Occupation Journal

by Jean Giono

  That’s all very fine, but it has to be done.

  More on the detective comparison: instead of the story being the development of the subject (what I’ve done until now), the subject must arise from the development of the story. Paying close attention so that will perhaps shape the construction and style. Let maximum attention be born of maximum expectation. The least object must have the greatest possible interest (this connects with, confirms, and certifies all that I’ve noted above on the style of the work, the microscopic life. So at the moment my thinking is logical and coherent.)

  Careful! Better not to know too much about what must be done, or it all collapses like over-whipped mayonnaise. Many examples!…

  Invent the inimitable signs of experience and habit. Invent.

  Again, the detective comparison: so a secret logic (consequently, what’s wrong with the Captain’s conversations and explanations as I dictated them – moreover I felt that and that’s what prompted this clarification for what will follow).

  April 3

  The immobile traveler: where I go, no one goes, no one has ever gone, no one will go. I go there alone, it’s a virgin country and it disappears beneath my feet. A pure journey. Encountering no one’s tracks. The country where deserts are truly deserts.

  Tomorrow I’m going to Marseille to take steps toward easing the pain for Mme. Martel whose son and husband are lost in the prisons, no one knows where they are now. I asked for a letter of introduction to meet with the head of the Gestapo and I’m going to see him. I dislike this. For those who want to think badly of me, it could be seen in a bad light, and no doubt will be.

  A revealing passage from Guéhenno in Europe from March 15, 1932 (quoted in N.R.F. 223 1-4-32, p. 777) on the disarmament of intellectuals. This is from the period when the U.S.S.R. was pacifist and I was a Communist sympathizer. A moving letter, the article says, but a letter that finally dupes those it moves.

  “You are surprised that the world takes no interest in your debates. For once address an urgent and true question: the world will pay attention. Dare to make decisive commitments (the emphasis is mine). Then those men will hear you. Your words will sink deep into the open ground and will one day bear fruit. You want to return to the intellect its primacy and its honor. You know, Gentlemen, that it lost them to the war, by taking part in it, by being applied to justify it. By turning against the war, it can regain them. Whether we witness its spectacular revenge or definitive abdication all depends on you.

  If war came, what example would you set for us? Would your meeting rooms in Geneva be closed? Would each of you remain in your own country? Would you write some propaganda brochure, sign manifestos on French civilization or Germanic culture, or would you remain silent, or not? Or, once again, would you refuse to enter into this system of violence (again, the emphasis is mine)? Would you say that if war has the power to kill us it does not have the power to debase us again, that it will never again possess our hearts and our will? There is a political stance that says: As long as I am here, there will not be war. Would you have the same courage, and for as long as war lasts, would you dare to respond that you are not here?

  And as for us, what would we do? Those pens that Aristide Briand himself claimed were made of the same steel as canons, dear Gentlemen, could they all be ours now? Gentlemen, you know that without you, without us, war is impossible To lead the poor bread eaters to the trenches, to the edge of their tombs, all your discourse is needed, all our articles, all our songs. By themselves, they would not go. But we play on their instincts. We alone know how to lie well enough to make their own deaths appear beautiful to them. Fifteen years ago we were witness to this singular work. We were disgusted enough by it to swear never to participate in it. We promised this to ourselves. We promised it to a whole dead youth, to our friends, and we must keep our promise.”

  NO COMMENT WHATSOEVER. NONE.

  Perhaps through association with the preceding idea, I’m thinking that I’ve said nothing more about Aunt Noémie. Ah yes, she’s alive, she’s alive and well, she laughs and eats. Eats, alas, because she’s alive, but she stinks horribly from her colostomy that fouls her with excrement non-stop.

