JULES ROMAINS
265
"young men of the 9th of July" that Jules Romains pretends took
part). My friends and I came out disgusted with this gathering,
which had no other results than to permit the Nazis to expound
with impunity their hypocrisies to an exceptionally sensitive group
of French youth. "Everything passed off," concluded M. Romaine,
"in correct and even cordial fashion." I'm afraid it wa& M. Dieu–
Farigoule's bad luck that I, who am in no way endowed with his
ubiquity, that I found myself precisely there, one of the "sixty"
(there were about 25 of us) to expose the lie.
*
*
*
*
Moreover, I venture to doubt that Mr. Romain!! properly
deified himself.
One of my friends one day saw a man enter his room in the
Ecole Normale Superieure,
who came to ma:c.e an estimate of
needed repairs; with a tape measure he wandered about, putting
down in a notebook figures and notes.
"Say, while you are here," said the student, "you might
change a pane in the window."
The visitor smiled.
" ... and then there's that creaky board there. Try and
fix
that."
The visitor smiled a little more palely.
". . . and then . . ."
After two or three"... and thens ..."the face of the vi!litor
turned frankly yellow.
Nevertheless it was not a barbarian or a country bumpkin
who neglected to recognize you, Jules Romains, who neglected to
recognize in you the "unique," the god, while for some chapter on
I
allez and Jerphanion, you were calculating the dimensions of this
room. It was the son of the mathematician and Bergsonian LeRoy,
professor at the College de France-one of the upper crust.
You were annoyed, I know that.
If
you had had the strength
to laugh to the end, and to consider yourself simply a plain man,
you would perhaps have become one of our gods (because we only
believe in those we create for ourselves); in any case, you would
not have written the
Seven Mysteries;
you would not have caused
pain to all the Claudels and all the Verhaerens to come.
(Translated by Nancy
and
Dwight Macdonald)
