American art critic James Johnson Sweeney (1900-1986) worked with Eugene Jolas on numbers 24-27 of transition (1936-1938) in the United States; Sweeney was Curator ofthe Museum ofModem Art in New York from 1935 to 1946, and later
Director
ofthe Guggenheim Museum in New York from 1952 to 1960.
Samuel Beckett
1.
41/42/43) (Gerhard Leistner and Thorsten Rodiek, Otto Freundlich: Ein Webereiter der abstrakten Kunst [Regensburg: Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, 1994] 227; Christophe Duvivier, 18 August 2006).
The sculpture in the garden was Ascension (1929; Pompidou AM 1982-124).
7 Greystones:3April1938,n. 12.
8 St. MaloonthenortherncoastofBrittany. AlfredPeronandhisfamilywerein
St. Brevin, at the outlet of the Loire River.
9 Thepoemsenclosed,"Ascension,""LaMouche,"and"Priere,"wereamongthose published (with variations) as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modernes, 288-293, and later in Samuel Beckett, Poemes, suivi de mirlitonnades (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1978) 10-12.
SB had translated Paul Eluard's poems for This Quarter; many were reprinted in Reavey's selection ofEluard's poetry, Thoms of Thunder. Eluard was widely published in literary journals such as Mesures, La Nouvelle Revue Franfaise, Soutes, Minotaure, tran sition, Proverbe, and L'Humanite (Violaine Vanoyeke, Paul Eluard: le poete de la liberte [Paris: Editions Julliard, 1995] 400-401).
10 Geoffrey Thompson, whom SB had seen in London in early May; Sheila Page, SB's cousin who lived in Surrey.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Georges
Thanks for letter & 50 fr. Geer had just paid me as it happens.
1
I shall send you a cheque in a few days. 2
Had a pleasant trip to Chartres with Geer, Lisl & Peggy.
All well here, except no work. Only a few more French poems.
When I have enough I thought of sending them to Eluard. Have not submitted Murphy elsewhere since rejection by Gallimard.
633
They are none the less welcome.
Please put me down for 3 ordinary copies of 3rd Person.
3
20 June 1938, Reavey
A MissJulie Reman ofEditorial Department ofLongman Green
& Co. N. Y. C. was over here. I did not see her but it appears that
Miss Reeder ofthe American Library spoke to her a lot about More
Pricks & Murphy, as a result ofwhich she left a message asking me
to send her the books, which I have done. Not that I remember
4
Alan Duncan had a very bad haemorrhage about a fortnight
6
I am going to Dublin to see my mother about the middle of next month & will probably stay a month. Then I may cross to St. Malo with a bike and spend a week or so in Brittany with Peron. Will you be here before going south in September? I hope so.
If this is not too far from Montparnasse and you don't mind the glorious absence of telephone, I hope you will stay
7
Ever Sam
My poem in transition was all wrong also. Also the article on Dennis [for Denis]. 8
ALS; 1 leaf (folded), 3 sides; enclosure, order form for Third Person; TxU. 1 Reavey'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound.
2 Brian Coffey, Third Person, Europa Poets 7 (London: Europa Press, 1938). SB's enclosed order form for Coffey's collection of poems is dated 21 June 1938.
3 Geer and Lisi van Velde, Peggy Guggenheim, and SB took a midnight drive to Chartres to see the Cathedral by moonlight (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 264, 674).
4 Julie Reman (n. d. ) was with New York publisher Longman, Green and Company. Murphy had not been submitted to the firm previously.
634
whether Murphy has already been rejected by her firm or not.
No further news ofSade. 5
ago-butnotfromlungsitappears. HewasinAmericanhospi tal for X Ray, ofwhich he had not result when I last saw him. In the meantime he is up & about & soaking as usual.
with me.
Love to Gwynedd,
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Dorothy M. Reeder (n. d. ), who had worked with the American Library in Paris since 1929, was its Director from 1937 through May 1941; Brian Coffey mentions to George Reavey that she was being helpful in suggesting outlets for his book:
Miss Reeder says that I should send order forms to all the smaller american[sic] libraries and has promised to let me have the list ofthem[. . . ] Miss Reeder will herself place a lot ofcopies once she sees the book. She has read the MS and loves it. But she wants to place the book in the Library and she would place any other Europa books there you cared to send her. Or rather let me, say, give them to her from you (ifyou do not know her) and I'll ask her to put them on her shelves. (23 June 1938, TxU)
5 After SB's provisional acceptance ofJack Kahane's proposal to translate Sade's Les 120Joumees de Sodome, there had been no further word from Kahane (see 8 March 1938, n. 3).
6 AlanDuncansufferedfromtheeffectsofgassinginWorldWarI.
7 SBreferstohisnewapartmentat6RuedesFavorites.
8 SB refers to "Ooftish," which was originally entitled "Whiting" (see 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair and 14 August 1937 to Thomas McGreevy); it was published in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
No manuscript ofSB's review "Denis Devlin" has been found to compare with that published in transition.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Thursday [4 August 1938]
Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Many thanks for your letter. It seems a long time since I
wrote to you.
I got your message all right in Paris, but only about 15 mins.
before your train was due to leave. I'm glad you had a lively time of sorts down south & hope you are feeling the benefit now of
1
no more so than usual. She has let Cooldrinagh from September to December and will spend those months in the little house she has at Greystones. Then if she finds that she does not miss Cooldrinagh too much she will probably sell it.
635
the change.
I found everything as usual here. Mother very nervous, but
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Frank Jean & infant all well. I spend [for spent] the last week-end with them in South Donegal, a place called Rosbeg on the Atlantic, and enjoyed the walking & bathing. 2 Jean is very heavy after the birth and not feeding the baby herself doesn't help to get back to normal.
Brian is over & I was speaking to him to-day on the phone.
He announces he is spending 2 months in Ireland - "to work".
The thin edge of the axe. I lunch with him to-morrow at the
3
has a magnificent new picture - "Helen" - launching the ships,
with a kneeling figure superbly drawn that made me associate at
once with Bassano, not that the figure resembles any of his
particularly, but because of same extraordinary tenderness &
distinction of handling. The sky and sea & ships are really ter
rific, Delacroix plus substance, depth and a courage more than
of conviction, of certainty, absolutely natural & unrhetorical.
4
I shall be leaving for home in a fortnight or 3 weeks. My idea originally was to take the bicycle with me & join Peron in Brittany, taking boat from Southampton to St. Malo, but I don't expect to have either the money or the energy. I haven't even a
636
Bail[e]y.
I called on the Yeatses this afternoon & saw them both. He
Iwasreallyknockedallofaheap. Heisanxiousforanexhibi tion in England and was interested when I mentioned the Guggenheim Gallery. He spoke very warmly of your essay, as something that stood on its own feet as a piece of aesthetics and required no profuse illustration from him. I was sorry to hear that Routledge had not taken it up. 5 Going out together to buy the evening paper & taking leave of me on the step he said "It must be 6 or 7 years since I first walked out of the house with you to buy the evening paper and 6 or 7 years should mean a lot to me, but they don't seem to & it doesn't matter. "
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
return ticket to London. In any case I shall pause there a couple
6
in the bowdlerized Larousse edition, which bored me, and
Tristram Shandy, which irritated me in spite of its qualities.