  Attempts to push ahead on the part of the wind in Fragments. But with mediocre results and finally abandoned. Nothing new. Nevertheless it’s clear that yesterday’s efforts head in the right direction and I’ve found what must be done – in particular with the cosmic characters, and even in the details, yesterday’s work is valuable – but I still have to find the means by which to do it. Gradually, moreover, the Fielding form takes shape for a project so far removed from Fielding: Ocean-Tom Jones, Rain-Joseph Andrews, Storm-Squire, Typhoon-Jonathan Wild, Breezes-Amelia. Similar characteristics and even processes. (I’m speaking of inner processes). The tool, that is to say, the sentence, I’m hoping to learn from Instructions nautiques. Because there’s pepper in Henri Michaux’s sentence (and sometimes his process) that can often be valuable (drawn forward sentence by sentence, dramatic intensity of the word, capstan of the image that endlessly offers one turn further), but I need a very long-winded sentence here. One can’t run 3,000 meters with a 100 meter technique.

  So today, once again, rest, profitable rest. (I call rest not writing, either in Fragments or in Cavaliers). But at every moment, I reproach myself for my so-called rest.

  Also: carefully merge the human characters and the element characters in an action devised by the latter and encountered by the former: Little Red Riding Hood is going to bring the cake to her grandmother but will encounter the sun coming from millions of kilometers away, and the wind perhaps coming from the Kara Sea, and thus the drama, nothing to do with the wolf.

  Wednesday, April 5

  Returned last evening from Marseille after having obtained, I believe, Martel’s release. Happy to inform his wife who was waiting for me at the station. But no good news to give Mme. Curet. Marseille unbearably hot; everywhere the terrible odor of shit (no other word to use for it). Rue d’Aubagne, a big window display of roses smells like shit. The streets are full of the smell and women on the streets, made up and dressed to kill, their lungs fed on the odor of shit, stroll about, oblivious as princesses in a garden.

  Meiffret wrote to me in passing that my name is on a black list. Really? I can’t imagine why!

  Maman is sick. Sylvie is feeling better. As for me, I’ve got the flu, which I caught in that pus incubator, Marseille.

  Thursday, April 6

  Oh yes, there is a reason why I’m on a black list. Aren’t we entering the era of mechanization, technology, slavery, State capitalism, the abolition of the individual, a time entirely occupied, directed, and organized collectively – buying on credit, even the pen, American society, automatic dishwasher that plays syncopated Brahms or Bach as jazz, André who covers his ears and hums while they’re playing Handel so that he can read Doublepatte and Patachon in peace. Industrialization of arts and leisure and love. Of course, what more reason do you need, aren’t those enough? Come on!

  Began dictating Fragments again. It’s still very bad. Maybe an idea to impel a part of the work. Chapter on the wind. But I’m still not ready to write it. I’m waiting for the Instructions nautiques. Maybe that will give me the boost I need.

  Wrote barely three sentences for Deux cavaliers. I don’t dare touch it being so disinclined.

  Friday, April 7

  Whoever can do the most can do the least. I can be minister but I can’t resole my shoes. So to be minister is the least.

  A strange period. I have the feeling that everything’s gone to hell, that there’s nothing solid under me anymore, not work, not anything else, even what I valued most. No desire to work. Nothing in mind. Deux cavaliers stopped dead at the end of a sentence and it’s impossible for me to continue. What I need of course – I think – is fresh air, to walk. I know what the best remedy is. Continue just the same, even if it’s bad (and it will be bad),
even if it’s very bad, even if it means destroying what will be made that way. But what an effort it takes to “take it upon oneself.” Especially since it’s easier said than done. Dictated four short passages of Fragments and wrote nothing of Deux cavaliers. Where will the spark come from? I’m reading, but I’m reading old issues of Revue de Paris. Holy week outside. Gray days, spring, brilliant buds on the chestnut trees, wind, warm, muggy, close.

