Chapter One
1935
[Tuesday], 12 February 1935
10 p.m.
The radio is tuned to Prague. I have been listening to a concerto byJ. S. Bach in G for trumpet, oboe, harpsichord, and orchestra. After theintermission, there will be a concerto of his in G minor for piano andorchestra.
I am immersed in Bach. Yesterday evening, while writing a long letterto Poldy, I listened to the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto from Lyons—forthe first time with extremely clear reception—and then to a Mozartconcerto for piano and orchestra.
I went to see an eye specialist. He recommended glasses and I havestarted to wear them. It changes me quite a lot and makes me look ugly.
It was funny when I told him my name. He said that his family hasmuch discussed my De doua mii de ani [For Two Thousand Years], whichhe has not read himself. He has heard a lot of people cursing me. I realizethat my trial has really been lost. Cum am devenit huligan [How IBecame a Hooligan] is not reaching the circles where I am cursed evenby "hearsay."
On Sunday at Tirgoviste, where I had gone for a lecture, SamyHerscovici told me a story that indicates how the "affair" is seen by thepublic.
The bookseller who was selling tickets for the lecture offered one toa professor at the teachers' training college: "Sebastian? Aha! That yidwho got himself baptized."
Yesterday evening, Nae was due to speak at the [Royal] Foundation about"National Solidarity." His lecture was banned by the government. Thestudents were herded together on the pavement near the palace, wherethey booed, shouted, and sang. Then they were driven farther, into PiataAteneului, where Nae, bareheaded and wearing his coat with a wolfskincollar, made a speech while perched on their shoulders.
"Nae was a fine sight," related Nina.
There were scuffles, fistfights, firecrackers going off. Even some shotswere said to have been fired in the air.
Not a word in today's papers.
How disgusting is the issue of Credinta devoted to Nae. Petru Manoliu,Sandu Tudor, and Zaharia Stancu—about Nae Ionescu! I've lived to seethis too.
[Monday], 18 February
Yesterday evening, two of Handel's organ concertos, in B-flat major andG minor, from Stuttgart. Very Mozart-Haydn. Could I tell him apartfrom those other two?
For a week now, beginnings of revolution at the Bar. A few meetingscampaigning for a "numerus clausus." On Saturday, the day before yesterday,Istrate Micescu spoke and went right over to the Movement. Itis exactly a week since my interview with him appeared. I am obviouslylosing my touch.
What people! Made of whey, yogurt, and water. M[icescu] told methe other day: "If you want to know who is my master in politics, it isAlain." He spoke then about freedom, about individual resistance to thestate, about the stupid idea of a "collective" and how it is exploited bydictatorships. And now look at him, an anti-Semite gone over to the "nationalrevolution."
Nae has had a hand in this too. Micescu admitted to Froda that hehad had a visit from Nae, who had urged him to take the leadership ofwhat was happening at the Bar. Look at how the professor is going tomake a new Romania! What a cruel, ridiculous, terrible affair, in whicheveryone, including Nae, makes his little contribution.
But spring has come. Yesterday I went with Benu to Baneasa. A Marchwind was blowing, it was sunny, and I felt young. Not for a long timehave I felt such a keen desire to be happy.
[Sunday], 17 March
Midnight
I have come tired from the station (got up at 6 a.m. to go to Braila, nowI am back). But I don't want to leave this note until tomorrow, havingvowed in the train to write it.
I traveled with Nae Ionescu. He was going to give a lecture in Galati(about "Signs and Symbols"). Nothing interesting in the morning: weread the papers, talked politics, and had a pleasant time chatting with agirl who had struck up a conversation with us. I got off in Braila and weagreed to meet again in the evening on the return journey.
In the evening we did indeed find ourselves in the same compartment.Professor Vechiu, leader of Argetoianu's supporters in Braila, wasalso there with us. All three of us had dinner in the restaurant car. Naeput on a great political act.
It is he who got Vaida's movement off the ground. (Ten days ago heassured me of exactly the opposite.) He and the Iron Guard will supporthim, but without taking part themselves. He recognizes that the "numerusvalachius" is really a platform for agitation, not at all a politicalprogram. He accepts the fact that it cannot be implemented. "Thingslike that could happen only as a consequence of something else, if therewere a change in the general framework."
His plan is very simple. Keep Tatarescu in power for the time being-foranother three months, say, until Vaida's movement acquires solid foundationsand cadres. Then a Vaida government, produced by sixty IronGuard deputies and some ten to twenty-five from other parties, so that"the Guard will be His Majesty's Opposition." Logically, when this Vaidagovernment falls, the succession will fall to the Guardists.
I do not know what chances this plan has. Rather few, I would think,and in my hew he is a fantasy-monger. Quite logical, of course.
