Let’s forget about it. After the final session, I had to take a few weeks’ holiday – blissful provincial rest in a neutral atmosphere of good food and regular walks, and with the sentimental release of family life. I have been in Paris for a fortnight, and am gradually reestablishing contact with life, tentatively, as a tram-driver fits the trolley-pole back on to the power-wire. I am at a loss to know what to hang on to – few friends (my best friend is away), no acquaintances, since I deliberately dropped them all some months ago, no habits with which to fill time intelligently, and the rain is coming down. I fall back upon my books – mistrustfully, however – the expedient is very artificial. I feel vague surges of melancholy and could easily get absorbed in anything. And what must be avoided above all is chasing deliberately after some artificial ideal. Music goes more directly to the core of my being, and I have been listening to it quite a lot recently (still mainly Wagner). I am beginning to get the hang of The Ring. Each time the plot becomes clearer and the obscure passages take on a meaning. Tristan and Isolde is terribly moving at the first hearing, and leaves you prostrate with ecstasy and thirsting to get back to it again. But I am not making much sense, it is all so confused and difficult, and impossible to put into words, and necessarily so (otherwise, no one would have felt the need to express it in music). However, I should be happy to know that you too are able to hear some Wagner in America, and something by Franck as well, if you get the opportunity. This is what I am most interested in at the moment.
I see Prichard occasionally for lunch in a vegetarian restaurant which looks like a shop (it is one). The dishes have strange names, like those of some unknown religion; initiates think nothing at all of ordering ‘a protose of peppers’, a ‘nuttolène’ [a type of vegetarian loaf]. These names, smacking of organic chemistry, correspond to substances which pretend to be meat without being so, just as there are bottles of unfermented grape-juice pretending to be wine. I hate this sort of thing. Vegetarians are praiseworthy people; there are habitués among them, elderly spinsters especially, foreign women-students, technicians from some university laboratory or other, and Hyperboreans – they are conscious of performing a rite as they consume their Bulgarian curds; they are convinced people, demonstrating to others that ‘it is quite easy to do without meat’. It is wonderful to be able to enthuse about such things, and a sign of greatness of soul. The worthy Prichard’s conversation is still more or less the same; although he preaches in favour of life and action, he is one of the most hidebound individuals I know – sometimes he can be ever so slightly boring. Yet I like his sincerity, his instinct for vital truths, and his goodness, although it is sometimes directed towards useless matters (are there useless matters?). If I talk with him for more than an hour, I am left with a headache. Don’t you find listening to him always rather a strain? And then, at times, he expounds his ideas badly, mixing up physics and metaphysics (in connection with colours). The absolute nature of some of his assertions irritates me a little – well, haven’t we enough systems already? I cannot see what lies behind them, what is important. His bony face, with its small, deepset eyes hides what, exactly? I don’t think we understand each other very well and our friendship is not progressing. I will tell you about it some other time. (Don’t attach any great value to my present judgements; excuse my stupefied state with the thought that it is perhaps only temporary.)
I am feeling work-shy and have lost the habit of intellectual effort. Twenty times, my dear fellow, during the last month I have felt like writing to you, and haven’t had the strength to do so. This listlessness is becoming rather worrying. I now occupy the little room that was yours last year, and I like having the bed in a little recess, but the pattern of the wallpaper (do you remember it?) often gets on my nerves. Damn. It occurred to me a moment ago to send you a little piece of wallpaper – then I immediately realised that the idea was not mine but that I had got it from a letter by J. Laforgue, so I will abstain. I am not sure of ever having had an idea that really belonged to me. I wish I had never read or heard anything, ever. When shall I recover a little of the spontaneity and enthusiasm that I had (oh, it was quite wrongly invested, dear friend, invested in science) that I had around the age of eighteen? I was not made to be a melancholic (anyway, melancholy is too romantic), and I have little gift for action; and if I act (O action, O Bergson), I am bright enough to take a sincere look at the joy of action and destroy it by analysis. It is true that action, in my case, is applied to bizarre, highly artificial practices (such as learning descriptions of diseases by heart or making coloured drawings of organs – the latter, actually, is quite amusing).
