No More Learning

22/1/38 Liberia [Paris]
Thank you for your note. All going well, though I don't know exactly where.
Proofs follow this evening or tomorrow morning. Only one
sentence to go, and how! In the end, he's becoming a bloody
bore, Murphy O'Blomov. I'll spend the rest of my life regretting
1
1 "MurphyO'Blomov"isareflectionoftheeponymousOblomov. "Apes at chess": 13 November 1936, n. 5.
592
singes.
Allons hop! / tier se repete
Sam en homme genial
the apes.
Enough of this: on we go! / proud, repeats himself Sam like the genius he is
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
25/1/38 Liberia
9 Rue de la Gde Chaumiere
Paris 6me
dear George
By this post I return proofs. I trust I have not exceeded
my allowance. Will you pass them on to Tom for the once
1
Sam
APCS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; to George Reavey Esq, 7 Great Ormond Street, LONDON WCl, pm 26-1-38, Paris; TxU.
1 SB asked McGreevy to read his corrected proof of Murphy. GEORGE REAVEY
LONDON
27/1/38 Liberia [Paris]
dear George
I am sorry to be a thorn in the side of the gentle compositor
but I don't see how I can correct my corrections. I considered them very carefully and they seemed to me necessary. The insertions at end of section 5 especially so. If they leave me £10 or £20 in somebody's debt I can't help it. My executors will
593
over. Gobbless
27January 1938, Reavey
27 January 1938, Reavey
shoulder the burden. Whatever you do don't send back the proofs and have me add more! 1
God love thee G. Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; to George Reavey Esq, 7 Great Ormond Street, LONDON WC 1; pm 27-1-38, Paris; TxU, Reavey.
1 Reavey's letter to SB has not been found. The corrected proof copy has not been found: a final typescript of Murphy dated 26 June 1936 is at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (TxU). In Demented Particulars, C. J. Ackerley has studied the changes between this typescript and the text as published by Routledge.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
27/1/38 Liberia [Paris]
dear Tom
Many thanks for all your letters. Forgive delay in replying.
I wanted to wait till I saw Fontaine this morning before writing
1
of Parma violets from Joyces) and taking it as easy as poss. , just slipping out twice, & sometimes only once, a day for meals & coming back immediately, going to bed between 9 & 10 & lying in till midday. In spite of which the pain has been considerably worse. So I rang up Fontaine & had my appointment with her at Broussais changed from to-morrow to to-day. 2
I am just back now from seeing her. She examined me & said things were proceeding normally and that the pain was only to be expected & that I might make up my mind to its being there
594
you.
Have been here since Saturday (on arrival an immense bunch
27January 1938, McGreevy
for some time. She prescribed some anti-neuralgic dope for me
to take. And I have to take my temp every vespers. She had no
objection to my going out for meals. She said to return this day
week for a further examination & X Ray. Then I was passed on to
her assistant Fauvert, who did a Radioscope, said there was still
some blood knocking about & more or less repeated Fontaine.
Then on to a sister, who clapped 21 cupping glasses (ventouses)
on to my chest & back & left me feeling like an Osram advertise­
3
So you see I am getting on as well as can be expected & that
there is no need to worry. The Duncans have been angelic, com­
4
Do send along your Yeats, I am in a hurry to see it. I have
been reading 0Blomov, appallingly translated by one Nathalie
6
is a question of handling Reavey with kid gloves.
Mother is a marvel. She sat up all the way from Euston to
8
equal length.
J. J. was round avant-hier, very worried about L. [ucia), of
whom news is bad, and wondering would Geoffrey be over at Easter. He says he is going away to Zurich to rest after his his [sic) birthday. I should not be surprised if I were invited to go with. I wouldn't really mind, he has been so incredibly good all this
time, but I won't be well enough. I wont even be able to be at his
ment for 15 minutes. The temporary relief was considerable.
ing every day, sometimes twice, and ready to do anything for me. I had a card from Reavey this morning, full of alarm about my proof corrections. I made the only possible answer by return.
