Rivoallan's revision of SB's French
translation
of Murphy for submission toJean Paulhan is deferred.
Samuel Beckett
This heavy compost
14 June {1939}, Ussher
is frequently infected with that lecherous suggestiveness of which Mr. Joyce is a master, which was defended in lflysses as germane to the characters, but which here seems to have no purpose more interesting than the author's morose delectations. ("JamesJoyce," The Atlantic 163 Uune 1939), unpaginated supplement: "The Bookshelf' [17, 19, 21])
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
14/6/39 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear George
WillyoupleasesendmebackmyPetitSot. Ihavenoother
copy[. ]
Ever
Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; Vlaminck, "Paysage en Beauce"; to GeorgeReaveyEsq, 7 Great Ormond Street, London W. C. 1; pm 15-[6]-39,Paris;TxU.
1 See 28 February 1939 and n. 2 to that letter, in which SB indicates that he is writing another "Petit Sot," which he intended to send to Reavey with his shorter poems in French.
ARLAND US SHER
[? DUBLIN OR CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD]
June 141! ! [1939) 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Arland
If you want a big name I think Piazzetta or Tiepolo are the
most likely, & the latter better than the former, though the picture seems rather too maniere & doubtfully drawn to be of
663
1
14 June {1939}, Ussher
any possible chance by either. The rhythm is Tiepolesque, the
format also, the bearded gent above the Maries like a bad copy
of a Tiepolo motif (cf. The Almighty in the Dublin Litany of
the Virgin for the real thing. There are as few Tiepolos without
the beard as Wouwermanns [for Wouwermans] without the white
horse. ), and the stooping John in the foreground, here as far as I
can judge hardly a success, is the kind of difficulty that gave him
none. The Maries are very curious, the right hand of the topmost
seems very good, and the lowest I seem to have seen somewhere
in a Cranach, which however ifit were so would not invalidate the
Tiepolo suggestion, who worked so long in Wiirzburg. Another
possible line obviously would be the Spanish - Neapolitan, but the
work seems to be neither sufficiently devout nor sufficiently
dramatic to satisfy that mixture in any of its dosages. As a deco
rative statement of weights & tensions it seems to me to lack only
technique & bravura to pair up with the easel recreations of
1
betterqualifiedthanIam. Canyounotobtainalessnebulous reproduction?
Thank you for your essay. When the period represents an end point of meditation your rather dogmatic tone is no doubt
3
given philosophy a good paper, clean, honest & obliging, now
who will take it up? The State.
4
I was glad to meet Jacqueline and hope another time to have again the pleasure. Thank you for your bounteous hospitality which I was unable to reverberate. 5
I have been reading H6lderlin. It is a depressing thought that perhaps Hyperion was necessary to the Freie Rythmen &
664
Gianbattista [for Giambattista] Tiepolo & Sons.
Ifyou like I shall send it to Tom McGreevy, who is very much
2
the right one. You feel a law, you lay it down. Theology has
Nachstens mehr.
the terrific fragments of the Spatzeit. I obtained someone's agreement last night in a dream that he (Holderlin) must have been for a long time homosexual.
14June {1939}, Ussher
6
7
Looking at the right hand again it is horribly Rembrandtesque.
8
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; TxU. Dating: Brian Coffey's letter to Robert MacAlmon on 20 June 1939: n. 7 below, and 16 June 1939.
1 AtanauctionUssherhadpurchasedapaintingofthecrucifixionfor£5;laterit was sold in an auction at Cappagh for £12. His daughter Henrietta Ussher Staples recalled that it was approximately 24 in. x 30 in. and quite brown, in "terrible condition"; it has not been further identified.
SB refers to the Italian painter and draftsman Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. He com pares Ussher's picture to Giovanni Battista (also known as Giambattista) Tiepolo·s An Allegory ofthe Incarnation (also called Litany ofthe Virgin, NG! 353) which depicts God with a full beard (National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection [1932], 127; for an image, see National Gallery ofIreland: fllustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings [1981], 162).
Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) frequently included a white horse in his pictures.
SB is reminded of an unnamed painting by Lucas Cranach; Cranach worked in Wittenberg (not Wiirzburg) from 1505 to 1550, and both his sons, Hans and Lucas II, were born there.
2 McGreevy's specialty was Italian art; he wrote for the London art journal The Studio at this time.
3 ItisnotknownwhichessayUssherhadsenttoSB. During1939,Ussherfrequently published essays in The New English Weekly and the New Age: his essay "Works and Faith" (14. 23 [16 March 1939] 346-347) discussed philosophy and the Catholic Church; Kant was his starting point for the essay "New Metaphysic and Old Spook" (15. 5 [18 May 1939] 80-81).
4 "Nachstensmehr"(Moresoon).
5 Ussher had met Jacqueline de la Chatre (n. d. ) in France. She was a friend of both Ussher and Georges Bleu (b. 1914); on Ussher's behalf, Bleu had attempted to
665
Didyouknowthatthespiderhad2penes. Andthatthereis plenty of room for both if he does not prefer to prolong his pleasure. And they talk still of evolution.
yrs ever Sam
But T. was one of the great eclectics.
14 June {1939}, Ussher
visit SB at the H6pital Broussais, only to find that SB had already been released (Georges Bleu to Arland Ussher, 9 February 1938, TCD, MSS 9031/134). SB wrote to Mary Manning Howe about Ussher's hospitality to him: Arland "stood me more food & refreshment in one week than during the whole previous course of our acquaintance" (6 June 1939, TxU).
6 SB had purchased the collected works of the German poet Johann Christian Friedrich Hi:ilderlin (1770-1843) on 24 December 1937, according to the date in SB's edition (BIF, UoR: Friedrich Hi:ilderlin, Siimtliche Werke [Leipzig: lnsel-Verlag, (1926))). This edition includes H6lderlin's two-volume novel Hyperion oder Der Eremit in Griechenland (Hyperion, or the Hermit in Greece, 425-586), his translations of Antigone (876-916), and those few poems that were published during his lifetime. SB here refers to two groups of poems: Freie Rhythmen (Free Rhythms, 202-241) and Gedicht der Spiitzeit (Last Poems, 1002-1009). SB's poem "Dieppe" was based on a portion ofHi:ilderlin's "Der Spaziergang" ("The Walk," 1005-1006), from Gedicht der Spiitzeit (see Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 218).
7 SB's "information" about the spider is repeated by Brian Coffey in a letter to Robert McAlmon: "Beckett was here on Thursday and had to communicate that when the spider went aloving it filled up two penes with juice and then set off to be ready for instant action, followed by immediate getaway. Otherwise the future of writing was in new technical methods" (20 June 1939; CtY: MSS Survey Za McAlmon).
8 Tiepolo.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
16/6/39
dear George
Thanks for 200 fr.
Let me have P. S. back when you can.
1
Paris
11 me tarde de le mettre en morceaux.
Had a walk yesterday with Brian round about Dampierre &
2
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; ink smudged; "Langeais - La Maison de Rabelais"; to George Reavey, 7 Great Ormond Street, LONDON. W. C. 1; pm 16-6-39, Paris; TxU.
666
Lemay. And learned that sin was a form of non being. Sam
26 September 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
1 SBreferstohispoem,orpoems,"PetitSot,"senttoReaveyafter28February1939; SB indicates that he had received the manuscript of "Petit Sot" in his letter to Reavey written before 7 July 1939 (TxU).
"II me tarde de le mettre en morceaux" (I can't wait to tear it to pieces).
2 Brian Coffey reported their conversation to Robert McAlmon (see 14 June 1939, n. 7).
GEORGE AND GWYNEDD REAVEY LONDON
26/9/39 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
dear George & Gwynedd
I saw Eva Tone yesterday evening and gave her your message
as well as I could remember it. She seemed to be au courant. She
had been in Calvados with friends (including the wife of the
Doctor with Italian name), hoping to stay there during the alter
1
Hague back to rejoin Lisl at Cagnes, where they both are at
present. Apparently things did not turn out in Holland as he
had hoped, & the Colonial patron did the dirty. Adler is also still
at Cagnes, apparently, but I don't think he can remain there
2
with a brand new car & drinking Pernod. She is staying with
some Mrs ? Berg at Meudon, and is driving to Megeve to fix up
about her children before returning to England. She seemed to
think she would be shortly back in France. She was able to tell
me about various people I had lost track of, including the Joyces,
cations, but they were all packed back to Paris.
