by Paul Nizan
They were well aware that the public authorities and their families were conspiring, as in the past, to make them relapse into brilliant futures, careers, worries about advancement, money and successful marriages. These pretensions struck them as repugnant, but they trembled to see them confirmed by the becalming of history: in their entire adolescence, there was perhaps no year more disturbing than that year of ’29, when everything contributed to a non-stop purr of contentment.
Thank God, in November, the Wall Street crash was to reassure them: they welcomed it like news of a victory. Since they tended to confuse capitalism with important people, when they saw their fathers’ faces they convinced themselves that they had been quite right to stake their lives on the cards of confusion, and that they could indubitably count upon a world destined for great metamorphoses. There was no question of settling down into an order that was about to die, no question of making their beds.
— Didn’t we say so! they exclaimed.
But they had had a narrow escape.
None of them was more sensitive than Rosenthal to these plunges and abrupt recoveries of potential. You must picture Bernard founding Civil War only in order to play for time, in order to occupy his mind, until he got a chance to show what he was capable of. He would gladly have been heroic: there were no opportunities.
One evening towards the end of March, in Rue d’Ulm, Rosenthal exclaimed that the Revolution required far more than articles:
— One writes, he said, and one believes that the Revolution is made. One falls – we fall – into post-revolutionary fantasies. Are you satisfied? Yes or no? You’re not saying anything? One’s confidence in revolution can be measured only by the sacrifices one makes to it and the risks one runs for it . . .
— That’s more or less what I’ve always had the honour of telling you, replied Laforgue.
Next day, Bloyé said to Laforgue:
— It’s four months that the journal has been going now, that’s a long time . . . Rosenthal must have some ideas at the back of his mind. You can detect that hypocritical self-satisfaction of men who are making plans . . .
— Yes, said Laforgue. He’s slyly singing a new song to himself.
Rosenthal dropped hints, he said:
— Do you recall Dostoievsky and what he says about the Idea one must have and in whose power one must believe? There’s no living person to whom I feel closer than I do to Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky. . .
His friends waited, however. Knowing his taste for mystery and coups de théâtre, they did not question him.
VI
One Saturday, towards evening, they all received an express letter inviting them to assemble next day at two o’clock opposite Saint-Germain-des-Prés: all of them – Laforgue, Bloyé, Jurien and lastly Pluvinage.
No group of young people exists in which hierarchies and distances are not established, as though some of them were credited by all the others with a more far-reaching future. Rosenthal, who was looked on as the leader and enjoyed this position, vaguely mistrusted Pluvinage and had hesitated before inviting him along: he would not have entrusted him with his secrets. Perhaps it was because of his name: nobody calls themself Pluvinage. But the day was not expected to be packed with great mysteries, so Bernard had notified Pluvinage after all.
It was a rainy early-April day, an icy aftermath of those March showers when all hopes placed in the establishment of spring burst as rapidly as the heavens. Because of that black Sunday rain, Paris was empty: umbrellas drifted between wind and water like shining jellyfish; couples made their way to tedious visits and slapped their children; gusts of damp wind closed down the newspaper vendors under the Abbey porch, where three beggars lay in ambush for the faithful at Vespers. Rosenthal was waiting in an old open car, parked between the Clamart tramway and the shop supplying insignia on Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
— You’re a proper swine, said Bloyé, you really could have brought your old hearse up to Rue d’Ulm.
— Climb aboard, said Rosenthal. We’ve quite a way to go.
— Might one know where we’re off to? asked Laforgue.
— You’ll soon see, replied Rosenthal as he engaged the gears.
None of them insisted: they had not yet lost their taste for mystery games.
The car left Paris by Avenue de Neuilly and Route de la Défense; at Argenteuil, which they approached via the river embankment, batteries of factory chimneys rose behind the curtain of rain over flat meadows ruffled by the wind; acid fumes hung everywhere in the harsh Sunday air; after leaving behind Argenteuil and then Bezons, they crossed the Seine a second time by the Maisons-Laffitte bridge, then turned in the direction of Saint-Germain. A little before Mesnil-le-Roi, the car stopped with a screech of brakes in front of an old house built in that rather soft facing-stone which one soon encounters along the roads of the Vexin region. The rain had just stopped. Its branches still black, barely budding after the interminable winter, the wisteria over the gate was dripping. Rosenthal rang at the iron door; a young woman emerged onto the perron and shouted to them to come in, and they pushed open the garden gate.
— Hullo, Rosenthal, how are you? asked the young woman. Weren’t you scared off by all that rain?
— Of course not, replied Bernard. It was even rather pleasant. Simone, these are the friends I’ve told you about.
— I’m sure François will be delighted to meet them, she said.
She clasped their hands at length, staring them rather myopically in the eye. She was fair, made-up, quite thin, her hand had bones of disturbing smallness and dryness. They went in; puddles formed at once beneath their raincoats. In the dining-room, there were crocheted covers, lampshades, plates bearing legends on the walls, a faded green cloth embroidered with yellow flowers on a round table where piles of journals and newspapers lay about. The young woman caught their glances:
— It’s pretty squalid, isn’t it? she said. But François needed a quiet place to work; in Paris, he can’t do anything with all his appointments and that dreadful telephone. I’m going to make you some tea, you must be frozen . . .
She went out, they heard the clatter of cups. They gathered round the wood fire that was burning at the back of the black marble fireplace.
— Who ever is that lady? asked Laforgue, and who was she talking about?
— You’re in the home of a friend of mine, Rosenthal replied. He’ll be down.
The young woman returned. They waited a while longer, drinking tea with slices of lemon from glasses.
— Do you at least like Russian tea? she asked.
The conversation flagged. They could hear somebody pacing up and down overhead.
— When François is working, the young woman said, he’s like a lion in a cage . . . I told him you were here.
They grew a little bored, but after all, for a Sunday in April . . . Through the panes they could see the valley of the Seine, which changed direction beneath the terraces of Saint-Germain, and on the blurred horizon a province of red roofs dropped at random, from the plain with its roads right up to the slopes of Mont Valérien.
— You’ve got a really splendid view, said Bloyé.
— As if I cared about that! she cried, crossing her bare legs. Nothing gets on my nerves worse than the countryside. And at this time of year!
A door closed on the first floor, footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs, which creaked, and their host entered. He was a tall man with something of a stoop, blue eyes which darted about with such mobility that at times he appeared to have a squint, and a bald forehead which gave him a faintly distraught air.
‘I’ve seen that face somewhere,’ thought Laforgue. ‘That weak mouth . . .’
— Régnier, said Rosenthal, allow me to introduce my friends. Meet Laforgue, Bloyé, Jurien, Pluvinage . . .
Régnier shook h
ands with them. They all knew his name, they had read his books, he was the first well-known writer they had met. They immediately wanted to make an impression, compel him to admire them. It was not easy, and ultimately they did not succeed. François Régnier talked almost the whole time, in a jerky manner, about the weather they were having; about the book on which he was working, and which as it so happened was concerned with youth, and he was so very glad to be having a chat with them; about travelling – he mentioned Spanish and Greek dishes, one would have thought travellers never emerged from restaurants.
— At La Barraca in Madrid, he said, one can eat a truly exceptional cocido . . . When you go to Madrid, you absolutely must go and see my old friend El Segobiano, who will make you an astounding bread soup . . .
Or else:
— In Athens, at Costi’s, the thing to eat is roast woodpigeon. But perhaps the best meal I ever had in Greece was really those eggs fried in olive oil that I ate at Eleusis, in the home of a grocer who was explaining some things to me about the Battle of Salamis.
They did not really find him very exceptional, indeed this superior tone of the man of forty who has seen it all made them quite cross. Every now and then, Régnier would stand up and walk round them.
— François, stop that, said the young women finally. You’re making us seasick . . .
— Simone, he replied, give me my plaid. It’s perishing in this house.
He threw a Scottish plaid over his shoulders and did not sit down. He asked the young men questions about themselves, about their ideas on love and politics. They replied evasively – what business was it of his? He quoted things famous people had said, he seemed to know all Paris:
— Herriot was saying to me only last week, he began, ‘My dear Régnier . . .’
Or:
— Philippe Berthelot was telling me that the day the Briand–Kellogg Pact was signed . . .
The name of Plato launched him into a brilliant variation on the theme of painting, about which as a matter of fact Berthelot had never understood a thing: however, these specialists fresh from their Sophist and Politicus judged it fallacious. Bloyé explained this to him with a certain insolent severity. They were not sorry to catch out in error such odious fluency, and to show Régnier that, even if he knew Berthelot, Herriot and Léon Blum, he was at any rate ignorant of Plato.
— It’s quite possible, he replied, laughing in a careless manner, baring his teeth. What a time it has been since I construed the Republic at the Sorbonne, before the war! That isn’t the least bit important, in any case. When you’re my age, you won’t give a fig for textual fidelity.
He went on explaining painting to them, which in those years played the role that the theatre had filled twenty years earlier, and since he was mentioning the names of painters they did not know, they found him vulgar.
A little later, he asked them:
— How old are you all?
— Twenty-two.
— Twenty-three.
— Twenty-three.
— Rosenthal I know, said Régnier.
— And you? asked Laforgue.
— Thirty-eight, he said. How young they are!
Régnier began to laugh once again with his disagreeable laugh.
At around half past five, they left. It was quite dark; beneath a ceiling of clouds, a vast jumble of winking lights stretched to the ends of the earth, far beyond Paris. As soon as Rosenthal accelerated, under the rotting trees in the forest of Saint-Germain, the cold cut into their cheeks. The wind smelled of moss, fungus and mould.
— What do you think of him? asked Rosenthal. How did you find Régnier?
— Not bad, said Bloyé weakly.
— Extraordinarily boring, said Laforgue.
— He wasn’t on form, said Rosenthal. One shouldn’t catch him on a working day, I’m afraid we may have disturbed him a bit, then he says any old thing, just banalities. But I wanted you to make his acquaintance, for later. Now it’s done, you’ll have other opportunities to know him better . . .
— Don’t apologize, said Laforgue. The weather might have been even filthier.
Rosenthal was upset and fell silent. But near Bougival he suddenly said, in a defiant tone of voice:
— Régnier’s the most intelligent man I know, all the same.
— Why not? said Laforgue. Perhaps he’s keeping his cards close to his chest . . .
VII
BERNARD ROSENTHAL TO PHILIPPE LAFORGUE
Paris, 26 March 1929
Dear Philippe,
It is time I finally put you in the picture about the project you have all no doubt suspected me of having – I am writing to Bloyé and Jurien as well. Let’s say nothing for the time being to Pluvinage.
We have opted for Revolution as our reason for living. A reason for living is not just an element of spiritual comfort to use at night in order to fall asleep in the obscene embrace of good conscience. We must reflect deeply upon the consequences which this reason entails: this is how the totality of life may be arrived at. Without totality, we shall not endure ourselves. Spinoza says: acquiescentia in se ipso. That is what we shall demand. The essential lies in accepting oneself.
Nothing appeals to me more than the idea of irreversible commitment. We must invent the constraints that will bar us from inconstancy; opting for Revolution must not be a promise for a term, which it might one day be legitimate to reconsider. Let us beware of our future infidelities . . .
A man who believes in God is a victim of the most squalid sentiment in the world, yet his whole life is condemned, he is seamless, there is not the fragment of belief and the fragments of normal life: it is impossible for him to retrace his steps and reverse his decision, without feeling destroyed. The Revolution demands deeds of us that are as effective as the Christian’s, as far removed from inner life, and which compromise us enough for us never to be able to go back. What strikes me in Christian life is that it basically concerns itself only with works and demonstrations – good intentions are Protestant claptrap. That is how we shall understand commitment: as a premeditated system of rigorous constraints.
Anarchism was particularly favourable to works of this kind. Throwing a bomb, killing somebody important: after that, it was really impossible to go on living as before the bomb or the murder; never again was there a status quo; the lines of retreat were severed; one was in history up to one’s neck; one could only plunge in, from the moment one had placed oneself outside the normal bounds. But anarchism has been killed off by history, by the revolutions of the twentieth century, by the masses the latter have brought into play and by the revolutionary’s certain conviction that he will not, through a terrorist act, succeed in seriously frightening the enemy. Politics stripped of terrorism and its pure commitments confronts the individual with problems of another order, the highest of which is that of effectiveness. We must take a stand against excessive profundity that evades questions; we must simply aim for truth and Being, which are simple.
It was against quite remarkable government and police techniques that the old passions of anarchism shattered. The Revolution will be technical. The difficult part is to devise acts that serve the Revolution and at the same time constitute for us irreversible events. We must no longer believe that once the truth about evil is known, evil is abolished. It is necessary to destroy evil. To philosophize with hammer blows. To devise irreparable things.
It is clear, and you must feel it like me, that the articles we have published and the speeches we shall not fail to deliver do not commit us dangerously – at least, not for long. Just as there exist female accomplishments, these are scarcely more than youthful accomplishments, characterized by skilful artistry and self-satisfaction.
It seems to me – and François Régnier, with whom I have spoken at length since our abortive visit to Carrières, has said som
e really important things to me about this – that espionage might at this moment constitute the simultaneously effective and irremediable activity which I have so passionately in mind. The legendary baseness of espionage has entirely to do with the temporal interests that motivate spies and with the ignoble aims their imperialist paymasters harbour. Espionage has not yet been considered as one of the forms of intellectual activity. An act of espionage absolutely disinterested in its motives, or whose deeply interested nature is of a concrete and metaphysical order and entirely pure in its aims, does not strike me as unworthy of us: no means is impure.
There are two revolutions: one has been made, the other remains to be made. The period of reconstruction from which the October Revolution has yet to emerge places technical information in the first rank of its needs. The USSR’s watchword is to catch up with and surpass the most advanced capitalist countries. We have the good fortune to live in one of these. You can see that I am thinking here of a form of industrial espionage, which does not seem to me impossible from a practical point of view, inasmuch as we live within the bourgeoisie, where no one would dream of mistrusting us on that particular terrain. They do not alter their habits of ‘thought’ so quickly, they will never mistrust anyone except traditional foes, traitors dressed for the part.
The French Revolution that is being prepared, despite all appearances and all signs of stability, must place in the forefront of its concerns the issues of the seizure of power and the resistance that may be put up in the first weeks of armed conflict. So there exists a necessity to work politically in the Army, and a conspiratorial necessity to gain possession, before the decisive days, of various items of military information: security arrangements, protective plans, arms dump locations, mobilization centres, etc. If I still cannot see in detail the real conditions for the success of industrial espionage – it will obviously be necessary to create a complex network of absolutely reliable technicians, only a few of them in the Centrale and Polytechnique milieux, perhaps a rather larger number in Arts et Métiers, in the technical schools for the poor – I find it easier to imagine the fairly swift and widespread success of military espionage. We are all destined to carry out our military service as infantry or artillery officers, or as soldiers occupying (thanks to the virtues of Culture) privileged jobs. (Actually, we have been following a stupid policy up to now in systematically opposing higher military training and, like the normaliens of Quimper, organizing at the Ecole a struggle against the draft.) What defines military secrets is not so much profundity as repetition: nothing is more Kierkegaardian than a military headquarters. So a quite small number of comrades would be enough at the beginning to transmit what is really important, and to start organizing a network of informers which will not need to be of limitless dimensions. We shall speak again soon at our leisure about the concrete details: please do give the matter some thought.
