Simon Leys - The Hall of Uselessness - Collected Essays

26. In old age (he was seventy-three at the time), he once confided to the Tiny Lady that “anger had always been a very rare experience for him — but he found it to be a delightful feeling: a sort of release.” ( PD 3, p. 293.)

27. His oldest and best friend, Roger Martin du Gard, eventually took a dimmer view of the ethical cost of the Gidean attitude. In a letter to his daughter (20 April 1936), Martin issued this earnest warning: “Gide’s example is baneful. His happiness is built upon ruins. His joy is made of other people’s sufferings. I do not condemn him. Yet, though I sometimes envy his happiness, his joy, his freedom, my envy is only superficial; it hits me accidentally, in the weak spot of my own selfishness; at the very bottom, however, I would not wish to be happy in such a way — by trampling upon other people. Gide never felt genuinely involved with anything; he never committed himself to any form of action; all that counts for him is a temporary mood, the seductiveness of the moment. It is a way of life — it can never be mine. I am not fooled by the false boldness of those who ‘break free.’ It is only a form of attractive sophistry. The limits of freedom are marked by our neighbour’s presence. To breach these boundaries is only a gesture of phoney courage. I have other rules of life — rightly or wrongly — and I am too far into my own journey to change them.” (R. Martin du Gard, Journal [Paris: Gallimard, 1993], Vol. 2, p. 1, 177.)

28. PD 1, p. 31. He said this in 1919—scarcely a year after having experienced the only tragedy of his life. Again, in 1934: “The effort it takes to put myself in a bad mood is quite extraordinary. When I am in front of some serious trouble, sometimes I try very hard to be gloomy but I never succeed.” ( PD 2, p. 416.) And finally, in 1949—two years before the end of his long life: “Even though the future inspires me a black and opaque pessimism, which I do not wish to acknowledge, and even though I am now physically diminished, I still find myself incapable of being unhappy.” ( PD 4, p. 146.) Even domestic catastrophes could not distress him — for instance, as his rich library was being ruined by a leaking roof during a violent rainstorm (lying sick in bed, he directed the rescue operations, shouting instructions from a distance: “Leave Meredith, save Conrad!”), he pretended to be upset, but could hardly hide his excitement at the event. He said the next day to the Tiny Lady: “Shall I tell you the main result of yesterday’s disaster? I have never worked better.” ( PD 3, p. 124; 4, p. 54.)

29. PD 2, p. 417.

30. Sheridan, p. 196.

31. Herbart , p. 54.

32. Beck , p. 152.

33. PD 2, p. 40.

34. Sheridan, p. 587.

35. Martin , p. 94.

36. His inability to recognise people’s faces was notorious and often gave rise to embarrassing or ludicrous incidents. See for instance PD 1, p. 196.

37. This was noted by several critics and connoisseurs. For instance: “André lacks a gift that is essential for any genuine novelist: he is unable to tolerate boredom. As soon as some acquaintance turns stale, he loses all curiosity in him. It is the same with the characters in his novels: generally speaking, somewhere around page 150, his creatures cease to interest him — and then he quickly rushes a slap-dash ending.” (Jacques Copeau, quoted in Martin , p. 30.)

38. PD 1, p. 371.

39. PD 2, p. 425.

40. On the coffee issue (choice between regular or decaffeinated), once, as orders were to be taken to the kitchen ahead of serving, Gide finding himself suddenly confronted with a decision in advance cried out in despair: ‘You are robbing me of my possibilities of hesitation!’ ( PD 4, p. 98.)

41. B. Beck, Preface to M. Saint-Clair: Il y a quarante ans (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), p. iv. (“M. Saint-Clair” was the pen-name of Maria Van Rysselberghe.)

42. “Le chemin droit, dit Gide, ne mène jamais qu’au but.” (M. Saint-Clair, op. cit. , “Galerie privée,” p. 171.)

43. Martin , p. 119; PD 3, p. 18: “Je ne m’habitue pas à ce que Pierre (Herbart) appelle si justement la marche en crochet de son esprit, à ses reactions à retardement qui laissent toujours les autres s’engager avec le sentiment de son approbation.”

44. “[Gide said: ] ‘I always found it more beneficial to refuse problems in my life.’ As if this were possible! I thought… But it is true, he always refuses to face problems in any clear-cut fashion, and that is how he is able to reach several solutions that are in contradiction with each other.” ( PD 4, p. 132.)

45. PD 4, p. 103.

46. Martin , p. 113–14.

47. PD 4, p. 149.

48. PD 1, p. 205.

49. Gide asked the Tiny Lady what he should think of Faulkner’s Light in August (a French translation of which had just appeared). ( PD 4, p. 202). Gide had just finished reading the new novel of Sartre, La Mort dans l’âme ; the Tiny Lady asks: “What do you think of it? — I am waiting for you to read it, in order to know!” She reflected for herself: “I don’t like this kind of responsibility.” ( PD 4, p. 187.)

50. PD 4, p. 41.

51. Gide, draft preface to a translation of Nourritures terrestres . This text was discarded by Gide, but the Tiny Lady preserved some fragments — see PD 2, p. 70. See also here below, art. Proteus .

52. PD 4, pp. 20, 37.

53. Schlum. , p. 316.

54. Martin , pp. 32–3.

55. Herbart , p. 67.

56. PD 2, p. 534.

57. Martin , pp. 45, 46.

58. PD 1, p. 12.

59. Schlum ., p. 132.

60. Boswell, Life of Johnson (entry of 31 March 1772): “A question started, whether the state of marriage was natural to man. JOHNSON: Sir, it is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.”

61. Sheridan, pp. 377–8.

62. Ibid . Also Gide, Journal 1, p. 671. It should be remarked that Gide himself had, to some extent, such an attitude towards Proust. Both met only on very few occasions — each time talking for hours about homosexuality. In this particular area, Gide seems to have been both fascinated and repelled by Proust’s idiosyncrasies.

63. Even in the eyes of righteous men of Antiquity, did pederasty ever present such a lofty moral character? One may wonder. Otherwise, what sense should be made (for example) of the passage where Marcus Aurelius, praising the many virtues of his adoptive father, Emperor Antoninus Pius, especially mentions “the efforts he made to suppress pederasty”? ( Meditations [Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics], Book I, 16, p. 40).

64. Sheridan largely evades this issue, which he dispatches in one mere paragraph, p. 377.

65. Sheridan, p. 335; PD 1, p. 44.

66. Sheridan, p. 294; PD 1, p. 150.

67. Sheridan, p. 356; PD 1, p. 151.

68. PD 2, p. 156.

69. Journal 2, p. 796 (1 January 1942).

70. Sheridan, p. 551.

71. PD 3, p. 269.

72. R. Martin du Gard, Journal 3, pp. 403–4.

73. PD 3, p. 250.

74. PD 3, p. 267.

75. PD 3, p. 307.

76. PD 3, p. 24.

77. PD 4, p. 79.

78. PD 4, p. 53.