Geer passed through Paris about 3 weeks ago, from the
much longer.
A few days ago I ran into Peggy Guggenheim at the Dome,
3
who are at La Baule.
The Duncans are at Parame near St. Malo.
667
26 September 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Peron is with his regiment at Lorient. I had a card from him. He feeds the horses. 4
I have no news of my application - God knows when I leave. I am thinking of going to see Cremin at the Irish Legation, though I don't suppose he can do anything. 5
I see Nizan has resigned from the party & Rolland has come down & Giono has been apprehended. I wonder where
6
Germainising.
The Freundlichs also apparently are still here. 7
Love Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; env to Mr & Mrs George Reavey, 19 St. James's Gardens, LONDON W. 11; TxU.
1 Neither Eva Tone nor the wife of the doctor with the Italian name has been identified. France and Great Britain declared war against Germany on 3 September 1939; SB had returned to France, although not without difficulty, the next day (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 273).
2 GeervanVeldehadsoughtcontinuingpatronagefromcollectorPierreRegnault (see 5January 1938, n. 11).
Germany had invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Adler remained in Cagnes-sur Mer until 1940 when he joined the Polish Army of the West Uurgen Harten, Marc Scheps, and Ryszard Stanislawski, eds. , Janke! Adler: 1895-1949 [Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1985] 34).
3 PeggyGuggenheimstayedforsometimewithPetronellavonDoesburg(neevan Moorsel, known as Nelly, 1899-1975) at her home in Meudon, near Paris; Guggenheim's children Sindbad (ne Michael Cedric Sindbad Vail, 1923-1986) and Pegeen Vail (m. Rumney, 1925-1967) were living with their father Laurence Vail in Megeve in the French Alps (Weld, Peggy, 188-192).
James and NoraJoyce had gone to La Baule, France, on 28 August 1939 because Lucia was to be evacuated there with other patients of Dr. Delmas from the lvry Maison de Sante Uoyce, Letters of]ames]oyce, III, 454-456; Ellmann,James]oyce, 726-728). "Maison de sante" (private hospital).
4 AlfredPeronhadbeencalledupformilitaryservice. Lorient,aseaportinBrittany.
5 The exact nature of SB"s application to serve France is unknown. Cornelius Cremin was First Secretary of the Irish Legation in France (see 21January 1938, n. 5).
668
Sartre is.
Djuna Barnes apparently is still here. But I haven't been St.
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
6 French novelist PaulNizan (1905-1940), PrincipalEditor of La Revue Marxiste, resigned from the Communist Party on 25 September 1939 ("Les Communistes de la C. G. T. et le pacte germano-sovietique," Paris Soir 26 September 1939: 3).
French writer Romain Rolland (1866-1944) left the public arena and made his home inVezelay; "overcoming theNazis remained the focus of his intellectual politics from 1939" D( avid James Fisher, Romain Rolland and the Politics of Intellectual Engagement B[ erkeley: University of California Press, 1988] 290-292).
French writer Jean Giono (1895-1970), a pacifist, was mobilized on 5 September 1939, arrested on 14 September 1939 as a "defaitiste"(defeatist), and interned in Marseille (Pierre Citron, Giono: 1895-1970 [Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1990[, 318; Jean Giono andJean Guehenno, Correspondance1928-1969, ed. Pierre Citron [Paris: Seghers, 1991] 196).
Jean-Paul Sartre was called up in the general mobilization of 2 September 1939 (Annie Cohen-Sola! , Sartre: A Life (NewYork: PantheonBooks, 1987] 133; Simone de
Beauvoir, Letters to Sartre, ed. and tr. Quintin Hoare N[ ewYork: Arcade, 1992] 57).
7 AmericanwriterDjunaBarnes(1892-1982)wasstillinParisatthistimeandleft France only on 12October 1939 (Phillip F. Herring, Djuna: The Life and Work ofDjuna Barnes [NewYork:Viking Penguin, 1995] 247). St. Germainising: frequenting the cafes of the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district of Paris and the intellectual circles associated with it.
Otto Freundlich was interned in a French detention camp in 1939 because he was a German citizen.
GEOR GE AND GWYNEDD RE AVEY LONDON
6/12/39 6 Rue de Favorites Paris 15
Dear George et Gwynedd1
Thanks for your note. Sorry the spirits are low. There is
nothing left but to work. But long ago it was so also.
I have had no news of my demarche. What I really wanted
was their receipt- & they gave me that. 2
Here I am heated & hot watered as usual & rarely go out. I
have been working hard at Murphy & only 4 chapters remain to translate. Another month should see it finished & then I think it will be Johnson at last. 3
669
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Rivoallan sent me his Litterature Irlandaise Contemporaine,
where there is a certain amount about Tom & Intercessions & the
4
Bones & Murphy. Published by Hachette.
I see Brian had a son in Dublin on Armistice Day.
5
I never
hear from him.
I met Kandinsky the other day. Sympathetic old Siberian.
I had a note from Lisl some time ago & a prose poem from
Geer to the effect that In tristitia hilaris etc. Adler seemed to be still there. 7
Duncan came up from Parame for 2 days, looking compara
8
2 SB had applied to serve France in the War effort (see 26 September 1939); "my demarche" (the approach I made).
3 SB may have begun the French translation of Murphy with Alfred Peron, but he continued on his own. SB refers to his projected play about Samuel Johnson.
4 FrenchspecialistinIrishLiteratureattheSorbonneAnatoleRivoallan(1886-1976) edited Litterature irlandaise contemporaine (Paris: Hachette, 1939). In his chapter "La Poesie depuis 1916" (Poetry since 1916), poems by McGreevy and Beckett, as well as Devlin's Intercessions, are discussed (124-127); in the chapter "Le Roman et la nouvelle" (The Novel and the Short Story), SB's Murphy is discussed (143 and passim).
5 The son of Brian and Bridget Coffey, John Martin Michael, was born on 11 November 1939 in Dublin (Coffey to Robert McAlmon, 28 November 1939; CtY, MSS survey Za McAlmon).
6 While his father had been born in Siberia, Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow. He was seventy-three years old when SB met him.
7 LisivanVelde'sletteranditsenclosurehavenotbeenfound.
"In tristitia hilaris" is the epigraph of Giordano Bruno's play n Candelaio (1582; The Candle Bearer): "In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis" (in sorrow, gaiety; in gaiety, sorrow) (Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella, Opere di Giordano Bruno e di
670
6
tively well under a casquette de cha[r]cutier.
Peron writes. He was with the British Field Ambulance, now
9
1 Here,andhereafter,SBspells"Gwynedd"correctly.
transferred to Etat major.
Love to you both & to Tom.
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; TxU.
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Tommaso Campanella, ed. Augusto Guzzo and Romano Amerio, La Letteratura italiana; storia e testi [Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1956] (35]; tr. Anthony Cuda).
Janke! Adler was in Cagnes-sur-Mer with Geer and Lisi van Velde.
8 AlanDuncanwaslivinginParame,nearSt. Malo. "Casquettedecharcutier"(pork butcher's cap).
9 Peron was at this time a liaison agent with the British Expeditionary Force, attached to the staff of the British Field Ambulance; "Etat major" (General Staff).
671
1940 13January
11 February
24-29March
9 April lOMay
12May By21May
lOJune
12June 14June 18June
CHRONOLOGY 1940
Lacking "safe-conduct" papers, SB cannot visit the Joyces in St. Gerand-le-Puy, AllierJ. oyce has enlisted
Rivoallan to review SB's French translation ofMurphy, but SB needs to make a clean copy before sending to Rivoallan.
Joyce expects GiorgioJoyce and SB to come to
St. Gerand-le-Puy for StephenJoyce's birthday on
15 February.
SB spends Easter withMariaJolas and theJoyces in La Chapelle, St. Gerand-le-Puy.
Germany invades Norway and Denmark.
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Germany invades France.
SB applies to serve as an ambulance driver.
Rivoallan's revision of SB's French translation of Murphy for submission toJean Paulhan is deferred. SB writes "part of the first act ofJohnson. " His "sketch" for Paris Mondial is canceled. Buys paintings by Bram van Velde and encourages Peggy Guggenheim's interest in his work.
Arranges to meet Bram van Velde andMarthe Arnaud on14June, "provided that we are staying on in Paris. " Italy declares war on France and Britain.
Leaves Paris with Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil. German troops enter and occupy Paris.
Charles de Gaulle calls on the French to stand against the Germans.
673
JAMES JOYCE
ST. GERAND-LE-PUY, ALLIER, FRANCE
13/1/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
dear Mr Joyce
I have given up all hope of getting down for the moment.
To-day again the safe-conduct is not in. Every day for the past
week I have been going up or trotting round to the place in the
Champs Elysees. By the time it comes in, if they don't decide
finally to refuse it to me, Giorgio will be starting back. So I have
decided to put off the trip to Easter. I am very disappointed, as I
1
the scenario, he said it would not be possible to publish it in
Pour Vous & seemed to think the best plan would be to have it
published in a French translation in the N. R. F. or some other
review of the kind. As a scenario, he seemed to think it well
arranged. 2 The typescript ofthe Italian Anna Livia was not ready.
He will send you a copy as soon as it is. The new editor of
Panorama was apparently enthusiastic, but no doubt he spoke
3
I am not quite sure what items "former" & "latter" refer to
in your postcard, and whether you wanted Panorama & New
Directions or the former only. I am sending the former only, &
was looking forward to seeing you both.
I saw Nino Frank - got from him the various papers. About
to you of that. He was glad to keep Finnegan a little longer. I shall give him a ring again one of these days & arrange for an evening with him.
will send the latter on after if you wish.
4
675
13 January 1940, Joyce
I am sending also the list of Censored Publications received
from my brother. I asked for the most recent list, but it doesn't
5
him about Murphy. He offers very kindly to read the translation
& to "introduce" me to the French public. I have only one copy of
the translation, and it is in an awful mess, but if ever I have a
clean copy I shall send it to him. In the meantime I am writing to
6
Yours very sincerely Sam Beckett
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; ZurichJamesJoyce Foundation.
1 JustbeforeChristmas1939theJoycesleftParisforSt. Gerand-le-PuyintheAllier, where their grandson StephenJoyce was enrolled in the bilingual school ofMariaJolas which had evacuated there.
As a resident foreigner, SB was required to have a laissez-passer in order to leave Paris, where he was registered. The carte d'identite could be obtained at theMaison de France, 101 Avenue desChamps-Elysees, and it is possible that SB also applied there for the travel document that was required. The Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres indicates that immigration records were lost when the Germans occupied Paris.
2 Nino Frank had been Editor of the Paris film weekly Pour Vous, published from 22 November 1928 to SJune 1940.
The specific scenario, byJoyce or adapted from his work, has not been identified with certainty; none was published in La Nouvelle Revue Fra�aise. SB may refer to Stuart Gilbert's "Sketch of a Scenario of Anna Livia Plurabelle," written in English in 1935, which incorporatedJoyce's suggestions (CtY: Eugene andMariaJolas Papers, GEN MS 108, series
XV, 64/1499); this was later published inMariaJolas, ed. , A]ames]oyce Yearbook, 10-20.
3 The Italian translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" was undertaken by Nino Frank andJoyce; however, when published as "Anna Livia Plurabella" in Prospettive [Rome] 4. 2 (15 February 1940) 13-15, Ettore Settanni and James Joyce were indicated as co-translators. Nino Frank's name was suppressed because of his"antifascist activity," asJoyce wrote to Nino Frank on 13 March 1940:"II Settanni mi scrive che ii Suo nome non appare per ragioni che Lei capira sul momento. Ma non sara sempre celato, spero! " "( Settanniwritesmethatyournamedoesnotappearforreasonsyouwillunderstandat once. But it will not always be kept hidden, I trust! ") Uoyce, Letters of]amesJoyce, III, 469).
The published text differed from the translation sanctioned byJoyce. In a card to NinoFrankon9April1940,Joycewrote:"Jespronomsdela3ieme personnesinguliere
676
seem very recent.
I had a card to-day from Rivoallan. It was kind ofyou to write
thank him.
My kindest regards to M� Joyce.
[for du . . . singulier] ont ete changes en des pr[ e]noms de la zi•me pluriel! [for du . . . pluriel]" (Third person singular pronouns have been changed to second person plural pronouns! ); Joyce's letter to Settanni to protest against this and other changes was published as"UnaLettera di Joyce," Prospettive 4. 4 (15 April 1940) 11. Ellmann explains, writing of direct address:"The use of the second person plural pronoun voi instead of [ the third person singular pronoun] Lei was made obligatory under Fascism " Ooyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, III, 475; for other changes: Eric Bulson,"GettingNoticed: James Joyce's Italian Translations," Joyce Studies Annual 12 [Summer 2001] 33-36).
Finnegans Wake was reviewed bySalvatoreRosati,"II nuovo libro di James Joyce," Panorama [Rome] 18 (12 November 1939) 246-247; the Editors of Panorama were Raffaele Contu (1895-1953) and Gianni Mazzocchi (1906-1984) Uoyce to Jacques Mercanton on 9 January 1940, to James Laughlin on 21 February 1940, and to Mercanton on 14 March 1940; in Joyce,Letters of]amesJoyce, III,463,468,and 470-471).
4 Joyce wrote to James Laughlin on 21 February 1940, thanking him for New Directions in Prose and Poetry [4], ed. James Laughlin (Norfolk,CT: New Directions, 1939),which included an article by HarryLevin,"On FirstLooking into Finnegans Wake" (253-287) Uoyce, Letters ofjames]oyce, III,468,471).
5 Following every meeting, the Irish Board of Censorship published lists of prohibited books in the Iris Oifiguil ( Ireland's official State gazette); The Irish Times also carried these periodic reports as"an Order made by the Minister for Justice under the
Censorship ofPublicationsAct " ("BannedPublications," The Irish Times 20December 1939: 3). The latest Register of Prohibited Publications prior to January 1940 was published on 31 March 1938,and updated with a supplement,the List ofthe Books Prohibited During the Half-year from the 1st April 1938, to the 30th September 1938. The next issue of the
Register to be published would be that of 31 March 1940 Uohn Goodwillie, Official PublicationsLibrarian, Trinity College Dublin,2 August 2006; Peggy Garvey,Office of
Censorship of Publications,Dublin,2 August 2006).
6 ThecardfromAnatoleRivoallantoSBhasnotbeenfound.
MARIA JOLAS
LA CHAPELLE, ST. GERAND-LE-PUY, FRANCE
1/4/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
Chere Madame Jolas
Rien qu'un mot pour vous remercier, bleu-noir sur blanchatre,
1 April 1940, Jolas
1
lei on chante:
Au fin fond du blanc Bourbonnais,
de votre profuse hospitalite.
677
1 April 1940, ]alas
Loin des offensives de paix, Madame MariaJolas
Donne des lits a pleines mains Et du ban vin de St. Poun;:ain Aux scelerats de guerre lasse. 2
]'espere qu'il me sera encore donne d'en abuser. Votre devoue
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; CtY, Gen Mss 108, series VII, 28/535.
1/4/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
Dear Madame Jolas,
Just a brief note to thank you, blue-black on off-white,
1
Away in the heart of the white Bourbonnais, Far from the peace offensives,
Madame MariaJolas
Offers beds galore
And good St. Poun;:ain wine To war-weary villains. 2
I hope that I shall have another chance to guzzle it. Your devoted
Sam Beckett
for your profuse hospitality. Here our song goes:
1 SB had joined the Jolases and the Joyces for the holidays; Maria Jolas wrote to EugeneJolas on 29 March 1940:
Our Easter house party here is coming to an end. Beckett and Giorgio left this morning for Paris. [. . . ]
678
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
In the evenings we sang or played "polite" games, such as portraits, etc. Beckett had a game where you had to choose the name of a city and then make sentences with its initials [. . . ) Some good laughs.
Beckett, by the way is vastly improved and was extremely agreeable and nice about everything. (CtY, Gen Mss 108, series 1, 2/33c)
2 Blanc Bourbonnais refers to the area to which the Ecole bilingue de Neuilly of Maria Jolas had evacuated, 8 miles NE ofVichy. St. Poun;:ain here refers to wines of this area of the Allier.
GEORGE AND GWYNEDD REAVEY MADRID, SPAIN
21/5/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
Dear George & Gwynedd
I am still here and all right. I have no news of Geer. As
far as I know he is still at Cagnes with the others. I have been seeing something ofBram & Marthe. They are having a bad time.
