Joseph Roth - Joseph Roth - A Life in Letters

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Joseph Roth

1. Simon: Heinrich Simon (born in Berlin in 1880, robbed and murdered in 1941 in Washington, D.C.), son-in-law of Leopold Sonnemann, the founder of the FZ , on the board from 1906, co-owner from 1919. Went into exile in 1934, first to Palestine, where he co-founded an orchestra with Toscanini, then the United States.

2. Friedrich Adler (1879–1960), son of the Austrian Socialist leader Viktor Adler. In 1916 he made an attempt on the life of the Austrian prime minister Count Friedrich Stürgkh, was condemned to death, and pardoned in 1918; secretary of the Second International.

21. To Benno Reifenberg

Hotel Beauvau, Marseille

26 August [1925]

Dear Mr. Reifenberg,

you are much too zealous in your self-accusations. It’s wrong to think you should have known how nervous I am. No one can know about the level of my agitation — constant and powerful — about everything under the sun. I am never at ease. Of course I exaggerate. When I write in that vein, you shouldn’t take it seriously.

For all that, I’m grateful for your letter. I sent off three feuilletons today. Not everything in them is the way it ought to be. But they are entirely honest, I think that will come across. I have seen a bullfight for the first time in my life. If you’ve never seen anything like that, then you can have no conception of the gruesomeness of it. I know of no French writer who has written about — much less against — these Provençal bullfights. Not Daudet, not Mistral either, to the best of my knowledge. I think they’d be ashamed, and they’re scared. They’re happy to write about the wind, the sky, the people, the riders, the women. Tell me why a great writer isn’t duty bound to accuse his country instead of praising it. They all write as though they wanted their personal monument. And I’m not just talking about their relation to the patrie , but to humanity, to society, to every manifestation of life. These writers are all so appallingly affirmative. They reinforce their readers in their bourgeois — i.e., antiquated — attitudes, instead of destroying as many of them as possible. They themselves are nothing but superbourgeois. It’s perfectly OK for a little burgomaster to put up a statue to a great writer from time to time. Next to the statue of the little burgomaster. Perfectly OK for the older daughter to play Schubert on the piano. Schubert composed for her.

I was depressed to hear of Willo Uhl’s1 death. He was the first person I met in Frankfurt 3 years ago, and I’m fond of his children. I got a couple of recent editions of the paper. There were only two decent feuilletons: Rudolf Schneider on “heroes” and Willo’s obituary. He was such a good and cheerful goy, he stood between the sentimental Jews and the awkward ones on the board, and he was the very opposite of German democracy. It’s too bad he’s dead. He could never have made 60, but 45 is maybe ten years too early. What did he die of?

Slap in the middle of my lovely time in Marseille is the Social Democratic Congress. 200 Germans, 100 Austrians. The latter a nasty perversion of Germans. The Austrians look like Germans who have understood nothing. As vile as a Prussian is when he’s taking his pleasure, that’s how ghastly the Austrian is all his life. Degenerate boches .

Not that the real ones are any better. A second wave of Lombards. This time toting briefcases and sporting Schiller collars. Fat wives, heelless sandals, perms, hatless. Jews who aren’t Jews, because they have taken up the cudgels for some foreign proletariat; bourgeois who aren’t bourgeois, because they’re fighting for a foreign class. Continually steaming with activity and talk. The conference extended into the evening in the café, big groups and long tables, all to the horror of the waiters and the exotic foreigners of whom there are so many here. Nothing is so exotic as a German. No group is more eye-catching. But the Germans are social democrats to beat the band. If you don’t like Germans, you won’t like social democrats either. Half citizens, half politicians, half minds, moderate beer drinkers. Good old Stahl is here. He doesn’t have a clue about the true nature of this party of toothless dragons. He still gets excited about congresses. I’ve seen Friedrich Adler. No pistol in his briefcase any more, just checklists. Face gone flabby like dough. Once upon a time he shot Stürgkh. Beginning of the end for the monarchy. When I see Adler today, I understand Stürgkh was a martyr. Because his killer is the secretary of the Second International. They should have hanged him. One shouldn’t let heroes live.

Not one of these representatives of the proletariat goes to the old harbor quarter as I, a so-called bourgeois intellectual, do. No one threatens me. They would quite rightly beat their brains out. Eck-Troll is here. Do you know him? A queer sort of idiot. He sits in a bar for three hours, and is fleeced, and they compliment him on his French, and afterwards he tells me he has done some wonderful “studies.” He pulls a photograph from his wallet: wife and child. He shows the photo to the objects of his studies. A German journalist on the job. Stahl says: Come with me to the harbor quarter! Shall I take a pistol? What a fighter. Shame there wasn’t a cinema handy.

If you think of bluing laundry, you’ll have a sense of how blue the sea is here. The sky, on the other hand, is as pale as a sheet of paper.

There are 700 vessels in the port. I’ve half a mind to suddenly take one of them. My wife cries every day, if it weren’t for her, I’d be long gone. It’s the first time I’ve had a feeling for the presence of my wife. It’s only in a port that you know you’re married.

I had whooping cough as a grown-up as well. Look after yourself. The consequence is often swollen glands, as with me, and mumps, which is unpleasant, if harmless. Regards to mother and son. Have a look at the clipping from Le Matin 2 enclosed. I give you my hands.

I remain your old

Joseph Roth

I can’t permit this letter to go without the following.

Last night they played L’Arlésienne at the opera. As in Paris, when you get a ticket, you get your “ location ” to go with it. As a result, no one finds his seat, because three-quarters of the audience have two. The foldaway seats are all full. The aisles are stuffed with people. Everyone is wandering about. Three ancient usherettes have been driven demented. But the people aren’t the least bit bothered. While they’re looking around, they all have smiles on their faces.

The music starts, and the foldaway seats keep clacking up and down. People are yelling. Music is a bit like sweets. A component of an evening in the theater. Music is metaphysical, and the southern Frenchman doesn’t get it. The gorgeous women are loathsome, because they won’t shut up. The musicians don’t care about the noise. They play. When there’s a quiet passage, the audience thinks it’s over, and they go wild.

The musicians go on playing through the interval, all the while they’re hammering at the set behind the curtain. The whole theater is like a country fair. Complete strangers start to tell me their life story, because they’re bored with the music. The actors are unbelievably hammy. They speak their lines in a kind of graveyard whisper. People laugh themselves silly. Which doesn’t prevent them from applauding once a speech is over. The desperate hero, resolved to take his own life, exits triumphantly, arm aloft.

Doors open and shut all the time. People pop out for a smoke. Come back, clacking of chairs. Squeaking of benches. Laughter of women. Rustling of paper.

You can’t imagine the lack of respect of the French. They obviously can’t understand that art is a form of reality. If you told them a fairy tale, I don’t think they would understand it. I should like to know how French children behave during fairy tales.