I am sorry you have the corvee of giving it the once over. 5
(for Natalie] Duddington.
Peron wants to translate Murphy for NRF. I suppose again it
7
Dun Laoghaire. They had an appalling crossing.
Had a long letter from Ursula & replied to them jointly at
9
birthday party this day week.
10
595
27 January 1938, McGreevy
Poem dictated itself to me night before last:
they come
different and the same
with each it is different & the same
with each the absence of love is different with each the absence of love is the same
Thought of sending it to Sheehy - then withheld my hand.
The Van Veldes wanted me to go to Fontainebleau this
11
week-end, but rien a faire.
I am sorry you don't feel equal to taking up the Laugier
thing. I was talking about you in a general way to Peron. He knows someone to do with the Louvre and is going to make
12
sunlit surface yesterday brighter than the whole of Ireland's summer.
Letter from the Manning. Both Harvard & Buffalo possibil­
ities for the summer apparently. And a cheerful letter from
Cissie, now on the sea 20 mins. from Cape Town, & leaving for
13
ALS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; TCD, MS 10402/154.
1 McGreevy'slettershavenotbeenfound. ForDr. Fontaine:21January1938,n. 2.
2 SBlefttheH6pitalBroussaisonSaturday,22January1938.
3 Dr. Fontaine's assistant Fauvert has not been identified. SB was treated with the application of ventouses to stimulate blood circulation in the lungs; when first applied, the cups may have looked like lightbulbs; Osram General Electric Company manufactured light bulbs, lamps, and electrical tubes.
4 AlanandBelindaDuncan.
596
enquiries.
How lovely it is being here. Even with a hole in the side. A
home beginning ofApril. God love thee Ever Sam
27January 1938, McGreevy
5 Reavey'scardtoSBhasnotbeenfound. SBhadaskedMcGreevytolookoverthe proofs. "Corvee" (chore).
6 SB refers to McGreevy's study of Jack B. Yeats. SB had been reading Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov, tr. Natalie A. Duddington (1929). One review found Duddington's translation "a remarkably accomplished and painstaking piece of work . . . as good a translation as one could hope for" ("Gontcharov's 'Oblomov,"' Times Literary Supplement 14 November 1929: 919).
7 Peron'sinterestintranslatingMurphy:21January1938,n. 6.
8 May, Frank, and Jean Beckett had returned to Dublin via London, by a train that left from London's Euston station and connected with the ferry to Dun Laoghaire.
9 UrsulaandGeoffreyThompson.
10 "Avant-hier"(thedaybeforeyesterday).
Lucia Joyce was in treatment for mental illness; Geoffrey Thompson was a practicing psychiatrist in London.
Joyce's birthday was 2 February. Joyce left for Switzerland c. 6 February, staying in Lausanne on his way to Zurich (Roger Norburn, A James Joyce Chronology [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004] 181).
11 SB did send the poem to Edward Sheehy at Ireland To-Day, as he wrote to McGreevy on 11 February 1938: "I sent 'they come' (translated by Peron as 'ils vien­ nent'! ! ) to Ireland Tcxlay, where the great purity of mind & charity of thought\Vill no doubt see orgasms where nothing so innocent or easy is intended, and reject the poem in consequence" (TCD, MS 10402/156).
The poem was first published in English in Peggy Guggenheim's Out of This Century: The Infonnal Memoirs of Peggy Guggenheim ([New York: Dial Press, 1946] 205; rev. asOutofThisCentury: ConfessionsofanArtAddict[NewYork:UniverseBooks,1979] 175); in this printing, initial letters of each line are capitalized, "and" replaces "&" in line 3, and "life" replaces "love" in line 5. Federman and Fletcher ascribe the substitution of "life" for "love" in line 5 to SB; however, the text of the poem in the present letter indicates that the variant was introduced in Peggy Guggenheim's transcription of the poem (Samuel Beckett: His Works and His Critics, 23, 50). As published in French as "elles viennent" in "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modernes 2. 14 (November 1946) 288, the poem has no initial capitalization. and line 5 reads: "avec chacune ! 'absence d'arnour est pareille" ("with each the absence of love is the same").
12 GeerandElizabeth(neeJoki,knownasLisi,b. 1908)vanVelde. "Rienafaire" (nothing doing).
Henri Laugier proposal: 10 December 1937 to McGreevy. Alfred Peron.
13 MaryManningHowe'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound. Herhusbandtaughtat the University of Buffalo, and he had family connections at Harvard.
Cissie Sinclair was visiting her son Morris in Graaff Reinet, near Cape Town, South Africa: 5 June 1936 [for 1937], n. 6.
597
31 January 1938, McGreevy THOMAS McGREEVY
LONDON
31/1/38 Liberia
9 Rue de la Gde. Chaumiere
Paris 6
Dear Tom
Many thanks for Yeats essay and letter. I am sorry you haff
bin hafting such trouble with the finances ofit. Was it necessary to drag in the Authors' Assoc. or whatever it is? 1 Could it not have been a private arrangement between you and him more fair to you?
I have read the essay twice and think you have every reason
to be very pleased with it. Certainly in the first 18 pages I do not
think there is a syllable that needs touching. The point about
the association and spartness [for apartness] offigures and land­
scape is most beautifully established. 2 And the dangers ofover­
analogy admirably negotiated. On p. 7 the name of Douanier
Rousseau suggested itself to me to follow Le Nain, Chardin,
Millet and Courbet, but perhaps the idea is too wide for what
you want. 3 You develop the Watteau indication very differently
from the way it was in my mind, less philosophically and
emphatically and probably more justly, certainly in a way that
is justified by what leads up to and away from it as my idea of
"inorganic juxtaposition" and "non-anthropomorphised human­
4
evident as the beginning, holds together perfectly. It is more "construit" perhaps, more Catena. I understand your anxiety to clarify his pre and post 1916 painting politically and socially,
598
ity" would not have been.
The rest ofthe essay, though I do not find it quite as self­
and especially in what concerns the last pictures I think you
have provided a clue that will be ofgreat help to a lot ofpeople,
to the kind of people who in the phrase of Bergson can't be
happy till they have "solidified the flowing", i. e. to most people.
I am inclined personally to think that the turning away from the
local, not merely in his painting but in his writing (he has just
sent me The Charmed Life), even ifonly in intention, results not
so much from the break down ofthe local, ofthe local human
anyway, as from a very characteristic and very general psycho­
logical mechanism, operative in young artists as a naivete (or an
instinct) and in old artists as a wisdom (or an instinct). 5 I am sure
I could illustrate this for you ifl had the culture. You will always,
as an historian, give more credit to circumstance than I, with my
less than suilline interest and belief in the fable convenue, ever
6
whether before the Union or after, or that it was ever capable of any thought or act other than the rudimentary thoughts and acts belted into it by the priests and by the demagogues in service of the priests, or that it will ever care, ifit ever knows, any more than the Bog of Allen will ever care or know, that there was once a
599
31 January 1938, McGreevy
shall be able to. However you say it yourself on p. 34.
One of the criticisms that I should like to make about the second halfand that I should think will certainly be made by the pros, is that for an essay of such brevity the political and social analyses are rather on the long side. I received almost the impres­ sion for example, as the essay proceeded, that your interest was passing from the man himselfto the forces that formed him - and not only him - and that you returned to him from them with something like reluctance. But perhaps that also is the fault ofmy mood and ofmy chronic inability to understand as member ofany proposition a phrase like "the Irish people", or to imagine that it ever gave a fart in its corduroys for any form of art whatsoever,
31 January 1938, McGreevy
7
of a criticism that allows as a sentient subject what I can only
think of as a nameless and hideous mass, whether in Ireland or
in Finland, but only to say that I, as a clot of prejudices, prefer
the first half of your work, with its real and radiant individuals,
8
Broussais this week for exam. & X Ray and no doubt more
ventouses. Dr Paul the French Spilsbury has benn (for been]
commanding me to his presence in the morning at 9. 15 and
I replying patiently and politely that my condition does not
9
me. There are all kinds of reasons que je me porte partie civile,
and all kinds for my not doing so. There appears to be a remote
possibility of my receiving compensation from the Ville de Paris,
but if it involves me with lawyers I should prefer to do without it.