1
I am buying a picture from Bram on the stuttering system.
I
tried to get Peggy to do something for him. She arranged a day to
go to his studio and said she would probably take a picture, but
at the last moment she sidestepped me. In the meantime she
accumulates Braques, Gris, Brancusis, Dalis and other painters
in want. I expect to hear any day that she has acquired a Kisling
2
It's not my business. Bram is reforme, Geer
3
or a Van Dongen.
not, but I don't think he will be called on.
I never had a reply to the application I made in September. I have offered myselfnow to drive an ambulance. Ifthey take me
4
At Swim Two Birds & Murphy for the Mercure, in the place of the one projected by the late Maurice Denhof. He was also going to revise my translation for submission to Paulhan with
679
they will take me soon.
I have been working a lot. Rivoallan was doing an article on
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
recommendation from Adrienne Monnier. All that is down the
drain for the moment. 5 I did a sketch for Paris Mondial that was
cancelled because of recent events. And I wrote half of a first
6
week to see the Joyces, who are still there. 7 McCalmon [for
McAlmon] tells me he had a letter recently from Brian who is
living somewhere outside Dublin with Bridget & Babe, reading
8th century pseudo-sceptics. I have no news of Tom. He had an
article in the Irish Times on the poems of one Milne, published
8
9
act of Johnson. At Easter I went into the Bourbonnais for a
attheGayfieldpress. Duncanwasupforacoupleofdays. Your successor in the Bureau payed me a visit some months ago. He
was very upset that he hadn't been able to find Slonim.
An American friend of mine, Maurice English, poet and journalist, has just gone to Madrid from Paris. He is at the Palace Hotel and would very much like to make your acquiant ance [sic]. He is an extremely nice fellow and I think you would get on well together. Look him up. I think it is the Chicago Tribune he works for. If by any chance he has left that hotel you could get him at the American Embassy. 10 I perceive an
involuntary metathesis in acquaintance. I shall not correct it. And how are you getting on yourselves? Write soon.
Love
s/ Sam
I have had several visits from Peron, on leave. form. But now. . . ?
TIS and APS in top margin; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
11
He was in good
1 The Battle of France began on 10 May 1940, marking the start of the German advance that culminated with surrender and the Occupation.
George Reavey moved to Madrid in January 1940, where he was working with the British Council. Geer van Velde was still in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
Geer's brother Bram van Velde (ne Abraham Gerardus van Velde 1895-1981), also a painter, had moved to Montrouge, a Paris suburb. He had been living in Majorca, but after
680
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
the death of his wife, the German painter Sophie Caroline Kliiker (known as Lilly, 1896-1936), Bram came to Paris; while staying with his brother Geer, Bram met Marthe Arnaud (nee Kunst, 1887-1959), a former Protestant missionary in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), who became his companion from 1936 until her death (Stoullig and Schoeller, eds. , Bram van Velde, 146, 155-157; Rainer Michael Mason, ed. , Bram van Velde, 1895-1981: Retrospective du Centenaire [Geneva: Musee Rath (Musees d'Art et d'Histoire, 1996)] 305-307).
SB purchased Sans titre (Untitled, 1937, Musee National d'Art Modeme, Centre Georges Pompidou, AM 1982-244).
2 With a view to establishing a museum of contemporary art, Guggenheim pur chased works by Constantin Brancusi and Catalan painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) (see Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, 210-218; Anton Gill, Art Lover: A Biography ofPeggJ Guggenheim [New York: HarperCollins, 2002] 220). Her collec tion included works by French artist Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Spanish painter Juan Gris (1887-1927). She did not own work by Polish-born painter Moise Kisling (1891-1953) or Dutch-born painter Kees van Dongen (1877-1968). (For images and details of the collection see www. guggenheim-venice. it).
3 "Reforme"ijudgedunfitformilitaryservice).
4 SB'sapplication:6December1939,n. 2;alsoKnowlson,DamnedtoFame,275).
5 Mercure de France ceased publication following its 1 June 1940 issue and did not resume until 1 December 1946; Anatole Rivoallan did not publish an article in Mercure de France on Murphy and At Swim Two Birds by Fiann O'Brien (pseud. of Brian O'Nolan, who also wrote as Myles na gCopaleen, 1911-1966).
Other than its mention in SB's letter to Joyce on 13 January 1940, there is no documentation of Rivoallan's willingness to revise SB's translation of Murphy for submission to Jean Paulhan, presumably for publication by the Nouvelle Revue Franraise. Nor is there documentation of Adrienne Monnier's intention to write a covering recommendation.
Publication of the Nouvelle Revue Franraise was suspended in July 1940, but the German ambassador Otto Abetz (1903-1958) was determined to use the review to promote Franco-German collaboration. He approached writer and Nazi-sympathizer Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893-1945) to take over its direction, to which the publisher Gaston Gallimard (1881-1975) agreed in October 1940. The first issue under Drieu's editorship appeared in December 1940, "without its Jews" - Julien Benda (1867-1956) most notably. Paulhan refused to collaborate in the review's publication, preferring to lend his talents to the literary resistance as co-founder ofLes Lettres Franraises (Frederic Badre, Paulhan lejuste [Paris: Grasset, 1996] 175-195).
Maurice Denhof (d. ? 1939) did not publish a review of Murphy. On 28 March 1940, Joyce wrote from St. Gerand-le-Puy asking Adrienne Monnier to see if a review of Murphy by Denhof had been published in Mercure de France after 1 October 1939. He continued: "Quelques semaines avant sa mort Maurice Denhof m'ecrivit qu'il etait en train de preparer I'article en question - qui devait faire suite a deux autres articles publies par Jui dans la meme revue" (Several weeks before his death, Maurice Denhof wrote to me that he was in the process ofpreparing the article in question, which was to be a follow-up to two other articles published by him in the same review) Uames Joyce [to Adrienne Monnier], "James Joyce," Mercure de France 326, "Le Souvenir d'Adrienne Monnier," Special issue Uanuary 1956] 123).
681
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
6 NopublicationbearingthenameParisMandia! atthistimehasbeendiscovered.
SB refers to that portion of his projected play on Samuel Johnson later published as "Human Wishes" in Disjeeta, 155-166.
7 SBandtheJoyces:1April1940.
8 Brian Coffey's letter toRobert McAlmon prior to 21 May 1940 has not been found; however, Coffey wrote to him on 9 February 1941, saying only that he, Bridget, and their son John had moved from 2 MulgraveTerrace to 5 MulgraveTerrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin (CtY, MSS Survey Za McAlmon). Alan Duncan.
McGreevy reviewed Letterfrom Ireland (Dublin: Gayfield Press, 1940) byEwart Milne (1903-1987) ("New Poetry: 'Letter from Ireland,"' The Irish Times 6 April 1940: 5).
9 GeorgeReavey sold the European Literary Bureau toRichardReginald March (n. d. ), who later became involved in the Nicholson and Watson publishing house (GeorgeReavey to Deirdre Bair, 24 October 1974).
GeorgeReavey and Marc Slonim edited and translated Soviet Literature: An Anthology (1933).
10 Americanpoet,journalist,translator,andpublisherMauriceEnglish•(1909-1983) was Foreign Correspondent for the Chicago Tn1nme until 1941.
11 AlfredPeronwasstillonactiveservice.
MARTHE ARNAUD, c/o BRAM VANVELDE MONTROUGE, FRANCE
lundi [10-6-40] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
chere Marthe
Je vous ecris chez Bram, n'ayant pas votre adresse.
Les diables sont comme les anges. Priez le votre de rester et
1
il partira.
Nous ne sommes pas libres vendredi soir, ni l'un ni l'autre.
Mais je pourrais faire un billard avec Bram a 4 heures, Cafe des Sports, puis passer un petit moment chez vous entre 5 et 6 arranger votre prise. Done sauf contre-avis de Bram je serai ven dredi au Cafe des Sports a 4 heures. Pourquoi ne venez-vous pas assister au match? 2
Tout �a a condition qu'on reste a Paris. Suzanne a l'air de vouloir partir. Moi non. Ou aller et avec quoi? 3
682
Monday {10 June 1940}, Arnaud
Sous la vitre bleue le tableau de Bram flambe sombrement. Hier soir j'y voyais Neary au restaurant chinois, "accroupi dans la touffe de ses soucis comme un hibou dans du Lierre"[. ]4 Aujourd'hui ce sera autre chose.
