write the story of a happy man.
Even today, when I listen to Mo-
. zart, I can't help feeling that the
ideal achievement for me would
be to write the way Mozart corn–
poses. But the fact is that I have
just written a play for Jean Louis
Barrault, which is a variation on
the theme of
The Plague,
and that
I am writing another about Kal–
iaev, the terrorist who killed the
Grand Duke Serge. After which, I
tell myself, I shall write about hap–
piness.
"The next moment, however, I
wonder. We of the generation that
has become mature from 1938 to
1945 have seen too many things.
I don't mean too many horrors,
but simply too many contradictory,
irreconcilable things. We have be–
come incapable of the natural stu–
pidity without which, Pushkin said,
one can't be a poet. We are full of
ambiguities.
"I have some friends who have
come ·back from concentration
camps. They all claim that, except
for this or that physiological trou-
selected poems from
humores del hormigo
by the 19th century folk poet
el cucalambe'
illus. with 40 mognificent wood cuts
ond
color cover design
by
Robert Altmann
price $1.50
signed ond numbered eds. $5
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john myers
201 e. 38 st.
n.
y.,
n.
y
1144
ble, they are perfectly normal now.
Some of them insist that they don't
even have dreams about the camps
any longer. So we talk about litera–
ture, politics, current events, have
discussions, and even quarrels, just
like anybody else. Only, at certaih
moments in the course of certain
arguments, I feel the presence of a
limit that cannot be overcome, as
in a conversation with old people.
It is, I suppose, that while talking
about this or that my friends can–
not help thinking of 'something
else.' I don't mean the camps, but
all the paths their minds have ex–
plored, paths which remain closed
to me. At such moments I know
that all I can do is to keep my
friends company, without deluding
myself that we can really com–
municate with each other.
"We too, the men who are now
around forty, have ,escaped from
an experience that cannot really
be communicated, and must re–
main ambiguous. We have all, to a
greater or lesser extent, gone
through what has come to be
called "nihilism," the experience of
the arbitrary. But we have also
seen men transformed into brutes
by the logic of an absurd power.
Every time we are confronted with
a proposition that implies such re–
sults, we revolt against it. When
we hear naive hopes being ex–
pressed, however, we cannot he!p
remembering that we have also
had the experience of the amaz–
ing inadequacy of man, the ease
with which he can be made to
