No More Learning

28 Dr. LucienBrulez(1891-1982)wasaLektor(Lecturer)inFrenchattheUniversity of Hamburg from 1920 to 1956; he taught nineteenth-and twentieth-century French literature, although his publications were primarily in philosophy (Eckart Krause, 27 July 1993). SB met Brulez through Frau Durrieu, and attended his lecture on Diderot on 12November 1936; SB noted that Brulez was interested in Proust "as philosopher & symbolist" (Beckett, Alles kommt aufso viel an, 38).
Flamand (Fleming).
29 IrmaTiedtke(1910-? 1943)tookherdissertationoralexaminationsinJune1935; Dr. Brulez directed her thesis, which was published as Symbole und Bilder im Werke Marcel Prousts (1936) (Quadflieg, Beckett was here, 120). SB arranged on 28November to meet her on Monday, 1 December; she was also present on 16 November when SB met Brulez again.
30 On16November,Brulezdiscussed"Proust,Bergson,Plato&Kant"(Beckett,Alles kommt aufso vie! an, 44). Brulez apparently quoted from Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza a passage in which the narrator discusses meditation as one of many "bolt-holes" from unpleasant reality: "Charismata like masturbations. Masturbations, however, that are dignified, by the amateur mystics who practise them, with all the most sacred names of religion and philosophy. 'The contemplative life'" ([London: Chatto and Windus, 1936] 503).
ErnstRobert Curtius (1886-1956), German literary historian and Professor ofFrench at the universities of Bonn, Marburg, and Heidelberg.
31 W. R. FearonwasnamedtotheCensorshipofPublicationsBoardinIrelandon 23November1936("CensorshipBoard:ResignationofMr. Thrift,Dr. FearonAppointed as Successor," The Irish Times 24November 1936: 7).
BRIAN COFFEY DUB LIN
5/12/36
[no greeting]
C'est ici que pendant 50 ans il se faisait des idees distinctes,
ou, pire, s'en laissait faire. C'est maintenant musee des arts et desmetiers. 1 Solidementassisdansunelumierenordilbarraita tombeau ouvert. Je viens de subir une petite amende (lRM) pour
394
13 December 1936, Manning Howe
m'etre promene d'une fac;on dangereuse. Par consequent je pars, pour Braunschweig, en silence dore, d'ou je t'ecrirais.
Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Hannover: Leibniz-Haus"; to Brian Coffey Esq, 41 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin C 19, Irland; pm 5-12-36,Hannover, 7-12·36, Dublin; DeU, Coffey.
5/12/36
[no greeting]
This is where, for fifty years, he formed distinct ideas, or,
1
1 TheLeibnizhausinHanoverwasrestoredin1891-1892andatthistimehoused the Kunstgewerbe-Museum (Arts and Crafts Museum). The building was destroyed in World War II and subsequently rebuilt.
Leibniz administered the library that was moved from theHerrenhausen Palace into Hanover in 1679; from 1698, the library had its own building, and included living quarters for the librarian. From 1690, Leibniz was also librarian for the more impor­
tant HerzogAugust Bibliothek in Wolfenbiittel.
worse, let them form in him. Now it is a museum ofarts and crafts. Solidly seated in a north light he did his deleting and striking out over an open tomb. I have just had a small fine (1 RM) imposed on me for walking in a dangerous fashion. As a result, I am leaving for Braunschweig, in golden silence. I would write to you from there.
Sam
MARY MANNI NG HOWE CAMBRIDGE, MAS SACHUSETTS
13/12/36
Hotel Deutsche Traube Berlin n 4, InvalidenstraBe 32
dear Mary
I'm writing this to you in a pub, because my room in the
picture gives me the chinks. I was very glad to have your long
395
13 December 1936, Manning Howe
letter, which reached me here, where I have been for 2 days,
1
I did not know I wrote you any unkind cryptograms, and am heartily sorry if so. I shall now try and be clear & pleasant. Even
2
I do not know Grene. If he is the person that was once pointed out to me in Dublin, he looks like a semicircumcised bugger.
4
The last I heard about the book from Reavey, as I thought I
wrote to you, was that Mifflin were suggesting that 1/3 should be
ablated, & enclosing a letter that I have forgotten. I replied to
Reavey, saying that I did not understand how more could be
taken away from the unfortunate book than I had already taken
away myself, & leave a remainder; but that I only asked to be in
this matter enlightened, by some critic more alive to the econ­
omy of the work than I was myself. To this humble obeisance I
have received no reply. Nott was apparently prepared to take on
the book if an American mug could be found; & Mifflin if an
5
I also am very interested in the Johnson-Thrale-Piozzi arrangement, and often thought what a good subject was
6
having come slowly from Hamburg by Hannover & Brunswick. In a few weeks I shall go on to Dresden & from there to Munich & from there I suppose slowly home, probably the same way I came. For by April I expect to be far too tired for Paris. I am tired already.
an improvement in the script perhaps you may notice.