14 June {1939}, Ussher
is frequently infected with that lecherous suggestiveness of which Mr. Joyce is a master, which was defended in lflysses as germane to the characters, but which here seems to have no purpose more interesting than the author's morose delectations. ("JamesJoyce," The Atlantic 163 Uune 1939), unpaginated supplement: "The Bookshelf' [17, 19, 21])
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
14/6/39 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear George
WillyoupleasesendmebackmyPetitSot. Ihavenoother
copy[. ]
Ever
Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; Vlaminck, "Paysage en Beauce"; to GeorgeReaveyEsq, 7 Great Ormond Street, London W. C. 1; pm 15-[6]-39,Paris;TxU.
1 See 28 February 1939 and n. 2 to that letter, in which SB indicates that he is writing another "Petit Sot," which he intended to send to Reavey with his shorter poems in French.
ARLAND US SHER
[? DUBLIN OR CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD]
June 141! ! [1939) 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Arland
If you want a big name I think Piazzetta or Tiepolo are the
most likely, & the latter better than the former, though the picture seems rather too maniere & doubtfully drawn to be of
663
1
14 June {1939}, Ussher
any possible chance by either. The rhythm is Tiepolesque, the
format also, the bearded gent above the Maries like a bad copy
of a Tiepolo motif (cf. The Almighty in the Dublin Litany of
the Virgin for the real thing. There are as few Tiepolos without
the beard as Wouwermanns [for Wouwermans] without the white
horse. ), and the stooping John in the foreground, here as far as I
can judge hardly a success, is the kind of difficulty that gave him
none. The Maries are very curious, the right hand of the topmost
seems very good, and the lowest I seem to have seen somewhere
in a Cranach, which however ifit were so would not invalidate the
Tiepolo suggestion, who worked so long in Wiirzburg. Another
possible line obviously would be the Spanish - Neapolitan, but the
work seems to be neither sufficiently devout nor sufficiently
dramatic to satisfy that mixture in any of its dosages. As a deco
rative statement of weights & tensions it seems to me to lack only
technique & bravura to pair up with the easel recreations of
1
betterqualifiedthanIam. Canyounotobtainalessnebulous reproduction?
Thank you for your essay. When the period represents an end point of meditation your rather dogmatic tone is no doubt
3
given philosophy a good paper, clean, honest & obliging, now
who will take it up? The State.
4
I was glad to meet Jacqueline and hope another time to have again the pleasure. Thank you for your bounteous hospitality which I was unable to reverberate. 5
I have been reading H6lderlin. It is a depressing thought that perhaps Hyperion was necessary to the Freie Rythmen &
664
Gianbattista [for Giambattista] Tiepolo & Sons.
Ifyou like I shall send it to Tom McGreevy, who is very much
2
the right one. You feel a law, you lay it down. Theology has
Nachstens mehr.
the terrific fragments of the Spatzeit. I obtained someone's agreement last night in a dream that he (Holderlin) must have been for a long time homosexual.
14June {1939}, Ussher
6
7
Looking at the right hand again it is horribly Rembrandtesque.
8
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; TxU. Dating: Brian Coffey's letter to Robert MacAlmon on 20 June 1939: n. 7 below, and 16 June 1939.
1 AtanauctionUssherhadpurchasedapaintingofthecrucifixionfor£5;laterit was sold in an auction at Cappagh for £12. His daughter Henrietta Ussher Staples recalled that it was approximately 24 in. x 30 in. and quite brown, in "terrible condition"; it has not been further identified.
SB refers to the Italian painter and draftsman Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. He com pares Ussher's picture to Giovanni Battista (also known as Giambattista) Tiepolo·s An Allegory ofthe Incarnation (also called Litany ofthe Virgin, NG! 353) which depicts God with a full beard (National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection [1932], 127; for an image, see National Gallery ofIreland: fllustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings [1981], 162).
Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) frequently included a white horse in his pictures.
SB is reminded of an unnamed painting by Lucas Cranach; Cranach worked in Wittenberg (not Wiirzburg) from 1505 to 1550, and both his sons, Hans and Lucas II, were born there.
2 McGreevy's specialty was Italian art; he wrote for the London art journal The Studio at this time.
3 ItisnotknownwhichessayUssherhadsenttoSB. During1939,Ussherfrequently published essays in The New English Weekly and the New Age: his essay "Works and Faith" (14. 23 [16 March 1939] 346-347) discussed philosophy and the Catholic Church; Kant was his starting point for the essay "New Metaphysic and Old Spook" (15. 5 [18 May 1939] 80-81).
4 "Nachstensmehr"(Moresoon).
5 Ussher had met Jacqueline de la Chatre (n. d. ) in France. She was a friend of both Ussher and Georges Bleu (b. 1914); on Ussher's behalf, Bleu had attempted to
665
Didyouknowthatthespiderhad2penes. Andthatthereis plenty of room for both if he does not prefer to prolong his pleasure. And they talk still of evolution.
yrs ever Sam
But T. was one of the great eclectics.
14 June {1939}, Ussher
visit SB at the H6pital Broussais, only to find that SB had already been released (Georges Bleu to Arland Ussher, 9 February 1938, TCD, MSS 9031/134). SB wrote to Mary Manning Howe about Ussher's hospitality to him: Arland "stood me more food & refreshment in one week than during the whole previous course of our acquaintance" (6 June 1939, TxU).
6 SB had purchased the collected works of the German poet Johann Christian Friedrich Hi:ilderlin (1770-1843) on 24 December 1937, according to the date in SB's edition (BIF, UoR: Friedrich Hi:ilderlin, Siimtliche Werke [Leipzig: lnsel-Verlag, (1926))). This edition includes H6lderlin's two-volume novel Hyperion oder Der Eremit in Griechenland (Hyperion, or the Hermit in Greece, 425-586), his translations of Antigone (876-916), and those few poems that were published during his lifetime. SB here refers to two groups of poems: Freie Rhythmen (Free Rhythms, 202-241) and Gedicht der Spiitzeit (Last Poems, 1002-1009). SB's poem "Dieppe" was based on a portion ofHi:ilderlin's "Der Spaziergang" ("The Walk," 1005-1006), from Gedicht der Spiitzeit (see Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 218).
7 SB's "information" about the spider is repeated by Brian Coffey in a letter to Robert McAlmon: "Beckett was here on Thursday and had to communicate that when the spider went aloving it filled up two penes with juice and then set off to be ready for instant action, followed by immediate getaway. Otherwise the future of writing was in new technical methods" (20 June 1939; CtY: MSS Survey Za McAlmon).
8 Tiepolo.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
16/6/39
dear George
Thanks for 200 fr.
Let me have P. S. back when you can.
1
Paris
11 me tarde de le mettre en morceaux.
Had a walk yesterday with Brian round about Dampierre &
2
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; ink smudged; "Langeais - La Maison de Rabelais"; to George Reavey, 7 Great Ormond Street, LONDON. W. C. 1; pm 16-6-39, Paris; TxU.
666
Lemay. And learned that sin was a form of non being. Sam
26 September 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
1 SBreferstohispoem,orpoems,"PetitSot,"senttoReaveyafter28February1939; SB indicates that he had received the manuscript of "Petit Sot" in his letter to Reavey written before 7 July 1939 (TxU).
"II me tarde de le mettre en morceaux" (I can't wait to tear it to pieces).
2 Brian Coffey reported their conversation to Robert McAlmon (see 14 June 1939, n. 7).
GEORGE AND GWYNEDD REAVEY LONDON
26/9/39 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
dear George & Gwynedd
I saw Eva Tone yesterday evening and gave her your message
as well as I could remember it. She seemed to be au courant. She
had been in Calvados with friends (including the wife of the
Doctor with Italian name), hoping to stay there during the alter
1
Hague back to rejoin Lisl at Cagnes, where they both are at
present. Apparently things did not turn out in Holland as he
had hoped, & the Colonial patron did the dirty. Adler is also still
at Cagnes, apparently, but I don't think he can remain there
2
with a brand new car & drinking Pernod. She is staying with
some Mrs ? Berg at Meudon, and is driving to Megeve to fix up
about her children before returning to England. She seemed to
think she would be shortly back in France. She was able to tell
me about various people I had lost track of, including the Joyces,
cations, but they were all packed back to Paris.
Geer passed through Paris about 3 weeks ago, from the
much longer.
