612
ERNST PAWEL
probable in a battle-scarred old wolf. He is not, one suspects, above using
it-who is?-even on his own behalf; that he has long been using it to
help others, discreetly and behind the scenes, is an open secret.
The outcast is now swamped with honors, praise and recognition
- deputy to the National Assembly, intimate of Tito, head of the
National Institute of Lexicography, and at long last an author not only
famous but also published in his own country, where a thirty-six volume
collected edition is now appearing.
We had probably always misread him, misconstrued as revolutionary
what in fact proved to be undeviating consistency. Krleza was subversive
only in that he stubbornly kept faith with a vision of humanity clearly
at odds with that of Austrian bureaucrats, Yugoslav autocrats and Stalin–
ist commissars. The man who thirty years ago had been regarded as a
dangerous fanatic turned out to be the one sane man in a madhouse
who had the courage of his sanity.
Symbolic, therefore, and perhaps symptomatic as well is the recent
success of one of his books, originally written in 1938, whose focal idea
is a paradigm of this very situation - the tragicomedy of a successful
lawyer whom,
nel mezzo del cammin,
fate and circumstances suddenly
compel to be ruthlessly honest with himself and all those about him, to
assume full responsibility for all his thoughts and actions and to speak
the truth regardless of consequences. Rohwolt's West German paper–
back edition of
Mind's Edge,
published this spring, has already gone
through five printings; and while the wit and the venom of the prose
undoubtedly contributed to the belated success of this relatively short
work, Krleza himself ascribes it to the relevance of its basic problem to
the moral climate of contemporary Germany.
Yugoslavia has unquestionably become a much healthier place, and
Krleza's brand of sanity no longer constitutes clear and present danger.
But there is still a broad gap between his enlightened sanity and the
pursuit of truth regardless of consequences, as preached by Djilas.
"To hell with sanity," says Stavra.
Stavra is the son of a lifelong activist and authentic Partisan hero.
Born after the war, he left home a year ago and now sees his parents
only at irregular intervals for what he characterizes as an affectionate
exchange of irrelevant news. "No break-we just have nothing to say to
each other."
The others, his fellow students, agree. Inordinately bright and
well-informed, they seem older than I remember their parents
to
have
been at that age.