3
I am not on the lookout for a lap.
Englishmug. Itseemedtome,unfamiliarwiththeniceties,that my agent had merely to bring the mugs together & the abuse would begin to pour in. It seems I was wrong again.
there,perhapsonlyonelongact. Whatinterestedmeespecially was the breakdown ofJohnson as soon as Thrale disappeared. I do not think Piozzi enters Johnson's psychological situation at all. I think that his abuse of Piozzi is a blind. Piozzi was the
396
pretext that he needed, to get away with an appearance of
7
the Platonic gigolo or housefriend, with not a testicle, auricle
or ventricle to stand on when the bluff is called. His impotence
was mollified by Mrs Thrale so long as Thrale was there, then
suddenly exasperated when the licensed mentula was in the
connubial position for the first time for years, thanks to rigor
8
his den in Fleet Street after the last visit to Mrs Thrale, forgetting
a lamppost & hurrying back. Can't think why there hasn't been a
film ofJohnson, with Laughton. But I think one act, with some­
thing like the psychology above, in an outburst to Mrs Thrale,
or in his house in confidence to the mysterious servant, would
9
scarce. I am tired all the time. All the modern pictures are in the cellars. I keep a pillar to post account, but have written nothing connected since I left home, nor disconnected. 10 And not the thart ofa book beginning. The physical mess is trivial, beside the intellectual mess. I do not care, & don't know, whether they are connected or not. It is enough that I can't imagine anything worse than the mental marasmus, in which I totter & sweat for months. It has turned out indeed to be a journey from, and not to, as I knew it was, before I began it. I can't begin to make it clear to you, I haven't the energy to make it clear to myself. An instinctive respect, at least, for what is real, & therefore has not in its nature, to be clear. Then when somehow this goes over into words, one is called an obscurantist. The classifiers are the obscurantists.
mortis. ThinkofafilmopeningwithJohnsondancinghometo
13 December 1936, Manning Howe
justification. What interests me above all is the condition of
be worth doing. There are 50 plays in his life.
The trip is being a failure. Germany is horrible. Money is
Write to Leperstown. Love
11
Sam
397
13 December 1936, Manning Howe
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; letterhead, A date by SB; TxU.
1 TheletterheadshowsanimageoftheHotelDeutscheTraube(seefrontispiece).
Having taken the train from Hamburg to Liineburg and on to Hanover via Celle on 4 December 1936, SB was in Hanover on 5 December and traveled on to Brunswick that afternoon (Beckett, Alles kommt auf so vie! an, 57; see also 5 December 1936 above).
2 MaryManningHowehadrespondedtoSB'slettertoherof14November1936.
3 Grenehasnotbeenidentified.
4 SeeSB'sletterof14November1936toMaryManningHowe.
5 Houghton Mifflin's request for cuts to Murphy apparently threatened Reavey's arrangement with Stanley Nott (see 28 November 1937 [for 19361).
6 MaryManningHowe'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound,butmusthaveincludeda reference to the "Johnson-Thrale-Piozzi arrangement. " In 1936 there was considerable interest in Johnson's life; in March new Boswell manuscripts were found ("Yet More of Boswell," The Times 9 March 1936: 15). In April C[olwayn] E[dward] Vulliamy published Mrs. Thra! e ofStreatham, Her Place in the Life ofDr. SamuelJohnson and in the Society ofher Time, her Character and Family Affairs (London: Heinemann). In November a new edition of James Boswell, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL. D. , ed. Frederick A. Pottle and Charles H. Bennet, based on recently discovered manuscripts, was published. Also in November the play Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Thra! e by Winifred Carter (1884-1949) was produced in London; a review of Carter's play noted of Johnson: "Twice he is on the point of declaring his illicit passion, and twice he is saved by a trivial interruption" ("Strand Theatre, 'Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Thrale,"' The Times 25 November 1936: 12).
In 1765 Johnson was introduced to Henry Thrale (c. 1728-1781), brewery owner and Member of Parliament for Southwark from 1765 to 1780, and to his wife Hester Lynch (nee Salusbury, 1741-1821). From 1766 until Thrale's death in 1781, Johnson was an intimate of the Thrales, such a frequent guest that he had his own room in their various houses in Streatham, Southwark, Brighton, and Grosvenor Square; he also traveled with them to Wales and France.
