Joseph Roth - Joseph Roth - A Life in Letters

Please look after yourself. Is Paris good for you? Mightn’t the Midi be better? Ach, I’m asking you questions, and I know you won’t answer me any more. But I go on asking, or rather my heart asks after you.

Warmest best wishes your old

St. Z.

As soon as I know when I’ll be going, I’ll write to you.

1. kind Irmgard Keun: German novelist who lived with Joseph Roth in Ostend and Paris from 1936 to 1938, and accompanied him on a PEN-funded lecture tour of Poland. Keun returned to Germany in 1940, where, aided by false reports of her death, she managed to stay concealed with her family.

446. To Pierre Bertaux

Paris-Est

Buffet-Bar

[24 February 1938]

Dear friend,

1. before my departure:

In Austria probably a state of siege ,

to keep internal affairs in Skubl’s1 hands. 2. Jesuitical-typical: half the Austrians Nazis who were set free, now locked up again. 3. For France MY advice:

a. WITH Russia;

b. WITH Czechoslovakia OPEN DECLARATION of a MILITARY ALLIANCE;

c. Intercede for Austria, openly

d. Pyrenees.2

Sincerely, my train’s leaving

Your old

Joseph Roth

And please: Let Ce Soir 3 know that I’ll be in touch from Vienna!

1. Skubl: Michael Skubl (1877–1964), from 1934 to 1938, Austrian chief of police. With the Anschluss looming, he resigned his post.

2. Pyrenees: remote southwest France, where Bertaux had a house

3. Ce Soir : pro-Communist evening paper in Paris.

447. To Blanche Gidon

18 rue de Tournon

Paris

[postmarked: 12 May 1938]

Dear friend,

please, if at all possible, try and do something for Dr. Broczyner. He is the model for my Dr. Demant1 in the Radetzky March .

Also, I have a wonderful Austrian seamstress:

Elisabeth Streit,

23 rue de Liège

Very deserving and unhappy.

Also I have many suggestions to make to you. I myself am wretched.

Could you call me between 12 and 1? Danton 16–16.

Always your loyal

Joseph Roth

and Dr. Gidon’s humble servant as well.

1. the model for my Dr. Demant: not so, apparently. Eduard Broczyner was a fellow pupil of JR’s in Brody, and also knew him later in Vienna and during the emigration in Paris.

448. To Blanche Gidon

rue de Tournon 18

[postmarked: Paris, 28 May 1938]

Dear friend,

Morgenstern1 told me of your kindness. Of course I ask you, must unfortunately ask you again, to help me.

Can you call me today between 3 and 5? At 8 o’clock tonight the best German actor Ludwig Hardt will be reading from the best German writers at Rue de Rennes 44.

Can you make it? Please do call me!

Sincerely,

your old Joseph Roth

1. Morgenstern: Roth’s friend and neighbor at the Hotel de la Poste, Soma Morgenstern.

449. Stefan Zweig to Joseph Roth

[summer 1938?]

Dear friend,

your silence is obdurate, but I think often and always kindly of you. My life of late is too crowded, I successfully went over the first draft of the novel (which with me is almost tantamount to rewriting the whole thing), then collected material for a novella (or a sort of symbolical novella)1 that I am now already working on, though subject to many disturbances. I have to be alone for that sort of work (the creative, conceptual part), and for the past 10 days wanted to hole up in Boulogne, but the weather hasn’t let up at all. In Germany, Castellio has cast a shadow, also the delivery of supplies to Hungary, Poland, etc. — Austria has no contract with those states — that hitherto went out to that noble land is now impossible, and there’s no shortage of other minor irritants — I’m surprised still to be able to work at all. Here I’m living as in a cave, know about a tenth of the people I knew two years ago, and lots of leaves are blowing down from the old bands of affection. Well, the German ax has taken hefty swings at the tree!

And you! I am always filled with impatience when I think of you. Your first novel2 must be finished by now, and I’m wondering how the work on the second is going. Where will you be? Where can I find you. I’m wary of Amsterdam, because I’d have to call on some 15 people there, and anyway only German Lufthansa flies there. How long are you staying there? Have you made any resolutions? Roth, I hope you keep it together, we need you. There are so few human beings, and so few real books in this overcrowded world!

Sincerely your Stefan Zweig

1. symbolical novella: this sounds like Zweig’s Chess Novella, written between 1938 and 1941, published posthumously in 1942.

2. your first novel: The Tale of the 1002nd Night, with The Emperor’s Tomb as the second.

450. To Stefan Zweig

18 rue de Tournon1

Paris 6e

Paris, 19 September 1938

Dear friend,

this just provisionally, to let you know that I’m always thinking of you, and especially in these days. Please forgive the typewriter.

I am overloaded with Austrian matters, refugee committees, and the like.

Please don’t be offended by the dictation, but won’t you come here for a day. It’s high time — and perhaps the last time — that we could see each other.

I heard your mother died. I would like to convey to you my really sincere commiseration.

I see your wife from time to time. Please, won’t you come here for a day. It’s easier for you than for me.

Sincerely,

your old Joseph Roth

1. 18 rue de Tournon: this is Roth’s “last address,” the Hotel de la Poste, around the corner from the now demolished Foyot. It was from there that he was taken on 23 May 1939 to the HÔpital Necker, where he died four days later. He told Soma Morgenstern, “I have finished my last book. I don’t want a doctor, just a priest.” It was not the easy death evoked in The Legend of the Holy Drinker . Friends reported seeing Roth strapped to his bed with delirium tremens, but he was denied alcohol by the hospital staff. That was a contributory cause of his death, whose official cause was given as pneumonia. He was buried on 30 May 1939 in the Cimetière Thiais, in the remote south of Paris.

451. To Leo Cenower

18 rue de Tournon

Paris 6e

Paris, 27 September 1938

To Mr. Leo Cenower, c/o Mandle, Zürich, Konradstrasse 51

Dear friend Cenower,1

ten days ago I might have been able to do something for your wife, but you didn’t write me in time. Now there’s mobilization, and there’s nothing I can do. I myself am at risk. I might have to leave Paris any day now.

Try — this is my advice to you — to leave Switzerland yourself. It will be impossible for you there. Somewhere in the French provinces would be better. Do as follows. Perhaps you could cross over into France with the electrical tram, make inquiries about it. . Unfortunately, that’s all I can suggest.

Write to me straightaway, and if you come to Paris, let me know a day in advance.

Sincerely

Your [Joseph Roth]

1. Cenower was a war comrade of JR’s.

452. To Blanche Gidon

[Paris] 5 October 1938

Madame Blanche Gidon

Dear friend,

poor thanks to you for showing so much heart: I have another young Austrian to commend to you, a Mr. Walter Ringhofer. He is one of the best tailors. I have been trying vainly to help him for the past fortnight. You will see for yourself how nice he is. Please, if you can, try and find him a place somewhere. At the very least, I would beg you to listen to him. He is unfortunately one of very many to have come to me from the committees.