Dr Johnson is back in my consciousness & I hope to settle down
to it when I get back to Paris. It appears Seumas O'Sullivan is
7
Cissie & family are back. She rather worse than when she
left, Sonny apparently well & working resentfully for Little
8 Go. [•••]
I shall be glad to get back to . . unclenchedness. Sinclair is not here & there have been no repercussions ofthe case so far,
9
rather like the learned Swan of Streatham I imagine, with a novel coming from Houghton Mifflin in the autumn entitled Mt. Venus. 10 All the old people & the old places, they make me feel like an amphibian detained forcibly on dry land, very very dry land.
Mother brought me to-day from the Horse Show the Abbey Theatre's festival pamphlet with Introduction by Lennox R. and Lafayettes of all the heroes from W. B. to A. E. Malone. Or do these remain the correct limiting terms? I cannot easily believe there is nothing lower than A. E. Malone. Series of excursions and lectures are announced, the valley ofthe Boyne & Higgins on Yeats etc. 11
I had lunch with Geoffrey & Ursula on the way through.
He is working from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. , with short intervals to
snatch food, and complains of poverty. He & Bion take piano
ofdays on the way through.
I seem to have read nothing for months but Vigny's Journal
collaborating with Gogarty on a biography ofGoldsmith.
but it is the old toxins & the old day soil.
Mary Manning is here on holiday, grown tedious & precious,
lessons.
12
637
Thursday [4 August 1938}, McGreevy
I am very sorry to hear about Raven's sister. Give him my
13
ALS; 2 leaves, 6 sides; TCD MS 10402/166. Dating: dated in AH as "5-8-38," but Thursday was 4 August 1938. In SB to George Reavey, 5 August 1938, SB reports that he is "lunching with Brian to-day," that he saw Jack [Yeats] the day before, and that he hopes to attend the first night ofYeats's Purgatory at the Abbey on the next Wednesday (TxU). Purgatory opened Wednesday. 10 August 1938; the Abbey Festival program lists an excursion to the Boyne Valley on 7 August 1938; the Horse Show was held from 2 to 6 August 1938.
1 SBhadplannedtoleaveParison19July,stoppinginLondononhiswaytoDublin; McGreevy may have passed through Paris before SB left (SB to McGreevy, 13 July 1938, TCD, MS 10402/164). On 20 July 1938, McGreevy sent a postcard to George Reavey from Cavaliere, Var (TxU).
2 SBaccompaniedFrankandJeanBeckett,whosedaughterCarolinewasbornon 26 June 1938, on a weekend in Rosbeg, Co. Donegal, a resort on Dawros Bay.
3 Brian Coffey spent August and September in Ireland prior to his wedding in London in October; in a letter to George Reavey on 2 August 1938, Coffey presented plans to circulate his book among patrons and booksellers (TxU). The Bailey: 21 February 1938, n. 8.
4 JackYeatsandhiswifeCottie. InYeats'spaintingHelen(Pyle499;TelAvivMuseum 2372). Helen stands on a quay as if launching a ship, while "a figure kneeling beside her writes on a wax tablet placed on the ground" (Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, I, 455). SB compares Helen to paintings by Jacopo Bassano and by Eugene Delacroix (ne Ferdinand-Eugene-Victor Delacroix, 1798-1863).
5 PeggyGuggenheim'smemoirgivestheimpressionthatSBhadalreadysuggested an exhibition ofYeats's painting at Guggenheim Jeune, but thatYeats did not think his work was appropriate for her gallery (Guggenheim, Out ofthis Century: Confessions ofan Art Addict, 163-164).
McGreevy's Jack B. Yeats had not been accepted by Routledge.
6 Withregardtotheseplans:15June1938,n. 8.
7 Alfred de Vigny, Journal d'un poete, ed. Leon-Adolphe Gauthier-Ferrieres (Paris: Bibliotheque Larousse, 1913; rpt. 1919, 1920); the Journal was composed of extracts from the personal papers of Comte Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) originally published by Louis Ratisbonne (1867).
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767).
SB's long-considered play on Samuel Johnson, extant only as the fragment "Human Wishes. "
638
love, & to Hester & to Dilly. God's blessing
Ever Sam
5 August 1938, Reavey Although there are notes in the SeumasO'Sullivan papers on the subject ofOliver
Goldsmith, no such biography was published (TCD, MS 4056, 4260-4299, 4630-4649).
8 Cissie Sinclair had returned from South Africa in June. Morris Sinclair was resuming his studies at Trinity College Dublin. "Little Go" was the unofficial name of the Final Freshman examination at TCD.
9 SB refers to Harry Sinclair, in whose libel suit against Gogarty SB testified in November 1937.
10 Poet, biographer, and critic Anna Seward was a member of Lichfield's intellec tual circle and known as the "Swan of Lichfield" (Norma Clarke, "Anna Seward: Swan, Duckling or Goose? " New Rambler E. 7 [2003/2004] 54). SB transfers the appellation to Hester Thrale, whose home was in Streatham, and thence to Mary Manning Howe, whose novel Mount Venus was published in autumn 1938.
11 The annual Dublin Horse Show is a major social event of early August. The Abbey Theatre Festival (6 to 20 August 1938) included a lecture on 8 August by drama critic and journalist Andrew E. Malone (ne Laurence Patrick Byrne. 1888-1939) on the early history of the Abbey Theatre, a lecture on 11 August by F. R. Higgins on W. B. Yeats, as well as productions of several plays by Yeats: Cathleen ni Houlihan, Purgatory, and On Baile's Strand. The photographic studio Lafayette, 32 Westmoreland Street, Dublin, was credited with several portraits in the program, for which Lennox Robinson wrote the introduction ("Abbey Theatre Festival Souvenir" [19381). The excursion scheduled for 7 August 1937 was to Tara and the Boyne Valley.
12 Geoffrey and Ursula Thompson with whom SB had lunch in London on his way from Paris to Dublin. W. R. Bion, with whom SB had been in psychotherapy, was a colleague of Geoffrey Thompson; both took piano lessons for relaxation.
13 Thomas Holmes Ravenhill, whose sister's circumstance is unknown. Hester Dowden, Geraldine Cummins.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
5! ! ! Aug 1938
6 Clare Street Dublin
dear George
Many thanks for information.
No, no news from Longman Green & Co. Nor ofSweeney.
I am lunching with Brian to-day. He says he is staying two
months here, the better to work . . .
1
639
5 August 1938, Reavey
I expect to be here about another fortnight. Then I don't know whether I shall go to Brittany to join up with Peron or straight back to Paris. 2
I hope to be here for the first night of Yeats's new play Purgatory next Wednesday week at the Abbey. I saw Jack yester day. He has some magnificent new pictures. 3
You might send me a couple of copies of Murphy. No
review appeared in Dublin Magazine. Austin Clarke had it for
review, having taken it from Sheehy who had it before that, but
4
1 JulieRemanatLongmanGreenandCompanyinNewYorkhadaskedtoreadMore Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy for possible publication in the United States.
American art critic James Johnson Sweeney (1900-1986) worked with Eugene Jolas on numbers 24-27 of transition (1936-1938) in the United States; Sweeney was Curator ofthe Museum ofModem Art in New York from 1935 to 1946, and later Director ofthe Guggenheim Museum in New York from 1952 to 1960. He was in Dublin in early August 1938 (Sweeney to George Reavey, 22 August 1937, TxU).
2 BrianCoffey. AlfredPeron.
3 The opening night of W. B. Yeats's play Purgatory as part of the Abbey Theatre Festival took place on 10 August 1938. The new paintings by Jack B. Yeats have not been identified.
