Suite Francaise (48 page)

On L.:
*
¹⁶
It must be him because he is a crook. And in the times we are living in, a crook is worth more than an honest man.

Captivity
—keep it simple. Tell what happens to people and that’s all.

Today, 24 April, a little calm for the first time in a very long time, convince yourself that the sequences in
Storm,
if I may say so, must be, are a masterpiece. Work on it tirelessly.

Corte is one of those writers whose usefulness will become glaringly obvious in the years following the defeat; he has no equal when it comes to finding euphemisms to guard against disagreeable realities. E.g.: the French army was not beaten back, it withdrew! If people kiss the Germans’ boots it is because they have a sense of reality. Having a communal spirit means hoarding food supplies for the exclusive use of the few.

I think I should replace the strawberries with forget-me-nots. It seems impossible to bring cherry trees in blossom and ripe strawberries together in the same season.

Find a way to link Lucile to
Storm
. When the Michauds stop to rest one night during their journey, this oasis and the breakfast and everything that must seem so wonderful—the porcelain cups, the dewy roses in thick bouquets on the table (roses with black centres), the coffee pot giving off bluish steam etc.

Send up the so-called writers. E.g. A. C., the A. R. who wrote an article “Is the
Tristesse d’Olympio
*
¹⁷
a masterpiece?” No one has ever sent up certain so-called writers like A. B. etc. (there is honour among thieves).

To sum up, chapters already finished by 13 May 1942:

(1) Arrival (2) Madeleine (3) Madeleine and her husband (4) vespers (5) the house (6) the Germans in the village (7) the private school (8) the garden and the Viscountess’s visit (9) the kitchen (10) departure of Mme Angellier. First look at the Perrins’ garden (11) the day it rains.

TO DO:

(12) the German ill (13) the Maie woods (14) the Perrin ladies (15) the Perrins’ garden (16) Madeleine’s family (17) the Viscountess and Benoît (18) the denunciation? (19) the night (20) the catastrophe at Benoît’s place (21) Madeleine at Lucile’s house (22) the celebration at the lake (23) the de[parture].

Still to do: 12, half of 13, 16, 17, and the rest.

Madeleine at Lucile’s house—Lucile in Mme Angellier’s room—Lucile and the German—celebration at the lake—the departure.

FOR
CAPTIVITY
FOR THE CONCENTRATION CAMP THE BLASPHEMY OF THE BAPTISED JEWS “MAY GOD FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE YOU YOURS”—Obviously, martyrs would not have said that.

To do it well, need to make 5 parts:

1
Storm

2
Dolce

3
Captivity

4
Battles
?

5
Peace
?

General title:
Storm
or
Storms
and the first part could be called
Shipwreck.

In spite of everything, the thing that links all these people together is our times, solely our times. Is that really enough? I mean: is this link sufficiently felt?

Therefore Benoît, after having killed (or trying to kill) Bonnet (for I still have to decide if it might not be better to let him live for the future), Benoît escapes; he first hides in the Maie woods, then, since Madeleine is afraid of being followed when she goes to bring him food, at Lucile’s house. Finally, in Paris, at the Michauds’ where Lucile sends him. Pursued, he escapes in time, but the Gestapo search the Michauds’ house, find notes made by Jean-Marie for a future book, think they are political tracts and arrest him. He meets Hubert there [in prison] who had got himself arrested for some stupidity or other. Hubert would have no trouble getting out, because his powerful family who are total collaborators can pull strings, but out of childishness, his taste for adventure stories etc., he prefers risking his life by escaping with Jean-Marie. Benoît and his friends help them. Later, much later, because in the meantime Jean-Marie and Lucile have to fall in love, they escape and flee France. That should end
Captivity
and as I’ve already said:

Jean-Marie dies heroically. But how? And what is heroism these days? Parallel to this death, must show the death of the German in Russia, the two full of sorrowful nobility.