What made me feel a little sad for Nae was the tone in which hesaid everything. Scheming, artful, "enfant terrible." What he said toAverescu, how he duped George Bratianu, how he got even with Vaidain Brasov ...
"I really landed them in the shit."
I certainly prefer him in the lecture hall.
As we traveled back in the compartment, a feeling of vague uneaseturned into one of pain. What a poseur that man can be! There weretwo colonels in the compartment. He started chatting and managed toget them both "at sixes and sevens." I could see victory on his lips, asense of triumph at having flummoxed them. He said some bewilderingthings—of the kind he uses to startle people by turning the discussionfrom a local matter to a problem of world history. The talk was of apossible war between France and Germany.
"Rubbish! The whole crux is in Singapore. That's where Europe isplaying its cards. And it can play without Germany. That's all there isto it."
In Singapore? Maybe. But anyway, before the problem can be properlydiscussed, Nae's bolt from the blue put an end to it. The colonelsexchanged looks of admiration and astonishment, suddenly alight fromthe revelation of the truth. Nae could feel this and basked in the warmglow.
In one hour he retold everything I know about him: how he livedthrough the revolution in Munich, how he gave speeches to the revolutionaryministers, how the revolution finally put an end to the Dachaumoney factory, how Colonel Epp did this and did that, etc., etc. ThingsI heard from him years ago, riveted to the wall in his office at Cuvantul.
Then he moved on to more recent matters. To Beck in Warsaw hehad said that it was necessary to move closer to Germany. To Karl Radekhe had explained that Stalin's successor would be Genghis Khan. In Berlinhe had told a general this, shown a minister that ...
"And do you know Hitler personally?"
(One of the colonels threw in this question when Nae was in fullflow. I well knew that he had never met Hitler. He said so categoricallya year ago, and again last summer. But he was at risk of disappointingthe colonel, who was so full of admiration.)
"Yes, I've seen him. There's a great politician for you. You see, Trotsky,who is enormously intelligent, and Stalin, who is a fool, ... (Thechange of tack was probably out of prudence, but he kept up the lie—alie of pure bluster—because he could not bear to let slip any of the gloryhe had promised himself. What a child he is! Five minutes later, Vechiuasked him in turn, "Have you seen Hitler?" And he again replied "Yes,"rapidly moving on to something else, either because he felt awkward orbecause he was bored with having to dream up too many things to say.)
He looked as he must have fifteen years ago holding forth at theCapsa. How young he is, dear old Nae Ionescu!
Saturday, 30 March
Nae's class yesterday was suffocating. Iron Guardism pure and simple—nonuances, no complications, no excuses. "A state of combat is what wecall politics. One party contains in its very being an obligation to wipeout all the others. The final conclusion is that `internal politics' is an absurdity.There can only be a conquest or seizure of power and a mergingof the party with the whole collective. From that moment all thatexists is household management, since all possibility of reaction has beeneliminated. A collective that contains within itself the idea of war is calleda nation. A nation is defined by the friend-foe equation." And so on andso forth ...
I should have liked to tell him how monstrously he contradicted himself,but he was in too much of a hurry and left straight after the lecture.
His whole heresy stems from a wild and terrifying abstraction: thecollective. It is colder, more insubstantial, more artificial than the abstractionof the "individual." He forgets that he is speaking of humanbeings; that they have passions and—whatever one may say—an instinctfor freedom, an awareness of their own individual existence.
Even more depressing is the fact that all those theories stem fromvulgar political calculation. I am convinced that if he spoke like that yesterday—withso many political allusions and so painfully Hitler-like—itwas because an Iron Guardist dressed in national costume was sitting inthe front row of the audience. I could feel that he was speaking for him.
I have been listening a lot to Bach recently. Last Sunday the St. MatthewPassion at the Ateneu. I think I am really very fond of his music. In anycase, I can now easily tell a piece by Bach from any other.
Over the past three weeks I have picked up many of his works onvarious radio stations. One evening, from Warsaw, there was the DoubleViolin Concerto in D Minor, the Concerto in D Minor for Three Pianos, andanother concerto, also in D minor, for piano and orchestra. Stuttgart hadthe Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, two cantatas, and a trio sonata for harpsichord,violin, and viola da gamba. (The same evening, from Warsaw,there was a Debussy sonata for flute, cello, and harp. Magnificent.) Later,two preludes and a fugue for organ, from Bucharest. Last Monday theSecond Brandenburg Concerto, an aria, and a cantata from Budapest, andon Tuesday—again from Prague—the Third Brandenburg Concerto and anotherone in E major. One evening Berlin had a few organ pieces—I nolonger remember which ones—and a suite for unaccompanied cello,heartrendingly calm and solemn.
