Simone Beauvoir - The Mandarins

Scriassine emptied his glass and banged it down on the table. ‘Now that’s what I call an optimistic prediction!’ In a serious voice, he continued rapidly, ‘I don’t like America and I don’t believe in the Atlantic community. But I sincerely hope America predominates, because the important question in this day and age is one of abundance. And only America can give it to us.’

‘Abundance?’ Dubreuilh said. ‘For whom? And at what price? That would be a pretty picture, to be colonized by America!’ he added indignantly.

‘Would you rather Russia annexed us?’ Scriassine asked. He stopped Dubreuilh with a sharp gesture. ‘I know. You’re dreaming of a united, autonomous, socialist Europe. But if Europe refuses the protection of the United States, she’ll inevitably fall into the hands of Stalin.’

Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. ‘Russia has no intention of annexing anything at all.’

‘In any case, that Europe you dream so much about will never come about,’ Scriassine said.

‘That’s what you say!’ Dubreuilh protested. ‘Anyhow,’ he continued heatedly, ‘here in France we have a clear-cut objective – to achieve a real popular front government. And for that, we need a non-Communist left that’s able to hold its own.’ He turned towards Henri. ‘We mustn’t lose any more time. At the moment people feel that the future is wide open. Let’s not wait until they become discouraged.’

Scriassine downed a glass of vodka and lost himself in contemplating the maître d’hôtel . He had given up talking sense to fools.

‘You say you’ve got off to a good start?’ Henri asked Dubreuilh.

‘We’ve started, but now we have to continue. I’d like you to see Samazelle as soon as possible. There’s going to be a committee meeting on Saturday and I’m counting on your being there.’

‘Let me have a little time to catch my breath,’ Henri said, giving Dubreuilh a slightly worried look. It wasn’t going to be easy defending himself against that nice, imperative smile.

‘I purposely delayed the meeting so that you could be there,’ Dubreuilh said reprovingly.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Henri replied. ‘I assure you you’re overestimating my qualifications.’

‘And you your lack of them,’ Dubreuilh said. He looked at Henri severely. ‘You’ve got a pretty good picture these last four days of what’s been happening; things have been moving along at a damned rapid pace. You must have realized by now that neutrality is no longer possible.’

‘But I’ve never been neutral!’ Henri protested. ‘I’ve always agreed to go along with the SRL.’

‘Is that right? Well, let’s see now … Your name and a few appearances – that’s all you ever promised me.’

‘Don’t forget I have a newspaper on my hands,’ Henri replied.

‘Precisely. It’s the paper I have in mind more than anything else. It can’t remain neutral any more.’

‘But it never was!’ Henri said, surprised.

‘How can I get it through your thick skull?’ Dubreuilh said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Being on the side of the Resistance doesn’t constitute a political programme nowadays.’

‘No, I don’t have a programme,’ Henri admitted. ‘But whenever the occasion demands it, L’Espoir does choose sides.’

‘No, it doesn’t, not any more so than all the other papers. You argue about trifles, but when it comes to the big things, all of you somehow manage to agree on covering up the truth.’ There was anger in Dubreuilh’s voice. ‘From Figaro to L’Humanité , you’re all nothing but a bunch of humbugs. You say yes to de Gaulle, yes to Yalta, yes to everything; you act as if you believe there’s still a Resistance and that we’re heading steadily towards socialism. Your friend Luc has really been going to town with that hogwash in his recent editorials. All we’re doing, really, is marking time; in fact, we’re even beginning to retreat. And not a one of you has the guts to tell the truth!’

‘I always thought you agreed with L’Espoir,’ Henri said. He was stunned; his heart began beating rapidly. During the past four days, he had meshed with that paper as one meshes with one’s own life. And then all of a sudden L’Espoir was being indicted. And by Dubreuilh!

‘Agree with what?’ Dubreuilh asked. ‘L’Espoir has no line. You’re constantly complaining that nothing’s been nationalized. And what do you do about it? Nothing. Now what would be interesting would be to tell who’s putting on the brakes, and why.’

‘I don’t want to take a stand for or against any particular class,’ Henri said. ‘Reforms will come about when public opinion demands them, and what I’m trying to do is arouse opinion. I can’t very well do that if I’m going to set half my readers against me, can I?’

‘You can’t possibly believe that the class struggle is outmoded, can you?’ Dubreuilh asked suspiciously.

‘No.’

‘Then don’t come telling me about public opinion,’ Dubreuilh said. ‘On one side, you have the proletariat which wants reforms, and on the other, the bourgeoisie which doesn’t. The middle classes are treading water because they don’t know where their true interests lie any more. But don’t get the idea you can influence them; it’s the situation that will do the deciding.’

Henri hesitated. No, the class struggle wasn’t outmoded. All right. But did that automatically doom any appeal to people’s good intentions, to their common sense? ‘Their interests are quite complex,’ he replied. ‘I’m not at all convinced you can’t influence them.’

Dubreuilh was about to say something, but Henri cut him off. ‘Another thing,’ he said spiritedly. ‘The workers who read L’Espoir read it because it gives them a change from L’Humanité ; it gives them a breath of fresh air. If I take a class stand, I’ll either repeat what the Communist papers are saying, or I’ll take issue with them. And either way, the workers will drop me.’ In a conciliatory voice, he added, ‘I reach a lot more people than you do, you know. That means I have to have a much broader platform.’

‘Yes, you do reach a lot of people,’ Dubreuilh said. ‘But you yourself just gave the reason why. If your paper pleases everybody, it’s because it disturbs nobody. It attacks nothing, defends nothing, evades every problem. It simply makes for pleasant reading, like a local sheet.’

Dubreuilh’s outburst was followed by a brief silence. Paula had returned to the table and was sitting next to Anne; she seemed outraged, and even Anne was quite embarrassed. Julien had disappeared. Scriassine, awakened from his meditations, looked back and forth from Henri to Dubreuilh, as if he were watching a tennis match. But it was a strictly one-sided match; Henri had been overwhelmed by the sudden violence of the attack.

‘What are you getting at?’ he asked.

‘Stop shilly-shallying,’ Dubreuilh answered. ‘Take the bit in your teeth and define your position in relation to the Communist Party.’

Henri looked at Dubreuilh suspiciously. It often happened that Dubreuilh would heatedly involve himself in the affairs of others, and, just as often, you came to realize that he had in fact made them his own affairs. ‘In short, what you’re proposing is that I accept the SRL’s entire programme.’

‘Yes,’ Dubreuilh replied.

‘But you don’t really expect L’Espoir to become the official organ of the movement, do you?’

‘It would be perfectly natural,’ Dubreuilh said. ‘L’Espoir’s weakness stems from the fact that it doesn’t represent anything. Besides, without a newspaper the movement has almost no chance of getting anywhere. Since our goals are the same …’