Adagio: Must rediscover all these musical terms (
presto, prestissimo, adagio, andante, con amore,
etc.)

Music: Adagio from Op. 106, that immense poem of solitude—the twentieth variation on the theme of Diabelli, the sphinx with the dark eyebrows who contemplates the abyss—the Benedictus of the
Missa Solemnis
and the final scenes of
Parsifal
.

He [Hubert] gets out: those who truly love each other are Lucile and Jean-Marie. What should I do with Hubert? Vague plan: Benoît escapes after killing Bonnet. He’s hidden at Lucile’s. After the Germans leave, Lucile is afraid to have him stay in the village and suddenly thinks of the Michauds.

On the other hand, I want J. Marie and Hubert to be thrown in jail by the Germans for different reasons. That way it would be possible to have the German die afterwards. Lucile could think of going to him to save J. Marie? All this is very vague. Think about it.

On the one hand, I would like a kind of general idea. On the other . . . Tolstoy, for example, with one idea spoils everything. Must have people, human reactions, and that’s all . . .

Let’s make do with important businessmen and famous writers. After all, they are the real kings.

For
Dolce,
a woman of honour can admit without shame “these unexpected emotions that reason can tame,” as Pauline would say (Corneille).

2 June 1942
. Never forget that the war will be over and that the entire historical side will fade away. Try to create as much as possible: things, debates . . . that will interest people in 1952 or 2052. Reread Tolstoy. Inimitable descriptions but not historical. Insist on that. For example in
Dolce,
the Germans in the village. In
Captivity,
Jacqueline’s First Communion and Arlette Corail’s party.

2 June 1942
. Starting to worry about the shape this novel will have when finished! Consider that I haven’t yet finished the second part, and I see the third? But that the fourth and fifth are in limbo and what limbo! It’s really in the lap of the gods since it depends on what happens. And the gods could find it amusing to wait a hundred or even a thousand years, as the saying goes
*
¹⁸
: and I’ll be far away. But the gods wouldn’t do that to me. I’m also counting a lot on the prophecy of Nostradamus.

1944—Oh, God!
*
¹⁹

While waiting to see the shape . . . or rather I should say the rhythm: the rhythm in the cinematic sense . . . how the parts relate to each other.
Storm, Dolce,
gentleness and tragedy.
Captivity
? Something muffled, stifled, as vicious as possible. After that I don’t know.

What’s important—the relationship between different parts of the work. If I had a better knowledge of music, I suppose that would help me. Since I don’t know music, then what is called rhythm in films. All in all, make sure to have variety on one hand and harmony on the other. In the cinema, a film must have unity, tone, a style. E.g.: those street scenes in American films where you always have skyscrapers, where you can sense the hot, muffled, muggy atmosphere of New York. So unity for the film as a whole but variety between the parts. Pursuit—people in love—laughter, tears etc. It’s this type of rhythm I want to achieve.

Now for a more basic question and one to which I cannot find an answer: won’t people forget the heroes from one book to the next? It is to avoid this problem that I would like to create one large volume of 1,000 pages rather than a work made up of several volumes.

3 July 1942
. Definitely,
*
²⁰
unless things drag on and get worse as they go! But please let it be over one way or the other!

Only need four movements. In the third,
Captivity,
collective destiny and personal destiny are strongly linked. In the fourth, whatever the result may be! (I UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN!), personal destiny is extricated from the other. On one side, the fate of the nation, on the other, Jean-Marie and Lucile, their love, the German’s music etc.

Now, here is what I pictured:

1                  Benoît is killed in a revolution or fight or an attempt at resisting, according to what seems realistic.

2                  Corte. I think this might be good. Corte was very afraid of the Bolsheviks. He is extremely collaborationist but, following an attack on one of his friends or out of wounded pride, he gets the idea that the Germans are finished. He wants to commit himself to the extreme left! He first thinks of Jules Blanc, but after seeing him, he finds him [illegible word in Russian], he turns resolutely to a young activist group, that has formed . . . [unfinished sentence].