Thrale's death was, as SB put it to McGreevy, "the causa irritans"; it changed the relationship between Mrs. Thrale and Johnson as well as their material situation ([before 23 July 1937], TCD, MS 10402/129). Mrs. Thrale, at forty, looked forward to a less encumbered life, whereas Johnson, at seventy-one, confronted physical and emo­ tional displacement from the Thrales' comfortable household and suffered a "break­ down" (W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975] 560, 568, 572, 575-579).
After her husband's death, Mrs. Thrale fixed her attentions on Gabriel Mario Piozzi (1740-1809); despite objections by Johnson, family, and friends, she married him in 1784 (Bate, SamuelJohnson, 572).
7 SBmayrefertoJohnson'santagonismtoPiozziongroundsthathewasCatholic, Italian, and a social inferior to Mrs. Thrale; Johnson's stated objection to their mar­ riage was that it would cause Mrs. Thrale to desert "country, religion, and family" (Leslie Stephen, SamuelJohnson, English Men of Letters [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1879] 153).
398
8 InMrs. ThraleofStreatham,Vulliamywrotethat"noseriousattempthaseverbeen made to examine the sexual character of Dr. Johnson," raising the issue if not the question that SB asks himself (243). Johnson's testicular hydrocele was eventually diagnosed as a tumor (Bate, Samuel Johnson, 577, 581-583). SB writes "<member> mentula. "
9 One ofJohnson's compulsive habits was "touching the posts as he passed, and going back if he missed one" (Bate, SamuelJohnson, 382).
American film actor Charles Laughton (1899-1962) starred in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1934), The Barretts ofWimpoleStreet (1934), Les Miserables (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), and Rembrandt (1936).
SB refers to Francis Barber (known as Frank, 1735-1801), a freed slave from Jamaica placed in Johnson's care from the age of ten; Johnson educated him, and Barber was later Johnson's "man-servant" (Bate, Samuel Johnson, 325-327, 503-504).
10 SBreferstohisGermanDiaries(BIF,UoR).
11 Leopardstown, once known as Leperstown, was near Foxrock station, Co. Dublin.
20 December 1936, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/12/36
Berlin W. 50
bei Kempt Budapesterstrasse 45
dear Georg
This pigeonhole will find me for a fortnight or three
weeks, so make a sign, before I leave for Dresden. I came on slowly from Hamburg last week, by Luneburg, Hannover, Brunswick, Hildesheim, etc.
Is there no further news about Quigley, I mean Murphy? Have
you not contrived to join the hands of the two philanthropists
across the pond? I know finding the terms is child[']s play to
bringing them together. The last I remember is my readiness to
cut down the work to its title. I am now prepared to go further, and
change the title, ifit gives offence, to Quigley, Trompetenschleim,
1
Eliot, or any other name that the publishers fancy.
399
20 December 1936, Reavey
I don't even know if you got the apes at chess. Lighten my darkness. 2
Heil, Sieg, fette Beute and a Merry Xmas/ Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street. London, WC 1. England; pm 20-12-36, Berlin-Charlottenburg; TxU.
1 QuigleyisthenameofthepersonsupportingMurphyinSB'snovel.
Reavey's efforts to find an American publisher to join forces with Stanley Nott: 13 November 1936, n. 4, and 13 December 1936, n. 5.
"Trompetenschleim" (trumpet slime); this suggestion derives from a conversation on the evening of13 October 1936 in SB's pension in Hamburg, during which amusing names were discussed (Beckett, Alles kommt aufso vie! an, 16).
2 The"apesatchess":see13November1936,n. 5. 3 "Heil,Sieg,fetteBeute"(Hail. victory,richspoils).
THOMAS McGREEVY [LONDON]
22/12/36
Berlin 10-50
bei Kempt Budapesterstr. 45
Dear Tom
I do not like sending this to you c/o Hester, but have no
alternative, as I have lost your [? Lad] Lane address, & cannot
1
or recent. As hung it is given to Giorgione, and I do not know who else could have painted it. It is infinitely more interest­ ing for me at least than the very early lyrical Giorgione of the Kaiser Friedrich, also herewith. No doubt you know them both in reproduction. I felt as soon as I saw the Brunswick picture, and each time I went back to it, that it was made for you, and
400
remember Heinemann[']s.