And then, very many things I can no longer recall. (Bach two to threetimes a week from Stuttgart, after one in the morning. And one eveninga delightful Kleine nachtmusik by Mozart, also from there.)
Finally, longer ago, Vienna had a memorable performance of the doubleviolin concerto. A Handel sonata, Ysaye's Variations on an Old Theme,and a sonata by Philipp Emanuel Bach.
A cold rainy spring—I do not mean sad ...
Sunday, 7 April
Elections at the S.S.R. How wretched! I cannot forgive myself that forone moment I had the naiveté to think the game was serious.
As soon as you give up being alone, everything is lost.
Thursday, 11 April
This evening I listened to a Bruno Walter concert from Prague.
The overture to Gluck's Iphigènie en Aulide, a Mozart violin concerto inG major (the first time I have heard it, I think), and Beethoven's NinthSymphony. The Mozart seemed more delicate and melodic than ever.The universities are closed. So tomorrow I no longer have Nae's course.
I saw some appalling things in the street. Wild animals.
Sunday, 14 April
Yesterday Leni came at one o'clock to pick me up at the newspaper. Itwas a beautiful day, like the middle of June. She was superb. Tailor-madesuit, shoes, handbag, a little ribbon around her neck, the brim of herblue hat. With me she has a kind of timidity that makes her look solemn.
She said she had heard of a lover I am supposed to have had for along time in Braila.
"That's the reason I haven't called you any more. It's how I explainwhy you are so reserved. I haven't wanted to disturb you."
I protested and said there was no truth in it.
"So then?"
"So then"—I said to myself: be sensible, kid. "So then, it's just mynatural reserve."
"Caution, in other words."
"If you like. But I think it's more a question of self-knowledge. Itwould be expecting too much of things I don't deserve."
"You don't know what you do and do not deserve. And in particular,you don't know what someone else may be thinking about you."
We went for a walk in Cismigiu, and I was proud of how beautifulshe was. It could be love.
Thursday, 18 [April]
2:30 a.m.
An eventful day. Visited Leni. We are in love; we said it to each other.She is young and beautiful, has an admirably simple way of speaking-andI find it so inexplicable that she is coming closer to me.
But it is not prudent, and I don't know how I'll ever get out of this.How many things have gone wrong because of my ill luck! I had so muchgoing for me to be happy. I had enormous ability, with no complicationsand no drama. And all that broke down horribly at the age of seventeenand a half. I am disgusted by it sometimes, or more often saddened. Why,Lord, why?
I would so much like to be happy, and I would have asked so little.
The evening at the Nenisors' and then at Zissu. (I danced.) When Ihooted for fun on the way home, she said: "You've so much of the childinside you, yet you're so tired of life."
For someone who has known me for only ten days, that was surprisinglyaccurate. Yes, it's true. It's terrible how calmly I accept the ideaof death.
Sunday, 21 [April]
Went for a walk with Leni and a friend of hers, Jeni Crutescu, on theSosea. The first spring morning, after so many rainy ones. It was warm;a lot of green, a lot of yellow. We had vermouths and snacks at the Flora.Leni was delightfully dressed. People turned their heads at us, and I wasagain proud to be walking beside her.
But in the afternoon I felt a terrible need to see her again. That isnot good at all, though I'm beginning to be seriously in love with her.How will I get out of that?
Tuesday, 23 [April]
I met her at a football match (Venus-Juventus), but she arrived late froma theatre rehearsal for the next premiere.
I cannot explain the interest she has in me. She is so beautiful I amso badly dressed, so awkward. I realize how simple this love could be,how restful.
Wednesday, 22 May
Lunch at Aristide Blank's with Leni, Froda, Mrs. Blank, a guy I've nevermet before, and two young women—a rather ugly Viennese brunette anda South American blonde who spoke French with a delightful Anglo-Saxonaccent.
Coffee and cognac on a terrace, in a kind of courtyard made restfulby the colors and the wind blowing through it. Blank is a poseur. Leniwas surprisingly ill at ease, but with adorably simple gestures. She is extremelyshy, to my amazement. She claims that I intimidate her.
(Yesterday, at the football match at the O.N.E.E [Stadium], she wasuneasy, silent, "melancholic" for a lot of the time, but immediately becametalkative, expansive, almost boisterous when Ronea, from the ReginaMaria Theatre, joined our group—a man with whom she has certainlyslept in the past. Her sudden "mise à l'aise" infuriated me. But it is certainlynot her fault. I am always the one to blame: I am probably toocomplicated and basically incomprehensible for her, whereas she has beenso straightforward with me from the beginning.)
