Joseph Roth - Joseph Roth - A Life in Letters

I’ve heard nothing from Huebsch. Maybe he dislikes my novel.

I don’t want to talk to you about my family life, it would probably spoil your mood. Dear friend, why is it that the most banal things in this short life obscure the serious ones, and create differences between friends?

Dear friend, will I see you before your big trip? Perhaps in Brussels? Remember, one can never know which time will be the last. And letters are no substitute for the moment of seeing one another, exchanging greetings, and then that other moment, of taking leave.

Will you reply here?

I am your old friend

Joseph Roth

397. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth

Hotel Regina

Vienna

[End of June? 1936]

My dear fellow,

I hope this letter gets to you in time. Either way, I’ll be in Ostend for a month from 2 July to work, my friend Fuchs,1 who helps me with the editing, will be there, and my secretary2 is coming, I HAVE to have 110 typed pages ready by 1 August! Because that’s when I’m going.

It would be wonderful to have you there as a sort of literary conscience for my legend. We could test one another in the evenings, and lecture each other, as in the good old days. You don’t have to swim, I won’t be swimming either — Ostend isn’t a spa, but a CITY, prettier, and with more cafés than Brussels.

My address is Ostend poste restante Cursal. I hope to get a room on Monday night in the Hotel SIRU. They gave me my new passport3 here, without any fuss,

warmly, Z.

1. Fuchs: Martin Fuchs.

2. my secretary: Lotte Altmann, later Zweig’s second wife, dying with him in their suicide pact in Petropolis, Brazil, on 23 February 1942.

3. my new passport: Austrian, still. Zweig took British nationality later, in 1939.

398. To Blanche Gidon

Eden Hotel

Amsterdam

16 June 1936

Dear kind friend,

you must never reproach yourself for writing candidly to me. Of course I would do absolutely anything at all — if there was anything sensible I could do. But it’s confusing cause and effect if you think my situation is the result of alcoholism. I haven’t drunk any schnapps for 3 or 4 weeks now. (My situation hasn’t improved thereby. My health not much either.) In the instant of standing over the abyss such considerations have little meaning. I’m drinking only wine, and still my feet are swollen, my heart is heavy as a stone, and in front of me is, quite literally, a black void. It’s a terrible feeling not to know what you’re going to live off in another week. Sixteen years ago I could bear it. Not any more.

I didn’t write, because I had a talk to prepare here. It was a success, I made 150 gulden with it. With that — because it’s cheaper there — I want to go to Brussels. Please write to me here first. I don’t yet have an address in Brussels.

The galleys1 you were sent aren’t anything near final. I’m still making changes up to my departure.

Plon would be nice. But I don’t know how Mr. Marcel feels about me at the moment. I have no very strong sense of the novel. Grasset or Michel or Plon: all that matters is that the publisher here sees some money come in. Maybe I can get another 6-month contract in September.

Thank you very much, to you and Mr. Gidon.

Please don’t be cross about my writing in German.

I am so terribly tired.

In warm friendship

your Joseph Roth

1. galleys: of Confession of a Murderer .

399. To Blanche Gidon

Eden Hotel

Amsterdam

24 June 1936

Dear kind Madam and friend,

in case I do go to Belgium — I’m waiting for the visa to come — I want to say that this address is fine. My mail will be forwarded. — I’m working on some new thing1 now. Please write to me, and forgive me for being so curt.

I’ll write to you at greater length in a fortnight. — I’m very concentrated on my work.

Best wishes to Mr. Gidon.

I kiss your hand.

Please write me a few words, it’s important to me, in this situation, which I can’t describe to you just now,

your old and trusty Joseph Roth

1. some new thing: Weights and Measures (Amsterdam: Querido, 1937).

400. To Stefan Zweig

Eden Hotel

Amsterdam

Wednesday, 24 June 1936

Dear friend,

I’ve spent the past 6 days waiting for a Belgian visa, which for Austrian subjects has to be sent to their main domicile. I’ve been waiting for eight days. (I should have had to go to Paris to get it right away.)

(Will you give the accompanying note to your wife, please.)

I will probably be staying in the Hotel Siru in Brussels. It’s supposed to be one of the cheapest and best [?] there.

Even so: a telegram from you to here will follow me there by wire . You can — it would be nice if you did — write here if you don’t have my address in Brussels before your departure.

You’re much too worked up about Calvin. How is it that you, who especially in your books shows the superior calm of great men, get so worked up as soon as the slightest mishap befalls you? — My dear friend, there’s something not quite right there! You can’t be agitated, not after you’ve depicted so much really tragic agitation so classically and perfectly. What do you care about the delight of the Calvinists and the Morgensterns? Don’t you have to live, at least part way, like the characters you portray? — What is it that bothers you? — Please, keep your dignity. — In Holland, from what I hear, your book has been picked up very favorably and respectfully, certainly among the Catholics. — I beg you, please come here, here or to Belgium, and don’t leave me a single day without your address. And reply to me here! I am completely shattered again. Yet again.

I embrace you warmly,

your Joseph Roth

For Mme Friderike Maria Zweig:

My dear friend,

everything you write here will reach me. Mrs. M.B. hasn’t replied to another two telegrams I literally had to squeeze out of myself. I don’t even know where my — very important — correspondence and manuscripts — are. I don’t know what’s going on. So many years, and so much humanity in vain. I feel terribly sad that a person can drop me like unnecessary ballast. I feel terribly sad.

Sincerely,

your old J.R.

401. To Stefan Zweig

Eden Hotel

Amsterdam

2 July 1936

My dear good friend,

for certain reasons I couldn’t write before today, and I couldn’t go to Belgium before Monday. I got the visa yesterday (after appeals from the PEN Club in Brussels). As a result of the accompanying telegram, signed by Manga Bell’s daughter, probably without the mother’s knowing, I had to telephone my translator, and ask her to look and check, and then to call me back. This phoning back and forth cost me half my travel money, the money for my lecture doesn’t come till Monday, and then I’ll go straight to Brussels, Hotel Siru. The telegram was a crude shock tactic. It made me ill for 2 days. Awful. How bitterly one pays for any humanity and any human half-joy. Please write, so I’ll have word at the Siru on Tuesday, and won’t have to wire you too.

Sincerely,

your loyal old J.R.

P.S. It will be very embarrassing for me to run into Kesten and Kisch in Ostend — certainly not to be avoided. I can’t stand any more jokers.

402. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth

46 Promenade Albert 1er

Maison Florial

Joseph Roth, Amsterdam, Eden Hotel

[postmarked 4 July 1936]

Dear friend,

I’ve just come from Brussels, where I spoke to Huebsch on his way through. Brussels is impossible to work in, you’ll like Ostend better, there are hundreds of cheap hotels, and, as in the rest of Belgium, that for you very advantageous prohibition of spirits. We can help each other in our work, and I think could both use such help — let’s bring back the old days of Job ! And don’t be upset about Ma. Be. It’s lucky when things come undone quickly like that, it’s better than a slow rending.1 I’m looking forward very much to seeing you, come straight on, and forget dull old Brussels,