I do not know if the grotesque Dossi attribution is old
that you should have this faint echo at least. Lass es dir gut
2
various excursions to the incredibly beautiful Hildesheim, and
to Wolfenbiittel, where I would not have been surprised to see
Lessing come limping out of the August Bibliothek and across
the square, to take up the thread of the "happiest year of his
life. "3 I wanted to visit Halberstadt & Quedlinburg on the way to
Berlin, but was tired & broke and feel anyway that they would be
only shadows of Hildesheim, so came on straight here. The first
week I spent in a sinister hotel in the North, a German North
Star as opposite Amiens St. Station; then found this place, beside
the Zoo & the Kurfiirstendamm. Museum Island is au <liable,
but the tube is child's play. The collections are stupendous; the
town itself a monstrous comic, but rapidly sympathetic, with
skies nearly as good as Dublin[']s, one wonderful park and an
excellent brim to the hat, lakes, plain & forest. The weather is
lovely, ciel quintessencie, but desperately cold. I expect to stay
4
News from home good. Frank is in Miirren, playing in
the snow. So Mother is alone. But writes in excellent spirits.
Young Sinclair is on his way to South Africa, Boss still alive in
Rathdrum. Cissie got a bad turn when out visiting, I don't know
5
cut the work down to its title and to change that, if it gave offence. I sent Bion a card for Xmas, the Subarair earth goddess in the Tell Halaf museum, complete with chalice for the fertilising
rain and archaic smile. 7
Geoffrey is well dug in in Harley Street, with more patients
than he can manage. Bion is his "supervisor" in the clinic, does me
401
gefallen.
I had a week in Brunswick on the way here, and made
22 December 1936, McGreevy
till middle of January, & then go on to the Porcelaine Madonna.
exactly what, but seems to be well over it.
No further news of the book. The last was my willingness to
6
20 December 1936, McGreevy
the honour to remember me, deprecates my untimely departure, just when I was all set to become the uomo universale, & looks forward to getting his hooks into me again. Quien sabe! 8
The modern rooms of the Kronprinzenpalais are closed,
i. e. modern German painting from Nolde on. I got a permit in
Hamburg to visit the various works no longer accessible to
German public, and shall try it on director ofKronprinzenpalais
here, though it is only valid for Hamburg. On the ground floor
9
on with the Yeats, or work of your own. I seem not to have heard from you for ages. I have almost decided to cut out Paris on way
home (Devisen complications) & take boat from Hamburg to Southhampton, & thence to London, where I shall hope to find
10
know anyone here and though I am often lonely don't feel like picking up anyone. Expect to spend Xmas alone with a bottle of wine & the Kaiser Friedrich catalogue, full of impayable quota­ tions from Bode. Do you know Friedlander[')s Niederlandische Malerei or Dehio's colossal work? 1 1
Love ever Sam
ALS; 2 leaves. 2 sides; TCD. MS 10402/111.
1 SB addressed this letter to McGreevy care of Hester Dowden. There was a Lad Lane in Dublin, but, at this time, none in London; McGreevy wrote to Lennox Robinson on 29 December 1936 from 49 Harrington Road, London SW (TCD, MS 8103/259).
Heinemann published McGreevy's Poems (1934) and had commissioned the trans­ lation of Maillart's Oasis interdites: de Pekin au Cachemire.
2 SB had sent McGreevy a reproduction of the Giorgione painting in Brunswick, Selfportrait as David (Herzog Anton illrich Museum, GG 454). In 1900 the Italian
402
are wonderful Munchs & Van Goghs.
I hope you have got the translation behind you & are getting
you. That will probably be in May.
In the meantime drop me a line to this address. I don't
art historian Adolfo Venturi (1856-1941) attributed the painting to Dasso Dossi (ne Giovanni di Niccolo di Luteri, c. 1486 - c. 1542): in 1908, LudwigJusti (1876-1957), Director of the Berlin Nationalgalerie from 1909 to 1933, "recognized the connection of [this] painting with a print by Wenzel Hollar, which bears an inscription saying that the depiction is a self portrait by Giorgione" (Dr. Silke Gatenbri:icker, 9 December 2005; see also Sabine Jacob and Susanne Konig-Lein, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig: Die Italienischen Gemiilde des 16. bis 18. Jahmunderts [Munich: Hirmer, 2004] 60-62; Wenceslaus [Wenzel, Vaclav] Hollar, 1607-1677).
By comparison, SB refers to Giorgione's Portrait of a Young Man (KF 12A; now in the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin).
"Lass es dir gut gefallen" (May it please you).
3 ThetownofHildesheimhadretainedmuchofitsearlycharacter,includingthe Romanesque architecture of St. Michael's Church, St. Godehard's Church, the Cathedral, and the late-Gothic Rathaus.
The German poet, dramatist, philosopher, and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was Librarian of the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbiittel from 1770 to 1781. On 8 October 1776, Lessing married Eva Catharina Konig (nee van Hahn, 1736-1778). Lessing referred to the time ofhis marriage as '"mein gliicklichstes Jahr"' ("my happiest year"); his wife and a child died in January 1778. (Dieter Hildebrandt, Lessing: Biographie einer Emanzipation [Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1979] 403; Kurt Wolfe! , ed. , Lessings Leben und Werk inDaten und Bildern [Frankfurt: lnsel Verlag, 1967] 220).
