JULES ROMAINS
259
the world." From the
Saturday Evening Post
to the
Excelsior
of
Mexico, the commercial press showers with money the man who
once showered it with ridicule. Today when M. Jules Romains
speaks of Europe, it is to say, in 330 pages (not counting the table
of contents), nothing worth hearing or that we did not know
already.
1917-Europe; 1940-Les Sept Mysteres du Destin de
l'Europe:
the moral and intellectual history of Jules Romains is
written in these titles. Instead of the simple word, the poem which
said everything,
Europe,
here a quarter of a century later is the
appeal to cheapness:
Seven,
the mystic number;
Mysteries,
without
which no book sells today;
Fate,
another come-on word;
Europe,
our chief concern.
* * *
*
We must look into such a fall as this, seek out its causes.
Literary fashion, of course, has something to do with it:
every talented writer, every well-known poet is today invited, no
matter how remote from such matters, to vaticinate on the state of
the world. In their so-called political writings, some authors keep
some or all of their dignity as writers, as T. S. Eliot or Benda.
Others, more numerous, forget what they owe themselves and what
they owe us. When Thomas Mann defends against the "pluto–
democracies" the "social" empire of Kaiser Wilhelm II, when he
summons up a Third Reich (as in 1917, in
Frederick and the
Grand Alliance),
when he prophesies, in the contrary sense,
The
Coming Victory of Democracy
or puts his name to
The City of
Man,
his arguments are all equally unworthy of his genius.* Now,
as in the
past-nulle pensee; pensee nulle.
And do you think
Valery is any better, when he lets fall his
Regards sur le Monde
Actuel?
like Thomas Mann or Paul Valery, Jules Romains is a
victim of literary fashion and of a misconception of the workings
of democracy.
But there is something more serious involved here. There is,
in
the career of Jules Romains, more than one sign which allows
one to foresee the man we deplore today. Let us always distin-
*I will not criticise what some would call his 'irresponsibility.' I merely observe
that, with many great creators, political thought engages none of their essential powers
and is merely a reaction to the demands of their milieu. I state the facts; I do not
judge.
If
I judged, it would not displease me that the author of
Buddenbrooks,
of
the
Magic Mountain
or of
Mario and the Magician
was incompetent in other fields
than novel writing.