For
Captivity:

Begin with: Corte, Jules Blanc visiting Corte.

Then a contrast: Lucile perhaps at the Michauds’.

Then: the Péricands.

As many meetings as possible but not historical, rather the masses, social events or battles in the streets or something like that!

Arrival

Morning

Departure

These three episodes must be stressed even more. The movement of the masses must give the book its worth.

In the fourth part, I only know the death of the German in Russia.

Yes, to do it well, should have five parts of 200 pages each. A 1,000-page book. Ah, God!
*
²¹

Remark. The theft of Corte’s dinner by the proletarians must have, for the future, a great influence. Normally, Corte should become extremely pro-Nazi, but I could also if I want, if I need to, do it in such a way that he says to himself: “There’s no point kidding myself; that’s where the future lies, the future belongs to this brutal force which stole my food from me. Two possible positions then: fight against it or, the opposite, from now on be a leader of the movement. Let himself be carried along by the wave, but on the front line? Even better, try to lead it? The official writer of the party. The great man of the Party, ha, ha, ha!” even more so since Germany is on good terms with the USSR and will come to tolerate it more and more. As long as the war lasts, this in fact will be madness on the part of Germany etc. Later on, it will be different . . . But later on people will see. They’ll fly to the aid of the strongest.

Could someone like Corte have such cynical ideas? Of course, at certain times. When he’s been drinking or after making love his favourite way, a way that a mere mortal could barely begin to understand, and even if he did understand, it would cause only amazement and panic. The difficulty here is, as ever, the practical side of things. A newspaper, a kind of radio. Freedom, the Germans secretly paying him a subsidy.
*
²²
We’ll see.

All action is a battle, the only business is peace
.
*
²³

The pattern, is it less
*
²⁴
a wheel than a wave that rises and falls, and sometimes on its crest appears a seagull, sometimes the Spirit of Evil and sometimes a dead rat. Accurately reality,
our
reality (there’s nothing to be proud about there!).

The rhythm must be here in the movements of the masses, everywhere where the crowds appear in the first volume, the exodus, the refugees, the arrival of the Germans in the village.

In
Dolce:
the arrival of the Germans, but it must be re-examined, the morning, the departure. In
Captivity,
the First Communion, a demonstration (the one that happened on 11 November ’41), a fight? We’ll see. I haven’t got there yet and I’ll approach it realistically.

If I show people who “influence” events, that would be unacceptable. If I show people act, that is certainly more realistic, but at the expense of keeping it interesting. Nevertheless, must limit myself to that.

It’s quite fair (though banal, but let’s admire and embrace banality), what Percy says—that the historical scenes are the best (see
War and Peace
), the ones that are seen from the perspective of the characters. I tried to do the same thing in
Storm,
but in
Dolce,
everything to do with the Germans, all that can and must be separate.

What would be good all in all (but is it doable?) is to
always
show the advance of the German army in the scenes not seen from the perspective of the characters. It would therefore be necessary to begin
Storm
with an image of people rushing around in France.

Difficult.

I think that what gives
War and Peace
the expansion Forster
*
²⁵
talks about, is quite simply the fact that in Tolstoy’s mind,
War and Peace
is only the first volume that was to be followed by
The Decembrists,
but what he did unconsciously (perhaps, for naturally I really don’t know, I’m imagining), in the end what he did consciously or unconsciously is very important to do in a book like
Storm
etc., even if certain characters are wrapped up, the book itself must give the impression of only being one episode . . . which is really what is happening in our times, as in all times of course.

22 June 1942
. I discovered, a while ago, a technique that has been really useful to me—the indirect method. On absolutely every occasion when I encounter a problem in how to deal with something, this method saves me, gives freshness and strength to the entire story. I use it in
Dolce
every time Mme Angellier is in a scene. But this method of showing something that I haven’t used systematically is open to infinite development.

1 July 1942
. Find this for
Captivity: