Variety
Paul Valery {1 871-1945)
P
AUL VALERY would doubtless be
very difficult to discuss as a
poet, had he not denied the rights
of the dunce and had he not united
in himself the charm and the ar–
rogance of the professor. He said
to me one day: "Now that I be–
long to the Academy, I am going
to bring in the rabble." By the
rabble, he meant the true poets,
those who disturb the class, hide
alarm clocks under the desk, play
dirty tricks regularly, and are dis–
missed from school for crimes of
treason.
His straight" line was tortuous.
It
meandered without a break and
was straight only in essence. The
precious serpent which entwined
itself in its own folds liked to bite
its tail and with ultimate malice
shaped itself from time to time to
the figure of zero.
For the pessimism of Valery on–
ly expressed itself through a love
of discipline and through discour–
aging the angelic soul by weighing
it down with the dull and the bor–
ing.
His most serious study of the
nocturnal world, the world in
which the work of art is hatched,
was always accompanied by those
sardonic winks and insane laughs
of the wicked pupil who, knowing
himself capable of improvising in
a moment what is a long toil for
others, somehow passes above them
and never takes their labor seri–
ously: never did Valery yield to
that unfortunate poetic and histori–
cal glamor with which the future
alone ought to concern itself and
which makes ridiculous those who
suppose it indispensable to their
immediate visibility. Valery was
invisible and he remained invisible
in a way to which the best of us
cannot be compared, presenting an
enigma to the countless readers
who can only judge by making
comparisons. After writing these
lines, I heard
in
a fisherman's ca–
bin the description on the radio of
the funeral of Paul Valery. The
pomp, the procession, the torches,
the Palais de Chaillot correspond
so poorly to the background of fish
nets, planks, herbs, and pine needles
on this deserted and almost savage
coast that Valery appeared to me
in his most human form.
During the funerals of the
Countess de Noailles and of Gi–
raudoux, I had already known as
if
with certainty that they would
take me by the shoulder and lead
me far from the church so that we
might chat around a table. It is
this aspect
~f
Paul Valery, so gay,
so little possessed by solemnity,
that rises in my mind while a slow
and funereal voice pays tribute to
him. He preferred most of all an
intimate breakfast, the end of
which was continually delayed.
If
he was in company, he knew ·how
to reduce his hosts to the state of