Will my enthusiasms, now as inoperative as damp squibs, ever be able to flower fully? The hope still remains with me, my dear fellow, a sweet and serious hope, as yet veiled but tomorrow, perhaps, wreathed in smiles …
My dear friend, we are not very far, you and I, from the point beyond which people lose that indefinable influence and emotive power over each other, which is reborn when they come together again. It is not only time which causes forgetfulness – distance (space) is an important factor. It is already, no doubt, making itself felt between us (let us admit this frankly), since my stupid occupations and considerable laziness have made my letters few and far between. I was bothered by the thought (sometimes only half-conscious, at other times fully so) that I had not written to you for several months. That is the excuse for the length of this letter and its disjointedness. Send me news of yourself, with evocative details, as you know how; shake off your elegant indolence and grant me a little time filched from your studies, however unworthy of it I may be. I cannot quite imagine what sort of figure you cut among all those Americans (there must still be some left in America, despite the number here). I had almost forgotten to give you news of the pension – everything is just the same (this evening, for the 2474th time, I shall see Madame Casaubon hold her napkin between her chin and her chest as her wrinkled hands mix the salad). Your philosopher, Fuller, is still here. He is a charming man; decent, likeable, hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, and full of stories. For a long time, I thought I would be able to make nothing of him, but I was wrong; we do Swedish exercises together every morning. At the moment, he is in Rome with his mother. Louise Rousselot is getting married – to an agrégé.
Dear friend, I shake your hand. Jean Verdenal
I am copying out here a sentence by André Gide, which has given me enormous pleasure during the last few days: ‘The Alternative: – Or to go once more, O forest filled with mystery, to that place I know, where, in darkened, stagnant water, the leaves of bygone years are still steeping and softening – the leaves of adorable springtimes.’
Excuse the handwriting – the spelling, the style and the crossings out – but I was in the habit of sometimes coming down to your room in an old jacket, collarless and in slippers.
FROM Jean Verdenal
MS Houghton
Lundi 22 Avril 1912
[Paris]
Mon cher ami,
Une vivace ardeur de soleil de printemps m’a poussé aujourd’hui à sortir dans les bois. Le petit bateau m’a doucement conduit à Saint Cloud entre les claires et vertes rangées de jeunes feuilles tendres inondées de lumière. Là-bas la poussée printanière était moins éclatante, cristallisée dans les lignes artificielles des grandes allées; décor délicat, presque irréel et, diraisje, féerique, si ce mot n’avait pas été employé à tort et à travers et déformé.
Alors, ce soir en rentrant j’ai pensé à vous écrire, parce que vous me fûtes particulièrement évoqué par le contact de ce paysage senti ensemble.* Excusez mon affreux papier, je n’ai que cela sous la main.
* Note. Le paysage n’a cependant que peu evoqué le bon Prichard et votre grand ami Child.1
Aucun événement special ne m’est arrivé depuis l’an dernier, et peut-être cependant le temps n’a pas été perdu. Je n’ai pas appris grand’chose, ni fait de nouvelles connaissances en Art. Mais j’ai pris conscience de la
force de quelques-uns de mes élans; je commence à avoir moins peur de la vie et à voir les vérités moins artificiellement. Je répète souvent les mêmes phrases qu’autrefois mais leur trouve un sens plus intense, plus cuisant. Je m’exprime très mal parce que cela n’est encore pas bien défini. Je suis comme si j’avais toujours vécu à l’aube et comme si bientot le soleil allait paraître. La lumière de mon monde intérieur change: des faces encore obscures s’éclairent (brillerontelles jamais?). Je me sens plus jeune et plus mûr à la fois; j’étouffe dans le nonchalant découragement où j’ai vécu. Voici sans doute le prélude de quelque nouvelle course après l’absolu, et comme les autres fois on se laissera tromper.
