The Thematics of Commitment: The Tower and the Plain [Course Book ed.] 9781400853700

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The Thematics of Commitment

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS P R I N C E T O N , NEW J E R S E Y

Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-06610-8 Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This book has been composed in Linotron Bodoni Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey

CONTENTS

TUTUTL METHODOLOGICAL PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION

What is Commitment? The Place of Detachment: La Chartreuse de Parme I · The Hill and the Plain: La Colline inspiree

vii xvii 3 3 12 23

II · The Upright and the Rampant: Germinal

56

I I I · The Ups and Downs of Commitment and Detachment: "La Comedie de Charleroi"

82

IV · The High Plateaus: L'Homme ά cheval

118

V · Getting Down to Earth: Les Mouches, "Erostrate," Les Chemins de la Liberte

172

VI · Making Molehills out of Mountains: Imaginative Polemics in Sartre and Nizan V11 * Routine Elevation: Le Mythe de Sisyphe, La Peste, L'Exil et Ie royaume, La Chute V I I I * R e f u s i n g t o G o D o w n : Rhinoceros, Le Pieton de Vair CONCLUSION

Extensions Exclusions NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY TEXTS INDEX

218

242

295 332 332 346 365 408 439

METHODOLOGICAL PREFACE

JUTLTL THIS is an attempt to elaborate a thematics of commitment

that will have texts—or readings of texts—as its base. In other words, it is not an attempt to find out empirically what commitment is like in the "real" world, nor is it a report on such an investigation. I shall be referring throughout to the "natural" world as it appears in a given cultural context, not to a real world considered as universally knowable. More particularly and more narrowly, I shall refrain from any study of the place of these texts in a communicative process, of their impact on readers, or of their function in the world. No specific sociological or semiotic study of this sort is attempted here, although such a study would be valuable and, no doubt, in some way yet to be articulated and in any case not described here, complementary to the present one. This study takes as its object "commitment": it both looks for commitment and at the same time assumes it to be already known, in some important sense. Now this might be thought to lead immediately to a contradiction with respect to a stated interest in texts as material. But the problem need not be a durable one if it be understood that my concern here, fol­ lowing a certain phenomenological tradition that will be in­ voked more fully in due course, is with readings of texts, or with the understanding of them. I am not concerned, for example, with a putatively inductive semiotics that would claim to find the content of texts without making substantive predictions about the nature of that content. What allows me to look for commitment as part of the content of certain texts is that I already know quite a lot about it. I could talk quite specifically about the subject now and, I suggest, be understood—although "we," writer and reader, have not yet read any texts together. Why is this the case?

viii • Methodological Preface

It is not, presumably, because at any moment we can interrupt our writing or reading to verify that commitment as it is observable in the world "really is like that" but because we have already read a number of texts in which commitment is part of the content: we have a certain culture in common. We can follow the same intertextual trajectories. But what seems threatened here is the possibility of change: if our foreknowledge is so considerable, ought we to consider our reading of (new) texts as the simple working out of our prejudgments and prejudices? The danger is that thematics will degenerate into the triviality of recognition, whereby all we can do is find "more" commitment, or "another text" containing commitment, even if we have more sophisticated ways of presenting our observations. The philosopher HansGeorg Gadamer helps us to see why this need not be the case by identifying recognition as a kind of /^understanding: "un­ derstanding means, primarily, to understand the content of what is said, and only secondarily to isolate and understand another's meaning as such. Hence the first of all hermeneutic requirements remains one's own foreunderstanding, which proceeds from being concerned with the same subject."1 The crucial thing here is to maintain a working difference between a preunderstanding that appears or presents to consciousness as given and a fuller understanding that can be elaborated. The distance between them is the space in which new texts (taken in the same thematic context) can be read. That such a solution can be found in principle may not in itself be sufficiently reassuring. If we posit the existence of some substantive foreknowledge of commitment, we may want to do more than just refer to it: we may wish to focus on it and to find a way of articulating it. In the absence of divine or positivistic objectivity—and the two may for the purposes of argument be taken as the same thing, since we cannot at the same time be radically inductive and know the name of our theme—we can resolve to know our own subjectivity. In addition, while affirming that there is no possibility of an absolute beginning we could nevertheless make a beginning

Methodological Preface * ix

in practice, being agnostic about the origins of commitment and yet finding a way to start talking about the subject. At this point, a kind of phenomenological description would seem apposite.2 I say "a kind of" not just to be defensively vague but because I mean, if possible, to borrow without "interest" from phenomenological practice in this regard. What seems to me most valuable for my present needs is the mutual implication of subject and object, as understood by Husserl and others.3 It allows one to give form to what might otherwise be loosely called abstractions: complex states or emotions. In this perspective, as Sartre says in L'Imaginaire, "Tout sentiment est sentiment de quelque chose, c'est-a-dire qu'il vise son objet d'une certaine maniere et projette sur Iui une certaine qualite.""4 Thus all consciousness is an act,5 and we do not have to fuss about the possible difference between, say, commitment as a way of behaving and as mere selfconsciousness: we can talk simply of the consciousness of commitment as a set of intentional objects. Although it would be naive of us to suppose that such objects are spatio-temporal things, it is true nonetheless that phenomenological criticism at its best (Poulet, Starobinski, Richard) is able to manipulate the objects of cognition as if they were so, to build them as structures with an internal dynamic. Its deliberate naivete works here as a two-edged sword. Phenomenologists are able to have a sense of the value of appearances, which are not, as so often elsewhere, scorned as the mask of reality, the obstacle that prevents access to the depths of true meaning. In this sense, they tell us that "seeing is believing."6 But phenomenologists also seem to tell us that believing is seeing— seeing, or at least intending—objects that can be described as constitutive of the subject and its beliefs, as its beliefs. It might be least misleading if I were to characterize the method I propose to follow as pseudophenomenological. I certainly do not claim, for instance, any absolute generality for whatever conclusions are reached: they are likely to be • "Every feeling is the feeling of something, that is, it intends its object in a certain way and projects onto it a certain quality."

χ * Methodological Preface

culturally constrained in ways that are not manifest. If this study is about "human" commitment, then the kind of "hu­ man" involved is described or produced by an anthropological discourse, occurring in a particular time and place. To talk of the essence of commitment, as I shall do in the Introduc­ tion, is not therefore, as in Husserl, to appeal to an eidos that can be reliably seen and verified, in the proper context, as an invariant throughout all the variations of commitment that are effected: it is rather an appeal to that which we, as writer and reader, can perceive as typical. Husserl's eidos may or may not exist: I have no access to it. Similarly, I have no guarantee of the organic wholeness of my chosen object of study. Insofar as I am not claiming to deal with individuals or with the human kind, I have no theoretical or philosophical basis for such a claim. The unity of commitment as a theme has been posited from the first, but it remains to be articulated at every step of this work. The first problem for such methodologically inspired—and in that sense makeshift—phenomenology is the lack of un­ derlying guarantees. Unlike Gadamer, we are not dwelling here on the fact of understanding, or indeed on its significance as a mode of being.7 Nor are we following through the expe­ riential dynamics involved in "the reader's" integration of interpretation as experience, as in Wolfgang Iser. In that sense, we do not know, and do not immediately require to know, what the phenomenon of understanding means, or even the manner in which it actually happens. In our narrow but relatively precise framework, it should suffice to focus on the content and the conditions of understanding, knowing that, in an important sense, the content is the condition, and the condition the content. We shall not speak here of "the reader," as Iser does, in the confidence that we can so refer to a recognizably human person without specifying his or her cultural identity. Iser says in The Act of Reading that he is not developing a theory based on "existing readers":8 he is interested in general aes­ thetic questions, in "what actually happens when one is read­ ing a text."9 But, we may ask, who exactly is this "one," and what guarantees its organic wholeness? For Iser, it is a "tran-

Methodological Preface * xi

scendental model": "it provides a link between all the his­ torical and individual actualisations of the text and makes them accessible to analysis."10 Yet, for anyone who does not share this confident humanism, there can be no reliably tran­ scendent ego, no universal subjectivity. In a context of meth­ odological agnosticism, we shall have to assemble the reader instead: he, she, or it is the place where the content of texts may be held as a way of referring to content as generalizable and generalized. Our "reader" has become a set of culturally defined objects of consciousness,11 although what constitutes this set as a set is no longer clearly apparent. So it is that the vexed question of intersubjectivity can be dealt with con­ tractually:12 the appeal to supposedly shared knowledge or­ ganized in specific ways is what allows me to say "we" when speaking of writer and reader, in the confidence that any breakdown of shared understanding, and therefore of our "intersubjectivity," should manifest itself clearly, although the cause of it may be more obscure. The epistemological value of an initial phenomenological description is in fact double: as well as establishing a contract between writer and reader, it enables us to make predictions at the beginning of a study that may be subject to correction in the course of the work. If we say what we are looking for, then we have a better chance of recognizing our errors. Gadamer says that "The important thing is to be aware of one's own bias, so that the text may present itself in all its newness and thus be able to assert its own truth against one's own foremeanings."13 It is not a simple matter, however, for us to follow Gadamer here: he seeks to apprehend understanding in ontological terms whereby being wrong becomes a matter not so much of recognizing specific, and perhaps minor, errors of interpretation but rather of "forcing the entity into concepts to which it is opposed in the manner of its being," to use Martin Heidegger's phrase.14 Being disastrously wrong, for the present study, probably means having the reader fail or refuse to recognize the validity of my initial claims about shared knowledge. But what is needed beyond this, supposing that such radical breakdown does not occur, is some possi­ bility of adjustment.

xii * Methodological Preface

Here, we have something to learn from Jean Piaget, via E. D. Hirsch, who takes up the "useful phrase" corrigible schemata: "A schema sets up a range of predictions or ex­ pectations, which if fulfilled confirms the schema, but if not fulfilled causes us to revise it."15 Certainly, if we can set out a range of expectations, then we are no longer committed to the potentially disastrous binary opposition of recognition and nonrecognition. And if, as Paul Ricoeur says, "la phenomenologie est tout entiere un art de la distinction, done de la difference, "b16 then a phenomenological approach to com­ mitment as it is already available to our understanding ought to provide us with a differentiated description. This kind of description should in fact be subject to further elaboration in the course of our study, precisely via (narrower) differentia­ tion. We may not be able to say much more than this about correction. Shadows cast on my work by the Kuhn-Popper debate (about the conditions under which falsification might or might not occur) hardly afford further possibilities of clear distinction.17 It does appear, at least, that only the descriptive model as such could fail. In terms of prediction and falsifi­ cation as aspects of "scientific" method, a phenomenological "theory" of the reading of texts could not be considered to be at stake here. It is doubtful, furthermore, whether the kind of radical alteration of schemata defended in principle by Hirsch against Gadamer can occur in this context.18 We are not committed to a strictly circular approach, but there must surely be some kind of "spiral," as Piaget says elsewhere.19 To talk of the transcendence of expectations, or of discovery, in the true sense, would be folly. In any case, I am not convinced that these are possible anywhere. Certainly, we can experience surprise when faced with the unpredicted, but can we actually know anything at that point other than that we are surprised? In view of these general considerations, it seems more b "phenomenology

is characteristically the art of distinction-making, and therefore of [the perception of] difference"

Methodological Preface * xiii helpful to talk about thematics than simply about a theme. Jean-Paul Weber talks about the theme, to which he reck­ lessly ascribes the power to engender the work of a whole author.20 But even he recognizes that "le theme est une struc­ ture,"021 and it is precisely in order to emphasize the latter point that I prefer to talk of thematics. I do not want in fact to make any precise claims about the recuperative power of the "theme" of commitment with respect to a particular work— its "vertu transitive," as Daniele Racelle-Latin so nicely calls it a propos of Richard22—if for no other reason than that I am quite unsure of how to measure the wholeness or even the extent of the individual work that would thus be accounted for. I see thematics as a form of taxonomic knowledge—if that is not a tautology—and the "theme" of commitment in, say, L'Homme ά cheval as deriving its meaning for my study from its place in the (thematic) network being elaborated. Now I am well aware that phenomenological thematics in general, at least when they have been sophisticated—or in­ hibited—enough to renounce all genetic claims,23 can be accused of being exclusively spatial. Jean-Pierre Roy, for example, denounces Bachelard's failure to take account of textual time, of the syntagmatic dimension: En fait, la methode de Bachelard, dans la mesure ou elle est gouvernee par son parti pris paradigmatique, a Ie double effet d'isoler l'image de son contexte et d'entrainer une fuite dans la profondeur paradigmatique des images isomorphes. Cette fuite dans la profondeur constitue precisement une fuite hors du langage de l'oeuvre, hors de la surface horizontale signifiante que presente Ie texte.d24 c

"the theme is a structure" "In fact, Bachelard's method, to the extent that it is governed by his paradigmatic bias, has twofold consequences, isolating the image from its context, and provoking a flight into the paradigmatic depth of isomorphic images. This flight into depth amounts to an escape from the language of the work. It leaves behind the horizontal signifying surface presented by the text." d

xiv • Methodological Preface

Within the limits of its own assumptions, which are dominated by a belief that the primary task of Bachelard ought to be the reading of texts, this comment functions as a telling denun­ ciation. It shows the dangers, or more strictly the limitations, of focusing on the singular—I am tempted to say the indi­ vidual, organic—image, and perhaps on the "theme," if it can be taken in the same way. But what is unfortunate, and indeed rather crude, about the opposition thus established between the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic is that it does not recognize an ordered paradigmatic space: for Roy, there are only "flight" and "depths" here; the paradigmatic is onedimensional. Yet surely it is possible to talk about the way in which a paradigm is articulated, such that we are able to map it. Certain trajectories would be proper to it, and in that sense it would be a kind of space-time. Its basic material would then be, not isolated moments or events in a text, but elements of narrative. We would always need to know what happens to an "image," and this could allow us to elaborate an understanding of what is likely to happen to it, what it is likely to become, in a certain thematic context. In the absence of a compelling textual time, understood strictly, thematic criticism is concerned with a quasi-syntagmatic writing out of the paradigm. It could be argued—and the work of Georges Poulet is the best example to take here—that a temporal dimension can be maintained in thematic criticism through a sense of history. One thinks of Les Metamorphoses du cercle, which attempts first of all to establish a general narrative and then to deal differentially with individual worlds of consciousness.25 Yet one cannot be sure that even Poulet, whatever the practical guarantees of his own massive erudition, could answer the epistemological thrust of Michel Foucault's comments in L'Archiologie du savoir, where it is shown that the history of a problematic entity, the discourse on madness, cannot be about different ways of relating to the (phenomenologically analyzable) being of madness. The latter cannot be found as a constant in all statements relevant to such a history: "ce ne sont point des memes maladies qu'il est question ici et la;

Methodological Preface · xv

ce ne sont point des memes fous qu'il est question."626 Foucault's point is, of course, that there is an epistemic break between two periods such that a simple thematic history based on phenomenological principles could not be written across this gap. But this consideration can serve as a constraint on thematic studies rather than as a general threat to them, in that it allows us, by inference, to define what we might mean by the synchronic:27 in referring explicitly to shared knowl­ edge, I am supposing that commitment can be understood here as a part of "modern" culture. This study is not therefore a history of commitment; the reader is allowed to see in the fact of studying La Colline inspirie before Germinal a minimal provocation, a reminder that the order of texts for study is subject to elaborative and indeed strategic considerations rather than dictated by chronology. Here, then, is a limitation that helps to bring our task closer to hand by partially defining, in principle, a corpus of texts for study: all those texts chosen will be nineteenth- and twentieth-century ones, with no specific claim made about the possible existence of, say, medieval or eighteenth-century commitment. But a more straightforward principle was clearly inherent in our earlier discussion: it seems obvious that only those texts that are about commitment, or rather that can be read as part of it, ought to be included. Yet we should step more lightly at this point, if only because such a procedure could cause us to lose much of the potential richness and precision of our understanding. Clearly, we need to be able to recognize what is or is not commitment: we have to be capable of not finding it, or we shall be the victims of quite arbitrary limitations. We might, for instance, because of the prestige of Sartre's opinions, exclude all that is not prose literature written by left-wing writers, thereby losing a host of possibilities: nonprose texts, right-wing texts, left-wing texts by "known" right-wing authors, essentially religious texts, and so forth. More subtly perhaps, we might lose sight of the kind of differentiation mentioned by Ricoeur as charc "The sicknesses being discussed are not the same in each case; we are not dealing with the same mad people."

xvi ' Methodological Preface

acteristic of phenomenology: we can know commitment better by knowing those things to which it is specifically opposed and those adjacent notions or experiences from which it is critically different. It does not suffice, then, for us merely to include: texts need to be discussed-as-excluded. To do this will be one of the functions of the Introduction and especially of the Conclusion. Texts by Eugene Ionesco will also be studied in this light. Other limitations of the corpus have a less compelling methodological motivation. I do not intend to take as primary texts the substantial body of discursive writing on the subject (I am thinking particularly of works by Abellio, Benda, Brombert, Caute, Gueriη, Kemp, Koestler, Matvejevitc, and Mury listed separately in the Bibliography). Although these works will be the object of some incidental discussion in the Intro­ duction, the main focus of my attention will be on (French) literary texts, which are taken to be, if not more demanding or complex, at least richer and more closed in their coherence. In that sense I aim to produce an intensive and elaborative thematics rather than an extensive and digressive one. Indeed it seems to me virtually impossible to proceed on both fronts, so to speak, analyzing literature and commitment while keep­ ing them coupled together. To judge by previous attempts at this, one is likely to find either that the aesthetic question dominates to the extent that all "narrowly" committed liter­ ature is seen as propaganda28 or that great "art" is valued precisely because it is perfectly transparent, bringing us face to face with the reality of the writer/author's situation.29 In the first case, there is an antinomous relation between lit­ erature and commitment that tends to deprive the (muchused) term "literature of commitment" of all coherent mean­ ing, whereas in the second, literature has no specificity: it is merely the instrument of communication. I shall therefore make no attempt to define the domain of literature as opposed to nonliterature, accepting an institution that allows the pub­ lication and reception of my writing, while making a beginning on commitment. Translations of all quotations are my own except where otherwise indicated.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

J-LTLTL I WISH to acknowledge my debt to Barry Leal, for whom, more than for any other, this book was written: it is, so to speak, a protracted answer to his teaching. I owe thanks to colleagues and friends who read the manuscript and made helpful comments, to Keith Atkinson, Ross Chambers, Neil Connor, Denis Cryle, Connie Healy, and Michael Spencer. I have learned a great deal from my students, through class discussion and assignments: Maureen Aitken, Mary Barrett, Juliana de Nooy, Bill Fitzgerald, Philippa Kelly, Sue Web­ ster, and GeoffWood deserve special mention in this regard. Finally, I must acknowledge my particular debt to Anne Freadman: her exigent intellectual companionship has been invaluable in requiring me constantly to ask questions about the point of my work and its place in a wider academic context.

The Thematics of Commitment

INTRODUCTION

JTJlTL Ainsi quand Ie navire aux epaisses murailles Qui porte un peuple entier berce dans ses entrailles, Sillonne au point du jour l'ocean sans chemin, L'astronome charge d'orienter la voile Monte au sommet des m&ts oil palpite la toile, Et, promenant ses yeux de la vague a l'etoile, Se dit: "Nous serons la demain!" Puis, quand il a trace sa route sur la dune Et de ses compagnons pr£sag6 la fortune, Voyant dans sa pensee un rivage surgir, Il descend sur Ie pont oil l'equipage roule, Met la main au cordage et lutte avec la houle. Il faut se separer, pour penser, de la foule, Et s'y confondre pour agir." LAMARTINE, "Utopie"

"Thus when the ship with its thick walls Which cradles a whole people in its entrails, Ploughs at break of day through the pathless ocean, The astronomer who is responsible for orienting the sail Climbs to the peak of the masts where the canvas is flapping And looking up and down from the waves to the stars, Says to himself: "We shall arrive to-morrow!" Then, when he has traced his route upon the dune, And prophesied the fortune of his companions, Seeing in his mind a coastline come into view, He goes down onto the deck where the crew is at work, Lends a hand with the ropes and struggles with the swell. In order to think, one must separate oneself from the crowd, And to act one must mingle with it."

4 * Introduction

WHAT IS COMMITMENT? WHEN WE ATTEMPT to identify commitment as an attitude in the most generally typical terms, it appears to involve an experience of choice, that is, an essentially binary system in which matters of degree are of no great concern: I may decide either to be committed or not to be. This experience implies, in terms of its own logic, that the person who is able to consider the question of commitment believes himself to be free or, more precisely, supposes that he is free. Were this not so, there could be no problem because there would be no responsibility. Furthermore, if I ask "Will I or will I not choose to become committed?" the very fact of asking this question supposes that I am not committed now, that I do not have the consciousness of commitment as my present state. This is the starting point. It is not, of course, the beginning of all experience but an experience of beginning: it is im­ portant to note that we are talking here, in phenomenological terms, about the way things appear. We do not need to ask whether the problem is correctly posed in this way, or whether one is indeed free to make such a choice. Nor do we even need, following more sophisticated phenomenological anal­ yses, to make an attack on such dichotomies as action/inertia or mind/matter via a study of the role of the body in the world.1 The kind of generality thus obtained would be de­ nunciatory, and it would serve less well as a vehicle for prejudgment. There is then, in commitment, an initial experience of orientation toward the future and absence of the past: one is "not-yet-committed." Now if we give to this act or activity its most general predicates, supposing that what is envisaged when one asks the question "Will I or will I not commit myself?" is some form of being in the world—or more loosely, of being involved in what is going on,2—then the experience of choice supposes that one is, at the time of asking the question, at some distance from the world. If I am not yet committed, then I am not in the world. This experience does not imply, however, that I am absent from the world, in a

Introduction * 5

radical sense, for such an absence would entail the impos­ sibility of considering the world, and therefore of considering the predicate(s) of my commitment. Thus the situation in which the problem of commitment occurs is one in which the world is perceived as present-at-a-distance. The "typical essence" of commitment can be seen to be an attitude that poses and confronts a problem. In other words, for one who is absolutely committed, the question of com­ mitment ceases to exist as such, at least in theoretical, ab­ stract terms. Or rather, if there is no longer any experience of being at a distance from the world, commitment cannot even be envisaged as an attitude. This is what Sartre shows us quite clearly in his analysis of the militant.3 The essence of the militant's attitude, he says, is his implicit denial of choice: joining the party should come before he accedes to a fully human level of consciousness, when he is "encore nature et mu par Ies grandes forces naturelles qui traversent Ies animaux elementaires."b It is not a matter here of being thoroughly committed but of being in such a way that it is impossible to conceive of commitment as ever having been problematic: "Car il n'est pas vrai que Ton vous demande d'abdiquer votre moi: ce serait encore trop d'avoir un moi a abdiquer."c4 The militant, we could say, has no knowledge of commitment, in the sense that he has never had the ex­ perience of freely crossing a certain distance in order to become involved: he has never faced—and could not therefore have solved—a comparable set of problems. The problematic person is the one who is usually called an intellectual, and Marxist sociological description overlaps here with ours to the extent of affirming that "!'engagement s'inscrit dans une problematique qui appartient en propre a la couche sociale des intellectuels. "ds In the sense that they are capable of b "still a part of nature, driven by the great natural forces that pass through lower animals" c "It is not true that you are asked to give up your self: it is unacceptable to have a self that might be given up." ' d "commitment is part of a problematic that properly belongs to the social stratum of the intellectuals"

6 * Introduction

continued questioning, intellectuals can never be militants. As Sartre says, Fut-il irreprochable dans ses moeurs, un intellectuel communiste porte en Iui cette tare originelle: il est entre librement au parti; cette decision, c'est la lecture reflechie du Capital, l'examen critique de la situation historique, Ie sens aigu de la justice, la generosite, Ie gout de la solidarite qui l'ont conduit a la prendre: tout cela fait preuve d'une independence qui ne sent pas bon. Il est entre au parti par un libre choix; done il peut en sortir.e6 We can see that, characteristically, the intellectual is thought to be able, in a situation in which he seems already com­ mitted, to have anew the experience of being not-yet-com­ mitted, such that commitment is not a definitive event. Free­ dom works as the (apparent) abolition of necessity arising out of the past, in favor of a new experience of beginning.7 In this sense, we must understand the broader pattern of com­ mitment, commitment in time, as the organization of two "stages": the state of committedness and the act of committing oneself. By committedness, we can understand something like what G. H. von Wright, in his deontic logic, calls "entail­ ment,"8 or what Peter Kemp emphasizes in drawing our at­ tention to the gage in the etymology of engagement:9 insofar as commitment can be thought of as a relational state, it can be defined by the fact that some current or future action will necessarily entail another. It involves a line of action, as a series of related acts. Committing, on the other hand, involves the freedom to choose (or not) this line of action. This is what von Wright means by "logical permission."10 By thus making e "Even if his behavior is above reproach, a communist intellectual is always handicapped right from the beginning: he has entered the party of his own free will·, the decision he took was motivated by a careful reading of Capital, by a critical examination of the historical situation, by a keen sense of justice, by generosity and a taste for solidarity: all this smacks of independence. He has entered the party by a free choice; so, he is able to leave it."

Introduction * 7

room within commitment for two phases, it is possible to avoid the simplest form of moral dilemma, "pure commitment or pure militancy," as posed for instance by Gilbert Mury: "II faut pourtant choisir entre l'ame qui fait retraite hors du monde pour Ie survoler du regard—et la volonte tendue qui trouve sa place parmi Ies choses comme une force parmi d'autres."01 No, says the intellectual: there is a kind of de­ tachment that has its place within commitment, "!'engage­ ment doit etre en rapport avec Ie rassemblement de soi,"g12 and this whole attitude, in its complexity, is foreign to mil­ itancy. The former works with a spatial opposition, in (the world) versus out (of it), whereas the latter, to the extent that it is ever manifested—and even Mury recognizes eventually the abstract nature of this opposition, as opposed to its moral import13—cannot imagine that one might ever have been out, and therefore does not understand "in." The essence of mil­ itancy is fundamentally in contradiction to that of commit­ ment, and we should remember that although it may continue to appear to us as an intuitively related attitude, it belongs elsewhere. To see things from the point of view of commitment is, in a sense, to refuse to know militancy; it cannot be under­ stood in detail because its simplicity and poverty must be af­ firmed for the situation of the intellectual to appear, in con­ trast, as complex and rich. Commitment seems to involve, quite systematically, the denigration and trivialization of militancy. We note, then, that commitment exists insofar as the prob­ lematic choice of being or not being in the world is confronted, wrestled with, solved, and resolved, as long as it is not denied. But if commitment is to be an ongoing problem, of the kind that permits intellectual work in the furtherance of under­ standing, the "world" must appear as a complex object or set of objects: it must be seen in detail. Being outside the world cannot mean being in another world, in the sense of being in the clouds or in the sky, for instance. Nor indeed can it ' "Yet we have to choose between the soul that withdraws from the world in order to gain an overview of it—and the resolute will that finds its place among things like one force among others." 8 "commitment must be related to the concentration of self'

8 * Introduction

mean the experience, described by Bachelard, in which one finds oneself "aux confins de deux mondes, de l'air et de la terre."h14 There must not be two worlds at all. If the intellectual is to be imagined as "in the air," thereby making broader perspectives possible, then this state must take very specific forms if it is to be part of commitment: the mountain-top is inappropriate, especially when it is the place of the sacred or of the transfiguration, where normal social pressures are not felt and normal masks no longer worn. Even if one were to look down from the mountain-top to the earth below, that would hardly suffice as a means to practical knowledge: what is needed is not a panorama but some kind of prospection, or forward-looking. It is not enough that the world should be designated with a figurative wave of the hand from somewhere outside and presumably above it. Even more modest human constructions can be thus (mis-)used, as we see in the attitude that we readily characterize, in both colloquial and literary contexts, as the ivory tower mentality. This attitude is worthy of some attention at this point, if only to exclude it eventually from the domain of commitment. Maurice Beebe defines it as a tradition with a particular view of art: The artist of the Ivory Tower tradition . . . cares little for humanity or nature. Far from wanting to live more fully, he resents his carnal appetites and natural in­ stincts, and yearns for release from human bondage. His Ivory Tower, like a monastic cell or Faust's chambers, is often without windows; and if he looks out at all, it is not so much at the world as down upon it. As the Ivory Tower tradition gains momentum [sic], we shall see a new emphasis on internal consciousness, a pre­ dilection for the unnatural, a striving for the unknown and the unseen. The artist tries to become a saint, like Flaubert's Anthony in the desert, strong enough to with­ stand all worldly temptations. Dissatisfied with the way in which he was made, he tries to remake himself anew, h

"at the frontier of two worlds, the air and the earth"

Introduction * 9

thus becoming a dandy or an esthete. Life is replaced by art, and art becomes a sacred ritual.15 There is intellectuality here, of course, and the sense of a new beginning. But the key point is that the tower serves as a means of escape from the world below, about which, in extreme cases, very little is known, except precisely that it is below, and as such worthy of scorn, if not actively scorned. By the distance it creates or represents, the ivory tower neg­ atively establishes the superiority of the hermit or the es­ thete:16 the one who prefers to look inward or upward rather than outward or downward.17 It is surely significant that this attitude should insist on the quality of the tower: the tower and, implicitly, the distance of superiority have become ob­ jects of contemplation in themselves. E. M. Forster asks: "Is there such a thing as an Ivory Tower? And if there is, shall we fortify it and make it stronger, or shall we try to pull it down? To put the problem in other words: can books be an escape from life, and if they can be, ought they to be?"18 But the terms of Forster's question and the very preoccupation with ivory lead us away from the essential problems of com­ mitment by inviting us to contemplate the architecture and the texture of the tower. The literal point of view—that is, the spatial assumption—that we are already in life is emi­ nently reasonable but diametrically opposed to that of com­ mitment as we have analyzed it.19 The result is a simple paradox whereby the (potential) esthete looks up to the tower as a thing of beauty and sees that its beauty is enhanced by the moral effort of its inhabitants to create and maintain distance between themselves and the world: "As far back as history stretches, we can see men trying to retire into their Ivory Towers and there to resist or modify the instincts which they possess as members of the herd."20 But not all towers are frozen objects of purity; not all distance is aesthetic. The tower can also be a simple obser­ vation point, whereby the whole emphasis is transferred, in keeping with the values of commitment, to "the look." Under­ stood broadly, in Starobinski's sense,21 the look would tend

10 * Introduction

to ignore the tower in favor of some detailed perception of the world. Instead of looking at distance, I use distance by looking across it. One kind of detailed observation is of course that of the watchtower: this is the situation, or rather the literal and figurative support, of one who looks most atten­ tively at the surrounding "country." Yet it is clear that the person who stands on the watchtower does not pose the prob­ lem of commitment: he is not concerned with asking whether he will join the world in some way, whether he will belong to the country around him: his whole attitude implies that the country, the plain, that which lies below, is a constant source of threat. If he comes down—and any descent is no doubt a failure to live his essence to the full22—it is to warn people, to protect some kingdom or regime that is seen as satisfying his set of values. He may call out, but his word is a cry, or perhaps in its more pragmatic and no doubt degraded forms a challenge (something like Rastignac's "A nous deux!"), but never a discourse. The watchtower is marked by the con­ junction of the guard and the prophet and may lend itself to a detailed imagination of the romantic conflict between "in­ dividual" and "society"; it may even take on the aggressive self-sufficiency of the lighthouse, but it is not a place where the consideration of commitment can occur.23 On the other hand, the tower as vantage point can serve merely to deal with the difficulties of some more positive observation. Instead of superiority and protection, this dis­ tance that separates me from the world may simply allow me room to understand. In particular, it may free me from time. If time is seen to be the flow of activity and causality in the world, or, in a more complex and challenging way, a diversity of directions such that to choose one is to lose all possibility of knowing the others, then a spatial imagination of obser­ vation is particularly appealing to the intellectual conscious­ ness. It is as if, perpendicular to the horizontal plane with its divergent "lines of action," there were a single vertical axis, so often represented by the tower, and not simply two horizontal planes, or parallel worlds, such as earth and sky. The fixed point enables one to escape from relativity, as

Introduction ' 11

Bachelard observes when talking of domination: "Mais on ne voit pas loin de n'importe ou, on ne prend pas possession de la terre immense sans point fixe."'24 The particular advantage of this in the context of commitment is that it enables one to see the future, not as a mountain-top vision or prophecy but as a prediction based on observation and inference. As Gaston Berger says, "Le veritable interet de la prophetie est purement religieux. Elle est un signe. Elle est faite pour la foi, non pour la pratique. La prevision, au contraire, est faite pour Taction."'25 With such foresight, the future can be seen as entailment, the different possible lines of action discerned, and the consequences of their adoption prospected, that is, foreseen, explored, and examined in advance. Imagination thus has a role to play, functioning as "une faculte du pos­ sible":1126 beyond the inductive and the taxonomic, the con­ sciousness of commitment is likely to take the form of a prospective reverie, whereby the future is, in the terms of Dominique Guerin's Politique de I'imaginaire, "non pas conquis mais vecu."127 To use half of Bachelard's phrase, and thereby to use it against him, we can "rever pour mieux comprendre.""128 Without attempting to ask the difficult ques­ tion "what is literature?" we can see here, at least, how imaginative "literature" might have a specific role in the explication of commitment. When the tower is thus used for observation by one who has a sense of beginning on the whole problem, it appears as given—given, and not constructed or fortified, like the strangely rambling ivory tower of which Forster speaks. In­ deed, it is not achieved in any way but appears as part of what Drieu la Rochelle calls the intellectual's "condition."29 ' "But one cannot be far-sighted from just anywhere, one cannot possess the immense earth without a fixed point." > "The real interest of prophecy is purely religious. It is a sign. It belongs with faith and not with practicality. Foresight, on the other hand, is made for action." k "a faculty of the possible" 1 "not conquered but lived out" m "dream in order to understand better"

12 • Introduction

This is not a comfortable condition, it must be added, for where privilege is experienced as comfort it is usually ac­ companied by a sense of security, implying at least the ab­ stract possibility of a threat from outside or below.30 From the point of view of commitment, given a positive desire to relate to the world, the privilege of knowing is tied to duty. To talk of "la conscience de Tengagement"" in French seems doubly appropriate. Although conscience no doubt always requires consciousness, it seems characteristic of commit­ ment that consciousness necessarily entails conscience.31 Separation from the world is given, but staying out of it is not acceptable. Thus for the intellectual observer, the time constraints return, though in a more general way: if contemplation be­ comes an end in itself, we are once more outside the domain of commitment. If I continue indefinitely to contemplate the world, then I might be able to make innumerable generali­ zations about it; I might consecrate and enhance my initial privilege through my wisdom; but my activity is no longer framed by the question of choice. In terms of commitment, any consideration of the world must be a preparation for involvement, or at least a constant attempt to understand at a distance what such involvement would entail. If there is as yet no entry into the world, there must be some imagination of entry and its consequences.

THE PLACE OF DETACHMENT:

La Chartreuse de Parme From this point, we can continue to work simultaneously on the essence and on the boundaries of commitment but in a rather different—and apparently more inductive—way. La Chartreuse de Parme is a text that seems to lend itself to thematic links with commitment as we have begun to analyze it.32 In the first place it is a novel "about" towers, and more " "the consciousness/conscience of commitment"

Introduction * 13

specifically about people who readily find themselves in tow­ ers, people who belong there. When Fabrice is sent to prison, there is never any doubt about the place he might occupy: he is in the highest part (p. 354), whereas the "plus noirs liberaux" are in "les cachots Ies plus profonds" (p. 389);° upon his return, he goes immediately to the same place (p. 502). He is so high up that, from his cage, he even looks down on Clelia's (caged) birds (p. 355). Yet the whole ques­ tion of the achievement of height is quite irrelevant here. What Andre Grossetete sees as typical of Stendhal and his heroes is magnificently inappropriate in the case of Fabrice: "Stendhal va vers l'avant et vers Ie haut. Il s'echappe du reel par l'elevation, l'altitude, ou par une 'chevauchee fantastique'. Evasion et ascension Ie conduisent a une orgueilleuse solitude."p33 Fabrice has no need of such effort: his very Iegereteq seems to function as the denial of all kinds of gravity. Social ascension happens with virtually no effort and with minimal surprise: "il n'eut point l'air etonne de cet incident, il prit la chose en veritable grand seigneur qui naturellement a toujours cru qu'il avait droit a ces avancements extraordinaires, a ces coups de fortune qui mettraient un bourgeois hors des gonds" (p. 219).r On the other hand, and in keeping with the same imagi­ native logic, descent for him is a very difficult thing indeed. In a trice, he can find himself imprisoned in the Tour Farnese, but to escape—even to resolve to escape—requires great heroism, perhaps folly. If "s'arracher au sol" is, as JeanPierre Richard says,®34 normally the essence of life for the Stendhalian hero, it is tearing oneself away from the tower, 0

"the blackest liberals" are in "the deepest dungeons" "Stendhal goes forward and upward. He escapes from the real through elevation, altitude, or the transport of fantasy. Escape and ascent lead to proud solitude." ι lightness/frivolity ' "he showed no sign of astonishment at the incident, he took the whole thing like a true nobleman who naturally has always supposed himself entitled to these extraordinary advancements, these strokes of fortune which would unhinge a plebeian mind" ' "tearing oneself away from the earth" p

14 * Introduction

or from the prison, that seems the most demanding if not the most satisfying thing for Fabrice. Gilbert Durand gives this descent its full epic stature: Le mur de la citadelle que Fabrice descend precautionneusement dans la nuit et Ie brouillard, suspendu au fil sauveur, ecorche par Ies broussailles, heurte par Ies oiseaux de nuit, menace par Ies bai'onnettes, englue dans Ie fosse bourbeux, Ies mains en sang, constitue un vrai labyrinthe vertical.'35 Yet it would be misleading in my view to see this heroic act, with Durand, as a "descent into hell."36 The point here is surely that his descent takes him to the earth and not into it or through it. Such is the strict superficiality of his aims that entering the world, if this is in fact what Fabrice is doing here, involves reaching the earth, something that seems true much more generally in the domain of commitment. To use Bachelard's terms, we are more concerned in this area with "dynamic imagination" than with "material imagination."37 As Georges Matore says, "C'est sans doute a la surface davantage qu'au volume, qu'il faut rattacher la base et Ie sommet. "u38 In view of the manifest givenness of being in the tower for Fabrice, it is appropriate to ask whether there is an experience of privilege here. The answer to the question must be a complex one. In the first place, by a strange contradiction of our predicted relation between elevation and knowledge, liv­ ing in a tower is said to go with being "primitive." This is the case of the Abbe Blanes (p. 39), and Fabrice alone is allowed to join him there because of his naivete (p. 37). Blanes is presumably a primitive because of his lack of any detailed understanding of worldly affairs: 1

"The citadel wall down which Fabrizio climbs with such care in the darkness and the fog, hanging by the life-saving thread, grazed by bushes, buffeted by night birds, threatened by bayonets, stuck in the muddy moat, his hands cut and bleeding, constitutes a real vertical labyrinth." u "The base and the summit ought no doubt to be related with the surface, rather than with volume."

Introduction · 15

Cet excellent vieillard etait parfaitement incapable de comprendre Ies chagrins d'un coeur tiraille par des pas­ sions pueriles et presque egales en force; d'ailleurs il eut fallu huit jours pour Iui faire entrevoir seulement tous Ies interets que Fabrice devait menager a Parme. (p. 185)" So is Fabrice, in his own way. He does not use his elevated situation for the purpose of precise observation: "II etait bien loin d'employer son temps k regarder avec patience Ies par­ ticularity reelles des choses pour ensuite deviner leurs causes" (p. 189).™ But in that very refusal to observe is the con­ sciousness that a whole world lies below: "Le reel Iui semblait encore plat et fangeux; je congois qu'on n'aime pas a Ie regarder" (p. 189)." If there is, after all, a "fall" that threatens Fabrice, despite his lack of gravity, it is no doubt the fall into a precise awareness of the discrepancies between his situation and the norm, via a sense of privilege: "mais Fabrice etait bien tombe de cette elevation de bonheur sublime ou il s'etait trouve transports une heure auparavant. La pensee du privilege avait desseche cette plante toujours si delicate qu'on nomine Ie bonheur" (pp. 188-189).y In any case, this (fleeting) sense of privilege is rendered possible for Fabrice by the fact that, perhaps by contrast with Blanes, he does know the world in some sense, even if he does not reliably know it from the tower. He begins to know it, in the first place, because he chooses to leave his father's v "That excellent old man was totally incapable of understanding the sorrows of a heart torn asunder by boyish passions more or less equal in strength; besides, it would have taken a week to make him gather even a faint impression of all the conflicting interests that Fabrizio had to consider at Parma." w "He was far from employing his time in studying with patience the actual details of things in order to discover their causes." * "Reality still seemed to him flat and muddy; I can understand a person's not caring to look at it" ι "but Fabrizio had fallen a long way from that elevation of sublime happiness to which he had found himself transported an hour earlier. The thought of privilege had withered that plant, always so delicate, which we name happiness."

16 ' Introduction

castle, a place of sulking and spying, "Le genre de vie boudeur" (p. 39; see p. 27),2 a place whose "elevation" serves only to maintain a kind of suspicious security—"ce chateau etait a l'abri d'un coup de main; et c'est pour cela qu'il etait cher au soupgonneux marquis" (p. 28)*—and to shelter the furtive activities of father and eldest son: "Le marquis etait enferme dans son cabinet avec son fils aine, Ie marchesino Ascanio. Ils fabriquaient des lettres chiffrees" (pp. 33—34).b Fabrice leaves it initially in favor of excursions into an un­ doubtedly horizontal world of adventure: "La vie de ce cha­ teau, peuple de trente ou quarante domestiques, etait fort triste; aussi Fabrice passait-il toutes ses journees a la chasse ou a couHr Ie lac sur une barque" (p. 35; my italics).0 His departure for Waterloo may in fact be seen as the culmination of this movement, although his adventurous travel through Switzerland to France (pp. 50-51) is inspired by the (vertical) vision of the eagle (p. 49). During the battle, it is not given to him to see things from above, except for a moment of chance elevation that allows him to see "un coin de la bataille" (p. 62).d The rest is galloping horizontality (pp. 62, 65), floundering—"terre labouree" (pp. 65, 66), "pataugeant dans la boue" (p. 67)"—and finally the precise and limited, that is, noncatastrophic and even salutary, fall of disillusionment: "La guerre n'etait done plus ce noble et commun 6lan d'ames amantes de la gloire qu'il s'etait figure d'apres Ies procla­ mations de Napoleon! Il s'assit, ou plutot se laissa tomber sur Ie gazon" (p. 73).f ' "the sullen sort of life" * "this castle was safe from assault, and it was for this reason that it was dear to the timorous [and suspicious] Marchese." b "The Marchese was closeted in his study with his elder son, the Mar­ chesino Ascanio; there they composed letters in cipher." c "Life in this castle, peopled by thirty or forty servants, was extremely dull; accordingly Fabrizio spent all his days in pursuit of game or exploring the lake in a boat." d "a corner of the battle" • "tilled land"; "splashing through the mud" ' "So war was no longer that noble and universal uplifting of souls athirst for glory which he had imagined it to be from Napoleon's proclamations! He sat down, or rather let himself fall on the grass."

Introduction * 17

This experience serves its purpose: Fabrice learns a lesson. But it surely is not a general lesson about the "folly" of idealism or dreaming. Rather, he learns that the world is full of scoundrels, that he is surrounded by them: "Voir arriver la mort n'etait rien, entoure d'ames hero'iques et tendres, de nobles amis qui vous serrent la main au moment du dernier soupir! mais garder son enthousiasme, entoure de vils fripons!!!" (p. 72).g This no doubt serves to exemplify and ex­ pand Grossetete's remark that we find in Stendhal's work "une grande horreur de la terre . . . une aversion souveraine pour tout ce qui est inferieur, dans tous Ies sens du mot."h39 That the earth and its creatures exist might not be of any interest in itself, but their presence is quite pervasive. At Waterloo, Fabrice is imprudent in the extreme, and again in his fight with Giletti: 'Toute cette foule horriblement sale et energique criait: Excellence. Fabrice eut beaucoup de peine a se deli­ verer de la cohue; cette sc£ne rappela son imagination sur la terre. Je n'ai que ce que je merite, se dit-il, je me suis frotte a la canaille" (p. 245).' But no simple prudence could guarantee that he would not again find himself surrounded by villains. The lowest of all are the most furtive, it seems, and they find their level in the activity of spying. Rassi, of course, is the most striking in La Chartreuse, dressing in old clothes and visiting the most wretched houses—"II faut avouer que Ie Rassi avait des habitudes singulierement plebeiennes" (p. 482)'—but he finally matters less, perhaps, than the anon­ ymous and innumerable spying vermin that infest the hori­ zontal world. * "To see death come to one was nothing, surrounded by heroic and tender hearts, by noble friends who clasp one by the hand as one yields one's dying breath! But to retain one's enthusiasm surrounded by a pack of vile scoundrels!" h "a great horror of the earth . . . an utter aversion for everything inferior, in every sense of the word" ' "All this crowd, horribly dirty and energetic, cried out: 'Eccellenza!' Fabrizio had great difficulty in escaping from the rabble; the scene brought his imagination back to earth. Ί have only got what I deserve,' he said to himself; Ί have rubbed shoulders with the mob.' " ' "It must be admitted that Rassi had some singularly plebeian habits"

18 * Introduction

To know the earth and to despise it in this way is, de­ monstrably, to be outside the boundaries of commitment. One must value both contemplative knowledge and action in the world, both the vertical axis and the horizontal plane, for commitment to occur. Not valuing the world and being out of it is the ivory tower attitude, already discussed and ex­ cluded, but not valuing the world and being in it in some way is potentially more complex, and this seems to be what we have in La Chartreuse de Parme. We have a conjunction, or rather a coexistence, of the haughty and the low, the characteristic expression of which, in the text, seems to be the phrase au milieu de: the duchesse functions brilliantly "in the midst of' court intrigue (p. 481), and the politics of passion are followed through "au milieu des plats interets d'argent" (p. 455).k In keeping with this, the proper dispo­ sition of spies, as the jealous Count M. knows, is "autour de ce rival" (p. 261; my italics).1 Naturally enough, the supe­ riority of Fabrice appears to Clelia precisely when he is most closely surrounded by the vilest of creatures: Durant ce court dialogue, Fabrice etait superbe au milieu de ces gendarmes, c'etait bien la mine la plus fifere et la plus noble; ses traits fins et delicats, et Ie sourire de mepris qui errait sur ses levres, faisaient un charmant contraste avec Ies apparences grossieres des gendarmes qui l'entouraient. . . . Quel air noble au milieu de ces etres grossiers! se disait-elle au moment oil Fabrice Iui adressa la parole, (p. 307)m k

"in the midst of the sordid pecuniary interests" this rival" m "During this brief dialogue, Fabrizio stood superb among the group of constables, his expression was certainly the proudest and most noble that one could imagine; his fine and delicate features, and the contemptuous smile that strayed over his lips made a charming contrast with the coarse appearance of the constables who stood round him. . . . 'What a noble air among all those coarse creatures,' she had been saying to herself at the moment when Fabrizio spoke to her." 1 "round

Introduction * 19

Comme il avait Fair d'un h£ros entoure de ses vils ennemis! (p. 308; see also pp. 68, 69, 378)" Instead of a conjunction, then, we have here what might rather ponderously be called a contextual or specific disjunction of the noble and the lowly. Fabrice is in the midst of the world, but despite his fall at Waterloo, he is not in it to the extent of belonging to it, and he preserves the capacity to scorn. Scorn serves, of course, to ensure that Fabrice will not "stoop" to using the strategies of his enemies: "Fabrice n'avait nulle envie de conspirer" (p. 118).° Indeed, a measure of his imprudence at Waterloo, and of his fall, is that he is mistaken for a spy (pp. 55, 84). What could be more contemptible than his father's use of the family castle for spying? But scorn here has a more positive function, analyzed with precision by Victor Brombert when he speaks of Stendhal in general: "If he loves and admires, it is primarily out of a spirit of revolt against that which he finds ugly. . . . A strange way of ad­ miring: to denigrate that which surrounds and opposes the object of admiration!"40 It actually works in favor of a rec­ ognition of the elite and is thus a means to detachment. This is not exactly the unproblematic detachment of the ivory tower attitude, which is able, in its most perfect forms, to ignore the world in favor of the contemplation of pure distance, but rather a form of detachment-from-the-world that continues to know that from which it is detached. To analyze the whole process more fully with respect to La Chartreuse, it seems true to say that although the "dynamics of contempt" are most powerfully dramatic when superior characters are seen in the midst of the world, there are more serene, if not more sublime, forms of detachment. These forms, perhaps more like Clelia's "profonde incurie pour ce qui est vulgaire" (p. 311),p allow others, while still measuring the discrepancy between noble and vulgar, to perceive them as simply above. Fabrice says on his arrival in prison: "Je congois que Cl6lia Conti se plaise " "How like a hero he looked, surrounded by his vile enemies!" ° "Fabrizio had no wish to be a conspirator" Ρ "profound indifference to everything that was vulgar"

20 • Introduction

dans cette solitude aerienne; on est ici & mille lieues audessus des petitesses et des mechancetes qui nous occupent la-bas" (p. 358)." If this detachment were due to lack of passion, it would be a sign of something less than absolute superiority—"Quand on comparait sa beaute [Clelia's] a celle de la duchesse, c'etait surtout cet air de n'etre 6mue par rien, cette fagon d'etre comme au-dessus de toutes choses, qui faisaient pencher la balance en faveur de sa rivale" (p. 309).r But Clelia is able to scorn (see p. 312: "0 ames venales et basses! Et je suis fille d'un geolier!"),8 and she is able, moreover, to direct her passion elsewhere. Instead of just being an elite soul and enjoying this situation (the ivory tower) she is, like Fabrice and Cina, able to engage in the mutual recognition and love of others like herself. Here, at the same time as the narrative of La Chartreuse reaches a certain fulfillment, we can perceive most clearly why it is not finally about commitment. Instead of the world and a tower, we have the world and a few towers. Quite literally, messages are passed in this novel from one noble character in a tower to another. Fabrice communicates with Cl£lia, whose tower adjoins his, while Gina, via her men, attempts to reach him with a differently coded message from the top of another, more distant tower (pp. 391ff.). It all goes on over the heads of the vulgar, as Gina observes when she is able to say nous about herself and Fabrice, to the exclusion of Mosca: "Le pauvre homme! il n'est point m6chant, au contraire; il n'est que faible. Cette ame vulgaire n'est point a la hauteur des n6tres" (p. 324).' Perhaps this is ultimately why, in this novel, "individual" privilege is so rarely and so unproductively an object of attention: the elite q "I can conceive that Clelia Conti enjoys this airy solitude; here one is a thousand leagues above the pettinesses and wickednesses which occupy us down there." ' "When you compared her beauty with that of the Duchessa, it was precisely that air of not being moved by anything, that manner as though of a person superior to everything, which weighed down the balance in her rival's favor." " "0 base and venal souls! And I am the daughter of a gaoler!" ' "The poor man! He is not bad really, far from it; he is only weak. That commonplace soul does not rise to the level of ours."

Introduction * 21

functions primarily by its mutual recognition, and one per­ ceives the superiority of the other with respect to the vulgar, before recognizing the superiority of the few, without ever having to dwell complacently on one's own superiority. Thus although the imagination of detachment requires us to accept the romantic individuality of the tower, it takes us beyond this—via the mutual recognition of the elite—to the aware­ ness of a superior domain. The experience of a distinctively singular vertical axis does not preclude a sense of the elevated regions of detachment, for Fabrice lives in a tower and in the air. More broadly still, the communication between towers can be seen as a figure for the abolition of the flow of time. Instead of allowing one to observe the world better by eliminating the hazards of relativity, the tower holds up time and allows one to perceive, in a privileged way, those other moments when time was held up. Fabrice in the Tour Farnese communicates with Fabrice in the tower at Grianta because in each he experiences rare and beautiful instants—that is, nonsuccessive, spatial forms of "time"—that remind him of previous like experiences. The tower is, in keeping with commitment in general, the space that is proper to paradigmatic percep­ tion, but the paradigms perceived here are not an organized understanding of the world below. Observation gives way to memory, and particular details are isolated from their normal context, thereby provoking reverie (see pp. 197, 201, 353). In quite the same way, being in the tower allows Blanks to predict the individual future of Fabrice. He looks ahead, indeed, to other like situations of elevation, and in particular to Fabrice's imprisonment (p. 194), the most obvious prison being for Fabrice, as it was for Blanes himself, the Spielberg (p. 195). Richard makes the point strongly: "cette perspective est aussi bien temporelle que spatiale: du haut du clocher de Grianta, Fabrice domine non seulement l'etendue de pays, lacs et montagnes, qui se deploie devant ses yeux, mais aussi bien l'etendue temporelle, passe, present et avenir, de sa vie tout entiere.""41 " "This outlook is temporal as much as it is spatial: from the top of the

22 • Introduction

This collection of towers and high places, including even the rock overlooking the lake (pp. 186ff.), as well as more or less absent places like the Spielberg, may be considered the essential paradigm of the novel, at least in principle, because it provides the space from which paradigms in general can be perceived. For this reason alone, the charterhouse is a worthy addition to the collection, as a place of retrospective understanding. Its existence, and what might happen in it, is already required and predicted in a sense, just as all places of contemplation are "required" by Fabrice's natural ligerete and predicted by the projection of past tendencies. Such predictions are supported by the most explicit prisages (see pp. 56, 88, 212) and indulged by a benevolent narrator.42 Indeed, the charterhouse comes so appositely that its specific character matters little. Had not Fabrice said earlier, in a slightly different context, "j'irai me refugier dans quelque chartreuse" (pp. 524—525)?v It is in this cycle, in what ap­ pears here as a rich and satisfying closure, that we find the ultimate working out—it might be better to say "working in"— of detachment. From the point of view of commitment, it might be said that there is a lack of openness in La Chartreuse to that which is fundamentally other: Fabrice's childhood communicates best with his adulthood and his final under­ standing with his early hopes and fears. In withdrawing to the charterhouse, he has merely done more dramatically and deliberately what he has always done, retiring with ease, not just to a cloistered narcissism of the narrowest kind but to the organized space of his imaginative world, which is also essentially that of Gina and Clelia. It would not be true to say that Fabrice never leaves his tower: his is not a frozen detachment. But he finds his tower readily, and the tower finds itself—finds itself in other towers—again and again. Grianta bell tower, Fabrizio overlooks not only the expanse of countryside, lakes and mountains which opens up before him, but also the temporal expanse, past, present and future of his life as a whole." v "I shall take refuge in some Charterhouse"

JUITL The HiU and the Plain: La CoUine inspiree

THERE ARE TOWERS in Maurice Barres's novel,1 and other structures that may be comparable (churches, monasteries), but what matters most is the site: "Le couvent sera peut-etre detruit, disait-il, qu'importe! Je n'attache d'importance qu'a !'emplacement" (pp. 175-176).a Building may well be quite important, in fact, but not the building. If there is any ar­ chitectural concern, it is with the base, which must provide solidity. We ought to speak here of pyramids rather than of fragile and gracious ivory towers,2 for this can be the shape of society itself: "Etrange pyramide qui se construit sur ce haut lieu! Un petit peuple Ieve son regard vers Leopold, et lui-meme est tout tendu vers un monde mysterieux qu'il dis­ tingue dej& par eclairs, derriere Ie monde des apparences" (p. 81).b Yet far superior still to the pyramid, precisely because it is not constructed by human effort, is the hill that gives the work its title. The hill is the earth raised up, a natural foundation for the tower that gives it more than just contingent cultural superiority. Almost before any human activity occurs, it is possible to talk about the work of the * " The convent will perhaps be destroyed,' he said, 'but what does that matter? All that counts for me is the site.' " b "What a strange pyramid is being built on this high place! A small tribe lifts up its gaze toward Leopold, and he himself strains to perceive a mysterious world that is already distinguishable in flashes, behind the world of appearance."

24 * The Hill and the Plain

earth: "II semble que, chargees d'une mission speciale, ces terres doivent intervenir, d'une maniere irreguliere et selon Ies circonstances, pour former des etres superieurs et favoriser Ies hautes id6es morales" (p. 7).c The process is not entirely reliable, as we can see, but it will eventually be possible for the narrator to say: "Une fois encore Ie site a produit son effet." (p. 249).d We might say in phenomenological terms, as a way of describing the appropriateness of Barres's work to the present study, that La Colline inspiree is less concerned with the individual in isolation than with the modalities of consciousness proper to a particular place. The place, we are told, is a "faible Eminence" (p. 7).e In other words, it is not a mountain but a hill, something of human proportions, as Bachelard notes in another context: La vue sur la colline que nous appelons, & Bar-surAube, la montagne Sainte-Germaine donne un monde circulaire bien clos dont Ie clocher est Ie centre. Quel decor pour y rever Timperialisme du sujet sur Ie spec­ tacle contempt! Mais a Strasbourg, l'ascension est brusquement inhumaine.® To say that it is a "faible eminence" is to remind us most particularly that it is worn down by time, "sur une terre la plus us6e de France" (p. 7),8 just as the castle standing on it has been worn down to the point where we have "la derniere tour" (p. 7).h Time here seems to act as a purifying agent, eliminating the proliferating signs of human activity in favor c "It sees that this terrain is charged with a special mission, to intervene, from time to time and according to circumstance, so as to shape superior beings and nurture lofty moral ideas." d "Once again, the site has brought about its effect." " "slight rise" ' "The view from the hill that we call in Bar-sur-Aube Mount SainteGermaine shows a quite closed, circular world whose center is the bell tower. What a setting for dreaming about the imperialism of the subject over the spectacle it contemplates! But in Strasbourg ascension is abruptly inhuman." f "on the most wom-down earth/region in France" h "the last tower"

The Hill and the Plain * 25

of that which is essential. Figuratively, Leopold Baillard him­ self becomes a tower: "La guerre a rejete tant de choses au fond des siecles! L'histoire des Baillard fait desormais partie d'un monde aboli. On n'en voit plus au milieu des broussailles que l'espece de tour ruinee qu'est la vieillesse de Leopold" (p. 218).' It is as if the only true tower, for Barres, were a ruined one. Yet all the time, this process of erosion is guar­ anteeing the solidity of whatever is left by reducing the tower to its base, wearing it all down to bedrock: "rien ne reste chez ce vieil homme que Ie granit, Ies formations eternelles, Ies pensees essentielles d'un paysan et d'un pretre, Ies sou­ venirs de la vieille patrie et Ies aspirations vers la patrie eternelle" (p. 203).' The hill remains as a vestigial eminence, in the very modesty of its dimensions a sign of that which endures eternally. To say of the hill "elle demeure" is a play on words; what is left is essentially what will always remain: "Elle demeure, elle reste λ sa place, pour etre un lieu de recueillement oil nous rassemblons nos forces, pour nous remuer d'un pressentiment, nous enlever a l'heure passagere, a nos limites, a nous-memes, et nous montrer l'eternel" (p. 14).k It should be made quite clear, however, that the hill is not valued here for the gentleness of its slopes, for the ease of climbing described by Bachelard, in unfailing pursuit of the imagination of comfort: "La colline . . . nous a donne, juste a notre mesure, ce qu'il nous faut de vie verticale pour que nous aimions gravir doucement, gravir par la pensee, sans nulle fatigue reelle—sans nulle fatigue imaginaire surtout— 1 'The war has relegated so many things to the distant past! After this, the story of the Baillards belongs to a forgotten world. All that can be seen among the scrub is a kind of ruined tower, Leopold's old age." ' "Nothing is left in this old man except the granite, the eternal for­ mations, the essential thoughts of a peasant, of a priest, the memories of his country of birth and the aspirations toward his eternal home." k "It remains, it holds its place, so as to be a place of meditation where we gather our strength, to stir in us a sense of expectation, to lift us out of the passing hour, out of our limits, out of ourselves, and show us the eternal."

26 * The Hill and the Plain

la pente ou s'etagent Ies vergers et Ies moissons."14 Indeed, in La Colline inspirie the slopes of the hill are the place of instability—"la pente qui glisse" (p. 184)m—and of compro­ mise that cannot endure: "Les schismatiques etaient chassis du plateau, mais ils s'accrochaient avec l'6nergie du desespoir aux pentes de la colline. Ni Ie prefet, ni l'eveque ne pouvaient se satisfaire d'un succes incomplet" (p. 153).n It cannot be a matter of "hanging on": the hill must be, for Barres, a place on which to stand, not so much a gentle slope as moderate or stable verticality. What is most appropriate, the hill of Sion is essentially a plateau with a (habitable) peak at each of its opposite extremities (p. 10). It is the place of immobility, the fixed point from which the truth can be known. To quote another work that bears on its cover the name Maurice Barres—supposing, if we may, the relative coher­ ence of all such known works—"QU'EST-CE QUE LA νέϋΐτέ? Ce n'est point des choses a savoir, c'est de trouver un certain point, un point unique, celui-la, nul autre, d'oii toutes choses nous apparaissent avec des proportions vraies.""5 La Colline inspirie tells us that instead of prospecting action and con­ fronting choice, we can find the place that "nous soumet a un ordre, nous dispense de chercher notre voie et nous introduit dans l'harmonie divine" (p. 40; my italics).p This hardly looks like commitment as we have begun to understand it, but being in just the right place, on the hill that is "le centre de la 1 'The hill . . . has given us, in just the right proportion, the quantity of vertical life that we require in order to climb slowly and gently, climbing in thought, without any actual fatigue—and especially without any imag­ inary fatigue—up the slope past the terraced orchards and crops." m "the slippery incline" " "The schismatics had been expelled from the plateau, but they were clinging with the energy of despair to the slopes of the hill. Neither the prefect nor the bishop could be satisfied with partial success." ° "WHAT IS TRUTH? It is not things to be known, it is finding a certain point, a specific point, that particular one, no other, from which all things appear to us in true proportion." p "subjugates us, renders it unnecessary to look for our path, and leads us into divine harmony"

The Hill and the Plain * 27

nature" (p. 82),q does enable one to make a synthesis of the earthly and the divine—precisely the opposite of that dis­ junction that characterizes detachment in La Chartreuse de Parme. "C'est toujours ici," says the narrator of La Colline inspiree, "le point spirituel de cette grave contree; c'est ici que sa vie normale se relie a la vie surnaturelle" (p. 12).r Could it be that the commitment is "ready made"? Let us "stay" a little longer on La Colline inspirde before we attempt to adjust our predictions. We can see from here that horizontal movement is likely to be the enemy. It is not the plain in itself: the plain is the rest of nature and, in its own way, is no less eternal than the hill. After all, they are both of the earth. The traditional enemies, for Barres—and more generally in the watchtower tradition, no doubt—are those who move across the plain as invaders: barbarians, Germans, protestants. They sweep along like a river of time—"l'immense flot germain" (p. 207);s "le fleuve immonde des barbares"'6—carrying only corrosive salt— "le protestantisme, flot venu de l'Ocean germanique dont Ie sel eut transforme nos terres!"uT—with no foundations, no site, nothing more beneath them than sand.8 They are most hateful, it seems, not because they are disorderly—they do in fact have an "ordre puissant," a "force rythmee" (p. 208)v— but because they do not stop: "Du matin jusqu'i la nuit, Ie fleuve s'ecoule, un defile ininterrompu" (p. 208).w They have no standpoint from which to know eternal truth. Instead of the time that confirms, they are caught up in the time of radical change; instead of erosion, the flood. More than just an isolated watchtower, the whole country of Lorraine conq

"the center of nature" "This is still the spiritual point of this solemn landscape; this is where its normal life is linked with supernatural life." • "the immense germanic wave" ' "the foul river of barbarians" " "protestantism, a wave from the germanic Ocean whose salt would have transformed our soil!" v "powerful order"; "rhythmic strength" " "From morning to night, the river flows on, an unbroken procession." 1

28 * The HiU and the Plain

stitutes a "barrage gallo-romain" (p. 207);x but however stead­ fast its resolve, however precisely militant its resistance, it cannot reliably stand against them. Less catastrophically but for much the same reasons, travel also appears as a danger, even to Leopold Baillard: "Dans sa jeunesse et hier encore, en battant tous Ies chemins de l'Europe, il avait diminue son etre; il s'6tait senti jour par jour refroidi, gen6, peut-etre degrade. A courir Ie monde et surtout a lutter contre l'eveque, il avait failli perdre sa viritable nature" (p. 96; my italics).y Here we find none of the sublime confidence in the midst of adventure that animates Fabrice nor the security in detachment. How can we be sure of finding ourselves again if we run around in the horizontal world? Even to search is a kind of scattering: 'Tandis que Chateau­ briand et Byron, a chercher partout Ie bonheur, usent et degradent Ieur energie, Napoleon l'affermit autour de son idee fixe."29 The important thing is to find, or rather to have found, to stay and confirm. "Mieux que Ies voyages, certains repos forment la jeunesse," we are told in Les Ddracines."10 Travel has a clear economic function here, as in so many novels, from the picaresque to the Bildungsroman, but it is seldom really productive. It is true that the Baillards and their supporters, especially Therfese and her "soeurs queteuses" (p. 29),b spend a lot of time in the (horizontal) search for money, as they later do when first Quirin, then Francois, and eventually even Leopold manage to make a living as commis voyageurs (see pp. 187, 194, etc.).c But this is courir * "gallo-roman dam" ι "In his youth and even quite recently, by tramping all over Europe, he had depreciated his being; with the passing of time, he had felt himself unenthusiastic, ill at ease, perhaps degraded. In running around and es­ pecially in his struggle against the bishop, he had come near to losing his true nature.'" * "While Chateaubriand and Bryon, by looking everywhere for happi­ ness, eroded and degraded their energy, Napoleon strengthened his around his basic/fixed idea." * "Rather than travel, certain kinds of rest educate young people." b "mendicant sisters" c "traveling salesmen"

The Hill and the Plain · 29

Ie pays (p. 177) rather than courir Ie Tnondeii it works in a more limited area and has other functions that reconcile the economic and the spiritual: "le commerce des esprits celestes et des ames" (p. 177).e Indeed at the height of their powers, the Baillard brothers, as a group, seem to be able both to travel and to stay: Quirin se multiplie chez Ies homines d'affaires de Vezelise, de Luneville et de Nancy, faisant Ies chemins de jour et de nuit par Ies temps Ies plus affreux; Francois court Ies villages pour entretenir l'enthousiasme et lutter contre la defection; quant & Leopold, il demeure dans sa chambre et, Ies pieds sur Ies chenets, s'entretient avec Ies astres. (p. 104)f Nonetheless, it seems that one cannot travel at all without expending one's energy. The only way to conserve it perfectly is to stay still and to be silent. The wasteful production of spiritual noise is like a "cortege de carnaval,"8 whereas true accumulation occurs in silence and immobility: La montagne respire du depart de ces insenses. Ils ont follement depens6, prodigu^, gache ses forces religieuses accumulees. Ils l'epuisaient et la compromettaient. Il faut qu'elle se refasse, qu'elle repare; il faut que la solitude et Ie silence recomposent Ies vestiges et l'autorite qu'un cortege de carnaval en quelques mois vient de dilapider. Un beau silence se reinstalle sur la colline. (p. 162)h d

"running around the countryside"; "running around the world at large" "dealing in and with heavenly spirits and souls" f "Quirin called repeatedly on all the businessmen of Vezelise, Luniville and Nancy, being on the road day and night in the most dreadful weather; FranQois made the rounds of the villages to keep up people's enthusiasm and fight against any defections; as for Liopold, he stayed in his room and, with his feet up on the fire-dogs, conversed with the stars." 8 "carnival procession" h "The mountain can breathe again with the departure of these madmen. They have been wildly spending and spoiling its accumulated religious strength. They were exhausting the mountain and putting it at risk. It must heal and restore itself; solitude and silence are needed for the ruins to e

30 * The Hill and the Plain

If there is any form of productive, or at least nonwasteful, displacement it must be the promenade, the kind of walking that occurs within a well-defined space and that is appropriate to meditation: "Leopold vivait comme un moine: Saxon etait sa cellule, toute la Lorraine son promenoir" (p. 199; see p. 105).' This is so presumably because it organizes time and, quite literally, makes a place for stasis. The "promeneur" evoked in general terms by the narrator can stop—must stop, no doubt—at the most beautiful "stations de ce pelerinage" (p. 164; my italics),' thereby participating in a collective promenade that has gone on for centuries. Such a liturgical walk allows of regular, confirming reflection and avoids com­ pletely the dissipation of travel. The point of stopping, it seems, is to look. But who looks at what, exactly? Can we speak here of the intellectual's observation—or at least contemplation—of the world? The question is not easily answered. What we do know at least is that the look "of' the hill (see p. 14) is an outgoing one, the contrary of which can be found not in this text but in the description of an excursion in Les Deracines: "Mais Gallant de Saint-Phlin excepte, ils ne sentaient pas la nature, ne savaient pas l'utiliser. En Ieur fermant l'horizon pendant une dizaine d'annees, on Ies avait contraints de ne rien voir qu'en eux."k11 For one who stands on the hill of Sion, the horizon is not closed but open: "Sur la hauteur, c'est un plateau, une promenade de moins de deux heures a travers des chaumes et des petits bois, que la vue embrasse et depasse pour jouir d'un immense horizon et de l'air Ie plus pur" (p. IO).1 Yet regain their composure and for the authority squandered in a few months by a carnival procession to be reestablished. A fine silence settles once again over the hill." ' "Leopold lived like a monk: Saxon was his cell, the whole of Lorraine his walking-place." > "stations of this pilgrimage" k "But, with the exception of Gallant de Saint-Phlin, they did not feel nature, and did not know how to use it. Their horizon had been closed for ten years or so and they had been obliged to look only at their inner world." 1 "On the top, it takes the form of a plateau, a walk of less than two hours through stubble and small woods, with a view that takes these in and goes beyond them to delight in a vast horizon and the purest of air."

The Hill and the Plain * 31

there is not only a flight of attention toward the most distant points; the look returns closer to home, such that after the horizon one notices the plain: "Si vous portez au loin votre regard, vous distinguez et denombrez Ies ballons des Vosges et de l'Alsace; si vous Ie ramenez plus pres sur la vaste plaine, elle vous etonne et . . . vous charme" (p. 10).m We are reminded here again of the fact that the hill is a faible emi­ nence. Because all that surrounds it is flat, the horizon is vast, but that which is immediately below is not very distant and can be seen in detail. Faible also, however, suggests a kind of weakness, and although that should never make us doubt the hill's eternal qualities of endurance, it suggests a certain exposure of the place. We know it to be attended by a vent perpetuel (p. 10)" so that the person standing on it feels the breath of the spirit (p. 5). This might serve to remind us that there are vectors crossing this space in both directions: the person on the hill looks out, but he or she is exposed, not only to the wind indeed but also to being seen. The hill is an object of attention for those on the plain: "Dans tous nos cantons, des que Ie terrain s'eleve, Ie regard decouvre avec saisissement la belle forme immobile, soit toute nette, soit voilee de pluie, de cette colline posee sur notre vaste plateau" (p. 7).° We should not doubt, furthermore, that in appropriate conditions what peo­ ple do on the hill can be clearly "seen" from below: "Toute la Lorraine regarde la ronde satanique menee sur la colline, dans Ies brouillards de l'hiver, par Ies trois pretres et leurs religieuses echevelees" (p. 128).p Instead of a situation in which the person in the high place has the initiative, being able to look at the world before acting, we find here that he m "If you look into the distance, you can make out and count the moun­ tains of the Vosges and of Alsace; if you look down toward the vast plain that lies closer, it surprises you and . . . delights you." " "unceasing wind" ° "In all the cantons, wherever there is higher ground, one is struck by the beautiful motionless form, be it quite distinct or veiled in rain, of this hill that has been placed on our vast plateau." ρ "The whole of Lorraine looks on at the satanic round being danced on the hill, in the fog of winter, by the three priests and their disheveled nuns."

32 * The Hill and the Plain

or she is already being acted upon, at least to the extent of being looked at. There is no beginning, and, in that sense at least, it is hard to find the place of the intellectual observer. It seems much more appropriate to speak in terms of ex­ change, or of intercourse, between the hill and the plain. The hill throws out a spiritual challenge, reminding the plain that all is not just domestic routine (p. 8); meaningful words take little time to "glisser Ie long des pentes de la colline" (p. 75).q On exception—and the exception is defined as such by its being a religious celebration—people actually leave the plain and come up the hill in pilgrimage, "Arraches pour un jour a Ieur vie materielle" (p. 78).r How then can we situate, with respect to commitment as we have begun to understand it, the organization of the world that emerges from a reading of La Colline inspired So much of what we predicted seems to be denied by the steadfast immobility—or, at best, the cyclical nature—of this Barresian landscape. Can commitment be worked out here, or even worked at? Before facing these questions, let us attempt to confirm our own resolve by examining why, apart from our recognition of high places and the look, we ought to continue to consider La Colline inspirde within a thematics of com­ mitment. The best way to do this may be to talk about values. We find here, not surprisingly, an affirmation of aerial val­ ues—"L'ame! Ie ciel! vieux mots dont la magie garde encore sa force" (p. 14).8 But there is also a desire for action, for that which gives form to one's energy. Pure contemplation is not enough: Qu'elle est charmante dans ses quatre saisons la col­ line bleuatre! Mais l'on s'ennuierait k la longue de cette solitude. Le coeur s'y gonfle d'air pur, mais reste sans mouvement, inactif, inerte; il voudrait aimer, reprouver, agir. Cette nature toute seule nous communique mille sentiments qui ne savent que faire d'eux-memes dans * "glide down the slopes of the hill" ' "plucked for a day from their material life" " "The soul! Heaven! Old words whose magic still retains all its strength."

The Hill and the Plain * 33

ce desert. Il manque ici une presence, quelque chose qui incorpore Ies energies de ce haut lieu. Ou sont Ies fils de la colline? (p. 166; my italics)' What matters finally is not even living on the hill, or life on the hill, but the landscape as such: "Mais ce qui vit sur la colline ne compte guere et ne fait rien qu'approfondir la solitude et Ie silence. Ce qui compte et ce qui existe, ou que nous menions nos pas en suivant la ligne de faite, c'est l'horizon et ce vaste paysage de terre et de ciel" (p. 10).u Air and earth are affirmed together, as part of the same world; there cannot be a question of detachment, if detachment, in its most general form, constitutes the air as a separate domain and prefers it to the earth. Barr^s's refusal of a certain intellectuality can be read precisely as the refusal of an abstract or scornful detachment in favor of a synthesis of earthly and aerial values. In Seines et doctrines du nationalisme, he gives a polemical definition of the intellectual: Quoi qu'il en soit du mot, rien n'est pire que la chose. . . . Une demi-culture detruit l'instinct sans Iui substituer une conscience. Tous ces aristocrates de la pensee tiennent & afficher qu'ils ne pensent pas comme la vile foule. On Ie voit trop bien. Ils ne se sentent plus spontanement d'accord avec Ieur groupe naturel et ils ne s'elevent pas jusqu'a la clairvoyance qui Ieur restituerait l'accord r£fl£chi avec la masse.v12 ' "How charming the bluish hill looks in its four seasons! But one would eventually tire of this solitude. The heart swells with pure air, but remains motionless, inactive, inert; it would like to love, reject, act. By itself, this nature gives us a thousand feelings that do not know what to do with themselves in this desert. What is lacking here is a presence, something that would incorporate the energies of this noble place. Where are the sons of the hill?" " "But what lives on the hill scarcely matters; it serves only to deepen the solitude and the silence. What matters and what exists, wherever we should step as we follow the crest, is the horizon and this vast landscape of earth and sky." v "Whatever can be said about the word, nothing is worse than the thing

34 * The Hill and the Plain

It is then, we may infer, a matter of agreement with the masses, and this may in superior instances—perhaps that of Barres himself, for example—be achieved by reflection. But such reflection cannot be simply detached observation. Those who use the hill to look down on the pilgrims are like Faust, Manfred, Prospero, and Hamlet (p. 249). They show a kind of spiritual heroism, no doubt, but they are motivated by "Porgueil de ne compter que sur soi-meme pour resoudre Tenigme de l'univers,"™ when what is needed is harmony with the world (p. 249). Clearly, there is no place for scorn here (see p. 249), and such characters as Leopold Baillard ex­ perience no repugnance when faced with vulgar tasks: "Le lendemain, Ie cycle de la vie terre a terre recommengait. Leopold retournait se charger de desirs mystiques dans la mediocrity de ses occupations professionnelles" (p. 199).x This is not, it should be noted, just because he is able to move from one domain to the other with a happy forgetfulness. In the practical implementation of his high-minded dreams, he does not disdain the lowliest means: "Leopold Baillard avait l'ame tr£s haute; Ie choix des oeuvres auxquelles il s'appliqua est a cet egard tout a fait revelateur. Mais pour realiser nos desseins Ies plus purs, nous sommes bien obliges de recourir a des moyens humains qui peuvent etre detestables" (p. 31).v Surely this talk of ends and means is proper itself. . . . A half-baked culture destroys instinct without putting awareness in its place. All those aristocrats of the mind take pride in the fact that they do not think like the vulgar. It is only too obvious that this is so. They no longer feel themselves spontaneously in accord with their natural group, and they have not attained the level of insight that would bring back a considered agreement with the masses." w "the pride of someone who relies only on himself to solve the riddle of the universe" * "The next day, the cycle of down-to-earth life would begin again. Leopold would go back to accumulate mystical desires in the mediocrity of his professional activities." * "Leopold Baillard had a very noble soul. The choice of good works that he adopted is quite revealing in this respect. But in order to realize our purest ambitions, we are obliged to have recourse to human means that may be hateful."

