ANDRE MALRAUX
363
wars?" I answered: " The replacement of the Payot literature by the Galli–
mard literature."
Belles-lettres
being superseded by publishing. The literary
literature formerly published by the
NRF
and doing what the
Mercure de
France
had done for the Symbolists, Lemerre for the Parnassians, and Ren–
duel for the Romantics is no longer anything but an item in the enormous
list of capitalist or communist publications-the new field, increasing daily,
of books which are neither essays, poems or novels. Colloquies fit none of
these. But that book factory-the publishing house-without suppressing
bellef-Iettres
engulfs them-and Colloquies are an important part of their
prod~ction.
We learn a lot by projecting a new genre into the past, such as a nine–
teenth century novel into the seventeenth century, a
Phedre
by Balzac
rivalling a
Pn·ncesse de Cleves.
Or the book that a Colloquy would have
devoted to ... Lados! An interesting idea: here we have the author of
Les
Liaisons Dangereuses
and of virtuous notes on the upbringing of young
ladies, the duc d'Orleans' political agent, the inventor of the bomb....
Or better still!
Racine,
despite his fame . Chapters such as: Port Royal–
Conversations about the Fronde-Contacts with the King-His early
Plays-His Religion-His Work as a Historiographer-His Relation
to
Greek Poetry-His Travelling to Constantinople at the Time of Bajazet–
Dialogue with a Young Greek Writer-Symbols and Allegories-Racine
and the History of Antiquity-The Unity of Racine's Art-the Human Con–
dition of a Secretive Person-Racine's World and Ours-and finally a chap–
ter by Racine himself summing it all up . As contributors we have: leading
figures of the Fronde, people in the confidence of the Jansenists of Port
Royal and of the King , dramatists, a priest, a historiographer, a Hellenist,
some young foreigners, a poet, an actress perhaps ... and as a supplement
to
the posthumous edition: L'Affaire des Poisons .
This game makes one ponder.
It
shows better than an analysis the dif–
ference between a study and a biography : particularly the life of Racine by
his son. Would a modern biography be more complete?
It
would lose the ir–
replaceable flavor of the time shared by those people who are ignorant not
only of what we do not know but also of what we have learnt. The fish bowl
comes with the fish . Should we be able to imagine each contribution, or
only its pastiche? What it all lacks is the irrational element produced by any
given period in time, and which cannot be reconstructed even when the
furniture is genuine and when the collected essays and the author under dis–
cussion are of that same period.
Above all, the spirit behind the Colloquy did not then exist ; it would
require a difficult and implausible
montage
to
give an illusion of it . Merely
to assemble its component parts is in itself a new idea. Whatever this