Je suis assez intéressé par tout cela. Il est très net que l’ ‘idéal’ est un élan intérieur et non une attraction du dehors puisqu’on peut être passionné sans objet. (Seulement nous n’en avons bien conscience que quand il rencontre quelque chose à quoi s’appliquer, tel un rayon de lumière quand il frappe un pan de mur.) Or les hommes tant qu’ils vivront en seront animés (puisque qu’il est inhérent à l’élan de la vie) et l’atteinte d’un but ne pourra l’assouvir puisqu’il préexiste à ce but. C’est ce qui
1) Nous fait croire à une finalité à la vie
2) Fait que cette finalité est inconnaissable.
Et nous avançons, nous avançons toujours.
Excusez mon bavardage, si ça vous embête, sautez par dessus et pardonnez-moi d’écrire au courant de la plume des idées qu’il faudrait vraiment au moins essayer de présenter avec plus de clarté. Ce n’est pas facile de se faire comprendre, et puis d’ailleurs ce n’est pas mon métier.
A propos, le cubisme est détruit par le futurisme qui proteste contre les musées, etc. et a fait une grande exposition chez Bernheim.2 Voici des exemplaires de la nouvelle école, à moins qu’une autre encore n’apparaisse pendant que ma lettre traverse la mer. On est offusqué à notre époque par le manque de modestie des gens de lettres et des artistes qui créent des écoles nouvelles tous les six mois, et par leur faiblesse de se mettre à plusieurs pour lutter. Ce mélange de violence et de manque de force n’indique rien qui vaille et nous souffrons de ce que l’art ne soit pas au niveau de notre sensibilité.
Au revoir, mon vieux, écrivez-moi quand cela vous passera par la tête. J’espère que vous faites de belles choses là-bas, et que germent des fleurs radieuses.
Jean Verdenal3
1–Harrison Bird Child (1889–1944), later an American Episcopal priest, had been with TSE at Milton Academy and at Harvard (Class of 1911).
2–One of the first Futurist exhibitions outside Italy was held at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris in Feb. 1912. The term ‘Cubism’, first used by Louis Vauxcelles in 1908, was applied to the work of Picasso and Braques, and by 1911 there were frequent references to a ‘Cubist school’ of painters.
3–Translation: My dear friend, A persistent blaze of spring sunshine prompted me to go out into the woods today. The little boat carried me gently to Saint Cloud between translucent green rows of tender young leaves drenched in light. At Saint Cloud, the explosion of spring was less conspicuous, being crystallised into the artificial lines of the great avenues; it was a delicate, unreal scene, even fairy-like, I would say, if that word had not been too much bandied about and distorted.
So, this evening, when I got back, I thought of writing to you, because you were especially called to mind by the contact with a landscape we appreciated together.*
* NB. However, the landscape only faintly recalled the worthy Prichard and your great friend Child.
Nothing special has happened to me since last year, and yet the time has not, perhaps, been wasted. I haven’t learned much or acquired any new knowledge of Art. But I have come to realise the strength of some of my aspirations; I am beginning to be less afraid of life and to see truths less artificially. I often repeat the same sentences as in the past, but their meaning now strikes me as being more intense, more excruciating. I am expressing myself very badly, because all this is not yet very clear in my mind. It is as if I had always lived before daybreak and the sun were just about to rise. The light in my inner world is changing: surfaces still dark are beginning to gleam (will they ever shine brightly?). I feel both younger and more mature; I am stifled by the listless discouragement in which I have been living. This is no doubt the prelude to some new pursuit of the absolute and, as on previous occasions, I shall be taken in.
I am quite interested by all this. It is very obvious that the ‘ideal’ is an inner impulse and not an attraction from outside, since it is possible to be passionate without an object. (However, we are only fully aware of the ideal when it encounters something to which it can apply itself, like a ray of light striking a patch of wall.) But men, as long as they exist, will be inspired by it (since it is inherent in the impulse of life itself) and it cannot be appeased by the achievement of any goal, since it existed before the goal. It is this which
1) Leads us to believe that life has a purpose
2) Makes that purpose unknowable.
And so we go forward, always further forward.
Excuse this blather; if it bores you, skip it and forgive me for putting down, just as they occur, ideas that I really ought to try at least to explain more clearly. It is not easy to make oneself understood, and besides it is not my line of business.
Incidentally, Cubism has been destroyed by Futurism, which protests against museums, etc. and has a big exhibition at Bernheim’s. Such are the manifestations of the new school, unless yet another springs up while my letter is crossing the sea. One is shocked these days by the lack of modesty on the part of writers and artists who create new schools every six months, and by the weakness which makes them band together to fight. The mixture of violence and lack of strength is not a good omen and we suffer from the fact that art is not on a par with our sensibilities.
Goodbye, my dear fellow, write to me whenever the thought occurs to you. I hope you are doing splendid things in America, and that radiant blooms are germinating. Jean Verdenal.
FROM Jean Verdenal
MS Houghton
Le 26 Août 1912
[Paris]
Mon cher ami,
Depuis un mois rentré de vacances volontairement sportives et hygiéniques, ‘bien douché, bien musclé’, je mène la vie la plus occupée du monde dans un bel entraînement pour concours. Grande mobilisation de tout le peu de médecine que je sais, revue en grand de toutes les questions, astiquage: ce sont les préparatifs au combat; les jours passent dans ce bel entrain.
Et ce soir voici que, sonnant dix heures (toutes les cloches du quartier sonnent et presque en même temps une grêle assez loin bientôt écrasée par les coups plus espacés d’une cloche plus grave, vous en souvient-il?) voici que tout à coup je pense à vous pendant que sonnent dix heures. Et votre image est là devant moi, alors je vous écris ce petit mot. Puis vite, vite – bonsoir … là – je reviens au travail.
Jean Verdenal.
PS Ecrivez-moi quand vous pourrez, cela me fera plaisir. Hôtel-Dieu, place du Parvis, Notre-Dame.1
1–Translation: My dear friend, Back a month ago from an intentionally athletic and healthgiving holiday, ‘well-showered and with muscles in trim’, I am now leading the busiest possible life to get myself perfectly in shape for the examination. Full mobilisation of every scrap of my meagre medical knowledge, general review of all questions, polishing up of details: such is the preparation for the battle to come; the days fly past as I labour away.
And then this evening, on the stroke of ten (all the bells in the area are ringing and, almost at the same time, comes a tinkling of fairly distant chimes, soon blotted out by the measured pealing of a deeper bell, do you remember?) suddenly I think of you as ten o’clock is striking. And your image is there in front of me, and so I am writing you this little note. But now, a hurried, very hurried good night … beca
use I must get back to work. Jean Verdenal
PS Write to me when you can, I shall be pleased to hear from you. Hôtel-Dieu, place du Parvis, Notre Dame.
FROM Jean Verdenal
PC Houghton
[Postmark 7 September 1912]
Aubonne
Ca va mon vieux – Je voudrais tellement que [tu] serais avec moi. Aff Jean.1
1–Translation: How are you my friend – I wish so much that you could be with me. Affectionately, Jean.
FROM Jean Verdenal
MS Houghton
Le 26 Décembre 1912
[Paris]
Mon cher ami,
J’arrive à la fin de cet ennuyeux concourse, la tête assez semblable à un grand magasin détenant tout ce qu’on veut pour bluffer le public. Dans un mois, j’espère avoir réussi et ne plus rien garder de l’encombrant étalage. Comme tout métier, la médecine ne retient que les connaissances qu’elle utilise. Il n’y faut rien chercher que de pratique. J’aurai ce métier. Par moments, cela m’irrite d’y être astreint; un certain orgueil intellectuel nous a déprécié la valeur d’avoir un métier. Et puis on a la peur d’y avoir perdu un temps réclamé par de plus graves problèmes. Prenons-le autrement: je tâcherai qu’il soit l’occupation appliquée, méticuleuse, la discipline nécessaire à ne point m’énerver ailleurs. Puisse cependant ma pensée progresser libre et mon coeur répondre aux appels de la vie …