The HiU and the Plain * 35

to commitment, the difference being, perhaps, that it is not clear whether Leopold, or others like him, are faced with the choice of ends or simply with the choice of means. More work will be needed here on the boundaries of commitment and militancy. More pressing still, perhaps, is the testing of the spatial notions developed in our Introduction. A major difficulty arises from the fact that commitment in La Colline inspirSe is not about going down into the world. Descending the hill takes one onto the slopes: it goes with instability, perhaps even with danger. When priests leave the hill, it is a painful vision for Leopold: Mais aujourd'hui, quel affront! Les voila qui partent tous sans un mot d'amitie, sans un signe de politesse. Et c'est vrai que sur la pente et sur Ies raidillons, on Ies voyait qui se hataient a grands pas, sans meme retourner la tete. (p. 83)2 . . . et toujours, pour finir, la penible vision des freres et des soeurs descendant, pour ne plus jamais Ies remonter, Ies sentiers de la colline. (p. 38)a They should maintain their station, of course, and Leopold knows this well: "Leopold savait maintenir des distances entre Iui et Ies plus fideles de ses paroissiens" (p. 65).b It is the same (vaguely pyramidal) arrangement as we have seen be­ fore: M. Ie superieur gardait toujours un certain Noli me tangere; il ne descendait guere Ies gradins de l'autel, mais Ies deux cadets, eux, a la sortie de la messe, se * "But today, what an affront! Look at them leaving without a word of friendship, without a polite gesture. And it is true that, on the slope and along the steep tracks, they could be seen striding in haste, without even a backward glance." " "And always, to complete the picture, the painful vision of the brothers and sisters descending the paths of the hill, never to climb them again." b "Leopold knew how to keep a certain distance between himself and the most faithful of his parishioners."

36 * The HiU and the Plain

multipliaient en conversations sur Ie parvis et jusqu'au milieu des labours du plateau, (p. 91)c This is what makes for a stable world: keeping one's distance and relating across it by means of the look, transforming the temporary privilege of the "observer" into a permanent hi­ erarchical superiority, with attendant responsibilities. It is not hard to see, then, why the hill instead of the tower tends to be the object of imaginative attention: it provides a natural rather than a cultural, an essential rather than an existential, basis for a feeling of superiority. Privilege is written into the world. This must be one of the most powerful forms of an actively conservative commitment: it ensures that the hill, with its twin edifices of church and castle (p. 7), should always be seen and adored by the plain, and the plain, with its multiple fields and its unending routine, should be seen and nurtured by the hill. Only here, it seems, can we allow that an active concern with commitment might not lead either to the prospection of future action or to descent into the world. There is nowhere else to go, and no future to be known, other than the simple continuation of the past. The social order, with what are normally thought of as its cultural foundations, melts into the natural order. A certain, prayerful silence then tells us that the world is one, that no one is a disembodied observer, and that everything is in its place: "Tandis que Leopold exhale ses appels au surnaturel, toute la nature semble remise a sa place, silencieuse, immobile, sensible. Au loin se tait la grande plaine paisible" (p. 81).ά It is interesting to find in La Colline inspire a spatial expression that held our attention in the analysis of La Char­ treuse de Parme: the hill is a "sorte d'autel dresse au milieu du plateau qui va des falaises champenoises jusqu'a la chaine c "The father superior always maintained a certain Noli me tangere; he hardly ever came down the steps of the altar, but the two younger brothers, on the other hand, spent a great deal of time after mass in conversations on the parvis and among the ploughed fields of the plateau." d "While Leopold utters these calls to the supernatural, the whole of nature seems to be put back in its right place, silent, motionless, sensitive. In the distance the great peaceful plain says not a word."

The HiU and the Plain * 37

des Vosges" (p. 7; my italics).6 The difference here, however, is that whatever stands in the middle gives meaning to the rest. Fabrice's presence in the world meant a kind of disorder, the noble among the rabble; but for Barres, the vestigial elements of the aristocracy provide a principle of (spatial) organization. Indeed we find, more often than au milieu de, expressions like autour de and entoureis that make this point strongly: Les grands souvenirs de la colline sont voiles ou dechus. Pourtant la plus pauvre imagination ne laisse pas de percevoir qu autour de ce haut lieu s'organise l'histoire de la Lorraine, (p. 9; my italics)® Tous ces chateaux de l'ame reconstruits au milieu des angoisses de la faillite par un mystique procedurier, donnent un sens aux divers cantons de ce petit pays, (p. 16)h A l'infini, l'immuable et magnifique horizon, rempli du repos de l'ete, avec ses villages et ses moissons, entourait gravement la colline, et toute cette nature silencieuse semblait adorer son lieu saint, (p. 173)1 In earlier works by Barres, we find a similar spatial figure in the imagination of leadership, especially in the description of Boulanger as a rallying point for the people.13 Funerals of "great men" especially have this effect: in different works, " "kind of altar standing in the middle of the plateau that goes from the cliffs of Champagne to the chain of the Vosges" f in the middle of; around; surround 8 "The great memories of the hill are veiled or fallen. Yet the poorest imagination does not fail to perceive that around this noble/high, place the history of Lorraine is organized.'" h "AU these castles of the soul, rebuilt amid the fear of bankruptcy by a legal-minded mystic, give meaning to the different cantons of this little region." ' "In unbroken continuity, the immutable and magnificent horizon, filled with the repose of summer, with its villages and its crops, solemnly sur­ rounded the hill, and this silent nature seemed to be adoring its holy place."

38 * The Hill and the Plain

those of Hugo and Boulanger are described in very similar terms.14 Perhaps the funeral allows us to see the person be­ coming a monument, a life being transformed into destiny, as Sartre would say. In the same way, the living, moving leader gives way, in the course of Barres's work, to the hill, and the prefascist rallying of the discontented around Boulanger to the eternal geography of Lorraine. By being stable the hill can serve as a landmark for those who might otherwise be lost in a formless and meaningless horizontal world. Certainly, there is a real danger of being lost, as we see in Leopold's white nightmare: Bientot il n'y eut plus de clart^ que celle qui sortait du sol eblouissant de blancheur. Une brume glaciale qui s'abattit sur Ie plateau acheva de brouiller et de confondre toutes choses. Le vieillard perdu en plein champ, extenue, transi de froid, aveugle par la neige, n'entendait ni un pas, ni un aboiement, ni une sonnerie de cloche. Il n'apercevait aucune lueur. (p. 222; my italics)3 The disastrous failure of Mouchefrin, in Les Deracinis, is described precisely as a return to horizontality: he is, in the eyes of Sturel, a reptile lost in an immense plain, "absolument incapable de lever sa tete mince et plate, sinon pour siffler;— mais jamais pour concevoir Vordre du monde."kls Being lost is not having any elevation: if only one can see, stand and see, the natural, God-given, or earth-given, order then ap­ pears. To come now to the question of militancy in La Colline inspiree, it would be tempting to continue our talk of natu­ ralness to the extent of describing priests—and the Baillards ' "Soon there was no longer any other light than that which came out of the dazzlingly white earth. And an icy mist that settled on the plain left everything completely blurred and mixed together. The old man, lost in the middle of the fields, exhausted, perishing with cold, blinded by the snow, could not hear a footstep, or the bark of a dog, or the sound of a bell. He could not see any glow of light." k "absolutely incapable of raising his thin, flat head, except for hissing— but never to comprehend the order of the world?'

The Hill and the Plain · 39

in particular—as natural intellectuals, if that were not a com­ plete paradox. The hill is a symbol of the alliance of daring and practicality, as we know,16 but being on the hill, be­ longing on it as they do, means that this synthesis is expe­ rienced as a wholeness of one's being: "Tout l'etre s'emeut, depuis ses racines Ies plus profondes jusqu'a ses sommets Ies plus hauts" (p. 6).1 In principle, this microcosmic syn­ thesis—whereby one is the world instead of having to work to hold it together—can be recognized, named, perhaps guar­ anteed, as "le sentiment religieux" (p. 6).m In practice, it is worked out by the Baillards, if not exactly as an intellectually elegant dialectic, then at least as a happy mixture, an unproblematic alternation of prayers and accounts, lyricism and hardheadedness. That the everyday should be in the middle of the supernatural leads to no experience of surprise, no measurement of disjunction on their part. In their texts, "au milieu d'effusions surnaturelles on voit apparaitre un chiffre, une operation arithmetique, de prosaiques 'doit' et 'avoir' " (p. 18).n The transfiguration can occur in a kitchen (p. 72). They do not seem to have to go down from contemplation to action: "selon sa coutume il [Leopold] passa de plain-pied, avec une parfaite aisance, de ses mysticites aux preoccu­ pations Ies plus plates" (p. 46; see also pp. 25, 28, 67, 71, 72, 87).° Just as the synthesis of these qualities is made by the hill and on the hill, without one's having constantly to scramble down to the plain, so they are able to achieve alternation in the midst of stability: there are no dangerous slopes between spirituality and practicality. Now all of this could be taken to mean that the Baillard brothers in particular were perfect militants, moved by the kind of natural forces described by Sartre, or the "instinct magnifique" that led the people of Lorraine to bring together 1

"The whole being is moved, from its deepest roots to its highest peaks." "religious feeling" " "in the midst of supernatural outpourings, one comes upon a figure, an arithmetic operation, prosaic 'debts' and 'credits' " ° "as was his custom, he went directly, with perfect ease, from these mystical questions to the most mundane concerns" m

40 * The HiU and the Plain

the twin traditions of the hill (p. 9). Yet, whatever the strength of this tendency, they are not perfect militants: they do not hold with absolute reliability the natural strength and com­ petence of the down-to-earth believer. This is not because they lose innocence and "fall" from grace but because they tend to drift away from their initial source of knowledge. Under the influence of the mystic Vintras, they undertake a kind of journey, not a horizontal one but one from earth to air: "Le dur reveur [Leopold] est rempli de confiance, a repris avec plus de force son baton de route pour Ie voyage de la terre au ciel, parce qu'il a regu de Vintras un my the a sa port6e" (p. 99).p Vintras in fact leads them, especially Leo­ pold, to a kind of detachment that they had never previously known: Ie coeur et la pensee envahis de puissants effluves nouveaux, il cessait de se tourner vers l'ancienne vie lorraine pour en appeler a la vie surnaturelle. Il n'appartenait plus a la terre. (p. 98)q C'est l'homme aux trois recommencements, qui se paracheve, s'eprouve et, de deux formes imparfaites, se digage pour surgir rare et bizarre et monter dans Ies cieux. Il a rompu violemment Ie cable qui Ie rattachait a la terre ferme; il a Ieve Ies ancres; il va a travers Ies nues, k la merci des quatre vents, (p. 193; see p. 212; my italics)1 It is not surprising that Vintras is a kind of pentecostalist, concerned with the descent of the spirit (p. 154): he has no v "The tough dreamer [Leopold] is filled with confidence, and has taken up his staff again with greater strength for the journey from earth to heaven because he has received from Vintras a myth that he can grasp" *> "as his heart and his mind filled with powerful new exhalations, he ceased turning toward the old life of Lorraine and appealed to the super­ natural life. He no longer belonged to the earth" '"He is the man of three beginnings, who develops himself to perfection, tests himself and, from two imperfect forms, detaches himself, emerging as rare and bizarre to ascend into the heavens. He has violently broken the cable that joined him to terra firma; he has hoisted anchor; he is moving through the clouds, at the mercy of the four winds."

The HIIl and the Plain * 41

knowledge of those places in the world where the spirit is waiting to be experienced (p. 5). Having himself no sense of practicality, he leads others like Leopold to an experience of disjunction between celestial dreams and worldly pettiness. Sometimes, Leopold does not even seem to see concrete prob­ lems: "Sa pens£e fuyait de telles bassesses" (p. 186);8 he is compared to Milton in his blindness or Beethoven in his deafness (p. 193). At other times, he comes close to scorn; we find him "exclu des soins de la vie publique, prive d'amitie particuliere, dedaigneux d'aucune distraction vulgaire" (p. 199).' In consequence of this he experiences exile from the hill (p. 171) and a bizarre and "disconcerting" alternation (see p. 198) between his necessary commercial activities and his transcendent spiritual preoccupations: "cette vie . . . oil Ies dimanches etaient ainsi espaces au milieu des soins Ies plus prosaiques" (p. 199).u Heroically, he succeeds in "mak­ ing the unity of his life." But it has to be made; it is no longer simply given: "Chaque jour, la cloison qui separait ses di­ manches et ses jours de travail cedait sous la poussie de ses forces interieures; il realisait l'unite de sa vie, il penetrait tout de religion" (pp. 199-200; my italics)." Vintras is the other kind of enemy one could imagine besides the barbarian: he belongs to the eternal type of the revolutionary (p. 58). As he says, "C'est la Revolution de '48 qui m'a tire de prison. Nous sombrerons avec elle" (p. 123).w He brings chaos (p. 124), and he brings it precisely because he is a liberator, one who breaks down constraints: "Ses vibrations eveillent chez eux Ie sens du supranaturel. Il renverse, nie Ies obstacles eleves contre l'instinct des ames et Ie mouvement spontane de l'esprit. Il fournit a ses fideles Ie " "His thought fled from such low things." from the attentions of public life, lacking any close friend­ ship, disdaining vulgar distractions" u "this life . . . in which Sundays reappeared regularly in the midst of the most prosaic concerns" v "Each day, the partition that separated his Sundays and his workdays gave way under the pressure of his inner strength; he brought about the unity of his life, he imbued everything with religion." w "It was the Revolution of '48 that got me out of prison. We will founder with it." 1 "excluded

42 * The Hill and the Plain

chant liberateur" (p. 125)." It is not that instinct is denied but that it is unbridled. What is needed as a corrective is the place where the faithful belong. In other words, if the natural order is to be maintained fully, discipline is required, and discipline is to be found on the earth. There is (intel­ lectual) work to be done if one is to have the capacity to resist tempting revolutionary dreams. We might say, then, that it is not enough for those on the hill to look at the plain, knowing that they are seen in their turn. They must look at the hill, not in order to know its superiority or to measure its decidedly unimpressive eleva­ tion, but to know it as part of the earth and to know, in particular, both its dangers and its natural constraints on them: Rien ne rend inutile, rien ne supplee l'esprit qui palpite sur Ies cimes. Mais prenons garde que cet esprit 6meut toutes nos puissances et qu'un tel ebranlement, precisement parce qu'il est de tout l'etre, exige la dis­ cipline la plus severe. Qu'elle vienne a manquer ou se fausse, aussitdt apparaissent tous Ies deli res. Il s'est toujours joue un drame autour des lieux inspires. Ils nous perdent ou nous sauvent, selon qu'ayant £cout6 Ieur appel nous Ie traduisons par un conseil de revolte ou d'acceptation, (p. 251; see p. 6)y Leopold has always looked at the hill, in his own way—"il contempla ce repos, cette patience, cette longue songerie de * "His vibrations awaken in them the sense of the supranatural. He breaks down and denies the obstacles that have been erected against the instinct of souls and the spontaneous movement of the spirit. He provides his faithful with the song of liberation." ι "Nothing supersedes, nothing takes the place of the spirit that flutters on the summits. But let us not forget that such a spirit stirs all our powers and that such a commotion, precisely because it involves the whole being, demands the severest discipline. Should this be lacking or misapplied, then immediately every sort of raving occurs. There has always been a drama played out around these inspired places. They damn us or save us, according to whether, when we have heard their call, we translate it as counseling revolt or acceptance."

The HUll and the Plain * 43

la colline" (p. 26)z—but because, like his brothers, he lacks discipline—"lis ne sentaient ni la necessite, ni la beaute de la discipline" (p. 32; see p. 40)"—he does not look at it in its entirety. He ends up, in old age, as a wanderer on the plateau. The drama of vertical order and horizontal dissipation is played out once again, in microcosm: Il s'achemine avec Ieur troupe invisible vers Ie sommet de la sainte montagne. Non pas vers son cher couvent, vers son eglise de jadis! Depuis la reprise des ruines par l'eveque, la belle terrasse de Sion ne dit plus rien au coeur de Leopold. En toute saison, par tous Ies temps, il gravit l'un des sentiers qui menent aux parties Ies plus desertes du haut lieu. Il echappe a l'empire du raisonnement. Les fetes sans frein de !'imagination commencent. (p. 194)b This is a failure to take account of the double principle inherent in the hill, which is both cultural edifice and wind­ swept plateau, "chapelle" and "prairie."17 It is only in ex­ tremis that he comes to participate with Pere Aubry in the eternal dialogue of stability and inspiration: "L'eternel souffle qui tournoie de Vaudemont a Sion jette Ies rumeurs de la prairie contre cette maison de solidity, et remporte un mes­ sage aux friches qu'il devaste" (p. 251).° This is why the natural hill does not suffice: on it a church must be built so that it can stand against the sweeping enthusiasm of the spirit, 1 "he contemplated that repose, that patience, that long reverie of the hill" • 'They did not feel either the necessity or the beauty of discipline." b "He is making his way with the invisible throng toward the peak of the holy mountain. Not toward his beloved convent, or toward his church of long ago! Since the bishop took possession of the ruins, the beautiful terrace of Sion no longer touches his heart. In all seasons, in all weather, he climbs one of the paths that lead to the most deserted parts of the high/ noble place. He escapes from the authority of sense. The unbridled revelry of imagination begins." 0 "The eternal wind/breath that swirls from Vaudemont to Sion sweeps the clamor of the fields against the house of solidity, and returns with a message for the fallow land that it devastates."

44 * The Hill and the Plain

not to destroy or break it any more than the hill destroys the plain, but to maintain a tutelary discipline: "Je suis la regie," says the chapel, "l'autorite, Ie lien; je suis un corps de pensees fixes et la cit6 ordonnee des ames" (p. 251).d Vintras succeeded in leading a whole flock astray because he was able to harness the strength of the prairie while denying that of the chapelle. It becomes clear that the hill, in just the same way as it cannot be out of the world, cannot be out of time, if time be understood as that which flows eternally. The privileged in­ stant that is so important in La Chartreuse de Parme is seen by Barres as a fleeting aerial phenomenon that cannot be made to endure. It is the time of detachment, or perhaps of divine adventure: Le laboratoire de Faust, Ie burg de Manfred, Ille de Prospero brillent dans Ies nuages empourpres de l'horizon, mais ces fameux edifices, ces grands vaisseaux de clarte, balances sur Ie noir couchant, ne different pas tant de la pauvre masure mystique des Baillard, debout, 1¾ en bas, sous mes yeux. Ce sont des chateaux de feu, des chateaux de musique, autant d'artifices qui se resolvent en baguettes brulees dans la nuit. Fugitives vibrations, accord d'une seconde avec la plus belle vie mystirveuse, hautes fusees rapides, franges multicolores au sommet d'une vague aussitot aplanie. Ou deposer Ie noble tresor qui n'est pas en securite au fond d'un genie ephemere? (p. 250; my italics)" d

"I am the rule, the authority, the bond; I am a body of fixed thoughts and the ordered citadel of souls." ' "Faust's laboratory, Manfred's burg, Prospero's island shine in the crimson clouds of the horizon, but these famous structures, these great vessels of light, riding on the blackness of the setting sun, are not so very different from the humble mystic shanty of the Baillards standing there below, as I look down. They are castles of fire, castles of music, just so many works of fire that burn for a moment in the night. Fleeting vibrations, a second's harmony with the most beautiful and mysterious life, swift, high-flying rockets, many-colored fringes on the crest of a wave that subsides a moment later. Where can we deposit the noble treasure that is not secure in the depth of an ephemeral genius?"

The Hill and the Plain * 45

The alternative to the privileged moment is time in its con­ tinuity, in its unfolding: "Allons sur l'antique montagne, mais laissons sa pensie dirouler jusquau bout ses anneaux, ecoutons une experience si vaste et sachons suivre tous Ies incidents d'une longue phrase de verite" (p. 251; my italics).' For truth is spoken in sentences, not in words. The instant is the time of the mountain, and it is no coincidence that Vintras's mys­ ticism is directed toward Mount Carmel as a place of spiritual exaltation. To Carmel, to Mount Hermon, we can oppose both the colline inspiree and Golgotha. The latter are places of durative experience—Christ's suffering is not instanta­ neous—and are visible from the plain below. The hill, we are told, knows all four seasons (pp. 162—165). Yet how is it that being on the hill can help us to know the time of the earth, to know it as continuity? It helps us essentially by setting time out in space before our eyes, very much in the way described in our Introduction: "II [ce coteau d'eternite] etale sous nos yeux une puissante continuity des moeurs, des occupations d'une m^diocrite eternelle" (p. 11).g Simply, what is seen is always the past as a succession of like characters and events rather than the future as entail­ ment: "nous voyons, comme en perspective, une longue suite de heros" (p. 13),h and Leopold's final obsession is in part an extreme version of this: "il remonte jusqu'au bout la per­ spective ouverte sur Ie passe" (p. 203).' This is an admirably precise example of the kind of observation that we expect to find in commitment, insofar as it is the very type of paradig­ matic perception:18 what can be seen are the "laws" of the past (see pp. 7—8). The difference is that, for Barres, these descriptive laws are also to be taken as moral ones. To know our past is in fact to know it as necessity, so the eternal hill, ' "Let us move onto the ancient mountain, but let us allow its thought to be unrolled to the fiill; we should listen to such vast experience and know how to follow all the inflections of a long sentence of truth." 8 "[This hill of eternity] spreads before our gaze a powerful continuity of customs, activities of eternal mediocrity" h "we see, as if in perspective, a long succession of heroes" 1 "he is working his way back to the end point of the perspective opened up by the past"

46 ' The Hill and the Plain

by allowing us to see the extent of the past, leaves us between two sets of constraints: "il nous remet dans la pensee notre asservissement a toutes Ies fatalites, cependant qu'il dresse au-dessus de nous Ie chateau et la chapelle, tous Ies deux faiseurs d'ordre" (p. 11).J "Observation" is not then an ex­ perience of freedom as the possibility of choice but the cog­ nitive process whereby one comes to know particular imper­ atives arising out of one's situation. If we know already that we must find our place and stand in it, such contemplation tells us not only what it means to be in this place but, more fully, who we are by virtue of being and belonging there. Unlike La Chartreuse de Parme, with its emphasis on the naive rediscovery of felicitous moments, La Colline inspiree teaches us a vast (and potentially collective) memory, the knowledge of the many as a series and not of the few as an elite. Thus Banks's radical conservatism avoids the simplest kind of fixity. It is not just a matter of keeping one's prejudices— like the Baron de Nelles in Les DiracinAs, of whom it is said: "il a garde tous ses prejuges de caste, des niaiseries qui n'ont ni direction, ni tradition"k19—but of an active movement of confirmation that has exactly the function of giving direction, a direction that avoids horizontal dissipation and mystical pyrotechnics by vertical movement downward. Sturel talks in VAppel au soldat about "des objets sans beaute, mais oil ma pensee se fixe et s'enfonce durant de longues heures."120 Yet, before examining this whole tendency in detail, we ought at least to register some surprise, noting the apparent contra­ diction that emerges, yet again, between Barresian commit­ ment and the attitudes defined in our Introduction. We said there, a propos of Stendhal, that commitment was essentially ' "it recalls to our minds our enslavement to all that is fatality, while at the same time raising above us the castle and the chapel, both makers of order" k "he has kept all his cast prejudices, absurdities that have neither a direction nor a tradition" 1 "objects without beauty, but [places] where my thought settles and sinks down for hours at a time"

The Hill and the Plain * 47

concerned with the superficial, with what happened on the earth rather than with the imagination of its substance or what happened inside it. Yet there can be no doubt that Barres specifically rejects the superficial in those contexts in which it appears, although it does not even seem to be a possibility for the characters of La Colline inspirie. The generalizing technology of the architect is attacked in Le Culte du moi: "vous faites de la mobilite, de la vaine agitation. Vous croyez donner a ce jardin mille aspects nouveax, vous n'avez touche qu'a la surface, votre oeuvre est de celles qu'emporte un caprice du Rhone ou quelque mouvement de notre humeur.""1 The narrator speaks to him of digging deeper as a means of finding greater solidity: "m'affermir . . . creuser plus avant.""21 But the coupling of these two verbs already helps us to see things in perspective. The point of digging, as any good architect would have known, is to build a better base for oneself. We read in Scenes et doctrines du nationalisms: "Ayant longuement creuse l'idee du 'Moi' avec la seule methode des poetes et des romanciers, par !'observation interieure, j'etais descendu, descendu parmi Ies sables sans resistance, jusqua trouver au fond et pour support la collectivite."022 Going down is thus a preparation for staying. Once again, we can adjust our prediction rather than reject it by saying that it is not a descent into the depths that is involved here but rather a more durable way of being in the world. There is no downward journey. Indeed, La Colline inspirie allows us to see, better than other works by Barres, what perils lie in the darkest depths. It is these satanic places that are awakened by Vintras: m "you practice mobility, and vain agitation. You believe that you are adding a host of new features to the garden, but all you have done is touch the surface. Your work is of the kind that is carried away by a whim of the Rh6ne, or by some impulsive change of mood in us" n "consolidate myself . . . dig more deeply" ° "Having gone deeply into the notion of the 'Self using only the method of poets and novelists, inner observation, I had gone down, down among the shifting sands, to the point where I found at the bottom, and as a foundation, the collective."

48 ' The Hill and the Plain

Sur la sainte colline souillee, c'est une resurrection des forces de jadis. Les dragons du paganisme, vaincus sur Ie haut lieu par Ie glorieux apotre de Toul, saint Gerard, y reapparaissent. S'etaient-ils depuis tant de sifecles engourdis dans Ies anfractuosites de cette vieille terre, dans Ies mines abandonn es qui creusent encore ses pentes du cote de Fresnelles, dans Ies souterrains de la tour demi-ecroulee de Vaudemont, ou plutot n'ontils pas survecu dans Ies profondeurs de ces ames de paysans, derniers souvenirs d'ancetres lointains? C'est l&que Vintras est venules ranimer. . . .Lacirconstance rend sa virulence au poison, a la boue qui demeure apres Ie decantage. (p. 125; see p. 227)p In the normal course of events, in the cycles of established ritual at least, the spirits of the depths are not apparent. To raise them up is the act of a revolutionary, of one who makes the vertical axis the domain of transcendence, such that the altus appears as a "double gouffre de la terre et du ciel" (p. 195).q What we ought to value, rather than this vertiginous and sinister perspective, is what is "deposited below the surface," as Philip Ouston says with appropriate simplicity,23 not the profondeur of the earth so much as its epaisseur: "Le genie du passe vient m'assaillir avec des accents tout neufs. Il me conduit aux couches Ies plus profondes de l'histoire et jusqu'au temps de Rosmertha [but not beyond]. Je me retrouve en societe avec des milliers d'etres qui passerent ici. C'est un ocean, une epaisseur (Tames qui m'entourent et me portent p "On the sacred hill that has been defiled, there is a resurrection of the forces of old. The dragons of paganism vanquished on the noble place by the glorious apostle of Toul, Saint Gerard, are reappearing. Had they been hibernating for so many centuries in the cracks of the ancient earth, in the abandoned mineshafts that still plunge into its slopes near Fresnelles, in the underground galleries of the crumbling tower of Vaudemont, or rather, have they not survived in the depths of these peasant souls, as a last memory of distant ancestors? This is where Vintras came to bring them back to life. . . . Circumstances have reactivated the poison, the sludge that remained after decanting." *• "double abyss of earth and sky"

The HiO and the Plain * 49

comme l'eau soutient Ie nageur" (p. 248; my italics).' The dead can thus be (better) known by digging or ploughing (see p. 5), so the site is thoroughly prepared. The edifice is built on the dead and as a continuation of them. Rosmertha and the Celtic tradition, in particular, are reached by those who dig deepest: they are historical bedrock. Again we see the difference between the mountain and the hill: from the moun­ tain one plunges deep into the darkest valleys, whereas the hill is a place of moderate elevation and moderate depths. If one is true to its discipline, one cannot go so far as to leave the human world. We might also add that there is hardly a developed material imagination of the earth here. Work is not to be done, imag­ inatively, on the substance of the earth. It does not provide elemental comfort, or even challenge, so much as security in one's continuing cultural enterprise. We dig in it in order to build on it. Thus where we might expect to find much dis­ cussion of roots—"la racine est Ie mort vivant," says Bachelards24—we find largely negative references to their ab­ sence (Barr^s never did write Les Enracinis) or rather an oppositional understanding of a kind that Bachelard might have called abstract or formal. Affirmation is either polem­ ical—"Plus d'Eglise imposee par l'etranger, mais une Eglise qui sorte de ce sol miraculeux" (p. 83)'—or doubly negative: "Et Leopold lui-meme, comment aurait-il pu vivre, si tous Ies liens avaient ete rompus pour Iui avec cette colline oil il puisait depuis toujours Ies aliments necessaires a sa vie mo­ rale?" (p. 170).u ' "The genius of the past comes to assail me in new tones. It leads me to the deepest strata of history, to the time of Rosmertha. I find myself in the company of the thousands of beings who came and went here. It is an ocean, a dense layer of souls that surrounds me and carries me along as water does a swimmer." ' "the root is the living corpse" ' "No more Churches imposed by foreigners, but a Church that would arise from this miraculous earth." " "And what of Leopold himself? How could he have lived if every bond had been broken between him and this hill from which he had always drawn the sustenance required by his moral life?"

50 * The Hlll and the Plain

It may be also that there is a danger, for Barres, in focusing too closely on the two-way dynamics of the natural process: explosive growth, even new growth, could be a threat to stability. There may be danger in the hill in that it is poten­ tially a place of springs, because of its verticality, whereas the plain is "un pays . . . oil 1'eau sourd et circule invisible" (pp. 10-1l).v For the inhabitants of the hill, especially Fran­ cois and Quirin Baillard, there is no doubt a kind of adventure in spending many hours searching for springs: Aucune reverie des longues soirees d'automne . . . ne nous presente rien d'aussi etrange que ces pretres et leurs compagnes qui circulent sur Ie haut lieu de Rosmertha, y cherchant des sources spirituelles et qui voient Ies anges planer au-dessus de leurs tetes en meme temps que Ies eaux courir dans I'ipaisseur du sol. (p. 100; my italics)" Yet, even here, there are no surprises. Searching is not find­ ing, and we do not see the disconcerting and potentially revolutionary emergence of new life. Water continues to flow in the thickness of the earth. Ancient religion, it is true, claimed the unity of the spring and the hill—"Les anciens donnaient Ie meme nom, rendaient Ie meme culte au sommet et a la source qui en sortait" (p. 166)x—but the dangers of this religion in its freedom from discipline are well known. When Leopold, in his old age, does learn to pray beside springs, he could not be further from the enduring solidity of the church: "Leopold aimait prier aupres des sources. Ces eaux rapides, confiantes, indifferentes a Ieur souillure prochaine, cette vie de l'eau dans la plus complete liberte Ie justifiait de s'etre libere de tout lien dogmatique. C'est un v "a region . . . where water trickles and wanders unseen" " "No reverie in the long autumn evenings . . . can o f f e r anything as strange as these priests and their female companions moving about on the high place on Rosmertha in search of spiritual springs/sources, who are simultaneously aware of angels hovering above their heads and of the water that flows in the thickness of the earth." * "The ancients gave the same name, and offered the same worship to the peak and to the spring that emerged from it."

The Hill and the Plain * 51

miroir des cieux" (p. 200).y Perhaps because of its very in­ stability the spring is, paradoxically, a mirror of the sky; yet this is what makes it unfaithful to the earth, to the whole earth, and especially to the edifice that stands on the hill. There is something of a hiatus here. We must know our­ selves and our past or else run the risk of being swept away by change. Yet to know the process or the cause is danger, to attempt to know the beginning or the origin is mystical folly. At least there is safety and wisdom to be found in fixing our attention on the product rather than the process. We can know the fruits of the hill: "Un beau fruit s'est Ιενέ [past tense] au sein de la colline" (p. 251),z or the flowers of the earth: "lis [les Baillard] etaient la fleur du canton, trois bonnes fleurs campagnardes, sans etrangete, sans grand parfum ni rarete, mettons trois fleurs de pomme de terre" (p. 22)." If we must look at that which is between the person, as fruit or flower, and the earth, then we can glimpse on occasion the visible articulation of the two. Barr^s mentions ankles: "Puis il [Leopold] descend a reculons, en cherchant avec quelque peine les barreaux, et sa soutane embarrassee laissait voir au-dessus de ses souliers ses grosses chevilles de paysan" (pp. 84-85).b In Les D^racines, the ankles of Taine have the same function: "Roemerspacher remarqua la forte cheville du vieillard, puis observa son mollet assez developpe; il pensa qu'il devait 6tre de constitution vigoureuse, d'une solide race des Ardennes."c2S Self-knowledge can then take the form of intelligent perception rather than sentient experience. To know y "Leopold loved to pray beside springs. This fast-flowing, confident water, indifferent to its future pollution, this life of water in its most perfect freedom made him feel justified in having liberated himself from all dog­ matic bonds. It is a mirror of the skies." ' "A fine fruit has grown up in the bosom of the hill." * "[The Baillards] were the flower/product of the canton, three typical country flowers, with nothing strange about them, no great scent or rarety, let us say three potato flowers." b "Then he came down backward, feeling for the rungs, and his cassock, as it was caught up, showed his large peasant ankles above his shoes." c "Roemerspacher noticed the old man's strong ankle, and then observed his fairly well-developed calf muscle; he said to himself that he must have a robust constitution, of solid Ardennes stock"

52 * The HOl and the Plain

oneself is, as we have said, to know oneself as determined; but necessity is perceived as arising from a series of past events and persons. It is not felt physiologically, as causality flowing through into one's being. Having established the kind of (imaginative) knowledge that is proper to La Colline inspiree, we can finally turn to a closer examination of the limits of militancy and commitment as they are questioned and redefined by this text. It should be apparent already that we need a new place for the Barresian character who, although determined to the extent of being like a fruit or a flower, has active knowledge of that deter­ mination and thus moves beyond militancy while never having the experience of choice, and thus not entering the domain of straightforward commitment. We cannot talk of intellec­ tuality because intelligence does not have the power to change the world.26 In some quite fundamental sense it is redundant, or rather epiphenomenal; for within these quite precise limits it has a role that makes it preferable to some dark vegetable imagination that loses itself in the earth. The whole point of elevation, the eternal privilege of the person on the hill, is to look and know, to belong in a state of knowledge. Because there is no original innocence that can be considered equiv­ alent to militancy, intelligence itself cannot be considered unnatural. The knowledge of the plain is that of the people, their "instinct magnifique" (p. 9); the knowledge of the hill is very much the same, except that it is the knowledge of this knowledge, an ordering of the mind.27 Thus we can say that although the instinct of the people may be exactly equivalent to militancy as we first defined it, we have no access in this novel to the consciousness of the people in its lowest or purest forms. We know the Baillards, and we know the people as they know them. Or more pre­ cisely—and the existence of this further level of knowledge opens up the question of commitment more fully—we know the narrator, and we know the Baillards as he knows them. It is the narrator who shares with us as readers a generally free consciousness of life on the hill and the plain. He is able to decide to look for the Baillards, to go down in search

The HiU and the Plain * 53

of their roots; but he does so in a limpidly clear act of con­ sciousness, an explorative foray with a precise purpose: "Mais au centre du village j'ai retrouv4 intacte la maison de famille, remarquable par ses caves profondes, oil, sous la grande Revolution, fut recueilli plus d'un ecclesiastique pourchasse. . . . C'est ici, c'est a Borville, c'est dans cet etroit sillon que l'on s'enfonce jusqu'aux racines des trois Baillard" (p. 19; my italics)."1 There is no risk of getting lost in the dark here. When his own understanding of the hill seems to be about to flower as something that transcends reason, he still has the time and the freedom to hold up the process, to ask "Quelle est cette fleur qui veut s'epanouir?" (p. 248; my italics).® One would say then that if the site more or less reliably produces its effect, tending to deny freedom, the movement of commitment for je as narrator and for vous as reader is in going there. In general, "we" do encounter the moral im­ peratives of a place of the spirit, but these can be discovered during a contemplative walk: "Combien de fois, au hasard d'une heureuse et profonde journee, n'avons-nous pas ren­ contre la lisifere d'un bois, un sommet, une source, une simple prairie, qui nous commandaient de faire taire nos pensees et d'fecouter plus profond que notre coeur. Silence! Ies dieux sont ici" (p. 6; my italics)/The narrator of this text is attached to a particular spiritual place, but the hill of Sion must be considered as chosen insofar as we are introduced first of all to a vast (paradigmatic) inventory of such places (p. 5). It is the very culture of je that objectively, so to speak, seems to define him as free. Although one may doubt that the people, d "But in the center of the village I found intact the family home, remarkable for its deep cellars, in which, during the great Revolution, more than one persecuted ecclesiastic was given shelter. . . . Here, in Borville, in this narrow furrow, one comes down to the roots of the three Baillards." e "What is this flower that wishes to blossom?" ' "How many times, by a happy and profound chance, have we encoun­ tered the edge of a wood, a peak, a spring, a simple meadow, that com­ manded us to silence our thoughts and listen to something deeper than our hearts. Silence! The gods are here."

54 · The Hill and the Plain

or even the Baillards, could ever know the spirituality of another place on earth—such is the extent of their belong­ ing—-je cannot belong in the same way. Even if, by ap­ proaching Ies simples, as the voice says more frankly and more condescendingly in Le Culte du moi, je finds that he does indeed belong with them via the unconscious,28 he has still found this fact, he has still approached the people. The narrator of La Colline inspirSe wears his superiority lightly, of course; he is not racked by guilt, burdened by the original sin of not being born a vegetable militant, like some later intellectuals. He comes to know the situation in great detail and can speak with authority about those qualities that are lacking in the Baillards, for instance. Knowing the world at large allows him to make hypotheses and follow them through: "Les Baillard eussent ete invincibles s'ils s'etaient fait une idee du monde moderne. Ils l'ignoraient totalement" (pp. 29-30).8 What is more important, he knows the hill better, more completely, than do the characters of his story: "II n'y eut personne autour de Sion d'assez complet pour comprendre Ie danger de ce grand duel, pour en eprouver l'ingratitude, pour en voir Ie sacrilege" (p. 149).h We should understand quite clearly that this knowledge is not claimed simply as God-given omniscience. The narrator has done his work, both spiritual and practical, aerial and earthly, free and disciplined: "Voici Ie livre, tel qu'il est sorti d'une infinie meditation au grand air, en toute liberte, d'une complete soumission aux influences de la colline sainte, et puis d'une etude methodique des documents les plus rebutants" (p. 18).' For us too as readers, the surge of imagination must be tem• "The Baillards would have been invincible if they had had an idea of the modern world. They were totally ignorant of it." h "There was no one around Sion who was complete enough to understand the danger of this great duel, to understand how regrettable it was, to recognize the sacrilege." 1 "Here is the book: as it emerged from endless meditation in the open air, in utter freedom, from complete subjection to the influences of the sacred hill, and then from a methodical study of the most irksome docu­ ments."

The Hill and the Plain * 55

pered by the discipline of the text, the dream by the docu­ ment, but if we do the work of commitment, provided we are not the infidels rejected out of hand by the narrator,29 we can come to see with the eyes of the hill; we can see the wholeness of the world, the synthesis of earth and air made already here on earth. Being true to the spirit of La Colline inspirie, we would not want to descend. Having learned to stay, we could recite in liturgical phrases the discourse of the hill. We might never read again.

II

JUTTL The Upright and the Rampant: Germinal

ZOLA'S NOVEL1 begins with someone walking along a road at

night. What better way to see its otherness, its specific op­ positions with respect to La Colline inspiree, than to dwell on this? From the almost toted darkness of the first moments— "Devant lui, il ne voyait meme pas Ie sol noir" (p. 31)a—he moves quite quickly, by an (unfinished) process of discovery, to a broader view of the situation. Instead of the standpoint of truth, we find a cognitive dynamism, marked by effort, by the attempt to see more clearly. There are no towers, of course, nothing so stable or so easily given; but there is (eventually) some domination—domination in the literal, spa­ tial sense of the French—accompanied by a more complete perspective: "Maintenant, Etienne dominait Ie pays entier. Les t&i^bres demeuraient profondes, mais . . . Ies yeux errants, il s'efforgait de percer Ies ombres, tourmente du desir et de la peur de voir" (p. 35).b Now one is reluctant to accept that Etienne at this moment might be the privileged observer we are looking for, if only because he seems to have to "climb" to the heights of understanding. But there is contingent priv­ ilege here precisely in the fact that he comes to see better not through some prophetic farsightedness but by external * "He could not even make out the black ground in front of him" b "Etienne now commanded a view of the whole district. It was still very dark, but. . . with his roving eye he tried to peer through the gloom, with a tormenting desire to see and yet a fear of seeing."

The Upright and the Rampant * 57

help: fires in the night (p. 31), a conversation with Bonnemort (pp. 32ff.), although there is as yet "aucune aube" (p. 39),c nothing so conclusively revelatory as the dawn. Furthermore, despite the fact of being poor, cold, and hungry, he has a certain enforced disponibilitS—"son existence de vagabond . . . chasse de partout" (p. 33).d It is given to him to walk and, in particular, to enter Montsou, knowing it to be just one place in the world. He was not born there. Now it seems that this uncomfortable privilege is not used in any prolonged way for the purposes of prospective under­ standing. The darkness must render this impossible, in any case, as if all that may be had is a kind of presentiment, fraught with "desire" and "fear." By what might be called, from an intellectual point of view, a squandering of privilege, a pointless loss of elevation, Etienne just goes on walking straight into the mine. Driven by material need, he becomes automatically involved, so to speak, in Montsou's activity without having examined in advance—how could he have?— the consequences of his action. "Ses yeux s'habituaient," we are told (p. 50),e and it might seem as if we have seen only a fleeting moment between two different habits, the instant at which it might be possible to talk of a "new" militancy. In this space of time, we find residual freedom as little more than hesitation, the difficulty of being accepted: "On Ie Iaissait libre, au milieu des batiments mal eclaires" (p. 49).f But the nature of the mine is such that drama and difficulty are quickly restored: one cannot simply walk into it, in fact. The simple human "vertebrality" that allowed Etienne his modest experience of verticality,2 his walking and seeing, is not tolerated by this environment. Behaving in a normally human way not only places him at great risk but makes him appear quite different from his fellow workers. Despite having taken precautions that the regular miners do not observe— he has "une vieille barrette, un chapeau de cuir destine & 0

"no dawn" "his wandering existence . . . kicked out of everywhere" e "His eyes were getting used to it" ' "He was left free [to wander] among the ill-lit buildings" d

58 * The Upright and the Rampant

garantir Ie crane, precaution que Ie pere et Ies enfants dedaignaient" (p. 54)«—he is constantly at risk: "Etienne, rudement, se heurta la tete. Sans la barrette de cuir, il avait Ie crane fendu" (p. 59).h The reason for this is simple: he holds himself upright, and there is no room for this in the mine: "Et il mesure qu'on avangait, la galerie devenait plus etroite, plus basse, inegale de toit, forgant Ies echines k se plier sans cesse" (p. 59).' The further he goes, the worse it becomes: "Le toit en pente descendait si bas que, sur des longueurs de vingt et trente metres, il devait marcher casse en deux" (p. 59).j3 The miners do not experience this as a particular difficulty: they have adapted to these exigencies to the extent of bending their backs and learning to crawl. Witness Cath­ erine: "elle besognait, la croupe barbouillee de suie, avec de la crotte jusqu'au ventre, ainsi qu'une jument de fiacre. A quatre pattes, elle poussait" (p. 308).k4 Being in the mine is thus for Etienne the experience of difference: quite literally, his attitude is not the same as that of his companions. He knows now that he cannot just enter into the habit of submission: Le corps devait etre penche, Ies bras raidis, de fagon a pousser de tous Ies muscles, des epaules et des hanches. Pendant un voyage, il la suivit [Catherine], la regarda filer, la croupe tendue, Ies poings si bas, qu'elle semblait trotter a quatre pattes, ainsi qu'une de ces betes naines qui travaillent dans Ies cirques. Elle suait, haletait, craquait des jointures, mais sans une plainte, avec !'in­ difference de l'habitude, comme si la commune misere etait pour tous de vivre ainsi ploye. Et il ne parvenait * "an old round leather cap to protect the head, a precaution the man and his children scorned" h "Etienne gave his head a nasty bang. But for the leather helmet, his skull would have been split open." • "As they went on, the gallery became narrower and lower, and the roof more uneven, so that they had to keep their backs bent." ' "The sloping roof became so low that he had to walk bent double for twenty to thirty meters at a time." k "she toiled on, with her haunches smeared with soot and filth up to her belly like a cabhorse. She labored on all fours."

The Upright and the Rampant * 59

pas ά en faire autant, ses souliers Ie genaient, son corps se brisait, a marcher [not trotter] de la sorte, la tete basse. Au bout de quelques minutes, cette position devenait un supplice, une angoisse intolerable, si penible, qu'il se mettait un instant & genoux, pour se redresser et respirer. (pp. 65-66; my italics)1 He must straighten his back, even if it is only in that other, more humanly submissive position, kneeling. He cannot sim­ ply be with the miners in their working environment, in their normal, horizontal position of labor. This is the point in the story at which commitment appears in a recognizable form. Etienne has the experience of dif­ ference and, minimally, of distance, insofar as his body af­ firms a certain human necessity and rejects the habitual atti­ tude of the miners. His redressement, in a movement described generally by Bachelard,5 takes on moral significance. He rises in—or is raised by—revolt: "Depuis qu'il se trouvait au fond de cet enfer, une revoke lente Ie soulevait. Il regarda Cath­ erine resignee, l'echine basse. Etait-ce possible qu'on se tuat a une si dure besogne dans ces tenebres mortelles, et qu'on n'y gagnat meme pas Ies quelques sous du pain quotidien?" (p. 75).m The initial thrust of revolt is thus to restore vertical distance—the space of freedom—between Etienne and the 1 "The body had to be bent forward and the arms kept stiff, so that one could push with all the muscles of the shoulders and haunches. For one journey he followed her and watched; she ran along with her behind so high and her hands so low that she seemed to be trotting on all fours, like one of those dwarf animals in a circus. She sweated and panted and her joints cracked, but she never complained, for familiarity had brought apathy, and you would have thought that being doubled up like that was part of the normal course of human suffering. And he could not do as much himself, and when he walked with his head down in this way, his shoes hurt and his body was in agony. After a few minutes the position became a torture, an intolerable anguish so painful that he sank on to his knees for a moment to straighten up and get his breath." ™ "A feeling of revolt had been steadily mounting in him ever since he had been in this inferno. He looked at Catherine, her back bent in res­ ignation. Was it possible that these people were killing themselves at such a cruel job in this deadly darkness without even making enough for their daily bread?"

60 * The Upright and the Rampant

miners. There is what might be called a natural withdrawal from a certain kind of degrading activity so that the upright position assumes a function comparable to that of the tower. Distance is clearly not sought for its own sake, nor is it enjoyed: it is simply vital. Indeed, we might say that distance is experienced here as tragic, or at least pathetic, insofar as the miners themselves are patently incapable of the same movement, unable, through force of habit, to return completely to the vertical position. They can be seen going to work in the mine, "trottant Ie nez vers la terre" (p. 493)." The very way in which they carry their lunch has the same effect: "le dos, que Ie briquet, Ioge entre la chemise et la veste, rendait bossu" (p. 493).° Even at rest, their squatting position is characteristic, shaped by the space of their work: "ils s'accroupirent, Ies coudes aux flancs, Ies fesses sur leurs talons, dans cette posture si habituelle aux mineurs, qu'ils la gardent meme hors de la mine" (p. 67).p Worst of all, perhaps, even when their work requires them to stretch they are not really upright in a human way: "C'etait une besogne obscure, des echines de singe qui se tendaient" (p. 307).q Standing upright, Etienne sees his po­ sition not only as a necessity for himself but as a distressing lack in his fellow workers. He sees what they do not, sees them as they cannot see themselves, and refuses to accept this state of affairs on their behalf. He must refuse it, precisely because they seem unable, through sheer habit—something like animal militancy—to refuse it for themselves. The upward movement of consciousness culminates in Etienne's experience of choice at the end of the first part of the novel. Looking out over the plain (p. 90), he faces two possibilities, both of them things to be done again·, "reprendre sa course affamee, Ie long des routes" or "redescendre au " "trotting along with their noses to the ground" ° "hunched up so that the briquet, held between shirt and coat, looked like a deformity" p "they squatted on their heels, elbows close to their sides, in the posture that is so natural to miners that they maintain it even outside the mine" q "It was dark toil, the stretching of ape-like backs"

The Upright and the Rampant * 61 fond de cet enfer, pour n'y meme pas gagner son pain" (p. 83).r To choose the first is, no doubt, a kind of detachment, an adventurous exposure to the "bourrasques,"' which are the horizontal forces of the world at large, "la liberty des grandes routes, la faim au soleil, soufferte avec la joie d'etre son maitre" (p. 90).' This is the way to enjoy his privilege as the possibility of leaving, a privilege that seems almost as rare in Germinal as it is in La Colline inspir4e, being shared here only by the two characters who are described, albeit in another context, as "les deux promeneurs solitaires" (p. 436),u Etienne and Souvarine.6 The miners, on the other hand— and Bonnemort's case is indicative, though extreme—find it difficult to walk at all, such is the extent of their belonging to this place. If Bonnemort's legs are stiff (p. 33) and his feet eventually swollen and twisted (pp. 185, 205, 471), it is no doubt because, to use a certain kind of mythical language, he is imperfectly finished, not fully separated from the earth.7 He has the elements of the earth both within and without, so it is hard to think of him as a "solitary" individual, or even as a body distinct from his environment: D'ailleurs, je suis solide & part les jambes. C'est, voyez-vous, l'eau qui m'est entree sous la peau, a force d'etre arrosd dans les tallies, (p. 37) Oui, oui. . . . On m'a retire trois fois de la-dedans en morceaux, une fois avec tout Ie poil roussi, une autre avec de la terre jusque dans Ie gesier, la troisieme avec Ie ventre gonfl6 d'eau comme une grenouille. (p. 36) C'est du charbon. . . . J'en ai dans la carcasse de quoi me chauffer jusqu'ii la fin de mes jours, (p. 37)v ' "to resume his hungry tramp on the road"; "to go down again into that hell, and not even earn your keep" • "wind gusts" 1 "the freedom of the open road, hunger in the sunshine gladly endured for the sake of being one's own master" " "the two solitary walkers" " "And anyway Fm fine apart from my legs. You see, I've been so soaked with water down in the workings that it has got under my skin."

62 ' The Upright and the Rampant

In the next generation, Maheu suffers continually from his "douleurs aux jambes" (p. 121);w and in the one after that, Jeanlin, following an underground accident, has a bad limp (see p. 205). The weakness of their bodies condemns them to immobility and to absorption in the mass of the earth. For Etienne, the second possibility is going down again, but there does not seem to be any question in his mind of becoming exactly like the miners: 'il ne se sentait point la resignation de ce troupeau" (p. 83).x To go down is to take on a double task—"il voulait redescendre dans la mine pour souffrir et se battre" (p. 91),y working and rebelling more or less at the same time. This is, of course, his final choice. But the very terms in which it is made pose a question about the significance of his revolt: although it is revolt on their behalf, does it not suppose nonetheless something like the essential superiority that, for Barres, can be used to found hierarchies and ensure social stability? It is not just a matter of encouraging the miners or telling them to stand upright: they cannot be freed with a simple word or a gesture. It seems to be their nature to be bent over in submission. Yet the difference with respect to Barr£s can be made quite clear: the subjection of the miners is perceived as being caused by something. They do not just happen to be below, like the plain; they are crushed, and Etienne's redressement is a revolt against this process,8 against the kind of radical degradation that actually causes a change in essence, tending to reduce the miners from humanity to animality. Jeanlin's case—an extreme, indeed a terminal one—is given more general sig­ nificance, as he is crushed back to the animal level: "Yes, yes. . . . Three times I've been brought out of there in pieces. Once with all my skin roasted, once stuffed with earth right down to my gizzard, and the third time with my belly blown out with water like a frog." "It's coal. . . . I've got enough left in my carcass to keep me warm for the rest of my days." w "pains in the legs" * "he did not at all share the resignation of this herd" y "he wanted to go back down into the mine to suffer and fight"

The Upright and the Rampant * 63

D'une precocite maladive, il semblait avoir !'intelli­ gence obscure et la vive adresse d'un avorton humain, qui retournait a l'animalite d'origine. (p. 198) C'etait une pitie, cette degenerescence derniere d'une race de miserables, ce rien du tout souffrant, a demi broye par l'ecrasement des roches. (p. 202) . . . sa degenerescence d'avorton k !'intelligence ob­ scure et d'une ruse de sauvage, lentement repris par l'animalite ancienne. La mine, qui l'avait fait, venait de l'achever, en Iui cassant Ies jambes. (p. 276; see pp. 42, 269)* Now if such a general process is the enemy, it is hard to know what positive forms action against it can take. How can there be an organization of revolt? Etienne's response could no doubt be considered classical. His previous revolt took the form of an attack on his chef (p. 68), and he envisages this also as a likely outcome of his suffering in the mine: "il finirait par etrangler quelque chef' (p. 83).a From attacking leaders to being a leader himself is only a short step, and he comes before long to dream of this: "il se grisa de ces pre­ mieres jouissances de la popularite: etre a la tete des autres, commander, Iui si jeune et qui la veille encore etait un manoeuvre, l'emplissait d'orgueil, agrandissait son reve d'une revolution prochaine ou il jouerait un role" (p. 183).b Ifbeing * "Unhealthily precocious, he seemed to have the mysterious intelligence and bodily skill of a human abortion reverting to [man's] animal origins." "It was pitiful to see this last decadent specimen of a race of starving toilers, this mere wisp of suffering, half crushed by rocks." ". . . the degeneracy of this abortion, with the instinctive intelligence and craftiness of a savage, gradually reverting to [man's] animal origins. The pit had made him what he was, and the pit had finished the job by breaking his legs." • "he would end up by throttling one of the bosses" b "he knew for the first time the heady delights of popularity: it filled him with pride to think that, young as he was, and so recently only an unskilled laborer, he was now at the head of the others and in a position

64 • The Upright and the Rampant

a leader is an exalted state, he achieves this momentarily during the nighttime meeting at the Plan-des-Dames, standing above the crowd on a tree trunk, on a hill, visible from below as an indistinct figure: "Lui, noir egalement, faisait au-dessus d'elle, en haut de la pente, une barre d'ombre" (p. 283).c9 But for such leadership to have a point, for it to be organized action going on in time, the miners have to be led somewhere, somewhere other than the place of their subjection. For Barres, this problem seems to be removed by the contemplation of leadership for its own sake, by the transformation of the leader into a monument. But there is no question of such a static solution in Germinal. Rather, we find what might be called a dynamic failure of leadership. Etienne discovers, in the heat of action, that the masses are stronger than he and that their revolutionary excitement, aroused in part by him, leads them along horizontal paths that make no allowance for his verticality. There is no durable coordination at all: when they are on the move, rioting, it is not only the intellectual who is redundant but the leader himself. With his help, they can go from being "debandes Ie long de la route, avec un pietinement de troupeau" (p. 48)d to be a tightly knit bande, although this too is a natural process, like the flow of water along the slopes of the earth.10 But once the bande is constituted, the flow becomes a "torrent deborde" (p. 325),e or a destructive galop (e.g., p. 326, 345), that carries them along the roads from one mineshaft to the next. All their strength is used for leveling, and revolution is rampant horizontality: C'etait la vision rouge de la revolution qui Ies emporterait tous, fatalement, par une soiree sanglante de cette fin de sifecle. Oui, un soir, Ie peuple lache, deof command, and this encouraged still more his dreams of the coming revolution in which he would play a part" 0 "He too looked black, and stood out above the crowd at the top of the slope like a dark pillar." d "trailing off along the road, like a shuffling herd" e "overflowing torrent"

The Upright and the Rampant * 65

bride, galoperait ainsi sur Ies chemins; et il ruissellerait du sang des bourgeois. Il promenerait des tetes, il semerait l'or des coffres ^ventres. . . . Oui, ce seraient Ies memes guenilles, Ie meme tonnerre de gros sabots, la meme cohue effroyable, de peau sale, d'haleine em· pestle, balayant Ie vieux monde, sous Ieur poussee debordante de barbares. Des incendies flamberaient, on ne laisserait pas debout une pierre des villes, on retournerait a la vie sauvage dans Ies bois. . . . Oui, c'etaient ces choses qui passaient sur la route, comme une force de la nature, et ils en recevaient Ie vent terrible au visage, (pp. 345—346; my italics)' Their triumph is an apotheosis of horizontal animality, with Mouquette's bottom shining blood red in the last rays of the setting sun (p. 346). It is no wonder that Jeanlin acts like a "gamin jouant a la revolution" (p. 404):g his most darkly destructive act is the murder of the young sentinel, "cette silhouette noire, qui se decoupait nettement dans la paleur de ciel" (p. 403).h In his trenchant verticality, the soldier is a ready-made victim for the "ombre mouvante," the "bete rampante et aux aguets, qu'[Etienne] reconnut tout de suite pour Jeanlin, a son echine de fouine, longue et desossee" (p. 403).1 Triumph takes the same destructive form: "En haut, ' "And what they saw was a red vision of the coming revolution that would inevitably carry them off one bloody night at the end of the epoch. Yes, one night the people would break loose and hustle along the roads, dripping with bourgeois blood, parading severed heads and scattering gold from rifled safes. . . . Yes, it would be just like this, with the same rags, the same thunderous trampling of heavy clogs, the same dreadful rabble with filthy bodies and stinking breath, sweeping away the old world like the onrush of a barbaric horde. Fires would blaze and not a single stone would, be Ιφ standing in the cities; they would go back to wild life in the forests. . . . Yes, this was what was passing them by along the road like a force of nature, they could feel its deadly wind blowing in their faces." « "street-urchin playing at revolutions" h "his dark outline which stood out against the pale sky" 1 "moving shadow"; "creeping, watchful animal that he at once recog­ nized as Jeanlin by his long thin weasel's back"

66 * The Upright and the Rampant

Ie terri etait vide, aucune ombre ne se detachait plus sur la fuite effaree des nuages" (p. 404).' After all, it is possible to imagine and desire this kind of negation; Souvarine the anarchist intellectual subscribes to the politics of leveling: "Fichez-moi done la paix, avec votre revolution! Allumez Ie feu aux quatre coins des villes, fauchez Ies peuples, rasez tout, et quand il ne restera plus rien de ce monde pourri, peut-etre en repoussera-t-il un meilleur" (p. 157; see p. 393).k But Etienne—who has always resisted this view,11 whatever its temptations or its heady appeal to his atavistic alcoholic violence—comes to affirm more and more clearly that it is unsatisfactory: Mais il se sentait a bout de courage, il n'etait meme plus de coeur avec Ies camarades, il avait peur d'eux, de cette masse enorme, aveugle et irresistible du peuple, passant comme une force de la nature, balayant tout, en dehors des regies et des theories. Une repugnance l'en avait detachέ peu a peu, Ie malaise de ses gouts affirms, la montee lente de tout son etre vers une classe superieure. (p. 434; my italics)1 For Jeanlin's murderous act is only the inversion, the com­ plement, of that which revolted him when he first entered the mine. It is aggressive rather than submissive horizontality. It cannot be dealt with in moral terms or by a simple appeal to human dignity: "Etienne, epouvante de cette vegetation sourde du crime au fond de ce crane d'enfant, Ie chassa > "Above him the slag-heap was empty, and no shadow now stood out against the scurrying clouds." k "Don't talk to me about revolution! Raise fires in the four comers of cities, mow people down, wipe everything out, and when nothing whatever is left of this rotten world, perhaps a better one will spring up." 1 "But his courage was at an end, for he now no longer even spoke the same language as his mates, and was afraid of their great blind, irresistible mass, sweeping on like a force of nature, wiping everything out irrespective of rules and theories. Gradually, as his own tastes had become more refined and all his instincts had been slowly raising him toward a higher social class, he had been detached from these people by a feeling of repugnance."

The Upright and the Rampant · 67

encore, d'un coup de pied, ainsi qu'une bete inconsciente" (p. 404).m

Yet the failure of Etienne's leadership does not necessarily lead to an impasse: it can serve its purpose fully by showing him (and us) that it is not just a matter of taking the people somewhere. Having realized that—as Naomi Schor says— "the crowd in Germinal is not monolithic, not passive putty in the hands of an omnipotent leader,"12 he might come to understand that its mass is caught up in superhuman proc­ esses, traversed by immensely powerful forces, that its very formlessness, like that of the monster described by Mircea Eliade in Le Sacri et Ie profane,13 is a sign of its extraordinary potency. Out of such chaos anything can come, vertical as well as horizontal. The people, unlike the dependent plain of La Colline inspirie, are complete in their potential. It is possible indeed to see the very experience of oppression in vertical terms. We have already spoken of crushing. If the force that crushes is enormous, then the whole process can go further such that the horizontal and the animal are only a stage in the cycle. Durand makes the point in the most general terms: "Le scheme cyclique euphemise l'animalite, !'ani­ mation et Ie mouvement, car il Ies integre dans un ensemble mythique oil ils peuvent jouer un role positif, puisqu'en une telle perspective, la negativite, fut-elle animale, est necessaire & l'avenement de la pleine positivite.""14 One sees the "danger," from a Barresian point of view, of imagining forces that act along this vertical axis; it is hard to stop the dynamism of such processes. The masses can be oppressed, even re­ duced; but taken to its extreme, this might provoke a reaction that threatens the established order. If this is so, the whole world of Germinal ought to be understood as a promise of change. The miners are crushed m "Horrified by this mysterious growth of crime in a child's mind, Etienne kicked him out of the way as though he were some irresponsible animal." " "The cyclical schema euphemizes animality, animation and movement; it integrates them into a mythic whole where they can play a positive role, since, in this view, negativity, even of the animal kind, is necessary for full positivity to come into being."

68 • The Upright and the Rampant by fatigue (p. 148), "accables" beneath the weight of the company's wealth (p. 38),° crushed and drowned by the thick night in which they sleep: "Des tenebres ^paisses noyaient l'unique chambre du premier dtage, comme ecrasant de Ieur poids de sommeil des etres que Ton sentait la, en tas, la bouche ouverte, assommes de fatigue" (p. 40).ρ One company threatens another with crushing (p. 98) while the air crushes the earth (p. 459), and the earth crushes the dead (pp. 406407). That crushing is so often accompanied by drowning further suggests the cyclical nature of this world: unmistak­ ably, it evokes eating and digestion. The horse Bataille dies in this way (pp. 476-477), and Etienne and Catherine fear that they too will be "ecras^s contre Ie toit, la gorge emplie par Ie flot" (p. 477).q Nicolas Maheu, Bonnemort's father, suffered exactly the same fate: "un eboulement, un aplatissement complet, Ie sang bu et Ies os avales par Ies roches" (pp. 37-38)/ It is important to see, moreover, that these are not just forces that bear down from outside: they are internalized by the people to the extent that the workers threaten constantly to crush, even to "eat," one another (Chaval and Catherine, pp. 71, 482; Rasseneur and Etienne, p. 247; Etienne and Chaval, pp. 397, 398, and then definitively p. 483; even la Maheude and her child, p. 45, and two families in their conviviality, p. 171). Beyond this, indeed, and no doubt as the ultimate sign of the monstrous completeness of the people, is the capacity to be crushed or devoured by one's own weight: s'ecraser, se devorer." This is how mass becomes more massive: "la bande se retrouva dehors, folle, s'ecrasant derriere Etienne" (p. 334; see p. 450); "le peuple, cette force de la nature qui ° "overwhelmed" Ρ "The one proper first-floor room was wrapped in thick darkness, which seemed to weigh down on the sleeping beings, their presence felt rather than seen, who lay there all in a heap, open-mouthed, knocked out by fatigue." q "crushed against the roof, their throats filled by their rising tide" 1 "a collapsed roof, flattening him right out; the rocks had drunk his blood and swallowed his bones" • to crush oneself/be crushed by one's own weight; to devour oneself

The Upright and the Rampant * 69

se devorait elle-meme" (p. 494; see p. 433).' This is why, incidentally, they can be seen in epic terms, as a match for that other monster, the mine: "Et Ie Voreux, au fond de son trou, avec son tassement de bete mechante, s'ecrasait davantage, respirait d'une haleine plus grosse et plus longue" (p. 39; my italics)." It is hardly surprising, then, that such crushing, when it does not take its more monstrous and self-destructive forms, should appear as an appropriate response on the part of the people to the forces of oppression. By the natural functioning of Zola's social physics, they come to take their revenge, to crush in their turn, dealing thus with Hennebeau's carpet in perfect unawareness: "ils ne sentaient meme plus Ie tapis, qu'ils ecrasaient sous leurs chaussures lourdes" (p. 227; see p. 221).v In all situations, their actions seem equally apposite, "crushing" the facade of Hennebeau's house (p. 354) and the sex of Maigrat (p. 362), and threatening to do the same to the soldiers who stand between them and the mine (p. 415). This makes it possible to understand revolution quite literally: there is a cycle, and the time of the people must come. "Ils [les bourgeois] comprenaient que la revolution renaitrait sans cesse" (p. 500).w The very forces of oppression are working to bring about change.15 What occurs, or threatens to occur, here is in keeping with what Zola criticism might come to call Jagmetti's law: "Le mouvement interieur r6prime s'annonce dans son dynamisme de fagon de plus en plus pressante. Dans ces lieux etroits et fermes, jaillissent alors des passions contenues et refoulees qui soulevent les personnages et les portent."x16 The only 1 "the mob found itself outside again, wildly pressing in behind Etienne"; "the people, this force of nature which devoured itself' u "And huddled in its lair like some evil beast, Le Voreux squatted ever lower and its breath came in longer and deeper gasps" ' "they did not even feel the carpet any longer, as they trampled/crushed it beneath their heavy shoes" w "[The bourgeois] understood that the revolution would be continually re-born" x "Repressed internal movement shows itself to be more and more press­ ing in its dynamism. In those narrow, enclosed places, passions which

70 ' The Upright and the Rampant

difference is that from the point of view of commitment we must insist on action along the vertical axis rather than on the function of enclosure, on (resolved) forces rather than on general pressure, on what might be called coordinate rather than circumscribed space.17 The two must be considered to­ gether, in any case, if we are to understand that crushing, in Germinal, is likely to lead not to leveling but to an ex­ plosion. This is true quite literally in the mine, of course, where forces act in all directions. "Au bout des galeries, l'air refoute s'amassait, se comprimait, partait en explosions formidables, parmi Ies roches fendues et Ies terrains bouleverses" (p. 477).y But it is also true figuratively in the un­ derstanding of oppression: "Les grandes Compagnies, avec leurs machines, ecrasaient tout, et l'on n'avait meme plus contre elles les garanties de l'ancien temps. . . . C'etait pour ga, nom de Dieu! et pour d'autres choses que tout peterait un jour" (p. 179).z Such is the awesome power, the natural selfsufficiency, of the revolutionary process, that its very slow­ ness becomes a guarantee of its eventual explosive climax.18 When this is understood, the problem of commitment ap­ pears quite differently. It is no longer a matter of leading the masses on a rampage, or even of teaching them new ideologies or new dreams. It is much more a question of the individual's integration, perhaps even—to hint at a possible convergence here of the intellectual and the mythical—his initiation. Etienne, to the extent that he is to be a part of their struggle and notwithstanding the fact that he will always be the one who has entered, must experience the same forces in order to be a part of their collective dynamism. He comes very early to know crushing: even while waiting to enter the mine have been contained and repressed come gushing forth, lifting up the characters and carrying them along." ι "Pockets of air, compressed into blind galleries, went off in terrible detonations, splitting the rocks and displacing whole blocks of earth." " "The big Companies crushed everything down with the weight of their machines; and now you hadn't even got safeguards against them as they used to have in the old days. . . . And, by Cod! that, among other things, was why the whole show would blow up one of these days"

The Upright and the Rampant * 71

"Etienne avait manque d'etre ecrase" (p. 50).a Under the ground, he experiences the same explosive response: "Etienne ralait, comme si Ie poids des roches Iui eut broye Ies membres, Ies mains arrachees, Ies jambes meurtries, manquant d'air surtout, au point de sentir Ie sang Iui crever la peau" (p. 60; my italics).b In his being, he feels the slow progress of habit: "Au demeurant, il etait accepte, regarde comme un vrai mineur, dans cet ecrasement de l'habitude qui Ie reduisait un peu chaque jour k une fonction de machine" (p. 152; see p. 151).° We note that the process is merely underway: it does not destroy instinctive revolt or eliminate human nature in one blow; but Etienne must know the threat of this. If he turns, during the period of his strongest ambition, to "ideas" that fill his head, taking him out of the mass—"Ce fut l'epoque oil Etienne entendit Ies idees qui bourdonnaient dans son crane. Jusque-la, il n'avait eu que la revoke de l'instinct, au milieu de la sourde fermentation des camarades" (p. 177)d— then his head and its contents must also be "processed": "Cette nuit interminable, complete, toujours du meme noir, etait sa grande souffrance. Il avait beau dormir en silrete, etre pourvu de pain, avoir chaud, jamais la nuit n'avait pes "It was as though around this dead machine, by this pit worn out with bringing forth coal, the life-force was taking its revenge in the untrammelled love which, whipped on by instinct, planted children in the wombs of these girls, who were hardly more than children themselves." k "stuffing themselves"; "filling themselves," "stopping up their bellies," "closing their thighs tighter"

The Upright and the Rampant * 75

already, it is then to be known, known as instinct, not by some lucidly rational prospection but by the kind of intimate knowledge that is born of experience. It is to this that Etienne comes. When he first walked along the road from Marchiennes to Montsou, he was trying to see all about him, his gaze wandering over the plain, without being conscious of what was underneath the earth. Even when he entered the mine, he did not hear what was there to be heard, the sound of crushing and work: "Et, au milieu du silence lourd, de 1'έcrasement des couches profondes, on aurait pu, l'oreille collee a la roche, entendre Ie branle de ces insectes humains" (p. 60).1 By the time the story ends, he has learned the value of hearing as well as seeing, partly no doubt because hearing the rappelm beaten on the earth was his means of survival (pp. 485ff.). He can now walk on the surface and hear what is going on below, thereby holding the double knowledge of what is hidden under the ground and what is in the future, knowing in particular that what is under the ground is the promise of the future. We shall shortly discuss the ending more fully as the climax of commitment in Germinal, but before doing so we must turn once again to the question of "superficiality" that concerned us a propos of La Colline inspire. We ought surely to do so here in view of the fact that our very search for commitment has led us to emphasize the importance of underground forces. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a novel more actively concerned with what lies under the earth than this one. Yet to recognize this is not to concede that a certain imagination of the world of the underground, as a space in which to settle or to dwell, is present. Even Auguste Dezalay, who identifies "le souterrain" as a space to be studied, at the risk of freezing it as an object of attention and losing sight of narrative pro­ gressions, places great emphasis on the verbs of movement that characterize action in and on the space.21 Again, we can 1 "In the heavy silence, down in the crushing depths of the seams, you could have put your ear to the rock and heard these human insects busily at work" m miners' signal

76 * The Upright and the Rampant

say that coordination matters as much as circumscription. Or, to put it more concretely, for Zola's "underground" the surface of the earth is still very much in play, precisely because the explosive discomfort of being there provokes a violent upward thrust. Roger Ripoll shows this admirably well when speaking of La Faute de Vabbi Mouret: "Cette brutale poussee vers Ie haut . . . est Ie seul mouvement que Zola pr£te a la plante. Le mouvement ορροβέ, celui de l'enracinement, n'apparait nulle part. La reverie sur 'Parbre vu du cote des racines' . . . est etrang^re & Zola. Lorsqu'il pense k la vie souterraine des plantes, c'est encore l'image d'une ascension qui s'impose k lui: l'effort de la jeune pousse pour se frayer un chemin vers Ie jour.""22 There is no gentle comfort here and no joy of penetration. Is there love of the earth at all? It hardly matters, since the earth is so powerful that there is no question of ignoring it. There is, in any case, a veritable hatred of the depths, a hatred whose violence—"[le] besoin furieux de revoir Ie soleil" (p. 315)°—feeds the upward thrust of plants. Pousser is a key word here: it enables one to imagine—as in the last sentence of the novel, where we read "Des hommes poussaient" (p. 502)p—the convergence of powerful effort and natural growth. The effect of this movement, its whole ori­ entation, is to break through the surface of the earth, imagined as a crust.23 There is thus entry into the world from below: the plant comes into action, in the narrower sense in which it is appropriate to commitment. In that sense, the seed is a double promise of violence: its own destiny is to be split by the process of growth, but the process will go on to attack the soil, to crack the earth asunder. n "This brutal upward thrust . . . is the only movement which Zola imagines in the plant. The opposite movement, that of sinking roots, does not appear anywhere. Dreaming about 'the tree seen in terms of its roots' . . . is foreign to Zola. When he thinks of the underground life of plants, he is still compelled by the image of ascension: the effort of the young sprout to make a path for itself toward the sunlight." 0 "the desperate need to see the sun again" p "men were growing/pushing"

The Upright and the Rampant · 77

These are some of the things that Etienne knows during the final scene of the novel, where we see him walking away from Montsou, having learned the lessons of this place: "Son education etait finie, il s'en allait arme, en soldat raisonneur de la revolution, ayant declare la guerre 4 la societe, telle qu'il la voyait et telle qu'il la condamnait" (p. 499; my italics).q By leaving, he shows that it is not a question of militancy in the particular sense in which we are using the term: his integration into the world of the miners has been neither complete nor definitive. But, even as he leaves, he stays in contact with those who are working underground: "Sous la terre, la-bas, a sept cents metres, il Iui semblait entendre des coups sourds, reguliers, continus: c'etaient Ies camarades qu'il venait de voir descendre, Ies camarades noirs, qui tapaient, dans Ieur rage silencieuse" (p. 500).r He also hears— almost at the same time, although in a more euphoric mode— the sound of nature at work, the cracking of the seeds and the breaking of the earth: "De toutes parts, des graines se gonflaient, s'allongeaient, gerqaient la plaine, travaillies d'un besoin de chaleur et de lumi^re. Un debordement de seve coulait avec des voix chuchotantes, Ie bruit des germes s,έpandait en un grand baiser" (p. 502; my italics).824 Hearing allows him to know these two kinds of work together and to know their convergence in the process of revolution. Time is clearly organized by this process. A long, slow struggle of germination is known to be going on in the present: "Des hommes poussaient, une armee noire, vengeresse, qui q "His apprenticeship was over, and he was going forth fully armed as an articulate soldier of the revolution, having declared war on society as he had seen it and condemned it." ' "He thought he could hear down below the [distant] sound of picks, faint, regular and insistent, seven hundred meters below the ground: it was his comrades whom he had just seen go down, his black comrades tapping away in silent rage." 8 "Everywhere seeds were swelling and lengthening, cracking open the plain, driven by their need for warmth and light. The sap overflowed in abundance with whispering voices, and the sound of the seeds spread out in a great embrace."

78 * The Upright and the Rampant

germait lentement dans Ies sillons" (p. 502).1 What can be apprehended directly at this very moment is the tressaillement, the frisson," which is the first movement of the seed and of growth itself, the intimation of future explosion: Et la campagne noire, assoupie, avait a peine un frisson, cette vague rumeur qui precede Ie reveil. (p. 492) Du flanc nourricier jaillissait la vie, Ies bourgeons crevaient en feuilles vertes, Ies champs tressaillaient de la poussee des herbes. (p. 502)v In exactly the same way, there is a palpable concentration of explosive energy in the attitude of the miners, as if they were adding their own conscious effort to that of nature in compressing and harnessing the power of the seed: Il [Etienne] en apergut un, tres vieux, dont Ies yeux luisaient, pareils a des charbons, sous un front livide. Un autre, un jeune soufflait, d'un souffle contenu de tempete. (p. 493) Le silence continuait, et quand Ie camarade Ieur tendit la main, pour Ieur dire adieu, tous la Iui serrerent fortement, tous mirent dans cette etreinte muette la rage d'avoir cede, l'espoir fi£vreux de la revanche, (pp. 494— 495; my italics)"25 1 "Men were growing up, a black, avenging army was slowly germinating in the furrows" u quivering; shudder v "Only the faintest stir animated the black, slumbering countryside, the vague sounds heralding reawakening life." "Life was springing forth from its fertile womb, buds were bursting into leaf, and the fields were quickening with a fresh growth of grass." w "[Etienne] noticed one old man with eyes blazing like burning coals under his livid brow. Another, quite young, was panting as he walked, and it was like the breath of a pent-up storm." "The silence was unbroken, and when their comrade held out his hand in farewell they all shook it vigorously and put into this silent grip all their bitter anger at having given in, and fervent hopes of revenge."

