A most unfortunate thing has happened to a friend of mine called ----
to a friend of ---- to a friend of ----. Well, I suppose the truth
will have to come out. It happened to me. Only don't tell anybody.
I reviewed a book the other day. It is not often I do this, because
before one can review a book one has to, or is supposed to, read
it, which wastes a good deal of time. Even that isn't an end of the
trouble. The article which follows is not really one's own, for the
wretched fellow who wrote the book is always trying to push his way
in with his views on matrimony, or the Sussex downs, or whatever his
ridiculous subject is. He expects one to say, "Mr. Blank's treatment
of _Hilda's_ relations with her husband is masterly," whereas what one
wants to say is, "Putting Mr. Blank's book on one side we may consider
the larger question, whether ----" and so consider it (alone) to the
end of the column.
Well, I reviewed Mr. Blank's book, _Rotundity_. As I expected, the
first draft had to be re-headed "A Corner of Old London," and used
elsewhere; Mr. Blank didn't get into it at all. I kept promising
myself a sentence: "Take _Rotundity,_ for instance, the new novel by
William Blank, which, etc.," but before I was ready for it the article
was finished. In my second draft, realizing the dangers of delay, I
began at once, "This remarkable novel," and continued so for a couple
of sentences. But on reading it through afterwards I saw at once that
the first two sentences were out of place in an article that obviously
ought to be called "The Last Swallow;" so I cut them out, sent "The
Last Swallow: A Reverie" to another Editor, and began again. The third
time I was successful.
Of course in my review I said all the usual things. I said that Mr.
Blank's attitude to life was "subjective rather than objective"
... and a little lower down that it was "objective rather than
subjective." I pointed out that in his treatment of the major theme he
was a neo-romanticist, but I suggested that, on the other hand, he
had nothing to learn from the Russians--or the Russians had nothing
to learn from him; I forget which. And finally I said (and this is
the cause of the whole trouble) that ANTOINE VAURELLE'S world-famous
classic--and I looked it up in the Encyclopaedia--world-renowned
classic, _Je Comprends Tout_, had been not without its influence on
Mr. Blank. It was a good review, and the editor was pleased about it.
A few days later Mr. Blank wrote to say that, curiously enough, he
had never read _Je Comprends Tout_. It didn't seem to me very curious,
because I had never read it either, but I thought it rather odd of him
to confess as much to a stranger. The only book of VAURELLE'S which I
had read was _Consolatrice_, in an English translation. However, one
doesn't say these things in a review.
Now I have a French friend, Henri, one of those annoying Frenchmen who
talks English much better than I do, and Henri, for some extraordinary
reason, had seen my review. He has to live in London now, but his
heart is in Paris; and I imagine that every word of his beloved
language which appears, however casually, in an English paper
mysteriously catches his eye and brings the scent and sounds of the
_boulevards_ to him across the coffee-cups. So the next time I met
him he shook me warmly by the hand, and told me how glad he was that I
was an admirer of ANTOINE VAURELLE'S novels.
"Who isn't?" I said with a shrug, and, to get the conversation on
to safer ground, I added hastily that in some ways I almost liked
_Consolatrice_ best.
He shook my hand again. So did he. A great book.
"But of course," he said, "one must read it in the original French. It
is the book of all others which loses by translation."
"Of course," I agreed. Really, I don't see what else I could have
done.
"Do you remember that wonderful phrase ----" and he rattled it off.
"Magnificent, is it not?"
"Magnificent," I said, remembering an appointment instead. "Well,
I must be getting on. Good-bye." And, as I walked off, I patted my
forehead with my handkerchief and wondered why the day had grown so
warm suddenly.
However the next day was even warmer. Henri came to see me with a
book under his arm. We all have one special book of our own which we
recommend to our acquaintances, regarding the love of it as perhaps
the best passport to our friendship. This was Henri's. He was about
to test me. I had read and admired his favourite VAURELLES--in the
original French. Would I love his daring LAFORGUE? My reputation as
a man, as a writer, as a critic, depended on it. He handed me the
book--in French.
"It is all there," he said reverently, as he gave it to me. "All your
English masters, they all come from him. Perhaps, most of all your
---- But you shall tell me when you have read it. You shall tell me
whom most you seem to see there. Your MEREDITH? Your SHAW? Your ----
But you shall tell me."
"I will tell you," I said faintly.
And I've got to tell him.
Don't think that I shall have any difficulty in reading the book.
Glancing through it just now I came across this:--
"_'Kate, avez-vous soupé avant le spectacle?'
'Non, je n'avais guère le coeur à manger.'_"
Well, that's easy enough. But I doubt if it is one of the most
characteristic passages. It doesn't give you a clue to LAFORGUE'S
manner, any more than "'Must I sit here, mother?' 'Yes, without a
doubt you must,'" tells you all that you want to know about MEREDITH.
There's more in it than that.
And I've got to tell him.
But fancy holding forth on an author's style after reading him
laboriously with a dictionary!
However, I must do my best; and in my more hopeful moments I see the
conversation going like this:--
"Well?"
"Oh, wonderful." _(With emotion)_ "Really wonderful."
"You see them all there?"
"Yes, yes. It's really--wonderful. MEREDITH--I mean--well, it's
simply--(_after a pause_) wonderful."
"You see MEREDITH there most?"
"Y--yes. Sometimes. And then sometimes I--I don't" (_with truth_).
"It's difficult to say. Sometimes I--er--SHAW--er--well, it's ----"
(_with a gesture somewhat Gallic_) "How can I put it?"
"Not THACKERAY at all?" he says, watching me eagerly.