The police still have my clothes. But whatever I do and however
it goes there are going to be plenty of unpleasantness[es] before
10
Molasses. I have accepted en principe. Broadcast first from Athlone[. ]11
Don't you think one of us ought to write to Laugier, since after all he has been kind, to say that you don't see your way to taking
12
I am writing[. ]13
God love thee, Tom, and don't be minding me. I can't think
of Ireland the way you do. Ever
s/ Sam
painterinIrelandcalledJackButlerYeats. Thisisnotacriticism
to the second, with our national scene. Et voila.
I am much better the last few days - less pain. I go back to
allowmetogetupbeforemidday. Soontheywillbearresting
it can be called an affaire classee.
Joyce's birthday spree next Wednesday at the Jolasses­
the thing up? I shall do it with pleasure if you don't want to.
If you see Denis please thank him for his letter and tell him
600
31 January 1938, McGreevy
TIS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/155. Note: "Ascension," "La Mouche," and "Priere" are included withMS 10402/155 although it is doubtful that they were enclosed with that letter because the folds on the poems do not match those of the letter. However, the folds and the bum/water damage on left margin do match those onMS 10402/163.
1 McGreevyhadsenthismanuscriptonJackB. Yeatstotheartist,whorepliedon 6 January 1938: "Later on, if we get an offer, I would of course, automatically consult the Society of Authors" (TCD,MS 10831/151). Yeats wrote toMcGreevy on 26 January 1938 enclosing contractual terms suggested by the Society of Authors, and he encour­ agedMcGreevy to consider joining: "I would be lost myself without them. I ask them about all agreements, though I often accept terms a little less than they advise" (TCD,
MS 10831/154).
2 ThepaginationreferstothemanuscriptofMcGreevy'sessay:TCD,MS7991/2.
On the relationship between figures and landscape in Yeats's work:MacGreevy,Jack B. Yeats, 11-13.
3 SB suggests toMcGreevy that the Le Nain family of painters (Antoine Le Nain [c. 1600-1648], Louis Le Nain [c. 1600-1648], andMathieu Le Nain [c. 1607-1677]), Jean-Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), Jean-Fram;ois Millet (1814-1875), and Courbet might be seen as forerunners of Jack B. Yeats in their depictions of what
MacGreevy calls the "petit peuple" (ordinary people): MacGreevy, Jack B. Yeats, 9. To this series, SB suggests adding Henri Rousseau (also known as Le Douanier Rousseau, 1844-1910).
4 SB made observations on Watteau in two earlier letters toMcGreevy: [before 23 July 1937] and 14 August 1937; SB's own development of these ideas is further evident in his letter to Cissie Sinclair. 14 [August 1937], in which he uses the terms that he quotes here (see also n. 5 below, andMacGreevy,JackB. Yeats, 14-17).
5 "Construit"(deliberatelyconstructed).
"Catena," a chain or connected series, is generally not capitalized. Although SB may be referring to Italian painter Vincenzo Catena (c.
1470-1531), the point of this reference is not clear.
OnMcGreevy's positioning of Yeats's work in the context oflrish political realities: MacGreevy,JackB. Yeats, 17-25. For his discussion of the later paintings that move away from the particular and reflect "the subjective tendency" of imagination: pp. 27-33,
particularly his analysis of California (Pyle 501, private collection) and In Memory of Boudcault and Bianconi (Pyle 498, NG! 4206).
No direct source has been found for SB's statement about Bergson, but in Creative Evolution Bergson adopts the analogy of a swimmer who "cling[s] to . . . solidity" when learning to "struggle against the fluidity" of water. "So of our thought, when it has decided to make the leap" (tr. ArthurMitchell [London:Macmillan, 1920] 203-204; L'Evolution creatrice [Paris: Felix Akan, 1907] 210-211).
Routledge had just published Jack B. Yeats's novel The Channed Life (1938).
6 "Fableconvenue"(receivedwisdom).
7 Inthepublishedbook,McGreevyissuesacaveatagainstgeneralization:"Itgoes without saying that all Irish people are not like that any more than all French people are like the figures in Watteau's pictures. " Yet in the section dealing with political
601
31 January 1938, McGreery
backgrounds he says, "When Jack Yeats was a small boy the mind of the Irish people was centred on politics . . . " (Jack B. Yeats, 16-17).
The Bog of Allen is a large peat bog, a wetland from which the River Boyne rises in Co. Kildare.
8 "Etvoila"(That'sit).
9 Dr. Charles Paul (1879-? ), a "medecin legiste" (forensic doctor), is compared to the British forensic medical expert Dr. Bernard Spilsbury (1877-1947).
10 "Quejemeportepartiecivile"(whyIshouldsue). "Affaireclassee"(closedcase).
11 SB did attend the birthday celebration which was staged in two parts: at the Joyces' flat, listening to a birthday broadcast from Radio Eireann, followed by a dinner party at Eugene andMaria Jolas's home. Constantine Curran presented a "Personal Sketch" ofJoyce as part of the radio broadcast (Joyce and Leon, TheJamesJoyce - Paul Leon Papers, 92); his daughter Elizabeth Curran attended the party in Paris with Beckett, as described in a letter she sent to her father on 3 February 1938 (C. P. Curran. JamesJoyce Remembered ! London: Oxford University Press, 1968J 90-91; see also Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, 168). As SB wrote to McGreevy on 11 February 1938:
There were 15 at dinner, and Sullivan & Mrs Jolas bawled their heads off afterwards. Philippe Soupault turned up late in the evening. I was glad to see him again. He was asking for you. Nino Franch [for Frankl was also there. He may put me in touch with film people here, if by any chance I ever feel like being in touch with anything again. I felt none the worse for the evening. Joyce danced in the old style. (TCD,MS 10402/156)
SB refers to Irish tenor John Sullivan (ne John O'Sullivan, 1877-1955), whose musical career Joyce encouraged. The Italian-born film critic Nino Frank (1904-1988) had translated "Anna Livia Plurabelle" into Italian with Joyce.
12 HavingactedonMcGreevy'sbehalfwithLaugier,SBfeltobligedtothankLaugier for his trouble, especially ifMcGreevy should choose not to accept.
13 DenisDevlin.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
7/2/38 Hotel Liberia [Paris]
Dear George
Tom seemed nervous about Wynn's. But I can't change the
1
whole topography. So stet.
602
[c. 8 to 19 February 1938}, Reavey
Will you let me know exact date of pub. as soon as it is known.
Expect to be here for some time yet, with the occasional
2
TPCS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; AN AH, pend! , upper left margin "re Murphy"; T to George Reavey Esq, 7 Great Ormond Street, London W. C. 1; pm 7-2-38, Paris; TxU.
1 Wynn'sHotel,35-36LowerAbbeyStreet,Dublin(Beckett,Murphy,54-56). AsSB wrote to McGreevy on 11 February 1938: "I don't think there is anything to worry about in the Wynn['Js Hotel reference. But thank you for drawing my attention to it" (TCD, MS 10402/156).
Katzensprung to Broussais. Na ja. Love to Gwynedd.
Yours s/Sam
2 "Katzensprung"(literallycat'sspring);"Naja"(wellnow).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
[c. 8 to 19 February 1938)
DearG. Sorry.
Liberia [Paris)
It has occurred to me that 8/6 is far too dear for a book of
1
1 The price of Murphy had been set at 8/6; however, the price given on the pros­ pectus was 7/6.
603
only 75000 words. Would you not suggest 5/- to Ragg. Yrs
Sam
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; AN AH, pend! "re Murphy"; TxU.