The Upright and the Rampant * 79

Mouque's handshake is the seed of future rebellion: "il donna Iui aussi une poignee de main a Etienne, la meme que celle des autres, longue, chaude de colere rentrie, fremissante de ribellions futures" (p. 495; my italics).* There is harmony between the workers and nature, or rather a virtual coincidence of the two, perhaps of a more conscious kind than before on the part of the miners; but what is new here, and most important from the point of view of commit­ ment, is the harmony that exists between Etienne as he walks on the surface and the miners working beneath the earth. Earlier, there had been a painful experience of disjunction, for Etienne, between the two places: "Des herbes envahissaient Ie terri, des fleurs couvraient Ies pres, toute une vie germait, jaillissait de cette terre, pendant qu'il geignait sous elle, la-bas, de mis&re et de fatigue" (p. 154).y Indeed, the terms of his initial free choice suppose the same disjunction: wandering on the plain or suffering underground. But now, instead of wandering, he is able to walk "a longues enjambees" (p. 492),2 with a sense of purpose that comes from knowing that his action is coordinated with the work of those below: "Et, sous ses pieds, Ies coups profonds, Ies coups obstines des rivelaines continuaient. Les camarades etaient tous 1¾, il Ies entendait Ie suivre a chaque enjambee" (p. 502)." Where Leopold Baillard, in his mysticism, was raised up and helped as he walked along the road, by "I'Ange de la Certitude,"26 Etienne, without being enracine,h draws his strength from the certainty of what is below. Whereas Leopold taps the earth with his stick to speak to the dead,27 Etienne does much the same thing, "tapant fortement de son baton * "he also shook Etienne's hand, with the same long, warm grip, full of suppressed anger and quivering with the life of future rebellion" ' "Grass was spreading over the slag-heap, the meadows were being covered with flowers, a whole new life was germinating and springing from the earth while he was groaning with suffering and fatigue down below." 1 "with long strides" * "Deep down underfoot the picks were still obstinately hammering away. All his comrades were there, he could hear them following his every step." b "the Angel of Certainty"; "rooted [in the earth]"

80 * The Upright and the Rampant

de cornouiller" (p. 492),c but here it functions as a reply to the sound from below, a way of communicating with the living. Just having the stick is a sign of strength: when he came to Montsou, he had only a small packet under his arm and his hands in his pockets (p. 31). The stick seems to allow him to beat out the time of his "enjambees," keeping him in step with the rhythm of change. The conclusion of the novel is thus marked by the presence of both horizontal and vertical vectors,28 horizontality as the projection of the time of change, and no doubt the means by which the revolution can spread to other places, and verticality as the dimension of (imaginatively) productive action. There is, quite clearly, a rejection on Etienne's part of point­ less horizontal violence, called quite simply "la violence"; but this is surely because of his preference for a vertical violence—the violence of labor—which is not so named: Un coup, et un coup encore, et des coups toujours, sous Ies champs, Ies routes, Ies villages, qui riaient a la lumiere: tout l'obscur travail du bagne souterrain, si ^crase par la masse enorme des roches, qu'il fallait Ie savoir la-dessous, pour en distinguer Ie grand soupir douloureux. Et il songeait a present que la violence peutetre ne hatait pas Ies choses. . . . Cela valait bien la peine de galoper & trois mille, en une bande devastatrice!" (p. 501)d In a powerful denial of the pure imagination of "mining," the workers seem to be getting closer and closer to the surface— "Encore, encore, de plus en plus distinctement, comme s'ils c "loudly

striking the ground with his dogwood stick" "Under these fields and roads and villages now smiling in the sunshine, one blow, then another, then blow after blow were being struck as the work went on in the black prisons so deep down, crushed beneath the massive weight of the rocks, that you had to know what was going on down there before you could make out its heavy sigh of pain. And now he began to wonder whether violence really helped things on at all. . . . Rushing about, three thousand strong, in an orgy of destruction—what a waste of energy!" d

The Upright and the Rampant * 81

se fussent rapproches du sol, Ies camarades tapaient" (p. 502).e Their actions are marked by the language of war: not only "tapaient" but "enflammes," "armee noire," "vengeresse" (p. 502).f Even the word "campagne"g loses the tran­ quillity it has so reliably in La Colline inspire. Soon they will burst into the world in a moment of simultaneous de­ struction and production,29 the war-like birth—"la terre qui enfantait" (p. 502)h—whose ambiguity is held together so tightly in the last verb of the text, its last explosive blossom: iclater.1 For one who has understood the promise, indeed the fa­ tality, of the revolutionary process, the very position of ver­ tical inferiority now appears as one of strength. It is hard to imagine a more powerful threat to the bourgeois of Montsou. Victory is already there. It simply has not emerged yet: "les bourgeois de Montsou, envahis dans Ieur victoire du sourd malaise des lendemains de grfeve, regardaient derriere eux si Ieur fin n'etait pas Ik quand meme, inevitable, au fond de ce grand silence" (p. 500; my italics).j But the one who is able to have most immediately the experience of triumph and exaltation is the one who—without staying, without loss of freedom, without the specific obligations of leadership, with­ out even seeing, in the narrow sense—knows the revolution as cause and effect, as both process and future event. ' "On and on, ever more clearly, as if they were getting closer to the surface of the earth, his comrades were tapping." ' "were tapping/hitting" but "blazing," "black army," "avenging" • "countryside/campaign" h "the earth which was giving birth" • burst out/explode ' "the bourgeois of Montsou, whose victory was poisoned by the uneasy fears that strikes always bring in their wake, were looking over their shoulders to see if their doom was not lurking there as something inevitable, in the depths of this great silence."

Ill

^LTLTL The Upe and Downs of Commitment and Detachment: iiLa Gomedie de Charleroi"

THE STORIES in this collection by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle are all about war and therefore about action. But "La Comedie de Charleroi," in particular,1 tells of war from the specific point of view of one who is now in peace and no longer "in action." The surest sign of this, at first, is a certain dreamy comfort. What was previously seen with difficulty, or rather hardly seen at all because of more general preoccupations and radical physical discomfort, can now be contemplated from the nicely settled comfort of a railway carriage. The narrator, in a quasi-foetal sitting position, is enveloped in peace: Je pus rdver sur ces paysages que je me rappelais si peu, bien que je Ies eusse traverses a pied. Mais je Ies avais regardes d'un oeil preoccupe qui cherchait audel&. Et la fatigue ou plutot l'ennui de la marche me montait du talon et des reins jusqu'k l'oeil. D'ailleurs, maintenant, que je Ies contemplais, confortablement assis et avec la complaisance esthetique d'un homme qui est rentrti dans Ie sein de la paix la plus profonde, je me demandais quelle difference j'aurais pu nuancer entre cette campagne-lik et beaucoup d'autres. (p. 15)® * "I could muse on this landscape that I remembered so poorly, even

The Upe and Downs * 83

But we cannot be sure that this kind of contemplative reverie is an adequate way of seeing that which is most vital for an understanding of war, namely, the action itself. Admittedly, discomfort in wartime prevented him from seeing certain pic­ turesque aspects of the countryside, yet the comfort of peace may be even more restricting: from a sitting position, one can see the landscape, but can one see the plain? Can the two, in fact, ever be seen at once, by the same consciousness? It seems that the narrator must move, if not to the full reenactment of his wartime experiences, at least to a more active inspection of the particular battlefield on which the battle of Charleroi was fought. Indeed, when he comes to walk and look around him, he has a precise recollection of events and their place. Sitting and walking may thus appear as stages in a narrative of observation. He does not enjoy, however, as is normal for such obser­ vation, the privilege of solitude. He is hampered in the pursuit of his memories by those who accompany him: Mme. Pragen, a wealthy and influential bourgeoise to whom he acts as sec­ retary, and the local mayor. For them, it cannot possibly be the same place as for him: Mme. Pragen shows that she is caught up in militaristic lyricism, speaking of "les champs de bataille" (p. 19),b when the narrator calls it "ce champ" (see p. 21; my italics),0 recognizing its specificity and sin­ gularity. In any case, both of his companions seem physically incapable of human observation in its normally dignified form. They cannot walk, see, or even talk with genuine vigor. Whatever energy they possess, especially Mme. Pragen, it does not take a proper shape: though I had been through it on foot. But I had looked at it [then] without paying close attention, for my gaze sought to go beyond. And the fatigue or rather the boredom of marching/walking rose from my heels and my back right up to my eyes. Besides, now that I could contemplate it from a comfortable position, with the aesthetic indulgence of a man who has returned to the bosom of the most tranquil peace, I asked myself what particular difference I could note between that countryside and so many others." b "the fields of battle" « "that field"

84 • The Upe and Downs

Elle marchait vite, mais semblait faire effort, Ies jambes un peu torses, (p. 10) . . . sa volonte trainait toujours trop loin un corps prematurement vieilli. (p. 13)d To walk is to follow in the steps of her son who fought and was killed here: "Je veux marcher. Mon pauvre petit a marche beaucoup plus" (p. 20).e But all her cultural training works against this: "Bien que Mme. Pragen ne marchat pas vite sur ses jambes fragiles de Parisienne 1900 et bien que Ie maire ffit un peu podagre, nous nous rapprochions . . . de ce mur" (p. 48)/ and again on p. 59: "nous y allames k petits pas."« One senses all the ponderous fragility of this nous\ For much the same reasons, she carries a lorgnette that, typically, acts as a mask as well as an aid to her inadequate visual capacity. It goes with a promenade rather than with an energetic and productive walk: "Mme. Pragen se promenait avec son faceά-main dans Ie cimeti£re" (p. 61).h Her voice is that of her body: "Sa voix etait cassee comme sa demarche" (p. 10; see "sa voix brisee," p. 20).' Because of this weakness, her bour­ geois flesh fails to take its place on the battlefield, to know it as it ought to be known. Instead of being upright and distinct, she and the mayor are drawn into the anaesthetic comfort of the earth: "Leur chair ne sentait rien, et la mienne Ies y aidait, se complaisant dans la paix revenue, entrant en complicit6 avec cette terre renfermee, la chair de ces vaches, d "She walked quickly, but seemed to do so with some effort, on slightly crooked legs" ". . . her will always went too far, dragging a body that had aged prematurely" • "I want to walk. My poor boy walked a lot more" ' "Even though Mme. Pragen could not walk quickly with the fragile legs of a 1900 Parisienne and although the mayor was a little gouty, we drew closer . . . to that wall" 8 "we were picking our way toward it" h "Mme. Pragen was walking about in the cemetery wearing her lor­ gnette." ' "Her voice was broken like her gait"; "her cracked voice"

The Upe and Downs * 85

de ce maire" (p. 45).J Such complicity is weakness, the enemy of clear and vigorous understanding. It becomes apparent that the story of war cannot just be told from "le sein de la paix"k as the imagination of commitment is affirmed negatively: being broken, tired, or simply resting close to the earth does not allow for a proper understanding of action. Despite the constraints of this unwelcome solidarity, the narrator comes to a fuller recollection—and retrospective de­ scription—of the battle. The significance of its being retro­ spective rather than prospective, as predicted by our thematics of commitment, will be discussed when "La Comedie de Charleroi" is considered with UHomme a cheval. What we can see without difficulty is that the narrator does come more and more to relive his past experiences, to the extent of retrieving the attitude of observation, of past observation. He recalls the privileged experience of having time to prepare, time to think, before the beginning of hostilities: Et nous savions que Qa ne tarderait pas. . . . Mais en passant devant la maison du garde forestier, nous avions joris Ie temps de detacher Ie chien oublie et de prendre un pot de confitures, sur la table, dans la salle vide. Le silence regnait encore dans Ie ciel. (p. 24; my italics)1 There was at that time a sense of anticipation, if not a detailed prospection of likely future events, and this margin of freedom is projected in spatial terms, quite in the way we might expect: "Du haut d'une colline," the narrator can see "l'armee fran' "Their flesh felt nothing, and mine helped them in this by indulging itself in the peace that had returned, and entering into complicity with that musty earth, with the flesh of those cows, of that mayor." k "the bosom of peace" 1 "And we knew that it would, not be long now. . . . But as we passed by the game warden's house, we took the time to untie a dog that had been forgotten and take a pot of jam from the table in the empty room. Silence still reigned in the sky."

86 * The Upe and Downe

gaise d£ploy£e dans la plaine" (p. 27).°12 He enjoys his priv­ ilege with a fine sense of its appropriateness but not of its necessity—"Comme si la Nature favorisait mon penchant contemplatif, ma section avait ete designee pour garder Ie convoi regimentaire (contre qui?)" (p. 26)"—nor with any great desire that it should endure: "ma satisfaction n'etait pas tant d'eviter Ies coups que de paresser et de regarder encore un instant" (p. 27, my italics).0 The time constraints of commitment, the limits placed on detachment, are clearly operative here. Fol­ lowing and fullfilling his anticipation, he goes through the relatively slow procedure (see pp. 30-31) of descending into battle, until he can say, "j'etais tout k fait entre dans la guerre" (p. 40).p Now it may seem at first that, despite its slow and deliberate nature, this entry has all the definitive force of a kind of suicide. From his hillside reconnaissance point, he moves to being stuck in the earth and seems threatened with staying there forever. "J'etais reste tr£s longtemps couche dans mon chemin creux, parmi Ies camarades" (p. 31).q Solidarity with the other soldiers is achieved with ease, by contrast with Germinal, but what solidarity? He becomes a "veau marque entre dix millions de veaux et de boeufs" (p. 32) and talks of "betail" and "troupeaux" (p. 33).r Strictly speaking, this is not witless militancy: he remains sleepily conscious of what is happening. Yet it is unwitting involvement. After the free­ dom of elevation, the loss of freedom is imagined as being caught in the viscous earth: "mais, ce matin-la, dans mon demi-sommeil, traverse d'inquietudes, de pressentiments, d'6lans obscurs, je me doutais que mon desir d'action s'etait pris a une glu bien grossiere et bien trompeuse quand je " "From the top of a hill"; "the French army deployed on the plain" " "As though Nature were favoring my contemplative bent, my platoon had been selected to guard the regimental convoy (against whom?)." ° "what gave me satisfaction was not so much avoiding danger as taking things quietly and looking [on] for a moment longer" ρ "I had come completely into the war" ι "For a very long time I had remained in my sunken road among [my] comrades." — ' "branded calf among ten million calves and beasts"; "cattle," "herds"

The Upe and Downs • 87

l'avais confondu avec l'amour de la guerre" (p. 32).8 From verticality and the precious instants of anticipation he has moved to durative horizontality, with its full contrasting sig­ nificance of moral abjection: Avec mon harnais sur Ie dos, avec toutes ces annexes de cuir et de fer, j'etais couche dans la terre. J'etais etonne d'etre ainsi cloue au sol; je pensais que Qa ne durerait pas. Mais ga dura quatre ans. La guerre aujourd' hui, c'est d'etre couche, vautre, aplati. Autrefois, la guerre, c'etaient des hommes debout. La guerre d'aujourd'hui, ce sont toutes Ies postures de la honte. (p. 31)13 It seems that human beings are reduced here to what might be called a material solidarity, in Bachelard's sense of "ma­ terial": they have all become part of the same substance. Concomitantly, dignified speech has given way to creeping rumor: Et d'abord, une rumeur s'etait ^pandue a ras de terre, ά ras de visages, (p. 63) Il est des discours comme Tacite Ie dit, meme Ii ras de terre; Ies phrases decisives rampent et font Ieur chemin. (p. 64)u Things do change, however. There is an event that takes the form of his standing up—or, more precisely, to grasp in full the drama and the dynamism of it all—his beginning to • "But, that morning, in my drowsiness, wracked with anxiety, forebod­ ing, and secret impulses, I was vaguely aware that my desire for action had become stuck in a very crude trap from the time when I confused it with the love of war." 1 "With my kit on my back, with all those leather and brass accoutre­ ments, I was lying in the earth. I was amazed at being nailed to the ground like that; I thought that it wouldn't last. But it lasted four years. War today is lying down, groveling, wallowing. Once, war was men standing upright. War today is all the attitudes of shame." u "First a rumor had spread at ground level, at the level of people's faces." "There are speeches, as Tacitus says, even at ground level; vital sen­ tences crawl along and keep on going/continue to have influence."

88 * The Upe and Downs

stand up: "Je soulevai ma tete aux yeux chassieux, aux oreilles remplies de cire, ma tete tondue de jeune forgat audessus de cette motte de terre qui, depuis Ie matin, avait fait tout mon horizon" (p. 34).v First the head emerges and then half of the body: "Je m'echauffais. Adieu, Ie sommeil. Je me levais a demi, je me dressais a mi-corps au-dessus du talus" (p. 39).w Freedom reappears as the elan that takes him out of the sticky solidarity of the earth and allows him to understand it clearly as past habit, as intimate routine: "Ah! je l'avais pressenti ϋ certaines heures, ce bouillonnement du sang jeune et chaud— puberty de la vertu; j'avais senti palpiter en moi un prisonnier, pret ά s'elancer. Prisonnier de la vie qu'on m'avait faite, que je m'£tais faite. Prisonnier de la foule, du sommeil, de l'humilit6" (p. 70).x To stand up, then, is to gain some perspective. Even halfstanding is not enough: "je ne voyais aucun ennemi" (p. 39).y But, at the height of one's dignity and one's pride, one can see the plain in all its flatness: "La plaine, la plaine plate sous Ie soleil, la plaine ecrasee sous la grosse volee allemande . . .—tout d'un coup, nous soulevant, prets & bondir, nous regardions cette plaine d'un plus haut" (p. 65).1 What is just as important, one can see and be seen by one's fellow soldiers. The organization of leadership is at hand, with the same spatial disposition, the same positive function taken by autour de as in La Colline inspirie: "II y avait moi dans cette plaine v "I raised my head with its sleep-filled eyes and its ears plugged with wax, my head that was shorn like that of a young convict, above that clod of earth that, since morning, had been my whole horizon." " "I was coming alive. Goodbye sleep. I half stood up, I raised half of my body above the mound." " "Ah! I had sensed a few times before this bubbling up of young, warm blood—this puberty of virtue; I had felt within me the beating [heart] of a prisoner ready to spring forth. A prisoner of the life that had been made for me, that I had made for myself. A prisoner of the mob, of sleep, of humility." y "I could not see any [of the] enemy" 1 "The plain, the flat plain beneath the sun, the plain crushed beneath the great German bombardment . . .—suddenly, as we raised ourselves up, ready to spring, we saw that plain from a little higher up."

The Upe and Downe * 89

vide. Me soulevant a demi, regardant de tous Ies c6tes, je n'apercevais rien; mais, me soulevant a demi, je donnai aux autres quelque chose a voir. On me vit, on me regarda, on m'appela" (p. 69)." Those who see are also seen, in fact— grouped cohesively around the (potential) leader: 'Tout de meme, il y avait quelques types, et je voyais autour de moi, des visages soudain attentifs, fideles, bien agglutines ensem­ ble, au ras de la terre" (p. 34).b There is, potentially at least, real human solidarity here, whereas being buried side by side in the earth is in fact, by an undemanding paradox, a kind of solitude, "des groupes perdus dans l'abominable solitude du champ de bataille moderne, chaque homme creusant sa tombe, seul devant un destin d'ailleurs pareil a celui du voisin" (p. 53).c Although we can recognize in "La Comedie de Charleroi," mutatis mutandis, the spatial disposition of leadership found in La Colline inspiree—what we might be inclined to describe, in political terms, as a "right-wing" theme—it is important to see that the two worlds do not have at all the same organ­ ization of time. In "La Comedie de Charleroi" we see move­ ment at its most dramatic, the newness of a kind of revolution rather than monumental leadership. Even in Barres's UAppel au soldat, where much attention is paid to the actions, indeed the whims, of Boulanger, we do not find such a sharp focus on the archetypal birth of the leader. For Drieu, the leader springs forth: "Qu'est-ce qui soudain jaillissait? Un chef. Non seulement un homme, un chef' (p. 70).d It follows from this, * "There was myself in that empty plain. By half standing up and looking on all sides, I noticed nothing; but, by half standing up, I gave the others something to see. People saw me, they looked at me, they called out to me." b "All the same, there were a few fellows, and I saw around me faces that had suddenly become attentive, faithful, well bound together, at the level of the earth." c "groups lost in the horrible solitude of the modern battlefield, each man digging his grave, each alone in the face of a destiny that happens incidentally to be the same as his neighbor's" d "What was suddenly springing forth? A leader. Not only a man, a leader."

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of course, that he is not reliably the one designated by the (military) hierarchy for the task. The lieutenant, the one who "holds the place," is inadequate. Although his failure is not total,4 his seeing does not lead to action: "II entrevoyait ce qu'il fallait faire, mais il aimait mieux ne pas Ie voir au point de devoir Ie faire. Et pour Ie sergent, Ie fait qu'il ne voyait rien, c'etait sa pauvre force. Or, moi tout de suite je voyais clair—je savais—et je bouillonnais" (p. 41).e Generally, the true, natural leader is the one who consents to be born where and when he is required, the one who stands up first: "II faut que quelqu'un. . . . On a besoin de quelqu'un. Il faut que quelqu'un se Ieve Ie premier" (p. 65). "Quelqu'un. Celui-Ia lk-bas qui se Ieve a demi? Non, il se rencogne. Alors qui?" (p. 66).f The final answer to these imperious questions is given, of course, by je: "Quelqu'un? Moi" (p. 69).g At the moment when he stands up completely—"Je me levai, tout entier" (p. 69)11—a meaningful order, of which he is the center, is created: 'Tout dependait de moi. Il me suffisait de vouloir et tout se precipitait en un point, tout se realisait, tout se signifiait" (p. 71).' The point of this "new order" is not, as with the wellestablished order of La Colline inspirie, that the others should remain in their position of horizontal subjection, engaging only in ceremonial and admiring intercourse with the leader, but that they should follow him in his movement. They stand up in turn. The very έΐαη that carries them up also takes ' "He could glimpse what had to be done, but he preferred not to see it so well as to have to do it. And as for the sergeant, the fact that he could see nothing was his humble strength. I could immediately see clearly— I knew—and I was seething." ' "Someone has to. . . . We need someone. Someone has to stand up first." "Someone. That one over there who is half getting up? No, he's huddling down again. Who then?" • "Someone? Me." h "I stood up, completely." ' "Everything depended on me. I only needed to will it, and everything would straight away come into focus, everything would be achieved, every­ thing would have meaning."

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them forward, as it does their new leader. Standing leads not only to seeing but to running: "Des hommes etonnes se Ievaient. Etonnes d'etre debout, d'etre des hommes, ils se mettaient a courir, timides et hardis" (p. 74).J Instead of murmuring and muttering on the ground they run and shout: "Je criais—j'etais debout au milieu du champ de bataille. Je courais. Je trebuchais, je criais. Oh! cette blessure, qui m'est restee dans la gorge, du cri de guerre" (p. 76).k The new leader experiences not only freedom, freedom in action, but power. By his shouting and running he works on his men, on the group that has emerged around him, tearing them away from the cloying earth, sculpting their clay into an aggressive and mobile unit, a block of militant strength: Je criais, j'avangais. Je travaillais des bras comme des jambes. Avec mes bras, je ramassais Ies hommes, je Ies arrachais a la terre, je Ies jetais en avant. Je Ies tirais, je Ies poussais, je sculptais Ie bloc de la charge, (pp. 73-74) J'etais un chef. Je voulais m'emparer de tous ces hommes autour de moi, m'en accroltre, Ies accroitre par moi et nous lancer tous en bloc, moi en pointe, a travers l'univers. (p. 70)15 His virile action, his erect stance, serve to bring form to the anal mess in which they had been wallowing: "cette armee ι "Men stood up and were astounded. Astounded at being upright, at being men, they began to run, timidly and boldly." k "I shouted—I was standing up in the middle of the battlefield. I ran. I stumbled, I shouted. Oh! this wound that remains in my throat, the mark of the war cry." 1 "I was shouting, moving forward. I was working with my arms as well as my legs. With my arms I was gathering the men up, I was tearing them away from the earth, I was hurling them forward. I was pulling them, pushing them, sculpting the block of the charge." "1 was a leader. I wanted to grab hold of all those men around me, add them to myself and myself to them, and propel us all in a mass, with me at the head, across the universe."

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inerte, vautree sous Ie feu depuis Ie matin et lichant du feu comme en colique" (p. 63).m6 Ought not this domination to be understood after all as a refusal of the horizontal domain, a very precise, indeed he­ roically distinctive, act of detachment rather than as com­ mitment? The narrator/hero knows the joy of separation: "Je m'^langai a travers Ies balles, avec une 6trange allegresse. Allegresse d'etre seul et de me s6parer, autant que de me distinguer des autres, par un acte surprenant" (p. 42).n But this is when he is exercising his freedom as an "agent de liaison" (p. 41)° and not when he is involved in the dynamics of leadership.7 It is true that the very fact of standing up seems to involve, as well as a refusal of abjection akin to that found in Germinal, a more aggressive scorn for those who remain in the horizontal state: "Je m'etais Ieνέ, Ieve entre Ies morts, entre Ies larves" (p. 70).p Yet this is only a stage in the whole process, the first step toward the formation of a group of men, all of whom have ceased to be earthworms. Scorn does not simply prepare the miraculous communication of a dispersed elite, as in La Chartreuse de Parme\ it begins to bind the group as a cohesive unit, fighting first of all against weakness in and among themselves: Nous nous reconnaissions comme des braves, comme de ceux qui sont Ie sel d'une armee. Et chacun devenait encore plus brave en regardant l'autre. Et, si nous regardions autour de nous, notre courage meprisait et menagait toutes ces peurs qui s'aplatissaient sur Ie sol autour de nous. Nous commengames de comploter contre Ieur tranquillite—ou de prendre en piti£ Ieur souffrance, nee de l'inertie. (p. 64)q m "this inert army, which had been wallowing under fire since morning and was letting off [its own] fire as if it had colic" " "I charged off among the [flying] bullets with a strange kind of joy. Thejoy of being alone and of separating myself, as much as of distinguishing myself from others, by a surprising act." ° "liaison runner" p "I had stood up, stood up among the dead, among the grubs." "« "We recognized each other as brave/reliable men, those who are the

The Upe and Downs * 93

We can see here that scorn is not scorn for the world of men in general and that it does not exclude pity. The leader is grand, he is dominant—"J'etais grand, j'etais immense sur ce champ de bataille. Mon ombre couvrait et couvre encore ce champ de bataille" (p. 73)r—but his nobility is shared by all who follow him: "Mais bientot, ils couraient, comme s'ils n'avaient jamais ete que cela, des nobles. La noblesse est a tout Ie monde" (p. 73).8 The heroism of the charge is simply a radical transformation from the horizontal to the vertical, the cowardly to the heroic—"Une passion avait commence de voler bas sur ces hommes couches et isoles, chacun dans sa petite individuality battue et geignante, et de Ies fondre dans son ombre" (p. 64)1—where scorn is less an emotional state to be attained or nurtured than the very measure of this radicality. We are warned quite specifically in fact, as readers of this text, against seeing this event as a definitive triumph, ulti­ mately rising above nature and fear: La victoire des hommes. Contre quoi? Contre rien; au-dela de tout. Contre la nature? Il ne s'agit pas de vaincre la nature, ni meme de la surmonter, mais de la pousser & son maximum puisque la puissance est en nous. Il ne s'agit pas de vaincre la peur par Ie courage— mais de fondre la peur dans Ie courage et Ie courage dans la peur, et de s'elancer a l'extreme pointe de 1¾lancement. (p. 71)u salt of an army. And each one became still braver as he looked at the other. And whenever we looked around us our courage scorned and threat­ ened all those fears that were groveling on the earth around us. We began to plot against their peace and quiet—or to take pity on their suffering, which had been born out of inertia." ' "I was tall, I was immense on that battlefield. My shadow covered and still covers that battlefield." ' "But soon they were running as if they had never been anything other than noble. Nobility belongs to everyone." ' "As these men lay in solitude, each in his own little private whimpering self, a passion had begun to hover over them and was fusing them together in its shadow." u "The victory of men. Over what? Over nothing; beyond everything.

94 * The Upe and Downs Nature, we should remember, includes the earth, just as the human includes the animal.8 "Nous criions. Qu'est-ce que nous criions? Nous hurlions comme des betes. Nous etions des betes. Qui sautait et criait? La bete qui est dans l'homme, la bete dont vit l'homme" (p. 72).v Man's role is to go far and high, carrying nature, carrying his nature: "Les hommes ne peuvent rien refuser a un homme qui porte loin et haut la nature" (p. 39).™ Just as the hill, in La Colline inspirie, is of the earth, man is a part of the nature that he raises aloft. The difference is that "La Comedie de Charleroi" takes place in primitive geological time. We see a seismic event, the emergence of a new summit: "II me suffisait de me lever, de me lever sur Ie champ de bataille—et tous ces mouvements et ces plissements apercevaient Ieur sommet; tout ce seisme humain, voyant tracee sa ligne de faite, y bondissait" (p. 71; my italics)." Perhaps this opposition is as good a way as any to imagine the difference between conservatism and fascism.9 We can say now, with more confidence, that the emergence of the leader does not threaten to take us outside the domain of commitment. In addition to its more spectacularly prag­ matic functions, it acts to restore the position of intellectuality in the midst of battle: "Penser, au milieu d'un champ de bataille, avait-on jamais vu 9a, avant? Mais voila, on avait mobilise les intellectuels, mis dans Ie rang les difficiles" (p. 89).y Whereas at first vertical superiority was received as Over nature? It is not a matter of defeating nature, nor even of rising above it, but of taking it to its maximum, because the potential/power lies in us. It is not a matter of defeating fear with courage—but of melting fear into courage and courage into fear, and of springing forward at the very tip of this movement." * "We were shouting. What were we shouting? We were howling like beasts. We were beasts. Who was leaping and shouting? The animal in man, the animal who gives life to man." w "Men can refuse nothing to a man who carries nature far and high." 1 "It was enough for me to stand up, to stand up in that battlefield, and all those rises and folds caught sight of their peak; that whole hitman earthquake, seeing the outline of its crest, leaped up toward it." ι "Thinking, in the middle of a battlefield: who'd ever seen that before? But there you were, the intellectuals had been mobilized, the hard cases were [now] in the ranks."

The Upe and Downs * 95 contingent privilege, now it is claimed as virile affirmation by the very movement and strength of the hero's body. Yet the new, revolutionary verticality retrieves, with its intellec­ tuality, some of the preoccupations of the earlier state. What is happening on the battlefield is the fulfillment, the incar­ nation, of dreams conceived and nurtured in the confinement of libraries, those institutional places of reflection: Si j'avais reve, j'avais desire etre 1¾. Eh oui, moi, pauvre intellectuel confine dans Ies bibliotheques, j'a­ vais reve de prolonger dans la vie mes mois de vacances. . . . J'avais reve de courir Ie monde, d'entralner Ies hommes dims des actions, de detruire des empires et d'en construire d'autres. (p. 32)z It is worth noting, furthermore, that the two major kinds of observation that were identified in our discussion of the Barres and Zola texts are both present here and that they are articulated, at least insofar as being upright comes after being on the hill or being a professional intellectual. Is not human verticality the more primitively natural position of the two for understanding as well as being the newer, the more dramatic? One suspects that the sort of privilege that supports the earlier contemplation may be a part of the old order. It could be lost in the seismic events of war. Certainly, in a later story in the same collection, the adventure of walking on the earth is clearly preferred to routine observation from the tower on the hill: L'eglise, dont chaque jour j'occupe Ie clocher, est situee vers Ie haut d'une de ces pentes indeterminees qui, en se recoupant en des lointains fuyants, font vaste cette contree. Contree aplanie par Ies labourages seculaires, contree plate ou de mon perchoir [surely an ironic expression] Ie pommelage des arbustes, Ie foi* "If I had dreamed of it, that must have meant that I had desired to be there. Yes me, the humble intellectual shut up in libraries, I had dreamed of carrying on with my holiday activities. . . . I had dreamed of traveling all over the world and leadimg men into action, of destroying empires and building up others."

96 * The Ups and Downs sonnement des haies et Ies rideaux tires du feuillage n'amusent plus ma vue comme quand j'ai pied a terre et me promene & ras du paysage. (p. 161)" Yet we can note that this virile preference does not simply put an end to the old habit. It is most likely that the two kinds of observation—the curiously particular and the broadly general, the dramatic and the routine—can occur succes­ sively as moments in an ongoing process of understanding. This is certainly the kind of dual intellectuality we find in Gilles: Il ecouterait, il regarderait Ies hommes. Il etait Ieur ΐέηιοϊη Ie plus actuel et Ie plus inactuel, Ie plus present et Ie plus absent. Il Ies regardait vivre avec un oeil aigu dans Ies moindres fremissements de jadis et de demain, et soudain il prenait du champ et ne Ies apercevait plus que comme une grande masse unique, comme un grand etre seul dans l'univers qui traversait Ies saisons, grandissait, vieillissait, mourait, renaissait pour revivre un peu moins jeune.bl° We will see this duality developed more fully in VHomme ά cheval. For the moment, we have not learned sill there is to learn from the drama of Charleroi, especially the negative lessons. In the first place, there is a simple exclusion, a disqualifi­ cation of the bourgeoisie in the person of Claude Pragen, • "The church, whose tower I occupy each day, is situated near the top of one of those vague slopes that, as they intersect in the receding distance, make that region look vast. It is a region that has been smoothed out by centuries of tilling, a flat region where, seen from my perch, the mottled bushes, the profusion of hedges and the drawn curtains of foliage no longer give me the same pleasure to look at as when I am on the ground walking at the level of the countryside." b "He would listen to men and look at them. He was their most up-todate and out-of-date observer, the most present and the most absent. He watched them acutely in their every fleeting emotion, and suddenly he stepped right back and saw them only as a single great mass, like a great being alone in the universe that lived through the seasons, grew up, aged, died, and was born again to live a little less youthfully."

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Mme. Pragen's son, who fails to come through those ordeals that result in the glorification of the narrator/hero. Perhaps he is unlucky in that he is offered no natural protection—ma section 6tait beaucoup mieux placee, dans un chemin creux, que celle de Claude" (p. 25)c11—but he suffers in any case from a profound physical inability to adapt to the exigencies of the battlefield. He never begins to be part of it all, failing even to dig himself a proper place in the earth, and thus going through none of the stages traversed by the hero: En entrant dans Ies lignes, j'avais apergu Claude, & genoux dans la terre fraichement remuee, son lorgnon sur Ie nez, qui tenait d'une main frele et maladroite sa pelle et regardait son tampon travailler pour Iui comme k la caserne et mettre la derniere main au trou individuel du jeune bourgeois, (p. 24)d His kneeling is akin to sitting: it approximates to comfort, insofar as it is undifferentiated. The hero, in his verticality, knows the resolution of horizontal and vertical, fear and cour­ age, abjection and dignity. The bourgeois knows neither. Just as his mother's body fails in this place, so too does his. He does not stand or see clearly: "J'ai revu Claude vers midi. D'assez loin. Il etait a genoux, il tirait. Il avait l'air aveugle et desempare. Sims doute avait-il perdu son lorgnon" (p. 40).e In the midst of war he fails because his body preserves, approximately, the habits and the postures of peace. More generally, in other works by Drieu, the French bourgeoisie and the bourgeois/peasants are damned for their failure to relate to the earth: c

"my platoon was much better situated than Claude's, in a sunken road" "while coming into the lines, I had caught sight of Claude, who was kneeling in the freshly dug earth, with his pince-nez on, holding his shovel in his frail and clumsy hand while watching his batman working for him as he would have in the barracks, putting the finishing touches on the young bourgeois's individual hole in the ground." • "I saw Claude again around noon. From some distance away. He was kneeling and firing. He looked blind and distressed. He must have lost his pince-nez." d

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Jamais plus, songeait Gilles, jamais plus, jamais plus la s£ve ne repassera dans ce peuple de France aux art^res dessechees. La terre ne Ieur dit plus rien. Ils ne sentent plus la terre, ils ne l'aiment plus.02 This is why it becomes possible to Uilk of a riveuse bourgeoisie:g their imaginative myopia renders them incapable of seeing earth or sky, as in the case of Agnes: Elle jetait des regards aveugles autour d'elle, dans Ies moments ou elle invoquait Ie ciel et la terre, oil elle Ies prenait & t6moin de son infortune. Mais Ie ciel et la terre, mal peuples par sa faible imagination et limites au cercle etroit de ses relations, ne pouvaient repondre.h13 At Charleroi, it is a collective failure on the part of the French army, a symptom of the stupidity of their (bourgeois) leaders, that their uniforms prevent them from being a part of nature, as the Germans are: "Au milieu de la Nature, au ras de l'herbe, seuls nos pantalons rouges animaient Ie paysage. Stupide vanite, consternante idiotie de nos generaux et de nos d6put£s" (pp. 53—54).' The battle at Charleroi, as well as pointing up the failings of a presumably decadent French society, leads to a more dramatic failure, one that has broader significance and more drastic consequences than any reflection on the fate of the bourgeoisie. Claude Pragen, as we have seen, finds the short ' " 'Never again,' mused Gilles, 'never again, never again would the sap rise in this people of France with its dried-out arteries. The earth no longer has any appeal for them. They no longer feel the earth, they don't love it any more.' " g dreamy bourgeoisie h "She cast her eyes blindly about her at moments when she invoked the sky/heaven and the earth, when she called on them to witness her unhappy fate. But the sky and the earth, inadequately peopled by her feeble imagination and limited to the narrow circle of her acquaintances, were unable to reply." ' "In the midst of Nature, at grass level, only our red trousers enlivened the landscape. The stupid vanity, the bewildering idiocy of our generals and parlementarians."

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way to failure and nonexistence, but where does the glorious way of virile aggression lead? For a moment, prolonged by analysis, we have been able to focus on the heroic emergence of the leader; but this process cannot be forever frozen as an instant, in denial of its revolutionary dynamism. Even if this were possible as a form of plastic art—one thinks of Dela­ croix's "Liberte" on the barricades—the narrative movement of Drieu's text renders it impossible. We are invited to admire and to contemplate, by contrast with Germinal, the power of the leader; but this renders all the more urgent the question we asked when reading Zola's text: where does one lead the people (the masses, the group)? The narrator/hero of "La Comedie de Charleroi" is lyrically vague: "a travers l'univers," he says (p. 70),j as if what matters most is a certain style of leadership rather than specific, pragmatic aims. But the lack of concrete aims does not mean a lack of precise consequences, and the consequences we see amount to dismal failure. The first aim of the charge, however instinctive, must be to reach the enemy, to encounter some worthy obstacle, some test of strength. Yet this does not happen. After its inspired beginning, the charge only goes half-way, its έΐαη brought to an end by a collective fall: "quand nous etions partis a la charge, nous avions couru tres longtemps, pour nous effondrer ή mi-chemin—tout Ie regiment comme fauche par Ie jet d'une seule et suffisante mitrailleuse" (p. 23).k The hero falls, and as he does so the leader dies: Je n'avangais plus guere. Je trebuchais, je tombais. Ils trebuchaient, ils tombaient. Je sentais cela. Je sentais l'Homme mourir en moi. . . . Je gesticulaillais, je criaillais. Je trebuchais, je tombais. (pp. 76-77)1 > "across the universe" k "when we had begun our charge, we had run for a very long time, only to collapse half-way—as though the whole regiment had been mowed down by a single efficient machine gun" 1 "I was hardly advancing now. I was stumbling, I was falling. They were stumbling and falling. I sensed that. I felt Man dying within me. . . .

100 * The Upe and Downs Yet, as the ironic diminutives suggest, this is no heroic fall, nothing of cosmic proportions. It is not a proper death—a petite mort, at best: "nous tombames dans un trou" (p. 77).m Could it be part of a cycle, a return to the beginning of action, a chance to start again? "II fallait respirer, souffler. Pour mieux repartir; car on allait repartir" (p. 77)." After all, where was the hero before if not in a similar place, the one he called "mon trou"? "Ce bienheureux trou, ce trou oil ma vie s'etait enfouie pour une metamorphose, ce trou ou s'etaient passees de si droles de scenes" (p. 49).° But hope soon disappears. It becomes quickly apparent that, with the fall, the charge has stopped. Heroic action has come to an end; it is finished, broken off: "Nous y sommes encore dans ce trou, nous n'en sommes jamais repartis. Il y a eu un elan dans cette guerre, mais il a ete tout de suite brise. Il n'a jamais abouti" (p. 77).ρ The hole then becomes, pathetically, a place in which to settle: "On s'installa vite, on est vite chez soi—une rue de village. On soufflait si bien qu'on n'en sortait plus, qu'on s'installait" (p. 77).q Here, there is protection, although with­ out dignity, a kind of inverted privilege. They are no longer in the battle but in another world: "Dans ce trou, non seulement on etait & l'abri des balles, mais a l'ombre. Au-dessus, la bataille etait dans un autre monde, ou regnait un soleil atroce" (p. 78).r In other words, the hero has fallen out of I was jerking my arms about, I was squawking. I was stumbling, I was falling." m "We fell into a hole." " "We had to have a breather. So that we could take off again, for we were going to take off again." ° "my hole"; "That blessed hole, that hole where my life had been buried and transformed, that hole where such strange scenes had occurred." p "We are still in that hole, we did not ever take off again. There was an έΐαη in that war, but it was immediately broken off. It never led to anything." q "We settled in quickly; it does not take long to be at home—a village street. We were having such a good breather that we no longer [felt like] leaving; we just settled in." r "In that hole, we were not only sheltered from bullets but in the shade. Above us, the battle was in another world, dominated by the excruciating sunlight."

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action, out of the plane of action, into something very like peace14—something he had desired at certain moments earlier in the battle but only as a fleeting temptation, a regressive weakness: "Certes, il y avait eu un moment avant la charge oil, vautre centre la terre, j'avais ete plus bas que terre: je m'etais surpris k souhaiter d'etre ailleurs, dans Ie giron de ma mere ou dans une petite maison bien tranquille dans Ie midi" (p. 85; my italics).9 Quite by chance, without having sought it, he has found the kind of protection, a dark place in the earth, that is needed in order to escape from the threat of German machine-gun fire, directed from an old tower— not used as a place of commitment—onto the plain, "leur tir plongeant qui farfouillait toute notre plaine regimentaire" (p. 50).' The cruellest irony is that the collapse of their heroic verticality precipitates them into the comfort they had most desired in moments of weakness, irresolute moments without true fear or courage: the pride of war is followed by the fall of peace. What is more, we are reminded thus of the impor­ tance of circumstance at every point in the story: war, and his response to its challenge, gave him a chance to be a hero; the hole, and his complicity with it, deprived him of the possibility of pursuing his heroism. In the very heat of action, he experiences the quasi-fatality of a certain kind of obscure detachment, coming suddenly back to the sleepily contem­ plative position occupied by the narrator at the very beginning of the story, "rentre," quite by accident this time, "dans Ie sein de la paix."u The space of comfort is hardly a productive one. If any action is possible here, it is doubtless only that of suicide, where violence takes appropriately inverted, narcissistic forms. Certainly, it was "dans une grange ou la touffeur du foin entrait en moi comme une grande fermentation chaude"v that • "Certainly, there had been a moment before the charge when, as I wallowed in the earth, I had been the lowest of the Iowlbelow the earth itself: I found myself wishing that I were in another place, on my mother's lap or in a nice little house in the south" ' "their plunging fire, which raked our whole regimentary plain" u "back in the bosom of peace" " "in a barn where the closeness of the hay overwhelmed me like a great war fermentation"

102 • The Upe and Downs the hero was previously tempted to shoot himself (p. 68). This destructive introversion is accompanied, of course, by the lack of any possible extraversion: having lost elevation, one can no longer observe the world. Comfort goes with ig­ norance; it puts an end to knowledge: Nous ne savions pas du tout ce qui se passait autour de nous. Nous ne nous demandions pas si continuait la charge ailleurs; au fait, nous sentions qu'elle finissait Ιέ, en nous dans ce trou, comme en eux ή droite et a gauche, (p. 78)" That which is autour de—previously the meaningful organ­ ization of the combative group, the mutual recognition of heroes—now turns bad. There is a dark suspicion that they are being surrounded: Commengai-je par me rendre compte qu'il y avait du vilain autour de nous? . . . Il y avait du vilain autour de nous. (p. 78) Il commengait & y avoir du vilain autour de nous, autour de notre trou. (p. 80) Cernes, nous serions tues ou faits prisonniers. (p. 83)" Even the group itself turns sour: "Maintenant, tous ces types autour de moi commengaient a me degofiter. Ou je me d6gofttais. Ils me degoutaient de n'avoir pas mieux suivi—avaitil fallu Ies tirer pour venir seulement jusqu'k ce trou!" (p. 81).y Only what might be called, quite literally, a last ditch w "We did not know at all what was going on around us. We were not wondering about whether the charge was going ahead in other places; in fact, we realized that it ended right there, in us in this hole, as it did in them, to right and left." 1 "Did I begin by realizing that nasty things were going on around us?

There were nasty things going on around us." "Nasty things were beginning to happen around us, around our hole." "If we were surrounded, we would be killed or taken prisoner." y "Now, all of these people around me were beginning to disgust me. Or I disgusted myself. They disgusted me because they had not been better

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stand by the hero enables him to emerge once again from sleepy indolence: Eh bien, alors que je commengais a etre 6crase par ce bruit, la peur, Thorreur d'etre pris, me redressa tout d'un coup. . . . Aussitot que je sentis la menace de la prison, je commengai a m'agiter, a reagir violemment. Je me reveillai tout d'un coup. (p. 83)z His violent redressement is a refusal of the intolerable "se­ curity" of the prison, of the hole as prison. He uses his energy, not to lead a charge this time, but to escape, in extremis. It is important to note that the hole is not an abyss. The abyss can in fact be identified in this text as the place of true profundity, the depths where one falls (and rises) forever. It is not the place where action comes to an abrupt end but the domain of the cycle, where life and death meet: Reality tendue qui ne peut plus s'abimer que dans la mort, dans l'abime de la mort d'ou d6ferlent sans cesse Ies sempiternels rejaillissements. . . . J'ai senti a ce moment l'unite de la vie. Meme geste pour manger et pour aimer, pour agir et pour penser, pour vivre et pour mourir. La vie, c'est un seul jet. C'est un seul jet. Je voulais vivre et mourir en meme temps, (p. 73)" Peace, comfort, the existence of the bourgeois are neither life nor death, but heroic action holds the opposites together. At followers—had I gone to all the trouble of leading them out just to end up in this hole?" * "Well, just as I was beginning to be crushed by this noise, the fear and the horror of being captured made me suddenly spring to attention. . . . As soon as I felt the threat of prison, I began to move, to react violently. I suddenly woke up." • "A taut reality that can only be spoiled/swallowed up in the abyss of death, out of which the eternal renewals spring forth endlessly. . . . I felt at this moment the unity of life. The same movement for eating and loving, for acting and thinking, for living and dying. Life is a single stream. I wanted to live and die at the same time."

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the moment of his heroism, the leader sees events from both sides; he knows the totality: Jeter ces Frangais contre ces Allemands, faire etinceler ces Frangais contre ces Allemands. Et reciproquement. (Toujours la reciproque. A chaque instant, je reste maitre de la totality.) (p. 71)b But such mastery is soon lost. All that is left of this profound understanding is perhaps a sense, during his return visit, of the dead below the earth, of the process that brings together not only French and Germans—"ce labyrinthe commun, oil cinq cents Normands et cinq cents Saxons . . . se rejoignaient et se melaient" (p. 59)°—but also upper and lower classes, in a common nobility. Death is not just a "leveler" but a maker of syntheses: "Cette foule coulee en dessous du niveau social, emmelee dans la noblesse commune de la mort, dans la subtilite chimique du sous-sol, dans Ie royaume intime et essentiel" (p. 96).d Beyond the moment of his heroic emergence, the narrator of "La Comedie de Charleroi" has no continuing participation in this great cosmic dialectic. Durable knowledge, the knowl­ edge of his own behavior, has a recognizably dual form; but this duality, as he understands it in retrospect, is essentially successive. The two possibilities of his being are revealed in the events of one day, but not at the same moment: Quand je repense & l'homme double que j'ai manifeste ce jour-ΐϋ, je vois que tout mon caractere est sorti en une fois, et qu'il est probable que je ne pourrai jamais etre autre que l'un des deux que j'ai ete ce jour-la . . . b "Throwing those Frenchmen up against those Germans, making a spark with the impact of those Frenchmen on those Germans. And vice versa. (Always the reciprocal. At every instant, I remain master of the whole.)" c "this communal labyrinth, where five hundred Normans and five hundred Saxons . . . joined and mingled together" d "This crowd that had sunk below the social level, mixed together in the common nobility of death, in the chemical subtlety of the underground, in the intimate, essential kingdom"

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copain et lacheur, dans et hors Ie sens commun, Ie sort commun. (p. 47; my italics)®15 To follow this through in detail, recapitulating the events in the same terms as those used in this last quotation—that is, in the spatial language of commitment—we can say that the hero has initially the experience of being outside and above; he then finds himself caught in the earth, in an abject but minimally comfortable solidarity; he emerges from there to lead a charge in a moment of lyrical solidarity with a recognizable group, falls into a hole once again, into the degenerate society of ignorance, and emerges only at the last moment to escape, quite simply, to leave the regiment and the battlefield. We can thus discern, in the hero's duality, two states or rather two attitudes that can be readily recognized as com­ mitment and detachment. From the point of view of a belief in commitment, the movement to escape must be valued negatively. It is a deliberate movement towards detachment in the midst of action and must be seen as weakness, cow­ ardice, avoidance of the ordeal. Surely this is what the nar­ rator means when he invites us to see in the sudden, dizzying experience of freedom a temptation of the devil: Cest ici que se manifeste la grande tentation. La grande tentation. Le diable me prend et me transporte au-dessus du champ de bataille. Tentation de l'orgueil. Le diable m'appelle au devoir des orgueilleux. Je n'accepte pas la totale fatalit6 de servir, d'etre perdu dans la masse. Je veux rompre avec Venchainement dans Iequel je suis entre. Je me montre d61icat, je veux choisir mon £v6nement. (pp. 84-85; my italics)1 • "When I think again of the double man that I revealed on that day, I see that my whole character came out at once, and that it is probable that I vfill never be able to be other than one of the two people I was that day . . . a mate and a quitter, inside and outside common sense and common fate." , 1 'This is where the great temptation appears. The great temptation. The devil takes me and carries me up above the battlefield. The temptation of

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But is it like the devil's taking Christ out of the domain of his commitment and inviting him to exercise celestial power, or is it rather the work of God, a divine gift, a blessed privilege of freedom? Certainly, Gilles asks the question: N'6tait-il point toujours guett£ et repris par Ie g nie de la solitude, ange ou demon, et entrain^ vers un dia­ logue trop pur, bien au-dela des foules, bien au-dela des mers et des forets, dans un coucher de soleil devorant? Etait-ce Dieu ou Ie Demon qui l'appelait pour un tel ravissement?g16 The answer must be that it is both God and the Devil, or rather first one and then the other, according to whether one adopts the point of view of detachment or that of commitment. What seems characteristic of Drieu's texts, in this regard, is that we constantly find one attitude followed by or giving way to the other. The movement to commitment, the move­ ment to detachment are both valued here, but in succession. As je gives way to nous and nous in turn to je, the possibility of guilt, of the afterthought, is almost never lost. In action, there is a trahison des clercs:h "Oui, j'ai d£serte, trahi la solitude. Mais c'est que ma pensee ne peut se tenir dans un seul plan. Je suis incapable de philosopher sans contact avec beaucoup de choses" (Gilles, p. 302).' In solitude, there is a trahison des guerriers:' C'est d^licieux d'etre un homme et de se moquer de la societe. On Iui appartient corps et ame; on ne peut pride. The devil calls me to the duty of the proud. I do not accept that I am completely bound to serve, to be lost in the crowd. I want to break with the logic of circumstances into which I entered. I am being fussy and want to choose my own event." ' "Was he not always preyed upon by the genius of solitude, angel or devil, and drawn toward a dialogue that was too pure, far beyond the crowds, far beyond the seas and the forests, in an all-embracing sunset? Was it God or the Devil who called him to such ecstasy?" h clerks' betrayal ' "Yes, 1 deserted, I betrayed solitude. But that is because my thought cannot live on one plane alone. I am unable to philosophize without being in contact with many things." ' warriors' betrayal

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rien sans elle; et pourtant quand on a un peu de vie, on parvient a derober quelque chose k ses folles exi­ gences. Bienheureux peche, bienfaisante trahison. (La ComAdve de Charleroi, p. 262)k It is hardly surprising that Drieu should have come to focus, in "L'Agent double," on the experience of (successive) double betrayal,17 for when the narrator of La Comedie de Charleroi climbs a tower to lose himself, or rather to lose the events of the war, in contemplation—"je monte tous Ies matins sur Ie clocher branlant pour voir avec beatitude toute cette aventure saugrenue se noyer dans Ies verdures etalees & perte de vue"1— he can be called down from below to organize a group of volunteers of which he is to be the leader: "Mais on sait que je suis Ιέ et on m'appelle" (La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 165).m When he seems irremediably caught up in the most humble activity, covered with filth and vermin—"je suis dans Ie reel. Etre pauvre, c'est etre sale. J'ai des morpions que ma crasse engraisse""—he can easily retrieve some contemplation and, with it, a broader understanding: Mais si je sors de la tente, je suis au flanc d'une montagne et mon regard plonge dans une immense baie. Ma montagne se continue par d'autres montagnes qui au loin entourent toute la baie. Sur Ies Bancs de notre montagne campe une armee. Dans la baie il y a une flotte. Voilk la vie de FhumaniMi: on s'en va ή travers la terre toujours de siecle en siecle. (La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 190)° k "It is delightful to be a man and not to care about society. One belongs to it body and soul; one cannot do anything without it; and yet, when one has a little vitality, it becomes possible to withhold something from its wild demands. A blessed sin, a bountiful betrayal." 1 "Every morning I go up into the shaky tower to watch blissfully as this whole ridiculous adventure is drowned in the greenery that stretches as far as the eye can see." ™ "But they know I am there and they call out to me." " "I am in reality. Being poor is being dirty. I have lice that are growing fat on my filth." ° "But if I go out of the tent, 1 am on the side of a mountain, and my gaze looks down into an immense bay. My mountain is joined by other

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Detachment must somehow take its place beside commit­ ment and be understood in comparable, and compensating, terms. We have seen the assertion of humanity, of collective strength, of nature itself, in jes emergence as a leader; but there is a counter-balancing assertion in withdrawal. Escape, too, is a form of dignified revolt: Et & mesure que je voulais me separer de ce troupeau qui prenait tranquillement Ie chemin de la retraite, je sentais qu'en moi c'etaient la force et l'orgueil qui se relevaient. . . . J'avais des devoirs. Il ne s'agissait pas de Iier son sort ά une aventure trop bete, frappee de mort, des l'origine. (p. 115)p18 There are in fact two equivalent and mutually opposed forces, two kinds of strength, of courage: Je marchais, droit dans la vague. Un dialogue infini, Ie dialogue amorc6 en moi ce jour, par !'experience de ce jour et qui ne s'arreterait plus, continuait sa rumeur. Mais pour Ie moment je ne l'entendais que d'une fagon confuse, il etait dans mes talons. Dialogue entre Ies courages: courage de rester, courage de partir. Dialogue entre la politique et la vie. . . . Dialogue de la vie et de la mort. . . . Tous Ies themes avangaient et reculaient, se faisant vis-k-vis. Mon sang charriait ce ballet, (p. 118; my italics)*1 mountains that completely surround the bay in the distance. On the slopes of our mountain an army is camped. In the bay there is a fleet of ships. Such is the life of humanity: we make our way across the earth from one century to the next." p "And as I felt the desire to part company with this flock that was calmly following the path of retreat, I felt strength and pride rising up again within me. . . . I had certain duties. I could not just bind my fate to an excessively stupid adventure that had from the beginning borne the mark of death." q "I walked on, erect in the flowing tide. An unending dialogue, the dialogue that was started in me that day, by the experience of that day, and that was never to stop, went on quietly murmuring. But, for the moment, I had only a confused understanding of it, it was in my heels [the soles of

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Their "balance" thus takes the form of an oscillation between detachment and commitment: Je me suis battu pour etre avec Ies hommes. Les hommes que je meprisais a Charleroi, je suis retourne auprfcs d'eux. Et puis de nouveau je Ies ai quittes. J'ai cherche l'equilibre entre eux et moi, entre mon orgueil dont ils ont besoin et Ieur humilite qui est ma base, (p. 123; see also p. 244)r The two attitudes become part of the same life style, a char­ acteristic double movement of the narrator/hero as active intellectual: Voulant bien 6tre tue, mais ne voulant pas devenir une brute a attendre inferieurement d'etre tue, j'en ai pris et j'en ai laisse. Au front a mes jours, brave a mes heures. Capitaine ou colonel une heure—quand il y avait un remplacement ou un extra λ faire—filocheur beaucoup d'autres. (p. 87)9 It is difficult to say whether we ought to admire such os­ cillation in itself, whether it is a movement to be valued and adhered to, or just a symptom of something more profound. There are certainly examples to be found, in other texts by Drieu, of oscillation as a degrading and persevering form of indecision and futility,19 so we should hesitate to see it as inherently heroic or glorious. It is more helpful, no doubt, my feet]. A dialogue between forms of courage: the courage to stay, the courage to leave. A dialogue between politics and life. . . . A dialogue between life and death. . . . All these themes moved forward and backward, while facing each other. I bore this ballet in my bloodstream." ' "1 fought to be with men. The men I had scorned at Charleroi I went back to again. And then I left them once again. I sought a balance between them and me, between my pride, which they need, and their humility, which is my foundation." • "Being quite prepared to be killed, but not wishing to become a brute beast by waiting around humbly to be killed, I picked and chose. There were times when I was at the front, when I was brave. I was a captain or a colonel for an hour—as a stand-in or playing a bit part—but on many other occasions I was a shirker."

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to see it as simply necessary, akin to that movement that accumulates the cowardly and the heroic, the glorious and the abject. In a later story in this collection, the narrator speaks of (intellectual) instinct: "J'avais vingt-trois ou vingtquatre ans, et je vivais au jour Ie jour, cedant a mon instinct qui tantot me rejetait vers Ie front et tantot vers I'arriere" (p. 262; my italics).1 Rather than opposing the disembodied free­ dom of the intellectual to the blind obstinacy of the militant, Drieu invites us to oppose a dual, oscillating instinct to a singular one, an alternating current to a direct one. If we follow this oscillation a little more closely, isolating and analyzing some of its key moments, we can see the powerful desire of the (bourgeois) intellectual to lose himself, to go on losing himself, forever in the crowd: "Et moi, j'etais la-dedans, perdu, me perdant, ivre de perdition. Oubliee, ma personne bourgeoise. Une fois de plus je me jette dans la guerre, dans la foule, dans la cohue armee. Ah! Cette foisci, c'est la bonne. Je n'en sortirai plus, je ne veux plus en sortir" (La Comddie de Charleroi, p. 175).u But right at the heart of this instant of passionate commitment is the recog­ nition that the desire is being felt "once again." The desire is so imperious, so frequent, only because it can never be satisfied in a definitive way. Frederic Grover says of Drieu in general: "il n'est pas fait pour l'engagement car !'engage­ ment ne peut que dechirer un homme tel que lui. Mais, en meme temps, il exprime l'irresistible attirance et la necessite de cet engagement pour mettre fin a ses alternances."v20 The narrator of La Comidie de Charleroi is nostalgic for militancy, 1 "I was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and I lived from day to day, yielding to my instinct, which at times drove me back to the front and at others sent me to the rear." " "And there was I in it all, lost, losing myself, drunk with the desire to be lost forever. My bourgeois self was forgotten. Once again, I'm throwing myself into war, into the crowd, into the armed throng. Ah! This time it's for good. I'll never come out of it again, I never want to come out again." " "he is not made for commitment, as commitment can only tear apart a man like him. But, all the same, he experiences the irresistible attraction and the necessity of this commitment, in order to put an end to his alter­ nation."

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it seems, as a suicide of individual consciousness, yet he is inescapably aware of the fact that he is committed: Je ne suis pas ici en tant que patriote, mais en tant que bourgeois raffine, avide d'experiences. Je viens vers Ie peuple par un romantisme transpose, meconnaissable, un romantisme taciturne et dandy. Aussi je mens quand je suis gentil avec eux. Cette secrete recherche de la pauvrete et de l'humilite n'a rien a faire avec eux. {La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 201)w This potentially suicidal instinct for definitive commitment is answered by a self-affirming scorn, or revolt, that propels him toward detachment. In its simplest forms, as in the rec­ ollections of Gille, in Drole de Voyage, it is the force that takes him out of the action: Il reconnut cette force obscure et irresistible qui au college l'arrachait soudain aux jeux et aux camarades et Ie poussait dans un couloir sombre ou il pleurait de tendresse et de desir pour ce qu'il avait quitte. C'etait aussi cette force qui pendant la guerre Ie rejetait sans cesse au front oil pourtant Ie degout et l'ennui Ie guettait parmi ces troupeaux d'hommes bourres dans des trous. C'etait cette force qui l'avait arrache a ses mattresses, a ses amis."21 This is how he comes back to himself, as we see in Gilles: "II ne s'etait pas jete tout hors de lui-meme vers Dora et, w "I am not here as a patriot, but as a refined bourgeois who is hungry for new experiences. I come to the people through a form of romanticism that is transposed and unrecognizable, a taciturn, dandy's romanticism. So I am lying when I am nice to them. This secret quest for poverty and humility has nothing to do with them." x "He recognized that dark, irresistible force that, at school, suddenly tore him away from games, from his schoolmates, and drove him into a dark corridor where he wept out of tenderness and desire for that which he had just left. It was also that force that, during the war, drove him back repeatedly to the front despite the fact that he was a prey to disgust and boredom among those herds of men stuffed into holes. That force was what had torn him away from his mistresses and his friends."

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quand elle l'avait repousse, il etait revenu a lui-meme avec une secrete complaisance, une delectation morose. "y22 Or, in apparently healthier, more positive forms, he comes back to the affirmation of his obligations as a free person: "Soudain je regarde mes hommes avec rage. Ce ne sont pas mes hommes: je ne Ies ai pas choisis. Un homme comme moi choisit: rien ne Iui est impost" (La Comddie de Charleroi, p. 206).z At certain moments even, it is what might be called a return to knowledge as high culture, the recognition—in detachment— of literary paradigms: J'etais comme un acteur qui est sorti dans la coulisse et qui respire. J'6tais seul, absolument seul. Je me rappelais avec transport la solitude de Fabrice a Waterloo. Les obus pleuvait sur ce bois desert. Et moi je jouissais, tout en courant, de ma solitude retrouv^e comme d'un grand silence, rempli des grondements de ma seule pensee. (pp. 109-110)" How Stendhalian to think of Fabrice in the heat of action! The ease with which this culture is retrieved shows an "in­ stinct" for detachment that is very like the legereti of Fabrice himself. Yet the powerful, indeed compulsive, need for de­ tachment functions so fully only because it is continually compensated and corrected by a desire for commitment. The need to be oneself is balanced by the need to be, to be a man: "Mais qui serai-je? Je ne serai pas quelqu'un; je serai, simplement. Un homme, THomme qui est au milieu du monde— y "He had not thrown himself out of himself toward Dora and, when she had rejected him, he had come back to himself with a kind of secret indulgence, a morose pleasure." * "Suddenly I look at my men in angry resentment. They are not my men: I did not choose them. A man like me chooses: nothing is imposed on him." * "I was like an actor who has gone off stage into the wings to take a breather. I was alone, absolutely alone. I remembered with rapture the solitude of Fabrice at Waterloo. The shells were raining down on this deserted wood. And even as I ran, I delighted in the solitude I had retrieved; it was like a great silence, filled only with the rumbling of my thought."

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sans qu'il y ait de dieux pour Ie regarder" {La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 189).b Because of the compelling dynamism that reflects these dual constraints, it hardly seems possible in "La Comedie de Charleroi" to stand at some point of synthesis, as in La Colline inspirie, around which all revolves, or from which all can be understood. For the space of an instant, at the full height of the charge, this totality is perceived, but it cannot be durably held. Similarly, we cannot imagine a coordination of forces, an organized, ongoing dynamism of the kind found at the end of Germinal, if only because the forces involved are dia­ metrically opposed. All that can be grasped, if we seek the manifestation of commitment/detachment as a spatial figure, is what might be called the locus of synthesis, the perceptible trace of dynamic compromise. But this is not a major theme in La Comidie de Charleroi, perhaps because the text speaks more directly of instinct than of the kind of narcissistic (and retrospective) self-consciousness we find elsewhere in Drieu's work. The je of Socialisme fasciste, for instance, invites us to admire ("once again") his finely drawn line: "La aussi ma ligne s'est toujours present6e comme une oscillation continue, mais persevdrant dans sa moyenne delicate."023 If this is necessity, too, then it is art made out of necessity; if it is instinct, it is the instinct of the artist. It should be quite clear that the only kind of compromise that is tolerable for Drieu is a dynamic one. This means, in particular, that the middle ground that (presumably) lies be­ tween commitment and detachment is not a place in which to dwell. It is the place of the old, the weak, the irretrievably mediocre: "Nous avons ete bien battus et mis k la raison par Ies vieux," says the defeated hero. "lis ont continue Ieur petit bonhomme de chemin entre la paix et la guerre" (p. 122; my italics).d The middle ground is hardly "ground" at all but a b "But who would 1 be? 1 will not be someone; I will simply be. A man, the Man who is in the midst of the world—without gods to look at him." c "There again my line always appeared as a continual oscillation, yet one that maintained the same delicate mean." d "We were well beaten and brought into line by the old people"; "They went along their cosy little way between peace and war."

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marshy domain in which one can become bogged down and lost. The action of entry into battle, the action of escape, are both preferable to this state of unending hesitation: Et, sans doute, avais-je besoin d'agir pour ne pas tomber dans Ie marasme. Au fond, j'avais senti autour de moi l'accablement de toute cette mediocrite qui fut pour moi Ie plus grand supplice de la guerre, cette m^diocritd qui avait trop peur pour fuir et trop peur aussi pour vaincre et qui resta la pendant quatre ans, entre Ies deux solutions, (p. 42)" What is needed here is some resolution: the resolution of courage and fear, of vertical and horizontal—that instinctively intellectual knowledge that arises in the midst of action. As a final step in the analysis of the narrator's understanding, we can consider his generalizations about the particular cir­ cumstances of this war as opposed to war in general. It is true that, as readers, we are invited to recognize in Charleroi, as we have done throughout this chapter, 'Teternelle bataille dans la plaine" (p. 72).f But the self-consciously archetypal element, which is most powerfully associated with the birth of the leader, tends to give way to bitter disappointment that the full drama cannot be lived out for contingent reasons: the "eternal" plain is full of holes! This bitterness feeds a pow­ erfully reactionary discourse about the inadequacy of modern war to provide the place of human battle, to continue the tradition of virile combat: "La guerre n'est plus la guerre. Vous Ie verrez un jour, fascistes de tous pays quand vous serez planques contre terre, plats, avec la chiasse dans votre * "And I probably did need to act in order to avoid stagnation. Basically, I had always felt surrounded by that overwhelming mediocrity that was for me the most agonizing thing in the war, that mediocrity that was too afraid to run away and too afraid to win and that stayed there for four years, between the two solutions." ' "the eternal battle on the plain"

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pantalon" (pp. 87-88).g So many things are missing, in the eyes of the intellectual in search of (traditional) action: "Ou etait Ie drapeau? Mais oil sont Ies drapeaux d'antan? Et Ies clairons? Et Ie colonel? Et son cheval?" (p. 80).h If a vestigial colonel appears, it is only during the retreat; he is upright but not leading; he is merely observing: "II y avait un calvaire, et k cote un colonel d'artillerie qui, droit et immobile sur son cheval, avec son trompette derriere lui, nous regardait passer, machant son anxiety" (p. 116).' The space of battle is such, of course, that there is no room for horsemen, or for the cavalier element in general. As the hero says to an alienated fellow soldier in one of the later stories: "Cette guerre n'est pas faite pour vous. Vous etes un cavalier. Or, on n'a jamais vu un cheval dans Ie pays de Iahaut, si ce n'est dans Ies coulisses du decor" (La Comddie de Charleroi, p. 235).' For this reason, there are no visible traditional leaders to be found on the battlefield: the "su­ periors" are absent from the action, not in a place of real superiority but in a place of exile: "II pese une malediction sur Ies chefs, exiles de l'armee, exiles du feu" (p. lll).k24 That is why a new leader must stand up; there is no point in waiting for a colonel on horseback: "Si on Ies attend pour marcher. Le colonel, Ie drapeau, tout Qa des blagues, et la musique et Ies chevaux" (p. 65).1 Yet the new leader fails in ' "War is not war any more. You will realize that one day, fascists of every country, when you are lying flat on the ground with crap in your pants." h "Where was the flag? But where are the flags of yesteryear? And the bugles? And the colonel? And his horse?" ' "There was a calvary, and beside it an artillery colonel sitting straight and motionless on his horse with his bugler behind him. Chewing over his anxiety, he watched us go by." ' "This war was not made for you. You are a horseman, and they haven't seen a horse in that country up there, unless it was in the wings of the stage." k "There is a curse on the leaders, who are exiled from the army, exiled from the fire." 1 "There is no use waiting until they come before we get underway. The colonel, the flag, all that is a load of rubbish, and so are the music and the horses."

116 * The Upe and Downs turn, showing that there is no proper place for any leader, if by a leader we mean someone who stands erect and leads with his body. What has happened is that the space of vertical heroism has been occupied by industrial weapons: "Alors il n'y aura plus de plumets, d'ors, d'eperons, de chevaux, de trompettes, de mots, mais simplement une odeur industrielle qui vous mange Ies poumons" (p. 88).m Instead of the "aerial"—or, more strictly, following Durand's redoubtable terminology, the diaXritique—trappings of traditional warfare, the sky is taken over by darkly numerous monsters of the earth: "Le ciel se peuplait. Le ciel, c'est l'enfer. Quel est ce train aerien qui vient de passer, avec ce tintamarre de poutrelles et de roues? Il en sort une troupe d'assassins" (p. 52)." Earth and sky are not in their proper places: hell is above. For this reason, shelter is not to be had in high places, where it can be accompanied by understanding, but deep in the earth, buried in ignorance. The only "privilege" is that of regression. Ultimately, at Verdun, not only the sky changes character but also the earth itself: "La terre cache Ies hommes. Et pourtant la terre est reduite k rien. Ce n'etait pas un pays plat, il y avait partout des ondulations, mais tout cela, pioche, 6tait uniforme" (La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 249).° Not only is the sky filled with the things of the earth; the earth itself threatens to become with each explosion, "une absence atroce" (La CorrUdve de Charleroi, p. 251).p Although Charleroi is not yet Verdun—"Enfin, ce jour-lil, ce n'etait pas bien mechant, en comparaison de la suite, dans Ies ann6es. La plaine restait une plaine, Ies champs restaient des champs" (p. m "Then there will be no more plumes, gold trimmings, spurs, horses, bugles, words, but merely an industrial odor that eats away at your lungs." * "The sky was overrun. The sky/heaven is hell. What is that aerial train that just went by overhead, making all that racket with its wheels and couplings? A whole band of murderers is getting off it" ° "The earth hides men. And yet the earth is reduced to nothing. It was not a flat country, there were undulations everywhere, but all that had been dug up and now it was uniform." p "an agonizing absence"

The Upe and Downs * 117

52)q—the threat is unmistakable. Modern warfare could de­ stroy the traditional framework in which commitment is imag­ ined by simply obliterating both the tower and the plain, the vertical and the horizontal. There would be no space for either heroism or detachment—quite simply, no recognizable world. q "All told, it was not too nasty that day, by comparison with what happened during the following years. The plain remained a plain, the fields remained fields."

IV

_π_ηπ_ The High Plateaus: UHomme a cheval

TAKEN TOGETHER with "La Comedie de Charleroi,"UHomme a cheval1 appears as an idyll. Drieu's narrator is once again someone with a double nature—"J'etais joueur de guitare, mais j'avais 6te aussi seminariste" (p. ll)a—but here we find him to be, so to speak, doubly intellectual, participating in the purely contemplative as well as the more actively com­ municative or creative. It might be said, indeed, that his comings and goings (see for example pp. 13, 224) begin to map the whole domain of intellectuality. With him—and so much of the drama of commitment is masked by the facile preposition "with"—is a quite perfect man of action, the very leader on horseback so deplorably absent at Charleroi. Jaime Torrijos is visibly above others, and yet he is not a frozen object of worship: he remains astride animality, harnessing its strength.2 His purity as man of action stands resolved against the complex intellectuality of the narrator, Felipe, promising a rich relationship between them. Yet we do not have to wait until this relationship is fully developed in order to understand that, in the world of UHomme a cheval, some synthesis of intellectuality and action is pos­ sible. We need only consider the person, the career of don Benito Ramirez, who dominates much of the first part of the story. This man has virtually absolute power as Protector of Bolivia while being very much a devoted, consecrated (benito) * "I was a guitar player, but I had also been a seminarist."

The High Plateaus * 119

creature of the mind. He is an "esprit double, a la fois revant et agissant," says Felipe (p. 29).b In an approximately Nietzschean way, he dreams of aerial domination, of condescension and scorn—not exactly of mountain tops, as Felipe learns in conversation with him, but of cigars and books: Qui sait? C'est peut-etre en ecoutant Ie vent souffler dans la montagne que vous avez pris l'idee de domi­ nation? —Non. . . . Son air de voluptd distraite et morose venait & la fois du cigare et des livres. (p. 26)c Instead of the exalted lessons, the inspiration that haunts the high places, he knows a more active nihilism, choosing and promoting as his element—his weapons—those things that are fundamentally empty. Not only does he dwell in smoke, he reaches others essentially via his voice: "Les belles volutes bleues de la fumee ressemblaient aux developpements harmonieux de sa voix" (p. 27).d It is the organ of his virility, "une voix male, calme, qui 6tonnait dans une bouche tourmentee par Ie doute" (p. 14).e He is quite able to be an effective general without leaving the domain of his solitude, continuing to smoke his cigar as he manipulates events, by proxy, from the top of a tower: "En haut, je me trouvai nez a nez avec don Benito qui, presque seul, assis dans une embrasure, considerait Ie champ de bataille en fumant un cigare" (pp. 49-50).f For don Benito to triumph over Jaime would be the triumph of scorn and emptiness. It is not without b

"double mind, both dreaming and acting" 'Who knows? Perhaps listening to the wind whistling in the mountains was what gave you the idea of domination?' —'No.' . . . His air of absent-minded and morose sensual pleasure came from both cigars and books." d "The fine blue spirals of smoke resembled the harmonious amplification of his voice." * "a virile, calm voice that sounded extraordinary coming out of a mouth tortured by doubt" ' "At the top, I found myself eye to eye with don Benito, who sat almost alone in an embrasure, considering the battlefield and smoking a cigar." c"

120 * The High Plateaus

good reason that Felipe wonders whether "toute l'aventure de Jaime n'allait pas s'evanouir dans la fum£e" (p. 51).8 But this does not happen, partly because, having won the battle, don Benito withdraws momentarily into a convent, a place of contemplation that is not sufficiently protected by elevation, there to be found by Felipe and killed by Jaime. Now, although nothing in the text invites us to see absolute necessity in Jaime's victory—on the contrary, its belated and furtive nature hardly constitutes it as a triumph—it is not hard for us to see, almost literally, the inherent superiority of the new Protector. Visibly, don Benito, in his person, is not a match for Jaime: "Ramirez se tenait mal en selle, c'etait un homme petit et vofit£ qui trainait sa puissance avec un air souffrant" (pp. 13—14).h To this we can oppose Jaime's fullness: his (material) advantage is that he is his body. His strength, hjs daring, are corporeal qualities: "il y avait dans son corps une force et une audace extraordinaires" (p. 11).' In other words, by contrast with both Felipe and don Benito, he is precisely not given to us as an itre double.> The organic unity of his body constitutes it rather as a central point, a concentration of power that radiates strength and draws others to it. We can contemplate with Felipe "le pouvoir qu'exergait sur Ies hommes et Ies femmes Ie corps valeureux de Jaime" (pp. 11-12)." In Jaime we can recognize the perfect natural leader, the only kind of True leader, no doubt, from the point of view of fascism.3 It is not that don Benito is unnatural, of course: his corporeal power is simply less complete, being restricted to his voice (see pp. 14, 27). By his naturalness, Jaime bears a resemblance to the miners of Germinal, seeming all the more powerful because his activity and growth are part of a ' "Jaime's whole adventure was not going to go up in smoke" h "Ramirez sat badly in the saddle; he was a little, round-shouldered man who dragged his power around like someone in pain." • "there were in his body extraordinary strength and daring" ' double being k "the power wielded over men and women by Jaime's valorous body"

The High Plateaus * 121

broader process. His has all the purposeful blindness of a plant: Je ne regardais pas beaucoup Ies comparses, mais parfois Jaime Torrijos qui dans un air excitant poussait comme une belle plante aveugle. Il tendait Ies bras vers Ie soleil de sa destinee avec une inconscience ad­ mirable. Bien sur, il ignorait toute profondeur autour de lui, du moins semblait-il, pourtant son instinct me conservait dans ses voies. (p. 21)1 He is a plant or an animal: his strength is, literally, to in­ corporate, to have incorporated animality. We should not see in him a man who happens to be on top of a horse but rather a centaur, surrounded—as leader—by other like-bodied creatures. Felipe says to him at the end of their story: "Tu as ete Ie colonel du regiment d'Agreda, par excellence. Tu as ete un centaure, chef de centaures. Tu as galop£ sur Ies plus hautes plaines du monde" (p. 238).m His gallop, unlike that of the rioting miners in Germinal, preserves dignity: he knows the violence and excitement of rapid movement while remaining erect. At certain moments at least—during a cav­ alry charge—he seems to constitute, with his regiment, a thing of great beauty: a living, active synthesis of the spiritual and the animal, the aerial and the earthly. "Hommes et chevaux, au comble de Yesprit animal, formaient des centaures qui s'elangaient dans une ruee semi-divine vers notre clocher— dont Ies cloches auraient dii sonner" (p. 53; my italics)." Clearly, we cannot progress here by focusing on the imag1 "I did not pay much attention to the bit players, but sometimes I looked at Jaime Torrijos, who was growing in this stimulating atmosphere like a beautiful, blind plant. He was reaching out toward the sun of his destiny with admirable unawareness. Of course, he knew nothing of any depth around him, at least so it seemed, and yet his instinct kept me near him" m "You have been the colonel of the Agreda regiment par excellence. You have been a centaur, a leader of centaurs. You have galloped on the highest plains in the world." * "Men and horses, at the highest pitch of animal spirit, formed centaurs that sprang forward in a half-divine charge toward our tower—whose bells should have rung out."