  Saturday, April 8

  It was a little over a year ago, in December 1942 in Bourges, that I saw a little boy who was crying beside his donkey who was dying on the road. It was at the far end of Bourges near the station, near the bridge over the little river. The donkey’s suffering was horrific; the tears of the boy, atrocious because silent and with the horrible grimaces of the possessed. I remember I had a terrible desire to open my wallet and pay for the donkey, I don’t know what, give the boy 1,000, 2,000 francs. I didn’t do it. False shame stopped me. I thought to myself, what will you look like? Will that boy even understand? You’re being ridiculous. I also wanted someone to kill the donkey to end its suffering. But I remember the pathetic looks the boy gave the donkey. Maybe he was crying less for his loss than for the suffering he saw. This scene just suddenly sprang to mind and I’m blaming myself harshly for not having had the courage to get beyond my fear of looking ridiculous. My lack of nobility brings me physical pain once again. I had the opportunity to do good and I didn’t spoil it but ignored it out of absurd fear. That’s unforgivable.

  “It is high time that America produces the dreamers who will save it from itself.”

  Duhamel

  (Scènes de la vie future,

  WHICH IS A GREAT BOOK.)

  A book that provides the human dimension better than all of Malraux’s books and all of Aragon’s eyes.

  One revolution after another like Chicago slaughterhouses.

  Robespierres (plural!) with electricity and technology.

  Something else: there is nothing but reality throughout. Thus a logic of pathos must be found for Fragments.

  Visit from Mme. Curet asking me to intervene to have her husband released. Naturally I’m going to do everything I can, but I can’t do very much. I’m going to write a letter to G. Pelous so that, through the police intendant, a meeting can be set up between Mme. Curet and some Gestapo leader in Marseille. (I’m thinking of course that it’s not possible to call twice upon the kindness of the same person who helped Martel without jeopardizing the good outcome of the intervention for Martel – it’s like matches: they can’t be used twice.) Tomorrow I’ll also go to see Pierre Aubert, the deputy mayor, so that he’s part of our efforts. No matter that he’s a personal enemy of Curet. Aubert is capable of grandeur. In the end, I don’t know how I can do anything; I’m so unqualified and so powerless.

  Seem to have returned to Fragments, dictated eight pages, and some ideas for Deux cavaliers, very good ones, will allow me to write tomorrow and to continue.

  Tuesday, April 11

  Nothing works. It’s all hopeless. I mean it: hopeless.

  Europe no. 111 – March 15, 1932. Jean Guéhenno: “Intellectuals and Disarmament”:

  page 323: “…Then Chamson spoke…, he evoked the war: the dishonor of the past that could be the dishonor of the future. The time had come for a commitment once and for all” (the emphasis is mine because in 1939 Chamson, as captain or no less than staff officer, staff captain, let us remember, sounded the battle cry in speech, in writing, and in his swagger, wrote on heroism – N.R.F. 1939 – pushed for war from 1938 to 1939, and studded with medals (crachats! spit! the perfect word), started this squabble. The reason for the two positions – because this is no idiot, this is only a dishonest man: Orders from Moscow. If he and Guéhenno were pacifists once and for all in 1932, it’s because Moscow needs pacifism for its politics (I let myself be taken in) and if in 1939 and today they are warmongers, it’s because Moscow needs heroism. (As for me, I continue to be a pacifist, contemptuous of them both). They will become ministers and I will be shot. There must always be lying and retractions. That’s how one succeeds if one is not someone else. If one can do nothing but succeed.) Leave the once and for all for the honest folks. But how to explain the just this once in this once and for all?

  Friday, April 14

  If you want to better understand the course of those who have taken “a position within Communism,” you must read the pages (printed on red paper) that Variétés published at the beginning of its special issue: “Surrealism in 1929.” There Louis Aragon and André Breton discuss the fate of Trotsky (exiled by Stalin). There you can find the phrase, “a poor man’s Robespierres.” There André Thirion writes: “…that crook Malraux who, let us hope, will continue his nasty-old-bastard business by offering as a sequel to Les Conquérants an adventurous life of Colonel Lawrence, who now passes for one of the revolutionaries. Everyone’s after a ‘chair of clouds’ for their little asses.” I’m keeping this issue of the review with my documents. Unfortunately the first five pages are missing. There you can see how to “organize the pessimism.” Always the pranks of schoolboys making “a toad smoke a cigarette,” so that its stomach will finally explode like a firecracker when it’s inflated enough. Nowhere do I find passionate reasons for an honest man.