A few days ago I ran into Peggy Guggenheim at the Dome,
3
who are at La Baule.
The Duncans are at Parame near St. Malo.
667
26 September 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Peron is with his regiment at Lorient. I had a card from him. He feeds the horses. 4
I have no news of my application - God knows when I leave. I am thinking of going to see Cremin at the Irish Legation, though I don't suppose he can do anything. 5
I see Nizan has resigned from the party & Rolland has come down & Giono has been apprehended. I wonder where
6
Germainising.
The Freundlichs also apparently are still here. 7
Love Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; env to Mr & Mrs George Reavey, 19 St. James's Gardens, LONDON W. 11; TxU.
1 Neither Eva Tone nor the wife of the doctor with the Italian name has been identified. France and Great Britain declared war against Germany on 3 September 1939; SB had returned to France, although not without difficulty, the next day (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 273).
2 GeervanVeldehadsoughtcontinuingpatronagefromcollectorPierreRegnault (see 5January 1938, n. 11).
Germany had invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Adler remained in Cagnes-sur Mer until 1940 when he joined the Polish Army of the West Uurgen Harten, Marc Scheps, and Ryszard Stanislawski, eds. , Janke! Adler: 1895-1949 [Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1985] 34).
3 PeggyGuggenheimstayedforsometimewithPetronellavonDoesburg(neevan Moorsel, known as Nelly, 1899-1975) at her home in Meudon, near Paris; Guggenheim's children Sindbad (ne Michael Cedric Sindbad Vail, 1923-1986) and Pegeen Vail (m. Rumney, 1925-1967) were living with their father Laurence Vail in Megeve in the French Alps (Weld, Peggy, 188-192).
James and NoraJoyce had gone to La Baule, France, on 28 August 1939 because Lucia was to be evacuated there with other patients of Dr. Delmas from the lvry Maison de Sante Uoyce, Letters of]ames]oyce, III, 454-456; Ellmann,James]oyce, 726-728). "Maison de sante" (private hospital).
4 AlfredPeronhadbeencalledupformilitaryservice. Lorient,aseaportinBrittany.
5 The exact nature of SB"s application to serve France is unknown. Cornelius Cremin was First Secretary of the Irish Legation in France (see 21January 1938, n. 5).
668
Sartre is.
Djuna Barnes apparently is still here. But I haven't been St.
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
6 French novelist PaulNizan (1905-1940), PrincipalEditor of La Revue Marxiste, resigned from the Communist Party on 25 September 1939 ("Les Communistes de la C. G. T. et le pacte germano-sovietique," Paris Soir 26 September 1939: 3).
French writer Romain Rolland (1866-1944) left the public arena and made his home inVezelay; "overcoming theNazis remained the focus of his intellectual politics from 1939" D( avid James Fisher, Romain Rolland and the Politics of Intellectual Engagement B[ erkeley: University of California Press, 1988] 290-292).
French writer Jean Giono (1895-1970), a pacifist, was mobilized on 5 September 1939, arrested on 14 September 1939 as a "defaitiste"(defeatist), and interned in Marseille (Pierre Citron, Giono: 1895-1970 [Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1990[, 318; Jean Giono andJean Guehenno, Correspondance1928-1969, ed. Pierre Citron [Paris: Seghers, 1991] 196).
Jean-Paul Sartre was called up in the general mobilization of 2 September 1939 (Annie Cohen-Sola! , Sartre: A Life (NewYork: PantheonBooks, 1987] 133; Simone de
Beauvoir, Letters to Sartre, ed. and tr. Quintin Hoare N[ ewYork: Arcade, 1992] 57).
7 AmericanwriterDjunaBarnes(1892-1982)wasstillinParisatthistimeandleft France only on 12October 1939 (Phillip F. Herring, Djuna: The Life and Work ofDjuna Barnes [NewYork:Viking Penguin, 1995] 247). St. Germainising: frequenting the cafes of the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district of Paris and the intellectual circles associated with it.
Otto Freundlich was interned in a French detention camp in 1939 because he was a German citizen.
GEOR GE AND GWYNEDD RE AVEY LONDON
6/12/39 6 Rue de Favorites Paris 15
Dear George et Gwynedd1
Thanks for your note. Sorry the spirits are low. There is
nothing left but to work. But long ago it was so also.
I have had no news of my demarche. What I really wanted
was their receipt- & they gave me that. 2
Here I am heated & hot watered as usual & rarely go out. I
have been working hard at Murphy & only 4 chapters remain to translate. Another month should see it finished & then I think it will be Johnson at last. 3
669
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Rivoallan sent me his Litterature Irlandaise Contemporaine,
where there is a certain amount about Tom & Intercessions & the
4
Bones & Murphy. Published by Hachette.
I see Brian had a son in Dublin on Armistice Day.
5
I never
hear from him.
I met Kandinsky the other day. Sympathetic old Siberian.
I had a note from Lisl some time ago & a prose poem from
Geer to the effect that In tristitia hilaris etc. Adler seemed to be still there. 7
Duncan came up from Parame for 2 days, looking compara
8
2 SB had applied to serve France in the War effort (see 26 September 1939); "my demarche" (the approach I made).
3 SB may have begun the French translation of Murphy with Alfred Peron, but he continued on his own. SB refers to his projected play about Samuel Johnson.
4 FrenchspecialistinIrishLiteratureattheSorbonneAnatoleRivoallan(1886-1976) edited Litterature irlandaise contemporaine (Paris: Hachette, 1939). In his chapter "La Poesie depuis 1916" (Poetry since 1916), poems by McGreevy and Beckett, as well as Devlin's Intercessions, are discussed (124-127); in the chapter "Le Roman et la nouvelle" (The Novel and the Short Story), SB's Murphy is discussed (143 and passim).
5 The son of Brian and Bridget Coffey, John Martin Michael, was born on 11 November 1939 in Dublin (Coffey to Robert McAlmon, 28 November 1939; CtY, MSS survey Za McAlmon).
6 While his father had been born in Siberia, Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow. He was seventy-three years old when SB met him.
7 LisivanVelde'sletteranditsenclosurehavenotbeenfound.
"In tristitia hilaris" is the epigraph of Giordano Bruno's play n Candelaio (1582; The Candle Bearer): "In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis" (in sorrow, gaiety; in gaiety, sorrow) (Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella, Opere di Giordano Bruno e di
670
6
tively well under a casquette de cha[r]cutier.
Peron writes. He was with the British Field Ambulance, now
9
1 Here,andhereafter,SBspells"Gwynedd"correctly.
transferred to Etat major.
Love to you both & to Tom.
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; TxU.
6 December 1939, George and Gwynedd Reavey
Tommaso Campanella, ed. Augusto Guzzo and Romano Amerio, La Letteratura italiana; storia e testi [Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1956] (35]; tr. Anthony Cuda).
Janke! Adler was in Cagnes-sur-Mer with Geer and Lisi van Velde.
8 AlanDuncanwaslivinginParame,nearSt. Malo. "Casquettedecharcutier"(pork butcher's cap).
9 Peron was at this time a liaison agent with the British Expeditionary Force, attached to the staff of the British Field Ambulance; "Etat major" (General Staff).
671
1940 13January
11 February
24-29March
9 April lOMay
12May By21May
lOJune
12June 14June 18June
CHRONOLOGY 1940
Lacking "safe-conduct" papers, SB cannot visit the Joyces in St. Gerand-le-Puy, AllierJ. oyce has enlisted
Rivoallan to review SB's French translation ofMurphy, but SB needs to make a clean copy before sending to Rivoallan.
Joyce expects GiorgioJoyce and SB to come to
St. Gerand-le-Puy for StephenJoyce's birthday on
15 February.
SB spends Easter withMariaJolas and theJoyces in La Chapelle, St. Gerand-le-Puy.
Germany invades Norway and Denmark.
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Germany invades France.
SB applies to serve as an ambulance driver.
Rivoallan's revision of SB's French translation of Murphy for submission toJean Paulhan is deferred. SB writes "part of the first act ofJohnson. " His "sketch" for Paris Mondial is canceled. Buys paintings by Bram van Velde and encourages Peggy Guggenheim's interest in his work.
Arranges to meet Bram van Velde andMarthe Arnaud on14June, "provided that we are staying on in Paris. " Italy declares war on France and Britain.
