetin, he returned home unexpectedly from the front at 5:00 in the morning and was fixed up by the bride. Received tails and top hat from his father. The description of his resurrected corpse in Star [of the Unborn] reminded [Albine Werfel] of that episode” (ADK notes).
[698] GBF.
[699] Unpublished letter from FW to Albrecht Joseph, UCLA. He also says: “Don’t worry about Marianne! She can’t have any active function and shouldn’t. Her suffering for France grows gradually up to the last act. All realistic details would be a distraction for this 3d voice, as they would be padding and superfluous!”
[700] See SL.
[701] Professor Gustave O. Arlt of Los Angeles told me, “Fox paid Werfel for being on set as, so to speak, an ‘expert.’“
[702] Author’s conversations with Gustave O. Arlt.
[703] She received the Oscar for her performance as Bernadette.
[704] See Foltin, p. 103.
[705] DlW, pp. 483ff.
[706] Rudolf Voigt (1899-1956): Teacher and author.
[707] In the summer of 1943 in Santa Barbara, FW also wrote the novella Géza de Varsany, or: When Will You Get a Soul at Long Last? (Géza de Varsany, oder: Wann wirst du endlich eine Seele bekommen?). Stylistically, it is reminiscent of Poor People.
[708] From “Sechs Setterime zu Ehren des Frühlings von Neunzehnhunderfünf,” DlW, p. 489.
[709] FW immediately had calling cards printed: “Dr. h.c. Franz Werfel” (author’s conversations with Gustave O. Arlt).
[710] See ML, p. 338.
[711] At UCLA.
[712] See ML, p. 342, and FW’s text for Max Reinhardt’s seventieth birthday, ZOU, pp. 466ff.
[713] DlW, p. 497.
[714] On November 29, 1943, before the height of the Christmas sales, Ben Huebsch wrote to Alma Mahler-Werfel (M-L Coll.) that at least 802,000 copies of Bernadette had already been sold, and probably many more.
[715] At UCLA.
[716] For the premiere, FW wrote a far from honest introductory text in which he says: “Finally, a brave man took pity on my Jacobowsky. This parfit knight was the excellent playwright Clifford Odets... Even though the god of the theater finally did not let his adaptation reach the stage, I am grateful to him for many valuable suggestions... My old friend, the Theatre Guild, purchased the honorable Jacobowsky, and from then on, his fate took a turn for the better. At the same time, a man dear to me appeared out of the clouds of his sensitivity and reticence, and declared himself willing to guide the still errant Jacobowsky, whom he had known and appreciated from the very beginning, into the limelight. This was the witty and highly regarded playwright S. N. Behrman” (ZOU, pp. 264ff.).
[717] Newspaper interview in the Green Sheet Journal (Milwaukee, Wis.), March 17, 1944. The headline: “Ailing Bernadette Author Writes About 101944 A.D.”
[718] M-W Coll.
[719] ZOU, pp. 110-95.
[720] Unpublished sketches titled “Fragmente zum Kapitel Theodizee,” intended as part of a larger essay work, Krisis der Ideale, at UCLA. An example: “As arrogant as it may sound, millions of good people have been pursued by misfortune, but since the beginning of the world no bad person has been lucky.” These theodicy fragments were written between 1914 and 1920.
[721] From Albrecht Joseph’s 1944 diary (in his possession).
[722] Ibid.
[723] See the manuscript of the first draft of SU (UCLA): “Today, July 10, 1944, I am back again in Sta Barb. Biltmore (bungalow) trying to continue the travel novel.”
[724] Author’s conversations with Albrecht Joseph; but see also ML. On “Schwammerl,” see Rudolf Bartsch’s novel of that title (Vienna: Alfred Keller, 1910).
[725] See the manuscript of the first draft of SU (UCLA): “Biltmore taken over by military: July 16, 44 — we had to leave.”
[726] The hotel and its bungalows no longer exist. On the site, in the middle of Santa Barbara, there is now a city park, the Alice Keck Memorial Garden.
[727] Letter dated August 8, 1944, GBF.