122 • The High Plaleaue

ination, the inner space of Jaime. Commitment does not seem to exist as a problem for him. Indeed, to look at him is to see the aesthetic perfection of militancy. But the point is, first of all, that he is looked at, sung about, written about, by Felipe in particular. It is Felipe who knows the indivis­ ibility of Jaime as such; it is he who is able to render it comprehensible to others: Jaime, c'est un tout, dont on ne peut rien separer, sans que tout meure. Jaime, c'est Ie corps d'un cavalier, c'est l'ame d'un solitaire et c'est l'esprit d'un chef. Ce sont ses idees politiques autant que l'odeur de son poil ou sa fagon d'embrasser une femme; c'est son amiti£ avec tous Ies hommes et toutes Ies femmes qui l'aiment et qui sont ses partisans. Jaime, c'est tout ou rien, Jaime, c'est la Bolivie. (p. 207)° The distribution of roles seems fairly straightforward at this point: the dual, oscillating intellectual is there to observe, and be attracted to, the organic man of action. Indeed, if no narrative were to take us beyond this, we would be left with a certain kind of sympathetic, perhaps even companionable, contemplation rather than any precise involvement of the intellectual in the most decisive action. Now there is more than this, of course: there is a narrative progression toward complex and intense commitment, but not just toward simple involvement. It is not merely a question for Felipe of joining Jaime in action. In the first place, he has a "fr£le constitution" (p. 13)p and rides a horse even less well than don Benito does: he goes to a cavalry parade mounted on a mule (p. 13). When invited by Jaime to leap onto a horse at a vital moment, he is hardly adequate to the occasion: "Je ° "Jaime is a whole from which nothing can be taken away without destroying it all. Jaime is the body of a horseman, the soul of a recluse and the mind of a leader. He is his political ideas and, equally, the smell of his body-hair or the way he embraces a woman; he is his friendship with all the men and all the women who love him and are his partisans. Jaime is all or nothing; Jaime is Bolivia." p "frail constitution"

The High Plateaue * 123

ne sautai pas sur Ie cheval, je me hissai dessus, et par la suite je dus m'y cramponner bien peniblement" (p. 39—40).q This cannot be thought of as a successful apprenticeship in the equestrian art; it simply has comic consequences. On arriving at their destination, "je marchais comme un canard, ayant eu Ies fesses emportees" (p. 40).r If battle be thought of as a trial, then Felipe fails his test. He suffers, as Fabrice did at Waterloo, from the loss of any dominant perspective. The terrain is such that he becomes a prisoner of the road on which he is traveling, unable to see far ahead or to see on either side: "Nous etions dans un chemin encaisse entre de hauts talus et qui descendait dans un creux pour remonter en face de nous jusqu'& une crete au-dela de laquelle il disparaissait" (p. 44).8 What better way to represent the loss of contemplative privilege and the entailment of action? When the moment comes to charge, his mule is not provoked to any purpose, and he bumps into friends and enemies alike, before suffering a fall, again like Fabrice, but without the latter's dignity in the midst of disgrace. He feels the rock-hard force of irony: "La chute me parut assez longue, mais Ie contact avec la pierraille fut brutal et dechirant, et je perdis un peu Ie bienheureux sens des choses terrestres dont j'etais en train de jouir" (p. 45).' This ironic fall, it can be said in passing, has something in common with falling into a hole at Charleroi, where events come to a brutal stop. On the other hand, there is a tragic fall in VHomme ά cheval, that of the true caval­ rymen, which is associated with death and may thus be com­ parable to the abyss.4 For Felipe in battle—or rather, in a skirmish—there is no *> "I did not leap onto the horse, I hauled myself up onto it, and from then on had to cling to it in great discomfort." ' "I was walking like a duck, with my bottom worn away." ' "We were in a sunken road between high embankments; the road went down into a hollow and up again to a crest, beyond which it disappeared." ' 'The fall seemed rather long, but my contact with the gravel was brutal and distressing, and 1 lost a little of that blessed sense of earthly things in which I had been delighting."

124 * The High Plateaus έΐατι, only the disorderly ruades, the Cabriolesu of his mule

(p. 45); no song of the kind he might have anticipated, only breathlessness (p. 46); no glory, only a comically shameful wound: "un coup de sabre, par bonheur mal applique, entailla ma culotte de cuir" (p. 46).v Having fallen, he crawls for a long time, eventually struggling from this animal abjection to some minimal domination and understanding: Je rampai longtemps sous Ies broussailles et enfin je me trouvai dans une sente ou je pus me redresser. Alors, je ressaisis quelque peu de la plenitude de ma conscience, n'etant plus occupe par ma seule defense animale. (p. 47)" He feels the need for "quelque point de vue" (p. 48).1 One temptation is clearly avoided—that of rest and comfort, pure detachment in the midst of battle, precisely that which was not avoided at Charleroi. The place is called Aguadulce, but Felipe does not succumb to the charms announced in the name: Un ruisseau glissait pres du sentier, et il aurait ete salutaire d'y laver mes blessures. Mais la douceur chantante du courant ne me persuadait pas; elle me paraissait une vue de l'esprit aussi vaine qu'une phrase de theologien sur Ie d6tachement du monde. (pp. 48-49)y Instead, he pursues a mission of reconnaissance in the hum­ blest way, on foot. But he does not realize that the "jolie tour " bucking; leaping Y "a saber cut, fortunately misdirected, sliced open my leather pants" " "I crawled for a long time beneath the bushes and at last found myself on a track where I could stand up. Then I regained to a degree my full awareness, no longer being simply preoccupied with animal survival" * "some perspective" y "A stream trickled by the path, and it would have been beneficial to wash my wounds in it. But the gentle melody of the current failed to convince me; it seemed to me just as pointlessly abstract as a sentence by a theologian on detachment from the world."

The High Plateaue * 125

d'eglise" that he mentions in passing (p. 49)1 is in fact the observation post from which don Benito is able to see him, with the result that he is soon taken prisoner and brought face to face, side by side, with his enemy: "J'eus honte de m'etre fait prendre si sottement: il me semblait que, dans ce poste d'observation de l'ennemi, j'etais comme un traitre pour mes amis" (p. 51).a Notice that there is indeed a kind of objective treason here, not so much in his strategic failure, in the fact of being taken prisoner, as in that of sharing don Benito's tower. By an ironic fatality, he has been brought back to his rightful place: "Ah! Agreda comme tu 6tais beau, et je n'etais pas avec toi. La fatalite m'avait ramene avec son narquois esprit de justice & ma disposition contemplative" (p. 52).b For a moment, such is his complicity with fate, such is the appropriateness of this place for him, he chooses not to escape: "Les soldats s'etaient precipites aux embrasures du clocher et l'escalier etait libre. Mais, trop tard, et la vue de Faction 6tait empoignante" (p. 52).° It does not occur either to him or to don Benito that there might be any physical aggression between the two of them (p. 53): the tower is not a place for such action. Felipe moves thus through a complete cycle: the difficult and painful attempt to become involved in the fighting is followed by the ironically easy attainment, almost the im­ position, of contemplation as culpable noncommitment. It seems that he cannot actually be in the place and in the moment of synthesis, caught up physically in the έΐαη of the charge. He cannot be either a leader or a centaur. The dis­ junction of intellectual and man of action is maintained, even • "fine church tower" • "I felt ashamed at allowing myself to be captured so foolishly: it seemed to me that, in this enemy observation post, I was like a traitor to my friends." b "Ah! Agreda, how beautiful you were, and I was not with you. Fate had brought me back, with its mocking sense of justice, to my contemplative disposition. c "The soldiers had leaped to the embrasures of the bell tower and the staircase was unguarded. But it was too late, and the view of the action was gripping."

126 * The High Plateaus

if the intellectuals of VHomnve a cheval are utterly absorbed in the anxious contemplation of the action going on below. There is a fatality written into Felipe's name (Philippos): to some it is given to be horsemen; others can be only passionate horse-lovers. This disjunction makes it possible for us to identify quite reliably a "class" of intellectuals in the work of VHomme a cheval, not primarily as people who think more but as those who, be they generals and Protectors like don Benito, always seem to find themselves outside the physical action at key moments. Freemasons and jesuits,5 in particular, seem con­ demned by their very nature to noncoincidence with great events: "Deux obscurites, deux inefficacites, mais deux ombres enfievrantes, debilitantes, engendrant l'odieux et Ie ridicule autour des grandes actions" (p. 104).d Pere Florida is typical, moving busily and endlessly through the space of futility: "Ce personnage incroyablement futile dans sa force tournait au­ tour du destin comme un chat autour d'une jatte de lait" (p. 204).e If this is the intellectual's condition, however, it is precisely because it is associated with the experience of free­ dom as having room to maneuver. Freedom can be used more positively, as the example of Felipe shows, to circulate.6 Although intellectuals seem unable to make a living syn­ thesis of any sort in the heart of the world, in the heat of action, in the space of their own bodies, they can move between and around the bodies of others, the vital entities of the world, acting as intermediaries or agents de liaison. In­ deed, Florida knows this to a degree. Jaime says of him: "Florida a toujours et6 l'homme de liaison entre l'Eglise et Ies grands" (p. 192).f It is precisely for this reason that he is able to reconcile a love of detachment, of terraces, of the heights, with a constant meddling in the affairs of the world. 6 "Two obscure and ineffectual entities, but two feverish and debilitating shadows, producing hateful and ridiculous [side effects] around great acts." * "This figure who [used] his strength in such an unbelievably futile way circled around destiny like a cat around a basin of milk." ' "Florida has always been the link man between the church and the nobles"

The High Plateaus * 127

On the one hand, "Le Pere Florida n'ignorait pas cet epicurisme hautain qui fait que toujours Ies esprits Ies plus epures de la religion chretienne comme des autres religions ont elu Ies beaux lieux du monde pour y abriter Ieur m6pris et Ieur detachement" (p. 188).g On the other, he follows what Felipe sees as a typically jesuit vocation: "II etait professeur de theologie, mais se melait de toute [sic] autre chose" (pp. 16—17); "Le propre des jesuites est de se meler de tout et des plus minces vetilles" (p. 22).1,7 Theology and intrigue, elevation and pettiness, occur together—or at least, as we might expect, in oscillation. By a complete denial of the values of La Chartreuse de Parme, it is possible to be both scornful and a spy. Florida is surrounded by much the same creatures as the lowly priests and spies of Stendhal, but he works on them and with them: "sa cellule . . . etait toujours remplie de petits pretres, chuchotants et ricanants, dont il fouaillait la servilite avec une ironie infernale goutee de tous" (p. 17).' They act, no doubt, as his "police" (p. 17), but he is able to be a spy himself by looking from his balcony. It is from here that he sees Felipe talk to Belmez for the first time (pp. 33-34). But what of Felipe's role exactly? Can he be seen equally as an agent de liaison? The answer must be a qualified "yes." He, too, resolves to become a spy as a way of gathering knowledge and of penetrating a world of political intrigue: "je sentais de plus en plus la necessite d'etre mieux informe et de p^n^trer dans tous Ies milieux possibles a la fois. La police de Jaime ne m'inspirait aucune confiance . . . et je ' "Father Florida was no stranger to that haughty Epicureanism that has led the most refined spirits of the Christian and other religions to choose the most beautiful places in the world as a shelter for their scom and detachment." h "He was a theology teacher, but was involved in quite different things"; "It is characteristic of Jesuits to become involved in everything, including the most trifling little things." 1 "his cell . . . was always full of litde priests who whispered and snig­ gered; he would lash their servility with an infernal [kind of] irony that was savored by everyone."

128 * The High Plateaue

ne comptais que sur moi-meme" (p. 127).j There is still, however, some vestigial solitude, the minimal distance that separates him from ordinary professional police. Jaime says that he could not belong there because "Tu n'y comprendrais rien. Ne comprenant rien, tu te d^gouterais. Et tu ne serais pas utile" (p. 150).k He proceeds therefore to carry out a special mission, a kind of "intelligence" work among the Indians whereby he is to act both as spy and as ambassador, attempting to find out who fomented their revolt and working to reconcile them with the Protector (p. 150). More generally still, Felipe can be seen as an agent de liaison insofar as his art as a guitarist is often to accompany someone else's art, especially that of a dancer such as Con­ ception. His body is not present as part of the spectacle: he provides the background, even the medium, of communica­ tion. In his freedom, he can act simply as an intermediary, helping Conception—as Antonio later does—to communicate with the public, with the regiment of Agreda, with Jaime. Now Conception is a prostitute, and her dancing delivers her up almost naked to the gaze of all present. By accompanying her, Felipe is clearly acting as that particular kind of inter­ mediary who is known as a procurer, although he specifically refuses, on a number of occasions, to accept this description of himself. He says for example: Moi, j'etais musicien et je dedaignais plus de Iui procurer [& Jaime] des hommes que des femmes, bien que je fusse pret έ chanter Ies uns comme Ies autres, du moment qu'hommes ou femmes s'approchaient de l'objet de mon caprice, (p. 16)1 > "I felt an increasing need to be better informed and to move into all possible circles at the same time. I had no confidence in Jaime's police . . . and I relied only on myself." k "You wouldn't understand anything about it. And because you under­ stood nothing, you would be disgusted. And you wouldn't be useful." 1 "I was a musician and I scorned [the idea] of procuring men [even] more than that of procuring women, although I was prepared to sing the praises of those men and women who drew near to the object of my caprice."

The High Hateaue * 129

Being excluded from more striking and dignified sexual en­ counters by the inadequacy of his own body—"J'etais laid d'une laideur abjecte, voue aux putains du plus bas etage" (p. 72)m—he is free, by default, to bring others together, procuring first for Conception but later, more extensively, for Jaime. For the shift in his attentions he is roundly condemned, of course, by Conception, but this condemnation only con­ firms our description of his profession: "Tu fais un sale metier, guitariste, tu procures des femmes a tes amis haut places. Cest ainsi que font Ies guitaristes de maison close" (p. 171)." Other people can act, it seems; other people have beautiful bodies. But Felipe's role as a physically graceless intellec­ tual, if not actually a disembodied one, is to bring their bodies together as a way of making things happen in the world. At its best, the role of the pimp in UHomme ά cheval is no doubt to bring order. Even if the "vieille maquerelle"0 who accompanies Conception does not quite achieve this, it is clearly what she ought to do, what she attempts to do, as she follows her mistress in much the same way as Felipe follows his newly chosen master: "Quelques jours plus tard, Ie capitaine [Jaime] rejoignit son nouveau poste, et moi, j'entrai dans La Paz sur ses talons avec Conception . . . et la vieille maquerelle qui selon l'usage administrait son desordre" (pp. 15-16).p Similarly, when Jaime is said to be in a state of disarray (p. 16), it is expected that Felipe will work to right the situation. As don Benito says to him of the political situation in general, "vous allez mettre ordre a ce d^sordre, avec votre Jaime" (p. 27).q It thus becomes possible for us to understand the potential creativity of the pimp: if he has m "I was ugly, and abjectly so, doomed to the lowest whores" " "Yours is a dirty little trade, guitarist, procuring women for your friends in high places. That is what guitarists do in houses of ill fame." ° "old pimp" p "A few days later, the captain took up his new posting and I entered La Paz in his wake with Conception . . . and the old pimp who, according to custom, administered her disorder." ι "you are going to bring order to this disorder with your Jaime"

130 * The High Plateaus

no inherent value, at least he may be working to achieve order in the world. But again we must ask the question more generally. Are all active intellectuals able to be described as sexual gobetweens in this way? Are Florida and Belmez also procurers? The clearest answer might be that they probably are not but that this is the sign of their failure to fulfill their vocation. Felipe's procuring is in fact a kind of politics, and the role of these meddlesome people is to act against him, interfering with and blocking the liaisons that he attempts to make: Plus que du degout, je ressentais de l'ennui. Il est plus ennuyeux que d6gofitant de voir Ies rares beaux mouvements de la vie gates par de si laborieuses sub­ versions. Je voyais bien aussitot Ie plan du jesuite et son interet politique. Mais il s'agissait entre Jaime et Camilla de quelque chose de plus profond que la politique, ou plutot de cette politique profonde et rare qui rejoint la poesie, la musique et, qui sait, peut-etre la haute re­ ligion. (p. 103; my italics)1 Paradoxically, this is what defines the uncomfortable and, for Felipe, distasteful solidarity of Florida, Belmez, and Fe­ lipe as a class of characters in the novel. They occupy the same space but act with opposite motives: Quelle vanite etait la mienne? L'espece de vanite qui occupant aussi Florida, (p. 117) [Luis:] "Le Pere Florida pense que vous [Felipe] tenez en Bolivie la place qu'il y devrait tenir. (p. 130) Je dis "nous," trait horrible, car j'etais soudain rejete par mes emotions sur Florida et Belmez. (p. 195)" r "More

than disgust, I felt annoyance. It is more tiresome than disgusting to see the few beautiful gestures of life spoiled by such labored subversion. Straight away I saw the Jesuit's plan and realized where his political interest lay. But what was happening between Jaime and Camilla was something deeper than politics, or rather that deep and rare kind of politics that joins poetry, music and, who knows, perhaps high religion." • "What kind of vanity was there in me? The kind of vanity that also dwelled in Florida."

The High Plateane · 131

We can say that Felipe is committed to a politics of love, where what is to be achieved is the difficult and beautiful conjunction of those beings, of those persons he loves most: L'idee me vint que je devais rapprocher Ies deux etres qui retenaient mon attention dans la vie. Cela n'etait pas commode: Ccimilla appartenait a une des plus grandes families, or Ies grands tenaient pour la plupart au parti des rouges vaincus par Jaime dans la personne de Benito et, voyant Jaime rechercher la faveur populaire, vivaient ή son egard dans la plus hostile reserve, (p. 77)' Predictably, he refuses once again the label of procurer, saying to Jaime, "Eh, je ne viens pas te procurer une femme" (p. 78).u But he need not bother. The bodies of Jaime and Camilla are politico-sexual entities; love and politics converge here: "Je t'aime," he says to Jaime, "j'aime Camilla, je voudrais unir ces deux que j'aime" (p. 79).v Having brought them together, he exercises the discretion of the accomplished procurer. At this vital moment, his place is that of the true intellectual—elsewhere:8 C'etait a ce seul prix que je pouvais prouver ma volont6 d'etre discret. Si je Ies avais vus tous Ies deux, j'aurais tenu tous Ies abords de la solitude qui s'etablissait autour d'eux et dont il fallait m'exclure au plus loin. (p. 86)w "[Luis:] 'Father Florida thinks that the place that you occupy in Bolivia is the one that he ought to have.' " "1 say 'we,' a dreadful thing to say, because I had suddenly been thrown in by my emotions with Florida and Belmez." ' "The idea came to me that I must bring together the two beings who most preoccupied me in life. That was not an easy thing to do: Camilla belonged to one of the most noble families, and the nobles generally supported the red party, which had been defeated by Jaime in the person of Benito. Having seen Jaime seek the support of the people, they remained utterly withdrawn and hostile in their attitude toward him." " "I haven't come to procure a woman for you, you know." ' "I love you, I love Camilla, I would like to unite these two whom I love." " "This was the only way in which I could prove that I wanted to be discreet. If I had seen both of them, I would have occupied all the sur-

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Florida and Belmez, on the other hand, while practicing a comparable art in all its difficulty, can be said to be the antipimps of the story. Isabel, Camilla's sister, explains this to Felipe: "D'abord, c'etait vous qui aviez rapproche Jaime et Camilla. Or, Ie Pere Florida est terriblement jaloux de vous. . . . Il est jaloux de l'influence que vous avez sur Jaime d'abord, sur Camilla ensuite. La reunion par vos soins de ces deux personnes Iui a paru la fin de tout" (p. 103; see pp. 125, 129). * In the same way, it emerges eventually that both Belmez and Florida were involved in fomenting the Indian revolt (see p. 183), thus doing exactly the opposite work from that of Felipe, Jaime's ambassador to the people. If Felipe brings dignity to his lowly profession by attempting to create order and beauty, they seem to promote disorder and ugliness. It is Florida's action that can truly be described as obscene: "N'avais-je pas voulu secretement ce manage des grands et du peuple? N'etait-ce a cause de !'intervention obscene du Pere Florida que je ne Ie voulais plus?" (p. 116).y There is nothing more repulsive than the convergence of their destruc­ tive efforts, their subversive "collusion" (p. 125): "Votre al­ liance etait monstrueuse" (p. 201).z They are bad procurers in two ways, working to undo beautiful marriages and making ugly ones. Belmez is the less subtle of the two and, in fact, receives less acknowledgment from Felipe because he does not seem a worthy enemy (see pp. 125, 178—179). As his presumably ironic name indicates, he is only ever likely, by his interroundings of the solitude that was developing around them; I had to keep myself as far away as possible." * "In the first place, you were the one who brought Jaime and Camilla together, and Father Florida is dreadfully jealous of you. . . . He is jealous of the influence you have, first over Jaime and second over Camilla. The coming together of these two people through your efforts seemed to him to be the last straw." ' "Had I not secretly wanted this marriage of the nobles and the people? Was it not because of Florida's obscene meddling that I no longer wanted it?" * "Your alliance was monstrous."

The High Plateaus * 133

ference, to create a beau melange." He lacks the essential simplicity that is, in UHomme ά cheval, the mark of both aristocracy and people (see p. 70): he brings "la seule trace de vulgarite dans un cercle ou sans Iui il n'y aurait eu que du charme gai, de la brillante simplicity" (p. 74).b Once again we see that, for Drieu, the social group that is com­ fortably settled between the extremes is inherently repugnant: "middle" is approximately synonymous with "muddle." Belmez's very capacity for digestion, indeed the fact of his being a doctor, must appear highly suspect to us. They seem to define him constitutionally as a creature composed of formless anal matter, caught up in a pointless cycle: Belmez etait de ces gros hommes qui sont fats λ force de contentement intestinal. La sante de boeuf dont ils jouissent Ieur fait croire qu'ils sont taureaux, et, bien plus, Ieur donne de la pretention intellectuelle. Belmez avait passe avec r4gularit£ tous Ies examens de la m6decine et de la magonnerie, aussi regardait-il Ies femmes et Ies hommes comme choses faciles ά macher. (p. 73; my italics)0 Precisely because of his rotund good health, it can be said of him that he does not have a true body. Not only does he himself lack a shape, he also fails to see beauty in the bodies of men and women, conceiving of no marriage other than digestion, no fusion other than confusion.9 The importance given here to procuring is not unique in Drieu's work: it has a major role in Une Femme ά sa fenetre, for instance, where by a kind of decadent variation Rico • great mixture b "the only trace of vulgarity in a circle in which, but for him, there would have been only gay charm and sparking simplicity." c "Belmez was one of those fat men who are conceited out of intestinal contentment. Their robust [ox-like] good health leads them to think of themselves as fighting bulls and, what is more, makes them intellectually pretentious. Belmez had managed to pass regularly in all his medicine and freemasonry examinations, and so came to think of women and men as easily chewed up."

134 • The High Plateaus

Santorini, the husband of the heroine, is the one who facil­ itates the development of her relationship with the man of action Boutros. It is he who instigates the surprise party at which the two are able to meet and later writes a letter inviting her to leave.10 Even the bourgeois Malfosse is a minor pro­ curer, combining this function with something like its op­ posite, the comic blocking role of tiers incommode. In Beloukia also we find a characteristic antipimp in Felsan, the traitor who works by intrigue to break up "marriages." Fur­ thermore, in more clearly discursive contexts, Drieu uses such metaphors about the intellectual and the writer. He sees himself as agent de liaison—"Je suis de ceux-l& qui dans une generation font la liaison, a leurs risques et perils, entre la Cit£ et l'Esprit"d11—and, with greater frankness than Felipe showed, as procurer: "Si c'est cela ecrire, c'est vil, car cet dcrit n'est fait que de 1'exploitation de ma misfere. Je suis la maquerelle de mes charmes d^faits."®12 Yet we may note, with an appropriate degree of satisfaction, that the fact of being a pimp does not prevent the intellectual from being a whore. As Drieu says, in the most general terms, in Le Jeune Europden: Ecrire pour moi c'est ce qui ressemble Ie plus a la prostitution. Or que peut faire d'autre pour subsister un paresseux comme moi sinon se prostituer? Je suis comme une femme qui autrefois a tout donne a un amant, en vain, et maintenant tout Ie monde peut y passer: devant tous, elle refera Ies gestes qu'elle avait inventes pour un seul. Et n'oubliez pas mon petit cadeau.n3 d "I am one of those who, in a [given] generation, make the link, at great risk to themselves, between the Citadel and the Spirit/Mind." " "If that is what writing is, then it is base, because this writing is merely produced out of the exploitation of my misery. I am a pimp for my own wom-out charms." ' "Writing for me is that which is most like prostitution. And what can an idler like me do to subsist if not become a prostitute? I am like a woman who once gave all to a lover, in vain, and now everyone can have a turn: with everyone, she will rehearse the actions she first discovered in the presence of one [particular man]. And don't forget to leave me a little something."

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He makes it quite clear that the intellectual is to be seen as a social parasite, which does not escape the narrator of "La Comedie de Charleroi": being paid to act as Mme. Pragen's secretary, he is obliged to accompany her in a respectful manner. "Mais me direz-vous, si vous n'aviez pas Fame patiente d'un courtisan, pourquoi vous etiez-vous fait secre­ taire?" ("La Comedie de Charleroi," p. 17).g The answer to this question is, of course, "out of economic necessity." He is exactly like the priest to whom Mme. Pragen gives a sub­ stantial donation: "J'avais bien envie de ce billet de mille francs pour faire la noce & Bruxelles; j'en avais autant envie que Ie curd, car moi aussi je suis un intellectuel, et je vis sur Ies riches" ("La Comedie de Charleroi," p. 102).h Not surprisingly, in view of this dependence, the intellectual can be seen to act, just like the masses, in an hysterically "fem­ inine" way with respect to great men: "Les intellectuels se montrent souvent aussi feminins et hysteriques que les masses. Cest ainsi que tout Ie long du dix-neuvieme siecle nous voyons grandir l'apologie romantique, de plus en plus frenetique, des grands hommes."'14 In VHomrne a cheval, Felipe seems happier indeed to classify himself among the lovers of Jaime than among the procurers. He speaks readily of "ma liaison avec Jaime" (see p. 17)" and does not balk at comparison with Conception or Camilla. When Jaime says "Qui es-tu?" he replies, "La moitie de toi-meme, comme l'est chacun de ceux qui te suivent. A commencer par Conchita" (p. 208).k His words to Camilla are a veritable challenge: "Je suis l'homme de Jaime Torrijos. 8 "But, you say, if you do not have the patient soul of a courtier, why had you become a secretary?" h "I really felt like having that thousand-franc note so that I could live it up in Brussels; I felt like it just as much as the priest, for I too am an intellectual living off the rich." ' "Intellectuals often prove to be as feminine and hysterical as the masses. All through the nineteenth century, for instance, we note the swelling, to the point of frenzy, of the romantic apologia for great men." > "my liaison/link with Jaime" k "Who are you?"; "The other half of yourself, as is each of those who follow you. Beginning with Conchita."

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Et vous, n'etes-vous pas la femme de Jaime Torrijos?" (p. 207).1 The mark of his intellectuality here is perhaps precisely what makes him look most like a (potential) whore: he is aware of other possible lovers, in particular of don Benito: "Si j'avais connu don Benito avant Jaime, cette tardive pensee me traversa, ne l'aurais-je pas beaucoup aim6?" (p. 62).m Without losing sight of his commitment as the entailment of enduring liaison, he experiences a kind of freedom in that he recognizes the arbitrary nature of his present relationship. Being a whore, for the intellectual, is being able to understand others, and especially those who are constituted by the po­ litical order as enemies. It means, for Felipe, that he has to tear himself away from contemplation shared with don Benito in order to share Jaime's (momentary) defeat: "Je m'6tais arrach^ avec horreur au charme de don Benito et au charme de la contemplation, je voulais retrouver mes compagnons et partager Ieur defaite et Ieur chagrin" (p. 54)." It can be seen here that procuring and prostitution may both be forms of intellectual action. Just as procuring is a subtle and difficult art, the prostitution of the intellectual requires a capacity for imaginative understanding that can be used to change the course of events. It is only because Felipe has understood don Benito to the extent of predicting his actions, his inclination to withdrawal, that he is able to lead Jaime to the convent after the battle (pp. 59-61). He thus participates, as an intellectual, in an assassination. This example is doubly valuable because it helps us also to see the extent, the time, of action for the committed in­ tellectual. He is involved in one simple, singular act, an act that—by its distinctness—has a solemn, ritual function: "Ce geste [the killing] allait sceller toute notre vie de ces derniers 1 "I am Jaime Torrijos's man. And what about you? Aren't you Jaime Torrijos's woman?" m "If I had known don Benito before I knew Jaime, the thought passed belatedly through my mind, would I not have loved him deeply?" " "I had torn myself away in horror from the charm of don Benito and the charm of contemplation; I wanted to find my companions again, to share their defeat and their pain"

The High Plateaus * 137

temps, en faire une irremediable pensee" (p. 62).° At this moment, action is equivalent to thought. Involvement is not to be had in routine activity, in the administration of power— "je ne me souciais nullement de ses affaires au jour Ie jour" (p. 78)p—only in the vital intensity of the decisive act: Je n'aurais pas du Ie quitter [Jaime] comme je l'avais fait depuis qu'il etait au pouvoir; j'aurais dfi m'elever pres de Iui. Mais je n'6tais habile qu'aux id6es ou a Faction seulement dans ces moments de 1'action qui sont si intenses que celle-ci s'epure et devient aussi prompte et simple que la pens6e. (p. 160)q In this sense, the assassination of don Benito takes us beyond Felipe's non-involvement during the battle proper at Aguadulce. In the act of killing, there is no longer any opposition between lofty preoccupations and routine practicality. Ele­ ments of spying and prostitution can certainly be discerned, but it is still possible to talk, as Felipe does, of pure action; commitment is achieved, fully and intensely, as a rare event: Dans l'histoire des peuples et des intellectuels [says Drieu in an article in Les Nouvelles Litteraires] il ne peut y avoir qu'un court instant, une fois par sifccle, cinq minutes par siecle ou un intellectuel se trouve d'accord avec un mouvement politique. Dans Ie premier beau jour d'une revolution.'15 This does much to help us situate VHomme a cheval within the thematics of commitment. We can now measure a par° "This act would seal the whole of our life leading up to this time, making of it an unchangeable thought." p "I was not the least interested in his day-to-day business." q "I should not have left him as I had done since he had been in power; I should have raised myself up so as to be near him. But I was only suited to ideas or to action just at those moments of action that are so intense that action itself is refined, becoming as rapid and simple as thought." ' "In the history of peoples and of intellectuals, there can only be a short instant, once a century, five minutes per century, when an intellectual finds himself in agreement with a political movement. On the first great day of a revolution."

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ticular difference of this text and of much of Drieu's work with respect to our introductory predictions. Action, being known and admired as something momentary, can hardly be pros­ pected extensively as precise entailment. If this sort of pains­ taking intellectual work were to be done, the beauty, the romantic self-sufficiency—"0 beaute qui te suffis frenetiquement k toi-meme! 0 minute & jamais perdue, a jamais eternelle dans Ie coeur!" (p. 53)s—of the instant of commitment would be lost. To seek to know about the future is, it seems, a kind of imaginative clumsiness: —Que feras-tu quand tu seras vainqueur, Jaime? J'ai toujours regrette cette question, dans ce moment. —Bah! grogna Jaime. Chante encore. —Non, ce ne serait plus pareil. (p. 44)' The anticipation of action exists, of course, as desire, but this desire should culminate in some precise event rather than trailing off monotonously, as prospection, into the future: "Ce que j'avais passionnement desire, c'etait tout ce que nous avions vecu jusqu'a ce moment [the killing of don Benito], et non pas ce que nous visions aprfes" (p. 62).u Elsewhere in Drieu's work we find the expression of a certain mistrust of sustained prospection—"C'est dangereux de faire porter la pensee longtemps sur son point de depart. A vouloir, avant d'agir, retenir l'esprit trop longtemps sur la recherche prealable, consciente de ce que sera la regie de son action, on Ie fatigue"*16—and fatigue means the loss of • "0 frantically self-sufficient beauty! O minute forever lost, forever eternal in the heart!" ' " 'What will you do when you are the winner, Jaime?' 1 have always regretted asking that question, at that moment. Ί don't know!' grunted Jaime. 'Co on singing.' 'No, it would not be the same any more.' " u "What I had passionately desired was the life we had lived up to this point, and hot whatever we were aiming at afterward." v "It is dangerous to bring thought to bear for too long on its starting point. By attempting, before acting, to hold the mind back at [a stage of] prior inquiry, in the consciousness of what is to be the rule of its action, one tires it out."

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concentration, the dissipation of energy. This is the way in which Yves comes to fail in Reveuse bourgeoisie: "Depuis que je la connaissais, je ne faisais plus que rever l'avenir au lieu de Ie gagner chaque jour.""17 Ought we to conclude that Drieu's attitude here amounts to the general refusal of a certain kind of discursive intellectuality? Not necessarily. Rather, if there is a detailed and lasting understanding to be had, it can be had after the event, as with Gilles: "II se langait dans Ie torrent, et il ne pouvait avoir un regard sur ses actions que quand, raccroche a la rive et ayant dormi, il se retoumait paresseusement sur Ies brisants oil il avait culbute."x18 This is when dreams have their full value: "je ne jouis vraiment du reve (qui est reality) qu'apres avoir traverse Taction."y19 This is when Felipe, and especially Jaime, come to see the full significance of what they have done. It is no coincidence, then, that both "La Com6die de Charleroi" and VHomme a cheval involve stories told by one who is looking back after playing a central role in the events. If there is something to be anticipated in the heat of action, perhaps it is precisely this, the pleasure of future retrospection: J'ai peur, je suis hors de moi, effroyablement soucieux et inquiet. Moi qui aime tant penser et rever tranquillement, tout ce boulot m'agace. Cette petite affaire locale. Et en meme temps, il y a un point vivant en moi qui saisit tout, jouit de tout, et qui emmagasine comme une fourmi. Quand l'hiver viendra, la fourmi. . . . Quand ce sera du passe, comme j'en jouirai. (La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 222)2 w "From the time that I had known her, I had only been dreaming up the future instead of winning it each day." * "He would throw himself into the torrent, and could only manage to contemplate his action when, after grabbing hold of the bank and having a sleep, he [found himself] turning over lazily in the shallow water where he had been dumped." ι "The only time I really delight in dreams (which are reality) is when I have been through action." * "J am frightened, beside myself, terribly concerned and anxious. As one who has such a love for calm thought and reverie, I am irritated by

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Despite the virtual disappearance of prospection, the sense of entailment need not be lost: it can arise here from an awareness of the consequences of past action, so commitment becomes something to be looked at rather than looked for. This kind of retrospective understanding renders it visible in the present. Felipe can look at Jaime and see his own bonds: Soulev6 sur un coude, je Ie regardais dormir; et reportant mes yeux sur Ie feu, je voyais dans Ies flammes qui se tordaient Ies surprenantes et erdaqantes circonflexions du destin. J'etais lie ή cet homme par des liens beaucoup plus etroits et particuliers que ceux que j'avais imagines. C'&ait vraiment ά la vie a la mort. (p. 142; my italics)" Now, to contemplate commitment in this way, to see it as something achieved in the space of an instant and yet binding one's whole life, is clearly to give it an aesthetic function. It becomes, in its beauty, something like the romantic equiv­ alent, within the domain of commitment, of the ivory tower as aesthetic contemplation of detachment. This implies, in particular, a rejection of the moral function of intellectuality. It is not a matter, for Drieu, of holding one's principles in contemplative isolation prior to acting, of ensuring that thought and action are always separate and successive, as Julien Benda, for instance, would have them be.20 His values are precisely the values of action and thus, as Pierre-Henri Simon points out, not strictly moral values at all: En effet, s'il n'y a pas de but qui vaille, toute valeur doit etre dans l'elan; si aucune cause n'est en jeu dans Taction, c'est Faction meme qui a du prix, et dire que this whole job. This little bit of local business. And yet at the same time, there is an alert point in me that is grasping everything, delighting in it all and storing it up like an ant. When winter comes, then the ant. . . . When it has become part of the past, what delights it will bring me." * "Raising myself up on one elbow, I watched him sleep; and looking back toward the fire, I could see in the twisting flames the surprising, entangling twists of destiny. I was bound to this man by bonds much tighter and more distinctive than I had imagined. It was really a pact unto death."

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la pens6e doit la soutenir n'est pas encore attribuer & l'esprit la fonction d'en determiner Ies fins Ies meilleures, mais seulement celle de resoudre pragmatiquement Ie probleme des voies et moyens.b21 Although Simon says nothing of the aesthetic here, his point about amoral commitment seems nonetheless valid. Why, indeed, should the intellectual who understands his role in these terms balk at such traditionally distasteful forms of action as spying, procuring, or prostitution? It is essentially a matter of getting by, of improvising, of making sense of the situation from within. We read in Geneve ou Moscow, "il faut bien que, moi, homme de lettres, je me debrouille au milieu du monde aussi bien que n'importe qui; il faut que je Iui trouve un sens pour orienter ma conduite."022 Understanding is to be had in, through, and especially after action; its role is to be the understanding of action. This verity emerges with great clarity from Felipe's reflec­ tions on his relationship with Jaime: their story exemplifies the dialectic of thought and action. In the beginning, or as close to it as our understanding can bring us, Felipe is struck by Jaime's body and by the spectacle of its power. He wonders then—out of pure curiosity, as he says—whether this power can be extended beyond the natural space in which it func­ tions—"pousse hors de son aire natale" (p. 12)"1—evoking, let it be said in passing, an enduring problem for the imag­ ination of fascist leadership: how can the leader's body be seen and admired by the world at large? There is really room only for a band of true followers. . . . Whatever the difficulties inherent in his project, Felipe comes to realize that there is b "Indeed, if there is no worthy goal, then all value must be in the έΐαη; if no cause is at stake in action, then it is action itself that has worth, and to say that thought must sustain it does not amount to attributing to the mind the function of determining the best ends, but merely that of solving pragmatically the problem of ways and means." c "I really need, as a man of letters, to cope in the midst of the world just as much as anyone else; I have to find a meaning [in the world] to guide my conduct." d "developed beyond the area where it was born"

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more to Jaime than he had at first perceived. Or perhaps it could be better to say that Jaime, through the development of his political action, comes quickly to be more than this. Initially, Felipe's personal space is defined as open, rather like the empty, smoke-filled, sonorous space of don Benito: "j'avais envie d'introduire de perilleuses figures dans l'intime cercle de moi-meme" (p. 12).e In that sense he can be thought of as available or, in traditional sexual terms, as feminine, whereas Jaime, as we have said, appears as solidly virile, a concentrated body of energy. Yet Felipe comes to realize that Jaime, too, has an inner space; he can act within himself. Je m'apergus que jusque-l& je n'avais prete aucune attention a Jaime. C'etait pour moi un caillou que je jetais dans l'eau de mon reve, je ne me souciais que des rides qu'il y faisait. Je negligeais que si mon reve s'etait attache a Iui, c'etait peut-etre pour une autre raison que sa formidable prestance. Depuis quelques mois, il avait agi en lui-meme comme dans Ies autres. (p. 29; my italics)' To the extent that L'Homme ά cheval develops the under­ standing of action, the story progresses largely as a series of such mistakes on the part of Felipe. Each time, by his own partial failure to perceive the import of what is happening, he is forced to recognize that Jaime has indeed a precise understanding—at the very least a strategic one—of the re­ quirements of action. In particular, Felipe's protracted es­ pionage mission among the Indians can be seen to be futile, or rather—to maintain the distinction with respect to Florida and Belmez—secondary. He has believed himself to be worke "I wanted to introduce dangerous figures into the inner circle of my self' ' "I realized that until then I had paid no attention to Jaime. He had been for me a pebble that I cast into the water of my dream, and I was concerned only with the ripples that he made there. I failed to keep in mind that, if my dream had become attached to him, it was perhaps for another reason than his remarkable presence. For some months, he had been acting within himself as he had been acting in others."

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ing, through intelligence, to prepare decisive action when, in fact, it is already happening. Once again as an intellectual he is elsewhere, in the wings, or behind the pacemaker: Je n'etais destine qu'a voir. J'avais fait pietre figure dans Ies coulisses de la revolte indienne; toute cette matiere humaine, epaisse et fuyante comme du poisson s'6tait tour a tour offerte et derobee a moi selon son seul caprice. J'etais comme un dieu a qui sa creation echappe de plus en plus. (p. 187)g The position of divine observer allows only of certain, limited kinds of knowledge. All the rest is achieved, perhaps pro­ duced, by and through action. Eventually, as the culmination of this process, Jaime comes to clear self-consciousness of an essentially retrospective kind: "Jaime Torrijos qui, pour la premiere fois, semblait prendre conscience du style de sa vie et de son pouvoir" (p. 189).h He even comes to talk rather than merely shouting, grunting, or singing as he no doubt did before—not in an abstractly discursive way, of course, but in a language born of action. At the end of his summary explanations, he says: "Assez parle. Les paroles dites dans la nuit sont Ies seules qui valent des actes. Mais elles doivent etre braves comme Ies actes" (p. 208).'23 Here we can say that the dialectic of thought and action has taken Jaime beyond militancy without ever ab­ sorbing him in the problematics of commitment as detach­ ment, privilege, hesitation. His words are the triumphant and miraculous incarnation of the spirit in perfect commitment, "Zo pens4e devenue action."' Indeed, the very movement of « "I was destined only to see. I had cut a pathetic figure in the wings of the Indian revolt; all this human matter, thick and hard to grasp like fish, had alternately been there for the taking and given me the slip, just according to its whim. I was like a god whose creation is getting more and more out of hand." h "Jaime Torrijos who, for the first time, seemed to be coming to an awareness of the style of his life and his power." ' "Enough talk. Words spoken in the night are the only ones that are equal to acts. But they must be brief like acts."

' "thought made action"

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his dialectical understanding is to transcend the fundamental dichotomy proper to the tradition of commitment: thought versus action, being out of the world versus being in it. Et moi [says Felipe], retrouverais-je dans ce que disait Jaime ce que je Iui avais parfois murmure? La pensee devenue action, trempee de sang, forgee comme une arme d'acier est etrangere au penseur. Mais comme est peu sage cet etonnement des hommes de pensee devant la rapidite d'assimilation des hommes d'action, car Ies hommes d'action ne sont importants que lorsqu'ils sont suffisamment hommes de pensee, et Ies hommes de pensee ne valent qu'a cause de l'embryon d'homme d'action qu'ils portent en eux. J'avais apporte Faction a Jaime, et petite serait restee ma pensee sans lui. (p. 194)k If this dichotomy were now to be left behind, we should no doubt have reached the point where the "metier louche de contrebandier sur la frontiere du reve et de Taction"124 would no longer be necessary. We might witness the definitive marriage of thought and action in the absence of such pro­ curers as Gilles, of "un de ces humbles qui aident Taction et la pensee a recommencer toujours leurs epousailles com­ promises.""125 This is no doubt what happens finally with Jaime and Felipe. Instead of two separate personal spaces, the mind of the intellectual and the body of the man of action, k "And what about me? Would I find in what Jaime said what I had at times murmured to him? Thought that has been made action, steeped in blood, forged like a steel weapon is foreign to the thinker. But how unwise are men of thought to be amazed at the speedy assim­ ilation of men of action, for men of action are only important when they have enough of the man of thought in them, and men of thought are only of value because they carry in them the embryo of a man of action. I had brought action to Jaime, and without him, my thought would have remained trivial." 1 "the shady occupation of a smuggler at the frontier of dreaming and action" m "one of those humble creatures who assist action and thought to make another start on their shaky nuptials"

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we see their fusion into one: "II n'y avait plus rien en moi vis-&-vis de Iui de cette subordination passionn^e et rusee qui m'avait tourmente autrefois; et plus aucune nicessitS (Tac­ tion ne Ie tenait hors de moi" (pp. 229-230; my italics)." In this sense, it is possible once again to see UHomme ά cheval as a high point, a prolonged moment of lyrical per­ fection, in Drieu's work. So often, it seems, in less sublime, more polemical contexts, he talks of freeing himself from the point of view that sees thought and action as a static oppo­ sition: Moi, de mon cote, d'ailleurs, j'etais sans cesse relance par ce probldme de Taction qui m'apparaissait comme une antinomie: Ie reve ou Faction. Je me desolais de croire que ce que je donnais au reve je Ie retirais a Taction, et inversement. J'avais aime la guerre parce que pendant quatre ans j'avais pu rever une action et agir assez pour que mon reve me parQt marcher sur ses pieds."26 More and more, he comes to affirm that thought is action. Ceu-, enfin, penser c'est des la premiere seconde, agir; on ne peut penser sans prendre parti dans Tunivers, et Ies partis que prend la pensee sont infiniment plus d6chirants que ceux que manifeste Taction. L'action dans la pensee se fait sentir par des tiraillements profonds qui ne se laissent pas voir hors de la personne qui pense: la vie est courte, il n'y a pas une minute a perdre, il faut tout de suite avancer, il faut tout de suite decider. C'est un sacrifice de tous Ies instants et total puisqu'il " "I no longer felt in myself any of that passionate, cunning subordination toward him that had once tortured me; and there was no longer any need for action keeping him outside me." ° "As for me, I was constantly dogged by the problem of action, which appeared to me as an antinomy: dream or action. I was distressed in my belief that whatever I gave to dreams I withdrew from action, and vice versa. I had loved the war because for four years I had been able to dream [my] action, and to act sufficiently so that my dream seemed able to walk about."

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faut, par un acte irremediable,—car toute pensee laisse une trace ind6lebile—renoncer celui qu'on aurait pu etre si l'on avait pens6 autrement.p27 Thought requires action in order to progress—"Point de pensee sans action. On ne pense que dans la mesure ou agissant sa pensee, on l'eprouve, l'adapte, on Iui assure un echelon solide pour monter plus haut"q28—in order to become itself, dispelling its nonbeing, its ambiguity in choice.29 In quite the same way, it is impossible to banish reflection from the world of action by disqualifying it as a "dream." The dream is, after all, eminently "useful" (p. 134), and such "conven­ tional psychology" is ridiculed by Constant Trubert. "Tiens, tiens, mais je me suis mis a rever. Les conventions de la psychologie interdisent de rever au moment d'agir. Comme si on ne revait pas surtout quand on agit."r3° Even Jaime comes eventually, at least after the failure of his ambitions of conquest, to see himself as a dreamer. "Felipe, je te hais, tu es moi, je ne suis que toi. Regarde. Je ne suis qu'un reveur comme toi et un assembleur de mots" (p. 231; my italics).8 To avoid opposing thought and action, to understand how they can finally be married, is to move beyond the oscillation of the intellectual described so fully in La Comidie de Charp "For after all, thinking is, from the first second, acting; we cannot think without taking sides in the universe, and the sides that are taken by thought are infinitely more harrowing than those revealed by action. The action in thought can be felt through deep conflicting tendencies in the thinking person that are not visible from the outside: life is short, there is not a minute to lose, I have to move ahead immediately, I must decide immediately. It is a continual sacrifice, and a total one, because we must, by an irretrievable act—for every thought leaves an indelible mark— renounce the one we might have been if we had thought otherwise." "> "[There is] no thought without action. We only think insofar as we set our thought in motion, test it, adapt it, and ensure that it has a solid rung on which to step in its upward climb." r "Well, well, I started to dream. The conventions of psychology forbid us to dream in times of action. As though we did not dream most particularly at the time of acting." " "Felipe, I hate you. You are me, I am only you. Look. I am only a dreamer and a phrase-maker like you."

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leroi. Instead of the interesting and delicate path followed by one who moves with grace and subtlety between two relatively fixed poles, we find here a fusion of "opposites." It seems as if we have entered a new stage, in which it is possible to grasp the totality of life, by a progression that is evoked, indeed confidently expected, in Le Jeune Europien: J'avais encore aux pieds l'entrave d'un grassier dilemme: Taction et Ie reve. Je n'imaginais permise qu'une alternance: je ne songeais pas au moyen de Ies riunir et je me depitais du mediocre qui avait resulte pour moi de ce procide spasmodique: Taction n'avait ete que ser­ vitude, Ie reve tournait court, cela revenait a 6crire. . . . Pourtant Taction et Ie reve, quand on Ies pense, se pr6cipitent Tun vers l'autre pour se confondre dans la liberty. Le jour n'allait-il pas venir ou je poss4derais toute la vie?131 Rather than a story, or a set of stories, governed by os­ cillation, UUomme a cheval is a novel of marriage—very much the kind of marriage described in Gilles as "l'operation fondamentale de l'existence."u32 Marriage may be important because it engages the future, although the long-term per­ spective does not seem to be the crucial one for Drieu. What matters most is the instant of true marriage. It suffices that, for a moment, Jaime and Camilla should have been together: 'Tout cela etait vrai, et en tout cas cela avait ete. Aprfes tout, peu importait la suite. Les noces des humains ne durent qu'un ' "I was still shackled by a crude dilemma: action and dreaming. As I imagined it, all that was allowed was alternation: I did not think of the means of uniting them, and I resented the mediocrity that, in my expe­ rience, resulted from this spasmodic method: action had only been slavery, and dreaming had been side-tracked into writing. . . . Yet action and dreaming, when you reflect on them, rush headlong toward each other and are blended into freedom. Was the day not coming when I would possess the whole of life?" " "the fundamental operation of existence"

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eclair, comme celles des animaux et des dieux" (p. 108).v Marriage is not only a conjunction but a unique "conjoncture" (p. 133; my italics),™ of the kind of which Felipe says: "Le tout est de savoir que ces instants ne peuvent ni ne doivent durer" (p. 133).x Like commitment, as a special example of that particular kind of idyllic commitment that transcends the intellectual, it is an event, an erotic—or rather a sexual33— occasion that brings into play the bodies of the characters but that acts to transform them. So it is that, while being Jaime's lover, pursuing the liaison that leads eventually to the marriage of thought and action, Felipe continues the lesser activity of procuring. This activity is left behind in the latter stages of the story but is justified until then precisely because it is the energetic attempt to make productive and beautiful marriages by uniting those who have bodies that are most productive and beautiful. Per­ haps it is the importance given to marriage that helps to account for what one would describe in modern ideological terms as the highly developed, essentialist sexism of this text. Sexuality is seen here as readiness for union with the opposite, and Jaime's manhood, like Conception's and Camilla's wom­ anhood, has its full significance in such an encounter. Some­ thing is being made there, something that is not a private entity, not the state of individual love as objectified by psy­ chology, but the fertile meeting of incarnate social entities. The first of Jaime's partners, Conception, has a name that, when not taken in its decidedly obscene familiar form, re­ minds us that she is emergent woman, one who is still close to the earth and of the earth. In the undifferentiated space of her substantial body can be found a predialectical state, a primitive synthesis of opposites, something not unlike the v "All that was true, and in any case it had happened like that. After all, it did not matter much what followed. The nuptials of humans last only for as long as a lightning flash, like those of animals and gods." w "set of circumstances" * "The key thing is to know that these instants cannot and must not last."

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all-encompassing nature of the crowd and the mine in Ger­ minal: Elle dansa. Non, elle ne dansait pas. Cela n'etait pas une danse; a peine etait-ce de toute danse future au soleil Vembryon obscur, impr4visible dans un monde souterrain . . . elle pietinait imperceptiblement sur place sans Ie moindre bruit de ses talons. . . . Ce n'etait pas quelque chose d'espagnol, mais d'indien. Je reconnaissais Ie motif Ie plus ilimentaire, Ie plus lent, Ie plus muet de la magie funeraire. C'etait une concentration sombre et obstinee, qui enfonqait VStre dans une zone indicible, indistincte entre la mort et la naissance, la colere et la resignation, la douleur et Ie repos. (pp. 92—93; my italics)5. Indeed, she hardly has any shape at all, being described as "cette masse informe" (p. 93).z Her body, one might say, is only beginning to exist as inchoate beauty. It is appropriate, then, that Felipe should see her in the morning, in the dis­ order of her bed: "Elle s'eveillait a peine et au milieu des draps montrait un effrayant amas de beautes" (p. 18; my italics)." Like clay, she can be modeled, in her dance, by the music of Felipe's and, later Antonio's guitars, Their con­ scious art serves to bring out the secrets that her body holds. Le corps de Conchita etait abondant, mais se deliait aux incitations de la musique comme si tout Ie jour il ne languissait pas dans l'indolence; il connaissait des * "She danced. No, she was not dancing. That was not a dance, it was barely the dark embryo of any future dance in the sunlight, the unpredictable [seed] [dwelling] in an underground world . . . she was shuffling imper­ ceptibly on the spot without making the least sound with her heels. . . . It was not something Spanish, it was something Indian. I recognized it as the most elementary, the slowest, the most silent motif of the funeral rites. It was a dark, stubborn concentration that plunged one's being into an inexpressible and indistinct region between death and birth, anger and resignation, suffering and repose." * "this shapeless mass" • "She had scarcely woken up; in the midst of the sheets, she revealed a frightening mass of beauty."

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secrets qu'ignoraient aussi bien Ie coeur que l'esprit de Conchita. . . . je me laissais aller & la joie de moduler ce corps innocent qui se pliait sans effort aux accents sp6cieux de la melodie. (pp. 22—23)b She seems to resemble, in her innocence, Jaime as he is first seen and understood by Felipe. What more appropriate task for the intellectual than to bring them together? But Jaime and Conception are both of the people, such that their "marriage" is simple and straightforward. This is how we can understand the significance of Conception's being a whore; men like Jaime enter readily into her personal space: "il sollicita avec assez d'humilite la grace de son lit. Il y entra parce qu'il etait fort et que Conception ne pouvait se refuser k aucun homme fort" (p. 13).c A more challenging task for Felipe is arranging the marriage of Jaime and dona Camilla Bustamente. Camilla is not clay in the hands of men, as her family name (busta/mente) reminds us: she has both form and culture, a sculptured quality and a capacity for reflection, all of which are shared, like the family name, with her sisters: Royaume des Amazones. Pourtant, il y avait la Ies poitrines Ies plus entieres qu'on put voir a La Paz. . . . Royaume des Amazones, a cause de l'orgueil, du d6dain. Couvent aussi ή cause de la concupiscence pour Ies choses de l'esprit qui regnait dans ce lieu retire (p. 68; my italics)"1 b "Conchita's body was plentiful, but it responded precisely to the urgings of the music, as though it had not spent the whole day in languid indolence; it knew secrets of which both Conchita's heart and mind were unaware. . . . I indulged myself in the pleasure of modeling this innocent body that molded itself effortlessly to the specious rhythms of the melody." c "he requested with some humility the favors of her bed. He was ac­ cepted because he was strong, and Conception could not withhold herself from any strong man" d "A kingdom of Amazons. And yet there were in that place the most complete busts that could be seen in La Paz. . . . A kingdom of Amazons, because of pride and scorn. A convent too because of the concupiscence for things of the mind that reigned in this sheltered place"

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We are constantly invited to imagine Camilla's architecture: "Son front ^tait dur comrae Ie fronton d'un palais"; "l'ultime harmonie d'une ossature"; "fier equilibre"; "une £irchitecture noble" (pp. 70, 71).e The fact of her being an aristocrat defines, by precise opposition with Conception, the difficulty of access to her. Her family dwelling is described as "cette difficile maison" (p. 67),f which Felipe can enter only when presented by the intermediary/intruder Belmez. Yet, by a paradox familiar to readers of Proust, the aris­ tocracy need not be seen here as living in abstract detach­ ment. Camilla has something in common with the people insofar as she lives at an extreme point, far from hateful mediocrity: Il n'y avait que dans quelques mauvais lieux, eclatants de la verve populaire, que je pouvais trouver de pareilles aises. On ne peut jouir de son peuple qu'aux deux ex­ tremes, chez quelques simples et chez quelques raffin6s qui par instants retrouvent la simplicite a force de depouillement et alors vous la rendent avec une acuity rare—rare chez nous d'autant plus qu'ils ont garde au fond du coeur la source primitive des passions, (p. 70)g Between her and the Indians, there is a great gap, but from the dizzy heights (see p. 67) of her inherent, inherited su­ periority—founded in three centuries of active oppression (p. 71)—she is able to lean out, in all her sculptured beauty, over the social abyss: "Elle se penchait a son balcon et alors c'etait la suspension de ses seins au-dessus de l'abime, tandis que la nuque ployait sous Ies cheveux bleus agraf6s de diae "her forehead was hard like the pediment of a palace"; "the finest harmony in bone structure"; "proud balance"; "noble architecture" ' "that exclusive house" ' "The only other places where I could find such a pleasing atmosphere were a few dives. One can delight in one's people only at the two extremes, with a few simple people and a few refined ones who manage momentarily to retrieve this simplicity by divesting themselves of everything else, and who then render it with fine acuity—one all the more fine in our country because they have kept in the depths of their hearts the age-old source of passions."

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mants" (p. 85).h There is an opportunity here for a kind of distant communication: the abyss is a vertiginous, all-refining space across which the people can be known in their essence. This is an opportunity neglected, finally, by Camilla: she settles comfortably on the heights and does not use her priv­ ilege to gain the kind of mountain-top knowledge that might otherwise have been hers. When Jaime points out to her that she does not know the people, she has only this magnificently lofty answer, devoid even of the precision of scorn: "II ne me connait pas" (p. 83).' She is tranquilly established above the abyss, diverted and reassured at the same time by the rela­ tively frivolous security of a salon (p. 67). For this inadequacy she is finally condemned by Jaime and Felipe: —Te rappelles-tu Ie balcon de Camilla au-dessus du precipice de La Paz? —Il y avait plus de vertige a son balcon que dans son ame. (p. 228)" Camilla fails ultimately to be the person required by her place, by the shape of her body: this "magnifique palais" is inhabited only by "un futile petit oiseau" (p. 72).k In her failure, as in her beauty, she is the representative par ex­ cellence of her class, a decadent aristocracy that, despite its situation, cannot relate positively to the people: "Le regret et la rancune marquaient decidement l'impuissance de la femme de l'aristocratie usee a suivre et ά rejoindre Ie genie issu du peuple" (p. 192).1 Camilla's marriage with Jaime could have been the union of all that is beautiful and valuable in Bolivia—"II y avait h "She leaned out from her balcony and then her breasts were suspended above the abyss, while her neck was bowed under the weight of her blueblack hair, which was pinned up with diamonds." ' 'They don't know me." > " 'Do you remember Camilla's balcony above the precipice in La Paz?' 'Her balcony was more dizzying than her soul.' " k "magnificent palace"; "a futile little bird" 1 "Her regrets and resentment showed clearly the inability of the woman from a worn-out aristocracy to catch up/join up with the genius that had come out of the people."

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une belle et forte idee dans ce rapprochement de l'homme et de la femme, des deux parties de la nation" (p. 193)m—but it does not attain its full national dimensions because Camilla cannot make within her own personal space the synthesis of opposite extremes, of high and low, of the aristocracy and the people. It is not enough, as Felipe reminds her, for her to come to marriage as a single element, as one of the in­ gredients: —Je sais ce que vous pensez, s'ecria-t-elle, que Jaime est du peuple et que moi je suis des grands. Mais justement, en moi il pouvait melanger Ie peuple et Ies grands. Alors, il arrivait vraiment a former Ie lien superieur qui est la justification d'un Protecteur; il n'etait plus Ie peu­ ple, ni Ies grands, il etait Ie peuple et Ies grands, il etait la nation. —Non, r6torquai-je avec une violence brusque et passionnee, qui laissa elle et moi tout surpris. Vous ne seriez !'instrument de l'union que si vous pouviez d'abord la faire en vous. Jamais vous n'en serez capable. Vous ne serez jamais que de votre caste, en d6pit de la musique et des livres. (p. 115)" Her body cannot fulfill the promise of her family name; it cannot hold together beauty and passionate intelligence. All that is left then, as an ersatz for marriage, is for her to leave her lofty situation, to be brought down to earth. Defeated, m

"There was a beautiful, strong idea in this bringing together of the man and the woman, the two parts of the nation." * " Ί know what you think,' she exclaimed, 'that Jaime is of the people and that I am of the nobles. But that is just the point: in me he could mix the people and the nobles. And then he would have managed to form the superior bond that is the justification of a Protector; he would no longer have been the people or the nobles; he would have been the people and the nobles, he would have been the nation.' 'No,' I retorted, with an abrupt, passionate violence that quite surprised the two of us. 'You would only be the instrument of union if you were able first of all to make union in yourself. You will never be able to do that. You will only ever be a member of your caste, in spite of music and books.' "

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reduced, shackled by Jaime, she shows an inferior form of synthesis, traces of impurity that make her reminiscent of Conception: Elle avait des poses et des accents que je ne Iui avais jamais connus. Je la trouvais plus animale, plus profonde, d'une intelligence plus limitee et plus precise. Mais aussi elle etait plus melie, un peu souillee, imperceptiblement vulgaire. Malgre moi, je pensais a Con­ ception. (p. 163; my italics)0 Her only way to change and to enrichment has been through ruin, which seems to put an end to the most hollow forms of decadence: "Les riches gagnent tout λ etre ruines ou jetes dans de grands bouleversements," says Felipe (p. 159).p In general, one can speak then of the failure, in L'Homme a cheval, of the two women to be worthy of the highest and most difficult forms of marriage. Alone, neither could suffice; neither of them could ever make in herself the synthesis of complete womanhood: "II y avait Conchita et Camilla. Aucune n'etait capable de dominer l'autre, d'absorber l'autre" (p. 228).q Conception could only ever be the promise, indeed uVabservce de femme dans la vie de Jaime" (p. 113; my italics),1 whereas Camilla, the finished woman, made by centuries of history and culture, comes ultimately to a kind of discrimi­ nating—and therefore inadequate—prostitution, whereby she claims to love part of Jaime: "Je l'aime, mais en dehors de la politique" (p. 162),8 thus denying the fundamental unity ° "She had ways of talking and moving that I had never known her to have before. She seemed to me to be more animal-like, and deeper, with a more limited and more precise intelligence. But she was also more mixed, slightly soiled, imperceptibly vulgar. In spite of myself, I thought of Con­ ception." Ρ "Rich people benefit greatly from being ruined or thrown into general upheaval" ι "There were Conchita and Camilla. Neither of them was able to dom­ inate the other, to absorb the other." ' "the absence of a woman in Jaime's life" " "I love him, but outside of politics"

The High Plateaus * 155

of Jaime's person as it is everywhere affirmed by Felipe (see his reply, p. 162). Transcending marriage with woman, as we have said, is the marriage of Felipe and Jaime—not just their virile com­ radeship but also the sexually ambivalent encounter of their minds. The ambivalence lies precisely in this, that neither can be ultimately identified as the male or the female partner. Felipe's mind penetrates Jaime's, seeming to have masculine freedom and initiative, only to be fertilized itself by this contact: "mon esprit entrait de toute eternite dans Ie sien et n'avait qu'a se montrer avec grace et legerete pour y trouver son lieu de fecondation" (p. 76).' Yet, if this is the marriage of true minds, it is Jaime who has the dominant personal space: the synthesis is made in him. He is the body that gives a shape to thought: Qu'etais-je, moi? Un joueur de guitare, un pale etudiant en theologie; et soudain tu t'es dresse devant moi, tu etais la forme. La forme. Moi qui etais amant de la beaute, je me suis rue vers cette forme, qui etait la beaute vivante. Soudain, la musique, la theologie etaient une seule figure qui marchait dans Ie monde. (p. 230)"34 Thus it can be true, at the same time, that Felipe is "half' of Jaime (p. 208) and that Jaime, as a body, is indivisible. Without ever becoming other, without ever being split by doubt or awkward self-consciousness, this body fulfills with certainty its destiny of marriage and completeness, integrating all virtues, earthly and spiritual, male and female. Not only is Jaime a centaur, he is an androgyne: —La Bolivie est ma femme, rit Jaime. —Eh, tu es la femme de la Bolivie, aussi. Le genie 1 "My mind had entered his for all eternity and had only to present itself with grace and agility to find there its place of fertilization." " "Who was I, in fact? A guitar player, a pale theology student; and suddenly you appeared before me, you were form. Form. I was the lover of beauty, and I flung myself at that form, which was beauty incarnate. All of a sudden, music and theology were a single figure that walked the earth."

156 * The High Plateaus

male de la Bolivie a feconde ton ame flexible d'homme d'action. La Bolivie et vous, ne faites qu'un: vous etes 1'androgyne parfait, vous etant rencontres parce qu'etant d6j& r6unis. (p. 208)v The synthesis of the nation is made in his person because he is at the same time its virile protector and its whore, the one whose body is available to all, seen by all, in his role as leader: "Conchita etait avec son corps livre a tous, l'image du destin d'un soldat et d'un chef: Jaime, livre a la Bolivie comme la Conchita aux Boliviens, ne pouvait avoir honte du corps de Conchita" (p. 114).w For Jaime the androgyne, Con­ ception is no longer necessary as a separate individual. In the same way, he bridges social gaps by being the half-caste in power; he comes from the people to dominate Ies grands, mingling in his blood the Spanish and the Indian, "car je suis un metis, et, a partir de moi, vous n'aurez plus jamais comme chefs en Bolivie que des m£tis" (p. 192). * For Jaime the half-caste androgyne, Camilla is virtually redundant. It is as if, in the dialectic of thought and action, there were an inferior and a superior way. By beginning with thought, Felipe can have a sense of freedom, of creativity in his movement through and around life; but he can never follow the superior way, which is hardly a "way" at all, having begun already in action and growing steadily in power and beauty. FOR ALL its richness, the incarnation of commitment as we find it in Jaime does not lend itself to prolonged analysis: there is no imaginative anatomy of commitment in L'Homme ' " 'Bolivia is my woman,' laughed Jaime. 'Yes, but you are Bolivia's woman as well. The virile genius of Bolivia has fertilized in you the flexible soul of the man of action. Bolivia and you are as one: you are the perfect androgyne; you met because you were already united.' " * "With her body delivered up to everyone, Conchita represented the destiny of a soldier and a leader: Jaime, who was delivered up to Bolivia as la Conchita was to Bolivians, could not be ashamed of Conchita's body." x "for I am a half-caste, and from me onward, you will only ever have half-caste leaders in Bolivia"

The High Plateaus * 157

ά cheval. On the other hand, Felipe's comings and goings allow of more intensive discussion. We know that the supreme social event is Jaime's coming to power as a half-caste, but it is in following Felipe's movements that we can determine with precision the context of this event, the social geography of "Bolivia." Nature is not a background, a pale decor here, any more than it was in Barres's or Zola's texts. Even when nature seems to be forgotten for a moment by the protagonists of the drama, it continues to be active because it is a part of them: "Le ciel, nous ne l'avions gufere regarde tout ce temps. Mais Ies hommes ont bien Ie droit d'oublier la nature, alors qu'ils sont la nature meme" (p. 202).'' Belonging to this place is not so much a matter of race, of "roots," as of response to the environment: "Mais d'ailleurs, il n'y a pas que Ie sang, il y a l'air du pays. Or, sur ces hauts plateaux depuis trois cents ans nous respirons Ie meme air que Ies Indiens, venus aussi d'ailleurs" (p. 84).2 We should note exactly what sort of environment it is, then: ces hauls plateaux.a That is to say, not the hill and the plain, nor of course simply the mountain and the plain, but an exalted plain. Bolivia is marked by a kind of routine tragedy in that its refined atmosphere is not a place for escaping from practicality but rather a very special form of it: Nous vivons a des milliers de pieds au-dessus de la mer, et partout oil Ie regard se dirige ce sont toujours, proches ou lointaines, des montagnes plus hautes en­ core. Le coeur se serre quand on pense que, porte si haut, l'homme n'est pas maitre d'un autre destin que dans Ies plus bas pays du P6rou ou du Chili, (p. 42)b * "As for the sky, we had hardly looked at it during that time. But men must have the right to ignore nature, when they are nature itself." * "But besides, it is not just a matter of blood; there is the atmosphere of the country. And for three hundred years on these high plateaus, we have been breathing the same air as the Indians, who also came here from another place." * these high plateaus b "We live thousands of feet above the sea, and everywhere one turns to look there are always, nearby or in the distance, mountains that are

158 * The High IMateaue

Elevation brings not detachment but quintessential monotony: "je regardais ce terroir supreme de la Bolivie qui est souleve jusqu'au ciel, si haut que Ies hommes s'y epuisent et n'y repetent qu'avec lassitude et exasperation Ies gestes du plus bas" (p. 23; my italics).c But to exalt the plain is also to exalt the people—in political terms, a form of populism, no doubt. There is certainly no question of belief in democracy, in any case. When democ­ racy is advocated, in conventional forms, by Belmez, it is dismissed in the space of an instant by Felipe. Government by the people? The people have never governed: their "rep­ resentatives" are disguised aristocrats (p. 31). In democracy, no doubt, there would be roles for those like Belmez, for the intrusive "muddle" classes—"ce monde interlope des democrates," in the words of Drieu's "double agent."d3S Perhaps some social leveling would be achieved, but this could lead only to generalized mediocrity of the kind described by Gilles: "Tous Ies niveaux de la societe actuelle etant egalises, une ascension vers Ies sommets equivalait a un rampement sans fin."®36 In UHomme a cheval, by specific, idyllic contrast, we have both the high plateaus and the lofty mountains, or at least the "precipice" assailed by "des vents impetueux" (pp. 67, 72)/ which makes for a striking, indeed beautiful, social verticality—the vertiginous separation of the aristoc­ racy and the people. The Indians of Bolivia are cruelly op­ pressed, certainly; but this very oppression is aestheticized by Felipe, in implicit denial of democratic morality: Quand je voyais ses pieds et ses mains [those of Ca­ milla], je benissais la cruaute de sa famille qui depuis higher still. One has heart-pangs at the thought that, when raised to this great height, man is not a master of another destiny than in the lowest regions of Peru or Chile." c "I looked at this supreme piece of ground, Bolivia, which is raised up to the sky, so high that men are exhausted there and can only repeat in weary exasperation the actions of the lowest." d "that interlopers' world of democrats." • "Since all the levels of modern society have been flattened out, climbing toward its peaks amounts to endless crawling." ' "impetuous winds"

The High Plateaus * 159

trois siecles foulait Ies Indiens pour assurer la perfection du loisir dans des doigts aussi justement delicats et fermes. Et d'ailleurs, Ies Indiens etaient foules auparavant, toutefois selon Ieur Ioi indienne, et ils Ie seront encore selon on ne sait quelle loi. (p. 71)g The Indians of UHomme a cheval, although downtrodden, are not shown to be dependent in the same way as, for in­ stance, the people of the plain in La Colline inspiree. They have a kind of episodic power, very much like the potential for radical destruction, for leveling, held by the people in Germinal, but with no promise—not even the hope, per­ haps—of durable change: Un delire absolu s'empare d'eux. Ils se ruent ensem­ ble [a disorderly charge] et ils tuent et brulent. Ils tuent tout ce qui est maitre: hommes, femmes, enfants, vieillards; ils saignent Ies animaux, ils incendient et rasent Ies maisons. Ils projettent enfin sur Ie pays cette de­ solation qui est dans Ieur coeur. (p. 147)h This rioting is more a self-expression than a revolutionary act; it marks a certain independence, the capacity to initiate action of a kind, without altering the rioters' essential, eternal oppression. Their independence can be understood in spatial terms when, instead of viewing the world of the Indians from above, as a dark chasm, we are able to enter into it humbly (see pp. 157, 180), with Felipe, and discover its crawling, multitudinous nature: "J'avais pris mes plus vieilles hardes et vivais au fond du peuple. J'etais couvert de vermine" (p. « "When I saw her feet and hands, I blessed the cruelty of her family, who for three centuries had trampled the Indians underfoot in order to bring about the perfection of leisure in those delicate, firm fingers. And in any case, the Indians had been trampled before, albeit according to Indian law, and they would be again according to some law or other." h "Absolute frenzy takes hold of them. They dash off together, killing and burning. They kill everything that rules: men, women, children, old people; they bleed animals white, set fire to houses and flatten them. In a word, they project onto the countryside that desolation that is in their hearts."