4 The North Star Hotel, 26-30 Amiens Street, Dublin, was across from what was then called Amiens Street Station and is now called Connolly Station.
SB stayed in the Pension Kempt, near the Berlin Zoological Garden at the inter­ section of the Kurfiirstendamm and Kurfiirstendammstrasse, in a house that had been the setting for Theodor Fontane's novel Immgen, Wimmgen (1888; Delusions, Conjitsions) (Erika Tophoven, Becketts Berlin [Berlin: Nicolai Verlag, 2005] 14-19).
Museumsinsel is located between the River Spree and the Kupfergraben, a channel of the Spree. The five museums of Museumsinsel were built between 1824 and 1930, each structure designed to reflect the nature of its collection: the Altes Museum (1830), the Neues Museum (1859), the Alte Nationalgalerie (1876), the Kaiser-Friedrich­ Museum (1904, renamed the Bode Museum in 1956), and the Pergamon Museum (1930). All of these museums were heavily damaged in World War II.
"Au diable" (miles out).
SB refers to the Tiergarten, west of the Brandenburg Gate, bounded on the North by the River Spree, a park that spreads over 600 acres. "Ciel quintessencie" (sky of the most utterly refined blue).
SB mentions Dresden's most famous work of art, Raphael's Sistine Madonna (Dresden Gemaldegalerie, no. 90).
5 FrankBeckettwasonaskiingholidayinMiirren,Switzerland. MorrisSinclairand Boss Sinclair: 28 November 1936, n. 25.
6 Murphy:see20December1936.
7 SB'scardtoBionhasnotbeenfound.
Die grosse thronende Giittin des Tell Halaf (2850 BC; The Large Enthroned Goddess of
Tell Halat) held a chalice in her right hand to capture rain and is described as having
403
22 December 1936, McGreevy
20 December 1936, McGreevy
an "archaisches Lacheln" (archaic smile); this image was on the cover ofthe catalogue ofthe Tell HalafMuseum in Berlin (Fuhrer durch das Tell Halaf-Museum, Berlin [Berlin: Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung, 1934] 29-30). The sculpture is pictured and described under the title Grosse Grabfigur einerthronenden Frau (Large Grave Monument ofa Woman Enthroned) in Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, Tell Halaf, III, Die Bildwerke, ed. Dietrich Opitz and Anton Moortgat (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co. , 1955) 35-36. The Tell Halaf Museum was badly damaged during the war, and this sculpture was destroyed; from the rubble, frag­ ments of the Tell Halaf collection were rescued and stored in the Pergamon Museum, where they will be displayed when the restoration of the Museumsinsel is complete.
8 Geoffrey Thompson's offices were at 71 Harley Street; SB had received a letter from him on 8 December 1936 (BIF, UoR, GD 2/f. 47).
W. R. Bion.
"Uomo universale" (It. , universal man). "Quien sabe! '' (Sp. , Who knows! )
9 TheclosedroomsintheKronprinzenpalais:28November1936,n. 8.
On 26 November 1936, Roland Adolphi of the Akademische Auslandsstelle Hamburg (Academy for Foreign Visitors) wrote to Dr. Freiherr von Kleinschmit, Director, Hamburger Kunsthalle, to request permission for SB to see the collections in the cellars in Hamburg: this is reproduced in Matthias Miihling, Mit Samuel Beckett in Der Hamburger
Kunsthalle, 41.
Paintings by Munch then in the collection of the Kronprizenpalais were: The Snow
Shoveler (destroyed in 1945); Embrace (also known as Summer Day, from the "Linde­ Frieze"; now in a private collection); Music on the Karl-Johan Street in Oslo (gift of Curt Glaser in 1932, withdrawn in 1941; now in the Kunsthaus Zurich, 2534); two paintings from the twelve panels of the "Reinhardt-Frieze" (1907): Summemight: The Lonely People (Museum Folkwang, G 368, Hagen) and Melancholy (NGB 2/97); and a set design for Ibsen's Ghosts (current location unknown) (Bernd Evers, 2 June 1993; Gerd Woll, 20 April 2006; Manfred Tschirner, 16 August 2006).
The paintings by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) that were still exhibited on the ground floor were: Garden ofDaubigny (Hiroshima Museum of Art, B025), Le Moulin de la Galette (NGB A II 687), The Lovers (confiscated 1937; present owner unknown), and Painter in Cornfield (disappeared in World War II).