4 AnunsignedreviewofMurphyappearedlaterinDublinMagazine14. 2(April-June 1939) 98: "Murphy comes in the guise of a novel. But it is more a study in words and phrases,thecharactersbeingsecondaryaffairs . . . Thewholethingisabizarrefantasy, with a nasty twist about it that its self-evident cleverness and scholarship cannot redeem . . . And the one really human character in the book is Celia, the lady of loose morals. "
Neither Edward Sheehy, an editor ofireland To-Day, nor Austin Clarke wrote a signed review Murphy. Austin Clarke had recently published Night and Morning: Poems (Dublin: Orwell Press, 1938).
5 "Abient6t"(tillsoon).
640
withheld his hand. He has published another book ofverse. Hope Gwynedd had a pleasant time in the country. Give her
my love & a bientot. 5 Yours ever
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TxU.
Friday {19 August 1938}, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
Friday 38 [19 August 1938]
6 Clare St. [Dublin]
dear George
I was hoping to receive two copies of Murphy from you.
Or did you not get my letter? Anyway don't bother about them
1
them?
I am not yet quite sure whether I shall return directly
to Paris or go first to Brittany to visit Peron. Ussher also is in St Malo. In any case I shall not be more than a night in London.
I had a letter from Geer & Lisi. They seem to be enjoy
2
I enclose the usual from Julie Reman. 3 Love to Gwynedd
Ever Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; letterhead <THE DAWROS BAY HOTELS, ROSBEG, GLENTIES, co. DONEGAL>; enclosure not extant; TxU. Dating: SB WTote "38" on the date line of the letterhead; ins August 1938 SB had indicated that he planned to be in Dublin for about another fortnight; 19 August was a Friday in 1938.
1 SB'sletterof5August1938.
2 Geer and Lisi van Velde had moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Cote d'Azur.
3 Julie Reman WTote on behalf of LongmanGreen and Company in New York, rejecting More Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy.
641
now as I expect to be in London early next week.
If any letters come for me in the meantime will you keep
ing themselves in Cagnes. They have conferred my name on a cat.
27 September 1938, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
27th Sept 1938
6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
Dear George
Thanks for letter & poem, which I like very much indeed.
I heard Adolf the Peacemaker on the wireless last night. And
thought I heard the air escaping - a slow puncture. But no matter how things go I shall stay on here, on the 7! h floor with my
handful of sand. 2 All I have to lose is legs, arms, balls[,] etc. , and I owe them no particular debt of gratitude as far as I know. The streets are full of khaki-cum-civils departing shabbily in requisi tioned trade vans - and at night horrible curfew lighting, like that through which Proust stumbled to the Temple of Delights. I have promised Peron, in event of mobilisation, to evacuate in his car his children, his mother-in-law, his aunt-in-law. 3
I have been running into Gore, flaxenly unshaven & wanly constructive, wondering is he on his way through from Athens
4
Otto Freundlich's ostentatious miseries. The last time I was
there I left behind me a pair of soiled drawers and Sartre's
Nausee. These at least I hope to recover. Adler has no news of
Geer, but talks of going down there & getting together. His latest
painting is distressing. I have no news of Geer either, except that
I hear the sister-in-law (not the Prague one, back in Prague) is
5
6
642
1
to . . Cork. Says art answers questions.
Adler calls for me this afternoon, to take me by the hand to
with them.
I had a good time in Normandy & Brittany before returning
to Paris.
No work. I read an average of an hour a day, after an hour
the illusion of comprehension ceases, Kant, Descartes, Johnson,
Renard and a kindergarten manual of science: "L'air est part
7
not accept. I suppose now more than ever it will come off on the g! ! ! _ Here there is great afflux of tenderness, even in the com
8
ordinary way, all the higher centres on the pillow, & woke up greatly refreshed to find my feet there. The perfect suicide: to somnambulate through the window. But would one wake up on the way down?
Love to Gwynedd yrs ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; TxU.
1 Reavey's letter has not been found. The poem enclosed with it has not been identified.
2 Hitler had "ordered an 'historic manifestation' to the nation on the subject of Czechoslovakia" in the Berlin Sportspalast on 26 September 1938, and "the whole German people had been ordered to listen to a broadcast of his address" ("All Reich Rallied: 'Historic Manifestation' Tonight will Reply to a Czech Broadcast," The New York Times 26 September 1938: 1; also on this page is a summary of Hitler's memorandum of 23 September 1938 to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain [1869-1940] and a map of the Sudetenland; for full text: The New York Times, 27 September 1938: 17).
SB refers to his apartment at 6 Rue des Favorites.
3 In Le Temps retrouve Marcel during World War I walks through the darkened streets of Paris and unwittingly enters a male brothel seeking a drink and a place to rest; he leaves during a bombardment which plunges the streets into total blackness (Le Temps retrouve in A la recherche du temps perdu, N, 388-412); Time Regained in In Search of Lost Time, VI, 173-207).
Alfred Peron's family included his wife, Mania, their twin sons Michel and Alexis (b. 1932), Mania's mother Maria Lezine (nee Spiridonof, n. d. ), and her mother's sister Elizabeth Spiridonof (n. d. ).
27 September 1938, Reavey
out", "Le plomb est un metal lourd et tendre".
Brian sent me an invitation to his wedding, which I could
mune ofVaugirard.
I went to bed one night lately in even more than usual the
4 Gorehasnotbeenidentified.
643
27 September 1938, Reavey
5 Polish-bornartistJanke! Adler(1895-1949)hadbeenworkinginGermany,where he had been involved in the Rheinische Sezession and the Union of Progressive International Artists (1922); in 1933 his work was declared "entartet," and in 1934 he moved to Paris. There he was involved in 1937 with the studio of Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988),Atelier 17 Uankel Adler,JankelAdler, intro. Stanley William Hayter [London: Nicholson and Watson,1948] viii).
Otto Freundlich,who had been a friend ofAdler's since the 1920s in Berlin: 15 June 1938,n. 6.
Geer and Lisi van Velde were living in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Lisl's sister from Berlin was Anna MarieJoki (known as Moidi, 1911-2001); she and their sister from Prague (not identified) had visited the van Veldes in the summer of 1938.
6 AccordingtoaletterfromPeggyGuggenheimtoAmericanwriterEmilyColeman (nee Holmes,1899-1974),Guggenheim had lent SB her car to drive to Brittany (DeU: Coleman,[23 September 1939]; Knowlson,Damned to Fame, 265,674).
7 The specific books SB was reading by Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes,Samuel Johnson,Jules Renard, as well as the basic science text, have not been identified. "L'air est partout" (air is everywhere); "Le plomb est un metal lourd et tendre" (lead is a soft
heavy metal).
8 The wedding of Brian Coffey and Bridget Baynes took place on 8 October 1938, St. Patrick's Church, Soho Square,London.
Vaugirard was the nearest metro station to SB's apartment.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
[after 24 October 1938] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
dear George
Many thanks for letter & order form. Put me down for
3 copies at 3/6, for which I enclose cheque for 11/9. It is very good of you to reserve me a special copy. Wish I was in a position
1
Dublin for a couple of weeks at Xmas. I would not stop in London
on the way through, but might on the way back, if Father Xmas
2
to do as much for you.
Nothing new here. It is just possible I may have to go to
was kind. I hope not to have to go at all.
644
[after 24 October 1938}, Reavey
Adler has left for Cagnes in a Simca. He lent me 3 pictures to keep during his absence. I fear he thinks I spend my time enter taining rich English & Yanks. They have something, the begin nings of a delectatio morosa. 3
I am halfway through a modified version in French of Love & Lethe. I don't know ifit is better than the English version or merely as bad. I have 10 Poems in French also, mostly short. When I have a few more I shall send them to Eluard. Or get Duchamp to do so. 4
I see Brian & Bridget occasionally. They are smelling after a
5
oranges were orange and the gnats gnats, & that he was working with both.
Poor Barlach is dead. Dans la misere. 6
Freundlich gave me a large aesthetic essay to read, all about
7
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU. Dating: when SB wrote to Reavey on 27 September 1938, Adler was planning to go to Cagnes-sur-Mer to visit Geer van Velde; Ernst Barlach died on 24 October 1938.
1 SB ordered copies of Reavey's Quixotic Perquisitions, formally published in January 1939; he received his copies by 27 January 1939 (SB to George Reavey, 27 January 1939, TxU).
2 SB went to Dublin for Christmas and New Year; he wrote from Greystones to Brian and Bridget Coffey on 30 December 1938 that he expected to return to Paris at the end of the following week (DeU, MS 382, Brian Coffey Papers Supplement).
3 Janke! AdlerhadplannedtovisitGeerandLisivanVeldeinCagnes-sur-Mer. The three pictures lent to SB have not been identified. "Delectatio morosa" (morose delight). Adler's return to Paris is noted in SB to Reavey, 27 January 1939 (TxU).
4 "LoveandLethe"inMorePricksThanKicks,85-100;SB'sFrenchtranslationofthis story was unpublished.
645
flat at the Porte de Versailles.
I had a highly coloured card from Geer & Lisl, saying the
the absolute & the pananthropod.
Love to Gwynedd. I hope she is well again.
Ever Sam
[after 24 October 1938}, Reavey
SB refers to ten of the twelve poems published as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modemes, 288-293. SB often played chess with French artist Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), also a friend ofEluard.
5 BrianandBridgetCoffey.
6 German sculptor Ernst Barlach died on 24 October 1938. "Dans la misere" (in poverty).
7 SBreadadraftofFreundlich'sessay"DerbildhafteRaum"(TheImaginableSpace) which formulates a social and aesthetic theory that announces abstraction as a uni versal language (Dr. Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kiinste Karlsruhe, 16 February 1995). Observing that religions and myth ologies no longer filled the creative spaces between man and the universe, Freundlich proposed that art could respond to the intellectual crisis of modernity and could bring together two dynamics - man's instinct to form and cosmic formlessness - to make visible "the process of becoming rather than being. " The Fonds Otto Freundlich/ Archives IMEC has about half (pages 41-89) of Freundlich's draft of this essay dated 1 March 1938; there is also a carbon copy of what may be the full text, possibly prepared by another hand. A summary of those pages and other works written by Freundlich is published in Otto Freundlich, Otto Freundlich - Schrifien: Ein Wegbereiter der gegenstandslosen Kunst, ed. IBi Bohnen (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1982) 211-220.
SB shared his own essay "Les Deux Besoins" with Freundlich (NhD, Lawrence Harvey Papers, MS 661[2]: 27). SB wrote to John Fletcher on 3 June 1966 that it "was not on the van Veldes. It must have been written 1938 or early 1939 at latest. I remember showing it to the painter & sculptor Otto Freundlich since disappeared in the 'tourmente"' (TxU; TMS of "Les Deux Besoins," NhD, Beckett collection; Beckett, Disjecta, 55-57; see Freundlich's Profile in the Appendix; Alain Bonfand, Christophe Duvivier, Edda Maillet, Jerome Serri, and Guy Tosatto, Otto Freundlich [Rochechouart: Musee Departemental de Rochechouart, 1988] 82).
OTTO FREUNDLICH PAR! S
SB's errors of Gennan in this letter have not been corrected.
[autumn 1938]
[Paris]
Lieber Herr Freundlich
Ich bedaure sehr, heute morgen war ich nicht frei.
Samstag nachmittag zwischen 2 u. 4. werden Sie mich bei mir
finden, wenn Sie Lust haben,
646
28 December 1938, Ussher
dabei zu kommen - 1hr
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; Fonds Otto Freundlich/ Archives IMEC. Dating: the year ascribed to this letter is consistent with evidence of a growing acquaintance between SB and Freundlich in 1938. In view of the deepening relationship, it seems more likely that this note was written in the autumn of 1938, rather than earlier in that year.
[autumn 1938] [Paris]
Dear Mr Freundlich
I am very sorry, I was not available this morning.
You will find me at home on Saturday afternoon between
2 and 4, if you feel like coming by. Yours
Sam Beckett
ARLAND USSHER
[? CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD]
28/12/38
Greystones
Dear Arland
Thanks for papers. Glad to sea [sic] you are bursting into
print again. The "suspender" essay I always liked very much, and
1
ful abortion. It is only to keep my mother company during
the season of that other. And I hope soon to return to the
people where the little operation is cheap, safe, legal & popular.
more than ever in such sad company.
Do not imagine I am returned to the land of my unsuccess
"Curetage".
2
647
28 December 1938, Ussher
My mother has been wintering on this cote de misere since
September. What does not face north faces east. She is the worse
for it. But from the window she can see the cemetery where my
3
steadfastly in this course.
It is a long time since we had nothing to say to one another,
and if your progress has been anything like mine I should think we could now be united in a silence even more substantial - or as some would say, thick - than heretofore.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that you will always be welcome in 6 rue des Favorites (formerly Impasse des Favorites, not far from the still existing Impasse de L'Enfant Jesus) should your Schicksal at any time allow you so much license. 5
I have begun a Primer of higher French syntax. It takes the form of Xenian. Here is one
Ci-git qui y echappa tant
Qu'il n'en echappe que maintenant.
Porte-toi bien7 Sam
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; TxU.
1 SB refers to Ussher's essay "The Age of Shadows," in Nineteenth Century and After: 12 May 1938, n. 1.
2 "Curetage" (curettage).
3 MayBeckettmovedtoGreystonesinSeptember. HerviewincludedtheRedford cemetery, where William Beckett was buried. "Cote de misere" (Misery Coast).
4 CissieSinclairandherfamily.
5 SB'sapartmentonRuedesFavoriteswasofftheRuedeVaugirard,alongwhich was the Impasse de l'EnfantJesus. "Schicksal" (fate).
6 SB's "Primer of higher French syntax" is for Ussher's amusement. Xenien (1796) was a collection of satirical epigrams, written by Goethe and Schiller. Modeled on the epigrams of Martial, "each epigram is a classical distich, composed of hexameter and
648
father is "at rest".
I have seen nobody except the Sinclairs and shall continue
4
6
28 December 1938, Ussher
pentameter" (Henry Garland and Mary Garland, The Oxford Companion to Gennan Literature ! Oxford: Oxford University Press, 198611006).
SB's example becomes a part of his story "Premier Amour" (AMS, TxU, begun 28 October1946, completed12 November1946): "Ci-git qui y echappa tant/ Qu'il n'en echappe que maintenant" ("Hereunder lies the above who up below/ So hourly died that hesurvivedtillnow")(PremierAmour! Paris:LesEditionsdeMinuit,1970110;tr. bySamuel Beckett, "First Love" in First Love and Other Shorts ! New York: Grove Press, 1974112).
7 "Porte-toibien"(Lookafteryourself).
649
1939 January 27 January
28 February Early March
1 April
By 18 April
By 6June
14June
15June By 7July August 24August
1 September
CHRONOLOGY 1939
SBreturnstoParisviaLondon.
7 Greystones:3April1938,n. 12.
8 St. MaloonthenortherncoastofBrittany. AlfredPeronandhisfamilywerein
St. Brevin, at the outlet of the Loire River.
9 Thepoemsenclosed,"Ascension,""LaMouche,"and"Priere,"wereamongthose published (with variations) as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modernes, 288-293, and later in Samuel Beckett, Poemes, suivi de mirlitonnades (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1978) 10-12.
SB had translated Paul Eluard's poems for This Quarter; many were reprinted in Reavey's selection ofEluard's poetry, Thoms of Thunder. Eluard was widely published in literary journals such as Mesures, La Nouvelle Revue Franfaise, Soutes, Minotaure, tran sition, Proverbe, and L'Humanite (Violaine Vanoyeke, Paul Eluard: le poete de la liberte [Paris: Editions Julliard, 1995] 400-401).
10 Geoffrey Thompson, whom SB had seen in London in early May; Sheila Page, SB's cousin who lived in Surrey.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Georges
Thanks for letter & 50 fr. Geer had just paid me as it happens.
1
I shall send you a cheque in a few days. 2
Had a pleasant trip to Chartres with Geer, Lisl & Peggy.
All well here, except no work. Only a few more French poems.
When I have enough I thought of sending them to Eluard. Have not submitted Murphy elsewhere since rejection by Gallimard.
633
They are none the less welcome.
Please put me down for 3 ordinary copies of 3rd Person.
3
20 June 1938, Reavey
A MissJulie Reman ofEditorial Department ofLongman Green
& Co. N. Y. C. was over here. I did not see her but it appears that
Miss Reeder ofthe American Library spoke to her a lot about More
Pricks & Murphy, as a result ofwhich she left a message asking me
to send her the books, which I have done. Not that I remember
4
Alan Duncan had a very bad haemorrhage about a fortnight
6
I am going to Dublin to see my mother about the middle of next month & will probably stay a month. Then I may cross to St. Malo with a bike and spend a week or so in Brittany with Peron. Will you be here before going south in September? I hope so.
If this is not too far from Montparnasse and you don't mind the glorious absence of telephone, I hope you will stay
7
Ever Sam
My poem in transition was all wrong also. Also the article on Dennis [for Denis]. 8
ALS; 1 leaf (folded), 3 sides; enclosure, order form for Third Person; TxU. 1 Reavey'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound.
2 Brian Coffey, Third Person, Europa Poets 7 (London: Europa Press, 1938). SB's enclosed order form for Coffey's collection of poems is dated 21 June 1938.
3 Geer and Lisi van Velde, Peggy Guggenheim, and SB took a midnight drive to Chartres to see the Cathedral by moonlight (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 264, 674).
4 Julie Reman (n. d. ) was with New York publisher Longman, Green and Company. Murphy had not been submitted to the firm previously.
634
whether Murphy has already been rejected by her firm or not.
No further news ofSade. 5
ago-butnotfromlungsitappears. HewasinAmericanhospi tal for X Ray, ofwhich he had not result when I last saw him. In the meantime he is up & about & soaking as usual.
with me.
Love to Gwynedd,
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Dorothy M. Reeder (n. d. ), who had worked with the American Library in Paris since 1929, was its Director from 1937 through May 1941; Brian Coffey mentions to George Reavey that she was being helpful in suggesting outlets for his book:
Miss Reeder says that I should send order forms to all the smaller american[sic] libraries and has promised to let me have the list ofthem[. . . ] Miss Reeder will herself place a lot ofcopies once she sees the book. She has read the MS and loves it. But she wants to place the book in the Library and she would place any other Europa books there you cared to send her. Or rather let me, say, give them to her from you (ifyou do not know her) and I'll ask her to put them on her shelves. (23 June 1938, TxU)
5 After SB's provisional acceptance ofJack Kahane's proposal to translate Sade's Les 120Joumees de Sodome, there had been no further word from Kahane (see 8 March 1938, n. 3).
6 AlanDuncansufferedfromtheeffectsofgassinginWorldWarI.
7 SBreferstohisnewapartmentat6RuedesFavorites.
8 SB refers to "Ooftish," which was originally entitled "Whiting" (see 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair and 14 August 1937 to Thomas McGreevy); it was published in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
No manuscript ofSB's review "Denis Devlin" has been found to compare with that published in transition.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Thursday [4 August 1938]
Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Many thanks for your letter. It seems a long time since I
wrote to you.
I got your message all right in Paris, but only about 15 mins.
before your train was due to leave. I'm glad you had a lively time of sorts down south & hope you are feeling the benefit now of
1
no more so than usual. She has let Cooldrinagh from September to December and will spend those months in the little house she has at Greystones. Then if she finds that she does not miss Cooldrinagh too much she will probably sell it.
635
the change.
I found everything as usual here. Mother very nervous, but
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Frank Jean & infant all well. I spend [for spent] the last week-end with them in South Donegal, a place called Rosbeg on the Atlantic, and enjoyed the walking & bathing. 2 Jean is very heavy after the birth and not feeding the baby herself doesn't help to get back to normal.
Brian is over & I was speaking to him to-day on the phone.
He announces he is spending 2 months in Ireland - "to work".
The thin edge of the axe. I lunch with him to-morrow at the
3
has a magnificent new picture - "Helen" - launching the ships,
with a kneeling figure superbly drawn that made me associate at
once with Bassano, not that the figure resembles any of his
particularly, but because of same extraordinary tenderness &
distinction of handling. The sky and sea & ships are really ter
rific, Delacroix plus substance, depth and a courage more than
of conviction, of certainty, absolutely natural & unrhetorical.
4
I shall be leaving for home in a fortnight or 3 weeks. My idea originally was to take the bicycle with me & join Peron in Brittany, taking boat from Southampton to St. Malo, but I don't expect to have either the money or the energy. I haven't even a
636
Bail[e]y.
I called on the Yeatses this afternoon & saw them both. He
Iwasreallyknockedallofaheap. Heisanxiousforanexhibi tion in England and was interested when I mentioned the Guggenheim Gallery. He spoke very warmly of your essay, as something that stood on its own feet as a piece of aesthetics and required no profuse illustration from him. I was sorry to hear that Routledge had not taken it up. 5 Going out together to buy the evening paper & taking leave of me on the step he said "It must be 6 or 7 years since I first walked out of the house with you to buy the evening paper and 6 or 7 years should mean a lot to me, but they don't seem to & it doesn't matter. "
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
return ticket to London. In any case I shall pause there a couple
6
in the bowdlerized Larousse edition, which bored me, and
Tristram Shandy, which irritated me in spite of its qualities.
Dr Johnson is back in my consciousness & I hope to settle down
to it when I get back to Paris. It appears Seumas O'Sullivan is
7
Cissie & family are back. She rather worse than when she
left, Sonny apparently well & working resentfully for Little
8 Go. [•••]
I shall be glad to get back to . . unclenchedness. Sinclair is not here & there have been no repercussions ofthe case so far,
9
rather like the learned Swan of Streatham I imagine, with a novel coming from Houghton Mifflin in the autumn entitled Mt. Venus. 10 All the old people & the old places, they make me feel like an amphibian detained forcibly on dry land, very very dry land.
Mother brought me to-day from the Horse Show the Abbey Theatre's festival pamphlet with Introduction by Lennox R. and Lafayettes of all the heroes from W. B. to A. E. Malone. Or do these remain the correct limiting terms? I cannot easily believe there is nothing lower than A. E. Malone. Series of excursions and lectures are announced, the valley ofthe Boyne & Higgins on Yeats etc. 11
I had lunch with Geoffrey & Ursula on the way through.
He is working from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. , with short intervals to
snatch food, and complains of poverty. He & Bion take piano
ofdays on the way through.
I seem to have read nothing for months but Vigny's Journal
collaborating with Gogarty on a biography ofGoldsmith.
but it is the old toxins & the old day soil.
Mary Manning is here on holiday, grown tedious & precious,
lessons.
12
637
Thursday [4 August 1938}, McGreevy
I am very sorry to hear about Raven's sister. Give him my
13
ALS; 2 leaves, 6 sides; TCD MS 10402/166. Dating: dated in AH as "5-8-38," but Thursday was 4 August 1938. In SB to George Reavey, 5 August 1938, SB reports that he is "lunching with Brian to-day," that he saw Jack [Yeats] the day before, and that he hopes to attend the first night ofYeats's Purgatory at the Abbey on the next Wednesday (TxU). Purgatory opened Wednesday. 10 August 1938; the Abbey Festival program lists an excursion to the Boyne Valley on 7 August 1938; the Horse Show was held from 2 to 6 August 1938.
1 SBhadplannedtoleaveParison19July,stoppinginLondononhiswaytoDublin; McGreevy may have passed through Paris before SB left (SB to McGreevy, 13 July 1938, TCD, MS 10402/164). On 20 July 1938, McGreevy sent a postcard to George Reavey from Cavaliere, Var (TxU).
2 SBaccompaniedFrankandJeanBeckett,whosedaughterCarolinewasbornon 26 June 1938, on a weekend in Rosbeg, Co. Donegal, a resort on Dawros Bay.
3 Brian Coffey spent August and September in Ireland prior to his wedding in London in October; in a letter to George Reavey on 2 August 1938, Coffey presented plans to circulate his book among patrons and booksellers (TxU). The Bailey: 21 February 1938, n. 8.
4 JackYeatsandhiswifeCottie. InYeats'spaintingHelen(Pyle499;TelAvivMuseum 2372). Helen stands on a quay as if launching a ship, while "a figure kneeling beside her writes on a wax tablet placed on the ground" (Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, I, 455). SB compares Helen to paintings by Jacopo Bassano and by Eugene Delacroix (ne Ferdinand-Eugene-Victor Delacroix, 1798-1863).
5 PeggyGuggenheim'smemoirgivestheimpressionthatSBhadalreadysuggested an exhibition ofYeats's painting at Guggenheim Jeune, but thatYeats did not think his work was appropriate for her gallery (Guggenheim, Out ofthis Century: Confessions ofan Art Addict, 163-164).
McGreevy's Jack B. Yeats had not been accepted by Routledge.
6 Withregardtotheseplans:15June1938,n. 8.
7 Alfred de Vigny, Journal d'un poete, ed. Leon-Adolphe Gauthier-Ferrieres (Paris: Bibliotheque Larousse, 1913; rpt. 1919, 1920); the Journal was composed of extracts from the personal papers of Comte Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) originally published by Louis Ratisbonne (1867).
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767).
SB's long-considered play on Samuel Johnson, extant only as the fragment "Human Wishes. "
638
love, & to Hester & to Dilly. God's blessing
Ever Sam
5 August 1938, Reavey Although there are notes in the SeumasO'Sullivan papers on the subject ofOliver
Goldsmith, no such biography was published (TCD, MS 4056, 4260-4299, 4630-4649).
8 Cissie Sinclair had returned from South Africa in June. Morris Sinclair was resuming his studies at Trinity College Dublin. "Little Go" was the unofficial name of the Final Freshman examination at TCD.
9 SB refers to Harry Sinclair, in whose libel suit against Gogarty SB testified in November 1937.
10 Poet, biographer, and critic Anna Seward was a member of Lichfield's intellec tual circle and known as the "Swan of Lichfield" (Norma Clarke, "Anna Seward: Swan, Duckling or Goose? " New Rambler E. 7 [2003/2004] 54). SB transfers the appellation to Hester Thrale, whose home was in Streatham, and thence to Mary Manning Howe, whose novel Mount Venus was published in autumn 1938.
11 The annual Dublin Horse Show is a major social event of early August. The Abbey Theatre Festival (6 to 20 August 1938) included a lecture on 8 August by drama critic and journalist Andrew E. Malone (ne Laurence Patrick Byrne. 1888-1939) on the early history of the Abbey Theatre, a lecture on 11 August by F. R. Higgins on W. B. Yeats, as well as productions of several plays by Yeats: Cathleen ni Houlihan, Purgatory, and On Baile's Strand. The photographic studio Lafayette, 32 Westmoreland Street, Dublin, was credited with several portraits in the program, for which Lennox Robinson wrote the introduction ("Abbey Theatre Festival Souvenir" [19381). The excursion scheduled for 7 August 1937 was to Tara and the Boyne Valley.
12 Geoffrey and Ursula Thompson with whom SB had lunch in London on his way from Paris to Dublin. W. R. Bion, with whom SB had been in psychotherapy, was a colleague of Geoffrey Thompson; both took piano lessons for relaxation.
13 Thomas Holmes Ravenhill, whose sister's circumstance is unknown. Hester Dowden, Geraldine Cummins.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
5! ! ! Aug 1938
6 Clare Street Dublin
dear George
Many thanks for information.
No, no news from Longman Green & Co. Nor ofSweeney.
I am lunching with Brian to-day. He says he is staying two
months here, the better to work . . .
1
639
5 August 1938, Reavey
I expect to be here about another fortnight. Then I don't know whether I shall go to Brittany to join up with Peron or straight back to Paris. 2
I hope to be here for the first night of Yeats's new play Purgatory next Wednesday week at the Abbey. I saw Jack yester day. He has some magnificent new pictures. 3
You might send me a couple of copies of Murphy. No
review appeared in Dublin Magazine. Austin Clarke had it for
review, having taken it from Sheehy who had it before that, but
4
1 JulieRemanatLongmanGreenandCompanyinNewYorkhadaskedtoreadMore Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy for possible publication in the United States.
American art critic James Johnson Sweeney (1900-1986) worked with Eugene Jolas on numbers 24-27 of transition (1936-1938) in the United States; Sweeney was Curator ofthe Museum ofModem Art in New York from 1935 to 1946, and later Director ofthe Guggenheim Museum in New York from 1952 to 1960. He was in Dublin in early August 1938 (Sweeney to George Reavey, 22 August 1937, TxU).
2 BrianCoffey. AlfredPeron.
3 The opening night of W. B. Yeats's play Purgatory as part of the Abbey Theatre Festival took place on 10 August 1938. The new paintings by Jack B. Yeats have not been identified.