160 * The High Hateaue

150).' Yet even their domestic clutter, so compellingly as­ sociated in other contexts with horizontality, can be settled on the side of a mountain: Cette maison sale et bruyante restait accrochee, en d6pit des Iois de la balistique, a une pente vertigineuse de la montagne. Quand j'entrais ou je sortais, je devais grimper ou degringoler, au milieu des cochons, des volailles, des lamas. Ces animaux occupaient aussi bien l'interieur de la maison que ces abords, mais, ϋ l'interieur, ils etaient doubles par la nombreuse marmaille de Tamila. Et pourtant Tamila etait l'homme Ie plus silencieux, Ie plus concentre, (p. 151)' There is no architecture here, no shape to the dwelling or to the swiirming infestation of animal/human life; but the people have their own verticality, their own concentration, their own religion. Tamila is "une sorte de sorcier," a man "au centre de toutes Ies rumeurs" (p. 150).k Far from looking to the upper classes for inspiration and guidance, as in Barres, they are able, through shamans such as he, to have a center or centers within their own mass. There is furthermore a recognizable, indeed invaluable, art of the people, something that can be gleaned by the humble wanderer, the intermediary such as Felipe, who uses his freedom to go down among them, in search of secrets that are at least as "difficult" as those of the aristocracy. In these dark and lowly places Felipe, dressed in rags, holds together truth and artificiality; he humbly begs their secrets and col­ lects scraps of their art,37 without ever losing himself, without 1 "I had put on my oldest rags and was living in the depths of/down among the people. I was covered in vermin" > "This dirty, noisy house remained clinging, in spite of the laws of ballistics, to a dizzying slope on the mountainside. When I entered or left it, I had to climb or slide down, among the pigs, the fowls, and the lamas. These animals lived inside the house just as much as they lived in its surroundings, but inside they were reinforced by Tamila's substantial litter of children. And yet Tamila was the most silent and reserved of men." k "a kind of sorcerer"; "a man at the center of all rumors"

The High IMateaus ' 161

ever forgetting that at least part of him does not truly belong here: J'avais done, encore une fois, vecu de la fa "Being bourgeois ourselves . . . we cannot remain tranquilly in the bosom of our class and, since we can no longer leave it by soaring upward

234 • Making Molehills out of Mountains

By the same logic of inversion and subversion, the novelistgravedigger comes to talk of other positions than the tradi­ tional one from which to look at events. Seeing from above is associated, by spatial analogy, with seeing from the point of view of the upper classes—the axis of cognition is assim­ ilated to the axis of oppression—and the real alternative to it, everything else being impossible or unacceptable, is to see the world with the eyes of the lower classes: La contradiction dont il souffre [the intellectual] n'est d'abord vecue que comme souffrance. Pour la regarder, il faudrait qu'il put prendre ses distances par rapport a elle: or, c'est ce qu'il ne peut sans aide. De fait, cet agent historique, entierement conditionne par Ies circonstances, est precisement Ie contraire d'une conscience de survol. S'il pretendait s'etablir dans l'avenir pour se connaitre (comme nous pouvons connattre Ies societes passees), il manquerait totalement son but: il ne connait pas l'avenir ou, s'il en devine une partie, c'est avec Ies prejuges memes qu'il a en lui, done a partir de la con­ tradiction sur laquelle il voudrait se retourner. S'il tentait de se mettre, idealement, hors de la societe pour juger l'ideologie de la classe dominante, il emporterait sa con­ tradiction avec lui, au mieux; au pis, il s'identifierait a la grande bourgeoisie qui se trouve au-dessus (economiquement) des classes moyennes et qui se penche sur elles, il en accepterait, du coup, sans contestation l'i­ deologie. Il n'a done qu'un moyen de comprendre la societe oil il vit: c'est de prendre sur elle Ie point de vue des plus defavorises.kl° and taking on the appearance of a parasitic aristocracy, we must be its gravediggers, even if we run the risk of burying ourselves with it." k "The contradiction from which he suffers is experienced in the first place only as a kind of suffering. In order to look at it, he would need to stand back at some distance from it: and this is what he cannot do unaided. In fact, this historical agent, who is entirely conditioned by circumstances, is precisely the opposite of the consciousness of an overview. Should he attempt to set himself up in the future in order to know himself (as we can know past societies), he would completely fail to achieve his aim: he does

Making Molehills out of Mountains * 235

This is the only valid, the only permissible, way to distance oneself from one's own class and its prejudices: "La seule possibility reelle de prendre un point de vue distancie sur l'ensemble de l'ideologie decrete en haut, c'est de se mettre aux cotes de ceux dont l'existence meme Ie contredit."111 Seeing from below has become, for the author of Plaidoyer pour Ies intellectuels, more than just a means of ridiculing the pretension of those above, as it was largely in Les Chemins de la liberte. It is claimed as the proper way to perceive oppression, the only way to understand vital revolutionary truths:12 Ce point de vue objectif produit de la pensee populaire qui voit la societe a partir du fondamental, c'est-a-dire a partir du niveau Ie plus bas, Ie plus propre a la radicalisation, celui d'oii l'on voit Ies classes dominantes et Ies classes qui s'allient a celles-ci en contre-plongee, de bas en haut, non pas comme des elites culturelles mais comme des groupes d'enormes statues dont Ie socle pese de tout son poids sur Ies classes qui reproduisent la vie, non plus au niveau de la non-violence, de la reconnaissance reciproque et de la politesse (comme font Ies bourgeois qui sont a meme hauteur et se regardent dans Ies yeux) mais du point de vue de la violence supportee, du travail aliene et des besoins elementaires.m13 not know his future, or, if he predicts part of it, he does so with the very prejudices that are in him, and therefore on the basis of the contradiction that he is trying to observe. If he should attempt, in an ideal fashion, to place himself outside society in order to judge the ideology of the dominant class, he would take his contradiction with him at best; at worst, he would identify himself with the grande bourgeoisie that (in economic terms) stands above the middle classes and looks down on them, with the result that he would be accepting its ideology without question. So he has only one means of understanding the society in which he lives: that is, to adopt the point of view of the underprivileged." 1 "The only real possibility of adopting a viewpoint at a distance from the whole of the ideology imposed from above lies in placing oneself alongside those whose very existence contradicts it" m "This objective point of view produces popular thought, which sees

236 * Making Molehills out of Mountains

This is how one can be outside of social norms without being outside of society. The space of the look is not abstract or spiritual: it is traversed by the vectors of economic and po­ litical reality. If the ruling classes appear so hateful, it is no doubt also because they are seen in association with—against the back­ ground of—the sky, "le ciel vide et nu" (Qu'est-ce que la litt4rature?, p. 180)," which is, for Sartre's atheistic antitheism, both empty and hateful. Theology and metaphysics are not so far from ideology and politics that the iconoclasm of a Goetz in Le Diable et Ie bon dieu—"Je voulais me faire pilier et porter la voute celeste. Je t'en fous: Ie ciel est un trou"°14—cannot be taken even further. The sky is already damned for its essential otherness—"Mais Ie ciel, c'est autre chose"p15—and yet it continues to be an object of polemical attention, something unforgivable from an earthly point of view: "La terre ne pardonne pas."q16 We have seen how Sartre's elemental preference for the earth as opposed to the air17 is admirably reinforced by his ethical choice against vertical pretension and abstraction in favor of equality and involvement. But here, in its most radical form, his imagi­ nation actually works to maintain the (inverted) consciousness of verticality in order to know and deplore it in the vital understanding of oppression.

IT may be apparent, at this stage, why we cannot identify in the case of Sartre, as we did for Barres, Zola, and especially society from the most fundamental standpoint, that is, from the lowest level, that which is most suited to radicalization, the level from which one sees the dominant classes and the classes allied to them in a reverse perspective, from the bottom upward, not as cultural elites but as enormous statues whose pedestal weighs down massively on the classes that reproduce life, no longer at the level of nonviolence, mutual respect and politeness (as is the case with the bourgeois who are at the same height and can look at each other in the eye), but from the point of view of violence endured, alienated labor and elementary needs." " "the empty, bare sky" 0 "I wanted to become a pillar and support the vault of heaven. What crap! The sky is a hole." Ρ "But the sky is something other." q "The earth does not forgive."

Making Molehills out of Mountaine * 237

Drieu, any particular (spatial) figures that serve to represent the positive content of commitment. It is not, of course, that Sartre is merely some kind of unprincipled intellectual van­ dal, with nothing "constructive" to offer in place of the old, as the conservative cliche has it. Rather, in his work—and this is why we have so often been led to speak of his writing as polemical—positive and negative are intimately bound together: his negations must be read, in their historical and cultural context, as affirmations of the contrary. His subver­ sion only makes sense if one feels the weight of tradition. If the intellectual is of particular interest to Sartre, if he is distinctive, it is not simply because he is free and because he uses his freedom to affirm or deny—that is a property shared by all—but because he makes contradictory affir­ mations/denials, because his situation is inherently contra­ dictory. This is what Sartre offers us, in both Hegelian and ma­ terialist terms, as a definition of the intellectual: Nous n'avons pas encore defini Fintellectuel: il y a des techniciens du savoir pratique qui s'accommodent fort bien de Ieur contradiction ou qui se debrouillent pour eviter d'en souffrir. Mais quand l'un d'eux se rend compte qu'il travaille I'universel pour servir Ie particulier, alors la conscience de cette contradiction—ce que Hegel appelait conscience malheureuse—est precisement ce qui Ie caracterise comrae intellectuel/18 The difference between the traditional (detached) intellectual and the modern (committed) one is that the former had found a way to settle into his discomfort—"L'intellectuel classique est un type qui tire une bonne conscience de sa mauvaise conscience par Ies actes (qui sont en g£n6ral des ecrits) que ' "We have not yet defined the intellectual: there are technicians of practical knowledge who adapt very well to their contradiction or find a way of avoiding the pain. But when one of them realizes that he is working on the universal in order to serve the particular, then the consciousness of this contradiction—what Hegel calls the unhappy consciousness—is pre­ cisely what characterizes him as an intellectual."

238 * Making Molehills out of Mountains celle-ci Iui fait faire en d'autres domaines,"8'9—whereas the revolutionary intellectual is painfully aware of his privilege as something that he ought to renounce but that he needs in order to exist. To give it up, to throw away the capital of knowledge that he has unjustly inherited, would amount to self-destruction: Ce privilege—ou monopole du savoir—est en contra­ diction radicale avec l'egalitarisme humaniste. En d'autres termes il devrait y renoncer. Mais comme il est ce pri­ vilege, il n'y renoncera qu'en s'abolissant lui-meme, ce qui contredit l'instinct de vie si profondement enracine dans la plupart des hommes.'20 Being defined thus—"par la contradiction, en Iui, du savoir pratique (verite, universalite) et de l'ideologie (particularisme)""21—he can work on this contradiction, endeavoring in spite of it to achieve the ongoing unity of praxis: La praxis comme action dans l'histoire et sur l'histoire, c'est-a-dire comme synthese de la relativite historique et de l'absolu moral et metaphysique, avec ce monde hostile et amical, terrible et derisoire qu'elle nous revele, voila notre sujet. (pp. 287—288; his italics)v This we can recognize as typical of commitment, insofar as it indicates, both as a program for the future and as a literary • "The classical intellectual is a fellow who gets a good conscience out of his bad conscience through the acts (usually writings) that this bad conscience causes him to perform in other domains." 1 "This privilege—or monopoly of knowledge—is absolutely irreconcil­ able with humanist egalitarianism. In other words, he should give it up. But since he is this privilege, he could only renounce it by putting an end to himself, and that contradicts the vital instinct that is so profoundly rooted in most men." " "by the contradictions, within him, of practical knowledge (truth, uni­ versality) and of ideology (particularism)" v "Praxis as action on history and in history, that is as the synthesis of historical relativity and the moral and metaphysical absolute, with this hostile and welcoming, fearful and laughable, world that it reveals to us: that is our subject."

Making Molehills out of Mountains * 239

subject, the attempt to achieve a synthesis of thought and action, of morality and contingency. The difference is, how­ ever, that it is divorced—newly divorced, one might say— from its traditional spatial projection. Yet the presence of such "synthesis," even in its abstractly discursive forms, remains allusive and elusive in Sartre's writings largely because of the continuing importance of negativity. We know it in the main by what it is not; it occupies the problematic terrain defined by a double exclusion: nous avons une tache . . . c'est de creer une litterature qui rejoigne et reconcilie l'absolu metaphysique et la relativite du fait historique et que je nommerai, faute de mieux, la litterature des grandes circonstances. Il ne s'agit pas pour nous ni de nous evader dans l'eternel ni d'abdiquer devant ce que l'inenarrable M. Zaslavski appelle dans la Pravda Ie "processus historique." Ces questions que notre temps nous pose et qui resteront nos questions sont d'un autre ordre: comment peut-on se faire homme dans, par et pour l'histoire? Est-il une synthese possible de notre conscience unique et irreductible et de notre relativite, c'est-a-dire d'un humanisme dogmatique et d'un perspectivisme? (p. 269; his italics)™ It would be hard to be further from Drieu: Sartre deliberately turns toward the historical "muddle," affirming it to be the domain where he belongs, and refusing thus to follow through in imagination the ideal or utopic forms of commitment. It is not that such imagination is inconceivable for him. w "we have a task . . . which is to create a literature that relates and reconciles the relativity of historical fact and what I will call, for want of a better term, the literature of great occasions. It is not a matter for us of either escaping into the eternal or abdicating in the face of what the ridiculous Mr. Zaslavski calls in Pravda the "historical process." Those questions that our age asks of us and that will remain our questions are of another order: how can one make oneself a man through and for history? Is there a possible synthesis of our unique, irreducible consciousness and our relativity, that is, a synthesis of dogmatic humanism and perspectivism?"

240 * Making Molehille out of Mountains

We are told in Quest-ce que la litterature? that in a perfect socialist world, the contradictions and exclusions of intellec­ tual life would disappear. Positivity and negativity, being and doing, would at last come together: C'est seulement dans une collectivite socialiste, en effet, que la litterature, ayant enfin compris son essence et fait la synthese de la praxis et de 1'exis, de la negativite et de la construction, du faire, de l'avoir et de l'etre, pourrait meriter Ie nom de litterature totale. (pp. 288289; his italics)" The distinction between temporal and spiritual—so habit­ ually projected as the opposition between earth and sky— would no longer exist: "Dans une pareille societe, il va de soi qu'on ne saurait rien trouver qui rappelle, meme de loin, la separation du temporel et du spirituel" (p. 193).y The ideal situation, the end of alienation (see p. 193), is for the spiritual to be found on the earth, just as it was in fact in the eighteenth century, when the synthesis, the possibility of synthesis, was made by history: pour la premiere fois depuis la Reforme, Ies ecrivains interviennent dans la vie publique, protestent contre un decret inique, demandent la revision d'un proces, decident en un mot que Ie spirituel est dans la rue, a la foire, au marche, au tribunal et qu'il ne s'agit point de se detourner du temporel, mais d'y revenir sans cesse, au contraire, et de Ie depasser en chaque circonstance particuliere. (p. 138; my italics)2 * "Indeed, only in a socialist collectivity, having at last understood its essence and made the synthesis of praxis and exis, negativity and constructiveness, of doing, having and being, could literature be worthy of the name total literature." * "In such a society, it goes without saying that one could find nothing that was even vaguely reminiscent of the separation of temporal and spir­ itual. " ' "for the first time since the Reformation, writers are intervening in public life, protesting against an iniquitous decree, asking for someone's retrial, deciding, in a word, that the spiritual is in the street, at the fair, in the market, in the tribunal, and that it is not a matter of turning away

Making Molehille out of Mountains * 241

But none of this perfection is available to the modern writer in his committed praxis. To retrieve by imagination the ex­ periences of the distant past, to anticipate the future in its otherness, can only be forms of reverie, a reverie that takes the writer out of time, out of his time: il n'est pas rare qu'un ecrivain se soucie, pour sa modeste part, de preparer l'avenir. Mais il y a un futur vague et conceptuel qui concerne l'humanite entiere et sur lequel nous n'avons pas de lumieres: l'histoire aurat-elle une fin? Le soleil s'eteindra-t-il? Quelle sera la condition de l'homme dans Ie regime socialiste de l'an 3000? Nous laissons ces reveries aux romanciers d'an­ ticipation: c'est l'avenir de notre epoque qui doit faire l'objet de nos soins: un avenir limite qui s'en distingue a peine—car une epoque, comme un homme, c'est d'abord un avenir."22 Rather than the hubris or even the escapism of prophecy, rather than the abstract pretension of one who prospects in detail, rather than the idyllic imagination of commitment frozen in an atemporal moment of perfection, Sartre chooses the modest action of the project. He is concerned only with the present and with the future of the present.23 The space of divine knowledge has been replaced by that of alienation, but the historical subject continues to make his way in the world, projecting before him the minimal distance of situated freedom, the space across which he can act, both to change the world and to change himself in it.24 from the temporal but, on the contrary, of ceaselessly coming back to it, and of going beyond it in each particular circumstance." a "it is not rare for a writer to be concerned, in his own modest way, with preparing the future. But there is a vague, conceptual future that concerns the whole of humanity and about which we are quite unenlight­ ened: will history have an end? Will the sun burn out? What will the condition of man be in the socialist regime of the year 3000? We leave those daydreams to the science fiction novelists: what concerns us is the future of our age: a limited future that can hardly be distinguished from it—for an age, like a man, is first of all a future."

VII

^ITLTL Routine Elevation: Le Mythe de Sisyphe, La Peste, L i Exil et Ie royaume, La Chute

IT HAPPENS frequently that when reading Camus' work, we find ourselves attending to the experience of being already in the world—of being caught up, indeed, in the tedious rhythms of routine. One may think at first that the sense of freedom, the possibility of a new beginning, are not to be found: there is a kind of inertia that tends to exclude com­ mitment as choice. Thus the old woman of Le Malentendu, in whom the source of all new emotion seems to have dried up, goes on with the habit of killing: "II y a des annees et des annees de cela. Tellement d'annees que je n'en sais plus Ie commencement et que j'ai oublie ce que j'etais alors.""1 She could be described in terms of our thematics—if one were not too fearful of the ridicule that can attach to such analogies—as a tragic militant. On a less dramatic and more general level, we find that everyday routine seems often to continue of its own accord: the passages of Le Mythe de Shyphei describing the succession of work-travel-sleep are some of those most frequently quoted from Camus' work (il, 106-107). Yet Le Mythe de Sisyphe draws our attention to this experience precisely in order to emphasize the decisive, if temporary, interruption of these a "It all happened years and years ago. So many years ago that I don't remember how it began, and I've forgotten what I was then."

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stultifying rhythms. The possibility of choice appears, often quite suddenly, at a certain point in time: Un jour seulement, Ie "pourquoi" s'eleve et tout com­ mence dans cette lassitude teintee d'etonnement. "Com­ mence," ceci est important. La lassitude est a la fin des actes d'une vie machinale, mais elle inaugure en meme temps Ie mouvement de la conscience. Elle P^veille et elle provoque la suite. La suite, c'est Ie retour inconscient dans la chaine, ou c'est l'eveil definitif. Au bout de l'eveil vient, avec Ie temps, la consequence: suicide ou retablissement. (n, 107)b So it happens that there is a beginning at the end of, in the midst of, continuity. The space of freedom opens up, allowing one to choose, in the broadest and most radical terms, be­ tween suicide and going on. There is patently no question of another life or another world. The "definitive" awakening of consciousness does not constitute an escape into the air, a glorious—or even involuntary—flight: it simply emerges as the understanding, the analysis, of habit.3 Freedom can be used to stop, or to begin again. This is the lesson to be learned from Sisyphus as mythical hero. His fate—his behavior, so to speak, within his fate— is exemplary insofar as it develops a rhythm of consciousness, associated with spatial displacement, while following the con­ straints of an eternal routine. We should consider Sisyphus most closely at the point where he turns around, at the top of the slope: C'est pendant ce retour, cette pause, que Sisyphe m'interesse. Un visage qui peine si pres des pierres est deja pierre lui-meme! Je vois cet homme redescendre b "But one day the 'why' arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. 'Begins'—this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the unthinking return into the chain/production line, or it is the definitive awakening. At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery."

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d'un pas lourd mais egal vers Ie tourment dont il ne connaitra pas la fin. Cette heure qui est comme une respiration et qui revient aussi surement que son malheur, cette heure est celle de la conscience, (n, 196)c Being invited to "imaginer Sisyphe heureux" (n, 198),d we should bring the effort of our imagination to bear on the spacetime of freedom, the moment at which Sisyphus decides to turn, or turns to decide. The rock turns over quite simply because of the force of gravity, but the human gravity of Sisyphus is not of the same order: it is not a mechanical necessity. "Volte du rocher, revoke de Sisyphe,"" says Blanchot with admirable conciseness.4 For freedom to be discerned thus in the midst of habit requires a narrow spatio-temporal focus. Sisyphus must not be thought of merely as a laborer or even as a mountaineer. The imagination of climbing leads us to the material under­ standing of muscular effort, as Bachelard has pointed out;5 but this is precisely what renders it inappropriate here.6 De­ scent, on the other hand, requires little exertion and thus permits more general kinds of awareness. It is a phase of reflection that prolongs the pause at the top: the athletic heroism of the climber consists only in feeling the rock hard against his face, whereas the man, the moral creature who walks down, knows his life and his fate because he sees the rock before him. For Camus, the story of Sisyphus is not an ascension myth: its most vital, or most instructive, phase is that of re-descent. Sisyphus's climb can thus be understood as entailing not so much the risk of falling—so often the mark of heroism—as the certainty that his rock will soon be coming down again. He knows himself to be caught up in a cycle, so his upward effort can never amount to a movement out of c "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness." d "imagine Sisyphus as a happy man" ' "Volt of the rock and revolt of Sisyphus"

Routine Elevation * 245

the world or out of time. There is no state of detachment because there is no achievement of height for its own sake. There is no edifice, then, on top of the hill, no tower or church in which he might stand. Is there even a hill whose shape can be discerned? Sisyphus belongs on a slope. It happens thus that a certain spatial and moral superiority occurs without in fact having been sought: "A chacun de ces instants, oil il quitte Ies sommets et s'enfonce peu a peu vers Ies tanieres des dieux, il est superieur a son destin. Il est plus fort que son rocher" (n, 196).f Superiority is experienced and enjoyed as a moment, not one gloriously dilated, eternal moment but a series of instants occurring in his routine. The time of beginning again is distinctive because it is reliably associated with the space of contemplation and lucidity. This is when Sisyphus goes down to commitment, separated from his rock by the space of knowledge, and seeing his fate as the continuing entailment of his present action: A cet instant subtil oil l'homme se retourne sur sa vie [not, of course, "retourne a sa vie"], Sisyphe, revenant vers son rocher, contemple cette suite d'actions sans lien qui devient son destin, cree par lui, uni sous Ie regard de sa memoire et bientot scelle par sa mort. (n, 198)« We see here, undoubtedly, the most modest, the most literally pedestrian, form of commitment we have yet en­ countered, not only because of its spatial reduction—the more noble symbols of dominant verticality have given way to the humble slope7—but also because it is reduced and situated in time, occurring regularly within the space of an instant. The "exercice de detachement et de passion" described in f "At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually moves down toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock." ' "At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus, as he turns back to his rock, contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death."

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Le Mythe de Sisyphe as that which consummates "la splendeur et l'inutilite d'une vie d'homme" (π, 179)h is here organized rhythmically. Passion occurs during the climb, when he is totally involved in his labor, and detachment—the detach­ ment that belongs at the heart of commitment—occurs during the descent. He never looks upward, one supposes—why would he look at the sky?8—but he does have time to look at or toward the plain: Tout au bout de ce long effort mesure par I'espace sans del et Ie temps sans profondeur, Ie but est atteint. Sisyphe regarde alors la pierre devaler en quelques in­ stants vers ce monde inferieur d'ou il faudra la remonter vers Ies sommets. Il redescend dans la plaine. (il, 196; my italics)1 There is nothing miraculously privileged here about the experience of vertical contemplation: it involves no angelic lightness, no complicity with the gods. Being above is not the beginning of the story: it occurs at the end of a period of passionate effort. Yet the pause at the top of the slope, the moment of conscious elevation is also the time when one recognizes that there is no end, no end other than death. Freedom is not a durable state but an attitude that allows the measurement of bondage, that very measurement being a (fleeting) triumph of intelligence. There is more in Camus' work than drudgery and militancy, as we can see, but we are likely to find often that freedom emerges within the framework of a certain fatality, whether that fatality be understood as divine punishment—traditionally the case with Sisyphus— or whether it be thought of as social or historical necessity. h

"exercise in detachment and passion"; "the splendor and futility of a man's life" ' "At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down into the plain."

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When studying Drieu, we saw commitment given the status of an event: here, it is detachment that has that status. In La Peste,9 fatality exists as the objective solidarity of suffering, a collective imprisonment in the world of the plague: A partir de ce moment, il est possible de dire que la peste fut notre affaire a tous. . . . une fois Ies portes fermees, ils s'apergurent qu'ils etaient tous, et Ie narrateur lui-meme, pris dans Ie meme sac et qu'il fallait s'en arranger. (l, 1271)1 There are no longer any exceptional individuals, any native outsiders. Rambert says to Rieux, "Mais je ne suis pas d'ici!" and the reply comes: "A partir de maintenant, helas, vous serez d'ici comme tout Ie monde" (i, 1287).k The repeated attempts to escape, simply to leave the world of the plague, come to naught, revealing the state of individual freedom as an illusion: Ainsi, a longueur de semaine, Ies prisonniers de la peste se debattirent comme ils Ie purent. Et quelquesuns d'entre eux, comme Rambert, arrivaient meme a imaginer, on Ie voit, qu'ils agissaient encore en hommes libres, qu'ils pouvaient encore choisir. Mais, en fait, on pouvait dire a ce moment, au milieu du mois d'aout, que la peste avait tout recouvert. Il n'y avait plus alors de destins individuels, mais une histoire collective qui etait la peste et des sentiments partages par tous. (l, 1353)1 ' "From now on it can be said that the plague was the concern of all of us. . . . once the town gates were shut, everyone realized that all, the narrator included, were in the same boat, and we would have to get used to it." k " 'But I don't belong here.' 'Unfortunately, from now on you'll belong here, like everybody else.' " 1 "Thus week by week the prisoners of plague put up what fight they could. Some, like Rambert, even contrived to fancy they were still behaving as free men and had the power of choice. But actually it would have been truer to say that by this time, mid-August, the plague had overrun every-

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There are, however, one or two exceptional moments of detachment in the heart of this collective agony. They are not simply those moments of reverie that hang on dreamy threads, or drift through the mists of imagination; these are simply distractions, to be rejected for their vagueness, in favor of the genuine reality of everyday labor: "Rieux se secoua. La etait la certitude, dans Ie travail de tous Ies jours. Le reste tenait a des fils et a des mouvements insignifiants, on ne pouvait s'y arreter. L'essentiel etait de bien faire son metier" (l, 1248).m Equally unproductive are the moments of nostalgia for absent loved ones, the abstract oscillation of hope and despair that is akin to the aerial exile of Orestes in Les Mouches: Et par 1¾, echoues a mi-distance de ces abimes et de ces sommets, ils flottaient plutot qu'ils ne vivaient, abandonnes a des jours sans direction et a des souvenirs steriles, ombres errantes qui n'auraient pu prendre force qu'en acceptant de s'enraciner dans la terre de Ieur douleur. (l, 1275-1276)" The positive moments of detachment occur as pauses, at the end of a period of action. The evening, in particular, is the time of such reflection: "Vers Ie soir, au contraire, l'air devenait tiede a nouveau. Ce fut Ie moment que choisit Tarrou pour se decouvrir un peu aupres du docteur Rieux" (i, 1416).° This is not the dawn of unbodied freedom but the breathing thing. No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny made of plague and the emotions shared by all." m "Rieux pulled himself together. There lay certitude; there, in the daily round. All the rest hung on mere threads and trivial contingencies; you couldn't waste your time on it. The thing was to do your job as it should be done." " "Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they floated through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress." ° 'Toward evening, however, the air became warm once again. This was the time of day chosen by Tarrou for telling something of himself to Doctor Rieux."

Routine Elevation * 249

space of understanding, just as the "treve melancolique"p of the evening is for Meursault the time at which he "under­ stands" his mother (l, 1133, 1209).10 Rieux and Tarrou go together at the end of the day to a terrace, a high place that they borrow for the occasion, so to speak, one where they do not particularly belong by nature. Furthermore, they go together: their fraternal commitment does not pretend to pure, abstract individuality. Yet there is a clear experience of spatial superiority; they are above the plague and can see beyond the most immediate things: lis trouverent la terrasse vide, et garnie de trois chaises. . . . Ie regard plongeait sur un horizon oil Ie ciel et la mer se melaient dans une palpitation indistincte. . . . —Il fait bon, dit Rieux, en s'asseyant. C'est comme si la peste n'etait jamais montee la. (l, 1417)q Domestic routine continues below, but the signs of it reach them only across the (vertical) distance: "Un bruit de vaisselle choquee monta jusqu'a eux des profondeurs de la rue" (l, 1417).1 A little later the same evening, we find them in hor­ izontal detachment, outside the city walls, swimming together as if in ritual consecration of this exceptional event. But the end of the pause is marked with equal clarity: "Quand ils apergurent de loin la sentinelle de la peste, Rieux savait que Tarrou se disait, comme Iui, que la maladie venait de Ies oublier, que cela etait bien, et qu'il fallait maintenant recommencer" (l, 1427; my italics).5 The very recommencer occurs in fact with extraordinary p "melancholy

pause" "They found the terrace to be empty, with only three chairs on it. . . . one's gaze looked down onto a horizon where sea and sky merged in a dim, vibrant greyness. . . . 'It's pleasant here,' said Rieux, as he sat down. 'You'd think that plague had never found its way up here.' " r "The sound of clattering crockery made its way up to them from the depths of the street." • "When they caught sight of the plague watchman in the distance, Rieux knew that Tarrou, like himself, was thinking that the disease had given them a respite, and this was good, but now they must begin again." q

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frequency in La Peste,11 being used in relation to Rieux and his profession, Rambert and his attempts to escape, Grand and his sentence, the old asthmatic and his peas. Seldom, however, is the space of understanding opened up to the same extent as in the evening shared by Tarrou and Rieux—the rhythms of the plague are no doubt too imperious—and human activity tends to continue without the regular experience of deliberate (re-)commitment. Rieux is not entirely like Sisy­ phus, insofar as "le fugitif instant de paix et d'amitie qui Iui avait 6te donne n'eut pas de lendemain" (i, 1428).' The only echo to his experience of superior detachment, the only com­ parison that begins to create within the text a paradigm of privileged instants, is the moment of Tarrou's death: La nuit qui suivit ne fut pas celle de la lutte, mais celle du silence. Dans cette chambre retranchee du monde, au-dessus de ce corps mort maintenant habille, Rieux sentit planer Ie calme surprenant qui, bien des nuits auparavant, sur Ies terrasses au-dessus de la peste, avait suivi l'attaque des portes. Deja, a cette epoque, il avait pense a ce silence qui s'elevait des Iits oil il avait laisse mourir des hommes. C'etait partout la me me pause, Ie mime intervalle solennel, toujours Ie meme apaisement qui suivait Ies combats, c'etait Ie silence de la defaite. (i, 1455; my italics)" That detachment should be so close to death must not surprise us unduly, if we understand that being in life is the norm, that the destiny of human flesh is to be bound up in "la plus inextricable epaisseur de l'histoire" (Actuelles I, n, ' "the brief moment of peace and friendship which had been granted to him was not repeated" u "The next night was not one of struggle but of silence. In this deathchamber which was cut off from the world, beside the dead body now dressed for burial, Rieux felt it hovering, that surprising peace which, when he was sitting many nights before on the terrace above the plague, had followed the brief foray at the gates. Then, already, it had brought to his mind the silence which arose from the beds in which he had let men die. There as here, it was the same pause, the same solemn interval, always the same lull which followed battles; the silence of defeat."

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405).v The experience of verticality is close to ghostly ab­ straction and is only valuable for commitment, no doubt, if it is surrounded and sustained by the vital rhythms of earthly necessity. Our understanding of such commitment can be furthered by a study of two texts by Camus that involve its specific rejection. Both "Le Renegat ou un esprit confus" (UExil et Ie royaume)12 and La Chute can be seen as taking a point of view opposed to that of Sisyphus and following it through to pathetic or even catastrophic consequences. The renegade priest first of all wants to be the perfect militant, perfectly unyielding and perfectly blind. He is proud of the hardness of his head: il a fait rentrer Ie latin dans ma tete dure: "Intelligent ce petit, mais un mulet," si dur d'ailleurs mon crane que de ma vie entiere, malgre toutes Ies chutes, il n'a jamais saigne: "Tete de vache," disait mon pere ce pore. (I, 1578)" His stubbornness appears as ideological resolve: "jamais tres sur de moi autrement, mais mon idee quand je l'ai, je ne la lache plus, e'est ma force, oui, ma force a moi dont ils avaient tous pitie!" (i, 1580)." It is not difficult for us to recognize this, in Sartrean terms at least, as the affirmation of solidity that tempts Paul Hilbert or Lucien Fleurier ("L'Enfance d'un chef'): it seems that the renegade may not want to admit his own freedom as the possibility of change. Certainly, he finds in Taghasa—"Taghasa dont Ie nom de fer bat dans ma tete depuis tant d'annees" (i, 1579)y—the place of militancy, a place of resonant hardness (see I, 1582). v "the most thoroughly entangled density of history" " "he beat Latin into my hard head ("The boy's bright but he's pig­ headed'), my head was so hard that, despite all my falls, it has never once bled in my life: 'Bull-headed,' my pig of a father used to say." * "never quite sure of myself otherwise, but once I get an idea I don't let go of it, that's my strong point, yes the strong point of the fellow they all pitied!" ι 'Taghasa, whose iron name has been beating in my head for so many years"

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The only explicit statement of freedom to be found here refers to the moment of his apostasy, when he gives up his faith as a missionary in order to be a slave, to be a part of this solidity: "la ville de l'ordre enfin, angles droits, chambres carrees, hommes roides, je m'en fis librement Ie citoyen haineux et torture, je reniai la longue histoire qu'on m'avait enseignee" (l, 1587).2 He comes to this new militancy through torture; suffering allows him to achieve the unity of the flesh, ordering his whole being around one dominant principle: "Pour la premiere fois, a force d'offenses, Ie corps entier criant (Tune seule douleur, je m'abandonnai a Iui [le Fetiche] et approuvai son ordre malfaisant, j'adorai en Iui Ie principe mechant du monde" (i, 1587; my italics).11 Now this suffering may be akin to the passion, the wholehearted effort, of Sis­ yphus during his climb. The difference is, however, that the renegade makes a cult of this state, endeavoring to maintain it exclusively, to extend its regime to the point where it will govern the world. Of "evil," he says that it alone has the power to dominate absolutely—"Seul Ie mal peut aller jusqu'a ses limites et regner absolument" (i, 1588)b—so there is not a moment of respite: "Jamais un dieu ne m'avait tant possede ni asservi, toute ma vie jours et nuits Iui etait vouee" (i, 1585).° This is for him the natural perfection, the cosmic efficacy of the desert: the searing heat of day gives way "sans transition"11 to the arctic cold of night, and blinding light to total darkness (i, 1581).13 There are no natural moments of reflection and therefore of doubt, where the possibility of not going on with one's action might emerge. Or if there are any, even one or * "the city of order, in short, right-angles, square rooms, rigid men—I freely became its tortured, hate-filled citizen, I repudiated the long history that had been taught me" • "For the first time, by dint of offenses, my whole body crying out with a single pain, I surrendered to him and approved his maleficent order, I adored in him the evil principle of the world." b "only evil can go right to its limits and reign absolutely" c "Never had a god so possessed or enslaved me, my whole life day and night was devoted to him" d "without transition"

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two chance climatic events, then Taghasa is built to resist and exclude them: la ville sterile sculptee dans une montagne de sel, separee de la nature, privee des floraisons fugitives et rares du desert, soustraite a ces hasards ou ces tendresses, un nuage insolite une pluie rageuse et breve, que meme Ie soleil ou Ies sables connaissent, la ville de l'ordre enfin (l, 1587)" This is the architecture of militant conviction, without the space of nuance, the fissure of doubt: "On m'avait trompe, seul Ie regne de la mechancete etait sans fissures, on m'avait trompe, la verite est carree, lourde, dense, elle ne supporte pas la nuance, Ie bien est une reverie" (i, 1587).f Now the irony of the renegade's situation, the futility of his action as it eventually appears to us, does not lie simply in the theoretical or logical weakness of all deliberate mili­ tancy, in the fact that he can be seen to have chosen his present position: it manifests itself in more dramatic ways. First of all, his supposedly totalist all-conquering masters, those he sees as devoted to the principle of evil, are in fact capable of making pacts with their European enemies, prag­ matic compromises that raise for the renegade the ugly specter of doubt and delay: "Le regne du mal serait retarde, il y aurait encore du doute, on allait a nouveau perdre du temps a rever du bien impossible, a s'epuiser en efforts steriles au lieu de hater la venue du seul royaume possible" (i, 1589).g e "the sterile city carved out of a mountain of salt, divorced from nature, deprived of the rare and fleeting flowerings of the desert, preserved from those strokes of chance or marks of affection such as an unexpected cloud or a brief, violent downpour that are familiar to the sun or the sands, the city of order, in short" f "I had been misled, solely the reign of malice was devoid of flaws, I had been misled, truth is square, heavy, thick, it does not admit subtle distinctions, good is an idle dream" 8 "the reign of evil would be postponed, there would be doubt again, again time would be wasted dreaming of the impossible good, wearing oneself out in fruitless efforts instead of hastening the realization of the only possible kingdom"

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He is faced anew with the horror of a collective existence between extremes; humanity will continue to be attracted by opposing principles: "toujours encore des millions d'hommes entre Ie mal et Ie bien, dechires, interdits" (i, 1591).h Second, and more generally, the renegade's would-be mil­ itancy is undermined—or rather, broken down and melted— by the form of action he must undertake in order to follow through his conviction. The place and the time are not per­ fectly suited to fanaticism:14 when he goes to kill the mis­ sionary who is coming to replace him, he has to wait. Action does not flow from belief as a simple mechanical necessity, and there are in fact moments of natural transition that tend to become times of hesitation. With the dawn comes nostalgia, tenderness, the memory of soft European snow, as well as a certain impatience at the lack of blinding sunlight: Soleil sauvage! il se leve, Ie desert change, il n'a plus la couleur du cyclamen des montagnes, ό ma montagne, et la neige, la douce neige molle, non c'est un jaune un peu gris, l'heure ingrate avant Ie grand eblouissement. (i, 1579)' Caught by such a movement, by a chance association with the past, he finds himself dreaming once again of the triumph of good, of the rain of grace that would dissolve away the geometrical salt of Taghasa (l, 1581). The moment that ought to be the perfection of militant action, as he stands over the missionary he has just killed, coincides—such is the cruel precision of irony—with the setting of the sun; natural time, and his natural response to it even in this extreme and ex­ tremist place, destroys the wilfull, undifferentiated unity of his conviction: "Victoire! j'etends Ies bras vers Ie ciel qui s'attendrit, une ombre violette se devine au bord oppose, 6 h

"still millions of men between evil and good, torn, bewildered" "Fierce sun! It's rising, the desert is changing, it has lost its mountaincyclamen color, O my mountain, and the snow, the soft enveloping snow, no it's a rather greyish yellow, the ugly moment before the great resplend­ ence." 1

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nuits d'Europe, patrie, enfance, pourquoi faut-il que je pleure au moment du triomphe?" (l, 1590).•> In a sense, "Le Renegat" is a story of weakness, but of that human weakness that can be understood positively as disturbing the monotony of unrelieved fanaticism, as marring the perfection of bondage. The renegade is unduly proud of the fact that his head has never bled, but we learn at other moments that his ear (i, 1582), his lip, his mouth (i, 1583), his face (l, 1584), his tongue (l, 1587) have all bled in the course of his suffering. It seems that he needs to see himself as having only a skull, a head that is somehow abstracted from all these vulnerable points, these channels of commu­ nication. In fact, the state he finally reaches has only the hardness of congealed agony, of "sang durci" (l, 1587).k It is a wound that can always be reopened. Or, to accommodate another of his obsessive metaphors in the same framework, his head may be hard, but it is filled with bouillie (i, 1582, 1584, etc.),1 with an "esprit confus,"m with an internal liq­ uidity that is his secret weakness. The hero of "Erostrate," in his claims to a certain inhuman, angelic perfection, is brought down by sexuality, by the palp­ able evidence of his own body. The renegade, at the time when he begins to tell his story, has already gone one step further, having assimilated as a lesson the eventual fate of Paul Hilbert: the all-conquering missionary has been humil­ iated, imprisoned in a dark place with the smell of his own excrement, and generally reduced to crawling animality (i, 1583). What he begins to learn, beyond this, is the impos­ sibility of maintaining and generalizing the state of total slav­ ery. Where Sartrean irony interrupted and eventually de­ stroyed the angelic state of detachment, Camusian irony does the same thing to hardheaded, subhuman militancy, melting > "Victory! I raise my arms to a heaven moved to pity, a lavender shadow is just barely suggested on the opposite side, 0 nights of Europe, home, childhood, why must I weep in the moment of triumph?" k "hardened blood" 1 jumbled mass/porridge m "confused mind"

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it into confusion and nostalgia, dissipating it in the gentleness of dawn and dusk. Even the sorcerer, who represents for the renegade the priesthood of evil, is found at the end to be "dechire, la bouche sanglante" (l, 1591; my italics)," re­ vealing thus, one imagines, both a weakness of the flesh and the presence of doubt. The renegade wants to think with one mind, to speak with one voice, that of the Fetish, the (supposed) principle of evil. But he cannot maintain this discursive order to the extent of silencing the other voice within him, that of good, of Europe. He continues to be caught in a dual system, hearing two voices, speaking with two tongues, following contradictory aims.15 For this reason, there is no better way to describe the failure of his action than to say that his martyrdom is incon­ clusive. It seems to reach a climax of physical pain—and therefore of ideological unity—when he is beaten by his mas­ ters for having shot the missionary. Yet the "cross," the saddle on which he suffers, is not, as it is so often in religious traditions,16 the glorious synthesis of vertical and horizontal, the literally crucial meeting place of sky and earth, of tran­ scendence and immanence. It is simply the place where he is ecartele (l, 1591),° pulled in different directions, crucified by contradiction, his body dislocated by the anguish of con­ flicting desire. The conclusion of "Le Renegat" promises in fact a con­ tinuing pointless oscillation: there have been and may well be in the future a succession of apostasies and new beginnings that can only intensify the hero's difficulties. His commit­ ment—his commitments—do not in fact have the enduring solidity of militancy but constitute rather a frenzied movement between radical extremes, so unlike the calm cycle, the con­ trolled suffering of a Sisyphus. The renegade's new apostasy leads him to go back on his original intentions in all their hardness and cruelty; but like the hero of "Erostrate," he cannot escape the line of action he has set in motion: the gun " "torn, with a bleeding mouth" ° quartered

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does not soften, and the shooting cannot be undone.17 In the same way, he "speaks" of beginning again, of (re-)building the city of mercy, but there can be no human communication because he has lost his tongue—willed its loss, indeed, as the consecration of his slavery. When he opens his mouth, there is only a "bruit de cailloux remues" (i, 1577)p—a vague but trivial echo of Sisyphus. He feels a new desire but cannot express it; he feels the weight of the past but no longer wants to carry it. The negative perspective that emerges when "Le Renegat" is read thus from the point of view of Sisyphean commitment can be broadened by a similar reading of La Chute.18 It could be said that the central character of each of these stories eschews modest humanity, the first, as we have seen, in favor of an insane and pathetic fiction of inhuman, mineral strength; the second in yielding to a kind of moral inflation, which finally leaves room for no other activity than the dialectics of judgment and penitence. Clamence indulges endlessly, it seems, in the imagination of human weakness. Hesitation is not banished and secretly feared, as in "Le Renegat": it takes the form of vertiginous and cruelly analytical self-doubt. Yet this second perversion is quite complementary to the first: instead of being brought into focus at moments of Sisyphean lucidity and dignity, doubt is allowed to continue indefinitely, being dilated into half a lifetime of soul-searching and breastbeating. It is the very fullness of the contrast in attitudes between Clamence and the renegade that allows us to see their ultimate equivalence. In relation to the crucifixion, for instance, we find in the case of the renegade a delusively empathetic understanding of physical suffering: the nails in Christ's head, the cutting out of his tongue (i, 1588), as well as his beating on the cross. All this helps to achieve the unity of the flesh, the absolute preoccupation with pain. Clamence, on the other hand, sees only the lama sabachthani—precisely that mo­ ment which, for the renegade, marks the ruination of his own p

"a sound like pebbles rattling together"

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commitment: "6 fetiche pourquoi m'as-tu abandonne?" (l, 1591).q Instead of seeing Christ's words—classically—as a simple moment of weakness in a broader process of redemp­ tion, or in Promethean terms—which would seem more ap­ propriate in Camus' work in general—as a moment of tragic insight in the midst of an absurd drama, Clamence takes them as a telling confession that reveals the guilt of Jesus and especially his sense of responsibility for the massacre of the innocents. This is the dark and disturbing moment that has to be "censored" by Luke's gospel. It is the instant at which Christ must stop, unable to endure any more, precipitated into defeat and death: Il n'empeche que Ie censure, Iui, n'a pu continuer. Et je sais, cher, ce dont je parle. Il fut un temps ou j'ignorais, a chaque minute, comment je pourrais atteindre la suivante. Oui, on peut faire la guerre en ce monde, singer l'amour, torturer son semblable, parader dans Ies journaux, ou simplement dire du mal de son voisin en tricotant. Mais, dans certains cas, continuer, seulement continuer, voila qui est surhumain. Et Iui n'etait pas surhumain, vous pouvez m'en croire. Il a crie son agonie et c'est pourquoi je l'aime, mon ami, qui est mort sans Ie savoir. (l, 1531—1532; my italics)' This is no doubt why Clamence does not speak to us of Sisyphus's continuing effort: he is interested only in the dras­ tic revelation of guilt, in the reduction of the apparently superhuman to a comfortably fraternal level of abjection. The renegade needed to imagine Christ as a seigneur; Clamence q "0 fetish, why have you forsaken me?" ' "Nonetheless, the censured one was unable to carry on. And I know, dear fellow, what I am talking about. There was a time when I didn't have the slightest idea, at any single moment, how I could reach the next one. Yes, one can wage war in this world, ape love, torture one's fellow-man, or merely say nasty things about one's neighbor while knitting. But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman. And he was not superhuman, you can take my word for it. He cried aloud his agony and that's why I love him, my friend who died without knowing."

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needs to discern in him the weakness that allows the master to be just a friend. Clamence's personal experience is presented as compa­ rable to that of Jesus. Indeed, the very fact of being a jugepenitent8 is founded on such comparisons: he needs to find in the past, in the memory of all he meets, an incident that amounts to a crippling loss of innocence. An evening pause in his normal Parisian existence—"La nuit venait, Ie ciel etait encore clair a l'ouest, mais s'assombrissait, Ies Iampadaires brillaient faiblement" (l, 1492)'—becomes a yawn­ ing gap, a chasm of anxiety that begins to swallow up his whole life, and the laughter that he hears at this moment precipitates him into a state of agonized self-awareness that contrasts dramatically with his previous self-deception. This is the precise instant of his fall: the emergence of a (previously hidden) memory—the fall of another, a young woman he did not save from drowning—puts an abrupt end to his state of grace. To speak of the fall is to emphasize, as in Sartre, the importance of the involuntary: this is sheer verticality and not the slope of Sisyphus. The vertical axis opens up, in fact, in the most catastrophic way, and the suddenness with which it appears in the midst of routine space and time triggers the imagination of height. There is no place of verticality—certainly not a stable edifice or an eminence—but rather dynamic vertical movement. Bachelard's famous remark on this19 is finely adjusted by Laurent Mailhot to accord with Clamence's psychology: " 'Nous imaginons l'elan vers Ie haut et nous connaissons la chute vers Ie bas': cette formule (avec 'parce que' a la place de 'et') convient exemplairement a Clamence.""20 The fall, says Bachelard, is something remembered: "Je ne puis avoir Ie sentiment d'etre remonte parce que la chute • judge-penitent • "Night was falling; the sky, still bright in the west, was darkening; the street-lamps were glowing dimly." u " 'We imagine the upward leap and we experience the downward fall': this phrase (with 'because' in place of 'and') applies in exemplary fashion to Clamence."

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est desormais un axe psychologique inscrit dans man etre meme: la chute, c'est Ie destin de mes songes."v21 It tends to be associated with a guilty nostalgia for high places: "Nous etudierons done !'imagination de la chute comme une sorte de maladie de !'imagination de la montee, comme la nostalgie inexpiable de la hauteur.""22 This is generally true of Clamence, who sees himself retrospectively as having enjoyed a kind of angelic freedom: "Les juges punissaient, Ies accuses expiaient et moi, libre de tout devoir, soustrait au jugement comme a la sanction, je regnais, librement, dans une lumiere edenique" (l, 1487)." His paradise lost was a state that per­ mitted serene condescension, something very much like tra­ ditional commitment, no doubt, except that it is now seen from a different point of view: "Je ne me reconnaissais que des superiorites, ce qui expliquait ma bienveillance et ma serenite. Quand je m'occupais d'autrui, e'etait pure condescendance, en toute liberte, et Ie merite entier m'en revenait" (l, 1498).y The difference in point of view, in the most literal terms—the reason why the perspective of commitment is ab­ sent from La Chute—is that Clamence looks backward and upward to a gloriously (and perhaps ridiculously) elevated past, instead of looking downward and forward in the prospection of future action. He is not interested in analyzing new possibilities but in weighing the (heavy) consequences of the past and in dreaming of lost innocence. Whereas the renegade hates dreamers and seeks to affirm only the secure, concrete knowledge of militancy, Clamence indulges his nostalgia for freedom. If only he could have a v "I cannot have the feeling that I have climbed back up again because the fall is henceforth a psychological axis inscribed into my very being: the fall is the fate of my dreams." w "We are going to study the imagination of the fall, then, as a kind of sickness of the imagination of rising, as the unatonable nostalgia for height." " 'The judges punished and the defendants expiated, while I, free of any duty, shielded equally from judgment as from penalty, I freely held sway bathed in a light as of Eden." > "I found nothing but superiorities in myself and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, it was out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me"

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second chance to save the girl from drowning. Yet he is able, also, to find perverse enjoyment in the fact that such a choice is no longer possible. Having analyzed his past failures, de­ termined the cause of his fall, he does not turn toward any­ thing new but actually ratifies his present situation. He chooses, if not his fall, then at least his fallen state; he chooses his guilt: "Mais rassurons-nous! Il est trop tard, maintenant, il sera toujours trop tard. Heureusement!" (i, 1549).2 Such rea­ soning is only a slightly caricatured version of the Sartrean ethic and provides once again a perfect contrast to the ren­ egade's classical mauvaise foi.a We should not be surprised then, having studied Sartre, to find that Clamence, in choosing to accept his present state, goes beyond simple nostalgia for the past to the retrospective devaluation of verticality. He formulates a moral critique that reveals the self-deception underlying serenity, the scorn masked by condescension: "Certains matins, j'instruisais mon proems jusqu'au bout et j'arrivais a la conclusion que j'excellais surtout dans Ie mepris. Ceux memes que j'aidais Ie plus souvent etaient Ie plus meprises" (i, 1517).b Elevated, noble actions must be the result of some effort to achieve superiority: "croyez-moi, cher monsieur, e'est atteindre plus haut que l'ambitieux vulgaire et se hisser a ce point culminant oil la vertu ne se nourrit plus que d'elle-meme" (l, 1485).c There is no question here of the limits in time and space that are so striking in the case of Sisyphus's elevation; being on the heights, in the heights, is associated with comfort and not with moral exigency: "Je parlais justement de ces points culminants, Ies seuls oil je puisse vivre. Oui, je ne me suis jamais senti ά Vaise que dans Ies situations elevees" (i, 1485; ' "But let's not worry! It's too late now. It'll always be too late. Fortu­ nately!" " bad faith b "On certain mornings, I would get up the case against myself most thoroughly, coming to the conclusion that I excelled above all in scorn. The very people I helped most often were the most scorned." c "believe me, dear sir, this is achieving more than the vulgarly ambitious man and rising to that supreme summit where virtue is self-sustaining"

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my italics).d Thus although elevation may be imagined, by the very dynamism of the fall, as a state of superior innocence radically opposed to the present fallen state, it is eventually subject to a relentless examination. Lyrical nostalgia is am­ biguously associated with an ongoing process of retrospective (self-)criticism. What emerges, in particular, from Clamence's analysis is an understanding of the transitiveness of the vertical axis. Weakness, the weakness revealed by the fall, is not opposed to strength in general but to power, to the power of one who stands above. As in Drieu and Barres, and by contrast with the obsessive fictions of "Erostrate," being above means for Clamence not only seeing but being seen by those below: Soyez sur qu'en ce qui me concerne, je ne moisissais pas. A toute heure du jour, en moi-meme et parmi Ies autres, je grimpais sur la hauteur, j'y allumais des feux apparents, et une joyeuse salutation s'elevait vers moi. C'est ainsi, du moins, que je prenais plaisir a la vie et a ma propre excellence. (l, 1486)e There is no aerial, moral purity in such detachment. Even the cross is a place of ambition and exhibitionism: "Mais trop de gens grimpent maintenant sur la croix seulement pour qu'on Ies voie de plus loin, meme s'il faut pour cela pietiner un peu celui qui s'y trouve depuis si longtemps" (i, 1532)/ Nor should we be surprised to find a crowd on the cross: since elevation is the object of a certain moral choice, since it is a means to—or a place of—power, it no longer has the rarity of privilege, the singularity of martyrdom. For Clad

"I was talking, it so happens, of those supreme summits, the only places I can really live. Yes, I have never felt comfortable except in lofty surroundings." e "Rest assured that as far as I was concerned I did not grow moldy. At every hour of the day, within myself and among others, I would scale the heights and light conspicuous fires, and a joyful greeting would rise toward me. Thus at least I took pleasure in life and in my own excellence." ' "But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long."

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mence—and this is another of those moral generalizations whose truth he needs—everyone feels this desire for power: "Je sais bien qu'on ne peut se passer de dominer ou d'etre servi. Chaque homme a besoin d'esclaves comme d'air pur. Commander, c'est respirer, vous etes bien de cet avis?" (i, 1496).823 Through elevation, the "esclaves" and the "air pur" can be had at the same time. In its more actively intellectual forms, domination is readily associated with judgment: this is the kind of nonreciprocal knowledge that can be had from an elevated position. To be above is to be seen and admired but not to be judged: Ma profession . . . me plagait au-dessus du juge que je jugeais a son tour, au-dessus de l'accuse que je forgais a la reconnaissance. Pesez bien cela, cher monsieur: je vivais impunement. Je n'etais concerne par aucun jugement, je ne me trouvais pas sur la scene du tribunal, mais quelque part, dans Ies cintres, comme ces dieux que, de temps en temps, on descend, au moyen d'une machine, pour transfigurer Taction et Iui donner son sens. Apres tout, vivre au-dessus reste encore la seule maniere d'etre vu et salue par Ie plus grand nombre. (l, 1486)h Judgment is in fact the intellectual and moral means by which height is attained and enjoyed. In that sense, far from re­ nouncing his profession, Clamence maintains and reinforces it: having fallen, he looks back to the past and to lost (vertical) innocence, but in judging the past—as Sartre suggests in Les Chemins de la liberie—he achieves superiority over it. By a 8 "I am well aware that one can't get along without dominating or being served. Every man needs slaves as he needs fresh air. Commanding is breathing—you agree with me?" h "My profession . . . set me above the judge whom I judged in turn, above the defendant whom I forced to gratitude. Just consider this, dear sir, I lived with impunity. I was concerned in no judgment; I was not on the floor of the courtroom but somewhere in the flies like those gods that are brought down by machinery from time to time to transfigure the action and give it its meaning. After all, living aloft is still the only way of being seen and hailed by the largest number."

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simple extension of this, in judging the past of others, he finds himself once again in a God-like position among the fallen and the damned: Quelle ivresse de se sentir Dieu Ie pere et de distribuer des certificats definitifs de mauvaise vie et moeurs. Je trone parmi mes vilains anges, a la cime du ciel hollandais, je regarde monter vers moi, sortant des brumes et de 1'eau, la multitude du jugement dernier, (i, 1547)1 It is thus the fall of the other—something actively imagined by Sartre when writing about the novel in general—that oc­ casions the rise of Clamence: Je ne puis m'en passer, ni me priver de ces moments oil l'un d'eux s'ecroule, l'alcool aidant, et se frappe la poitrine. Alorsje grandis, tres cher, je grandis, je respire librement, je suis sur la montagne, la plaine s'etend sous mes yeux. (i, 1547)^24 For this reason, Clamence's fall is not only a catastrophic past event made into an institution by the discourse of guilt; it is also the continuing activity of judging and being judged, the movement of falling and rising.25 Mailhot speaks of a vertical labyrinth: Le monologue de Clamence, son mouvement, sa vie, sont un incessant va-et-vient de bas en haut et de haut en bas, qu'il tente de composer, aux moments Ies plus critiques, avec une marche forcee Ie long des canaux plats d'Amsterdam. Mais son labyrinthe a Iui demeure desesperement vertical.k26 1 "How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits. I sit enthroned among my bad angels at the summit of the Dutch heaven and I watch ascending toward me, as they issue from the mists and the water, the multitude of the Last Judgment." > "I can't do without it or deny myself those moments when one of them collapses, with the help of alcohol, and beats his breast. Then I grow taller, my dear fellow, I grow taller, I breathe freely, I am on the mountain, the plain stretches before my eyes." k "Clamence's monologue, his movement, and his life are an unending

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Mailhot is right to emphasize the involuntary nature of this movement: Clamence, as judge-penitent, continues to be the (consenting) victim of the fall and the rise, without ever find­ ing a stable position above or below. His fall has not simply brought him to earth: it has rather opened up a chasm of guilt and confusion. It is not defeat, the natural end of hubris, so much as the beginning of a radically new enterprise that consists in bringing others down. More than Icarus, he re­ sembles Lucifer, and his two-directional fall can be seen as a vast and pointless floating between earth and sky, a com­ pulsive and empty oscillation between the abjection of pen­ itence and the euphoria of judgment. We are very far indeed, as Mailhot implies, from the measured tread, the human slope of Sisyphus: Nouveau Sisyphe qui nous supplie a son tour de l'imaginer heureux, ce n'est pas une pierre, c'est lui-meme que Ie heros roule de cime en abime, d'un ciel creuse (comme la terre) a un ciel reflete (dans l'eau). Hors de toute fermete, Clamence s'entrouvre et se referme, culbute et se dissout, non pas lie mais nuage.127 As a place for the fallen and the falling, the unrelievedly horizontal world of Clamence's Amsterdam is ambivalent and deceptive. It seems at first to have the negative perfection of hell, with no precarious elevation, no distinctive or obtrusive human presence: Voila, n'est-ce pas, Ie plus beau des paysages negatifs! Voyez, a notre gauche, ce tas de cendres qu'on appelle ici une dune, la digue grise a notre droite, la greve livide a nos pieds et, devant nous, la mer couleur de lessive faible, Ie vaste ciel ou se refletent Ies eaux see-saw from low to high and high to low, which he attempts to remedy, at the most critical moments, by a forced march along the flat canals of Amsterdam. But his labyrinth remains hopelessly vertical." 1 "Like a second Sisyphus who begs us, in his turn, to imagine him as a happy man, the hero rolls not a stone but himself from the summit to the abyss, from hollowed-out heavens (like the earth) to a mirrored sky (in the water). Being quite without firmness, Clamence gapes open and closes up again, somersaults and dissolves, not like an island but like a cloud."

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blemes. Un enfer mou, vraiment! Rien que des horizontales, aucun eclat, l'espace est incolore, la vie morte. N'est-ce pas l'effacement universel, Ie neant sensible aux yeux? Pas d'hommes, surtout, pas d'hommes! (i, 1510)m But the very softness of this "hell" makes it more like limbo: it is a place of clouds, of mists, of downy confusion28—in total contrast, of course, to the mineral qualities of Taghasa, that other hell. Life, or death, in Amsterdam is not absolutely confined to the horizontal plane: doves are said to be hidden in the clouds far above, and their (presumed) presence opens up a vast space of vertical nostalgia: Le ciel vit? Vous avez raison, cher ami. Il s'epaissit, puis se creuse, ouvre des escaliers d'air, ferme des portes de nuees. Ce sont Ies colombes. N'avez-vous pas remarque que Ie ciel de Hollande est rempli de millions de colombes, invisibles tant elles se tiennent haut, et qui battent des ailes, montent et descendent d'un meme mouvement, remplissant l'espace celeste avec des flots epais de plumes grisatres que Ie vent emporte ou ramene. Les colombes attendent la-haut, elles attendent toute l'annee. Elles tournent au-dessus de la terre, regardent, voudraient descendre. Mais il n'y a rien, que la mer et Ies canaux, des toits couverts d'enseignes, et nulle tete ou se poser, (i, 1510-1511)" m "Isn't it the most beautiful negative landscape? Just see on the left that pile of ashes they call a dune here, the grey dyke on the left, the livid beach at our feet and, in front of us, the sea looking like a weak lyesolution with the vast sky reflecting the colorless waters. A flabby hell, indeed! Nothing but horizontal lines, no relief; space is colorless and life dead. Is it not universal obliteration, nothingness made visible? No human beings, above all, no human beings!" " "The sky is alive? You are right, my dear friend. It thickens and then becomes hollow, opens up air shafts and closes cloudy doors. Those are the doves. Haven't you noticed that the sky of Holland is filled with millions of doves, invisible because of their altitude, which flap their wings, rise or fall in unison, filling the heavenly space with dense multitudes of greyish feathers carried hither and thither by the wind. The doves wait up there

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Between the flat earth and the lofty sky, there are only "escaliers d'air"° that allow of no effective human enterprise that might relate them in a positive and stable way. All that is left, in the absence of precise knowledge, is to hope and to remember. There is no encounter of vertical and horizontal, no continuing present of human activity. The renegade, as we saw, was horrified by the possibility of doubt and determined to adhere unquestioningly to one position, whatever it be—fearful, above all, of being between good and evil. Clamence, on the other hand, chooses this intermediary region as a place in which to dwell: "Vous savez . . . que Dante admet des anges neutres dans la querelle entre Dieu et Satan. Et il Ies place dans Ies Limbes, une sorte de vestibule de son enfer. Nous sommes dans Ie ves­ tibule, cher ami" (i, 1516).p He inhabits a nonworld, a place of double exclusion, where he has neither the comfortable ignorance of the primates (see I, 1476) nor the omniscience of God. His chosen "situation" is in fact a malconfort, like the medieval cell he describes to his interlocutor: Elle n'etait pas assez haute pour qu'on s'y tint debout, mais pas assez large pour qu'on put s'y coucher. Il fallait prendre Ie genre empeche, vivre en diagonale; Ie sommeil etait une chute, la veille un accroupissement. (i, 1529)" In this sense, the cramped prison is equivalent to the un­ charted open spaces: it is not possible here either to sleep in ignorance or to stand erect in dignified awareness; one must live uncomfortably between the two positions, forever all year around. They wheel above the earth, look down, and would like to come down. But there is nothing but the sea and the canals, roofs covered with shop-signs, and never a head on which to alight." ° "staircases of air" p "You know . . . that Dante accepts the idea of neutral angels in the quarrel between God and Satan. And he puts them in Limbo, a sort of vestibule of his Hell. We are in the vestibule, dear friend." q "It was not high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down in. One had to take on an awkward manner and live on the diagonal; sleep was a collapse, and waking a squatting."

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falling and crouching. It might be said, indeed, that the axes of commitment are no longer clearly perceptible: we are in the domain of the unresolved and the irresolute. A more positive commitment, one that might be read as continuing the tradition of Sisyphus and answering, in par­ ticular, the perversity of Clamence, can be found in "Jonas" (,UExil et Ie royaume). Jonas the painter lives in a world that has well-defined limits. Essentially, he belongs in his apart­ ment—any attempt to live outside it being characterized as escape (l, 1647)—and the problems of his existence are proper to this space. The particular constraints of this apartment are such as to distinguish it immediately from the malconfort of La Chute: its horizontal exiguity actually requires those who live in it to assume a vertical position: la cuisine voisinait avec Ies commodites et un reduit decore du nom de salle de douches. Il pouvait en effet passer pour tel a la condition d'y installer un appareil, de Ie placer dans Ie sens vertical, et de consentir a recevoir Ie jet bienfaisant dans une immobilite absolue. (I, 1632-1633) On pouvait d'ailleurs, a la rigueur, manger dans la cuisine, pourvu que Jonas, ou Louise, voulut bien se tenir debout. (l, 1633)r The apartment presents us with what might be called, in the context of commitment, a spatial paradox. Normally, the do­ mestic interior is likely to appear as the place of comfortable ignorance, an uncoordinated womb-like space, a nest or co­ coon, in which certain vital problems, especially general ones, are never posed. Here, however, we find that the ver­ tical axis is inscribed within the apartment and that it resists a certain facile domestication. It cannot, for instance, be ' "the kitchen was next to the water closet and a nook graced with the name of shower room. Indeed, it might have been a shower if only the fixture had been installed vertically, and one were willing to stand utterly motionless under the kindly spray." "They could also at a pinch eat in the kitchen, provided that Jonas or Louise was willing to remain standing."

Routine Elevation · 269

simply divided and partitioned by the owners, as the hori­ zontal plane has been, to double the number of apartments (i, 1632). Instead of slouching, formless bourgeois comfort, or Clamence's unending play with discomfort, or the rene­ gade's reckless flight into suffering, we find here a certain resolution of horizontal and vertical, and the possibility that specific problems posed by the apartment as living space will reflect those of the world at large. Now Jonas's art—his vocation as an artist—is associated, by a piece of humdrum symbolism, with his star. The star shines above him, in the sky, in the place of disembodied entities, in the place of those eternal values so scorned by Sartre. Yet it so happens that there may be room for this romantic oddity within the apartment. The ceiling is so high that it cannot be lit by normal, domestic means, in any case: "Jonas avait ete particulierement seduit par la plus grande piece dont Ie plafond etait si haut qu'il ne pouvait etre ques­ tion d'y installer un systeme d'eclairage" (i, 1632).8 In this place, there could be room for starlight, for the artist's lofty vocation, for that relative transcendence that takes one, not into Clamence's heavenly abyss, nor even to Drieu's moun­ tainous roof of the world, but just as far as a high ceiling. Why should we not take the relationship between floor and ceiling here as homologous to that between earth and sky? The world of "Jonas" may be teaching us, not to rail against the sky, nor indeed to claim it as a simple possession, but to understand it in modestly human terms. Jonas is characterized by a "simplicite d'artiste" (l, 1630)' that leads us to suppose that he belongs in the purity of the air, or on the singular vertical axis. His simplicity can be opposed, as we might expect, to the diverse preoccupations of those around him. There is an industrious "ant," his wife (l, 1629), who, like his friend Rateau, bears a name (Poulin) that has animal connotations. Both she and Rateau are small, " "Jonas had been particularly entranced by the largest room, the ceiling of which was so high that there could be no question of installing a lighting system." 1 "artist's simplicity"

270 * Routine Elevation

energetic, and practical (see I , 1629), whereas Jonas is tall (l, 1629) and absent-minded. The horizontal plane, the floor of the apartment, then tends to become the domain of mul­ tiplicity—"Rateau, de son cote, avait multiplie Ies installa­ tions ingenieuses" (l, 1633)"—being crowded with children, paintings, and especially visitors. This is where Louise works out her vocation: "La vocation de Louise etait l'activite" (l, 1629)." It is likely to be the place of her active, plural in­ tellectuality: Elle lisait tout, sans ordre, et devint, en peu de semaines, capable de parler de tout. (l, 1629) Elle se devoua aussitot aux arts plastiques, courut musees et expositions, y traina Jonas qui comprenait mal ce que peignaient ses contemporains et s'en trouvait gene dans sa simplicite d'artiste. (i, 1630)w Now this arrangement, in all its whimsical facility, is not allowed simply to endure; it comes under pressure because of the spatial constraints of the apartment: "La naissance des enfants, Ie nouveau metier de Jonas, Ieur installation etroite [etc.] ne laissaient qu'un champ restreint a la double activite de Louise et de Jonas" (i, 1631; my italics)." Will there be room in the same living space for the star and the children? Or, if we continue to take the apartment as a representation of the world, will there be room in a crowded and busy community for such diverse vocations? "Chacun son etabli," u "For his part, Rateau had produced a multiplicity of ingenious inven­ tions." v "Louise's vocation was activity." " "She read everything without order, and in a few weeks became capable of talking about everything." "She dedicated herself at once to the visual arts, visited museums and exhibitions, dragged Jonas to them although he didn't quite understand what his contemporaries were painting and felt bothered in his artistic simplicity." " "The birth of the children, Jonas's new occupation, their restricted quarters [etc.] left only limited room for the double activity of Louise and Jonas."

Routine Elevation * 271

says Louise (l, 1631),y but where can the workbenches be built? "Le probleme de l'espace vital Temportait de loin, pourtant, sur Ies autres problemes du menage, car Ie temps et l'espace se retrecissaient du meme mouvement, autour d'eux" (i, 1631).2 It hardly suffices to know that art is an "elevated" preoccupation and shopping, for instance, a "lowly" if respectable one: some specific modus vivendi needs to be worked out, and the function of the apartment is to make this problem progressively more acute. Despite the vagueness of his dreams and his futile attempts to escape, Jonas comes to see more and more clearly that "II etait difficile de peindre Ie monde et Ies hommes et, en meme temps, de vivre avec eux" (i, 1640).a The problems of espace vital" exist, in fact—such is the microcosmic completeness of this place—on both axes. Not only is there clutter on the horizontal plane, there is uncom­ fortable and insecure vertical movement: La hauteur vraiment extraordinaire des plafonds, et TexiguYte des pieces, faisaient de cet appartement un Strange assemblage de parallelepipedes presque entierement vitres, tout en portes et en fenetres, oii Ies meubles ne pouvaient trouver d'appui et oil Ies etres, perdus dans la lumiere blanche et violente, semblaient ftotter comme des ludions dans un aquarium vertical, (i, 1633; my italics)0 This dimension of Jonas's situation is rather like that of Clamence's fall. Yet what he lacks is already more clearly api "each of us has his workbench" ' "The problem of living space was, however, by far the greatest of their problems, for time and space shrank simultaneously around them." * "It was hard to paint the world and men and, at the same time, to live with them." b living space 0 "The really extraordinary height of the ceilings and the narrowness of the rooms made of the apartment an odd assortment of parallelepipeds almost entirely glassed in, all doors and windows, with no place to stand the furniture, and with the human beings floating about like bottle imps in a vertical aquarium."

272 * Routine Elevation

parent: he needs an appui, a place to stand—which Clamence never finds and probably never seeks—a point of balance and stability at which he can pause. To the double problem of crowding and floating, Jonas finds a precisely adequate solution. He finds the only possible standpoint, the only conceivable working- and resting-place that could reconcile the conflicting exigencies of his situation. With an admirably geometrical logic that responds to the terms of the problem—"cubage," "volume," "surface" (i, 1631—1632), "parallelepipedes" (i, 1633), "carre du ciel dessine par la cour" (l, 1635)d—he builds a loft α mi-hauteur (l, 1649),e half-way between the floor and the ceiling, the earth and sky. He is now exactly half-way between the de­ mands of commitment and detachment. It is indeed, as he says with resolute, if rather tired, optimism: "une tres bonne solution" (i, 1649).f The loft is not flooded by light or noise: it has the "ombre" and the "demi-silence'' of a desert or a tomb (i, 1649; my italics).8 He has an experience of distance without absence, of (partial) detachment without abstraction: Les seuls bruits qu'il entendait directement venaient de la cuisine ou des toilettes. [The contrast with "Erostrate" is clear.] Les autres rumeurs semblaient Iointaines et Ies visites, Ies sonneries de l'entree et du tele­ phone, Ies allees et venues, Ies conversations, Iui parvenaient etouffees a moitie, comme si elles arrivaient de la rue ou de l'autre cour. (i, 1649; my italics)11 It is hard for us, of course, to accept this absurdly simple, fifty-fifty "solution" to the problems of commitment. It seems rather to be their reductio ad absurdum, the ultimately sod

"cubage," "volume," "surface"; "parallelepipeds"; "the square of sky outlined by the court" e "half-way up" ' "a very good solution" 8 "shade; "half-silence" h "The only direct sounds he heard came from the kitchen or the lavatory. The other noises seemed distant, and the visits, the ringing of the doorbell and the telephone, the comings and goings, the conversations, reached him half-muffled, as if they came from out on the street or from the farther court."

Routine Elevation * 273

phisticated, humorous comment on the thematics of verticality and horizontality. Yet we would do well to note that Jonas's geometry does have some ironic force as an answer to the more spectacular or lyrical forms of commitment found, for instance, in Drieu and Barres and parodied in Sartre. Instead of polemical caricature—discernible not only in "Erostrate" but in "Le Renegat" and La Chute—we find here a kind of resolute mediocrity, a grimly optimistic determination to mark the place of art in relation to other human activity. While excluding the metaphysical verticality of heaven and hell, of the axis mundi, "Jonas" affirms the desire to achieve more— a little more—than routine horizontality. Not for him the totalist, and usually totalitarian, drama that consumes a whole succession of Camusian characters: Caligula, Nada (UEtat due siege), the renegade, Clamence. Like Sisyphus, and like most of the characters in La Peste, he addresses himself to the most pressingly concrete problems. The loft built by Jonas is neither an eagle's nest nor a malconfort: it is simply a slightly elevated living space with its own internal dimensions, one that continues to include, despite its strictly punctual situation in space, some kind of verticality. It is "etroite, quoique haute et profonde" (i, 1649).' Jonas is thus able to stay in it for a time, having at last achieved immobility and darkness. "II restait immobile, dans l'obscurite, la journee entiere" (i, 1650).]29 Early in the story, he would say naively of his good fortune, "C'est une chance qui continue" (l, 1627),k as if it had never had a beginning. Now, he knows that he has to stop in order to begin again more deliberately: "II avait une grande oeuvre, vraiment nouvelle, k faire; tout allait recommencer. En parlant, il sentit qu'il disait vrai et que son etoile etait la. Il suffisait d'une bonne organisation" (l, 1646).1 The relative discretion, the ' "narrow, but high and deep" ' "he remained motionless in the darkness all day long." k "It's the same old [continuing] luck." 1 "He had a great work, really new, to create; everything was going to begin all over again. As he was talking to her, he felt that he was telling the truth and that his star was there. All he needed was a well-organized system"

274 * Routine Elevation

intermittent presence, of the star is such that it is there to be found, unlike the inhumanly powerful sun of Le Renigat whose presence or absence seems brutally decisive for all forms of awareness. To see his star again, to have it emerge from the shadows, Jonas has to develop a clear understanding of the significance of his activity: "II fallait qu'il decouvre ce qu'il n'avait pas encore compris clairement, bien qu'il l'eut toujours su, et qu'il eut toujours peint comme s'il Ie savait" (l, 1650)."1 By giving him the time and space in which to do this, the loft represents for Jonas the possibility of genuine commitment.30 At the end of this period of withdrawal and reflection, we see Jonas fall. He does not fall forever, as Clamence does: he merely collapses from human weakness, from lack of food and lack of sleep. His fall is only a form of punctuation: it does not mark the drastic end of a previous existence. We are told, in fact, that the world is "encore la, jeune, adorable" (l, 1652)" and that he will get better (l, 1652). He says, it is true, that he will never work again, but we ought no doubt to read this as a sign of catharsis, the measure of his satis­ faction. Has he not managed, after all, to see his star once again in the darkness? Has he not, by virtue of this inspi­ ration, produced a (verbal) painting that is one of the more succinct examples of the "literature of commitment"? Rateau regardait la toile, entierement blanche, au centre de laquelle Jonas avait seulement ecrit, en tres petits caracteres, un mot qu'on pouvait dechiffrer, mais dont on ne savait s'il fallait y lire solitaire ou solidaire. (I, 1652)° m "He still had to discover what he had not yet clearly understood, although he had always known it and had always painted as if he knew it." " "still there, young and lovable" ° "Rateau was looking at the canvas, completely blank, in the center of which Jonas had merely written in very small letters a word that could be made out, but without any certainty as to whether it should be read solitary or solidary."

Routine Elevation · 275

His new work is, as I have attempted to show elsewhere,31 a more complex and ambiguous solution than the construction of the loft, but it continues to relate the solitaire of detachment to the solidaire of commitment, not allowing us to choose one at the expense of the other. And space is not forgotten: each of these inseparable—but nonetheless resolved—terms con­ tains the spatial elements sol and air* in which the drama of commitment has been traditionally played out. The fatality of the human situation "frames" this understanding, just as the apartment frames Jonas's whole existence; yet within the experience of exiguity, there is a limited but nonetheless decisively different range of options. Between the floor and the ceiling lies the margin of freedom, and Jonas the artist uses his freedom to stand half-way, affirming the need for both. Following "Jonas," and completing the collection L'Exil et Ie royaume, "La Pierre qui pousse" continues to elaborate, although in a rather different way, the positive imagination of commitment. By its geographical setting, it may seem to be closer to "Le Renegat" and La Chute than to "Jonas." Indeed, we find here not only a kind of exoticism that might readily be associated with escape from routine constraints but also some of the marks of traditional privilege, of the freedom to approach and enter the world of others from a superior position. Yet d'Arrast's travel is unmistakably a (hes­ itant and uncertain) search for integration and his privilege a mere remnant of the kind of initial superiority found, for instance, in the work of Drieu. He has the name of an aris­ tocrat, it is true, but this is a virtually empty inheritance, as we see in his conversation with the cook: —Mais tu es seigneur. Socrate me l'a dit. —Moi, non. Mais mon grand-pere l'etait. Son pere aussi et tous ceux d'avant son pere. Maintenant, il n'y a plus de seigneurs dans nos pays. —Ah! dit Ie Noir en riant, je comprends, tout Ie monde est seigneur. p

"ground"; "air"

276 * Routine Elevation

—Non, ce n'est pas cela. Il n'y a ni seigneurs ni peuple. (l, 1667; my italics)'1 The society from which he comes is in fact an undifferentiated world governed by police and merchants (i, 1667). Now we can relate the social perspective to the geographical here in a way that is strangely reminiscent, at first glance, of L'Homme a cheval. South America—Camus' Brazil or Drieu's Bolivia—contrasts with Europe by its marked differentiation of upper and lower classes. Between the aristocracy and the people, as here between d'Arrast and the cook, there can be a kind of non-bourgeois or antibourgeois complicity: "Acheter et vendre, hein! Quelle salete!" (i, 1667)/ The vital difference between the two stories is that whereas L'Homme a cheval maintains and glorifies a vast social gap as the space to be played on by the artists of commitment, "La Pierre qui pousse" focuses on the relatively narrow but nonetheless quite precise margin that separates a tawdry group of "notables" from the desperate horizontality of the poorest people. Instead of the palatial cliff-top salon, we find a "club" that is "une sorte de petit bar au premier etage, meuble d'un comptoir de bambous et de gueridons en tole" (i, 1662);8 the balcony of privileged observation is found, not above an abyss, but on the first floor of a judge's or a mayor's residence (i, 1677, 1679). Faced with this difference, d'Arrast the vestigial aristocrat is not content to settle comfortably in the lowly heights, en­ joying the unimpressive superiority of the "notables." He is less interested in the club than in the situation of the poor people, those who live, both socially and spatially, at the lowest level. When he asks to visit one of their huts, he sees, q

" 'But you're a noble. Socrates told me.' 'Not I. But my grandfather was. His father too and all those before his father. Now there is no more nobility in our country.' 'Ah!' the black said, laughing. Ί understand; everybody is a noble.' 'No, that's not it. There are neither noblemen nor common people.' " ' "Buying and selling, eh! What filth! " • "a sort of small bar on the first floor furnished with a bamboo counter and iron caf6 tables"

Routine Elevation - 277

not the "choses tres interessantes"' promised absurdly by the "commandant" who is escorting him (i, 1664), but precisely a certain absence that is a sign of the fundamental. There are no picturesque objects, only the bare earth and minimal fur­ niture: Dans la case, d'Arrast ne vit d'abord rien qu'un feu mourant, a meme Ie sol, au centre exact de la piece. Puis, il distingua dans un coin, au fond, un lit de cuivre au sommier nu et defonce, une table dans l'autre coin, couverte d'une vaisselle de terre et, entre Ies deux, une sorte de treteau ou tronait un chromo representant saint Georges. Pour Ie reste, rien qu'un tas de loques, a droite de l'entree et, au plafond, quelques pagnes multicolores qui sechaient au-dessus du feu. D'Arrast, immobile, respirait l'odeur de fumee et de misere qui montait du sol et Ie prenait a la gorge. (l, 1664)" Visibly, this is the place of "les plus pauvres" (i, 1665),v of those who live right at the surface of the earth. To enter fully into their world seems very difficult indeed, not because the initial situation of the notable or the aristocrat is one of lofty superiority, but because this horizontality is so pure and so radical. To reach this level, one would need to attain the absolutely rudimentary, the very perfection of simplicity.32 So it is that, in keeping with "Jonas," the vertical axis is dramatically important—it is the space to be crossed by an act of commitment—while being in fact of quite unspectacular proportions. Limited verticality is once again a given of the 1 "very

interesting things" "In the hut, D'Arrast saw nothing at first but a dying fire built right on the ground in the exact center of the room. Then in a back corner he made out a brass bed with a bare, broken mattress, a table in the other corner covered with earthenware dishes, and, between the two, a sort of stand supporting a color print representing St. George. Nothing else but a pile of rags to the right of the entrance and, hanging from the ceiling, a few loincloths of various colors drying over the fire. Standing still, D'Arrast breathed in the smell of smoke and poverty that rose from the ground and took hold of him." v "the poorest" u

278 * Routine Elevation

situation, being "given" in fact not by any particular political or economic force identified in the text, but by material, atmospheric conditions: the oppressive, all-enveloping hu­ midity of the place is such that the sky, the stars, the build­ ings, the birds—all the symbols of elevation—seem to suffer from an insurmountable fatigue: Dans Ie ciel noir tremblaient des etoiles embuees. (i, 1656) . . . il regardait sans Ies voir Ies etoiles extenuees qui nageaient encore dans Ie ciel humide. (l, 1658) . . . un vol fatigue d'urubus depenailles (l, 1659) Au-dessus de la foret, Ies rares etoiles du ciel austral, estompees par une brume invisible, luisaient faiblement. L'air humide etait lourd. (i, 1676)" The stars that might have been a guide for the traveler or a call to higher things are simply extinguished and washed out of the sky: Le ciel, d'un noir pale, semblait encore liquide. Dans son eau transparente et sombre, bas sur l'horizon, des etoiles commengaient de s'allumer. Elles s'eteignaient presque aussitot, tombaient une a une dans Ie fleuve, comme si Ie ciel degouttait de ses dernieres lumieres. (I, 1671)" The buildings and the central square itself—"la place defoncee que la faible hauteur des maisons qui l'entouraient " "In the black sky stars flickered/trembled." ". . . without really seeing them, he was looking at the faint/exhausted stars still swimming in the damp sky" ". . . a tired flight of ragged urubus" "Above the forest the few stars in the austral sky, blurred by an invisible haze, were glowing dimly. The humid air was heavy." x "The pale-black sky still seemed liquid. In its transparent dark water, stars began to light up, low on the horizon. Almost at once they flickered out, falling one by one into the river as if the last lights were trickling from the sky."