20 February 1938, Reavey
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/2/38 Liberia [Paris]
Dear George
N. C. 's address is c/o Lloyds, 43 Bd. des Capucines, Paris. Glad to hear Geer is shoved off till May. Haven't seen much
of him lately. They want me to go with them to Holland in April. Ne demande pas mieux but shn't have the price. How did you like the Kandinsky? 2
I shall want 6 copies of M. , miserable wretch that I am, in addition to the free ones. Also send me a copy of Ford's poems.
3
1
And tell me what cheque I am to send you for lot.
I wish very much you were here to advise me about a trans­ lation (of Sade[']s 120 Days for Jack Kahane). I should like very much to do it, & the terms are moderately satisfactory, but don't know what effect it wd. have on my lit. situation in England or how it might prejudice future publications of my own there. The surface is of an unheard of obscenity & not 1 in 100 will find literature in the pornography, or beneath the pornography, let alone one of the capital works of the 18th century, which it is for me. I don't mind the obloquy, on the contrary it will get more ofme into a certain room. But I don't want to be spiked as a writer, I mean as a publicist in the airiest sense. Of course as an Obelisk book, no attempt would be made to circulate it in England or USA, no official attempt, though I understand Kent ordered 8 copies of Harris's Life & Loves. And I wouldn't do it without putting my name to it. He wants a decision immedi­ ately. If I thought you were to be here next week I would hold
604
him off till I had talked it over with you. But I suppose there is
no chance of that. Anyhow it can't be a rational decision, the
consequences are unforeseeable, though it strikes me you would
see a lot that I don't. 150,000 words at 150 francs per 1000 is
better than a poem by AE, but doesn't really enter as an element
4
"Excusez-moi, Monsieur. " I said "Je vous en prie, Monsieur. "
5
2 TheexhibitionofGeervanVelde'sworkatGuggenheimJeunewastobeheldin May; the Kandinsky Exhibition had opened on 18 February: 5 January 1938, n. 4.
"Ne demande pas mieux" (Couldn't ask for anything nicer).
3 SB ordered personal copies ofMurphy and the poems ofAmerican writer Charles Henri Ford (1913-2002), The Garden ofDisorder and Other Poems (London: Europa Press. 1938).
4 SBwrotetoMcGreevyon11February1938:"IsaiditwasunlikelybutthatIwould go & talk it over. I went & said I was interested en principe at 150 francs per 1000. 1. . . ) Though I am interested in Sade & have been for a long time, and want the money badly, I would really rather not" (TCD, MS 10402/156).
Following his brief partnership (1930-1931) with French publisher of fine editions Henry Babou (n. d. ), British journalist Jack Kahane (1887-1939) founded Obelisk Press in Paris in 1931 and published many books refused by other publishers who feared censorship. Among these were The Young and Evil (1933) by American writers Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler (1904-1974); My Life and Loves (1933) by Irish-American writer Frank Harris (ne James Thomas Harris, 1856-1931); Tropic of Cancer (1934), Aller retour New York (1935), Black Spring (1936), Max and the White Phagocytes (1938), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939) by American writer Henry Miller (1891-1980); House of Incest (1936) and Winter ofArtifice (1939) by French writer Ana1s Nin (nee Angela Ana1s Nin y Culmell, 1903-1977); and The Black Book (1938) by English writer Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990). To "finance the serious books," he also published works of pornography Uohn de St Jorre, Venus Bound: The Erotic Voyage of the Olympia Press and Its Writers ! New York: Random House, 1994] 12).
Marquis de Sade, Les 120 Journees de Sodome, ou l'ecole du libertinage (Tue 120 Days of Sodom; or, the Romance of the School for Libertinage) (written in 1785, published 1904, ed.
605
I had my first sneeze yesterday, i. e. I am cured.
6
20 February 1938, Reavey
into the problem.
I saw the Sieur Prudent in the Bordel de Justice. He said
Love to Gwynedd. Ora pro me. s/ Sam
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
1 NancyCunard'saddress.
20 February 1938, Reavey
Eugene Diihren [Paris: Club des bibliophiles, 1904]); it appeared in a three-volume critical edition edited by Maurice Heine (Paris: Stendhal et Compagnie, aux depens des bibliophiles souscripteurs, 1931-1935). There was no English translation at this time.