  The work has started again. This morning wrote a page and a half, good ones, for Deux cavaliers. This evening dictated eleven pages of Fragments and this afternoon a few insights on what Fragments could be, if I don’t kill it off by over determining the reasons and requirements for it. Or make it so beautiful that it then escapes my feeble grasp. Theory: There are no imaginary worlds. Everything in this book must be worked in the direction of the image. There is only the real world. Avoiding everything that could make Fragments seem like a utopian novel – especially philosophy and social science. Nothing by the truth, and on that subject, carefully remaking the psychology of the human characters, rendering them very ordinary, not exceptional in any way except in the Conception of reality. Bringing together physical descriptions: mustaches, ways of walking, voices and looks, and linking them to the real world through details on families, wives, relatives, sister-in-law, aunt, mother, and on the villages, countries, etc., all that can easily be Fielding before blending them with what will be difficult to make Fielding.

  The revolution, the novelty, the renaissance must be in the conception of reality or a new way for man to encounter reality (new or reborn). Not in the opposition between the real and the ideal. On the contrary, the real is stranger than the ideal, more difficult to believe, more ideal, and that’s how it should be, as it’s created by forces that are more imposing and more mysteriously powerful than the ideal (fruit of simple imagination, whereas the real…).

  Fragments must be an intellectual revolt.

  Saturday, April 15

  On these notes. This is the self-portrait of the Artist. But how to portray as well his colic, nausea, anger (yes, perhaps) and that small place in his heart, hidden even to himself, where even he doesn’t always know what’s happening? What to do with all that? Maybe one can see his blue eyes and his attitude. The pose, as slight as it may be, is a pose. He is trying to act natural, but since he’s trying, it’s still a pose. Pinned alive like a butterfly? But then it’s going to die, though there’ll be one hell of a pose to display, that butterfly with its wings spread! So, admit that this isn’t everything, that in addition to the portrait he is also alive, and try to see him when he puts down his palette and brushes. To do what? Well, to live: to eat, drink, enjoy himself, be afraid, show off, lie, and thus drawing truth from the belly as though worming information out of himself.

  Tuesday, April 25

  Have since gone to Sornes, to Sigottier. Magnificently welcomed by Penzin who showed me his mill for hulling spelt and then gave us a taste of the country: ham, sausage, jam, fruit, and wine. So, in the little hollow valley where Penzin’s mill sits amid primroses, and not fa
r from the blue rocks of Sigottier, what seemed idiotic was that there are people to make war.

  And there are such people, we aren’t imagining it. Yesterday coming back from the funeral, I happened to say, “What fine sunshine! How warm it is!” Desrobert answered me, “It’s not the sun that we’re waiting for.” Well, what is it then, imbecile? Maybe you’d like to tell me that it’s freedom? Which one?

  N.R.F. March 1, 1929, p.343: “If they want to make war again, there are many of us in France who will not march, who will not agree to march.” Signed, Jean-Richard Bloch.

  We should mobilize immediately (the Americans will take charge of this, I hope) and send off to war all those who are waiting for something other than the sun. Until they’ve gone through that ordeal they will ruin any peace.

  Saturday, April 29

  Tonight Mme. Ernst was arrested at the hotel. Yesterday the bus from Sisteron to Digne was robbed. At one o’clock, that is, in broad daylight, the bus was stopped on the road near Château-Arnoux. A man and a woman were killed in Sigonce in the middle of the village. Also it seems a Jew was gunned down here yesterday afternoon.

  Luminous gray weather. Spring; toward the Rhône the sky is overcast. The rain never comes. We won’t have fodder for the livestock and the wheat is turning brown before it ripens.

  Started a little poem this morning almost without thinking about it.