10 McGreevy'stranslation:see28November1936,n. 21. McGreevyhadbegunto work on his study ofJack B. Yeats during August 1935.
"Devisen" (foreign currencies).
11 Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929) had been Director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum from 1890 to 1929. SB may have purchased all five volumes of Staatliche Museen Berlin, Die Gemdldegalerie (Berlin: Paul Cassirer Verlag, 1929-1933), for he owned Staatliche Museen Berlin, Die Gemdldegalerie, I, Die Deutschen und altniederldndi­ schen Meister (Berlin: Paul Cassirer Verlag, 1929).
Max J. Friedlander (1867-1958), Bode's successor as Director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum from 1929 to 1933, had written several books on Dutch painting, culminating in Die altniederldndische Malerei, 14 vols. (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1924-1937).
Georg Dehio (1850-1932) edited several monumental art histories, including Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst, 4 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co. , 1919-1934). Dehio had initiated the Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmaler series in 1900, as a work of many hands; by World War I the series had completed volumes on all German regions. The series was further revised by Ernst Gall (1888-1958) between the wars.
404
Dear George
Thanks for your card, letter & enclosure. Congratulations
1
Hogarth Private Lunatic Asylum, that [for than] by Stanley N. , whom I can't say I relished when I met him in Harrington Road. But if all else fails I would prefer to be done by Nott than not at all. The chief thing is to get the book OUT. Better a bougie than a burst bladder. As to the question of an advance, if Mifflin offers one, as they certainly would, I think it is up to the English publisher to do so also. But similarly, ifit is impossible to get the book out without foregoing [for forgoing] an advance, I shall forego [for forgo] an advance. The main thing is to get the book OUT. 2
I was very pleased to hear you were trying Dent. As I think I mentioned to you before, my Boston Hetzerin suggested to me some time ago that you should try Dent, as Mifflin were in parley with Dent with especial reference to Irish authors. The sheep in wolfs' [for wolf 's] clothing turned down the Dream of Fair to Middling Women some years ago, but they of course are unaware of this. 3
I am not clear as to the American attitude. Have you had any direct communication with Mifflin? I think they wrote to you screaming for cuts. But are they definitely on if an English firm can be found to share the shame? Or are they shuffling out? I take
405
ontheDuhamel. Bestwishesforthenewyear.
I would prefer of course to be done by Dent, or even the
27 December 1936, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
27/12/36
Budapesterstrasse 45 bei Kempt
Berlin W. 50
27 December 1936, Reavey
it Dents know that Mifflins have seen the book and are interested.
If the two safety-match heads could be rubbed together we might
get the titther [for tither] of fire that is all we want. I leave it to
your discretion to lever Dent with Nott's conditional acceptance.
And by all means keep Nott waiting to the extent of his patience.
4
if possible to use them as a frontispiece, or better still on the jacket. 5
I shall be here till 14th January at least. IfI don't hear before
6
Sorry to say I have nothing at all to send you, not a line. Is the Rimbaud translation sidestepped or merely deferred? 7
All the best. Yours
sf Sam TLS; 1 leaf. 1 side; TxU.
1 Georges Duhamel gave Reavey the option for cinematographic and theatrical adaptation of his five-volume sequence, Vie et aventures de Salavin (Georges Duhamel to George Reavey, 11 December 1936, TxU). The novels, except for the second volume Deux hommes, had been published in English as Salavin, tr. Gladys Billings (1936).
2 Having reached a stalemate about the publication of Murphy with the British publisher Stanley Nott, Reavey considered trying to interest another English publisher in partnering with the American publisher Houghton Mifflin, namely Dent or the Hogarth Press.
Thomas McGreevy lived for a time at Harrington Road, London.
"Bougie" (an old term for an early form of catheter); see [16 September 1934], n. 8.
3 SB'sBoston"Hetzerin"(rabble-rouser)isMaryManningHowe.
There is no evidence that Houghton Mifflin and Dent published together.
There is no record that Dent were among publishers who considered Dream ofPair to
Middling Women.
406
He has the hopeless feet of a good waiter.
All suggestions as to delenda & addenda grovellingly received. The chimpanzees are more or less than a good joke, I want
thenI shall let you have an address in Dresden as soon asI can. Expect to be in London on the way home late in April or early in May.
31 December 1936, Albrecht
4 ThesequestionsreflectSB'slackofclarityaboutanAmerican-Britishpublication partnership (see 13 December 1936, n. 5).
5 "Apes at chess": 13 November 1936, n. 5.
6 SB arrived in Dresden on 29 January 1937, later than he had expected.
7 Le Bateau ivre: 28 November 1937 [for 1936J n. 20.
GUNTER ALBRECHT HAMBURG
SB's errors of Gennan in this letter have not been corrected.
31/12/36 Berlin W. 50 bei Kempt
Budapesterstrasse 45
Lieber Herr Albrecht!
Es ist einsam gewesen, seit ich fort von Hamburg bin, aber auf
eine so freundliche Weise, dass es mir nicht einmal eingefallen
ist, nach dem zu suchen, was man "Anschluss" nennt. Freilich
denke ich ofter an diejenigen in Hamburg, die einem Fremden
und Unbekannten so viele Freundlichkeit erwiesen haben. Ein
anderes Vergntigen ist es, bloss (! ) mit Dingen zu verkehren,
doch wohl ein Vergntigen, wenn auch endlich ein sehr gefahr­
liches. Weiter ist es auch sehr die Frage, ob man sich jede Abreise
und jene letzte vom Lande tiberhaupt mit erst entstehenden
1
Von den verschiedenen Ausfltigen, die ich von Braunschweig aus machen wollte, habe ich mich mit den nach Konigslutter,
407
Sympathien immer schwieriger machen sollte. In Deutschland gibt es schon einen Uebertluss von dem, was ich werde verlassen mtissen, ja habe verlassen mtissen, ohne es kennenlemer [for kennenlemen] zu konnen. Z. B. . den Giorgione in Braunschweig, obgleich ich ihn jeden Tag fur eine Woche besucht habe. 2
31 December 1936, Albrecht
Riddagshausen, Wolfenbiittel und Hildesheim begniigen miissen.
Hildesheim bleibt Hildesheim. In den 8 oder 9 sehr kurzen, kal­
ten, feuchten und triiben Stunden, die mir ein Hundeswetter
gegonnt hat, ist es mir vielleicht gelungen, wenn ich mich nicht
schmeichle, das Zwanzigstel, von dem anzusehen, was ich sehen
wollte, d. h. , das Fiinfzigstel von dem, was es zu sehen gibt. 3 In der
Heiterkeit von Wolfenbi. ittel hatte ich nicht gebraucht, das erste
Fragment in der August-Bibliothek zu lesen, um mir Lessing gegen­
warting zu machen. Es liegt namlich in dieser kleinen Stadt jene
franzosische Kuhle, die ich so oft bei Lessing selbst zu fuhlen
geglaubt habe. lch habe nie verstehen konnen, wie ein so carte­
sischer Geist den Geist von Descartes so ganz und gar habe mis­
4
lichem Masse gesehen. lch freue mich, dass es keine hier gibt.
Es herrschte in Hannover eine kulturelle Begeisterung von
solcher Allegemeinheit, das man sie bis in dem Cafe Kropcke
wahrnehmen konnte. Man hatte namlich gerade die Echtheit
des in der Neustadten Kirche liegenden Skeletts von Leibniz
durch eine eingehende Untersuchung der rechten grossen Zehl
5
stellung des Inneren wegen. Wir wissen, was das heisst. Wahrend
der Mittagspause habe ich mich durch die Baustelle, die die ganze
siidliche Seite der Kirche verbirgt, bis zu einem Eingang gedrangt,
um da einem unerbittlichen Schupi zu begegnen. Der Hauptgiebel
des Gewandhauses ist gleichfalls verschwunden, hinter dem
6
burg, habe mich aber plotzlich am Notwendigen - Geld, Laune
408
verstehen konnen.
Fachwerkhauser und Sandsteingiebel habe ich in unheim­
[for Zehe] festgestellt.
Der Braunschweiger Dom war geschlossen, einer Wiederher­
schonsten Geri. ist, das ich gesehen habe.
lch wollte natiirlich nach Goslar, Halberstadt und Quedlin­
und Energie - so arm gefunden, dass ich nicht konnte. Die bosen Finger habe ich selbst in Braunschweig aufgeschnitten, mit
7
die ausser der Inkonsequenz ihrer Erscheinung kein Ratsel auf­
zugeben hat. Eine mannliche, ja eine bartige Sphinx, wie man
sie im Tell HalafMuseum bewundem kann. Dem lowen gehort
Unter den Linden, demMenschenMuseum lnsel, die Hugel aber
bildet der Himmel, <lessen Todeskampfe, die freilich vielmehr
wie Umarmungen aussehen, beinahe so schon sind, wie jene
allerdings mehr schleichende, die man auch nach den finsters­
8
Der Obergeschoss der Kronprinzen Palais ist "heute geschlos­
sen. " Ein Diener hat es sogar gewagt, mir sein Bedauem dariiber
mitzuteilen. Es gibt aber eine ausgezeichnete Sammlung van
Zeichnungen, wo man die Giftmischer im Intimsten ihres
Schaffens geniessen darf. Ich habe weiter die sehr angenehme
Ueberraschung erlebt, 6 Bilder van Liebermann in der
9
nicht da. Ich nehme es an, wenn sie verloren gegangen sind, wie es hier der Fall zu sein scheint, es sei nichts daraus zu machen, da das Paket nicht eingeschrieben war. Es ist nattirlich auch moglich, <lass es sich bloss um eine zwar unverstandliche
409
31 December 1936, Albrecht
gutem Erfolg.
Berlin kommt mir etwas wie eine geschwatzige Sphinx var,
tenTagenvanO'ConnellBridgeinDublinanschauenkann. So lassen sich die Eindriicke nicht bestimmen, es sei denn, dass man ihnen das Wesentlichste abzieht. Ich verstehe z. B. schon sehr gut, wie leicht es ware, sich van Berlin begeistem zu lassen; und weiss doch schon vorher, mit welchem Befriedigungsgefiihl, als ob es sich um eine Flucht handelte, ich die Reise nach Dresden in ungefahr 14 Tagen antreten werde.
Nationalgalerie zu finden.
Die 22 Bucher, die Sie als Paket geschickt haben, sind noch
31 December 1936, Albrecht
Verspatung handelt. Dagegen ist das Buch von Keyserling richtig erhalten worden, wie alles, was ich als Briefpaket habe schicken
10
habe den Gri. inen Heinrich begonnen und werde aus verschie­
den Grunden an Manzoni erinnert, eine Analogie, die sich ohne
Zweifel wtirde dokumentieren lassen. Die Geschichte des
Meretleins, die die mindeste Uebert6nung ins Lacherliche
11
Gri. issen Sie bitte von mir Ihre Familie, Herrn Saucke, den
Maler und seinen Freund, deren Namen ich nie richtig vernom­
12
lassen.
lch Iese sehr wenig, vor allen Dingen keine Zeitung. lch
hatte ziehen miissen, habe ich erschiitternd gefunden.
men habe, und lassen Sie es Ihnen gut gehen. Mit besten Wiinschen fur das neue Jahr,
1hr
s/ Samuel Beckett
TIS: 1 leaf, 2 sides: BIF, UoR, MS 5037.
31/12/36
Dear Mr. Albrecht,
It has been lonely since I have been gone from Hamburg,
but in such a pleasant manner that it hasn't even occurred to me to look for any so-called connections. Of course, I frequently think about those in Hamburg who extended so much hospital­ ity to a foreigner and stranger. It is a different pleasure to be dealing solely with things, however a pleasure nevertheless, even if in the end a very dangerous one. Furthermore, it is also very much a question whether one should make every departure more and more difficult for oneself - with friendships that are
410
Berlin W. 50
c/o Kempt Budapesterstrasse 45
only just beginning to form - and especially that last departure,
1
Of the various excursions which I wanted to go on from
Braunschweig, I had to make do with those to Konigslutter,
Riddagshausen, Wolfenbilttel and Hildesheim. Hildesheim
remains Hildesheim. In the 8 or 9 very short, cold, damp, and
dreary hours which foul weather allowed me, I succeeded in
seeing perhaps a twentieth, if I don't flatter myself, of what I
3
serenity ofWolfenbilttel I could have done without reading the
first fragment in the August Library to bring Lessing to life for
me. There is in this small town that kind of French reserve
which I so often thought I sensed in Lessing himself. I have
never been able to understand how such a Cartesian mind
4
uncanny numbers. I am glad there are none round here.
In Hanover there was such a pervasive sense of cultural euphoria that one could detect it all the way to Cafe Kropcke. The authenticity of the skeleton of Leibniz buried in the Neustadten church had been confirmed through lengthy exami­
nation of his right big toe. 5
The Braunschweig cathedral was closed because of renova­
tions of the interior. We know what that means. During the lunch break I forced my way past the building site, which is covering up the entire southern side of the church, all the way to the entrance, only to run into an unforgiving policeman. The
411
when leaving the country altogether. In Germany there is already an abundance of what I will have to leave behind, yes, had to leave, without being able to get to know it. For example, Giorgione in Braunschweig, even though I visited him every day for a week. 2
31 December 1936, Albrecht
wantedtosee,thatisafiftiethofwhatthereistosee. Inthe
could so thoroughly misunderstand the mind of Descartes. Half-timbered houses and sandstone gables I have seen in
31 December 1936, Albrecht
main gable of the 'Gewandhaus' has disappeared likewise,
6
results. 7
Berlin appears to ·me a bit like a gossipy sphinx that has no
other riddle to offer than the insignificance of her own appear­
ance.