4 AnunsignedreviewofMurphyappearedlaterinDublinMagazine14. 2(April-June 1939) 98: "Murphy comes in the guise of a novel. But it is more a study in words and phrases,thecharactersbeingsecondaryaffairs . . . Thewholethingisabizarrefantasy, with a nasty twist about it that its self-evident cleverness and scholarship cannot redeem . . . And the one really human character in the book is Celia, the lady of loose morals. "
Neither Edward Sheehy, an editor ofireland To-Day, nor Austin Clarke wrote a signed review Murphy. Austin Clarke had recently published Night and Morning: Poems (Dublin: Orwell Press, 1938).
5 "Abient6t"(tillsoon).
640
withheld his hand. He has published another book ofverse. Hope Gwynedd had a pleasant time in the country. Give her
my love & a bientot. 5 Yours ever
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TxU.
Friday {19 August 1938}, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
Friday 38 [19 August 1938]
6 Clare St. [Dublin]
dear George
I was hoping to receive two copies of Murphy from you.
Or did you not get my letter? Anyway don't bother about them
1
them?
I am not yet quite sure whether I shall return directly
to Paris or go first to Brittany to visit Peron. Ussher also is in St Malo. In any case I shall not be more than a night in London.
I had a letter from Geer & Lisi. They seem to be enjoy
2
I enclose the usual from Julie Reman. 3 Love to Gwynedd
Ever Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; letterhead <THE DAWROS BAY HOTELS, ROSBEG, GLENTIES, co. DONEGAL>; enclosure not extant; TxU. Dating: SB WTote "38" on the date line of the letterhead; ins August 1938 SB had indicated that he planned to be in Dublin for about another fortnight; 19 August was a Friday in 1938.
1 SB'sletterof5August1938.
2 Geer and Lisi van Velde had moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Cote d'Azur.
3 Julie Reman WTote on behalf of LongmanGreen and Company in New York, rejecting More Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy.
641
now as I expect to be in London early next week.
If any letters come for me in the meantime will you keep
ing themselves in Cagnes. They have conferred my name on a cat.
27 September 1938, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
27th Sept 1938
6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
Dear George
Thanks for letter & poem, which I like very much indeed.
I heard Adolf the Peacemaker on the wireless last night. And
thought I heard the air escaping - a slow puncture. But no matter how things go I shall stay on here, on the 7! h floor with my
handful of sand. 2 All I have to lose is legs, arms, balls[,] etc. , and I owe them no particular debt of gratitude as far as I know. The streets are full of khaki-cum-civils departing shabbily in requisi tioned trade vans - and at night horrible curfew lighting, like that through which Proust stumbled to the Temple of Delights. I have promised Peron, in event of mobilisation, to evacuate in his car his children, his mother-in-law, his aunt-in-law. 3
I have been running into Gore, flaxenly unshaven & wanly constructive, wondering is he on his way through from Athens
4
Otto Freundlich's ostentatious miseries. The last time I was
there I left behind me a pair of soiled drawers and Sartre's
Nausee. These at least I hope to recover. Adler has no news of
Geer, but talks of going down there & getting together. His latest
painting is distressing. I have no news of Geer either, except that
I hear the sister-in-law (not the Prague one, back in Prague) is
5
6
642
1
to . . Cork. Says art answers questions.
Adler calls for me this afternoon, to take me by the hand to
with them.
I had a good time in Normandy & Brittany before returning
to Paris.
No work. I read an average of an hour a day, after an hour
the illusion of comprehension ceases, Kant, Descartes, Johnson,
Renard and a kindergarten manual of science: "L'air est part
7
not accept. I suppose now more than ever it will come off on the g! ! ! _ Here there is great afflux of tenderness, even in the com
8
ordinary way, all the higher centres on the pillow, & woke up greatly refreshed to find my feet there. The perfect suicide: to somnambulate through the window. But would one wake up on the way down?
Love to Gwynedd yrs ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 2 sides; TxU.
1 Reavey's letter has not been found. The poem enclosed with it has not been identified.
2 Hitler had "ordered an 'historic manifestation' to the nation on the subject of Czechoslovakia" in the Berlin Sportspalast on 26 September 1938, and "the whole German people had been ordered to listen to a broadcast of his address" ("All Reich Rallied: 'Historic Manifestation' Tonight will Reply to a Czech Broadcast," The New York Times 26 September 1938: 1; also on this page is a summary of Hitler's memorandum of 23 September 1938 to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain [1869-1940] and a map of the Sudetenland; for full text: The New York Times, 27 September 1938: 17).
SB refers to his apartment at 6 Rue des Favorites.
3 In Le Temps retrouve Marcel during World War I walks through the darkened streets of Paris and unwittingly enters a male brothel seeking a drink and a place to rest; he leaves during a bombardment which plunges the streets into total blackness (Le Temps retrouve in A la recherche du temps perdu, N, 388-412); Time Regained in In Search of Lost Time, VI, 173-207).
Alfred Peron's family included his wife, Mania, their twin sons Michel and Alexis (b. 1932), Mania's mother Maria Lezine (nee Spiridonof, n. d. ), and her mother's sister Elizabeth Spiridonof (n. d. ).
27 September 1938, Reavey
out", "Le plomb est un metal lourd et tendre".
Brian sent me an invitation to his wedding, which I could
mune ofVaugirard.
I went to bed one night lately in even more than usual the
4 Gorehasnotbeenidentified.
643
27 September 1938, Reavey
5 Polish-bornartistJanke! Adler(1895-1949)hadbeenworkinginGermany,where he had been involved in the Rheinische Sezession and the Union of Progressive International Artists (1922); in 1933 his work was declared "entartet," and in 1934 he moved to Paris. There he was involved in 1937 with the studio of Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988),Atelier 17 Uankel Adler,JankelAdler, intro. Stanley William Hayter [London: Nicholson and Watson,1948] viii).
Otto Freundlich,who had been a friend ofAdler's since the 1920s in Berlin: 15 June 1938,n. 6.
Geer and Lisi van Velde were living in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Lisl's sister from Berlin was Anna MarieJoki (known as Moidi, 1911-2001); she and their sister from Prague (not identified) had visited the van Veldes in the summer of 1938.
6 AccordingtoaletterfromPeggyGuggenheimtoAmericanwriterEmilyColeman (nee Holmes,1899-1974),Guggenheim had lent SB her car to drive to Brittany (DeU: Coleman,[23 September 1939]; Knowlson,Damned to Fame, 265,674).
7 The specific books SB was reading by Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes,Samuel Johnson,Jules Renard, as well as the basic science text, have not been identified. "L'air est partout" (air is everywhere); "Le plomb est un metal lourd et tendre" (lead is a soft
heavy metal).
8 The wedding of Brian Coffey and Bridget Baynes took place on 8 October 1938, St. Patrick's Church, Soho Square,London.
Vaugirard was the nearest metro station to SB's apartment.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
[after 24 October 1938] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15
dear George
Many thanks for letter & order form. Put me down for
3 copies at 3/6, for which I enclose cheque for 11/9. It is very good of you to reserve me a special copy. Wish I was in a position
1
Dublin for a couple of weeks at Xmas. I would not stop in London
on the way through, but might on the way back, if Father Xmas
2
to do as much for you.
Nothing new here. It is just possible I may have to go to
was kind. I hope not to have to go at all.
644
[after 24 October 1938}, Reavey
Adler has left for Cagnes in a Simca. He lent me 3 pictures to keep during his absence. I fear he thinks I spend my time enter taining rich English & Yanks. They have something, the begin nings of a delectatio morosa. 3
I am halfway through a modified version in French of Love & Lethe. I don't know ifit is better than the English version or merely as bad. I have 10 Poems in French also, mostly short. When I have a few more I shall send them to Eluard. Or get Duchamp to do so. 4
I see Brian & Bridget occasionally. They are smelling after a
5
oranges were orange and the gnats gnats, & that he was working with both.