I did not mean to write about this, however, but about the South Americanblonde. We exchanged a few words, enough for me to draw a cinemasketch of her. She said:
"I'm South American. Where do I live? Pretty well everywhere. Look,I've just come from Vienna and plan to stay a couple of weeks. Then I'llgo back to Vienna and meet up with my husband, who is on a businesstrip in Africa at the moment. No, I don't live in Germany. I have a housein Hamburg, though I haven't been there for three years. But I'll begoing on the Rhine for a while this summer. We have a villa there. Thenmaybe to North Africa, where we also have a little house."
So, I said, you live on the whole planet.
"No," she smiled with sincere modesty. "No."
Strange people. And we can vegetate for a whole lifetime in SfintiiApostoli, Popa Tatu, or Radu-Voda!
[Monday], 10 June
I must see Poldy! The trip that I initially thought to be out of the questionmust become possible. Things need to be cleared up—so that atleast I know where I stand. How funny it would be if there were onlya medical matter involved!
But no, I don't have too many illusions. But I do want to know.
Like a fool, I allowed myself to get caught up in a story that I knewfrom the beginning would lead nowhere. Here I am smitten, jealous ofevery man with whom she ever slept, preoccupied at every moment withwhat she is or might be doing, happy when she is smiling, miserablewhen she is too jolly, trembling when I hear her voice on the telephone.I am rediscovering that ebb and flow of emotions that I have not experiencedfor a long while, since Jeni's time, in the most feverish momentsof my love—mornings when everything is simple and unimportant, whenit seems neither here nor there whether I see her or not; evenings heavywith melancholy, with a desire to see her that is physically located in theheart.
All this takes a form that is comically sentimental, schoolboyish, adolescent.It sickens me to think that she is meanwhile occupied with aload of trivia that amuse or excite her, in her little life of pleasures, walks,and frivolities. It is altogether likely that she is sleeping around—and Iam stupid enough to talk to her gravely and with a ridiculous lack ofskill about various overcomplicated "problems."
She, who expected just another man, seems weary of my hesitations,of my excessive complications. And I suffer like a child because of allthese meaningless trifles.
She is a "good girl." Will I one day be able to receive her in mybachelor flat, fuck her, drink a glass of wine and smoke a cigarette withher, put a record on the gramophone, and listen with indifference—orat best with amusement—as she talks about her past lovers? If I can,everything will be perfect. That too is a kind of happiness, and I wouldcertainly be happy. But what if I can't? Another failure and it's all over.
Anyway, things are very bad as they stand. It is sickeningly trite thattoday I bought her a copy of Barbellion's Journal—for her about whomBerariu said to me two months ago: "Go chat her up—you can't gowrong—she'll screw with anyone."
And he was probably right.
I'm seeing her tomorrow. She leaves on Sunday.
I broke with Jeni appallingly. The poor girl!
[Tuesday], 11 June
She was supposed to call me and she didn't. Everything can end at that,in the simplest way. Any move on my part would be more than ridiculous,worse than imprudent.
I ought to understand—and do understand perfectly—that it wouldbe out of all proportion to note here every sordid little thing that hashappened to me in this "love story." Enough!
Four hours later
More stupid than any lovesick fool, for I have absolutely no excuse.
I went to see her after all (after phoning twice: the first time she wasasleep, the second time on her way out shopping). I told her—and I didit quite well, with perfect gestures, frown, and voice—that I am in lovewith her. Then I left, because someone was due to call on her at a quarterpast eight.
"I got the times mixed up," she said candidly.
What an ass I am!
[Thursday,] 13 June
Chance has it that I am just now rereading a volume of Proust—the secondone of Albertine disparue.
So many things should make me skeptical about my amatory "sufferings."I am well aware that they will not last, that I shall forget them,that they are all derisory, and that one day they will mean so little asnot even to appear ridiculous. Yet such words of wisdom, such calculationsthat I know to be objectively correct, do not lessen in the slightesttoday's depression, the absurd need to see her, the physical pain ofconstantly thinking about her, of seeing again certain moments that nowpresent a mystery I should like to clear up.
I wonder, for example, what happened that day when we went tolunch at Blank's. He took her aside, put his hand around her waist, andtalked with her about something or other. Later, in the afternoon, I triedto reach her by telephone. Once she was asleep, the second time she wasout. Something tells me that he met her that afternoon, and that whenhe took her aside he arranged a rendezvous.
And the following evening—on Monday, I think, as we were leavingthe Piccadilly where I had met her by chance (she was with J[eni]C[rutescu], I went with her toward the telephone and she stopped to callsomeone—whom?
What stupid, childish worries, especially as I know how little pointthere is in that old old game, so familiar and always the same.
But knowledge is not a cure, just as precise knowledge of the stagesof typhoid fever does not spare you from suffering them.
(Continues...)
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