Although Obelisk Press did not officially circulate its books abroad, it did sell to individuals; Kent has not been identified.
SB compares the offer of payment per word to that which he imagines could be commanded by Irish poet AE.
5 SB attended the preliminary hearing of his assailant, Robert-Jules Prudent, on 14 February 1938, as he wrote to McGreevy on 11 February 1938: "Next Monday I have to wait on the juge d'instruction & I suppose be confronted with Prudent. Perhaps I may persuade them to give me back my clothes" (TCD, MS 10402/156). "Juge d'instruction" (examining magistrate).
"Sieur Prudent" (the Prudent gentleman); "Borde! " (literally, brothel) for Palais de Justice. "Excusez-moi, Monsieur" (I'm sorry); "Je vous en prie, Monsieur" (Not at all).
6 "Oraprome"(prayforme). THOMAS McGREEVY
LONDON
21/2/38 Liberia [Paris]
dear Tom
Manythanksforyour2letters. 1 Forgivemydelayinreplying. I like when you write about pictures as much as I do when
you talk about them and I envy you a concern with them that has no intermissions. I haven't been to the Louvre since I came to
Paris! Nor sacrificed going to anything else. It is the kind of life that filled Dr Johnson with horror. Nothing but the days passing over. It suits me all right. 2
I have started again to look for a room and have combed most of the 14me _ There is hardly anything to be had. A few studios at prices I can't afford, one lovely one looking on to the Pare Montsouris, 12000 francs! , and worth every centime of it. There is a new house in the Rue [de l']Amiral Mouchez with
606
21 February 1938, McGreevy
rooms with hot & cold & heating for 2000. A low locality but nevertheless. I shall look at a room there next Tuesday and ifit is at all possible shall move to there provisionally. And even ifit is not I shall leave the Liberia, because it is too dear & there is no light. I saw a hotel room at the corner of Boulevard Auguste Blanqui & Rue de la Glaciere, high up on the angle, with 2 windows, full of light, 440 including service. Whereas at the Liberia I have just got a bill for the last month, 785 fr including breakfast. They have been very decent, but I simply can't afford such prices. 3
I saw Jack Kahane this morning. He agreed to the following
conditions: 1. That I should write the preface. 2. That I should
be paid 150 fr per 1000 words irrespective ofstate of£. 3. That
I should receive halfon signing ofcontrac[t) & halfon delivery of
MS. 4. That there should be no time limit. I then said I would give
him a definite answer this day week. He intends to publish in
3 vols. (not simultaneously) ofapprox. 50,000 words each. I should
be paid per vol. I should get my translator's copy (1500 fr) & 6 free
copies oftranslation (3 vols. at 150 francs each). I have read lg &
3! :Q vols. ofFrench edition. The obscenity ofsurface is indescrib­
able. Nothing could be less pornographical. It fills me with a kind
of metaphysical ecstasy. The composition is extraordinary, as
rigorous as Dante's. If the dispassionate statement of 600 "pas­
sions" is Puritan and a complete absence of satire juvenalesque,
4
607
then it is, as you say, puritanical & juvenalesque. You would loathe it whether or no. I don't know if I shall do it. I think probably I shall. It would be in a limited ed. of 1000 copies. No attempt wd. be made to distribute in England or USA. But of course it would be known that I was the translator. I would not do it without signing my name to it. I know all about the obloquy. What I don't know about is the practical effect on my own future
21 February 1938, McGreevy
freedom ofliterary action in England & USA. Would the fact ofmy being known as the translator, & the very literal translation, of "the most utter filth" tend to spike me as a writer myself? Could I be banned & muzzled retrospectively? The preface is important, because it enables me to make my attitude clear. Alan Belinda & Nick are all against my doing it. Brian simply says he would not himself undertake it. It appears a lot of people are after the job, including Peggy Guggenheim's ex-husband Lawrence [for Laurence] Vail. 5
I wish I had been in London for the Kandinsky. How did you like it? 6
I go back to Broussais on Thursday and hope that may be the last time.