Poor Barlach is dead. Dans la misere. 6
Freundlich gave me a large aesthetic essay to read, all about
7
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU. Dating: when SB wrote to Reavey on 27 September 1938, Adler was planning to go to Cagnes-sur-Mer to visit Geer van Velde; Ernst Barlach died on 24 October 1938.
1 SB ordered copies of Reavey's Quixotic Perquisitions, formally published in January 1939; he received his copies by 27 January 1939 (SB to George Reavey, 27 January 1939, TxU).
2 SB went to Dublin for Christmas and New Year; he wrote from Greystones to Brian and Bridget Coffey on 30 December 1938 that he expected to return to Paris at the end of the following week (DeU, MS 382, Brian Coffey Papers Supplement).
3 Janke! AdlerhadplannedtovisitGeerandLisivanVeldeinCagnes-sur-Mer. The three pictures lent to SB have not been identified. "Delectatio morosa" (morose delight). Adler's return to Paris is noted in SB to Reavey, 27 January 1939 (TxU).
4 "LoveandLethe"inMorePricksThanKicks,85-100;SB'sFrenchtranslationofthis story was unpublished.
645
flat at the Porte de Versailles.
I had a highly coloured card from Geer & Lisl, saying the
the absolute & the pananthropod.
Love to Gwynedd. I hope she is well again.
Ever Sam
[after 24 October 1938}, Reavey
SB refers to ten of the twelve poems published as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modemes, 288-293. SB often played chess with French artist Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), also a friend ofEluard.
5 BrianandBridgetCoffey.
6 German sculptor Ernst Barlach died on 24 October 1938. "Dans la misere" (in poverty).
7 SBreadadraftofFreundlich'sessay"DerbildhafteRaum"(TheImaginableSpace) which formulates a social and aesthetic theory that announces abstraction as a uni versal language (Dr. Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kiinste Karlsruhe, 16 February 1995). Observing that religions and myth ologies no longer filled the creative spaces between man and the universe, Freundlich proposed that art could respond to the intellectual crisis of modernity and could bring together two dynamics - man's instinct to form and cosmic formlessness - to make visible "the process of becoming rather than being. " The Fonds Otto Freundlich/ Archives IMEC has about half (pages 41-89) of Freundlich's draft of this essay dated 1 March 1938; there is also a carbon copy of what may be the full text, possibly prepared by another hand. A summary of those pages and other works written by Freundlich is published in Otto Freundlich, Otto Freundlich - Schrifien: Ein Wegbereiter der gegenstandslosen Kunst, ed. IBi Bohnen (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1982) 211-220.
SB shared his own essay "Les Deux Besoins" with Freundlich (NhD, Lawrence Harvey Papers, MS 661[2]: 27). SB wrote to John Fletcher on 3 June 1966 that it "was not on the van Veldes. It must have been written 1938 or early 1939 at latest. I remember showing it to the painter & sculptor Otto Freundlich since disappeared in the 'tourmente"' (TxU; TMS of "Les Deux Besoins," NhD, Beckett collection; Beckett, Disjecta, 55-57; see Freundlich's Profile in the Appendix; Alain Bonfand, Christophe Duvivier, Edda Maillet, Jerome Serri, and Guy Tosatto, Otto Freundlich [Rochechouart: Musee Departemental de Rochechouart, 1988] 82).
OTTO FREUNDLICH PAR! S
SB's errors of Gennan in this letter have not been corrected.
[autumn 1938]
[Paris]
Lieber Herr Freundlich
Ich bedaure sehr, heute morgen war ich nicht frei.
Samstag nachmittag zwischen 2 u. 4. werden Sie mich bei mir
finden, wenn Sie Lust haben,
646
28 December 1938, Ussher
dabei zu kommen - 1hr
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; Fonds Otto Freundlich/ Archives IMEC. Dating: the year ascribed to this letter is consistent with evidence of a growing acquaintance between SB and Freundlich in 1938. In view of the deepening relationship, it seems more likely that this note was written in the autumn of 1938, rather than earlier in that year.
[autumn 1938] [Paris]
Dear Mr Freundlich
I am very sorry, I was not available this morning.
You will find me at home on Saturday afternoon between
2 and 4, if you feel like coming by. Yours
Sam Beckett
ARLAND USSHER
[? CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD]
28/12/38
Greystones
Dear Arland
Thanks for papers. Glad to sea [sic] you are bursting into
print again. The "suspender" essay I always liked very much, and
1
ful abortion. It is only to keep my mother company during
the season of that other. And I hope soon to return to the
people where the little operation is cheap, safe, legal & popular.
more than ever in such sad company.
Do not imagine I am returned to the land of my unsuccess
"Curetage".
2
647
28 December 1938, Ussher
My mother has been wintering on this cote de misere since
September. What does not face north faces east. She is the worse
for it. But from the window she can see the cemetery where my
3
steadfastly in this course.
It is a long time since we had nothing to say to one another,
and if your progress has been anything like mine I should think we could now be united in a silence even more substantial - or as some would say, thick - than heretofore.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that you will always be welcome in 6 rue des Favorites (formerly Impasse des Favorites, not far from the still existing Impasse de L'Enfant Jesus) should your Schicksal at any time allow you so much license. 5
I have begun a Primer of higher French syntax. It takes the form of Xenian. Here is one
Ci-git qui y echappa tant
Qu'il n'en echappe que maintenant.
Porte-toi bien7 Sam
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; TxU.
1 SB refers to Ussher's essay "The Age of Shadows," in Nineteenth Century and After: 12 May 1938, n. 1.
2 "Curetage" (curettage).
3 MayBeckettmovedtoGreystonesinSeptember. HerviewincludedtheRedford cemetery, where William Beckett was buried. "Cote de misere" (Misery Coast).
4 CissieSinclairandherfamily.
5 SB'sapartmentonRuedesFavoriteswasofftheRuedeVaugirard,alongwhich was the Impasse de l'EnfantJesus. "Schicksal" (fate).
6 SB's "Primer of higher French syntax" is for Ussher's amusement. Xenien (1796) was a collection of satirical epigrams, written by Goethe and Schiller. Modeled on the epigrams of Martial, "each epigram is a classical distich, composed of hexameter and
648
father is "at rest".
I have seen nobody except the Sinclairs and shall continue
4
6
28 December 1938, Ussher
pentameter" (Henry Garland and Mary Garland, The Oxford Companion to Gennan Literature ! Oxford: Oxford University Press, 198611006).
SB's example becomes a part of his story "Premier Amour" (AMS, TxU, begun 28 October1946, completed12 November1946): "Ci-git qui y echappa tant/ Qu'il n'en echappe que maintenant" ("Hereunder lies the above who up below/ So hourly died that hesurvivedtillnow")(PremierAmour! Paris:LesEditionsdeMinuit,1970110;tr. bySamuel Beckett, "First Love" in First Love and Other Shorts ! New York: Grove Press, 1974112).
7 "Porte-toibien"(Lookafteryourself).
649
1939 January 27 January
28 February Early March
1 April
By 18 April
By 6June
14June
15June By 7July August 24August
1 September
CHRONOLOGY 1939
SBreturnstoParisviaLondon.
