LITERATURE IN OUR TIME
be brought to a halt, that is, let him go beyond this point in order to
be able in future to avoid the temptation of going beyond it, but let
him know how to detach himself from this prospective criticism, to
put it in parentheses, and to regard it as null and void; in short, let
him at all times be aware that the mind is finite, bounded every–
where by magic frontiers, by mists, like the primitives who can count
up to twenty and are mysteriously denied the power of going any
further. This artificial fog which he must be always ready to spread
between himself and risky evidence, we shall call, very simply, dis–
honesty. But we're not through yet: let him avoid speaking too often
about dogmas; it's not good to show them in broad daylight; the
works of Marx, like the Bible of the Catholics, are dangerous to the
one who approaches them without a director of conscience; there is
one in each cell; if doubts or scruples arise it is to him that one must
talk. Nor should you put too many Communists in your novels or on
the stage; if they have faults, they run the risk of displeasing; if too
perfect, they bore. Stalinist politics has no desire to find its image
in literature because it knows that a portrait is already a contestation.
One can get out of it by painting the "permanent hero"
en pro fil
perdu-by
making him appear at the end of the story to draw con–
clusions, or by everywhere suggesting his presence but without show–
ing it, as Daudet with the Arlesienne. As far as possible, avoid bring–
-ing up the revolution; that's rather dated. The European proletariat
no more governs its destiny than does the bourgeoisie; history is
written elsewhere. It must be slowly weaned of its old dreams, and
the perspective of insurrection must be gently replaced by that of war.
If
the writer conforms to all these prescriptions, he will not be the
more liked on that account. He's a useless mouth; he doesn't
wor~
with his hands. He knows it; he suffers from an inferiority complex;
he is almost ashamed of his craft and puts as much zeal into bowing
before the workers as Jules Lemaitre put into bowing before the
generals around 1900.
During this period, the Marxist doctrine-which is quite in–
tact-has been withering .away; for want of internal controversy, it
has been degraded to a stupid determinism. Marx, Lenin, and Engels
said any number of times that explanation by causes had to yield
to the dialectical process. But the dialectic does not admit of being
put into the formulas of a catechism. An elementary scientism is being
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