[728] See Thomas Mann, Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus (Amsterdam: Bermann-Fischer Verlag, 1940), pp. 140f.
[729] See note 293.
[730] See unpublished letter from Alma Mahler-Werfel to Adolf and Isolde Klarmann, M-W Coll.
[731] Unpublished letter from FW to Ben Huebsch.
[732] Unpublished letter to Friedrich Torberg, Torberg Archive, Marietta Torberg, Vienna.
[733] ADK notes, conversation with Kurt Wolff.
[734] See, for example, Ludwig Marcuse, “In theologischen Schleiern,” Aufbau (New York), March 9, 1945.
[735] M-W Coll.
[736] M-W Coll.
[737] Author’s conversations with Anna Mahler; see also ML, p. 367.
[738] ZOU, pp. 337ff.
[739] ZOU, pp. 626f.
[740] Author’s conversation with Anuschka Deutsch, Berlin.
[741] See Friedrich Torberg, In diesem Sinne...: Briefe an Freunde und Zeitgenossen (Munich: Langen Müller, 1981), pp. 433ff.
[742] See Jungk, ed., Das Franz Werfel Buch, op. cit., p. 436.
[743] See FW’s 1919 story “Spielhof”: “Suddenly he felt that... he was holding something warm, small, and tender in his hand. It was a child’s hand. A small child was looking at him... It was his lost dream” (EzW, vol. 1, p. 155).
[744] Last page of the manuscript of the first draft of Stern der Ungeborenen (UCLA).
[745] See Annemarie von Puttkamer, Franz Werfel: Wort und Antwort (Würzburg: Werkbund Verlag, 1952), p. 148.
[746] See ML, p. 360.
[747] From my conversation with Lady Isolde Radzinowicz, Adolf D. Klarmann’s widow, I gather that FW saw the presence of that owl in front of his window as a certain omen of death; and see ML, pp. 110f. In his “Secret Diary,” August 2, 1918, FW wrote: “I remember that when I spent the night for the first time in her country house, we heard a strange bird go on making a sawing or scraping noise for hours. I thought that it was a bad omen for her. I did not tell her this.”
[748] Dated August 10, 1945 (UCLA).
[749] I derive the description of the last days and hours of FW’s life from an unpublished letter from Alma Mahler-Werfel to Adolf Klarmann, M-W Coll.
[750] ZOU, pp. 627f.; according to Adolf Klarmann, these are the last words FW wrote before h
is death.
[751] They were a Mr. and Mrs. Byrn, musicians (according to a letter from Alma Mahler-Werfel to Isolde and Adolf Klarmann, M-W Coll.).
[752] Gedichte aus den Jahren 1908-1945 (Los Angeles: Pazifische Presse, 1946).
[753] See DRM, p. 41: “Through the poem... runs the pencil stroke of him who was called away.” The poem appears in FW, Gedichte 1908-1945, op. cit.
[754] The quotation is given in slightly edited form.
[755] This was in fulfillment of Alma Mahler-Werfel’s wish. Her mortal remains had been brought to Vienna in 1964 and buried in the Grinzing cemetery, next to Gustav Mahler and Manon Gropius. Armenian circles in the United States raised the money for the transfer of FW’s bones, as the Austrian government could not see its way to pay for it. The memorial grave, with a headstone designed by Anna Mahler, can be found between those of the musician Hans Swarowsky and the composer Egon Wellesz, a friend of Werfel’s in the Vienna days. Every year students of the Armenian Mekhitarist order in Vienna make a pilgrimage to the grave on the day of Werfel’s death. A few steps away from Werfel’s grave, in the Czech Domestics’ Cemetery, lies Agnes Hvizd — ”Teta Linek” from Embezzled Heaven — sharing her grave with seven others. (See Dietmar Grieser, Piroschka, Sorbas & Co.: Schicksale der Weltliteratur, op. cit., pp. 235ff.).
[756] Dr. Wolfgang Kraus is still director of the society. The description of his experience at the airport is derived from my conversation with him.
Franz Werfel: A Life in Prague, Vienna, and Hollywood Page 42
