232
PARTISAN REVIEW
Judean Desert
to
the Luxembourg Gardens, from the Holy City to
Sodom on the Seine, from the Levantine fringe of civilization to its
luminous center.
He arrived in Paris at what might have been its brightest moment
since the Great War. Koestler does not make much of this in his mem–
oirs, but William Shirer recalls that the summer of
1929
was a time of
unparalleled industrial expansion in France, of an exceptionally favor–
able trade balance and a grand total of
812
people unemployed . Such
numbers imply many social advantages, but they also help to explain a
pleasant change in Koestler's working responsibilities.
In the Judean Hills, the thought must have occurred to him, one
toiled constantly to make something grow. Work in Paris was to trim
things back. It was the same in journalism. Compared with the Middle
East, where every story was a tour de force, covering French politics was
methodical. He found himself doing a kind of journalistic shift work,
and he entered the life of the city, not as a tourist, but functionally. Pro–
fessional obligation consisted in reporting votes of confidence and par–
liamentary speeches : Daladier's progressive reason, Maurras's
reactionary thunder. There were the usual debates, wins and losses to be
tallied among Socialists, Conservatives, and Royalists. With a govern–
ment surplus of some nineteen billion francs, there were also ministerial
corruptions to ferret out. At the onset of the depression, these brought
the Third Republic to the brink of collapse.
However, these difficulties came later. For now, the mundane quality
of French politics was a relief from messianists and Islamic nationalists.
Koestler took particular pleasure, ironically, in a style of work not
unlike the one he fled from on the kibbutz (though, to be sure, working
a paragraph was not exactly like working an orchard). A sobering reg–
imen counteracted wanderlust: the same restaurant's
prix fixe,
the same
half liter of wine with the girlfriend from the office, the same Metro
stop, the same walkway beside the Louvre. He writes that he developed
an "easy affinity" (who does not?) for French paintings, buildings, and
novels. He hung out with the other "smaller fry" at the smoke-filled
Salle des Journalistes, a lounge in the basement of the Stock Exchange.
He was in bed by midnight, up by
7:30.
Orwell was down and out just
now. Koestler was engaged and climbing-"a paragon of
petit bour–
geois
virtue."
Koestler's chief at the Paris bureau was a plodding man who ran the
office with the elan of a high diplomat and, apparently, about as much
political imagination. For his part, Koestler was in a pyramid of intelli-