Leaves Paris with Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil. German troops enter and occupy Paris.
Charles de Gaulle calls on the French to stand against the Germans.
673
JAMES JOYCE
ST. GERAND-LE-PUY, ALLIER, FRANCE
13/1/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
dear Mr Joyce
I have given up all hope of getting down for the moment.
To-day again the safe-conduct is not in. Every day for the past
week I have been going up or trotting round to the place in the
Champs Elysees. By the time it comes in, if they don't decide
finally to refuse it to me, Giorgio will be starting back. So I have
decided to put off the trip to Easter. I am very disappointed, as I
1
the scenario, he said it would not be possible to publish it in
Pour Vous & seemed to think the best plan would be to have it
published in a French translation in the N. R. F. or some other
review of the kind. As a scenario, he seemed to think it well
arranged. 2 The typescript ofthe Italian Anna Livia was not ready.
He will send you a copy as soon as it is. The new editor of
Panorama was apparently enthusiastic, but no doubt he spoke
3
I am not quite sure what items "former" & "latter" refer to
in your postcard, and whether you wanted Panorama & New
Directions or the former only. I am sending the former only, &
was looking forward to seeing you both.
I saw Nino Frank - got from him the various papers. About
to you of that. He was glad to keep Finnegan a little longer. I shall give him a ring again one of these days & arrange for an evening with him.
will send the latter on after if you wish.
4
675
13 January 1940, Joyce
I am sending also the list of Censored Publications received
from my brother. I asked for the most recent list, but it doesn't
5
him about Murphy. He offers very kindly to read the translation
& to "introduce" me to the French public. I have only one copy of
the translation, and it is in an awful mess, but if ever I have a
clean copy I shall send it to him. In the meantime I am writing to
6
Yours very sincerely Sam Beckett
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; ZurichJamesJoyce Foundation.
1 JustbeforeChristmas1939theJoycesleftParisforSt. Gerand-le-PuyintheAllier, where their grandson StephenJoyce was enrolled in the bilingual school ofMariaJolas which had evacuated there.
As a resident foreigner, SB was required to have a laissez-passer in order to leave Paris, where he was registered. The carte d'identite could be obtained at theMaison de France, 101 Avenue desChamps-Elysees, and it is possible that SB also applied there for the travel document that was required. The Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres indicates that immigration records were lost when the Germans occupied Paris.
2 Nino Frank had been Editor of the Paris film weekly Pour Vous, published from 22 November 1928 to SJune 1940.
The specific scenario, byJoyce or adapted from his work, has not been identified with certainty; none was published in La Nouvelle Revue Fra�aise. SB may refer to Stuart Gilbert's "Sketch of a Scenario of Anna Livia Plurabelle," written in English in 1935, which incorporatedJoyce's suggestions (CtY: Eugene andMariaJolas Papers, GEN MS 108, series
XV, 64/1499); this was later published inMariaJolas, ed. , A]ames]oyce Yearbook, 10-20.
3 The Italian translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" was undertaken by Nino Frank andJoyce; however, when published as "Anna Livia Plurabella" in Prospettive [Rome] 4. 2 (15 February 1940) 13-15, Ettore Settanni and James Joyce were indicated as co-translators. Nino Frank's name was suppressed because of his"antifascist activity," asJoyce wrote to Nino Frank on 13 March 1940:"II Settanni mi scrive che ii Suo nome non appare per ragioni che Lei capira sul momento. Ma non sara sempre celato, spero! " "( Settanniwritesmethatyournamedoesnotappearforreasonsyouwillunderstandat once. But it will not always be kept hidden, I trust! ") Uoyce, Letters of]amesJoyce, III, 469).
The published text differed from the translation sanctioned byJoyce. In a card to NinoFrankon9April1940,Joycewrote:"Jespronomsdela3ieme personnesinguliere
676
seem very recent.
I had a card to-day from Rivoallan. It was kind ofyou to write
thank him.
My kindest regards to M� Joyce.
[for du . . . singulier] ont ete changes en des pr[ e]noms de la zi•me pluriel! [for du . . . pluriel]" (Third person singular pronouns have been changed to second person plural pronouns! ); Joyce's letter to Settanni to protest against this and other changes was published as"UnaLettera di Joyce," Prospettive 4. 4 (15 April 1940) 11. Ellmann explains, writing of direct address:"The use of the second person plural pronoun voi instead of [ the third person singular pronoun] Lei was made obligatory under Fascism " Ooyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, III, 475; for other changes: Eric Bulson,"GettingNoticed: James Joyce's Italian Translations," Joyce Studies Annual 12 [Summer 2001] 33-36).
Finnegans Wake was reviewed bySalvatoreRosati,"II nuovo libro di James Joyce," Panorama [Rome] 18 (12 November 1939) 246-247; the Editors of Panorama were Raffaele Contu (1895-1953) and Gianni Mazzocchi (1906-1984) Uoyce to Jacques Mercanton on 9 January 1940, to James Laughlin on 21 February 1940, and to Mercanton on 14 March 1940; in Joyce,Letters of]amesJoyce, III,463,468,and 470-471).
4 Joyce wrote to James Laughlin on 21 February 1940, thanking him for New Directions in Prose and Poetry [4], ed. James Laughlin (Norfolk,CT: New Directions, 1939),which included an article by HarryLevin,"On FirstLooking into Finnegans Wake" (253-287) Uoyce, Letters ofjames]oyce, III,468,471).
5 Following every meeting, the Irish Board of Censorship published lists of prohibited books in the Iris Oifiguil ( Ireland's official State gazette); The Irish Times also carried these periodic reports as"an Order made by the Minister for Justice under the
Censorship ofPublicationsAct " ("BannedPublications," The Irish Times 20December 1939: 3). The latest Register of Prohibited Publications prior to January 1940 was published on 31 March 1938,and updated with a supplement,the List ofthe Books Prohibited During the Half-year from the 1st April 1938, to the 30th September 1938. The next issue of the
Register to be published would be that of 31 March 1940 Uohn Goodwillie, Official PublicationsLibrarian, Trinity College Dublin,2 August 2006; Peggy Garvey,Office of
Censorship of Publications,Dublin,2 August 2006).
6 ThecardfromAnatoleRivoallantoSBhasnotbeenfound.
MARIA JOLAS
LA CHAPELLE, ST. GERAND-LE-PUY, FRANCE
1/4/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
Chere Madame Jolas
Rien qu'un mot pour vous remercier, bleu-noir sur blanchatre,
1 April 1940, Jolas
1
lei on chante:
Au fin fond du blanc Bourbonnais,
de votre profuse hospitalite.
677
1 April 1940, ]alas
Loin des offensives de paix, Madame MariaJolas
Donne des lits a pleines mains Et du ban vin de St. Poun;:ain Aux scelerats de guerre lasse. 2
]'espere qu'il me sera encore donne d'en abuser. Votre devoue
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; CtY, Gen Mss 108, series VII, 28/535.
1/4/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
Dear Madame Jolas,
Just a brief note to thank you, blue-black on off-white,
1
Away in the heart of the white Bourbonnais, Far from the peace offensives,
Madame MariaJolas
Offers beds galore
And good St. Poun;:ain wine To war-weary villains. 2
I hope that I shall have another chance to guzzle it. Your devoted
Sam Beckett
for your profuse hospitality. Here our song goes:
1 SB had joined the Jolases and the Joyces for the holidays; Maria Jolas wrote to EugeneJolas on 29 March 1940:
Our Easter house party here is coming to an end. Beckett and Giorgio left this morning for Paris. [. . . ]
678
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
In the evenings we sang or played "polite" games, such as portraits, etc. Beckett had a game where you had to choose the name of a city and then make sentences with its initials [. . . ) Some good laughs.
Beckett, by the way is vastly improved and was extremely agreeable and nice about everything. (CtY, Gen Mss 108, series 1, 2/33c)
2 Blanc Bourbonnais refers to the area to which the Ecole bilingue de Neuilly of Maria Jolas had evacuated, 8 miles NE ofVichy. St. Poun;:ain here refers to wines of this area of the Allier.
GEORGE AND GWYNEDD REAVEY MADRID, SPAIN
21/5/40 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
Dear George & Gwynedd
I am still here and all right. I have no news of Geer. As
far as I know he is still at Cagnes with the others. I have been seeing something ofBram & Marthe. They are having a bad time.
1
I am buying a picture from Bram on the stuttering system.