Routine Elevation * 279

faisait paraltre encore plus vaste" (i, 1669)y—seem to slump beneath this weight. In such conditions, the flight of a bird can have no romantic force; it is merely a comically meas­ urable fiasco: une chaleur humide ecrasait la ville et la foret immobile. Le ciel, d'un bleu presque franc, pesait au ras des pre­ miers toits eteints. Des urubus jaunatres dormaient, figes par la chaleur, sur la maison qui faisait face a l'hopital. L'un d'eux s'ebroua tout d'un coup, ouvrit Ie bee, prit ostensiblement ses dispositions pour s'envoler, claqua deux fois ses ailes poussiereuses contre son corps, s'eleva de quelques centimetres au-dessus du toit, et retomba pour s'endormir presque aussitot. (l, 1676; my italics)2 "Quelques centimetres":" such is the extent of lyrical verticality in the world of "La Pierre qui pousse." With respect to this atmospheric oppression, it might seem that the poorest people, by the very horizontality of their existence, occupy a position of stability, if not exactly of strength. They too, however, are threatened, threatened by water in its more visibly aggressive, its more muscular, form (see I, 1656). The huts are built just above the level of the river and are in constant danger of being flooded or even washed away: "il avait fallu consolider J 'He bumps into the Second Englishman with his elbow as he is walking along." k "I reached the ridge of the invisible roof where space and time come together, and I touched it with my forehead. I gazed to the right, to the left, behind and in front of me."

330 * Refueing to Co Down

the whole tradition of commitment makes use of it; but the difference with Berenger's flight is one of proportion: he goes right to the roof of the universe. The fact of coming to this high point marks both the gran­ diose nature of Berenger's enterprise and what we are obliged to call the limits of transcendence. Instead of the Roof of the World, the place on which one stands to possess the earth as a whole (L'Homme ά cheval), his flight takes him only as far as the ceiling.31 As Ross Chambers says, "L'experience ionescoi'enne se solde done par un echec: on ne s'envole pas, on va se cogner la tete contre Ie mur invisible du neant."132 Jonas, too, lived in a space whose limits were defined by a floor and a ceiling, but Berenger, in his desire for detachment, actually tests one of these limits and suffers the bitter dis­ appointment of not being able to escape from the world.33 "Envole-nous, plus loin que l'autre cote, plus loin que Ies Enfers," says his wife, but the answer comes: "Helas! je ne peux pas, mes cheries. Apres, il n'y a plus rien" (p. 197).m He cannot go beyond the world, beyond hell, to the point of crossing over into the antiworld. Berenger's final choice, at the end of his exploit, at the end of his exaltation, is to come down again: Ire ANGLAISE: Il aurait pu rester la-haut tant qu'il aurait voulu. Ire V. ANGLAISE: Moi, je ne serais pas redescendue. lie ANGLAISE: C'est qu'il a de la famille, cet homme.

(p. 190)" Even in defeat, especially in defeat, he has the opportunity to reaffirm a certain belonging with those below, to deny the 1 "In Ionesco's world, the experiment ends in failure: one doesn't fly away, one ends up bumping one's head against the invisible wall of the void." m "Fly us away, much further away, to the other side of Hell"; "I'm afraid I cannot, my darlings. After that, there's nothing." " "FIRST ENGLISHWOMAN: He could have stayed up there as long as he liked. FIRST ELDERLY ENGLISHWOMAN: / wouldn't have come down. SECOND ENGLISHWOMAN: But the man's got a family."

Refusing to Go Down * 331

absolute disjunction of air and earth, prophet and crowd— the frozen imagery of the ivory tower or the icy mountain. He gives new force to his early statement—"Moi, je veux rester un pieton de terre et un pieton de l'air" (p. 169)°—affirming a kind of mobile immanence, which is a form of (double) solidarity, both with his pedestrian family and with grandiose, high-flying literature.34 Once again, as with Rhinoceros, this text finds its place in—or adjacent to—the domain of com­ mitment by affirming with great force the impossibility of ultimate detachment. ° "I want to be a pedestrian of the earth and of the air."

CONCLUSION

_n_JTJ~L EXTENSIONS THE ROLE of a conclusion can be, quite properly, to show precisely how a study is unfinished, or to indicate at least how it might be pursued into adjacent areas. In this sense, certain additions can serve at the same time as exclusions— we can half-study what is not going to be studied fully—and as a kind of completion, sketching in some fuller knowledge, referring to a larger thematic "whole." In particular, it seems natural, or at least possible, to move from the work done thus far to a more comprehensive and complex thematics of de­ tachment, where a number of other texts would presumably be situated in relation to La Chartreuse de Parme, Rhinoceros, and Le Pieton de Pair. Jean Giono's Le Hussard sur Ie toit could be read, for instance, as an anachronistic reprise of La Chartreuse, showing a noble, lightheaded Italian hero, appropriately named Angelo, caught in the midst of a plague, where the plague is a source not of metaphysical anguish or even of routine misery, as in La Peste, but essentially of adventure. More decisively, a thematics of detachment could begin to take shape through a study of the works of Nietzsche. It will no doubt have struck the reader already that Nietzsche's work, although not discussed in this study, has been treated, albeit diffusely and intermittently, as a point of reference. There is in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for instance, a whole complex of themes adjacent to commitment but never coinciding with it. Nietzsche speaks of the mountain and the valley, of flight and down-going (untergehen1), of scorn for the lowly and desire for a kind of sacrifice. It is always a matter of being faithful to the earth, of not going beyond the stars; but one

Conclusion * 333

must also love distance for itself, refusing that kind of (Chris­ tian) martyrdom that Nietzsche calls death-in-society. More than anything else, perhaps, he is compelled by the dynamism of la vue plongeante,2 the aggressive look—akin to the flight of the eagle—that plunges downward in order to rise up all the more powerfully. The look is not therefore a form of contemplation that allows one to develop knowledge about a spatio-temporal object—some morally neutral "world" of the plain—but a means of conflict: that which opposes (and cou­ ples) high and low, mountain-top and abyss, superman and dwarf. The duties and the obligations of commitment give way to the compulsion of overflowing desire. Yet the study of Nietzsche's work is, so to speak, twice removed from the center of our thematic focus: it involves a linguistic-cultural competence that is neither claimed by me nor required of my reader. In order to pursue it with some methodological consistency, we should no doubt need to make an incursion into the domain of "comparative literature," not in the futile hope of grasping with both hands the current of Nietzschean "influence" but in order to develop an organized understanding of how Nietzsche's texts are read, or taken as read, in the works of such French writers as Barres, Drieu la Rochelle, or Romain Rolland. We would need, eventually, to define what they mean by "Nietzsche." A more manageable task—and one that we are therefore able to sketch in a little more fully—would be the study of those texts that could be considered to be classically and polemically concerned with detachment in the French tra­ dition. In this regard, one thinks of Julien Benda's La Trahison des clercs or Romain Rolland's Au-dessus de la melee. Yet Benda's essay is likely to be rather unrewarding for our kind of thematics: its rationalist stance is affirmed and con­ firmed, no doubt, not by the absence of all that is imaginative but by the sparing and even sober use of the traditional imagery of detachment. On the other hand, Rolland's essay, with its relatively flamboyant—and precisely, spatial—title, seems grist for the mill. It stops short, however, of any fulsome imagination of verticality: the position of detachment seems

334 * Conclusion

merely to be proclaimed by the title and taken for granted by the rest of the work. It is only in retrospect, and from the critical point of view of one who has since espoused the values of commitment, that Rolland comes to examine more closely the spatial understanding of detachment implicit in his earlier work. In Quinze ans de combats,3 he writes: "Ce n'est qu'en aout 1914 que je suis entre, bien malgre moi, dans la poli­ tique. Jusqu'alors j'etais impregne de l'ideologie de mon temps et de ma classe, que je denonce a la fin de cette Introduction, l'ideologie de I'homme abstrait, detache (on disait alors, li­ bera) des contingences de la vie politique et sociale" (p. v; his italics).8 From this (new) position, Benda's "Clericature de l'esprit ego'istement detachee des devoirs de la communaute"b is denounced without equivocation: "je ne dirai ja­ mais assez l'aversion que m'inspire cette idolatrie de I'Esprit in abstracto, qui Ie deracine du sol ou il prend vie, et qui, en meme temps que des risques et des responsabilites du reel, Ie retranche de la puissante seve sans laquelle il n'est qu'une larve degoutante" (p. l).c What is at stake is human integrity—"L'homme integral, non plus abstrait, mais retrempe dans la fontaine de la vie reelle, de la vie complete" (p. viii)d—and this is to be achieved, as in Barres, by the vegetable life of the mind: Il [l'auteur] s'obstina, pendant des annees, a defendre cette liberte abstraite de l'esprit, sans prendre garde que, pour que ce fantome prit substance, il fallait d'a• "Not until 1914 did I enter, and then very much despite myself, the domain of the political. Until that time I had been impregnated with the ideology of my times and my class, which I denounce at the end of this Introduction, the ideology of abstract man, detached (people then would have said freed) from the contingencies of political and social life." b "Clerical order of the mind selfishly detached from community duties" c "I cannot overstate the feeling of aversion provoked in me by this idolatry of the Mind in abstracto, which uproots it from the soil that sustains it, cutting it off from the risks and the responsibilities of reality, as well as from the potent sap, without which it would be nothing more than a disgusting grub." d "the whole man, no longer abstract, but steeped again in the fountain of real life, complete life"

Conclusion * 335

bord Iui conquerir, Iui labourer Ie terrain ou l'idee-plante s'enracinat. Il n'etait pourtant pas sans Ie pressentir: car, dans Ie meme temps, il avait pris parti pour la Revolution qui prenait d'assaut et retournait rudement la vaste terre. Mais il persistait a revendiquer, pour l'arbre-liberte, Ie droit de ne pas dependre de ce champ de labour—autant dire: de demeurer, Ies racines en l'air! (pp. vi—vii)e Here, detachment is defined in retrospect as being both im­ poverished and aberrant—as if one of the distinguishing marks of earthly commitment were a lively and vigorous imagination. In the context of a thematics of detachment, there ought then to be a place comparable to that occupied by Rhinoceros in the present work: just as Ionesco's play reduces and sim­ plifies commitment—collapsing, in particular, the distinction between commitment and militancy, and claiming for its hero the virtues of authentic imagination—so would certain texts be seen to diminish detachment. We have already witnessed this, of course, in the polemical writings of Sartre, Nizan, Mounier, and now Rolland, but it may well be—and this is where a thematics of detachment would need to break new ground—that an attack on detachment need not entail the advocacy of commitment as we have defined it. Paul Bourget's Le Disciple4 may in fact be an example of this. The novel's hero, Adrien Sixte, lives in an elevated situation that is seen as the typical place of the intellectual: M. Sixte avait cede a une Ioi generate quoique inexpliquee de la nature meditative. Presque tous Ies cloitres ne sont-ils pas batis dans des endroits qui permettent e "The author went on stubbornly for years defending this abstract free­ dom of the mind, without realizing that, in order for this ghostly entity to have substance, one had to conquer and till the land in which the plantidea would strike root. Yet it was not as if he had no inkling of this: at the same time, he had opted for the Revolution that was attacking and manhandling the vast earth. But he went on claiming for the tree-freedom the right not to depend on this ploughed field—in other words: to be left with its roots up in the air!"

336 * Conclusion

d'embrasser par Ie regard une grande quantite d'espace? Peut-etre ces vues dimesurees et confuses favorisent-elles Ies concentrations de la pensee que distrairait un detail trop voisin, trop circonstancie? Peut-etre Ies solitaires trouvent-ils une volupte de contraste entre Ieur inaction songeuse et 1'ampleur du champ ou se developpe l'activite des autres hommes? (p. 6; my italics)' Clearly, this elevation is suspect in the world of Le Disciple. It is likely to be a source of confusion and abstraction. De­ tachment, we are led to understand, makes for a certain quality of ignorance. In the confused view of the intellectual, abstraction and reality are inverted, so "la realite quotidienne" becomes "une ombre, une epreuve grossiere et degradee des Iois invisibles" (p. 20).g In keeping with this, Sixte's disciple Greslou claims to know and describe the laws of human behavior without being subject to social codes. In his paradigmatic observation, he considers himself, like so many others we have seen, to be free from syntagmatic de­ termination. Yet this imagination of freedom comes to have all the force, in Bourget's novel, of a scandal; the criminal young intellectual believes himself to be above the law: "Ce fut 1ά . . . que Ie grand principe de ma vie a pris naissance: —ne pas considerer comme une loi, pour nous autres qui pensons, ce qui est et doit etre une loi pour ceux qui ne pensent pas" (pp. 78-79).h Now Robert Greslou, unlike his intellectual master, is not "independently" wealthy: he finds himself, out of material 1 "M. Sixte had yielded to a law of contemplative natures that is quite general even though it is unexplained. Are not almost all cloisters built in spots that allow one to look out over a great quantity of space? Perhaps these excessive and confused views are favorable to some concentration of thought that would be distracted by detail that was too adjacent or too circumstantial? Perhaps solitary people delight in the contrast between their pensive inactivity and the breadth of the field in which the activity of other men is carried on?" 8 "daily reality"; "a shadow, a crude and degraded reproduction of the invisible laws" h "That is where . . . the great principle of my life was born:—not to take as a law, for those of us who are thinkers, that which is and must be a law for those who do not think"

Conclusion - 337

necessity, in a situation in which his desire to experiment and, paradoxically, his unconscious passion lead to crime. Not only does he have immoral principles; he fails ultimately to observe what is happening around him: "Je me croyais un grand observateur parce que je reflechissais beaucoup. Les arguties de mes analyses m'en cachaient la faussete. Il ne fallait pas reflechir a cette epoque. Il fallait regarder" (p. 250).1 Abstraction is therefore to be opposed to looking, and this is the lesson that Sixte must also learn. Aquiline obser­ vation is an impossibility in the world of Le Disciple; reality must be seen at close hand, people must be seen face to face: Cette sinistre histoire d'une seduction si bassement poussee, d'une trahison si noire, d'un suicide si melancolique Ie mettait face a face avec la plus affreuse vision: celle de sa pensee agissante et corruptrice, Iui qui avait vecu dans Ie renoncement volontaire et avec un ideal quotidien de purete. (p. 264)" Only then can imagination begin to work; only then can true, concrete knowledge occur: Pour tout dire, jamais Ie theoricien rigoureux des passions, l'anatomiste minutieux de la volonte, n'avait regarde bien en face une creature de chair et d'os; en sorte que Ie memoire de Robert Greslou ne se trouvait pas seulement parler a sa conscience d'honnete homme. Il devait mordre et il mordait sur !'imagination du philosophe a la maniere dont la clarte du soleil mord sur la pupille d'un malade opere soudain de la cataracte. (p. 266; my italics; see also pp. 297—298)k ' "I thought myself to be a great observer because I spent a lot of time in reflection. Because my arguments were so fussily made, I failed to see the falsity of my analyses. Reflection was not what was required at that time. I should have been looking." ' "This sinister story of seduction taken to its vilest extreme, of blackest treachery and of melancholy suicide brought him face to face with the most dreadful vision: that of his actively corrupting thought, when he had lived in self-denial, with purity as his daily ideal." k "To tell the whole truth, the rigorous theoretician of passions, the painstaking anatomist of will had never really looked a creature of flesh

338 * Conclusion

If we seek a more positive elaboration of detachment, it is to be found in Henry de Montherlant's Service inutile.5 For although this work presents the disadvantage of being a series of essays written over a long period—and may therefore be suspected of lacking the extensive narrative cohesion of a fictional text—it dispays a rich collection of appropriately spatial images that allow it to be read as a full-fledged imag­ inative adversary of the essays of Sartre and Nizan. The essential principle of Service inutile is stated without equivocation: "l'essentiel est la hauteur. Elle vous tiendra lieu de tout. En elle je comprends Ie detachement, car com­ ment prendre de la hauteur, sans se detacher?" (p. 207).1 He imagines, in much the same terms, the moral and the mystical dimensions of life, the haughty and the lofty. "Une vie spirituelle" begins, we are told, with 'Tabnegation des interets du monde" (p. 16)m and the refusal to "guignoler selon Ie siecle" (p. 25).n But such hauteur is not necessarily stable— and not, in any case, something to be simply conserved: "II faut etre fou de hauteur, car, l'etant, on degringole encore tant et plus. Que sera-ce done, si on ne l'est pas!" (p. 207).° There is a risk of falling, either into the abyss of catastrophe and damnation—"l'abime auquel j'ai echappe" (p. 20)p— or down the easy slope of indignity and dependence: "chercher a plaire est la pente la plus glissante pour piquer droit vers Ie plus bas niveau" (p. 206).q and blood squarely in the face·, so that Robert Greslou's thesis did not simply speak to his conscience as a man of high morals. It acted imme­ diately on the philosopher's imagination, like sunlight acting suddenly on the pupil of a patient who has just had a cataract removed." 1 "the key thing is height/haughtiness/nobility. Nothing more is required. By it, I also understand detachment, for how can one be haughty without being detached?" m "A spiritual life"; "renouncing worldly interests" " "indulge in the secular Punch and Judy show" ° "We must be obsessed with height, for, even when we are, we always seem to be tumbling down. How much worse it will be, then, if we are not!" p "the abyss that I avoided" q "trying to please people is a greasy slope down which one slides directly to the lowest level"

Conclugion * 339

To answer the tendencies and temptations that threaten to draw us down into the secular, political world, we need to see things from above: "La question sociale et la question politique sont sur un plan qui n'est pas celui de l'esprit. Elles doivent, malgre tout, etre regardees de haut" (p. 186).r Malgre tout, despite the strength of one's "attaches" (p. 20),8 one must make the moral, spiritual effort necessary to achieve height, to "gravir la montagne de Lucrece" (p. 188).' This provides, not the prospection of action, but the reduction of its "field" to an undifferentiated and insignificant spot, a mere source of distant clamor: Il y a quelques vers de Lucrece que certains hommes n'oublient pas aisement. "Dans Ie Champ de Mars, ditil, Ies cavaliers voltigent autour des armees. Et pourtant il est un endroit, en haut des monts, d'ou ils semblent au repos, d'ou Ton n'apergoit qu'une tache eclatante immobile dans la plaine." (p. 181) De quelque part, en bas, Ie roulement des tambours de la passion nous arrivera avec une voix sourde, sans plus de bruit que Ie murmure d'un silence qu'on entendrait; et la confusion du monde, detachee de nous et tombee en arriere, ne sera plus qu'une nebuleuse de mensonge roulant dans la profondeur du passe, (p. 189)" Service inutile presents a self-consciously aristocratic view of the world, but aristocracy is defined here by its preoccu' "Social and political matters are on a plane that is not that of the mind. They must, in spite of everything, be seen from aloft" ' "ties" 1 "climb Lucretius' mountain" u 'There are a few lines in Lucretius that certain men are unlikely to forget. 'In the field of Mars,' he says, 'horsemen flutter around armies. And yet there is a spot, at the top of the mountains, from which they appear to be at rest, a spot from which one notices only a brightly colored patch standing still on the plain.' " "From somewhere below, the roll of the drums of passion will reach us in muffled form, with no more noise than the murmur at the heart of silence; and the confusion of the world, having been detached from us and fallen away behind, will be no more than a nebula of lies rolling away into the depth of the past."

340 * Conclusion

pations rather than by its place in a social hierarchy. Montherlant's mountain, unlike the hill of La Colline inspiree, is not a place of preeminence: it is of another order. Being an aristocrat, then, means being subject to certain kinds of (spir­ itual) exigency, having at the same time a sense of belonging above and of a duty to climb. It is a matter, as Montherlant says, not just of attaining the heights but of possessing them, of possessing one's proper place, of possessing oneself: "prend[rej ses hauteurs" (p. 181; my italics)." The leadership so valued by the "right-wing" commitment of Barr£s and Drieu is, for Montherlant, a form of derision: "ces hommes qui menent, parce qu'il y a encore des gens—misereor super duces—qui croient que Ie pouvoir est un bien";w such leaders are no more worthy of respect than the masses that follow them (p. 182). It is no doubt admirable, in fact, to be a born leader, but the actual leader is always the prisoner of his troops (p. 200, n. 6). Quite generally, in refusing even to play an aristocratic role in society, Montherlant denies what Sartre would call his situation: "Le hasard m'a fait vivre en telles annees et en tels lieux? Et apres? Vais-je laisser gouverner ma vie par ces futiles donnees du temps et de l'espace?" (p. 186).x What matters for him, of course, is asking the question, "Et l'eternel?" (p. 186),y and this means maintaining and enriching one's communion with the cultural, spiritual paradigm of great souls: "Pour nous apporter un peu d'eau fraiche, Ies grandes Smes font la chaine du fond de l'eternite" (p. 161; see p. 200, n. l).z Seen sub specie aeternatis, social and political activity can only be pathetically or tragically pointless: "ces " "taking up one's height/high places" " "those men who lead because there are still people—misereor super duces—who believe that power is something valuable" " "So chance has led to my living during certain years and in certain places? So what? Am I going to allow my life to be governed by these futile givens of time and space?" ι "What about the eternal?" * "To bring us a little fresh water, the great souls form a chain from the depth of eternity."

Conclusion * 341

intumescences sociales, si pleines d'elles-memes, et qui ne sont pourtant sur Ie vieux fleuve des ages que des vaguelettes a peine nees, et deja resorbees" (p. 192).a It follows from this, by symmetrically anti-Sartrean logic, that "realism" means holding the long-term view, that is, knowing one's efforts to be eventually futile. If there is anything of consequence, it is certainly not on the earth, that place of "fantomes" (p. 164)b and shadows: "laissez done a la terre cette ombre que vous y portez, tandis que votre realite monte a une distance d'oii Ies factions ennemies ne vous apparaissent plus que comme un seul et uniforme attroupement" (p. 164).° Political struggle is only a kind of "fantasia": "Quel est ce reve au milieu duquel je vis, et auquel on veut m'obliger a prendre part?" (p. 184).d Rather than aristocracy, then, with its unfortunate deri­ vation from krateia, we should speak here of nobility, of an attitude and not a position. In a sense, it is precisely the notion of nobility that allows one to ignore social hierarchies. The Spanish aristocracy can be seen, on a particular occasion, to be in contact with the people without "entering" into their world or "looking down" on it: A l'hotel Alphonse XIII, cette aristocratie du sang et de l'esprit, quand elle vibrait a la voix d'un gamin crasseux et sauvage, n'avait pas la sensation qu'elle penetrait dans un monde insolite, dont la nouveaute et l'etrangete faisaient Ie charme. Elle ne contemplait pas Ie peuple de haut, ni seulement du dehors. Elle ne "se penchait" pas sur Iui. Elle se retrouvait avec Iui en des circonstances ou Iui et elle rendaient Ie meme son, et cela * "those social swellings that are so full of themselves and yet are nothing more, on the river of ages, than ripples that disappear almost as soon as they are born" b "ghosts" c "leave behind that shadow that you wear on earth, while your reality climbs to a distance from which warring factions appear simply as an undifferentiated mob" d "What is this dream in the middle of which I am living, this dream in which people want to make me play a part?"

342 * Conclusion

non pas a propos de quelque objet rudimentaire ou futile, mais dans Ies sentiments Ies plus delicats et Ies plus profonds. (pp. 58—59)e Montherlant's nobility has no need of ivory towers, of frozen protection or enclosed refinement, because it is robustly con­ fident of recognizing and rejecting its essential opposite, vul­ garity. The hatred of vulgarity (see pp. 151—153) is itself a motivation to higher things—"On voit tres bien comment quelqu'un qui a l'humeur un peu haute peut acceder a une vie morale par seule horreur de la vulgarite" (p. 148/—and scorn always helps to "mettre chaque chose a son rang":8 "C'est une grande regie de vie, qu'on peut tout faire, a con­ dition de savoir mepriser" (p. 187).h In scorn itself, no doubt, we find the conjunction of intelligence and breeding, the viscerally spiritual. Sustained by the knowledge of the eter­ nal, it systematically belittles that which is contingent. Those tasks that are so dear to commitment, the seed to be sown, the furrow to be ploughed, are as nothing in its eyes. "Con­ sider the lilies of the field!" says Montherlant (pp. 70-71, n. 3). Everyday routine—contemplated with tenderness by the narrator of La Colline inspiree because it is the routine of others, and with grim determination by Camus' Sisyphean characters because it is their own—is here equated with vulgarity. "Le domestique" and "le sordide"' are virtually the same thing (p. 24). e "At the Hotel Alphonse XIII, this aristocracy of race and mind, when it vibrated in response to the voice of a filthy, untamed child, had no sense of entering into a world of curiosities that was charming for its novelty and strangeness. It was not looking down on the people from above, nor even from outside. It wasn't 'bending over' the people. It found itself with the people in circumstances where both groups rang with the same sound, not just in response to some rudimentary or futile stimulus, but in their subtlest and deepest feelings." f "One can see very well how anyone of a slightly haughty temperament can accede to a moral life by simply having a horror of vulgarity." 8 "put each thing in its place" h "It is a great rule of life that one can do anything provided one knows how to scorn" ' "domestic"; "sordid"

Conclusion * 343

It is precisely the power of scorn, however, that renders certain kinds of abstention unnecessary. If one knows, and never forgets, that all social and political struggles are futile, then one may, in fact, condescend without loss of scorn; one may "act" without vulgarity. This is what Montherlant seems to mean by "collaboration": "Entendons-nous: collaborer comme un homme qui met Ie sac au dos quand Ie tocsin sonne, mais sait que sa destinee est ailleurs, a la charrue ou a l'usine, et qu'il la reprendra la paix faite" (p. 168).' As long as one does not seek to fulfill one's destiny through action, to find the universal in the heart of the particular, the mountain-top in the plain, as long as one remembers that one's destiny is "elsewhere," then such action is tolerable for a time. "Serv­ ice" is acceptable as long as one knows it to be "service inutile" (p. 42),k but it is a pis-aller, at best a kind of pre­ paratory spiritual exercise: On peut, faute d'un objet plus digne de soi, s'occuper dans Ie service du monde, a condition de savoir que cela est sans importance, et de s'y preter seulement, avec un detachement de somnambule, jusqu'au jour ou notre part essentielle nous dira: "Laisse cela et suismoi. Si tu te resous toi-meme, Ie probleme du monde est resolu." L'action, comprise ainsi, est inoffensive: on Iui a fait cracher son venin. (pp. 187—188)1 Detachment has its full moral significance as a way of being in the world without being caught up in it: action might almost be valuable as a test, or at least a proof, of disinterest. > "Let us be quite clear about this: collaborating like a man who straps on his pack when the tocsin sounds, but knows that his destiny is elsewhere, with the plough or the factory, and that he will take it up again when peace has been achieved." k "unavailing service" 1 "We may, for the want of a more worthy object, occupy ourselves with service in the world, as long as we remember that it is of no importance; we can simply lend ourselves to it, with the detachment of a sleepwalker, until the day when the essential part of us says: 'Leave that and follow me. If you deal with yourself, the problem of the world is dealt with.' When seen in these terms, action is harmless: its venom has been disgorged."

344 * Conclusion

Montherlant's understanding of noble detachment allows him to go further—to the point of apparent contradiction. While preserving scorn for the vulgar he may actually take pleasure in a kind of episodic contact with it: "Une nature elevee peut se tenir sans cesse sur Ie plan eleve, ou a l'occasion en descendre. Je me plais a l'en voir descendre, si je sais que sans effort, son humeur passee, elle y remontera" (p. 128).m It seems as if it is possible, for some, to transcend the moral rigor of upward effort: in this state of angelic de­ tachment, one may move from the level of nobility to that of vulgarity without contamination. What better way of imag­ ining this than to talk of Jacob's ladder? Car en montrant son aptitude a passer de l'un a l'autre plan, non avec contrainte, non avec premeditation et affectation, qui trahiraient la virtuosite, mais naturellement, elle me montre sa richesse, sa souplesse et son amplitude. Les anges montent et descendent Ie long de l'echelle de Jacob; ils prennent pied sur la terrestre terre et plongent 1'orteil dans une boue ravissante; ils ne restent pas dans leurs nuees. (p. 128)" This echelle represents the full "scale"of noble activity, the "vaste et genereuse nature" (p. 128)° that can be that of the true hero. It represents both an aesthetic imagination of the axis mundi—the beauty of a link between earth and sky— and the organization of vertical movement, something more than the "oscillation" so often evoked by Drieu, and described in the preface of Service inutile as "le pis aller de l'alternance" m "A lofty character can stand forever on a high plane, or come down from it on occasions. I take pleasure in seeing him come down, if I know that, once the mood passes, he will go effortlessly back up again." " "For by showing his capacity to pass from one plane to the other—not in a forced, premeditated, affected way that would ruin all virtuosity, but naturally—it shows me his richness, his suppleness and his breadth. The angels move up and down the length of Jacob's ladder; they gain a foothold on the soil of the earth and plunge their toes into the most delightful mud; they do not remain up in their clouds." ° "vast and generous nature"

Conclusion * 345

(p. 38).p There Montherlant ridicules oscillation by seeing it in domestically temporal terms—"Les jours pairs du mois prendre Ie point de vue des contingences, et les jours impairs Ie point de vue de l'eternel?" (p. 38)q—but here he allows it to take shape, to have its full cultural, spiritual significance. If one is assured of one's detachment, it is possible to play the game of life to its fullest (vertical) extent: "Ici, comme ailleurs, Ie grand jeu est de jouer sur tous les tableaux" (p. 198).r One can claim, in an appropriately haughty fashion, the right to contradiction: Deja ne trouvons-nous pas legitime qu'un homme professe deux opinions contraires sur Ie meme sujet, selon qu'il est ou non de sang-froid? Qu'il ne porte pas Ie meme jugement sur la valeur de la civilisation, s'il est a sa table de travail, et s'il est sous les gaz dans la tranchee, et qu'il n'y a pas, en somme, a choisir entre ces deux jugements? (p. 198)8 There is a kind of Gidean maestria—Montherlant's key ref­ erence is, however, to Pascal (p. 198)—in playing with such contradiction, and the fullest form of this consists in not having a definitive "position," an absolute commitment to what one has just affirmed: Je vous ai parle de la possession de soi-meme, et nous avons pense qu'elle etait bonne; ne croyons pas devoir, pour cela, nous fermer a ceux qui veulent qu'on participe davantage aux bouillonnements de ses contemporains. Il est possible que moi-meme, a un moment futur de ' "the ersatz of alternation" q "On even days of the month seeing things from the point of view of contingencies, and on odd days adopting the point of view of the eternal?" ' "Here, as elsewhere, the great art is that of playing over a whole range." • "Does it not already seem quite proper to us that a man should hold opposite opinions on the same subject, according to whether or not he is emotionally involved? That he does not reach the same judgment about the value of civilization if he is working at his desk as he would if he were being gassed in the trenches, and that we do not finally need to choose between these two judgments?"

346 * Conclusion

mon developpement et de mon experience, je me range parmi ceux-la; je Ie souhaite; je ne voudrais pas rester confine dans une opinion, si juste me parut-elle. (p. 198).' Perhaps this is the point where detachment is scattered to the four winds, just as commitment can be buried in militancy: we were told earlier in the text that scorn serves its purpose even as a way of dealing with scorn (p. 187); now we must understand that the ultimate detachment consists in having a detached attitude to detachment itself. One cannot even exclude for the detached spirit the eventual possibility of some sustained social activity, if not of true commitment.

EXCLUSIONS

The second part of this conclusion corresponds more narrowly to the Preface and the Introduction, in the sense that it is required by our whole procedure. The point was made in the methodological preface that a thematic space is constituted as much by its exclusions as by its inclusions, and that certain texts ought no doubt to be discussed-as-excluded. In fact, we have done this already in relating particular texts, more or less systematically, to detachment and to militancy. Those that remain to be discussed at this point are no doubt more fundamentally divergent, and if we happen to mention them, it is because it seems likely, in the relatively precise context of modern French literature studies, that the reader will ask questions of the type "what about X?" where X is either a well-known text or an author's name, and thus a way of referring to a set of texts. 1 "I spoke to you about self-possession, and we agreed that it was a good thing; but that does not mean that we must refuse to listen to those who want us to participate more closely in the volatile activities of our contem­ poraries. It is possible that I myself, at some future stage of my development and my experience, might come to hold the same opinion as them; I would be happy if this were so; I would not want to remain shut up in an opinion, no matter how correct it seemed to me."

Conclusion * 347

Now the question "what about X?" is not a particularly interesting one if it leads us to say "X is very much like La Colline inspiree or La Comedie de Charleroi": it merely points to an effectively derivative extension of our thematics. It is, however, more challenging, and therefore more valuable, if it questions the relation between general notions of commit­ ment and the kinds of imaginative patterns we have discussed. Logically, it can do this in one of two ways: either by drawing our attention to a text whose imaginative world is marked by the presence of, say, a tower and a plain, or a hill and a plain, without any suggestion that questions of commitment are relevant, or by pointing us to a text that is manifestly about commitment while showing no such imagery. The first of these challenges could lead us very far afield, and we must be content to deal with it largely in principle. This is what we have done from the first, in any case, by identifying cursorily the imagination of the ivory tower, the watchtower, and the mountain-top, for example, as distinct from that of commitment. Progressively, our challenging question tends to become milder and more unwieldy: "what about X, which is not concerned with commitment, detach­ ment, keeping watch, prophecy, or moments of transcend­ ence?" The question is still possible, of course, but I should claim that we can continue to deal with it in principle, when it arises, by establishing new categories, demonstrably dis­ tinct, in terms of imaginative attitudes and dispositions, from those already identified. In other words, we are led to pro­ duce—or to retrieve from our cultural encyclopedias—new names for themes, without necessarily defining and describing a coherent set of themes as a world of meaning. Let us consider briefly one example of the kind of nontrivial adjustment that might be required. We can ask: "what about Jean Giono's Colline?"6 Colline represents what might be called, in the Bachelardian spirit, a "proper" hill, one that stands between the plain and the mountain, "a mi-chemin entre la plaine oil ronfle la vie tumultueuse des batteuses a vapeur et Ie grand desert lavandier, Ie pays du vent, a l'ombre

348 * Conclueion

froide des monts de Lure" (pp. 9-10).u "Life," in its busiest and noisiest forms, is to be found below, whereas the aerial world above is vast and forbidding: Justement Gondran regarde la forme des nuages. Il y en a un qui s'appuie pesamment sur Ie dos des collines comme une montagne du ciel; comme un pays du ciel, un grand pays tout desert, avec des vals ombreux, des croupes nues oil Ie soleil glisse, des escarpements etages. . . . c'est un pays au-dessus du pays des hommes. (p. 71)v Yet those who live on the hill—or rather, in an elevated position near it, in its shadow—are not in any way preoc­ cupied with life in the town or on the plain. We are specifically reminded, indeed, that the sound that floats up—so often, for commitment, a sign of work to be done, or of continuing earthly routine—has only a certain natural significance: "Quand Ie vent vient du sud, on entend en bas siffler Ie train et sonner Ies cloches. Cela veut dire, settlement, que Ie temps est a la pluie" (p. 16; my italics)."7 What matters is not knowledge of the world below, for which the hill might have served as a means, but the hill itself. In that sense, the hill is not a place on which to stand but something to be looked at, a certain natural shape. It is a fold in the flesh of the earth, we are told at the beginning of the novel (p. 9), but we come to see it, more precisely and more dramatically, as a manifestation of the force of nature. The hill is animated: "Pour l'heure elle est couchee comme " "half-way between the plain, where the tumultuous life of the steam threshers rumbles away, and the great lavender desert, the land of the wind, in the cold shadow of the mounts of Lure" v "Gondran is in fact looking at the shapes of the clouds. Some of them are leaning heavily on the backs of the hills like mountains of the sky; like a land in the sky, a great deserted land, with shadowy valleys, bare ridges off which the sunlight glances, and staggered escarp­ ments. . . . It is a land above the land of men." " "When the wind comes from the south, you hear the whistle of the train and the ringing of the bells down below. That only means that there is rain about."

Conclusion * 349

un boeuf dans Ies herbes et seul Ie dos parait; Ies fourmis montent dans Ies poils et courent par-ci, par-la" (p. 33; see p. 43).x Its very shape is a threat, a sign that it might stand erect in anger: "Pour l'heure elle est couchee, si jamais elle se leve, alors tu me diras si je deparle" (p. 34).y In this perspective, it is inappropriate—and positively dan­ gerous—to think of the hill as a place, or even as an object. Those who live near the hill, on its slopes, are obliged to recognize the life of nature as a forceful organization of phe­ nomena extending far below the fleshy surface of the earth. The spring—one of "ces fontaines ou debouchent Ies longs ruisseaux souterrains qui viennent du fin fond de la montagne" (p. 26)z—is the surest sign of this: Ces collines, il ne faut pas s'y fier. Il y a du soufre sous Ies pierres. La preuve? Cette source qui coule dans Ie vallon de la mort d'Imbert et qui purge a chaque goulee. C'est fait d'une chair et d'un sang que nous ne connaissons pas, mais ga vit. (p. 59; see pp. 51, 52)a We find here, not man above the world, knowing it, but man against nature, or at least a certain malevolent tendency of nature—a hill. He is in the midst of a struggle—"Les collines, ga se mene comme les chevaux, dur" (p. 65)b—where it is essential to be constantly on one's guard, watching for "les gestes de la terre" (p. 44).c In the world of Giono's novel, the hill continues to serve, as it did for Barres, to organize a hierarchy. But whereas in * "Right now it's lying down like an ox in the grass and only its back can be seen; ants are climbing among its hairs, running hither and thither." ι "Right now it's lying down, but if ever it gets up, you'll see if I'm raving" 2 "those fountains where the long underground streams from the depths of the mountains finally emerge" a "You can't trust these hills. There's sulfur under the stones. You want proof? Look at that spring that flows in the valley of Imbert's death: every mouthful purges you. It's made out of flesh and blood that are unknown to us, but it's alive." b "Hills have to be driven like horses—hard." c "the gestures of the earth"

350 * Conclusion

La Colline inspir4e we saw a distribution of social roles so that those who were associated with Vesprit looked out from the hill while those of the plain looked up to them, we find here a reorganized natural hierarchy in which the hill is the sign of that which stands above all men: "C'est cruel parce que ce n'est plus seulement l'homme, et tout Ie reste en dessous, mais une grande force mechante et, bien en dessous, l'homme mele aux betes et aux arbres" (p. 116).d This is the truth of Colline: to talk of privilege or of standing above nature could only be a vue de I'esprit. Man is in fact tragically inferior to the hill: "Contre nous, c'est toute la colline qui s'est dressee, Ie corps immense de la colline; cette colline ondulee comme un joug et qui va nous ecraser la tete" (pp. 156— 157).e Human choice can then be seen to lie between the kind of subtle attention to the whims of nature found in Janet—a collaboration that is tantamount, in times of crisis, to diabolical complicity—and the stubborn, occasionally he­ roic, but strictly uninspired resistance of Jaume. There is no need, then, for us to balk at such superficial resemblance as the kind that exists between Colline and La Colline inspiree. At every point, we can know precisely why the imaginative patterns of Colline are not those of commit­ ment. LET US turn now to the second type of challenge: "what about text X, which we know to be about commitment but which contains no images of elevation, contemplation, descent, and so forth?" Before being answered, this question deserves close examination. After all, it maintains its force as a counter­ example, not by pointing to some worthwhile text that has yet to be studied in the same way—that would simply be a lacuna—but by affirming that such a study would be impos­ sible, or at best, trivial and tangential. This claim can be d "It's cruel, because it's not just men and the rest below, but a great evil force and, way below, man mixed in with the animals and the trees." e "The entire hill has risen up against us, the immense body of the hill; this undulating hill shaped like a yoke that is going to crush us from above."

Conclusion * 351

made only in the name of some other, presumably more "di­ rect" or more authoritative kind of knowledge. We need, then, to situate the question, to attempt to identify the context in which it might be asked, the kind of knowledge it might refer to. Strictly speaking, we can only guess from this point, but this uncertainty need not condemn us to a frenzy of meth­ odological paranoia. There is, in fact, a specific academic context that allows us to consider certain questions as not just (logically) possible but (institutionally) probable. I refer, in particular, to a loosely defined but recognizable area of study associated with "the literature of commitment," a "fuzzy set" of primarily Anglo-Saxon college courses and critical texts that bear this name or one like it and that usually pay close attention to the works of Sartre, Camus, Malraux, and quite often Aragon. The existence of this field of study—or at least of this custom—allows us to give our question a form that may be less rigorous but is also more apposite: how does it happen that two "major" authors are "absent" from the corpus studied here? What about Aragon? What about Mal­ raux? The absence of Aragon need not concern us unduly. In­ deed, the frequent presence of his work in the "literature of commitment" corpus seems to be due to a systematic con­ fusion of content and social context. Certainly, Louis Aragon can be identified as a "committed" person, in the sense that the man who (also?) writes is a figure publicly associated with the Communist Party; yet this tells us little or nothing about his texts. It does indicate why his writings might be expected to further a particular cause by their persuasive or subversive impact and, indeed, why critics are likely to deploy great ingenuity in finding "hidden" political content;8 but it offers no guarantee that his work will explore the problems of com­ mitment, or commitment as a set of problems. This is where "committed literature"—identifiable in external, sociologi­ cal, functional terms—must part company with the "literature of commitment," if the latter is taken to be about commitment in some way. The two may of course coincide, but this is not a matter of necessity; there is every indication, for the reader

352 * Conclusion

of Aragon's works, that the subjectivity of commitment is of little moment in his world. We are left to wonder whether, for him, all such questions are not simply to be dismissed as the imaginative and imaginary agonies of petit-bourgeois in­ tellectuality.9 Many such questions—"what about Celine?" and "what about Peguy?"—could no doubt be answered by a similar critique of the assumptions underlying the question, and it might be possible, after an exhaustive search, to make a list of "known" committed authors who could be said not to rep­ resent the experience of commitment in their works. The case of Malraux is, however, more complex and more demanding. "Commitment" can dismiss Aragon as readily as he dismisses it, but Malraux's work clearly is concerned with intellectual problems of a kind. We are thus able to talk about it here without being drawn into a domain that is totally other. It seems appropriate to do so with some care—to exclude it actively, so to speak, from the area of commitment, if only as a way of dealing more fully and more respectfully with the literary-critical tradition that has given it such importance. After asking the naively pretentious questions "what is com­ mitment?" and "what is not commitment?" we come to ask the more academically self-conscious question: "what is often thought to be commitment but may, for the sake of greater precision, be defined as noncommitment?" For this purpose, a thematic reading of La Condition humaine ought to provide us with sufficient detail. Rather than a world defined initially in spatial terms, we find in La Condition humaine,10 from the very first, a set of events and adventures governed by time—chronological time, of course: the first chapter is marked "21 mars 1927" and the others continue in this vein. But also, more narrowly and more dramatically, the time of day, the time of action: the first scene takes place at "minuit et demi" (p. 9).f That it should be precisely this time is indeed thought-provoking: "minuit et demi" might be the Malrucian time of day par ' "half past midnight"

Conclusion * 353

excellence. The hero finds himself at a moment close to but not actually at the dead of night, the time of equilibrium corresponding to Camus' midi: he is, in fact, already beyond the point of balance, having tripped over into a new day, having broached a new series of events. In a sense, we can say that when the narrative of La Condition humaine begins, Tchen is past the time of commitment, the moment at which one might freely consider a range of choices: he is already in the space-time of action.11 Yet time does stop—at half past midnight: the objects surrounding Tchen are "immobiles dans cette nuit ou Ie temps n'existait plus" (p. 9).g He finds himself contemplating what lies before him, as if the problems familiar to commitment were about to be restored. But he sees only the action that is to be carried out, and not a whole set of possibilities: "Rien n'existait que ce pied, cet homme qu'il devait frapper sans qu'il se defendit" (p. 10).h Even the consequences of this action are ignored. The difficulty, for Tchen, lies not so much in beginning absolutely, in moving from nonaction to action— he is already in his victim's bedroom—as in going through with it all: "ne pas dechoir," as he says much later (p. 149).'12 It is more appropriate, then, to speak of a hiatus rather than a pause, of hesitation rather than intellectual contemplation. The problem is one of means, and not ends, as Gilbert Mury says of Malraux's work in general: "Tout roman de Malraux est destine a depeindre une quete de contacts avec Ies realites humaines. Ce qui importe ce n'est pas Ie but qui se trouve au terme de la route, mais la route elle-meme que nos heros empruntent."j13 Tchen is more conscious, indeed, of his "mains hesitantes" (p. 10)k and of the need to choose his weapon— 8

"motionless in that night where time no longer existed" "nothing existed other than this foot, this man he had to strike without a struggle" ' "not falling away" ' "Every Malraux novel is destined to depict a quest for contact with human realities. What matters most is not the goal that lies at the end of the road, but the very road that is followed by the heroes." 1 "hesitating hands" h

354 * Conclusion

razor or dagger (p. 10)—than of any question of principle. Since time stops when action has begun but is not yet de­ cisively concluded, there can be no serene pause like that of Sisyphus turning at the top of the hill: Tchen's stopping is marked by the tension of danger. The drama of hesitation can be understood not only in temporal but also in material terms: Tchen is faced with a mosquito net, a veil that covers the object of his action. This veil introduces the anxiety of uncertainty, rendering his target less immediate; it turns flesh into shadow and leaves him staring at a "tache molle de . . . mousseline" (p. 9).1 The difficulty is precisely that it does not constitute a solid ob­ stacle, and Tchen must eventually strike through it in order to reach the substantial body of his victim (p. 11). Only then does he feel "le corps rebondir vers lui, relance par Ie sommier metallique" (p. 11).m By stabbing the body, he not only kills it but transfixes it—"Tchen avait l'impression de Ie tenir fixe au lit par son arme courte sur quoi pesait toute sa masse" (p. 12; my italics)"—anchoring it, at last, in the certainty and solidity of death.14 It is important to note the difference between this hesitation and any kind of fundamental self-doubt. There is an appar­ ently interminable moment of anguish, but it is framed by certainty. Tchen knows himself to be firm—"il connaissait sa propre fermete" (p. 9); "il savait qu'il Ie tuerait" (p. 10)°— just as Kyo later knows his own capacity for suicide: "II savait que, s'il decidait de se tuer, il se tuerait" (p. 304).p Even when, in extremis, Tchen's limbs—his "means"—grow soft, this seems to confirm the impossibility of taking a backward step: "Tchen ne pouvait plus meme reculer, jambes et bras devenus completement mous" (p. 11).q To go through this 1

"soft patch of . . . muslin" "the body spring back up toward him, propelled by the metal mattress" " "Tchen felt as if he was holding it fixed to the bed with this short weapon on which his whole weight was pressing" 0 "he knew his own firmness"; "he knew he would kill him" p "He knew that, if he decided to kill himself, he would do so" q "Tchen could not even step back: his legs and arms had gone com­ pletely soft." m

Conclusion * 355

experience, like stabbing through the veil, is to confirm his own strength, no doubt, to be hardened by the ordeal. When faced with the veil, he first stabs himself, finding in pain a kind of certainty, even if he cannot reliably identify the pain as his own: "La douleur (il n'etait pas capable de songer que c'etait son bras), l'idee du supplice certain si Ie dormeur s'eveillait Ie delivrerent une seconde" (p. 10)/ Now it may seem surprising here to find an echo of Camus' "Le Renegat," in which the desire for hardness is also linked to the refusal of doubt, and pain is a source of certainty. The difference is, however, that Tchen's pain does not simply emanate from the wound of remembered martyrdom. It is selfinflicted and is thus a source of stoic dignity—"II n'y a pas de dignite qui ne se fonde sur la douleur," says Gisors a propos of him (p. 334)8—whereas that of the renegade is pathetically dependent. The renegade needs his delirium as a new certainty to replace his old doubts, whereas Tchen goes on confirming and strengthening his initial certainties through action. Pain is not the answer in itself here; it is merely a part of the process, the sign of one's (heroic) in­ volvement in the world of the flesh. Suffering and killing go together and work toward the same end, the perfection of certainty, rather than the flight from doubt: "II faut que quelque chose soit sur. Il faut," says Tchen (p. 149).'15 To restate this in more strictly material terms, we could say that Tchen does not experience the inertia of past ex­ perience as the simple fleshy solidity of the militant; he ac­ tually attains a kind of density that is admired, and perhaps feared, by the other characters: "L'extreme densite d'un homme prend quelque chose d'inhumain, pensa Kyo en Ie regardant" (p. 142).u This density is at least partly of his own making, in that he has confirmed and concentrated his strength in and through intense action. ' "The pain (he was not even able to think that it was his arm), the idea of certain torture if the sleeper should awake released him for a second" 8 "There is no dignity that is not founded on pain" 1 "There has to be something that is certain. There has to be." " "Extreme density in a man begins to be somewhat inhuman, Kyo thought as he looked at him."

356 * Conclusion

The time proper to such intensity and certainty is, as we might expect, the instant: Tchen e£it du etre lache, mais il sentait, comme tout mystique, que son absolu ne pouvait etre saisi que dans l'instant. D'oii sans doute son dedain de tout ce qui ne tendait pas a l'instant qui Ie lierait a lui-meme dans une possession vertigineuse. (pp. 150-151)v From this point of view, the experience of danger, and the fullness of intense emotion that it provokes—"Comme toutes Ies sensations intenses, celle du danger, en se retirant, Ie laissait vide; il aspirait a Ie retrouver" (p. 19)"—is no doubt a foretaste of death: suicidal terrorism should lead to the complete possession of self (p. 185).16 Since it is possible to imagine such an instant, one can speak of a kind of eternal action. The place of murder is a "monde d'oii Ies hommes avaient disparu," a "monde eternel" (p. 16).x Here is a striking difference with respect to the imagination of commitment: for commitment, it is usually the fact of being (temporarily) out of the action that enables one to experience eternity and perceive its values. In the case of Tchen, there is a form of (ostensibly political) action that is itself eternal.17 The freezing of time results in the disappearance of political activity and activism while serving equally to isolate and intensify a particular heroic act, such that when the precise political entailment of Tchen's murder breaks down, this does not seem to change its essential subjective value. Within these temporal constraints, space has its impor­ tance for La Condition humaine: there is a time-space that is proper to heroic intensity and that differs from that of commitment in a number of ways. First, Tchen's isolation v "Tchen should have been cowardly, but he felt, like all mystics, that his absolute could be grasped only in the instant. This is doubtless what led him to scorn everything that did not tend toward the instant that could bind him to himself in dizzying self-possession." w "Like all intense sensations, the sensation of danger, as it departed, left him feeling empty; he wanted to find it again." " "world from which men had disappeared"; "eternal world"

Conclusion · 357

does not mean that he is in the space of aerial freedom: he is in fact in a situation of strict obligation, as the frequency of the verbs "devoir" and "falloir" suggests: Il se repetait que cet homme devait mourir. (p. 9) . . . il devait frapper sans qu'il se defendit (p. 10) Et il fallait frapper avec precision, (p. 11) Il faut filer . . . (p. 14) Devrait-il done Ie tuer a nouveau? (p. 15)y It can be seen, furthermore, that Tchen's thoughts are not concerned with the simple iteration of duty, or with the gen­ eral principles that govern his action, but with the specific requirements of its step-by-step execution: the act itself has a shape, an internal structure, that allows us to see it as a series of instants linked by pragmatic entailment and sepa­ rated, or permeated, by anguish and hesitation. This is why it is appropriate that the act should take place in a closed room: the limits of this space do not represent comfort and protection but compelling necessity; exiguity is the sign of exigency. Second, Tchen has an experience of distance from the world of men but not of domination or of superiority. Rather than an axis of understanding, we find the indeterminate, un­ coordinated, and indeed essentially negative (in the sense of differential) space of separation. Just to be in this closed space, in this heroic context with all its strenuous obligations, is to be "loin des hommes" (p. 12).2 The "monde des hommes" is merely somewhere "la-bas,"" a vague source of light and noise (p. 9), and Tchen's situation does not lead him partic' "He kept saying to himself that this man had to die." ". . . he had to strike without allowing him to fight back" "And he had to strike with precision." "I have to leave ..." "Would he have to kill him again?" " "far from men" • "world of men"; "over there/down there"

358 * Conclusion

ularly to observe or contemplate it. For the detached (and potentially committed) intellectual, as we have seen, sepa­ ration amounts to being removed from the stream or the streets of life, being out of time in such a way as to know the future of the world; but for Tchen it is the space in which he is most intensely subject to the constraints of causal time, to the logic of heroic action. Although it is no doubt true in both cases that the experience of distance is given rather than desired or sought, Tchen's separation brings with it no sense of priv­ ilege, no serenity, no calm comprehension. He looks down from a balcony soon after committing his murder, in fact (p. 13), but the lyricism of the balcony ("Erostrate," La Chute) is absent. The world of men is not reliably to be found below, as we realize when he thinks, almost at the same moment, of leaving the "farouche region ou il etait jete" in order to "remonter chez Ies hommes" (p. 13).b The essential thing seems to be that Tchen is in another, more demanding world, and that his separation has a religious significance rather than a cognitive one, acting as an "ini­ tiation au sens heroique" (p. 67).° This is no doubt an imag­ inative reason, in addition to the strictly practical ones, why his action should occur at night: it is not a matter of seeing the world of normality, of those who do not kill, but of simply knowing that they are there. Similarly, it is not a matter of seeing the motives and consequences of his action in terms of the world. He triggers off a set of consequences and a whole new day, but he does so in the middle of the night, or just past it; he does not contemplate the dawn of revolution. The experience of Gisors ought perhaps to provide us with an example of detachment. Opium smoking is readily seen as a means of imaginative elevation, a source of radical free­ dom, and we do in fact find signs of this, at the end of the novel in particular: "Libere de tout, meme d'etre homme, il caressait avec reconnaissance Ie tuyau de sa pipe, contemb "fierce region into which he had been thrown"; "go back to where men lived" c "initiation into heroic meaning"

Conclusion - 359

plait l'agitation de tous ces etres inconnus qui marchaient vers la mort dans l'eblouissant soleil" (p. 335).d But the essential function of opium seems to be, not to promote a specific detachment from the world, but to lead into other worlds, allowing one to apprehend the unreality and the vanity of all things: "II faudrait que Ies hommes pussent savoir qu'il n'y a pas de reel, qu'il est des mondes de contemplation— avec ou sans opium—ou tout est vain" (p. 333; my italics).6 Such reverie can be thought of, no doubt, as following and completing an experience of involuntary separation: Gisors feels himself to be "rejete hors du temps" (p. 314)/ linked with the world only through his son (p. 332), before achieving this final state. He seems to understand "separation," indeed, not as separation from the crowd but as alienation from the universe itself: Ies hommes perdus dans Ie lointain vacarme de leurs socques Iui semblaient tous fous, separes de Tunivers dont Ie coeur battant quelque part la-haut dans la Iumiere palpitante Ies prenait et Ies rejetait a la solitude, comme Ies grains d'une moisson inconnue. (p. 336)* Rather than subjective detachment, or even the (collective) privilege of a whole class of contemplative intellectuals, he comes to imagine, through opium and art, a kind of universal material transformation, the absorption of ponderous, suffer­ ing humanity into the clouds: L'humanite etait epaisse et lourde, lourde de chair, de sang, de souffrance, eternellement collee a elle-meme d "Freed from everything, even from being a man, he gratefully stroked the stem of his pipe and contemplated the agitation of all those unknown beings who were walking on toward death in the dazzling sunlight" ' "Men would need to be able to learn that there is no reality, that there are worlds of contemplation—with or without opium—where all is vain" ' "cast out of time" g "it seemed to him that men, lost in the distant clatter of their clogs, were all insane, separated from the universe whose beating heart, some­ where up there in the fluttering light, took hold of them and cast them into solitude, like the seeds of an unknown harvest"

360 * Conclusion

comme tout ce qui meurt; mais meme Ie sang, merae la chair, meme la douleur, meme la mort se resorbaient la-haut dans la lumiere comme la musique dans la nuit silencieuse: il pensa a celle de Kama, et la douleur humaine Iui sembla monter et se perdre comme Ie chant meme de la terre. (p. 336)h Whereas VHomme a cheval led us to imagime a mystical incarnation—the giving (or taking) of form that might be understood as the essence of religious commitment—we see here not its complementary opposite, "ascension," but a con­ tradictory process: the cosmic evaporation of the flesh. When Tchen interrupts his action for a (dangerous) moment to look down, as we have said, on the space of action, he is already in it, or adjacent to it. He does not look down on the revolution in the streets, even though it is planned to occur soon after. Yet he does look down on life. Life is not a street, or a path, but a river leading to the sea: "Toute cette ombre immobile ou scintillante etait la vie, comme Ie fleuve, comme la mer invisible au loin—la mer" (pp. 13—14).' The flow of the crowd is a secondary phenomenon that happens to co­ incide with that of the river: Tchen regardait toutes ces ombres qui coulaient sans bruit vers Ie fleuve, d'un mouvement inexplicable et constant; n'etait-ce pas Ie Destin meme, cette force qui Ies poussait vers Ie fond de l'avenue ou l'arc allume d'enseignes a peine visibles devant Ies tenebres du fleuve semblait Ies portes memes de la mort? (p. 234)" h "Humanity was thick and heavy, heavy with flesh, blood and suffering, everlastingly adhering to itself like everything mortal; but even blood, even flesh, even suffering, even death were absorbed up there in the light like music into the silence of the night: he thought of Kama's death, and the pain of humanity seemed to rise up and disappear like the very song of the earth" ' "All this motionless or glistening shadow was life, like the river, like the sea that was out of sight in the distance—the sea" ' "Tchen looked at all those shadows flowing noiselessly toward the river, with an inexplicable, constant movement; was it not the force of Fate itself that drove them toward the end of the avenue, where the illuminated arch

Conclusion · 361

For Tchen at least, it is not the crowd that matters but the river itself, the force of destiny that carries all toward the sea of death. There is no deliberate action that can take him out of this flow: the experience of (partial) separation and (partial) integration is itself governed by fatality. Individual will has only a small part to play in the whole process: "En effet, Kyo sentait que la volonte de Tchen jouait en l'occurence un tres petit role. Si la destinee vivait quelque part, elle etait 1¾, cette nuit, a son cote" (p. 151).k Tchen lives to the full the life of destiny because of the nature of his action. Destiny seems to have a dual form, in fact; it is in the world, in the things themselves, and at the same time waiting to be accomplished, as the sequence of gestures whose entailment constitutes decisive action: "mais chacun des gestes de Tchen Ie rapprochait a nouveau du meurtre, et Ies choses memes semblaient entrainees dans son destin" (p. 158).1 His freedom lies in responding to the im­ peratives of the situation, in precipitating fatality: "c'etait toujours a Iui d'agir" (p. 10).m If the river of life is like "la condition d'homme,"" then all that can be done is to leave one's mark on the edge as one is carried past. This is what Kyo is seen to have done: "Dans la repression abattue sur la Chine epuisee, dans l'angoisse ou l'espoir de la foule, Taction de Kyo demeurait incrustee comme Ies inscriptions des em­ pires primitifs dans Ies gorges des fleuves" (p. 337).0The most precious gift that can be given in such a world is the cyanide tablet offered by Katow to Souen and his comrade (p. 308): of scarcely visible signs stood before the darkness of the river like the very gates of death?" k "Indeed, Kyo felt that in this instance Tchen's will had only a very minor role to play. If destiny lived anywhere, it was there, that night, at his side." ' "but each of Tchen's actions brought him closer once again to murder, and things themselves seemed drawn into his fate" m "it was still up to him to act" " "man's condition" ° "In the repression that had descended on an exhausted China, in the dread and hope of the crowd, Kyo's act remained incrusted like the in­ scriptions of the first empires in the river gorges."

362 * Conclusion

it represents the possibility of a certain mastery in the midst of fatality and defeat, the purest form of action, no doubt, the grim dignity that is to be had in choosing the inevitable. In keeping with this fatality, we find that intellectuality, insofar as it exists in La Condition humaine, takes the form, not of a capacity to initiate action absolutely, but of a response to constraints. Kyo is not free simply to think of the revolution, in the sense of songer a, across the relatively comfortable space of (lucid) knowledge; revolution weighs on him: "Ce n'etait pas Iui qui songeait a !'insurrection, c'etait !'insur­ rection, vivante dans tant de cerveaux comme Ie sommeil dans tant d'autres, qui pesait sur Iui au point qu'il n'etait plus qu'inquietude et attente" (p. 47).Ρ The intellectual is thus a particular kind of victim, like Tchen, who in his separation, his (vaguely anti-Barresian) nonbelonging to China, is iiIivre totalement aux idees" (p. 62; my italics).q Intellec­ tuality is a condition, a certain kind of fatality, at best, and not the savoring of intelligence as a gift for its own sake. Certainly, both the prospective and retrospective dimensions of intelligence seem to be systematically devalued here, no doubt because, in organizing "time" as a cognitive space, they interrupt or tend to deny the flow of time toward death. Tchen states aggressively his dislike of memory: his life lies ahead of him, he says (p. 149). But this does not mean that he prospects it attentively: he simply prepares his action, without any detached examination of its consequences. Gisors, the dreamer and ex-academic, also talks of forgetting the past (p. 231). It almost seems as if awareness itself is felt to be a burden: Ferral loves sleep (p. 231), Gisors loves opium, and Tchen loves death. Intelligence seems valuable in the world of La Condition humaine only to the extent that it permits manipulation. Gi­ sors is concerned, it is true, with the understanding of other p "It was not he who was beginning to think of the insurrection: the insurrection, which was alive in so many minds like sleep in so many others, weighed on him to such an extent that he was completely taken over by disquiet and expectation." q iiMally given over to ideas"

Conclusion * 363

beings, with that which is profound, essential, or singular (p. 44). But Kyo the man of action resents the contagion of this: "Des que Kyo entrait la, sa volonte se transformait done en intelligence, ce qu'il n'aimait guere: ils s'interessait aux etres au lieu de s'interesser aux forces" (p. 44).r What Kyo needs is not to know the depths of another man's soul but to "le faire immediatement agir" (p. 45).8 It is not a matter of putting one's ideas into practice—this is one of the more mundane formulae of commitment—but of refusing to have theoretical ideas that are held prior to or outside of practice: "l'education japonaise . . . avait impose la conviction que Ies idees ne devaient pas etre pensees, mais vecues" (p. 67).' It is action itself that must be chosen and not a particular course of action examined in advance: "Kyo avait choisi Taction, d'une fagon grave et premeditee" (p. 67)." Action does not resolve prob­ lems; it banishes them: "Rien n'etait plus simple que de tuer" (p. 100).v Classical commitment is barely posited at all as a possible human attitude. It is simply dismissed out of hand: its claims to humanity, morality, and sympathetic under­ standing are swept aside by resolute professional revolution­ aries and suicidal terrorists. "Je n'aime pas l'humanite qui est faite de la contemplation de la souffrance," says Tchen (p. 167)." ' "So, as soon as Kyo walked in there, his will was transformed into intelligence, and that was something that displeased him: he became in­ terested in beings instead of in forces." • "cause him to act immediately" 1 "Japanese education . . . had imposed on him the conviction that ideas must not be thought, but lived out" " "Kyo had chosen action, seriously and deliberately" v "Nothing was simpler than killing" w "I have no love for the kind of humanity that consists in contemplating suffering"

NOTES

JlTLTL PREFACE 1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), p. 262. 2. The extent to which phenomenological description can actually provide a critique of the belief in the explanatory power of origins is, however, debatable. "La phenomenologie est justement une critique de la genese comme explication" ["phenomenology is in fact a critique of genesis as explanation"], says Jean-Pierre Roy in his book, Bachelard, ou Ie concept contre Vimage (Montreal: Presses de l'Universite de Montreal, 1977), p. 105. But Jacques Derrida suggests that the question is more complex than this, at least as far as Edmund Husserl is concerned. See UEcriture et la difference (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), p. 233: "Husserl tente done sans cesse de concilier l'exigence structuraliste qui conduit a la description comprehensive d'une totalite, d'une forme et d'une fonction organisee selon une legalite interne et dans laquelle Ies elements n'ont de sens que dans la solidarite de Ieur correlation ou de Ieur opposition, avec l'exigence ginitiste, e'estϋ-dire la requete d'origine et du fondement de la structure. On pourrait montrer pourtant que Ie projet phenomenologique est issu d'un premier 6chec de cette tentative" (his italics). ["Husserl tries constantly to reconcile the structuralist requirement, which leads to the comprehensive description of a whole, a form and a function shaped by internal laws—one whose elements make sense in the solidarity of their correlation or their opposition— with the geneticist requirement, that is, the search for the origin and the foundation of the structure. It could be shown, however, that the phenomenological enterprise arose out of the initial fail­ ure of this attempt."] 3. See Robert R. Magliola, Phenomenology and Literature: An In­ troduction (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1977), p. 4.

366 · Notes to Preface 4. Jean-Paul Sartre, L'ltnaginaire: Psychologie phenomenologique de I'imagination (Paris: Gallimard, 1975 [Collection Idees]), p. 62. 5. See Magliola, Phenomenology and Literature, p. 4: "Conscious­ ness is wrongly considered a faculty for being conscious instead of an act of being conscious." 6. See Wolfgang Walter Fuchs, Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Presence: An Essay in the Philosophy of Edmund Husserl (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), p. 13. 7. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 261: "Thus the circle of understanding is not a 'methodological' circle, but describes an ontological structural element in understanding." 8. Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A TheoryofAestheticResponse (London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. x. 9. Ibid., p. 19. 10. Ibid., pp. 37-38. 11. See the early Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, vol. 2 (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), p. 541: "The phenomenologically reduced ego is therefore nothing peculiar, floating above many experiences: it is simply identical with their own interconnected unity." 12. See Derrida, La Voix et Ie phenomene: Introduction au probleme du signe dans la phenomenologie de Husserl (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), p. 5. 13. Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 238. 14. Quoted in Magliola, Phenomenology and Literature, p. 178. 15. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 32. 16. Paul Ricoeur, "Le Discours de Taction," in La Semantique de I'action, ed. D. Tiffeneau (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1977), p. 116. 17. See Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, Eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press, 1970). 18. Hirsch, The Aims of Interpretation, p. 32. 19. See Jean Piaget, Structuralism (New York: Basic Books, 1970), pp. 122-125. 20. See Jean-Paul Weber, Νέο-critique et paleo-critique, ou contre Picard (Paris: J.-J. Pauvert, 1966), p. 56. 21. Ibid., p. 117.

Notes to Preface · 367 22. Daniele Racelle-Latin, "La Critique thematique," Revue des Langues Vivantes 41 (1975): 275-276. 23. Racelle-Latin speaks of "regressive causalism"; ibid., p. 280. 24. Roy, Bachelard, p. 171. 25. See Racelle-Latin's analysis of this, "La Critique thematique," pp. 271-272. 26. Michel Foucault, L'Archiologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 45-46. 27. See what Foucault himself says on this; ibid., pp. 50-51. 28. See Charles I. Glicksberg, The Literature of Commitment (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1976; London: As­ sociated University Presses, 1976). Glicksberg admires those intellectuals who defend "the autonomy of art and the freedom of the artist from external constraints" (p. 254). He insists, more­ over, on the need for critics to reject "the unitary and unequivocal meaning of 'commitment' established by Marxist critics" (pp. 406-407) in favor of the possible plurivalence of the term (p. 420). Unfortunately, he appeals to the latter without defining it, seeing commitment only as "commitment to" something (pp. 3031, 239—240), indeed commitment to anything: "Commitment is an imperative call of conscience, a jihad in which every writer of good will is expected to join. It is a mystique that obscures the different meanings of the key term. For the truth is that every writer is 'committed,' even if only to the book he is working on. There are many diverse forms of commitment; there is no reason why he must participate in the communist crusade. He may devote his energy to the perfection of his work or decide to make his life a superb work of art. Like Yeats he may feel an inveterate indifference to politics" (p. 51). The problem with this is that, in the triumph of "literature," "commitment" no longer has any shape: it is not a recognizable, describable attitude but a humble conjunction that fails to constrain its predicates in any way. 29. See Maxwell Adereth, Commitment in Modern French Litera­ ture: A BriefStudy of "litterature engagie" in the Works of Piguy, Aragon and Sartre (London: V. Gollancz, 1967). For Adereth, "Committed literature has no special themes, styles or methods— it is distinguished only by greater realism and by the author's attitude to life" (p. 50). Not only is literature absolutely second­ ary—it is the "illustration" of commitment as a theory (p. 47)— but it has no content other than life itself (p. 15), no meaning that can be articulated with the initial "concept" (p. 47). Com-

368 * Notes to Introduction mitment is simply not present as a theme: "This does not mean that politics is the only theme, or even the most important one, in committed works of art. In some of them it seems to be almost absent, as for example in the lyrical poems of Peguy and Aragon" (p. 18). It seems that the only point in reading a text, in looking through it, is to see the writer's theories about literature, but these are not always visible in any case.

INTRODUCTION

1. See Peter Kemp, Pathetique de I'engagement (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), p. 55: "Nous pouvons done conclure qu'aucun des philosophes de Taction n'a vraiment compris l'engagement-aumonde comme Texistence-en-jeu-surgie-d'une-couche-phenoιηέηβΐβ, si l'on peut dire. Ils sont tous domines par Ie concept d'une dichotomie originaire opposant l'esprit a la matiere, Taction a l'inertie." ["We can conclude then that none of the philosophers of action really understood commitment-in-the-world as existence-caught-up-arising-from-a-phenomenal-level, so to speak. They are all dominated by the concept of a fundamental dichot­ omy between mind and matter, action and inertia."] 2. Ibid., pp. llff. 3. Jean-Paul Sartre in his preface to Portrait de I'aventurier, by Roger Stephane (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1972), pp. llff. 4. Ibid., pp. 12, 13. 5. Jorge Semprun, in Que peut la litterature? by Simone de Beauvoir et al. (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1965), p. 34. Philippe Sollers has a more radical but essentially compatible view: "L'actuelle lassitude est bien distincte de ce qu'on appelle !'engage­ ment. Cette attitude a toujours ete typiquement bourgeoise (sentimentale, morale, non-scientifique)." ["The present weariness is quite distinct from what is called commitment. That attitude has always been typically bourgeois (sentimental, moral, nonscientific)."] From an interview in La Nouvelle Critique, quoted by Predrag Matvejevitc, in "L'Engagement en litterature vu sous Ies aspects de la sociologie de la creation," UHomme et la socidti, no. 26 (October—December 1972), p. 119. 6. Sartre, Quest-ce que la littirature? (Paris: Gallimard, 1972 [Col­ lection Idees]), p. 310; his italics.

Notes to Introduction • 369 7. See what Georges Poulet says about "le point de depart" [point of departure] in Etudes sur Ie temps humain, vol. 3 (Paris: Union Ginerale d'Editions, 1977). This is why the intellectual who is faced with commitment is not particularly concerned with the accumulation of worldly knowledge: it is his position that makes him an intellectual, not his education. 8. Georg Henrik von Wright, Norm, and Action: A Logical Enquiry (New York: Humanities Press, 1963; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), p. 184. 9. Kemp, Pathitique de I'engagement, p. 16. 10. See von Wright, Norm and Action, p. 1: "In this notion of commitment there is involved not only the notion of obligation but also the notion of permission." The failure to see this is what leads Matvejevitc to denounce what he sees as the "confusion" between subjective and objective commitment, "un engagement con§u comme determination personnelle et intime de l'etre—et . . . une action d'ordre objectif, s'inscrivant plus precisement dans un contexte sociale et collectif." ["commitment understood as a personal, intimate definition of being—and . . . as action of an objective kind, occurring in a particular social, collective context."] From La Poesie de circonstance—etude des formes de I'engagement podtique (Paris: Nizet, 1971), p. 110; his italics. 11. Gilbert Mury, Les Intellectuels devant I'action (Paris: Grasset, 1947), p. 129. 12. Emmanuel Mounier, quoted in Kemp, Pathetique de I'engage­ ment, p. 34. 13. See Mury, Les Intellectuels, p. 213: "A parler franc, Ie vrai conflit n'est pas la. L'ouvrier inconscient, mu vers Taction efficace par un instinct de classe aveugle et infaillible, voila un mythe comparable au portrait fantaisiste de l'intellectual prisonnier de ses images." ["To speak frankly, that is not the real conflict. The picture of the worker without awareness, driven toward effective action by a blind, infallible class instinct, is comparable in its whimsy to that of the intellectual locked up in his images."] Sartre makes the same point with greater clarity in Portrait de I'aventurier, p. 29: "Aventurier et militant: je ne crois pas trop k ce dilemme. Je sais trop qu'un acte a deux faces: la negativitd qui est aventuriere, et la construction qui est dis­ cipline." ["Adventurer and militant: I am not sure that this is a true dilemma. I am fully aware that an act has two aspects:

370 * Notes to Introduction

negativity, which is adventurous, and constructiveness, which is discipline."] 14. Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries du repos (Paris: Corti, 1948), p. 291. 15. Maurice Beebe, Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts: The Artist as Hero in Fiction from Goethe to Joyce (New York: New York University Press, 1964), p. 114; his italics. 16. Ibid., p. 14. 17. See Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar (London: Jonathan Cape, 1945), p. 34: "The ivory tower was an esthete's creation; others are modelled on ethic principles. Their inhab­ itants don't fiddle while Rome burns, they pray." 18. E. M. Forster, "Ivory Tower," Atlantic Monthly 163 (January 1939): 51. 19. Ibid., p. 55: "Now the issue gets confused at this point by sloppy and misleading use of the word 'life.' Escapism, we are told, is a retreat from life, a denial of life, a spiritual suicide. . . . But how can a living being escape from life, whether he is an artist or anyone else? Death is the only escape from life, but once dead he produces no art." 20. Ibid., p. 52. In the rest of the article, Forster goes on to develop a more complex view as his own (see especially p. 58), but we are not concerned here with defining his individuality as such. 21. See Jean Starobinski, L'Oeil vivant . . . , vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), p. 13: "Le regard, relation intentionnelle avec Ies autres et l'horizon vecu, peut, en l'absence de la fonction visuelle, emprunter des voies compensatrices, passer par la pointe attentive de l'ou'ie ou par l'extremite des doigts. Car j'appelle ici regard moins la faculte de recueillir des images que celle d'etablir une relation." ["The look, an intentional relation with others, and the lived horizon, may, in the absence of the visual function, follow compensating paths, passing through the antennae of hear­ ing or through the tips of the fingers. I mean by the look not so much the image-receiving faculty, as that which allows one to establish a relationship."] 22. This "failure" is denounced by Raymond Abellio in Vers un nouveau prophetisme: Essai sur Ie role politique du sacrd et la situation de Lucifer dans Ie rrwnde moderne (Paris: Gallimard, 1950). See what he says on p. 11: "ce livre se donne . . . pour objet la projection inferieure de la spiritualite dans Ie social, la forme militante, visible et meme spectaculaire, done en quelque

Notes to Introduction * 371 sorte degradee, qu'elle va prendre a notre epoque: Ie Prophetisme" (his italics), ["this book takes . . . as its object the inferior projection of spirituality into society, the militant, visible, spec­ tacular, and therefore in some way degraded form that it takes in our time: the vocation of prophecy."] 23. Bachelard sees complexity in the imagination of the tower. But no doubt because of his refusal of the cognitive dimension—of "l'image qui pense"—in such contexts, he reduces this com­ plexity to two elements: the comfort of the view and the sense of prophetic domination. See La Terre et Ies reveries de la volonte (Paris: Corti, 1948), p. 384. 24. Ibid., p. 382. 25. Gaston Berger, PhenomSnologie du temps et prospective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), p. 230. 26. Gilbert Durand, Les Structures anthropologiques de I'imaginaire: Introduction a Varchetypologie gendrale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), p. 16. 27. Dominique Guerin, La Politique de I'imaginaire (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1974), p. 28. 28. The other half, almost irrelevant here, is of course understand­ ing in order to dream better: "comprendre pour mieux rever" (La Terre et Ies reveries du repos, p. 291). For a fuller discussion of the cognitive function of images see Kemp, PoStique de I'engagement (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), pp. 11-12. 29. See Drieu la Rochelle, "Troisieme Lettre aux surrealistes," Les Demiers Jours, 8 July 1927: "L'eloignement, voila ma condition." ["Being at a distance is my lot."] This helps us to avoid confusing the descent of commitment with a simple "return to the earth": the intellectual does not come from the earth. 30. For an example of this, see Bachelard on the therapeutic value of contemplation, La Terre et Ies riveries de la volonte, p. 380. 31. It does so such that the failure of commitment leads to guilt. In the words of Victor Brombert, "If one cannot join through suffering, if one cannot suffer for what one wants to, one can at least establish a bond with humanity through guilt." The Intel­ lectual Hero: Studies in the French Novel, 1885—1955 (Phila­ delphia: Lippincott, 1961), p. 147. 32. Stendhal, La Chartreuse de Parme (Paris: Gallimard, 1972 [Collection Folio]). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. All translations of La Chartreuse

372 * Notes to Chapter I de Parme follow those of C. K. Scott Moncrieff, The Charterhouse of Parma (London: Chatto & Windus, 1926). 33. Andri Grossetete, "Quelques formes de !'imagination stendhalienne: Le voyage, l'ascension, la chute," Stendhal Club 12 (1969-1970): 302. 34. Jean-Pierre Richard, Stendhal et Flaubert: "Literature et sen­ sation" (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), p. 78. 35. Gilbert Durand, Le Decor mythique de "La Chartreuse de Parme": Contribution ά I'esthetique du romanesque (Paris: Corti, 1961), p. 173. 36. Ibid., p. 159. 37. See Bachelard, UAir et Ies songes: Essai sur IHmagination du mouvement (Paris: Corti, 1943), p. 148. 38. Georges Matore, L'Espace humain: L'Expression de Vespace dans la vie, la pensie et I'art contemporains, 2nd ed. (Paris: Nizet, 1962), p. 69. 39. Grossetete, "Quelques formes," pp. 314-315. 40. Victor Brombert, "Stendhal and the Dynamics of Contempt," Bucknell Review 7 (1958): 242. 41. Richard, Stendhal et Flaubert, p. 75. 42. See Stephen Gilman, The Tower as Emblem: Chapters vm, IX, XIX and xx of the "Chartreuse de Parme" (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967), p. 29: "And since all of this does take place, the reader is not only forewarned (as Prevost pointed out) but also forced to the uncomfortable conclusion that in the world of the Chartreuse astrology is reliable." Gilman describes the structure of the narrative as a suspension bridge held between two towers (p. 63), but I find the metaphor unhelpful in that it seems to ascribe some work to images that serve presumably to hold up the (syntagmatic) world. What happens to lightness, then?

CHAPTER I

1. Maurice Barres, La Colline inspiree (Paris: Plon, 1964 [Livre de Poche]). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 2. See Gustave Flaubert, Correspondance, vol. 2 (Paris: Conard, 1902), p. 428: "Le moyen de vivre avec serenite et au grand air, c'est de se fixer sur une pyramide quelconque, n'importe laquelle, pourvu qu'elle soit elevee et a la base solide." ["The way to live

Notes to Chapter I * 373 in serenity and in the open air is to establish oneself on some pyramid, any one at all, provided it is high and with a solid base."] 3. Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries de la volant^ (Paris: Corti, 1948), p. 344. 4. Ibid., p. 359; his italics. 5. Barres, Scenes et doctrines du nationalisme, vol. 1 (Paris: PlonNourrit, 1925), p. 13; his emphasis. 6. Barres, Le Culte du moi (Paris: Plon, 1966), p. 106. 7. Barres, UAppel au soldat (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1975), p. 265. 8. See Roemerspacher's words in VAppel au soldat, p. 36: "Je suis content de m'etre plonge dans la pensee allemande. Parfois sa vague faillit m'entrainer, parfois aussi je perdis la respiration, mais j'ai touche son sable de fond." ["I am glad to have plunged into German thought. At times I was almost carried away by the wave, at times 1 lost my breath, but I touched the sand at the bottom."] 9. Barres, Les Deracinis (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1967), pp. 240241. 10. Ibid., p. 111. Barres talks elsewhere of wandering as a kind of sickness or weakness from which we need to be healed. See Le Culte du moi, pp. 132, 326-327. 11. Les Deracines, p. 43. 12. Seines et doctrines, p. 49. 13. UAppel au soldat, pp. 16, 18, 132. 14. For Hugo's, see Les Deracines, pp. 465-466, and for Boulanger's, L'Appel au soldat, p. 497. 15. Les Diraciruis, p. 474; my italics. 16. "Quel symbole d'une nation ou s'allient au bon sens Ie plus terre a terre I'audace de la grande aventure et I'esprit qui fait Ies sorciers!" (p. 8). ["What a symbol of a nation in which the most down-to-earth good sense is allied with the daring of great adventure and the spirit that makes sorcerers!"] 17. See p. 165: "La reverie s'egare, dans ce paysage infini, sur Ies formes aplanies, sur la douceur et l'usure de cette vieille contree. Et soudain, a nos pieds, a l'extremite du promontoire, surgit un noble chateau ruine, au milieu de toits rouges." ["[[Our]] reverie strays, in this endless landscape, over the smoothed-out forms, over the gentle, worn-down [[shapes]] of this old region. And suddenly, at our feet, at the tip of the promontory, there appears a noble ruined castle, amidst the red roofs."]

374 · Notee to Chapter I 18. See Le Culte du moi, p. 332, for the use of the Tour de Constance as an observation point, from which can be seen "[I'] unite dans la succession" ["unity through succession"]. 19. Les Deracines, p. 134. 20. L'Appel au soldat, p. 362; my italics. 21. Le Culte du moi, p. 326. See the "bonheurs rapides, irritants, de surface" associated with "de trop belles etrangeres" in Au Service de I'Allemagne: VOeuxre de Maurice Barres, vol. 6 (Paris: Club de l'Honnete Homme, 1965), pp. 54-55. ["rapid, irritating, surface happiness"; "overly beautiful foreign women"] 22. Seines et doctrines, vol. 1, p. 17; my italics. 23. Philip Ouston, The Imagination of Maurice Barres (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), p. 188. 24. Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries du repos (Paris: Corti, 1948), pp. 290-291. 25. Les D0racinis, p. 212. 26. Ramon Fernandez makes very much the same point in his Barres (Paris: Editions du Livre Moderne, 1943), p. 4: "L'exercice de la pensee et de la volonte, chez Barres, n'ajoute rien au contenu du monde. Son imagination, du moins dans son intention con­ sciente, ne modifie point la r6alite. Il travaille sur des sentiments et des representations deja vecus, deja penses, en vue d'un avenir qui ne fera qu'absorber Ie passe avec de plus en plus de precision, de plus en plus de 'solidite.' " ["The exercising of thought and will, in Barres, adds nothing to the content of the world. His imagination, at least in its conscious intention, does not modify reality in any way. He works on feelings and representations that have already been experienced and already been thought, with a view to a future that will do no more than absorb the past with more and more precision, more and more 'solidity.' "] 27. See Les Deracinis, p. 217: "ordonner son cerveau, concevoir toutes Ies manifestations de la nature organique et inorganique et notre ame elle-meme comme des parties de l'ame universelle qui englobe tout, comme des parcelles individuelles du grand corps de l'univers." ["to order one's mind, to conceive of all the manifestations of organic and inorganic nature, and of our souls themselves, as parts of the universal soul that embraces every­ thing, as individual particles of the great body of the universe."] 28. "En m'approchant des simples, j'ai vu comment, sous chacun de mes actes, a Γ activite consciente collabore une activite inconsciente, et que celle-ci est la meme qu'on voit chez Ies animaux et chez Ies plantes; je Iui ai simplement ajoute la reflexion"

Notes to Chapter II · 375 (Le Culte de moi, p. 348). ["As I approached simple people, I saw how, beneath each of my acts, there is an unconscious activity collaborating with the conscious one, and that this un­ conscious activity is the same as the one found in animals and plants. I have merely supplemented it with reflection."] 29. " Arriere ces yeux mediocres qui ne savent rien voir, qui de­ colorant et rabaissent tous Ies spectacles, qui refusent de reconnaitre sous Ies formes du jour Ies types eternels" (p. 51). ["Get ye behind all those mediocre eyes that do not know how to see things, that cheapen a sight and render it colorless, that refuse to recognize eternal types beneath the forms of the day."]

CHAPTER II

1. Emile Zola, Germinal (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1968). Sub­ sequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. Translations of Germinal generally follow those of Leonard Tancock, Germinal (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pen­ guin Books, 1954). 2. See Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries de la volenti (Paris: Corti, 1948), pp. 363—364, and Gilbert Durand, Les Structures anthropologiques de Vimaginaire: Introduction a I'archetypologie generale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), p. 157. 3. There are other attacks on his vertical stance: "Le jeune homme souffrait aussi du sol glissant, qui se trempait de plus en plus" (p. 59). ["He was also troubled by the slippery floor, which was getting wetter and wetter."] 4. See p. 70: "Ses epaules etaient courbees, elle grelottait un peu dans Ie froid de des vetements trempes de sueur, la mine resignee et douce, prete a subir Ies choses et Ies hommes." ["She had hunched up her shoulders and was shivering a little in her sweatsoaked clothes. Her face bore a look of gentle resignation, ready to submit to things and men."] 5. See La Terre et Ies reveries de la volonti, p. 356: "II semble qu'un veritable tropisme pousse l'etre humain a tenir la tete haute. De cette sublimation generale toute physique, la subli­ mation ideologique n'est peut-etre qu'une espece particuliere. Plus simplement, Ie psychisme humain se specifie comme volonte de redressement." ["It seems as though a veritable tropism re­ quires the human being to keep its head raised high. Given this general sublimation of a quite physical kind, ideological subli-

376 · Notes to Chapter II mation may be only a particular case. To put it more simply, the human psyche seems to be distinguished by the will to straighten up."] See also p. 364: "Combien grande est la vertu des mots quand ils sont designee dans l'humain, quand, par exemple, la colonne vei^brale est revee dans la stature droite, dans la stature verticale, comme l'axe meme de tout redressement." ["How great is the value of words when they are understood in specifically human terms; when for example in the upright stance, in vertical stature, we find the spinal column as the very axis of all straight­ ening. "] 6. To this group of "foreigners" N. R. Cirillo adds Pluchart, pointing out that "Only the other foreigner, Etienne, literally and figur­ atively becomes immersed in being a miner in that place. It is this experience of having been there that, at the same time [as] it cannot change the simple and necessary fact of his foreignness, anoints him as a revolutionary hero while his foreignness frees him to act." "Marxism as Myth in Zola's Germinal," Comparative Literature Studies 14 (September 1977): 254. 7. See Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologic structurale (Paris: Plon, 1958), pp. 238—239. "En mythologie, il est frequent que Ies hommes, nes de la terre, soient representee au moment de !'emer­ gence, comme encore incapables de marcher, ou marchant avec gaucherie." ["In mythology, it happens frequently that men born from the earth are represented at the moment of their emergence as being still unable to walk, or walking awkwardly."] 8. See Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries de la volenti, p. 357: "Etudions Ies images d'ecrasement. Nous allons Ies sentir se dialectiser par !'intervention des images contraires, comme si la volenti de redressement volait au secours de la matiere ecrasee" (his italics). He actually talks about the mountain as crushing the plain (pp. 360-361). ["Let us examine the images of crushing. We will find them taking a dialectical form through the inter­ vention of opposite images, as though the will to straighten up came rushing to the aid of crushed matter."] 9. For a fuller and richer analysis of this scene, see Naomi Schor's fine book, Zola's Crowds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 48—50, where the vertical is articulated with the achromatic. 10. See p. 319: "De partout, des mineurs debouchaient, Ies Maheu par la grande route, Ies femmes a travers champs, tous debandes, sans chefs, sans armes, coulant naturellement la, ainsi qu'une eau dibordee qui suit Ies pentes." See also p. 281. ["Miners

Notes to Chapter II · 377 were coming from all sides, the Maheus along the main road, the women across the fields, all higgledy-piggledy, without lead­ ers and without weapons, all flowing there naturally like flood water running down the slopes."] 11. See p. 249: "Et puis, il ne comprenait toujours pas, sa race se refusait au reve sombre de cette extermination du monde, fauche comme un champ de seigle, a ras de terre. Ensuite, que ferait-on, comment repousseraient Ies peuples?" ["In any case he still could not understand, for all his racial instincts recoiled from this dark vision of world extermination, of the world mown to the ground like a field of rye. What could they do after that? How could peoples grow again?"] 12. Schor, Zola's Crowds, p. 52. 13. Mircea Eliade, Le Sacrt et Ie profane (Paris: Gallimard, 1965 [Collection Idies]), pp. 44^16. 14. Durand, Les Structures anthropologiques, p. 359. 15. See Naomi Schor, "Le Cycle et Ie cercle: Temps, espace et revolution dans quatre romans de Zola" (Ph.D. diss., Yale Uni­ versity, 1969), p. 185, n. 4: "De tous Ies romans de la revolution, Germinal est Ie seul oil il y ait coincidence du cycle naturel et du cycle historique; c'est la moisson vengeresse." ["Of all the novels of revolution, Germinal is the only one in which the natural cycle coincides with the historical cycle: it is the avenging har­ vest."] 16. Antoinette Jagmetti, "La Bete humaine" d'Emile Zola: Etude de stylistique critique (Geneva: Droz, 1955), p. 25. For an ap­ plication of this to Germinal, see Schor, "Le Cycle et Ie cercle," p. 19. See also Schor's more general comments, p. 177. 17. Jagmetti herself suggests that in La Bete humaine, the force exerted is always that of weight, as the earth draws everything toward itself ("La Bete humaine," p. 14). 18. See the same organization of time in Etienne's experience of the mine: "sous Ie lent ecrasement qui faisait eclater des rondins de chene gros comme la cuisse, on se coulait a plat ventre, avec la sourde inquietude d'entendre brusquement craquer son dos" (p. 65; my italics), ["as you crawled on your belly under the slowly crushing roof which could snap oak props as thick as a [[man's]] thigh, you felt a haunting fear that suddenly you would hear your own spine crack"] 19. Aimi Guedj claims of Zola that "son scientisme ne Iui permet pas de penser la revolution," but this could only be conceded if one were able to make a clear distinction between penser and

378 · Notes to Chapter II imaginer. See his article, "Les Revolutionnaires de Zola," Les Cahiers Naturalistes 36 (1968): 132. ["his scientism does not allow his thought to embrace revolution"] 20. Alain de Lattre seems to make a comparable point when he says "La mine est un symbole: celui de la fecondite parce que d'un ecrasement et de Taffirmation de Phomme par l'apparence meme de sa negation" ["The mine is a symbol: a symbol of fertility because it shows crushing and the affirmation of man through the very appearance of his negation"], but to go from crushing to fertility without mentioning the seed is, imaginatively speak­ ing, a faulty ellipsis. See his book Le Rialisme selon Zola: Archeologie d'une intelligence (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1975), p. 173. 21. Auguste Dezalay, "Le Theme du souterrain chez Zola," Europe, nos. 468-469 (April-May 1968), pp. 110-122. 22. Roger Ripoll, "Le Symbolisme vegetal dans La Faute de I'abbi Mouret," Les Cahiers Naturalistes 12, no. 31 (1966): 15-16. See what he says about Germinal in another article: "La vie sort de terre, l'avenir jaillit de la nuit de l'oppression au fond de laquelle il a germe. Des Iors un nouveau mouvement est lance, celui qui mene des profondeurs vers Ie jour." ["Life comes out of the earth, the future springs out of the night of oppression in the depths of which it germinated. From that moment, a new movement has begun, leading from the depths to the light of day."] "L'Avenir dans Germinal: Destruction et renaissance," Les Cahiers Naturalistes 22, no. 50 (1976): 128—129. He makes the more general point about social change on p. 130 of the same article: "c'est au sein meme de la misere et de l'exploitation que naissent et se developpent les forces qui y mettront un terme." ["In the very heart of poverty and exploitation are born and develop the forces that will put an end to them."] 23. See Ripoll, "Le Symbolisme vegetal," p. 15, and Schor, "Le Cycle et Ie cercle," pp. 166—167. 24. Elsewhere in Zola, as we have seen in our references to Ripoll's work, the labor of the earth is imagined as more painful. See also John Lapp, Zola before the Rougon-Macquart (Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 1964), pp. 33—34, and Schor, "Le Cycle et Ie cercle," p. 167: "Dans cette derniere metaphore . . . l'enterre vif et Ie germe se confondent; et ce sont les hommes qui rampent dans Ie souterrain qui se mettent a pousser, a germer." ["In this last metaphor . . . the person buried alive and the seed

Notes to Chapter II · 379 come together; we now find men crawling under the ground who are beginning to grow and germinate."] 25. See also p. 493: "Et, dans ce retour en masse, dans ces ombres muettes, toutes noires, sans un rire, sans un regard de cote, on sentait les dents serrees de colere, Ie coeur gonfle de haine" ["but in these masses returning to work, in these silent dark shapes with never a smile or a glance to the side, you could sense jaws set in anger and hearts bursting with hatred"] and p. 498: "Et dans cette poignee de main derniere, il retrouvait encore celle de ses camarades, une etreinte longue, muette, qui Iui donnait rendez-vous pour Ie jour ou l'on recommencerait." ["And in this last handshake, he felt the same long, affectionate grip, with its silent promise to be there on the day when the struggle was resumed."] 26. See Maurice Barres, La Colline inspiree (Paris: Plon, 1964 [Livre de Poche]), p. 181: "Mais ces instants de faiblesse etaient rares, et toujours l'Ange de la Certitude venait Ie relever, et Ie soutenait sur les routes ou il repartait en frappant la terre de son baton." ["But these moments of weakness were rare; always the Angel of Certainty came to pick him up and help him along the road as he moved off again, striking the earth with his stick."] 27. Ibid., p. 97. 28. According to Pierre Cogny, "Les indications de I'espace sont inversees et la verticale l'emporte sur Thorizontale" ["The spatial signs are inverted and the vertical takes over from the horizon­ tal"], and this statement can be taken as roughly acceptable if it helps us to understand the shift of emphasis with respect to the desolate horizontality of the beginning. It is difficult to rec­ oncile this, however, with a remark made later in the same article characterizing the violence of the ending as the emergence of "un autre monde," "oil se confondent toutes les co-ordonnees spatio-temporelles" ["another world . . . in which all spatiotemporal coordinates are mixed together"]. "Ouverture et cloture dans Germinal," Les Cahiers Naturalistes 22, no. 50 (1976): 71, 73. My argument is that the ending is quite precisely coordinated. 29. See p. 501: "Cette fois encore, c'etait un coup d'epaule donne a la societe en mine, et ils en avaient entendu Ie craquement sous leurs pas, et ils sentaient monter d'autres secousses, toujours d'autres, jusqu'a ce que Ie vieil edifice, ebranle, s'effondrat, s'engloutit comme Ie Voreux, coulant a Tabime." ["This time their old, tottering society had received a jolt and they had heard

380 * Notes to Chapter III the ground crack beneath their feet; they felt other tremors on the way, and yet others, and so it would go on until the old edifice was shaken to pieces and collapsed into the depths of the earth, like Le Voreux."]

CHAPTER III 1. Following a well-established convention, the first story will be referred to as "La Comedie de Charleroi" and the collection of stories as La Comidie de Charleroi. Page references, found in the text, will be to the edition published in Paris by Le Livre de Poche in 1970, where "La Comedie de Charleroi" is to be found on pp. 9—123. 2. See also p. 27: "II s'etait trouve que nous avions stationne tres longtemps sur la route assez deserte, en haut d'une cote." ["It so happened that we were stationed for a very long time on the relatively deserted road, at the top of a hill."] 3. The same sort of experience is described in figurative terms in Drieu's GUles (Paris: Gallimard, 1973 [Collection Folio]), p. 595. 4. See p. 54: "Le lieutenant s'etait mis debout au milieu de nous et s'exclamait. Nous etions gagnes par son exaltation." ["The lieutenant had stood up in our midst and was calling out; we were caught up in his excitement."] 5. See Drieu, Drole de voyage (Paris: Gallimard, 1933), pp. 194195, on whipping the formless (and feminine) masses into shape. 6. Another story in this collection, "Le Lieutenant des tirailleurs," describes the failure of this same process: "Mais mon corps eut la colique. Ne pouvant reagir, ne pouvant me maintenir, me rassembler dans une action, je tombai dans la decomposition et Ie desordre" (La Comidie de Charleroi, p. 252). ["But my body had colic. Unable to react, unable to hold myself together or pull myself together through action, I fell into decay and disorder."] 7. For a discussion of this function, see the following chapter. 8. See Boutros's thoughts on the subject in Drieu's Une Femme ά sa fenetre (Paris: Gallimard, 1930), pp. 252—253: "II n'etait point surpris, mais simplement satisfait: il n'avait jamais senti d'opposition entre Fhumanite et la nature." ["He was not at all sur­ prised, merely satisfied: he had never felt an opposition between humanity and nature."]

Notes to Chapter III · 381 9. See Freddric Grover, Drieu la Rochelle and the Fiction of Tes­ timony (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1958), p. 74: "Thus he poses implicitly the dual social element on which fascism rests: the leader and the group around the leader." It will be apparent already to the reader of my text that, in the thematics of commitment, political taxonomies are not themselves an object of study. They are merely dealt with al­ lusively at certain moments here, and no final judgment—or even adjustment—is made between the two kinds of knowledge. These may be happy coincidences, or glimpses of a higher coherence. Certainly, Alain-Gerard Slama, in his book Les Chasseurs d'absolu: Genese de la gauche et de la droite (Paris: Grasset, 1980), while attempting to establish a taxonomy seems to treat the ques­ tions of commitment as a (moral) distraction from the real politicophilosophical issues. See especially what he has to say about Sartre's "confusionnisme," pp. 302—339. 10. Gilles, p. 111. 11. See p. 25: "la section de Claude etait tres mal plac6e, beaucoup trop en evidence, sur la crete d'un de ces petits plis de terrain comme il y en avait tant par ici." ["Claude's platoon was very badly situated; it was much too prominent, on the crest of one of those little folds in the earth that are so common around here."] 12. Gilles, pp. 490, 494. 13. Drieu, Riveuse bourgeoisie (Paris: Gallimard, 1975 [Collection Folio]), p. 208 (first published in 1937). What more cruelly appropriate punishment, then, than to send them "back to the earth," as Genevieve does to Camille in the same text (p. 523)? 14. It should be noted that the symbolism of the "fall" is not as fixed here as Frederic Grover seems to suppose in his general remark: "L'image de la chute associee au destin politique est a retenir: Taction chez Iui est foncierement satanique alors que l'immobilite, la non-action est edenique. " ["The image of the fall associated with political destiny is worth remembering: action for him is utterly satanic, whereas immobility and nonaction are divinely innocent."] 15. This same propensity had been manifested even earlier, in less positive forms: "Alors s'€tendit cette periode assez longue, pen­ dant laquelle il y eut des alternatives. Par moments, j'etais Ie patriote qui avait Iu des livres et des journaux. Mais a d'autres moments, j'etais cela que j'avais commence a connaitre a la

382 * Notes to Chapter III caserne. Un zero, une nullite, quelque chose de completement derobe. Un pleutre, moins qu'un pleutre, un zero. Quant a l'homme, oil etait-il?" (p. 38). ["Then began the rather long stretch of time during which there were alternatives. At certain moments, I was the patriot who had read the books and the newspapers. But at other moments, I was that which I had begun to recognize in the barracks. A nothing, a nobody, something of absolutely no con­ sequence. A coward, worse than a coward, a nothing. As for the man, where was he?"] 16. Gilles, p. 605. 17. "L'Agent double," Nouvelle Revue Franqaise 45, no. 1 (July 1935): 26-27. See especially p. 30. The two temptations are not always considered, however, to be equal in strength. See Drieu, Socialisme fasciste (Paris: Gallimard, 1934), pp. 152—153: "Mais il n'est que trop facile a l'homme moderne de devenir un clerc. Au contraire, pour rester un guerrier il Iui faut faire un effort, c'est done que par la il se desequilibre et se defait, et qu'il y doit prendre garde." ["But it is only too easy for modern man to become a clerk [[intellectual]]. On the other hand, to remain a warrior he has to make an effort, and so this is the side on which he loses his balance and comes apart. It is of this that he must beware."] 18. See La ComAdie de Charleroi, p. 115: "J'avais une mauvaise conscience depuis que j'avais rejoint ma compagnie: maintenant que je meditais de la semer, je me rehabilitais a mes propres yeux." ["I had been feeling unhappy with myself ever since joining my company again: now that I was planning to leave it behind, I was regaining my self-respect."] 19. See Gilles, p. 110: "Depuis 1914, il avait palpite entre ciel et terre, dans une continuelle tension entre la vie et la mort. Main­ tenant il etait repris par la vie." ["Since 1914, he had been fluttering between sky and earth, in a continual tension between life and death. Now he was caught up in life again."] See also Geneve ou Moscou (Paris: Gallimard, 1928), p. 211: "II en resulte que l'6lite, pas plus nombreuse qu'autrefois, oscille entre la vulgarite regnant dans Ies lieux publics qui ne sont plus pour elle, dans Ies livres qui ne Iui sont pas destines et qui regoivent Ie succ^s d'autres mains que Ies siennes et un raffinement qui verse sans cesse dans Ie pr^cieux, Ie pervers, Ie pourri. Les oscillations de plus en plus brutales ont vite fait de detraquer et de vider Ies cervelles." ["The result of this is that the elite, whose

Notes Io Chapter IV • 383 members are no more numerous than in the past, oscillates be­ tween the vulgarity reigning in public places that are no longer for its use, in books that are not intended for it, whose recognition comes from others, and a kind of refinement that constantly turns into preciosity, perversity, and corruption. This oscillation be­ comes progressively more violent, and it does not take long to derange and empty people's minds."] See Andreu and Grover, Drieu la Rochelle, p. 551: "Meme au sujet de cette 'alternance,' de ce caractere 'plurivalent' qui Ie caracterisait, Drieu se montre 'ambivalent.' " ["Even with respect to this 'alternation' and this 'multivalent' character that typified him, Drieu shows himself to be 'ambivalent.' "] 20. Andreu and Grover, Drieu la Rochelle, p. 329. 21. Drdle de voyage, p. 293. 22. Gilles, p. 494. 23. Socialisme fasciste, p. 245. 24. See La Comedie de Charleroi, p. 258: "A Verdun, Ies hommes me faisaient peur. Je regardais autour de moi ces hommes vautres. Et je songeais aux generaux derriere." ["At Verdun, men fright­ ened me. I looked around me at those wallowing men. And I thought of the generals at the rear."]

CHAPTER IV 1. Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, UHomme a cheval (Paris: Gallimard, 1973 [Collection Folio]). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 2. We should never be likely to confuse this with the cheap dom­ ination of Cael in Gilles, described as "ce maniaque qui ne descendait jamais de son piedestal de carton" (p. 475). ["that maniac who never got down from his cardboard pedestal."] 3. See Drieu's insistence on the importance of the body for fascist revolution in Notes pour comprendre Ie siecle (Paris: Gallimard, 1941), pp. 167—168: "La Revolution qui se produit en Europe est totale parce que c'est la revolution du corps, la restauration des valeurs issues du corps, liees au corps et que, par la-meme, c'est la revolution de l'ame qui de nouveau decouvre, detaille ses valeurs έ travers Ies valeurs du corps." ["The Revolution that is taking place in Europe is total because it is the revolution of the body, the return to values that come out of the body and are

384 · Notes to Chapter IV bound up with it; for that very reason, it is the revolution of the soul, which is discovering and examining its values anew through the values of the body."] 4. The tragedy in L'Homme ά cheval is the loss of unity: "Les chevaux s'effondraient, se cabraient, retombaient les uns sur les autres. Les centaures se disjoignaient, ame d'un cote, corps de l'autre" (p. 53). ["The horses collapsed, reared up, and fell down on top of each other. The centaurs came apart, their souls on one side, their bodies on the other."] 5. These two groups are paired in Geneve ou Moscou (Paris: Gallimard, 1928), p. 265, as the "deux grandes forces conservatrices" ["two great conservative forces"]. 6. This is exactly the privilege of Constant Trubert during the occupation: "Done, Constant circulait a travers la France, muni de tous les papiers et de tous les laissez-passer. Il circulait entre les Frangais, les Allemands, les Italiens, les agents anglais, americains, russes, les communistes, les fascistes, les cures, les magons et d'autres especes encore." Drieu, Les Chiens de paille (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), pp. 91—92. ["So Constant moved about all over France, equipped with every paper and pass. He moved among the French, the Germans, the Italians, the English, Amer­ ican, and Russian agents, the communists, fascists, priests, ma­ sons, and other sorts as well."] 7. Cf. this conversation between Florida and Felipe (pp. 34-35): "—Une discretion moderee est de bon usage, mon enfant. L'Eglise exerce cette vertu de fagon superieure a l'egard de toutes les choses qui se trament dans Ie siecle. —Mais l'intime administration du siecle est pourtant son affaire. —Intime est un mot bien choisi." [" 'Moderate discretion is a good rule, my son. The church prac­ tices this virtue in a superior way with respect to all the goingson in the secular world.' 'But the close administration of the secular is still its concern.' 'Close is a well-chosen word.' "] 8. See Drieu, Ricit secret, suivi du Journal 1944-1945 et d'Exorde (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), pp. 97—98, on the place of intellectuals: "Tant pis s'ils se trompent dans Ie moment. Ils ont assure une mission necessaire, celle d'etre ailleurs qu'est la foule. En avant, en arriere, ou de cote, peu importe; mais d'etre ailleurs. . . . " ["It is too bad if they are wrong at the time. They have carried out a vital mission, that of being somewhere other than the crowd.

Notes to Chapter IV * 385 Ahead, behind, beside, it does not much matter; as long as it is somewhere else. . . . "] 9. It seems significant, in this regard, that Jean-Marie Perusat's work on Drieu pays scant attention to L'Homme a cheval. Since Perusat talks throughout of "la fusion/confusion" as part of Drieu's effort to create and nourish misunderstanding, we can at least take advantage of the opportunity offered by L'Homme ά cheval to make a distinction between the two parts of this supposedly undifferentiated and all-pervasive entity. When one has de­ scribed Felipe as merely a dreamer and an observer, it is, of course, much easier to sustain the thesis that the consequences of (low) action are always refused in Drieu's work. Felipe is also a spy and a procurer, as we have seen. See Perusat's book, Drieu la Rochelle ou Ie gout du malentendu (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1977), p. 135 and passim. 10. Drieu, Une Femme a sa fenetre (Paris: Gallimard, 1930), pp. 147ff. and pp. 254—256, respectively. 11. Geneve ou Moscou, quoted by Frederic Grover in his critical anthology Sur Ies dcrivains (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 122. 12. Drieu, Le, Jeune Europden (Paris: Gallimard, 1927), p. 52. 13. Ibid., p. 95. 14. Drieu, Socialisme faseiste (Paris: Gallimard, 1934), p. 127. 15. Quoted in Pierre Andreu and Frederic Grover, Drieu la Roehelle (Paris: Hachette, 1979), p. 329. The article is titled "Paris ville d'exiles" and was published on 28 January 1933. 16. Geneve ou Moscou, p. 67. 17. Drieu, Reveuse bourgeoisie (Paris: Gallimard, 1975 [Collection Folio]), p. 434. 18. Drieu, L'Homme couvert de femmes (Paris: Gallimard, 1925), pp. 34-35. 19. Quoted by Frederic Grover in "Malraux et Drieu la Rochelle" (Andre Malraux 1), Revue des Lettres Modernes, nos. 304-309 (1972), p. 88. See also Drieu's Gilles (Paris: Gallimard, 1973 [Collection Folio]), p. 161: "Lui, Gilles, voulait entrer dans ce monde. Apres cela, il verrait." ["Gilles wanted to move into this world. After that, he would see."] 20. See Julien Benda, La Fin de I'dternel (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), pp. 58-61. 21. Pierre-Henri Simon, Proees du heros: Montherlant, Drieu la Rochelle, Jean Prdvost (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1950), p. 126. 22. Geneve ou Moscou, p. 208; my italics.

386 · Notes to Chapter IY 23. See Notes pour comprendre Ie Steele, pp. 85-86: "Les mots n'ont de valeur que s'ils sont encore pres de Taction, la suivant et la prec6dant tour a tour, mais si la distance augmente entre mot et acte, entre vie et mort, Ie mot se decolore et se fane comme une plante arrachee." ["Words only have worth if they are close to action, following and preceding it in turn, but if the distance between word and act, life and death, increases, the word fades and withers like a plant that has been pulled out of the ground."] 24. Le Jeune Europien, p. 53. 25. Gilles, p. 680. 26. Quoted by Grover, Sur les ecrivains, p. 51. 27. Ibid., p. 53. 28. Notes pour comprendre Ie siecle, p. 155. 29. See Socialisme fasciste, pp. 114—115. 30. Les Chiens de paille, pp. 210-211. 31. Le Jeune Europien, p. 58; my italics. See also p. 94. 32. Gilles, p. 189. Such alliance is presumably to be opposed to the (plural) "alliages de Paris" (p. 210) ["connections in Paris"]. 33. "Sexual" ought no doubt to be preferred to "erotic" here because the text is more concerned with consummation than with desire. 34. See p. 232: "Oui, tu etais venu pour renouveler la musique et la theologie. Tu aurais mis une nouvelle forme au monde." ["Yes, you had come to renew music and theology. You would have brought a new form into the world."] 35. Drieu, "L'Agent double," Nouvelle Revue Frangaise 45, no. 1 (July 1935): 34; my italics. Fascism is antidemocratic, of course, in its refusal of any notion of balance in favor of a more violent fusion and resolution of conflict: "Si Ie fascisme se presente comme un nouveau parti intermediaire entre la vieille droite et la vieille gauche . . . quand il est au pouvoir, sa methode n'est pourtant pas celle du radicalisme, e'est la methode contraire. Ce n'est pas une politique ^equilibre, ce n'est pas balance et balan^oire, e'est une politique de fusion. Les forces entre lesquelles se joue Ie radicalisme, Ie fascisme les oblige h s'affronter enfin. A l'interieur d'un fascisme, il y a dans Ie grand feu une derniere lutte privee, sournoise, lente, feroce, sans merci entre les βΐέments combustibles" (Socialisme fasciste, p. 102; my italics). ["Although fascism appears as a new party between the old right and the old left . . . when it is in power, its method is not that of Radicalism, however; it is the opposite method. It is not a policy of balance, it is not scales and seesaws; it is a policy of

Notes Io Chapter IV · 387 fusion. The forces between which Radicalism plays its role are obliged by fascism to confront each other at last. Within fascism, there is in the heat of passion a final struggle, one that is private, underhand, slow-moving, savage, and merciless, between the combustible elements."] 36. Gilles, p. 521; see also p. 522: "Je veux detruire la societe capitaliste pour restaurer la notion d'aristocratie." ["I wish to destroy capitalist society in order to restore the notion of aris­ tocracy."] 37. See p. 71: "J'avais longtemps erre sur nos hauts plateaux, recueillant Ies debris dechirants d'un art qui etait Ie secret meme de cette terre insensee, perdue dans la demesure; mais il n'est pas de demesure qui ne soit encore mesure de la race des hommes errant entre Ies extremes de son aire." ["I had wandered for a long time on our high plateaus, picking up the heart-rending debris of an art that was the very secret of this absurdly immod­ erate land; but there is no excess that is not also the measure/ moderation of the race of men wandering within the extremes of its territory."] 38. He is, no doubt, just one step beyond the man of alternation, the "double agent" who says: "Des lors, je pouvais vivre entierement dans deux univers. Je passais de l'un a l'autre sans gene ni bafouillage: je glissais en une seconde de l'un dans l'autre— la vie des pauvres communistes, la pensee haute des orthodoxes" ("L'Agent double," p. 32). ["From that time on, I was able to live wholly in two worlds. I crossed over without discomfort or stuttering: I slipped from one to the other in a second—the life of the poor communists, the noble thought of the orthodox."] 39. See Robert Brasillach, Portraits (Paris: Plon, 1962), pp. 234, 238. 40. In Geneve ou Moscou, p. 18, Drieu describes in general their coexistence in his work, although here it takes the more banal form of oscillation: "Mais, apres ce que je viens de dire, on comprend que la separation entre Ies deux genres chez moi ne sera jamais absolue: Ie lyrisme descendra toujours jusqu'a ras de terre, quitte a rebondir dans Ie ciel Ie plus outre et !'obser­ vation se detendra par moments jusqu'a une reverie evasive." ["But, after what I have just said, you can understand that in my case the separation of the two genres will never be absolute: lyricism will always come down to ground level, even if it re­ bounds again to the most outrageous heavenly heights, and ob-

388 * Notes to Chapter IV servation will at times become so relaxed as to be dreamy es­ cape."] 41. Does this not mark the end of the hope expressed by Gille in L'Homme couvert de femmes, pp. 197—198, or at least the re­ nunciation of his "way"? There he says: "Je m'accroche au point juste, a cette charniere par quoi Ie corps tourne sur Ies appuis de l'ame, sans jamais s'en desaxer, comme la porte dans Ie mur. La femme est cette charniere, cette piece essentielle dans l'economie de l'homme, elle est Ie noeud profond entre la terre et Ie ciel." ["I cling to the exact point, to that hinge by which the body turns on the supports of the soul, without ever going askew, like a door in a wall. Woman is that hinge, that key part in the make-up of man; she is the profound connection between earth and sky/heaven."] 42. See Ricit secret, pp. 50—51: "II ne faut pas dire: Dieu au ciel, il faut plutot dire: Dieu dans la terre. Il est l'essence de la terre autant que celle du ciel, l'essence de l'humain autant que du non-humain. Dans l'homme aussi bien que Dieu commence Ie non-etre. Dans Ie non-etre aussi bien que dans l'etre commence l'indicible." ["We should not say: God in heaven, we should say: God in the earth. He is the essence of the earth just as much as of the sky, the essence of the human just as much as of the nonhuman. In man as much as in God we can find the beginning of nonbeing. In nonbeing as much as in being, we can find the beginning of the inexpressible."] 43. From the unpublished manuscript of L'Homme ά cheval quoted in Thomas M. Hines, "L'Homme a cheval de Drieu la Rochelle: L'anatomie d'un roman de transition" (Ph.D. diss., Emory Uni­ versity, 1974), p. 279. 44. Socialisme fasciste, p. 112. See Les Chiens de paille, p. 55. 45. Jean Mabire, Drieu parmi nous (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1963), p. 183; my italics. 46. See Une Femme ά sa fenetre, pp. 250-251, the description of Delphi: "En haut c'itait, a la limite de l'humain, la region exaltee, consumee, presque aneantie dans Ie ciel, la crete livree au soleil pur oil Ies nymphes oreades elles-memes ne se risquaient peut-etre pas a midi et oil dans une flamme invisible s'achevait, comme un sacrifice, Tenorme remuement d'en bas." ["At the top was, at the very limit of the human, the exalted region, consumed and almost annihilated in the sky, the crest delivered up to the pure sun where even the oread nymphs may

Notes to Chapter V · 389 not have dared to go at midday, and where an invisible flame consumed, as if in a sacrifice, the massive stirrings from below."] 47. Notes pour comprendre Ie siecle, p. 170.

CHAPTER V

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mouches, in Huis clos, suivi de Les Mouches (Paris: Gallimard, 1978 [Collection Folio]; (first published in 1947). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 2. See Robert Champigny, Stages on Sartre's Way, 1938—1952 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959), p. 83: "Between the heavenly order of the stars and the chthonian order of passion and superstition, Orestes hovers in mid-air." 3. Ibid., p. 85. 4. See Les Mouches, p. 208: "Hier encore, je marchais au hasard sur la terre, et des milliers de chemins fuyaient sous mes pas, car ils appartenaient a d'autres. Je Ies ai tous empruntes . . . mais aucun n'etait a moi. Aujourd'hui, il n'y en a plus qu'un, et Dieu sait oil il mene: mais c'est mon chemin" (his italics). ["As recently as yesterday, I walked the earth haphazardly, and thousands of paths fled beneath my feet, for they belonged to others. I followed/borrowed them all . . . but none of them be­ longed to me. Today, there is only one, and God knows where it leads: but it is my path."] So it is that the "trou" [hole] of which Orestes speaks (p. 178) has little in common with that of "La Comedie de Charleroi": rather than the pothole of contin­ gency, it represents the purposeful groove—some might say the rut—of commitment. 5. Champigny, Stages on Sartre's Way, p. 87; his italics. 6. Sartre, Le Mur (Paris: Gallimard, 1975 [Collection Folio]), pp. 220, 224. 7. Georges Poulet, Etudes sur Ie temps humain, vol. 3 (Paris: Union Generate d'Editions, 1977), p. 233; his italics. 8. Sartre, Les Mots (Paris: Gallimard, 1964 [Collection Folio]), p. 53; his italics. 9. Sartre, "Erostrate," in Le Mur, pp. 81—102. Subsequent refer­ ences to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 10. For reasons that are not apparent to me, Andr6 Helbo quotes this same passage as an indication of "le caractere metaphysique

390 · Notes to Chapter V de cet itineraire." L'Enjeu du discours: Lecture de Sartre (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1978), p. 168. ["the metaphysical nature of this journey"] 11. Gerald-Joseph Prince, "Le Symbolisme des noms dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Jean-Paul Sartre," Papers on Language and Lit­ erature (Edwardsville) 5 (Summer 1969): 318. 12. Prince relates changes in height to changes in mastery and domination (Mitaphysique et technique dans l'oeuvre romanesque de J -P. Sartre [Geneva: Droz, 1968], pp. 96-97), whereas Helbo describes shifts along the axis "high versus low" as corresponding to displacements within the semantic fields "static versus dy­ namic" and "active versus passive" (L'Enjeu du discours, pp. 167-168). 13. See Prince, Mitaphysique et technique, p. 29. 14. See Sartre: Texte integral du film realise par A. Astruc et M. Contat (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), p. 67, where Sartre speaks of his integration as an intellectual in a prisoner-of-war camp: "Mais en meme temps, il est certain que Ies rapports qu'on avait n'etaient pas des rapports d'elite, c'etaient des rapports d'individu ή individu. C'etait une communication sans trou, nuit et jour; on se voyait, on se parlait directement et a egalite. Vous savez, il y avait Ies cabinets en commun. Alors, quand on en fait usage avec beaucoup de gens, l'elite disparait. Voila un bel exemple ou l'idealisme disparait." ["But at the same time, we certainly did not have the relationship of an elite, they were individual relationships. It was unbroken communication, night and day; we saw each other and spoke directly, on an equal footing. We had toilets in common, you know. So, when you use them with a lot of people, the elite disappears. There is a fine example of the disappearance of idealism."] 15. Sartre, Les Jeux sont faits (London: Methuen, 1956), p. 123. 16. See Alessandro Briosi on the piremptoire [peremptory] as a deontic mode in "Sartre et Ie caractere classique de YEtranger," in Albert Camus 1980, ed. Raymond Gay-Crosier (Gainesville: A University of Florida Book, 1980), pp. 235—245. 17. Sartre, L'Age de raison (Paris: Gallimard, 1973 [Collection Folio]; first published in 1945). Subsequent references to this edition, as to the other two published volumes of the trilogy listed hereafter, will be found in parentheses in the text. Le Sursis (Paris: Gallimard, 1972 [Collection Folio]; first published in 1945); La Mort dans I'ame (Paris: Gallimard, 1972 [Collection Folio]; first published in 1949).

Notes Io Chapter V · 391 18. See Champigny, Stages on Sartre's Way, p. 42: "Mathieu hovers in mid-air and never quite manages to land." 19. The continuation of the dialogue shows that Mathieu does not agree with this diagnosis: "—N'etre rien, repeta lentement Mathieu. Non. Ce n'est pas qa. Ecoute: je . . . je voudrais ne me tenir que de moimeme. —Oui. Etre libre. Totalement libre. Cest ton vice." [" 'To be nothing,' Mathieu repeated slowly. 'No. That's not right. Listen, I . . . I would like to depend only on myself.' 'Yes. Being free. Totally free. It's your vice.' "] 20. Sartre, La Nausde (Paris: Gallimard, 1966 [Le Livre de Poche Universite; first published in 1938), p. 188. 21. Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries du repos (Paris: Corti, 1948), p. 304. 22. See Wallace Fowlie's comment: "Mathieu is left, at the end of the novel, in total solitude, as the world withdraws from him in precisely the opposite movement from that with which it had pressed against him at the beginning." "Existentialist Hero: A Study of L'Age de raison," Yale French Studies 1 (Spring—Summer 1948): 55. 23. Sartre, La Putain respectueuse, suivi de Morts sans sepulture (Paris: Gallimard, 1947 [Livre de Poche]), p. 71. 24. Charles I. Glicksberg, The Literature of Commitment (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1976), p. 228; my ital­ ics. 25. Jean Pouillon in Pour ou contre Vexistentialisme, ed. Colette Audry (Paris: Atlas, 1948), p. 66. 26. Champigny, Stages on Sartre's Way, p. 30. 27. See Prince, Mitaphysique et technique, pp. 113—114: "Brunet, afflige de l'esprit de serieux, Brunet qui s'est fait roc en suivant aveuglement Ies directives du Parti, commence lentement a fondre: comme tous Ies personnages de Sartre, il est libre par rapport au caractere qu'il s'est donne, parce qu'il se l'est donne." ["Bru­ net, who is afflicted with the spirit of seriousness, Brunet who has made himself a rock by blindly following the directives of the Party, slowly begins to melt: like all Sartre's characters, he is free with respect to the personality he has taken on, [[pre­ cisely]] because he has taken it on."]

392 · Notes to Chapter VI

CHAPTER VI 1. Paul Nizan, Les Chiens de garde (Paris: Maspero, 1976; first published in 1932). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 2. Much could be said about Sartre's different attempts to relate morality to materialism. He says in the film Sartre: Texte integral du film realis0 par A. Astruc et M. Contat (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), p. 102: "C'est que justement Ie probleme etait pour moi, au fond, de savoir si on choisissait politique ou morale ou bien si la politique et la morale ne faisaient qu'un. Et alors maintenant je suis revenu a un point de depart mais plus enrichi si vous voulez, en mettant la morale au niveau de Taction des masses." ["The thing is that my problem was precisely to decide whether you had a choice of politics or morality, or whether politics and morality were the same thing. And so now I've come back to the starting point, but with an enriched understanding, I suppose you could say, by putting morality at the level of the action of the masses."] We shall generally concentrate here on his "moral" phases, especially on the first, which coincides approximately with the literary texts studied in Chapter V. On this question, see the text of the film, pp. 100, 121—122, 125. See also MichelAntoine Burnier, Les Existeniialistes et la politique (Paris: Gal­ limard, 1966 [Collection Idees]), pp. 81-83. 3. Jean-Paul Sartre, Qu'est-ce que la litterature? (Paris: Gallimard, 1972 [Collection Idees]), p. 192. Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 4. Sartre, Situations, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), p. 42; my italics, except where indicated. In quite another context, Gadamer makes a similar point: "The very idea of a situation means that we are not standing outside it and hence are unable to have any objective knowledge of it." Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), p. 269. 5. Sartre, Plaidoyer pour Ies intellectuals (Paris: Gallimard, 1975 [Collection Idees]), p. 77; my italics. 6. Ibid., p. 73. 7. Situations, vol. 2, p. 10 ("Presentation des Temps Modernes"). 8. Sartre, Situations, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), p. 41. 9. Ibid., pp. 56-57. 10. Plaidoyer pour Ies intellectuels, pp. 60-61; his italics. 11. Ibid., p. 61.

Notee to Chapter VI · 393

12. The radicalism of certain anthropologists takes the same imag­ inative form, as the following title suggests: Gerrit Huizer and Bruce Mannheim, eds., The Politics of Anthropology: From Colo­ nialism and Sexism toward a View from Below (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1979). 13. Plaidoyer pour Ies intellectuals, pp. 62—63; his italics. 14. Sartre, Le Diable et Ie bon dieu (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), p. 213. 15. Ibid., p. 25. 16. Ibid., p. 166. 17. "Des na'ifs ont declare que j'etais 'antipoetique' ou 'contre la poesie.' Phrase absurde, autant dire que je suis contre l'air ou contre l'eau" (Quest-ce que la littirature?, p. 368, n.[6]; his italics). ["Some simple-minded people have declared me to be 'anti-poetic' or 'against poetry.' That is an absurd phrase: you might as well say that I am against air or water."] Without wishing to become involved in the labyrinthine problems surrounding the prose-poetry distinction, we can argue, as Bachelard would, that it is not absurd to affirm in imaginative terms that Sartre is against the air. We have tried to show this at virtually every point of our study. See Robert Champigny's study of UEtre et Ie neant in his Stages on Sartre's Way, 1938—1952 (Bloomington: Indiana Uni­ versity Press, 1959), p. 53. 18. Jean-Paul Sartre, Bernard Pingaud, and Dionys Mascolo, Du role de I'intellectuel dans Ie mouvement revolutionnaire (Paris: Eric Losfeld, 1971 [Collection Ie Desordre]), p. 11; Sartre's ital­ ics. 19. Ibid., p. 15. One is reminded of the eagle's nest and perhaps, too, of Clamence's discussion—in Camus' La Chute—of the malconfort as a place in which one can settle. 20. Plaidoyer pour Ies intellectuals, p. 30; his italics. 21. Ibid., p. 85. 22. Situations, vol. 2, pp. 13—14; his italics. 23. See Peter Kemp, Pathitique de I'engagement (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), p. 31, for his discussion of the role of the future in UEtre et Ie niant. 24. Not surprisingly, the "shared subjectivity" identified in this chapter can be found in other places, particularly in the writings of Emmanuel Mounier. In Quest-ce que Ie personnalisme? (first published in 1947; Oeuvres, vol. 3, 1944—1950 [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962], pp. 177-245), we find the refusal of "une sorte

394 · IVotee to Chapter VII de hauteur dogmatique, une apologie systematique de l'abstention" ["a kind of dogmatic haughtiness/height, a systematic apo­ logia for abstention"], which is identified as "la plus subtile ech6ance de l'esprit d'objectivite" ["the most subtle result of the spirit of objectivity"]. "La verite," we are told, "ne se connait que dans un engagement vecu. Se retirer en chambre haute et, d'un poste d'arbitre, juger au nom de criteres abstraits de toutes choses et de tous devient a la longue, sous une technique de lucidite, un systeme d'aveuglement. Car la verite sur Ies choses humaines ne sort pas toute faite de deux axes de coordonnees, elle nait d'une communaute de destin avec Ies soucis, Ies problemes, Ies erreurs memes de ceux dont nous partageons Ie sort, elle se degage dans la camaraderie de route plus que dans Ies epures d'ateliers" (p. 233). ["Truth can be known only in lived commitment. Withdrawing into a lofty room and judging every­ thing and everyone from the umpire's position in the name of abstract criteria becomes, in the long run, despite the technical insistence on lucidity, a system of blindness. For the truth about human things does not come ready-made from two coordinate axes, it is born from a community of destiny, with the concerns, the problems, the very mistakes of those whose fate we share; it emerges in the companionship of fellow travelers rather than in fine work on the drawing board."] In keeping with this funda­ mental imaginative choice, Mounier denounces floating—"Ce personnalisme moralisant flotte entre ciel et terre, pour trahir a la fois Ie ciel et la terre" (p. 233) ["This moralizing personalism floats between sky and earth, betraying them both as it does so"]—in favor of plunging into the world (see p. 191). The light­ ness of pure ideas has nothing to do, we are told, with human reality: "Je ne suis pas un cogito 16ger et souverain dans Ie ciel des idees, mais cet etre lourd dont une lourde expression seule donnera Ie poids" (p. 192). ["I am not a light and powerful cogito in the heaven of ideas, but this heavy being who can give his full measure only in weighty expression."]

CHAPTER VII

1. Albert Camus, Theatre, rScits, nouvelles (Paris: Gallimard, 1962, 1963 printing [Bibliotheque de la Pleiade]; note that the pagi­ nation of this "edition" varies with different printings), p. 138. Subsequent references to this volume will be accompanied by a

Notes to Chapter VII · 395 roman numeral i, followed by the page number. References to the other volume of Camus' work in the same collection, Essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), will be given with a roman numeral π, followed by the page number. 2. Translations of Le Mythe de Sisyphe generally follow those of Justin O'Brien, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967). 3. See Le Malentendu, I , 118: "l'habitude commence au second crime. Au premier, rien ne commence, c'est quelque chose qui finit." ["habit begins with the second crime. With the first, noth­ ing begins: it is the end of something."] 4. Maurice Blanchot, "Le Detour vers la simplicite," NJt.F. 8, no. 87 (May 1960): 929. 5. Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et Ies reveries de la volonte (Paris: Corti, 1948), pp. 193-194. 6. For a full discussion of this, see Laurent Mailhot, Albert Camus, ou Timagination du desert (Montreal: Presses de l'Universite de Montreal, 1973), pp. 236-238. 7. On Camus' preference of the hill to the mountain, see Mailhot, Albert Camus, p. 103. 8. Sisyphus's passion is not equivalent to the Passion, as Paul Baumgartner points out, in "Albert Camus and the Tensions of Irony" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1968), p. 59: "For just as Christ has his cross to bear up Calvary, so Sisyphus has his rock to push up the slope. But if Christ's eyes are lifted heavenwards, Sisyphus' face is turned down toward the earth, pressed hard against his rock." 9. Translations of La Peste often follow those of Stuart Gilbert, The Plague (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1960). 10. For a comment on the frequency of the evening trive in Camus' work, plus a list of references, see Thorne Sherwood, Jr., "Albert Camus in His Fiction: From Ambivalence to Ambiguity" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1971), p. 146, n. 3. 11. See Peter Cryle, "La Peste et Ie monde concret: Etude abstraite" (Albert Camus 8), Revue des Lettres Modernes, nos. 479—483 (1976), pp. 13£f. See also Sherwood, "Albert Camus in His Fic­ tion," p. 786: "it is fair to say that in a way practically all the 'authentic' Camusian protagonists from Meursault to d'Arrast have sought to 'begin again.' " 12. Translations of L'Exil et Ie royaume generally follow those of Justin O'Brien, Exile and the Kingdom (Harmondsworth, Mid­ dlesex: Penguin Books, 1958).

396 · Notee to Chapter VII 13. Sherwood ("Albert Camus in His Fiction," p. 780, n. 148) notes the presence of the expression "sans transition" in some of the other stories of L'Exil et Ie royaume, and observes: "The 'transition' men need to make life bearable for themselves and hence for others is a detente from the pressures of living and dying—the 'trgve melancolique' Meursault and his mother ex­ perienced before their deaths—usually made possible by the (temporary) pleasures of beauty and 'mastery.' " 14. See Paul A. Fortier, "Creation et fonctionnement de l'atmosphere dans Le Renigat de Camus," PMlA 88 (1973): 493: "Le Renegat tue pour affirmer l'universalite et l'eternite de l'univers violent, mais il commet son meurtre dans un decor qui, par son existence meme, Ies nie." ["The Renegade kills in order to affirm that the world of violence is universal and eternal, but he commits his crime in a setting that, by its very existence, denies this."] 15. All of this ideological chatter seems to make it almost impossible for him to experience the true silence that is felt by Sisyphean man when he pauses deliberately in the midst of his torment: "De meme, l'homme absurde, quand il contemple son tourment, fait taire toutes Ies idoles. Dans l'univers soudain rendu a son silence, Ies mille petites voix emerveillees de la terre s'elevent" (il, 197; my italics). ["In the same way, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In a universe which has suddenly been allowed to retrieve its silence, the thousand small, wondering voices of the earth begin to speak up."] This silence reveals not one voice, nor two, but the irre­ ducible plurality of ongoing life. 16. See R. Guenon, Le Symbolisme de la croix (Paris: Vega, 1950), passim. 17. See Fortier, "Creation et fonctionnement," p. 494: "Cette con­ version—pour tranchante qu'elle soit—n'a lieu, pourtant que dans l'esprit du protagoniste. Le Renegat s'etait integre a un certain univers, non seulement a-t-il cru a certaines valeurs, il a agi en conformity avec elles. Il ne peut pas defaire ses actions. La phrase finale de la nouvelle rappelle, avec une secheresse brutale, qu'au niveau des faits, Ie Renegat n'a pas reussi a s'evader de l'univers violent." ["This conversion—however rad­ ical it may be—merely takes place in the mind of the hero. The Renegade had become part of a certain world: he not only came to believe in certain values, he acted on them. He cannot undo his actions. The final sentence of the story reminds us tersely

Notes to Chapter VII · 397 and brutally that, on the level of hard facts, the Renegade has not been able to escape from the world of violence."] 18. Translations of La Chute generally follow those of Justin O'Brien, The Fall (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1957). 19. Bachelard, L'Air et Ies songes: Essai sur I'imagination du mouvement (Paris: Corti, 1943), p. 108. 20. Mailhot, Albert Camus, p. 301. 21. Bachelard, L'Air et Ies songes, p. 112. 22. Ibid., p. 111. 23. A similar remark by Clamence provides a narrower political framework for the understanding of "Le Renegat": "La verite est que tout homme intelligent, vous Ie savez bien, reve d'etre un gangster et de regner sur la societe par la seule violence. Comme ce n'est pas aussi facile que peut Ie faire croire la lecture des romans specialises, on s'en remet generalement a la politique et l'on court au parti Ie plus cruel. Qu'importe, n'est-ce pas, d'humilier son esprit si l'on arrive par la a dominer tout Ie monde?" (i, 1502). ["The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know very well, dreams of being a gangster and reigning over society by violence alone. Now since this is more difficult to do than the novels which make it their specialty would have us believe, one is generally obliged to turn to politics and rush into the arms of the cruellest party. What does it matter, after all, to humiliate one's mind, if that is the way one comes to dominate everybody?"] The party with the reputation for being the most cruel with its intellectuals is of course the Communist Party. 24. See Morten N0jgaard, "Temps et espace dans La Chute," Orbis Litterarum 26 (1971): 313: "Cependant Ie mouvement est de nature dialectique: pour que je puisse m'elever, il faut que d'autres soient opprimes, refoules vers Ies gouffres. Car nous sommes pris entre des oppositions polaires sans points fixes. Ma montee presuppose done la chute d'autrui" (his italics). ["Nevertheless, the movement is dialectical in nature: for me to raise myself up, others must be oppressed, and pushed down into the abyss. For we are caught between polar oppositions without any fixed points. So my rise presupposes the fall of others."] 25. See Brian T. Fitch, "Clamence en chute libre: La coherence imaginaire de La Chute," in Camus 1970, ed. Raymond GayCrosier (Quebec: CELEF, Universite de Sherbrooke, 1970), pp. 47-76.

398 · Notes to Chapter VII 26. Mailhot, Albert Camus, p. 299. See N0jgaard, "Temps et espace," p. 312. 27. Mailhot, Albert Camus, p. 298. 28. See Nejgaard, "Temps et espace," p. 315: "Nous observons Ie meme mouvement de rapprochement sur Ie plan vertical: Ie ciel et la mer (ou la terre) tendent a se confondre. Le mouvement suit toujours Ie principe de la ligne courbe, Ie ciel s'incurvanl au-dessus de la mer, tout en paraissant s'en rapprocher. La confusion spatiale est avant tout figur6e par Ie brouillard qui monte de la mer." ["We can observe the same tendency to con­ vergence in the vertical plane: sky and sea (or earth) tend to become mixed together. This movement always follows the prin­ ciple of the curved line: the sky curves over the sea, while seeming to draw closer to it. Spatial confusion is figured espe­ cially by the fog that rises from the sea."] See also p. 316: "Si l'on veut rendre cette confusion du cote oppose, nous avons Ie mouvement exactement symetrique: la pluie qui inonde la terre, unissant ciel et terre dans un meme element humide." ["To attempt to render this confusion from the opposite point-of-view, we have the exactly symmetrical movement: the rain that floods the earth, bringing together sky and earth in the same watery element."] 29. Of the many attempts to find a precise biblical parallel for this story, none seems more convincing than that of Paul Baumgartner, "Albert Camus," p. 256, who quotes Jonah 4:5: "so Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city." 30. See Baumgartner, "Albert Camus," p. 258: "The loft, of course, is but a temporary site of convalescence and in no way an ivory tower in which the artist may permanently seek refuge. In falling from it, Jonas has become aware of an equilibrium between himself and the world that he was never fully conscious of in his early career." 31. See Cryle, "The Written Painting and the Painted Word in Jonas," Albert Camus 1980, ed. Raymond Gay-Crosier (Gaines­ ville: A University of Florida Book, 1980), pp. 123—131. 32. See Mailhot, Albert Camus, p. 337: "La vie au desert se situe a ras de terre. D'Arrast a trouve sa place, sa source, son autel."

Notes to Chapter VII · 399 ["Life in the desert is found at earth level. D'Arrast has found his place, his spring, his altar"] 33. See ibid., p. 334: "Rien n'est solide sur ses bases: des glissements de terrain menacent la ville (c'est la raison officielle de la venue de l'ingenieur). Tout s'evapore vers Ie bas, aspire par une informe ventouse, dans un mouvement contraire a celui de la source. Air, ciel, fleuve, foret, tout est rempli de la meme brume, de la meme fumee." ["Nothing stands on a solid base: the town is threatened by subsidence (this is the official reason for the engineer's visit). Everything is evaporating downward, drawn by a shapeless suction cup, moving in just the opposite direction to a spring. The air, the sky, the river, the forest are all filled with the same mist, the same smoke"] 34. See Chatov's description of his experience as a narodnik in Camus' adaptation of Les Possidis (l, 960), where he speaks of sleeping on the bare earth. 35. See Michael Issacharoff, L'Espace et la nouvelle (Paris: Corti, 1976), p. 102. 36. Ibid., p. 107; his italics. The renegade had sought to live in a desert of rock-hard salt, whereas Clamence lived indulgently in a soft and watery domain. Only d'Arrast confronts and rec­ onciles the two, just as his commitment involves both the hesi­ tation feared by the renegade and the decision avoided by Clamence. 37. Jean-Paul Sartre, "Reponse a Albert Camus," Les Temps Modernes 8, no. 82 (August 1952): 335. 38. Ibid., p. 338; his italics. 39. Ibid., p. 340. 40. Ibid., p. 352; his italics. 41. Francis Jeanson, "Pour tout vous dire . . . ," Les Temps Modernes 8, no. 82 (August 1952): 372. 42. Jeanson, "Albert Camus ou l'ame revol tee," Les Temps Modernes 7, no. 79 (May 1952): 2086. 43. Ibid., pp. 2073-2074. 44. See ibid., p. 2077, and Jeanson, "Pour tout vous dire . . . ," p. 371. 45. Camus, "Lettre au directeur des Temps Modernes," Les Temps Modernes 8, no. 82 (August 1952): 332. 46. Ibid., pp. 319-320. 47. Ibid., p. 320; his italics.

400 · Notes to Chapter VIII 48. Ibid., p. 332. 49. Ibid., p. 332. 50. See Baumgartner, "Albert Camus," p. 139: "It is nonetheless unmistakably clear that for Camus there are good and bad con­ tradictions, some to be sought out and maintained, others to be rigorously eschewed. The bad ones plunge man into nihilistic depths or propel him to the vertiginous heights of an absolute where, in either case, his very human nature is contradicted by inhuman depravity or inhuman aspirations. The good contradic­ tion never abandons the tension between antinomies." 51. Preface by Jean Grenier, in I, xvi. 52. Camus, Carnets, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), p. 106.

CHAPTER VIII 1. Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros, in Theatre, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1963). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. Translations of Rhinoceros generally fol­ low those of Derek Prouse, Plays, vol. 4 (London: John Calder, 1961). 2. Dudard, when he is well on the way to becoming a rhinoceros, says: "De toute fagon, ce n'est pas mortel. Il y a des maladies qui sont saines. Je suis convaincu qu'on en guerit si on veut" (p. 85). ["In any case, it isn't fatal. Some illnesses are healthy ones. I'm convinced you can get over it if you want to."] 3. See Dudard on the rhinoceroses: "II y a meme chez eux une certaine innocence naturelle, oui; de la candeur" (p. 87). ["They even have a kind of natural innocence; yes, that's it: candor."] 4. Richard N. Coe, Ionesco: A Study of His Plays (London: Methuen, 1971), p. 82. 5. Ionesco, Thidtre, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 145. 6. Berenger is naive enough to hope that Papillon, Botard, Jean, or Dudard might be ringing him, late in the play, to say that they have changed their minds—"Puisque tu disais que ce n'etait, de Ieur part, qu'un engouement passager!" ["But you said it was only a passing infatuation of theirs!"] But Daisy knows the truth, even if she attempts to make it palatable: "lis n'ont pas pu changer d'avis si vite. Ils n'ont pas eu Ie temps de reflechir. Ils iront jusqu'au bout de Ieur experience" (p. 109). ["They couldn't have changed their minds as quickly as that. They

Notes to Chapter VIII · 401 haven't had time to reconsider. They'll go right through with their experiment."] 7. Allan Lewis, in his Ionesco (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), p. 73, describes the Sartre-Ionesco opposition, although he does not analyze the difference in their methods of "demon­ stration." G. Richard Danner, however, in an article titled "Berenger's Dubious Defence of Humanity in Rhinociros," French Review 53 (December 1979): 207—214, quotes Sartre approvingly (p. 213) and generally condemns Berenger for his lack of logic: "In the full context of the play, Berenger's final words are less heroic or courageous than silly in their mindless recalcitrance" (p. 213). Berenger, we are told, lacks a sense of purpose (p. 213), but these very criticisms allow us to identify the militant intellectualism of the critic. G. Richard Danner is a protorhinoceros. 8. See Robert L. Tener, "These Places, This Private Landscape: First Suggestions for a Topological Approach to Ionesco's Berenger Plays," Papers on Language and Literature 13 (1977): 398: "The room stresses verticality, its position above the exterior world preventing physical contact. Yet it does not keep out the sounds of the rhinoceroses, and allows Berenger to see them through the window. It has a few places to sit or lie down; it provides two telephones for aural contact with the exterior world; it also contains a bottle of brandy to drug the intellectual senses. In effect the room tends to project the sensation of being com­ pletely isolated, carefully preparing one for Berenger's decision not to transform into a rhinoceros." 9. Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Jeux sont faits (London: Methuen, 1956), pp. 122-123. 10. See ibid., p. 137: "je ne peux pas lacher." ["I can't let them down."] 11. DSlire a deux is to be found, together with Rhinoceros, in Ionesco's Theatre, vol. 3. The reference here is to p. 219. 12. See Germaine Bree, "Ionesco's Later Plays: Experiments in Dramatic Form," in The Two Faces of Ionesco, ed. Rosette C. Lamont and Melvin J. Friedman (New York: Whitsun Publishing Co., 1978), p. 102: "Ionesco perceives himself as situated in space; and it is in spatial terms that he defines a range of intense emotions through which he responds to the world." 13. Paul Vernois, La Dynamique thSatrale d'Eugene Ionesco (Paris: Klincksieck, 1972), p. 31.

402 · Notes to Chapter VIII 14. Ibid.,p. 54. 15. Ibid., p. 58: "Cette troisieme dimension—verticale—a, en fait, une signification metaphysique indeniable. N'est-ce pas la Ie symbole de l'immobilite dans un monde en devenir et, par son orientation, hors du plan social, une echappatoire, un derivatif, un reve sans implication realiste, une maniere de fuir ses responsabilites terre a terre et concretes du domaine de la praxis. Dimension qui exclut toute chronologie, toute possibility de me­ tamorphose de l'individu par modification du contexte social." ["This third dimension—the vertical one—is undeniably of meta­ physical significance. Is it not the symbol of stillness in a world of change and, by its orientation out of the social plane, an escape route, a derivative path, a way of running away from one's down-to-earth, concrete responsibilities in the domain of praxis? It is a dimension that is incompatible with chronology and with the possible transformation of the individual through a modifi­ cation of the social context."] See also ibid., p. 22, where Vernois speaks of "une troisieme dimension, de nature metaphysique." ["a third dimension, which is metaphysical in nature"] 16. Bree, "Ionesco's Later Plays," pp. 102—103. 17. Ross Chambers, "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" Australian Journal of French Studies 6 (1969): 91. 18. Ionesco, A medee, ou comment s'en debarrasser, in TheAtre, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), p. 307. 19. Chambers, "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" p. 93. 20. On "detachment" in Ionesco's theater, and especially in Les Victimes du devoir, see Ross Chambers, "Detached Committal: Ionesco's Victims of Duty," Meanjin Quarterly 22 (1963): 23—33, where one finds a suggestion that detachment may be related to spatial imagination, and a clear statement that it is, as an attitude, subject to critical examination, just as commitment is: "he adopts a 'detached' attitude to detachment itself' (p. 24). See especially p. 25: "the pursuit of detachment is shown to be an impossibility and a form of inhumanity at the same time as its desirability is passionately stated and its alternative (committal) is shown to be equally inhumane." 21. Mary Ann Witt, "Ionesco and the Dialectic of Space," Modern Language Quarterly 33 (1972): 326. 22. Ionesco, Thedtre, vol. 1, pp. 188ff., 207ff. 23. Ionesco, Theatre, vol. 3. Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. Translations of Le Piston

Notes to Chapter VIII · 403 de I'air generally follow those of Donald Watson, Plays, vol. 6: "A Stroll in the Air," "Frenzy for Two" (London: John Calder, 1965). 24. Tener, "These Places," p. 400. 25. Ross Chambers, in "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" p. 96, notes the predominance of "motifs ascensionnels" ["as­ cension motifs"] in the decor of Le Pieton de I'air. 26. Germaine Bree, although her comment seems too elliptical to be strictly accurate, makes a similar point: "In Stroller in the Air, the 'anti-world' impinges upon Herbert Berenger's given world, and a visible bridge entices him into the vast reaches of that world" ("Ionesco's Later Plays," p. 108). 27. It is interesting to note that Berenger, when being interviewed by the journalist, defends neurosis against health: "La verite est dans une sorte de nevrose . . . Elle n'est pas dans la sante, c'est la nevrose qui est la verite, verite de demain contre la verite apparente d'aujourd'hui" (p. 127). ["Truth is to be found in a kind of neurosis . . . It does not lie in health; neurosis is the truth, the truth of tomorrow, as against the apparent truth of today."] 28. Chambers, "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" p. 96. 29. Saint Tobi, Eugene Ionesco, ou A la recherche du paradis perdu (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), p. 182. 30. See Ionesco, Notes et contre-notes (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), p. 115, where the writer speaks of "l'etonnement d'etre" ["amaze­ ment at being"]: "L'univers me paralt alors infiniment etrange, etrange et etranger. A ce moment, je Ie contemple, avec un melange d'angoisse et d'euphorie; a l'ecart de l'univers, comme place a une certaine distance, hors de lui." ["The universe then appears to be utterly strange, strange and foreign. At that mo­ ment, I look on it with a mixture of anguish and euphoria; standing aside from the universe, as if I had been placed at some distance, outside it"] 31. See Georges Matore, L'Espace humain: L'Expression de Vespace dans la vie, la pensee et I'art contemporains, 2nd ed. (Paris: Nizet, 1962), p. 70: "Plafond et plafonner expriment une situation peu favorable: alors en effet que l'arrivee au sommet marque toujours une victoire, Ie voisinage d'un plafond communique une impres­ sion d'itouffement; la personne qui plafonne se sent enfermee dans un espace bouche hermetiquement au-dessus d'elle par une surface horizontale, qui lui interdit d'acceder a un etage supe-

404 · Notes to Chapter VIII rieur, a un plan plus eleve, a un 'ailleurs' libre et aerien. On ne creve pas un plafond: l'ascension a laquelle on s'est livre est un echec" (his italics). ["The ceiling and reaching the ceiling express an unfavorable situation: whereas reaching the summit is always a mark of victory, coming close to a ceiling commu­ nicates an impression of suffocation; the person who reaches a ceiling feels tightly shut in from above by a horizontal surface that makes it impossible to attain a higher floor, a higher plane, some 'other place' of aerial freedom. One does not burst through a ceiling: the ascension in which one has been caught up is a failure."] 32. Chambers, "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" p. 99; see also p. 98. 33. See Vernois, La Dynamique thedtrale, pp. 58—59: "Le drame, enfin, devient tragique quand Ie mouvement d'echappee decouvre precisement l'impossibilite de toute echappatoire." ["The drama finally becomes tragic when the move to escape reveals the very impossibility of any escape route."] 34. It is surely significant that the kind of deliberate mediocrity associated with "Jonas" is attributed in Le Piiton de Vair to John Bull, who presents a (comically) stodgy solution of compromise when faced with one of the traditional antinomies of commitment: JOURNALISTE: Il y a l'homme contemplatif: celui qui veut s'accorder au monde. Il y a l'homme d'action: celui-ci veut accorder Ie monde a lui-meme. Quelle est la bonne solution? JOHN BULL: Il faut que l'homme et Ie monde y mettent chacun du leur. Que chacun fasse un pas vers I'autre. (p. 142; my italics)

[THE JOURNALIST: There is the contemplative man, the one who wants to be in harmony with the world. There is the man of action: he wants to harmonize the world with himself. Which is the right solution? JOHN BULL: Man and the world both have to make an effort. They should each take a step toward the other."]

In this sense, the mobility of Berenger as pedestrian is to be opposed to the deliberately static attitude of Jonas, despite the double solidarity (family and literature) that marks the ending of both stories.