I
tried to get Peggy to do something for him. She arranged a day to
go to his studio and said she would probably take a picture, but
at the last moment she sidestepped me. In the meantime she
accumulates Braques, Gris, Brancusis, Dalis and other painters
in want. I expect to hear any day that she has acquired a Kisling
2
It's not my business. Bram is reforme, Geer
3
or a Van Dongen.
not, but I don't think he will be called on.
I never had a reply to the application I made in September. I have offered myselfnow to drive an ambulance. Ifthey take me
4
At Swim Two Birds & Murphy for the Mercure, in the place of the one projected by the late Maurice Denhof. He was also going to revise my translation for submission to Paulhan with
679
they will take me soon.
I have been working a lot. Rivoallan was doing an article on
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
recommendation from Adrienne Monnier. All that is down the
drain for the moment. 5 I did a sketch for Paris Mondial that was
cancelled because of recent events. And I wrote half of a first
6
week to see the Joyces, who are still there. 7 McCalmon [for
McAlmon] tells me he had a letter recently from Brian who is
living somewhere outside Dublin with Bridget & Babe, reading
8th century pseudo-sceptics. I have no news of Tom. He had an
article in the Irish Times on the poems of one Milne, published
8
9
act of Johnson. At Easter I went into the Bourbonnais for a
attheGayfieldpress. Duncanwasupforacoupleofdays. Your successor in the Bureau payed me a visit some months ago. He
was very upset that he hadn't been able to find Slonim.
An American friend of mine, Maurice English, poet and journalist, has just gone to Madrid from Paris. He is at the Palace Hotel and would very much like to make your acquiant ance [sic]. He is an extremely nice fellow and I think you would get on well together. Look him up. I think it is the Chicago Tribune he works for. If by any chance he has left that hotel you could get him at the American Embassy. 10 I perceive an
involuntary metathesis in acquaintance. I shall not correct it. And how are you getting on yourselves? Write soon.
Love
s/ Sam
I have had several visits from Peron, on leave. form. But now. . . ?
TIS and APS in top margin; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
11
He was in good
1 The Battle of France began on 10 May 1940, marking the start of the German advance that culminated with surrender and the Occupation.
George Reavey moved to Madrid in January 1940, where he was working with the British Council. Geer van Velde was still in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
Geer's brother Bram van Velde (ne Abraham Gerardus van Velde 1895-1981), also a painter, had moved to Montrouge, a Paris suburb. He had been living in Majorca, but after
680
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
the death of his wife, the German painter Sophie Caroline Kliiker (known as Lilly, 1896-1936), Bram came to Paris; while staying with his brother Geer, Bram met Marthe Arnaud (nee Kunst, 1887-1959), a former Protestant missionary in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), who became his companion from 1936 until her death (Stoullig and Schoeller, eds. , Bram van Velde, 146, 155-157; Rainer Michael Mason, ed. , Bram van Velde, 1895-1981: Retrospective du Centenaire [Geneva: Musee Rath (Musees d'Art et d'Histoire, 1996)] 305-307).
SB purchased Sans titre (Untitled, 1937, Musee National d'Art Modeme, Centre Georges Pompidou, AM 1982-244).
2 With a view to establishing a museum of contemporary art, Guggenheim pur chased works by Constantin Brancusi and Catalan painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) (see Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, 210-218; Anton Gill, Art Lover: A Biography ofPeggJ Guggenheim [New York: HarperCollins, 2002] 220). Her collec tion included works by French artist Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Spanish painter Juan Gris (1887-1927). She did not own work by Polish-born painter Moise Kisling (1891-1953) or Dutch-born painter Kees van Dongen (1877-1968). (For images and details of the collection see www. guggenheim-venice. it).
3 "Reforme"ijudgedunfitformilitaryservice).
4 SB'sapplication:6December1939,n. 2;alsoKnowlson,DamnedtoFame,275).
5 Mercure de France ceased publication following its 1 June 1940 issue and did not resume until 1 December 1946; Anatole Rivoallan did not publish an article in Mercure de France on Murphy and At Swim Two Birds by Fiann O'Brien (pseud. of Brian O'Nolan, who also wrote as Myles na gCopaleen, 1911-1966).
Other than its mention in SB's letter to Joyce on 13 January 1940, there is no documentation of Rivoallan's willingness to revise SB's translation of Murphy for submission to Jean Paulhan, presumably for publication by the Nouvelle Revue Franraise. Nor is there documentation of Adrienne Monnier's intention to write a covering recommendation.
Publication of the Nouvelle Revue Franraise was suspended in July 1940, but the German ambassador Otto Abetz (1903-1958) was determined to use the review to promote Franco-German collaboration. He approached writer and Nazi-sympathizer Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893-1945) to take over its direction, to which the publisher Gaston Gallimard (1881-1975) agreed in October 1940. The first issue under Drieu's editorship appeared in December 1940, "without its Jews" - Julien Benda (1867-1956) most notably. Paulhan refused to collaborate in the review's publication, preferring to lend his talents to the literary resistance as co-founder ofLes Lettres Franraises (Frederic Badre, Paulhan lejuste [Paris: Grasset, 1996] 175-195).
Maurice Denhof (d. ? 1939) did not publish a review of Murphy. On 28 March 1940, Joyce wrote from St. Gerand-le-Puy asking Adrienne Monnier to see if a review of Murphy by Denhof had been published in Mercure de France after 1 October 1939. He continued: "Quelques semaines avant sa mort Maurice Denhof m'ecrivit qu'il etait en train de preparer I'article en question - qui devait faire suite a deux autres articles publies par Jui dans la meme revue" (Several weeks before his death, Maurice Denhof wrote to me that he was in the process ofpreparing the article in question, which was to be a follow-up to two other articles published by him in the same review) Uames Joyce [to Adrienne Monnier], "James Joyce," Mercure de France 326, "Le Souvenir d'Adrienne Monnier," Special issue Uanuary 1956] 123).
681
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
6 NopublicationbearingthenameParisMandia! atthistimehasbeendiscovered.
SB refers to that portion of his projected play on Samuel Johnson later published as "Human Wishes" in Disjeeta, 155-166.
7 SBandtheJoyces:1April1940.
8 Brian Coffey's letter toRobert McAlmon prior to 21 May 1940 has not been found; however, Coffey wrote to him on 9 February 1941, saying only that he, Bridget, and their son John had moved from 2 MulgraveTerrace to 5 MulgraveTerrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin (CtY, MSS Survey Za McAlmon). Alan Duncan.
McGreevy reviewed Letterfrom Ireland (Dublin: Gayfield Press, 1940) byEwart Milne (1903-1987) ("New Poetry: 'Letter from Ireland,"' The Irish Times 6 April 1940: 5).
9 GeorgeReavey sold the European Literary Bureau toRichardReginald March (n. d. ), who later became involved in the Nicholson and Watson publishing house (GeorgeReavey to Deirdre Bair, 24 October 1974).
GeorgeReavey and Marc Slonim edited and translated Soviet Literature: An Anthology (1933).
10 Americanpoet,journalist,translator,andpublisherMauriceEnglish•(1909-1983) was Foreign Correspondent for the Chicago Tn1nme until 1941.
11 AlfredPeronwasstillonactiveservice.
MARTHE ARNAUD, c/o BRAM VANVELDE MONTROUGE, FRANCE
lundi [10-6-40] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
chere Marthe
Je vous ecris chez Bram, n'ayant pas votre adresse.
Les diables sont comme les anges. Priez le votre de rester et
1
il partira.
Nous ne sommes pas libres vendredi soir, ni l'un ni l'autre.
Mais je pourrais faire un billard avec Bram a 4 heures, Cafe des Sports, puis passer un petit moment chez vous entre 5 et 6 arranger votre prise. Done sauf contre-avis de Bram je serai ven dredi au Cafe des Sports a 4 heures. Pourquoi ne venez-vous pas assister au match? 2
Tout �a a condition qu'on reste a Paris. Suzanne a l'air de vouloir partir. Moi non. Ou aller et avec quoi? 3
682
Monday {10 June 1940}, Arnaud
Sous la vitre bleue le tableau de Bram flambe sombrement. Hier soir j'y voyais Neary au restaurant chinois, "accroupi dans la touffe de ses soucis comme un hibou dans du Lierre"[. ]4 Aujourd'hui ce sera autre chose.