Notes to Conclusion * 405 CONCLUSION 1. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 339; n. 1 to p. 39: "Untergehen has three meanings: to descend or go down; to set (as of the sun); and to be destroyed or go under. There is much play upon this triple meaning throughout the book." 2. See Gaston Bachelard, L'Air et Ies songes: Essai sur Vimagination du mouvement (Paris: Corti, 1943), pp. 157, 177. 3. Romain Rolland, Quinze ans de combats, 1919—1934 (Paris: Rieder, 1935). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 4. Paul Bourget, Le Disciple (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1889). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 5. Henry de Montherlant, Service inutile (Paris: Gallimard, 1963 [Collection "Idees"]; first published in 1935). Subsequent ref­ erences to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 6. Jean Giono, Colline (Paris: Grasset, 1929 [Livre de Poche]). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 7. See also p. 16: "Ce qui vient de la ville est mauvais: Ie vent de la pluie et Ie facteur." ["What comes from the town is bad: the wind that brings rain and the postman."] 8. See, for example, Maxwell Adereth, Commitment in Modern French Literature: A Brief Study of "litterature engagee" in the Works of Peguy, Aragon and Sartre (London: V. Gollancz, 1967), p. 46. 9. His general statements, although they prove nothing about the content of his works, are certainly consistent with this. In an interview given to L'Express, 20-26 September 1971, he is re­ ported to have said: "je n'ai jamais ete engage et je deteste ce mot. Il releve du systeme philosophique de Jean-Paul Sartre et ce mot n'entre pas dans mon humble mode de penser a moi." ["I have never been committed and I hate that word. It belongs to the philosophical system of Jean-Paul Sartre and the word has no place in my own humble way of thinking."] Quoted in Predrag Matvejevitc, "L'engagement en litterature vu sous Ies aspects de la sociologie de la creation," L'Homme et la societe, no. 26

406 * Notes Io Conclusion (October—December 1972), p. 119. See also Adereth, Commit­ ment, p. 46. 10. Andri Malraux, La Condition humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1946 [Collection Folio]). Subsequent references to this edition will be found in parentheses in the text. 11. See Brian T. Fitch, Le Sentiment de I'itrangeti chez Malraux, Sartre, Camus, et Simone de Beauvoir (Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1964), p. 58: "Quand nous abordons Ies romans de revolution que sont Les Conquerants, La Condition humaine et L'Espoir, nous nous trouvons jetes de fagon abrupte dans Ie monde: la vie interieure de l'esprit que mettaient en scene La Voie royale et Le Temps du mdpris a cede la place a l'existence corporelle de I'homme en situation" (my italics). ["When we come to those novels of revolution, Les Conquerants, La Condition humaine and L'Espoir, we find ourselves abruptly thrown into the world: the inner life of the mind that was dramatized in La Voie royale and Le Temps du mepris has given way to the bodily existence of man in situation."] 12. In spatial terms, the failure to accomplish is considered as a fall ("dechoir") rather than the beginning's being imagined as a descent. 13. Gilbert Mury, Les Intellectuels devant I'action (Paris: Grasset, 1947), p. 21. 14. See p. 19: "Toujours cette obsession de la durete de la chair." ["Still this obsession with the hardness of flesh"] 15. Roger Stephane, after quoting this, remarks: "Faction engendre une ardente exigence de certitude, exigence qui ne trouve a se satisfaire—ou plutot a se transcender—que dans Taction meme. Tchen n'a d'ailleurs guere d'illusion. Il y a, chez lui, plutot volonte de transcendance que transcendence: il n'accede pas pour autant a la paix." Portrait de I'aventurier (Paris: Union G£n6rale d'Editions, 1972), p. 95. ["Action gives rise to a burn­ ing demand for certainty, a demand that can find satisfaction— or rather transcendence—only in action itself. Besides, Tchen has virtually no illusions. Rather than transcendence, there is in his case a will to transcendence: and yet this still does not lead him to peace."] 16. See what Gisors says to Ferral: "Vous avez besoin d'engager l'essentiel de vous-meme pour en sentir plus violemment l'ex­ istence" (pp. 229-230). ["You have a need to commit the essence of yourself so as to have a more violent sense of its existence."]

Notes to Conclusion * 407 17. Certainly, it must be said that the "exclusion" of Malraux can be achieved less clearly and concisely with respect to Drieu's romantic imagination of commitment as a moment of beauty. Yet Drieu's leader is seen to act with and on his fellows in the midst of the archetypal plain of battle: he is wedded to an eternal group.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY TEXTS

JTTLTL·

NOTE: Primary sources have been omitted from this bibliography for the essential purpose of saving space, but also because none of the principal texts studied are difficult to locate or obtain. Readily available editions have generally been used, and these are referred to systematically in the footnotes.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BOOKS

Barthes, Roland. S / Z . Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970 (Collection "Tel Quel"). Derrida, Jacques. De la grammatologie. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967. . L'Ecriture et la difference. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967. . La Voix et Ie phinomene: Introduction au probleme du signe dans la phenomenologie de Husserl. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967 (Collection "Epimethee," Essais philosophiques). Desanti, Jean. Introduction a la phenomenologie. Paris: Gallimard, 1976 (Collection Idees). Durand, Gilbert. UImagination symbolique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964 (Initiation philosophique, 66). Foucault, Michel. L'Archeologie dusavoir. Paris: Gallimard, 1969. Fuchs, Wolfgang Walter. Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Presence: An Essay in the Philosophy of Edmund Husserl. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976 (Phenomenologica, 69). Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and

Bibliography * 409 edited by David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. . Truth and Method. New York: Seabury Press, 1975. Genette, Gerard. Figures. Vol. 1. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966. Greimas, Algirdas Julien. Semantique structurale: Recherche de methode. Paris: Larousse, 1966. Greisch, Jean. Hermeneutique et grammatologie. Paris: Editions du C.N.R.S., 1977. Hartman, Geoffrey H. The Fate of Reading and Other Essays. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time. Translated by J. Macquarie and E. Robinson. London: S.C.M. Press, 1962 (The Library of Philosophy and Theology). Hirsch, Eric Donald, Jr. The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1976. Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. . The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Jameson, Fredric. The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Ac­ count of Structuralism and Russian Formalism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972 (Princeton Essays in Euro­ pean and Comparative Literature). Krieger, Murray. Theory of Criticism: A Tradition and Its System. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. Kuhn, T. S. The Structure ofScientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Lakatos, Imre, and Musgrave, Alan, eds. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Lefeuvre, Michel. Merleau-Ponty au-dela de la phenomenologie. Paris: Klincksieck, 1976. Madison, Gary Brent. La Phenomenologie de Merleau-Ponty: Une recherche des limites de la conscience. Paris: Klincksieck, 1973. Magliola, Robert R. Phenomenology and Literature: An Introduc­ tion. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1977. Minkowski, Eugene. Le Temps vicu. Paris: Delachaux, 1968. . Vers une cosmologie: Fragments philosophiques. Paris: Aubier, 1936.

410 * Bibliography Popper, Karl R. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Sci­ entific Knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. Ricoeur, Paul. Le Conflit des interpolations. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1969. , ed. Le Temps et Ies philosophies. Paris: Payot, 1977. Roy, Jean-Pierre. Bachelard, ou Ie concept centre I'image. Montreal: Presses de l'Universite de Montreal, 1977. Sartre, Jean-Paul. L'Imaginaire: Psychologie phenomenologique de Vimagination. Paris: Gallimard, 1975 (Collection "Id6es"). Trousson, Raymond. Un ProbUme de literature comparee: Les etudes de themes, essai de methodologie. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1965 (Situations, 7). Vaihinger, Hans. The Philosophy of "as-if: A System of the The­ oretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1935. Weber, Jean-Paul. Domaines thematiques. Paris: Gallimard, 1963 (Collections "Idees").

ARTICLES

Cassirer, Ernst. "Le Langage et la construction du monde des objets." Translated by Paul Guillaume. Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique 30 (1933): 18—44. Chambers, Ross. "Change and Exchange? Story Structure and Par­ adigmatic Narrative," Australian Journal of French Studies 12 (1975): 326-342. Culler, Jonathan. "Beyond Interpretation: The Prospects of Con­ temporary Criticism." Comparative Literature 28 (1976): 244— 256. . "Presupposition and Intertextuality." MLN 91 (1976): 13801396. Dufrenne, Mikel. "Critique litteraire et phenomenologie." Revue Internationale de Philosophie, nos. 68-69, fasc. 2—3 (1964), pp. 193-208. Hahn, Otto. "L'lllusion thematique." Les Temps Modernes, no. 204 (May 1963), pp. 2086-2096. Hartman, Geoffrey. "Crossing Over: Literary Commentary on Lit­ erature." Comparative Literature 28 (1976): 257—276. Krieger, Murray. "Recent Criticism, 'Thematics' and the Existential Dilemma," Centennial Review of Arts and Science 4 (Winter 1960): 32-50.

Bibliography * 411 Lewis, Philip. "Language and French Critical Debate," Yale French Studies, no. 45 (1970), pp. 154-165. Magliola, Robert. "Parisian Structuralism Confronts Phenomenol­ ogy: The Ongoing Debate." Language and Style 6 (1973): 237— 248. Paci, Enzo. "Antropologia strutturale e fenomenologia." Aut-Aut, no. 88 (1965), pp. 42-54. Poulet, Georges. "The Phenomenology of Reading." New Literary History 1 (October 1969): 53—68. Racelle-Latin, Daniele. "La Critique thematique," Revue des Langues Vivantes 41 (1975): 261—281. Trousson, Raymond. "Les Themes." In Problemes et methodes de I'histoire litteraire: CoUoque 18 novembre 1972, edited by Roger Pierrot et al. Paris: Armand Colin, 1974 (Publications de la Societe d'Histoire Litteraire de la France).

DISCURSIVE WORKS DEALING SPECIFICALLY WITH QUESTIONS OF COMMITMENT AND DETACHMENT (Note: Those marked with an asterisk are of special interest.) BOOKS *Abellio, Raymond. Vers un nouveau prophet is me: Essai sur Ie role politique du sacri et la situation de Lucifer dans Ie monde moderne. Paris: Gallimard, 1950. Bartley, William Warren, III. The Retreat to Commitment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962. *Benda, Julien. La Fin de I'eternel. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. * . La Trahison des clercs. Paris: Pauvert, 1965 (Libertes, 25). Caute, David. Collisions: Essays and Reviews. London: Quartet Books, 1974 (especially pp. 61—71). * . The Illusion: AnEssay on Politics, Theatre and the Novel. London: Panther Books, 1972 (especially pp. 34—87). *Guerin, Dominique. La Politique de IHmaginaire. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1974 (Archontes, I). *Kemp, Peter. Pathetique de Fengagement. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973. . Podtique de I'engagement. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973. *Koestler, Arthur. The Yogi and the Commissar. London: Jonathan Cape, 1945.

412 * Bibliography *Mounier, Emmanuel. Quest-ce que Ie personnalisme? (1947). In his Oeuvres. Vol. 3,1944—1950, pp. 177—245. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962. *Mury, Gilbert. Les Intellectuels devant I'action. Paris: Grasset, 1947 (Les Temoins). *Rolland, Romain, Quinze ans de combats, 1919—1934. Paris: Rieder, 1935.

ARTICLES

Bosquet, Alain. "Poesie: L'engagement et la distance." Nouvelle Revue Franqaise, no. 260 (August 1974), pp. 90—93. Caute, David. "Commitment without Empathy: A Writer's Notes on Politics, Theatre and the Novel." Tri-Quarterly, no. 30 (Spring 1974), pp. 51—70 (included in his Collisions). Elsen, Claude, "De Γ 'engagement.' " Ecrits de Paris, no. 325 (May 1973), pp. 119-123. . "L'engagement politique de l'ecrivain." Ecrits de Paris, no. 349 (July—August 1975), pp. 5-15. Finch, Robert. "Ivory Tower." University of Toronto Quarterly 25 (October 1955): 23-37. Forster, Ε. M. "Ivory Tower." Atlantic Monthly 163 (January 1939): 51-58. Halle, Louis J. "The Question of Commitment." Virginia Quarterly Review 49 (Spring 1973): 161—182. Hatzfeld, Helmut. "The Existentialist 'Engagement.' " In his Trends and Styles in Twentieth-Century French Literature, pp. 149— 177. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1966. Keene, Dennis. "Engagement." Essays in Criticism 14 (July 1964): 285-300. Lacouture, Jean, and Daniel, Jean. "Engagement politique et Iitterature." In Ecrire . . . Pour quoi? . . . Pour qui?, edited by P. Barbiris et al., pp. 143—165. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1975. Lindsay, Jack. "Commitment." Stand 21 (1979—1980): 34-40. Reszler, Andr£. "Promethee engage." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 5-16. Rougemont, Denis de. "Contribution a une recherche eventuelle sur les sources de la notion d'engagement de l'ecrivain." Cad­ mos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 17—25.

Bibliography * 413 Starobinski, Jean. "Remarques" [on commitment]. Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 103-107. Stocks, Kenneth. "On Commitment in Poetry." Stand 15, no. 1 (1974): 7-9.

ON THE ROLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL IN PRINCIPLE AND THE SOCIOPOLITICAL FUNCTION(s) OF LITERATURE IN GENERAL BOOKS

Arguments, 3. Les Intellectuals: Lapensie anticipatrice. Paris: Union Ginerale (!'Editions, 1977 (Collection 10/18). Aron, Raymond. D'une sainte famille a I'autre: Essais sur Ies marxismes imaginaires. Paris: Gallimard, 1969 (Les Essais, 146). Beauvoir, Simone de; Berger, Yves; Faye, Jean-Pierre; Ricardou, Jean; Sartre, Jean-Paul; and Semprun, Jorge. Que peut la littirature? Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1965 (Collection L'Inedit 10/18). Benjamin, Walter. Oeuvres I. Mythe et violence. Translated and with a preface by Maurice de Gandillac. Paris: Les Lettres Nouvelles, 1971 (Dossiers des Lettres Nouvelles). . Oeuvres II. PoSsie et revolution. Translated and with a preface by Maurice de Gandillac. Paris: Les Lettres Nouvelles, 1971 (Dossiers des Lettres Nouvelles). Bowra, C. M. Poetry and Politics 1900-1960. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Brincourt, Andre. Disarroi de I'ecriture. Paris: Jean Vigneau, 1947. Burnier, Michel-Antoine. Les Existentialistes et la politique. Paris: Gallimard, 1966 (Collection Idees). Caute, David. Communism and the French Intellectuals 1914—1960. London: Andre Deutsch, 1964; New York: Macmillan, 1964. . The Fellow-travellers: A Postscript to the Enlightenment. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973. Demetz, Peter. Marx, Engels and the Poets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. Fischer, Ernst. La Nicessiti de I'art. Translated by Paul Meier. Paris: Editions sociales, 1965. Flower, J. E. Writers and Politics in Modern France. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977. Fortini, Franco. Verifica dei poteri, scritti di critica e di istituzioni

414 * Bibliography letterarie. Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1965 (La Cultura, storia, critica, testi, 98). Franco, Jean. The Modern Culture of Latin America: Society and the Artist. New York, Washington, and London: F. A. Praeger, 1967. Harrison, John R. The Reactionaries: A Study of the Anti-democratic Intelligentsia. New York: Schocken Books, 1967. Histoire et littirature: Les ecrivains et la politique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977 (Publications de l'Universite de Rouen, Centre d'etude et de recherche d'histoire des idees et de la sensibilite, serie litteraire, no. 42). Hughes, H. Stuart. The Obstructed Path: French Social Thought in the Years of Desperation, 1930—1960. New York and Evanston, 111.: Harper & Row, 1966. Huszar, George B. de, ed. The Intellectuals: A Controversial Por­ trait. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1960; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960. Joll, James. Intellectuals in Politics: Three Biographical Essays. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960. Juilliard, Joelle Rutherford. "Ethical Choices in Political Actions: The Lessons of Contemporary French Literary Art." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1973. Mabire, Jean. L'Ecrivain, la politique et I'esperance. Paris: Editions Saint-Just, 1966 (Europe, 1). Maritain, Jacques. Responsabiliti de I'artiste. Paris: A. Fayard, 1961 (Le Signe). Mueller, William R. The Prophetic Voice in Modern Fiction. New York: Association Press, 1959. Naville, Pierre. La Rivolution et Ies intellectuels. Paris: Gallimard, 1975 (Id£es). Nichols, Ray L. Treason, Tradition and the Intellectual: Julien Benda and Political Discourse. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979. Nizan, Paul. Les Chiens de garde. Paris: Maspero, 1976. . Pour une nouvelle culture. Edited by Susan Suleiman. Paris: Grasset, 1971. Nower, Esther Ellie. "The Artist as Politician: The Relationship between the Art and the Politics of the French Romantic Lit­ erary and Artistic Figures." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1975.

Bibliography • 415 Parrot, Louis. L'Intelligence en guerre. Paris: La Jeune Parque, 1945. Paulsen, Wolfgang. Der Diehter und seine Zeit, Politik im Spiegel der Literatur. Heidelberg: L. Stiehm, 1970 (Amherster !Col­ loquium zur modernen deutschen Literatur, 3, 1969). Piscator, Erwin. Le Thiatre politique . . . suivi de Supplement au thedtre politique. Paris: L'Arche, 1972 (Le Sens de la marche). Sartre, Jean-Paul. Quest-ce-que la litterature? Paris: Gallimard, 1972 (Idees). ; Pingaud, Bernard; and Mascolo, Dionys. Du role de Vintellectuel dans Ie mouvement revolutionnaire. Paris: Eric Losfeld, 1971 (Collection Ie Desordre, 12). Shils, Edward. The Intellectuals and the Powers, and Other Essays. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Stephane, Roger. Portrait de Vaventurier. Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1972 (10/18). Sternhell, Zeev. La Droite revolutionnaire 1885—1914: Les origines franchises du fascisme. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1978. Suffert, Georges. Les Intellectuels en chaise longue. Paris: Plon, 1974. Thibaudeau, Jean. Socialisme, avant-garde, litterature: Interven­ tions. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1972 (Problemes, 2). Trotsky, Leon. Littirature et revolution. Translated by Pierre Frank, Claude Ligny, and Jean-Jacques Marie. Paris: Christian Bourgois, Dominique de Roux, 1971 (10/18). Zhdanov, Andrei Aleksandrovitch. Sur la litterature, la philosophic et la musique. Paris: N. Bethune, 1970.

ARTICLES

Berger, Marcel. "Voyance et litterature." L'Age Nouveau, no. 40 (August 1949), pp. 68—73. Field, Trevor. "Vers une nouvelle datation du substantif 'intellectuel.' " Travaux de Linguistique et de Litterature (Universite de Strasbourg, Centre de Philologie et de Litteratures humaines) 14 (1976): 159-167. Johnston, William M. "The Origin of the Term 'Intellectuals' in French Novels and Essays of the 1890's." Journal of European Studies 4 (March 1974): 43—56. Kruse, Irene. "Karl Kraus: L'engagement en question." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 80-86.

416 * Bibliography Kuhn, Reinhard. "The Debasement of the Intellectual in Contem­ porary Continental Drama." Modern Drama (Lawrence) 7 (Feb­ ruary 1965): 454-462. Mount, Ferdinand. "The Writer as Revolutionary: A Flight from Openness?" Encounter 45, no. 5 (November 1975): 52—56. Poulet, Robert. "Le Circonstantiel et l'eternel." Ecrits de Paris, no. 302 (April 1971), pp. 94^100. Ratte, John. "Literature and Freedom: The Crisis of the Bourgeois Intellectual in France." Denver Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Summer 1970): 19-55. Silkin, Jon. "Editorial." Stand 14, no. 4 (1973): 5-7. Tri-Quarterly, special numbers, "Literature in Revolution," nos. 23—24 (Winter—Spring 1972), especially pp. 501—551. Twining, Edward. "Politics and the Imagination." Denver Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Summer 1970): 1—18. Yale French Studies, special number, "Literature and Revolution," no. 39 (1967).

WORKS OF LITERARY CRITICISM ON COMMITMENT AND RELATED QUESTIONS, INCLUDING THE POLITICAL NOVEL: ON COMMITTED LITERATURE AND COMMITMENT IN LITERATURE BOOKS

Adereth, Maxwell. Commitment in Modern French Literature: A Brief Study of "litterature engagee" in the Works of Peguy, Aragon and Sartre. London: V. Gollancz, 1967. Balz, Heinrich. Aragon-Malraux-Camus: Korrektur am literarischen Engagement. Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, and Mainz: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1970 (Sprache und Literatur, 56). Barnes, Hazel E. TheLiteratureof Possibility: AStudyinHumanistic Existentialism. London: Tavistock, 1961. Beebe, Maurice. Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts: The Artist as Hero in Fiction from Goethe to Joyce. New York: New York Uni­ versity Press, 1964. Bentley, Eric. The Theatre of Commitment, and Other Essays on Drama in Our Society. London: Methuen, 1968. Bessiere, Jean. Les Ecrivains engages. Paris: Larousse, 1977 (Ide­ ologies et Societes). Bigsby, C.W.E. Confrontation and Commitment: A Study of Con-

Bibliography * 417 temporary Drama, 1959—1966. Columbia: University of Mis­ souri Press, 1968. Bloom, Harold. The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1971. Blotner, Joseph Leo. The Modern American Political Novel, 19001960. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1967. . The Political Novel. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955 (Doubleday Short Studies in Political Science, 18). Brigaud, Jacques. Gide entre Benda et Sartre: Un artiste entre la cliricature et Γengagement. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1972 (Ar­ chives Andre Gide, 3). Brombert, Victor H. The Intellectual Hero: Studies in the French Novel, 1885—1955. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1961; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Edwards, Thomas R. Imagination and Power: A Study of Poetry on Public Themes. London: Chatto & Windus, 1971. Fitch, Brian T. Le Sentiment de ΓArangete chez Malraux, Sartre, Camus, et Simone de Beauvoir. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1964. Gauger, Rosemarie. iiLittirature engagee" in Frankreich zur Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Die literarische Auseinandersetzung Sartres, Camus, Aragons und Saint-Exuperys mil der politischen Situation ihres Landes. Goppingen: Alfred Kiimmerle Verlag, 1971 (Goppinger Akademische Beitrage, 36). Glicksberg, Charles I. The Literature of Commitment. Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1976; London: Associated University Presses, 1976. Howe, Irving. Politics and the Novel. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1967. . A World More Attractive: A View of Modern Literature and Politics. New York: Horizon Press, 1963. Jasinski, Beatrice W. L'Engagement de Benjamin Constant. Paris: Minard, 1971. Jefferson, Alfred Carter. Anatole France: The Politics of Scepticism. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965. Kirchner, Julia Marianne. Untersuchungen zum Phanomen einer 'litterature engagee' in Italien (1940—1960). Marburg: Gorich & Weierhauser, 1966. Mander, John. The Writer and Commitment. London: Seeker & Warburg, 1961.

418 * Bibliography Matvejevitc, Predrag. La Poesie de circonstance—etude des formes de Vengagement poetique. Paris: Nizet, 1971. Muller, Gerd. Literatur und Revolution: Untersuchungen zur Frage des literarischen Engagements in Zeiten des politischen Umbruchs. Ostervala: Tofters tryckeri ab, 1974 (Acta universitatis upsaliensis. Studia germanistica upsaliensia, 14). Reck, Rima Drell. Literature and Responsibility: The French Nov­ elist in the Twentieth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Uni­ versity Press, 1969. Redfern, W. D. Paul Nizan: Committed Literature in a Conspira­ torial World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972. Rideout, Walter B. The Radical Novel in the United States 1900— 1954: Some Interrelations of Literature and Society. Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956. Savage, Catherine. Malraux, Sartre and Aragon as Political Nov­ elists. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1964. Siegel, Paul N. Revolution and the Twentieth-Century Novel. New York: A Monad Press Book, 1979. Silkin, Jon, ed. Poetry of the Committed Individual. London: V. Gollancz, 1973 (A Stand Anthology of Poetry). Speare, Morris Edmund. The Political Novel: Its Development in England and America. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966. Terdiman, Richard. The Dialectics of Isolation: Self and Society in the French Novel from the Realists to Proust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976 (Yale Romantic Studies, second series, 25). Winegarten, Renee. Writers and Revolution: The Fatal Lure of Ac­ tion. New York: New Viewpoints, 1974; London: Croom Helm, 1974.

ARTICLES

Adereth, Maxwell. "What is 'litterature engagee'? " and "Postscript (1973)" in Marxists on Literature: An Anthology, edited by David Craig, pp. 445—482. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pen­ guin Books, 1975. (The first of these is an extract from the book listed above.) Barnes, Hazel E. "Literature and the Politics of the Future." Denver Quarterly 5, no. 1 (Spring 1970): 41-64. Belvin, Robert W. "The Problem of the Literary Artist's Detachment as Seen by Julien Benda, Jean-Paul Sartre and Thierry Maulnier." Romanic Review 47 (December 1956): 270-284.

Bibliography · 419 Blum, Antoinette. "Romain Rolland: Un temoin engage." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 75-79. Bondy, Francois. "Engages et enrages." Preuves, no. 218 (MayJune 1969), pp. 26-37. Dupuy, Aime. "Esquisse d'un tableau du roman politique frangais." Revue Frangaise de Science Politique 4 (July—September 1954): 484-513. Europe, special number, "La Poesie et la resistance," nos. 543— 544 (July—August 1974). Godbout, Jacques. "Le Roman engage." Revue de I'Universite Laurentienne 9 (November 1976): 33—50. Lakich, John J. "Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Quest in Expressionism and the Literature of Commitment." Kentucky Romance Quarterly 15 (1968): 37—56. Matvejevitc, Predrag. "L'Engagement en litterature vu sous Ies aspects de la sociologie de la creation." UHomme et la sociSte, no. 26 (October-December 1972), pp. 119—132. . "Sur la 'litterature engagee' et 1'engagement." Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia, no. 38 (December 1974), pp. 85-103. Maurer, Rudolf. "Andre Gide 'engage' (1932—1937)." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 64-72. Molnar, Miklos. "Engagement et conformisme: Le realisme socialiste." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 26-38. Preiswerk, Roy. "L'Ecrivain africain et l'engagement." Cadmos, no. 1 (1978), pp. 87-92. Serant, Paul. "La Litterature de l'engagement." In La Litterature, edited by Bernard Gros, pp. 134—159. Paris: Denoel, 1970 (Dictionnaires du Savoir Moderne). Skreb, Zdenko. "Litterature engagee." In Literary Criticism and Sociology, edited by Joseph P. Strelka, pp. 195—206. Uni­ versity Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973.

ON STENDHAL BOOKS

Brombert, Victor. Stendhal: Fiction and the Themes of Freedom. New York: Random House, 1968 (Studies in Language and Literature).

420 - Bibliography Brussaly, Manuel. The Political Ideas of Stendhal. New York: Rus­ sell & Russell, 1975. Durand, Gilbert. Le Decor mythique de "La Chartreuse de Parme": Contribution a Vesthetique du romanesque. Paris: Corti, 1961. Gilman, Stephen. The Tower as Emblem: Chaps, viii, IX, XIX and XX of the "Chartreuse de Parme." Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967 (Analecta Romanica, Heft 22). Imbert, H. F. Les Metamorphoses de la liberie ou Stendhal devant la Restauration et Ie Risorgimento. Paris: Corti, 1967. Morris, Herbert. The Masked Citadel: The Significance of the Title of Stendhal's "La Chartreuse de Parme." Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968 (University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 93). Poulet, Georges. Mesure de Vinstant. Paris: Plon, 1968. Richard, Jean-Pierre. Stendhal et Flaubert: "Literature et sensa­ tion." Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970 (Points, 8). Starobinski, Jean. L'Oeil vivant . . . , Vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard, 1961. Weber, Jean-Paul. Stendhal: Les structures thematiques de Voeuvre et du destin. Paris: Societe d'Edition d'Enseignement Superieur, 1969.

ARTICLES

Brombert, Victor. "Stendhal and the Dynamics of Contempt." Bucknell Review 7 (1958): 241-248. Crouzet, Michel. "L'Apolitisme stendhalien." In Romantisme et politique: 1815—1851, pp. 220-243. Paris: Armand Colin, 1969 (Colloque de l'Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint-Cloud, 1966). Fayolle, Roger. "Stendhal et la politique." La Pensee, no. 131 (January-February 1967), pp. 67-78. Fischer, J. 0. " 'La Politique n'a rien a faire dans la litterature': Le probleme de l'independance de l'ecrivain a l'epoque de Stendhal et de Balzac. Double sens du mot 'politique.' " In Stendhal et Balzac, edited by V. del Litto, pp. 29—46 and 4650. Actes du VIIe Congres International Stendhalien. Aren: Editions du Grand Chene, 1972 (Collection stendhalienne, 12; 7e journee du Stendhal Club). Girard, Ren6. "De !'experience romanesque au mythe oedipien." Critique 21 (November 1965): 899—924.

Bibliography * 421 Grossetete, Andre. "Quelques formes de !'imagination stendhalienne: Le voyage, l'ascension, la chute." Stendhal Club 12 (1969-1970): 301-316. Howe, Irving. "Stendhal: The Politics of Survival." In Stendhal: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by V. Brombert, pp. 76— 94. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. McWatters. K. G. "Stendhal: The Novelist and Politics." Essays in French Literature, no. 6 (November 1969), pp. 57—73. Redfern, W. D. "The Prisoners of Stendhal and Camus." French Review 41 (April 1968): 649—659. Talbot, Emile J. "Stendhal, the Artist and Society." Studies in Romanticism 13 (1974): 213—223. Vineberg, Elsa. "The Limits of Excavation: A Study of Perception and Memory in Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme." Revue du Pacifique 4 (Spring 1978): 13—22.

ON BARRfcs BOOKS

Aragon, Louis. La Lumiere de Stendhal. Paris: Denoel, 1954, pp. 261-269. Bancquart, Marie-Claire. Les Ecrivains et I'histoire d'apres Maurice Barres, Lion Bloy, Anatole France, Charles Piguy. Paris: Nizet, 1966. Doty, Charles Stewart. From Cultural Rebellion to Counter-revo­ lution: The Politics of Maurice Barres. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976. Fernandez, Ramon. Barres. Paris: Editions du Livre Moderne, 1943 (Collection d'Histoire et de Critique). Godfrin, Jean. Barres mystique. Neuchatel: La Baconniere, 1962 (Langages). Greaves, Anthony A. Barres. Boston: Twayne Publications, 1978 (Twayne's World Author Series, 454). Lalou, Rene. Maurice Barres. Paris: Hachette, 1950 (Les Grands Ecrivains FranQais). Lecigne, Chanoine C. Du dilettantisme a I'action. Paris: Lethielleux, n.d. McLelland, J. S., ed. The French Right (from de Maistre to Maurras). New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

422 * Bibliography Mauriac, Claude. Hommes et idees d'aujourd'hui. Paris: Albin Michel, 1953, pp. 11-28. Mauriac, Pierre. L'Ecrivain et I'evenement. Paris: Editions Siloe, 1947. Moreau, Pierre. Barris. Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1970 (Les Ecrivains devant Dieu, 26). Ouston, Philip. The Imagination of Maurice Barres. Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 1974 (University of Toronto Romance Series, 26). Riviere, Jacques. Nouvelles Etudes. Paris: Gallimard, 1947. Roy, Claude. Description critiques. Vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard, 1949, pp. 29—34. Segard, Achille. Les Voluptueux et les hommes d'action. Paris: Ol­ lendorff, 1900. Soucy, Robert. Fascism in France: The Case of Maurice Barres. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. Sternhell, Zeev. Maurice Barres et Ie nationalisme franqais. Paris: Armand Colin, 1972 (Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 182). Vier, Jacques. Barres et "Le Culte du moi." Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1958 (Archives des Lettres Modernes, nos. 10-11).

ARTICLES

Blanc, Andre. "Montherlant disciple de Barres: Limitation et la distance." Revue d'Histoire Litteraire de la France, no. 4 (JulyAugust 1978), pp. 597-609. Field, T. J. "Barres and the Image of 'deracinement.' " French Studies 29 (July 1975): 294-299. Gaxotte, Pierre. "Barres et l'enracinement." La Table Ronde, no. 112 (April 1957), pp. 124-126. Leger, Frangois. "Trois aspects de la pensee politique de Barres." Contrepoint, no. 14 (May 1974), pp. 139—155. Levaillant, Jean. "Barres et la reverie." In Maurice Barres, Actes du colloque organise par la Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l'Universite de Nancy. Nancy, 22—25 October 1962, pp. 197—206 (Annales de l'Est, memoire no. 24). Moreau, Pierre. "Barres et Tintellectuel' d'apres Le Jardin de Be­ renice." In Missions et demarches de la critique (melanges offerts au Professeur J. A. Vier), pp. 29—37. Paris: Klincksieck, 1973 (Publications de l'Universite de Haute-Bretagne, 2).

Bibliography * 423 Schnurer, Herman. "The Intellectual Sources of French Fascism." Antioch Review 1 (Spring 1941): 34—49. La Table Ronde, special number, "Maurice Barres—l'homme et l'oeuvre," no. Ill (March 1957). Tronquart, G. "L'Enracinement barresien ou Ie mystere de Barres." Bulletin de L'Association Giullaume Budd, "Lettres d'Humanite," 13 (December 1954): 137—167. Weber, Eugen. "Inheritance and Dilettantism: The Politics of Barres." Historical Reflections 2 (1975): 109-131.

ON ZOLA BOOKS

Abastado, Claude. Zola. "Germinal": Analyse critique. Paris: Hatier, 1974 (Profil d'une oeuvre, 8). Adhemar, Jean, et al. Zola. Paris: Hachette. 1969 (Genies et realites). Baguley, David. "Ficondite" d'Emile Zola: Roman ά these, έναηgile, mythe." Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1973. Becker, Colette, ed. Les Critiques de notre temps et Zola. Paris: Gamier, 1972 (Les Critiques de notre temps, 10). Bertrand-Jennings, Chantal. UEros et la femme chez Zola. Paris: Klincksieck, 1977 (Femmes et litterature, 3). Borie, Jean. Le Tyran timide: Le naturalisme de la femme au XIXe siecle. Paris: Klincksieck, 1973. . Zola et les mythes: Ou, De la nausie au salut. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971 (Pierres vives). Cogny, Pierre, ed. Le Naturalisme. Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1978. Dezalay, Auguste. Lectures de Zola. Paris: Armand Colin, 1973. Doisy, Ginette. Clis pour les Rougon-Macquart. Paris: La Pens^e Universelle, 1974. Euvrard, Michel. Emile Zola. Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1967 (Classiques du XXe siecle). Frandon, Ida-Marie. Autour de "Germinal": La mine et les mineurs. Geneva: Droz, 1955. Gingell, E. "The Themes of Childhood and Fertility in the Novels of Zola." Master's thesis, Keele University, 1974-1975.

424 * Bibliography Girard, Marcel. Germinal de Zola. Paris: Hachette, 1973 (Poche critique). Grant, Elliott Mansfield. Zola's "Germinal": A Critical and Histor­ ical Study. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1962. Hemmings, F.W.J. Emile Zola. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. Hewitt, Winston R. Through Those "Living Pillars": Man and Na­ ture in the Works of Zola. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1974 (De Proprietatibus Litterarum. Series practice, 75). Howe, Irving. The Critical Point: On Literature and Culture. New York: Horizon Press, 1973, pp. 59-76. Jagmetti, Antoinette. "La Bete humaine" d'Emile Zola: Etude de stylistique critique. Geneva: Droz, 1955. Kamm, Lewis. The Object in Zola's Rougon-Macquart. Madrid: Jose Pornia Turanzas, 1978 (Studia Humanitatis). King, Graham. Garden of Zola. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1978. Lapp, John C. Zola before the Rougon-Macquart. Toronto: Univer­ sity of Toronto Press, 1964. Lattre, Alain de. Le Rialisme selon Zola: Archiologie d'une intel­ ligence. Presses Universitaires de France, 1975 (SUP, Litteratures modernes, 6). Lejeune, Paule. "Germinal": Un roman antipeuple. Paris: Nizet, 1978. Psichari, Henriette. Anatomie (Tun chef-d'oeuvre: "Germinal." Paris: Mercure de France, 1964. Robert, Guy. Emile Zola: Principes et caracteres geniraux de son oeuvre. Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1952. Roy, Claude. La Main heureuse: Descriptions critiques. Vol. 4. Paris: Gallimard, 1958, pp. 214^-225. Schor, Naomi Ann. "Le Cycle et Ie cercle: Temps, espace et re­ volution dans quatre romans de Zola." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1969. Schor, Naomi. Zola's Crowds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Serres, Michel. Feux et signaux de brume: Zola. Paris: Grasset, 1975. Vial, Andre-Marc. "Germinal" et Ie socialisms de Zola. Paris: Edi­ tions Sociales, 1975 (Les Classiques du peuple. Critiques). Wilson, Angus. Emile Zola: An Introductory Study of His Novels. New York: Apollo, 1961. Zakarian, Richard H. Zola's "Germinal": A Critical Study of Its Primary Sources. Geneva: Droz, 1972.

Bibliography * 425 ARTICLES

Bellos, David. "From the Bowels of the Earth: An Essay on Ger­ minal." Forum for Modern Language Studies 15 (1979): 3545. Berg, William. "A Note on Imagery as Ideology in Zola's Germinal." Clio 2 (October 1972): 43-45. Bonnefis, Philippe. "Le Bestiaire de Zola: Valeur et signification des images animales dans son oeuvre romanesque." Europe, nos. 468-469 (April-May 1968), pp. 97-109. Brady, Patrick. "Structuration archetypologique de Germinal." Cahiers Internationaux de Symbolisme, nos. 24-25 (1973), pp. 87-97. . "Symbolic Structures of Mediation and Conflict in Zola's Fiction: From Une Farce to Madame Sourdis to L'Oeuvre." Substance, no. 2 (Winter 1971—1972), pp. 85-92. Butor, Michel. "Emile Zola romancier experimental, et la Damme bleue." Critique 23, no. 239 (April 1967): 407—437. Les Cahiers Naturalistes, special number, "Germinal et Ie mouvement ouvrier en France," 22, no. 50 (1976). Cirillo, N. R. "Marxism as Myth in Zola's Germinal." Comparative Literature Studies 14 (September 1977): 244-255. Dezalay, Auguste. "Le Theme du souterrain chez Zola." Europe, nos. 468—469 (April—May 1968), pp. 110-122. Duchet, Claude. "Le Trou des bouches noires: Parole, societe, revolution, dans Germinal." Litterature, no. 24 (December 1976), pp. 11-39. Duncan, Philip A. "Zola's Machine-monsters." Romance Notes 3, no. 2 (1962): 10-12. Feral, Josette. "La Semiotique des couleurs dans Germinal." Les Cahiers Naturalistes 21, no. 49 (1975): 136—148. Gerhardi, Gerhard. "Germinal: Mass Action and the Psychology of the Individual." Studi di Letteratura Francese 3 (1974): 142— 156. Gerhardi, Gerhard C. "Zola's Biological Vision of Politics: Revo­ lutionary Figures in La Fortune des Rougon and Le Ventre de Paris." Nineteenth-Century French Studies 2 (1974): 164-180. Grant, E. M., and Walker, Philip D. "Concerning Colour in Ger­ minal." PMLA 79 (June 1964): 348—354. Hemmings, F.W.J. "The Present Position in Zola Studies." French Studies 10 (April 1956): 97-122. Kamm, Lewis. "The Structural and Functional Manifestation of

426 * Bibliography Space in Zola's Rougon-Macquart." Nineteenth-Centwy French Studies 3, nos. 3—4 (Spring—Summer 1975): 224—236. Lethbridge, Robert. "Twenty Years of Zola Studies (1956-1975)." French Studies 31 (1977): 281-293. Mitterand, Henri. "L'ld^ologie du mythe dans Germinal." In Problimes de Γanalyse textuelle, pp. 83—91. Paris and Montreal: Didier, 1971. Pasco, Allan H. "Myth, Metaphor and Meaning in Germinal." French Review 46 (March 1973): 739-749. Petrey, Sandy. "Discours social et litterature dans Germinal." Littirature, no. 22 (May 1976), pp. 59-74. Ricatte, Robert. "Zola conteur." Europe, nos. 468—469 (April—May 1968), pp. 209-217. Ripoll, Roger. "Le Symbolisme vegetal dans La Faute de I'abbi Mouret." Les Cahiers Naturalistes 12, no. 31 (1966): 11—22. Rosenberg, Rachelle A. "The Slaying of the Dragon: An Archetypal Study of Zola's Germinal." Symposium 26 (1972): 349-362. Schor, Naomi. "Zola et 'la nouvelle critique.' " L'Esprit Crfateur 11, no. 4 (Winter 1971): 11—20. Shor, Ira Neil. 'The Novel in History: Lukacs and Zola." Clio 2 (October 1979): 19-41. Sungolowsky, Joseph. "Vue sur Germinal apres une lecture de La Peste." Les Cahiers Naturalistes 16, no. 39 (1970): 42^t8. Walker, Philip D. "Remarques sur l'image du serpent dans Ger­ minal." Les Cahiers Naturalistes 12, no. 31 (1966): 83-85. Walker, Philip. "Zola's Use of Color Imagery in Germinal." PMLA 77 (September 1962): 442—449. KaZe French Studies, special number, "Zola," no. 42 (1969). Zimmermann, Melvin. "L'Homme et la nature dans Germinal," Les Cahiers Naturalistes 18, no. 44 (1972): 212—218.

ON DRIEU LA ROCHELLE BOOKS Andreu, Pierre. Drieu, timoin et visionnaire. Paris: Grasset, 1952 (Cahiers verts, nouvelle s^rie, 11). , and Grover, Frederic. Drieu la Rochelle. Paris: Hachette, 1979. Boudot, Pierre. Nietzsche et I'au-dela de la liberti. Nietzsche et Ies icrivains frangais de 1930 ά 1960. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1970, pp. 163-178 (10/18).

Bibliography * 427 Brasillach, Robert. Portraits. Paris: Plon, 1962. Combelle, Lucien. Pechi d'orgueil. Paris: Olivier Orban, [c. 1978]. Desanti, Dominique. Drieu la Rochelle, ou Ie sMucteur mystifie. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. Field, Frank. Three French Writers and the Great War: Studies in the Rise of Communism and Fascism. Cambridge, London, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1974, pp. 79-135. Grover, Frederic. Drieu la Rochelle. Paris: Gallimard, 1962 (La Bibliotheque Ideale). Grover, Frederic J. Drieu la Rochelle and the Fiction of Testimony. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1958. Hervier, Julien. Drieu et Ernst Jiinger, deux individus centre I'histoire. Paris: Klincksieck, 1978. Hines, Thomas Moore. iiUHomme a cheval de Drieu la Rochelle: L'anatomie d'un roman de transition." Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1974. Hines, Thomas M. Le Rive et I'aetion: Une etude de "I'Homme ά cheval" de Drieu la Rochelle. Columbia, S.C.: French Liter­ ature Publications, 1977. Kunnas, Tarmo. Drieu la Rochelle, Ciline, Brasillach et la tentation fasciste. Paris: Les Sept Couleurs, 1972. Leal, Robert Barry. Drieu la Rochelle: Decadence in Love. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1973. Mabire, Jean. Drieu parmi nous. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1963 (L'Ordre du jour). Ory, Pascal. Les Collaborateurs 1940—1945. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977. Pirusat, Jean-Marie. Drieu la Rochelle ou Ie gout du malentendu. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1977. Pompili, Bruno. Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, progetto e delusione. Ravenna: A. Longo, 1969 (II Portico, Biblioteca di lettere e arti, 25). Reboussin, Marcel. Drieu la Rochelle et Ie mirage de la politique. Paris: Nizet, 1980. Simon, Pierre-Henri. Proces du hiros: Montherlant, Drieu la Ro­ chelle, Jean Privost. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1950 (Pierres vives). Soucy, Robert. Fascist Intellectual: Drieu la Rochelle. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1979. Vandromme, Pol. Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1958 (T^moins du ΧΧέ siecle).

428 * Bibliography ARTICLES Audiberti, Jacques. "A propos de L'Homme a cheval." Nouvelle Revue Frangaise 58, no. 352 (June 1943): 744-757. Bony, Alain H. "Drieu la Rochelle: Le sang et l'encre." Modern Language Review 60 (July 1965): 379-385. Du Bois, Pierre. "Des causes et de la nature de l'engagement politique de l'ecrivain Drieu la Rochelle." Cadmos 1, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 39-63. Grover, Fr6d£ric J. "Drieu la Rochelle: Le clerc et Ie guerrier." La Revue de Paris, no. 12 (December 1962), pp. 87-100. Hines, Thomas M. "Myth, Misogyny and Fascism in the Works of Drieu la Rochelle," Modern Fiction Studies 24 (1978): 197— 207. Leal, Robert Barry. "Drieu la Rochelle and Malraux." Australian Journal of French Studies 10 (May—August 1973): 175—190. Morand, Jacqueline. "La Politique dans l'oeuvre de Drieu la Ro­ chelle: Drieu ou Ie don de l'inquietude." Revue Politique et Parlementaire 67, no. 759 (September 1965): 54—65. Soucy, Robert. "Romanticism and Realism in the Fascism of Drieu la Rochelle." Journal of the History of Ideas 31 (JanuaryMarch 1970): 69-90. Van den Bremt, Etienne. "L'Unite interieure de Drieu la Rochelle." Revue des Langues Vivantes, no. 3 (1967), pp. 252—266.

ON SARTRE BOOKS Barnes, Hazel E. Sartre. London: Quartet Books, 1974. Bauer, George Howard. Sartre and the Artist. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Boros, Marie-Denise. Un SSquestri: L'homme sartrien. Etude du thime de la sequestration dans l'oeuvre litteraire de Jean-Paul Sartre. Paris: Nizet, 1968. Bree, Germaine. Camus and Sartre: Crisis and Commitment. New York: Delacorte Press, 1972 (A Delta Book). Champigny, Robert. Stages on Sartre's Way, 1938—1952. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959. Falk, Eugene H. Types of Thematic Structure: The Nature and Function of Motifs in Gide, Camus, and Sartre. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Bibliography * 429 Gore, Keith. Sartre: "La Nausee" and "Les Mouches." London: Edward Arnold, 1970. Hardison, 0. B., Jr., ed. The Quest for Imagination: Essays in Twentieth-Century Aesthetic Criticism. Cleveland and London: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1971, pp. 167— 189. Helbo, Andre. L'Enjeu du discours: Lecture de Sartre. Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1978. Idt, Genevieve. "Le Mur" de Jean-Paul Sartre: Techniques et contexte d'uneprovocation. Paris: Larousse, 1972 (Larousse Universite: Themes et Textes). Kern, Edith, ed. Sartre: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. Krauss, Henning. Die Praxis der "literature engagee" irn Werk Jean-Paul Sartres, 1938—1948. Heidelberg: CarlWinterUniversitatsverlag, 1970 (Studia Romanica 20. Heft). Magny, Claude-Edmonde. Les Sandales d'Empddocle: Essai sur les limites de la litterature. Neuchatel: La Baconniere, 1945, pp. 105-172. Nuttall, A. D. A Common Sky: Philosophy and the Literary Imag­ ination. London: Chatto & Windus, for Sussex University Press, 1974. Peyre, Henri. Jean-Paul Sartre. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1968 (Columbia Essays on Modern Writers, 31)· Pollmann, Leo. Sartre and Camus: Literature of Existence. Trans­ lated by Helen and Gregor Sebba. New York: Ungar, 1970. Prince, Gerald-Joseph. Mtiaphysique et technique dans I'oeuvre romanesque de J .-P. Sartre. Geneva: Droz, 1968. Sartre: Texte integral du film realise par A. Astruc et M. Contat. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. Warnock, Mary, ed. Sartre: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1971.

ARTICLES

Ames, Van Meter. "Back to the Wall." Chicago Review 13 (1959): 128-143. Bailey, Ninette. "Le Mur dans Le Mur: Etude d'un texte a partir de son titre." Esprit Criateur 17 (Spring 1977): 36-50. Boros, Marie-Denise. "La Metaphore du crabe dans I'oeuvre litteraire de Jean-Paul Sartre." PMLA 81 (October 1966): 446—450.

430 * Bibliography

Curtis, Jerry L. "Heroic Commitment, or the Dialectic of the Leap in Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus." Rice University Studies 59, no. 3 (Summer 1973): 17—26. Desanti, Dominique. "Sartre et !'engagement." Adam, nos. 343— 345 (1970), pp. 32-35. Fowlie, Wallace. "Existentialist Hero: A Study of L'Age de raison." Yale French Studies I (Spring—Summer 1948): 53—61. Greenlee, James. "Sartre's 'Chambre': The Story of Eve." Modern Fiction Studies 16 (Spring 1970): 77-84. Howells, Christina M. "Sartre and the Commitment of Pure Art." British Journal of Aesthetics 18 (1978): 172-182. Jeanson, Francis. "Albert Camus ou l'ame revoltee." Les Temps Modernes, no. 79 (May 1952), pp. 2070-2090. . "Pour tout vous dire ..." Les Temps Modernes, no. 82 (August 1952), pp. 354—383. Morris, Edward. "Intimacy." Yale French Studies 1 (Spring—Sum­ mer 1948): 73-79. Prince, Gerald-Joseph. "Le Symbolisme des noms dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Jean-Paul Sartre." Papers on Language and Literature (Edwardsville) 5 (Summer 1969): 316-321. Py, Albert. "Le Recours a la nouvelle chez Jean-Paul Sartre: Etude du Mur." Studies in Short Fiction 3 (Winter 1966): 246-252. Savage, D. S. "Jean-Paul Sartre and 'Committed Literature.' " The European, no. 5 (July 1953), pp. 17—32. Simon, John K. "Sartre's Room," MLN 79 (December 1964): 526538. Wardman, H. W. "Sartre and the Literature of Praxis: Les Chemins de la liberti." Essays in French Literature, no. 4 (November 1967), pp. 44-67. Yale French Studies, special number, "Sartre," no. 30 (1963).

ON CAMUS BOOKS

Balgley, Elissa Barnack. "Aspects of Duality in Camus." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1979. Barilier, Etienne. Albert Camus: Philosophie et litterature. Lau­ sanne: L'Age d'Homme, 1977. Baumgartner, Paul Conrad. "Albert Camus and the Tensions of Irony." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1968.

Bibliography * 431 Bousquet, Francois. Camus Ie mediterraneen, Camus I'ancien. Sherbrooke, Quebec: Editions Naaman, 1977. Butor, Michel. Les Mots dans la peinture. Geneva: Albert Skira, 1969 (Les Sentiers de la creation). Crochet, Monique. Les Mythes dans I'oeuvre de Camus. Paris: Edi­ tions Universitaires, 1973 (Encyclopedie Universitaire). Engelberg, Edward. The Unknown Distance: From Consciousness to Conscience, Goethe to Camus. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Fortier, Paul A. Une Lecture de Camus: La valeur des Moments descriptifs dans I'oeuvre romanesque. Paris: Klincksieck, 1977. Gadourek, Carina. Les Innocents et les coupables: Essai d'exegese de I'oeuvre d'Albert Camus. The Hague: Mouton, 1963. Ingram, Forrest L. Representative Short Story Cycles of the Twentieth Century. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1971, pp. 34~-39 (De proprietatibus litterarum, Series Major, 19). Issacharoff, Michael. VEspace et la nouvelle. Paris: Corti, 1976. Lottman, Herbert R. Camus. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979. Mailhot, Laurent. Albert Camus, ou ^imagination du desert. Mont­ real: Presses de I'Universite de Montreal, 1973. Maillard, Claudine and Michel. Le Langage en proces: Structures et symboles dans "La Chute" de Camus. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1977. Parker, Emmett. Albert Camus, the Artist in the Arena. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965. Reuter, Yves. Textelideologie dans "La Chute" de Camus. Paris: Minard, 1980. Sherwood, Thome, Jr. "Albert Camus in His Fiction: From Am­ bivalence to Ambiguity." Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford Uni­ versity, 1971. Treil, Claude. L'Indiffirence dans I'oeuvre d'Albert Camus. Montreal-Sherbrooke, Quebec: Editions Cosmos, 1971 (Profils, 4). Zyla, W. T., and Aycock, W. M., eds. Albert Camus' Literary Milieu: Arid Lands. Lubbock: Texas Technical Press, 1976 (Comparative Literature Symposium Proceedings, 8).

ARTICLES

Ames, Sanford. "La Chute: From Summitry to Speleology." French Review 39 (February 1966): 559—566. Baril, Denis. "La Cave et Ie balcon: Note sur un aspect de Tima-

432 • Bibliography gination spatiale dans Ies recits d'Albert Camus." In Le Refuge, edited by Jean Burgos, vol. 1, pp. 293—304. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1971 (Circe, 2). Bartfeld, Fernande. "Les Paradoxes du Jonas de Camus." The Hebrew University Studies in Literature 6 (Spring 1978): 129— 142. Bieber, Konrad. "Engagement as a Professional Risk." Yale French Studies, no. 16 (Winter 1955-1956), pp. 29-39. Claire, Thomas. "Landscape and Religious Imagery in Camus, La Pierre qui pousse." Studies in Short Fiction 13 (Summer 1976): 321-329. Crant, Philip. "Conflict and Confrontation: An Essay on Camus's VHote " Language Quarterly 12, nos. 1-2 (Fall-Winter 1973): 43-46. Cryle, Peter. iiLa Peste et Ie monde concrete: Etude abstraite." Revue des Lettres Modernes, nos. 479-483 (1976), pp. 9-25 (Albert Camus 8). . "The Written Painting and the Painted Word in Jonas." In Albert Camus 1980, edited by Raymond Gay-Crosier. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980 (A University of Florida Book). Curtis, Jerry L. "Structure and Space in Camus' Jonas." Modern Fiction Studies 22 (1976): 571-576. Durand, Laura G. "Thematic Counterpoint in UExil et Ie royaume." French Review 47 (1973-1974): 1110-1122. Fitch, Brian T. "Aesthetic Distance and Inner Space in the Novels of Camus." Modern Fiction Studies, no. 10 (1964), pp. 232244. . "Clamence en chute libre: La coherence imaginaire de La Chute." In Camus 1970, edited by Raymond Gay-Crosier, pp. 47—76. Quebec: CELEF, Universite de Sherbrooke, 1970. . iiJonas, ou la production d'une etoile." La Revue des Lettres Modernes, nos. 360-365 (1973), pp. 51-65 (Albert Camus 6). Fortier, Paul A. "Creation et fonctionnement de Tatmosphere dans Le RenSgat de Camus." PMLA 88 (1973): 484^495. . "Le Dicor symbolique de YHdte d'Albert Camus." French Review 46 (February 1973): 535—542. Greenlee, James W. "Camus' Guest: The Inadmissible Complicity." Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 2 (1977-1978): 127139.

Bibliography * 433 Grobe, Edwin P. "The Psychological Structure of Camus's L'Hdte." French Review 40 (December 1966): 357—367. Hollahan, Eugene. "The Path of Sympathy: Abstraction and Imag­ ination in Camus' La Peste." Studies in the Novel 8 (1976): 377-393. King, Adele. "Jonas ou l'artiste au travail." French Studies 20 (July 1966): 267-280. Nicod-Saraiva, Marguerite. "Une Lecture du RenAgat." Etudes de Lettres: Bulletin de la Faculti des Lettres de VUniversite de Lausanne et de la Societi des Etudes de Lettres 3, no. 6 (1973): 75-80. N0jgaard, Morten. "Temps et espace dans La Chute." Orbis Litterarum 26 (1971): 291—320. Palmer, R. Barton. "Counting Peas in Camus's La Peste." Inter­ national Fiction Review 5 (January 1978): 35—39. Pomet, Georges. "La Structure de l'espace dans UEtranger." Etudes Franqaises 7 (November 1971): 359—372. Reck, Rima Drell. "Albert Camus: The Artist and His Time." Modem Language Quarterly 23 (June 1962): 129-143. Senart, Philippe. "Camus et Ie juste milieu." La Table Ronde, nos. 174-175 (July-August 1962), pp. 112-115. Van-Huy, Pierre. "Meursault et Ie retour methodique a la terre." Language Quarterly 10, nos. 3—4 (Spring—Summer 1972): 13—

16.

ON IONESCO BOOKS

Abastado, Claude. Eugene Ionesco. Paris and Montreal: Bordas, 1971 (Presences Litteraires). Benmussa, Simone. Eugene Ionesco. Paris: Editions Seghers, 1966 (Theatre de Tous Ies Temps, 1). Chiaromonte, Nicola. Scritti sul teatro. Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1976, pp. 165—168 (Saggi, 561). Coe, Richard N. Eugene Ionesco. Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1961 (Writers and Critics). . Ionesco: A Study of His Plays. London: Methuen, 1971. Donnard, Jean-Herve. Ionesco dramaturge ou Vartisan et Ie demon. Paris: Minard, 1966 (Situations, 8).

434 * Bibliography

Frois, Etienne. Ionesco: "Rhinoceros." Analyse critique. Paris: Hatier, 1970 (Profil d'une oeuvre, 2). Hayman, Ronald. Eugine Ionesco. London: Heinemann, 1972 (Contemporary Playwrights). Jacobsen, Josephine, and Mueller, William R. Ionesco and Genet: Playwrights of Silence. New York: Hill & Wang, 1968 (A Drama Book). Kister, Daniel Albert. "Some Imaginative Motifs from Primitive Sacred Myths in the Theater of Ionesco." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1973. Lamont, Rosette C., ed. Ionesco: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and London: Prentice-Hall, 1973 (Twentieth-Century Views). , and Friedman, Melvin J., eds. The Two Faces of Ionesco. New York: WhitsunPublishingCo., 1978, especially pp. 101— 118.

Lewis, Allan. Ionesco. New York: Twayne Publishers 1972 (Twayne World Author Series). Pronko, Leonard C. Eugene Ionesco. New York and London: Co­ lumbia University Press, 1965 (Columbia Essays on Modern Writers, 7). Senart, Philippe. Ionesco. Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1964 (Classiques du XXe siecle, 62). Tobi, Saint. Eugene Ionesco, ou A la recherche du paradis perdu. Paris: Gallimard, 1973. Vernois, Paul. La Dynamique thiatrale d'Eugene Ionesco. Paris: Klincksieck, 1972 (Bibliotheque FranQaise et Romane; Serie C: Etudes Litteraires, 34). Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy. London: Chatto & Windus, 1966. Wulbern, Julian H. Brecht and Ionesco: Commitment in Context. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971.

ARTICLES

Barrault, Jean-Louis. tiRhinocSros: Un cauchemar burlesque." Cahiers Renaud-Barrault, no. 97 (1978), pp. 41—46. Bishop, Tom. "Ionesco on Olympus." Saturday Review, May 16, 1970, pp. 21-23, 91. Brenner, J. "Ionesco, la pesanteur et la grace." Biblio 31, no. 8 (October 1963): 7-9.

Bibliography · 435 Chambers, Ross. "Detached Committal: Ionesco's Victims of Duty." Meanjin Quarterly 22 (1963): 23—33. . "Eugene Ionesco, ou comment s'envoler?" Australian Jour­ nal of French Studies 6 (1969): 82—100. Cismaru, Alfred. "The Validity of Ionesco's Contempt." Texas Quarterly 6 (Winter 1963): 125-130. Craddock, George E., Jr. "Escape and Fulfillment in the Theatre of Ionesco." Southern Quarterly 10 (October 1971): 15-22. Demaitre, Ann. "The Idea of Commitment in Brecht's and Ionesco's Theories of the Theater." Symposium 22 (Fall 1968): 215223. Gerrard, Charlotte F. "Bergsonian Elements in Ionesco's Le PHton de I'air." Papers on Language and Literature 9 (Summer 1973): 297-310. Lamont, R. C. "Air and Matter: Ionesco's Le Piiton de Fair and Victimes du devoir." French Review 38 (January 1965): 349361. Lamont, Rosette C. "The Topography of Ionescoland." Modern Oc­ casions 1 (Fall 1971): 536-546. Marcel, Gabriel. "Terre a terre [ou Lepiston de Fair]," Les Nouvelles Littiraires, no. 1851 (21 February 1963), p. 12. Murray, J. "Ionesco and the Mechanics of Memory." Yale French Studies, no. 29 (Spring—Summer 1962), pp. 82-87. Suther, Judith D. "Ionesco's Symbiotic Pair: Le Solitaire and Ce Formidable Bordel!" French Review 49 (1975-1976): 689702. Tener, Robert L. "These Places, This Private Landscape: First Suggestions for a Topological Approach to Ionesco's Berenger Plays." Papers on Language and Literature 13 (1977): 391400. Witt, Mary Ann. "Ionesco and the Dialectic of Space." Modern Language Quarterly 33 (1972): 312—326.

ON MALRAUX

Brechon, Robert. "La Condition humaine" d'Andrt Malraux. Paris: Hachette, 1972 (Lire aujourd'hui). Fitch, Brian T. Les Deux univers romanesques d Andre Malraux. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1964 (Archives des Lettres Modernes, 52).

436 * Bibliography Frohock, W. Μ. Andrf Malraux and the Tragic Imagination. Stan­ ford: Stanford University Press, 1952. Gaillard, Pol, ed. Les Critiques de notre temps et Malraux. Paris: Gamier Frdres, 1970. Harris, Geoffrey T. Andre Malraux: Uithique comme fonction de Vesthitique. Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1972 (Situations, 27). Hartman, Geoffrey H. Andre Malraux. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1960 (Studies in Modern European Literature and Thought). Vandegans, Andre. La Jeunesse litteraire d'Andre Malraux, ou Essai sur I'inspiration farfelue. Paris: Pauvert, 1964. Wilkinson, David. Malraux, an Essay in Political Criticism. Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.

GENERAL

Bachelard, Gaston. L'Air et Ies songes: Essai sur Vimagination du mouvement. Paris: Corti, 1943. . La Poitique de Vespace. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972 (Bibliotheque de Philosophie Contemporaine). . La Terre et Ies reveries de la volenti. Paris: Corti, 1948. . La Terre et Ies reveries du repos. Paris: Corti, 1948. La Barbacane, special number, "Poetique du chateau fort," nos. 13-14 (1972). Berger, Gaston. Phinominologie du temps et prospective. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964. Bourget, Paul. Le Disciple. Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1889. Char, Rene. Recherche de la base et du sommet, suivi de pauvreti et privilege. Paris: Gallimard, 1955. Chardonne, Jacques. Le Ciel dans la fenetre. Paris: Albin Michel, 1959. Durand, Gilbert. Les Structures anthropologiques de Vimaginaire: Introduction a I'archetypologie genirale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960. Eliade, Mircea. Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbol­ ism. Translated by Philip Mairet. London: Harvill Press, 1961. . Traiti d'histoire des religions. Paris: Payot, 1974. Gu^non, R. Le Symbolisme de la croix. Paris: Vega, 1950. Huizer, Gerri t, and Mannheim, Bruce. The Politics of Anthropology: From Colonialism and Sexism toward a View from Below. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1979.

Bibliography ' 437 Kiesler, Charles Ε. The Psychology of Commitment: Experiments Linking Behavior to Belief. New York and London: Academic Press, 1971 (Social Psychology Series). King, Adele. Paul Nizan: Ecrivain. Paris: Didier, 1976. Matore, Georges. L'Espace humain: L'Expression de Vespace dans la vie, la pensee et I'art contemporains. 2nd ed. Paris: Nizet, 1962. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1961. Poulet, Georges. Etudes sur Ie temps humain, III: Le point de depart. Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1977 (10/18). Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. La Citadelle. Paris: Gallimard, 1976 (Folio, 108). Slama, Alain-Gerard. Les Chasseurs d'absolu: Genese de la gauche et de la droite. Paris: Grasset, 1980. Starobinski, Jean. UOeil vivant . . . , Vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard, 1961. Tiffeneau, D., ed. La Simantique de I'action. Paris: Editions du C.N.R.S., 1977. Von Wright, Georg Henrik. Norm and Action: A Logical Enquiry. New York: Humanities Press, 1963; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.

INDEX

^UTLTL Abellio, 370η above, being above, 8, 19, 20, 105, 189, 200, 204, 211, 214, 224, 227, 246, 262, 263, 266, 286, 288, 315, 336, 340, 349, 359, 401n. See also elevation, height, superiority act, ix, 4, 136, 137, 143, 168, 173, 174, 178, 190, 215, 237, 277, 282, 284, 285, 294, 357, 374n, 386n; decisive act, 137, 146, 189, 217, 361. See also action, activity action, 18, 26, 31, 32, 36, 39, 73, 76, 80, 82, 83, 90, 91, 95, 100, 103, 106, 115, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125, 126, 136-^18, 159, 162, 165, 175, 177, 188, 189, 193, 195, 196, 199, 200, 206, 207, 213, 214, 216, 217, 228, 230, 238, 241, 245, 248, 252, 253, 254, 256, 260, 263, 270, 280, 291, 317, 336, 337, 339, 343, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 360, 361, 362, 363, 366η, 368n, 369n, 380n— 81η, 385η, 386n, 392n, 406n; heat of action, 64, 101, 112, 114, 126, 139; line of action, 6, 10, 11, 233, 256, 310, 363; man of action, 118, 122, 125, 144, 207, 363, 404n; space of action, 101, 165, 205, 211, 216, 317, 327, 353, 356, 360, 406n. See also act, activity activity, 4, 137, 270, 274, 292, 340, 346, 356 Adereth, 405n, 406n

air, 32, 71, 119, 157, 175, 183, 211, 217, 243, 263, 267, 278, 326, 328, 372n, 393n, 397n, 399n, 405n; air and earth, 8, 33, 40, 54, 68, 162, 168, 174, 236, 275, 331; in the air, 8, 21, 116, 173, 177, 185, 198, 201, 225, 229, 233, 248, 287, 331, 335, 389n, 391n; of the air, 8, 54, 116, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 182, 200, 202, 248, 262, 269, 286, 322, 324, 348, 357, 404n. See also clouds, sky alternation, 39, 41, 110, 147, 344, 345, 383n, 387n anarchism, 66, 190, 206, 289 Andreu, 383n, 385n angel, 50, 106, 186, 191, 193, 202, 223, 246, 255, 260, 264, 265, 289, 332, 344 animality, 5, 8, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 73, 74, 86, 94, 109, 118, 121, 124, 133, 148, 154, 160, 162, 163, 183, 188, 192, 197, 209, 210, 245, 255, 29697, 298, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 316, 317, 324, 349, 350, 374n Aragon, 351—52, 405n aristocracy, 13, 33, 37, 131, 133, 151, 152, 153, 158, 160, 163, 184, 224, 225, 229, 233, 27577, 280, 281, 290, 339-41, 387n. See also elite army, 73, 74, 77, 81, 85, 91, 92, 98, 101, 107, 110, 115, 299, 339

440 · Index around, 18, 28, 37, 42, 88, 89, 91, 92, 102, 121, 284, 381n Artaud, 319 ascension, 13, 24, 40, 59, 60, 66, 76, 158, 225, 233, 244, 259, 264, 265, 279, 289, 308, 322, 323, 326, 341, 344, 360, 372n, 403n, 404n. See also climb, rise and fall Astruc, 390n, 392n Bachelard, 8, 11, 14, 24, 49, 59, 87, 210, 244, 259, 310, 347, 370η—76η, 391n, 393n, 395n, 397n, 405n balcony, 43, 126, 127, 151, 152, 182, 185, 186, 203, 213, 224, 249, 250, 276, 281, 358 band (of followers, etc.), 33, 64, 68, 80, 89, 99, 102, 105, 107, 141, 206, 207, 228, 285, 381n, 407n Barr£s, 23-55, 62, 64, 67, 73, 94, 95, 113, 157, 159, 160, 167, 175, 176, 183, 208, 214, 230, 236, 262, 273, 294, 333, 340, 342, 349, 372n-75n, 379n battle, 16, 85, 86, 94, 98, 100, 104, 105, 115, 120, 123, 124, 125, 137, 162, 200, 204, 206, 214, 221, 292, 334, 339, 341, 343, 349n, 386n, 407n; battle­ field, 83, 84, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 105, 115, 119, 205, 230, 296 Baumgartner, 395n, 398n, 400n Beauvoir, 368n, 406n Beebe, 8, 370n beginning, 4, 11, 32, 141, 156, 173, 184, 242, 243, 246, 273, 275, 327, 406n; new begin­ ning, 6, 9, 40, 57, 89, 100, 206, 242, 243, 245, 249, 256, 265, 273, 327, 395n being in the world, 4, 7, 18, 47, 105, 144, 196, 199, 226, 227,

228, 239, 242, 250, 292, 309, 343 being seen, 31, 32, 45, 64, 88, 113, 118, 122, 150, 187, 188, 190, 191, 209, 228, 262, 263 Benda, 106, 140, 220, 333, 334, 385n Berger, 11, 371n Bergson, 223 birdcage, 13, 184 Blanchot, 244, 395n blindness, myopia, 41, 84, 88, 90, 97, 98, 110, 121, 251, 305, 315, 369n, 394n. See also unaware body, 4, 58, 59, 61, 62, 84, 88, 97, 106, 126, 128, 129, 131, 133, 144, 148-50, 152, 153, 155, 156, 161, 165, 166, 167, 170, 174, 182, 190-92, 193, 194, 195, 197, 201, 206, 209, 211, 228, 231, 252, 255, 256, 288, 300, 302, 309, 354, 374η, 380η, 383n, 388n, 406n; body of the leader, 95, 116, 120, 122, 141, 155, 156, 189, 282, 299; embodied/disembod­ ied, 33, 36, 95, 110, 121, 129, 148, 156, 163, 179, 191, 192, 217, 219, 220, 24β, 269, 295, 360 boundaries of commitment, 12, 35, 52, 165, 181, 212, 218, 352. See also corpus bourgeois, 13, 65, 81, 83, 84, 96-98, 103, 110, 111, 134, 169, 201, 203, 204, 211, 217, 222, 229, 230, 233, 234, 235, 269, 276, 289, 290, 315, 352, 368n Bourget, 335—37, 405n Brasillach, 164, 387n Bree, 320, 401n, 402n, 403n Breton, 190 Briosi, 390n Brombert, 19, 371n, 372n Burnier, 392n

Index · 441 bury, being buried, 89, 116, 179, 209, 215, 233, 234, 283, 285, 346

Camus, 214, 242-94, 328, 332, 342, 351, 353, 355, 390n, 393η, 394n—400n, 406n castle, 16, 19, 24, 36, 37, 44, 46, 373n ceiling, 269, 272, 275, 317, 330, 403n, 404n Celine, 352 center, 24, 26, 120, 160, 171, 277, 283, 285, 290 Chambers, 320, 321, 326, 330, 402n-404n Champigny, 175, 179, 214, 389n, 391n, 393n choice, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 34, 35, 46, 52, 53, 60, 61, 79, 105, 112, 119, 127, 145, 146, 173, 175, 176, 186, 189, 196, 197, 199, 210, 214-17, 220, 221, 227, 231, 236, 242, 243, 247, 248, 253, 261, 262, 267, 275, 281, 297, 298, 309, 312, 330, 335, 350, 362, 363, 392n Cirillo, 376n climb, 25, 35, 43, 56, 107, 146, 160, 183, 184, 195, 212, 244, 246, 252, 262, 308, 321, 339, 340. See also ascension, effort clouds, 40, 44, 179, 265, 266, 289, 291, 297, 344, 359. See also mists Coe, 305, 400n Cogny, 379n collective, 47, 108, 207, 226, 248, 299, 317 comfort, 12, 49, 76, 82—83, 84, 92, 97, 100-102, 103, 105, 124, 152, 191, 195, 202, 204, 211, 222, 225, 230, 233, 261, 267, 268, 269, 276, 317, 322, 357, 371n; discomfort, 57, 82, 83, 267-68, 269, 273, 280,

285, 320, 393n. See also shel­ ter committed literature, xvi, 351, 367n, 405n. See also literature of commitment communism, 6, 199, 201, 216, 217, 229, 240, 241, 351, 367η, 384n, 387n, 397n compromise, 113, 133, 169, 239, 248, 254, 267, 272, 275, 285, 290, 291, 293, 294, 404n condescend, 54, 119, 175, 260, 261, 343 conscience, 12, 33, 224, 237, 337 consciousness, ix, xi, xiv, 5, 8, 12, 15, 24, 52, 53, 60, 75, 78, 83, 86, 111, 124, 138, 143, 149, 169, 181, 185, 193, 199, 209-217, 232-34, 236-37, 239, 243, 244, 246, 259, 281, 304, 312, 321, 362, 366n, 374n conservatism, 46, 94, 237, 384n Contat, 390n, 392n contemplation, 12, 18, 19, 22, 24, 30, 39, 46, 53, 82, 83, 86, 95, 99, 101, 107, 118, 120, 122, 123, 125, 126, 136, 140, 168, 186, 217, 226, 230, 245, 246, 285, 289, 315, 326, 328, 333, 342, 350, 353, 358, 359, 363. See also reflection contempt, 9, 18-20, 33, 34, 41, 92, 93, 111, 119, 127, 128, 150, 152, 194, 212, 213, 261, 269, 281, 284, 286, 293, 294, 310, 311, 313, 315, 317, 342, 343, 344, 346, 356, 372n, 406n corpus (of texts), xv, xvi, 8, 218, 332, 346, 351. See also bound­ aries of commitment countryside, 10, 27, 33, 81, 83, 328, 373n. See also plain crawl, 58, 65, 87, 124, 158, 159, 160, 187, 197, 255

442 · Index crowd, 17, 33, 37, 64, 67, 88, 106, 110, 149, 189, 194-96, 200, 201, 262, 263, 272, 282, 283, 298, 299, 305, 325, 328, 329, 331, 341, 359, 361, 384n. See also mass Cryle, 395n, 398n culture, 49, 84, 173, 183, 210, 302, 303-305, 316, 345; cul­ ture as context, vii, viii, x, xi, xv, 186, 189, 219, 237; culture as privilege, 43, 53, 112, 150, 154, 235, 305, 340 Danner, 401n Dante, 267 Delacroix, 99 democracy, 158, 169, 386n depths, xiv, 13, 14, 47, 48, 76, 103, 159, 211, 248, 249, 265, 273, 324, 333, 338, 339, 340, 349, 363, 378n, 379n, 397n, 400n. See also surface descend, see go down detachment, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 34, 40, 44, 61, 66, 72, 92, 101, 105, 111, 112, 124, 126, 127, 140, 158, 165, 173, 175, 186, 189, 199, 200, 211, 220, 221, 224, 226, 245, 262, 287, 315, 316, 318, 321, 324, 325, 327, 331, 332, 333-36, 338, 339, 343, 344, 346, 358, 359, 362, 402n; abstract detach­ ment, 33, 151, 182, 221, 223, 250, 289, 334, 335; detach­ ment and commitment, 7, 19, 86, 105, 106, 108, 109, 113, 143, 170, 214, 221, 237, 246, 247, 248, 272, 275, 293, 309, 346, 347, 402n; space of de­ tachment, 19, 21, 22, 72, 166, 200, 212, 224, 225, 245, 249, 250, 272, 293, 317, 330, 333, 334, 338, 345, 402n Dezalay, 75, 378n dig, 47-49, 80, 97, 185, 233,

234, 265, 266. See also bury distance, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 19, 31, 35, 36, 59, 60, 85, 92, 115, 128, 152, 174, 188, 194, 196, 198, 213, 215, 216, 217, 234, 235, 241, 245, 248-49, 250, 280, 286, 288, 317, 318, 327, 329, 333, 357-59, 361, 362. See also exile dizzying, 48, 105, 151, 152, 158, 202, 213, 257, 356, 400n dominer (look down upon), 21, 22, 56, 119, 123, 124, 181, 188, 190, 196, 198, 225, 233, 245, 328, 371n, 390n. See also look down, survoler dream, 34, 41, 42, 55, 63, 70, 82, 95, 139, 142, 144, 145, 146-47, 164, 230, 253, 260, 271, 289, 308, 310, 311, 312, 336, 341, 362, 371n, 372n, 385η, 397n, 402n, 405n. See also reverie Drieu la Rochelle, 11, 82-171, 175, 178, 200, 214, 216, 225, 226, 237, 239, 247, 262, 269, 273, 275, 276, 290, 294, 296, 299, 302, 325, 333, 340, 371η, 380n—89n, 407n Durand, 14, 371n, 372n, 375n, 377n duration, 45, 47, 50, 64, 73, 87, 104, 136, 139, 148, 163, 197, 209, 214, 225, 246, 292, 293 eagle, 204, 225, 227, 273, 333, 337, 393n earth, 11, 17, 24, 48-50, 51, 60, 76, 77, 85, 88, 94, 97, 98, 116, 168, 169, 175, 177, 201, 209, 213, 221, 222, 223, 225, 280, 288, 304, 317, 325, 330, 332, 370n, 371n, 373n-77n, 387n, 391n, 395n; down to earth, earthy, 34, 40, 153, 158, 196, 208, 210, 280, 281, 319, 373n, 402n; earth and air,

Index * 443 earth and sky, 8, 10, 33, 48, 54, 68, 98, 162, 166-68, 174, 180, 236, 240, 256, 265, 267, 272, 289, 290, 291, 322, 323, 331, 344, 382n, 388n, 394n, 398n; in the earth, 62, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 97, 101, 105, 116, 176, 179, 196, 208, 209, 248, 280, 283, 285, 334, 335; of the earth, earthly, 23, 27, 40, 42, 45, 49, 51, 54, 61, 79, 81, 94, 116, 123, 14β, 161, 166, 168, 170, 173, 176, 180, 191, 202, 217, 220, 222, 236, 277, 284, 295, 296, 310, 319, 335, 348, 349, 360, 376n, 378n, 389n, 396n; on the earth, on the ground, 13, 14, 17, 40, 42, 47, 64, 87, 92, 95, 107, 114, 161, 167, 173, 192, 197, 201, 209, 211, 213, 220, 221, 240, 275, 277, 280, 295, 297, 298, 321, 326, 341, 344, 389n. See also earth level, mud, surface earth level, 87, 89, 96, 98, 205, 277, 280, 285, 288, 304, 377n, 387n, 398n effort, 11, 13, 23, 56, 76, 78, 173, 184, 191, 195, 211, 212, 244, 246, 252, 253, 261, 263, 282, 285, 295, 300, 307, 308, 321, 323, 324, 325, 326, 329, 339, 344. See also climb elan, 76, 79, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 99, 100, 103, 124, 125, 140, 162, 170, 210, 259, 325, 326, 378n, 387n elevation, 13—16, 21, 38, 49, 52, 57, 102, 120, 127, 158, 162, 173, 184, 185, 186, 189, 198, 200, 204, 207, 210, 214, 224, 232, 246, 261-63, 265, 271, 273, 278, 286, 288, 293, 326, 328, 329, 335, 336, 344, 345, 348, 350, 358. See also above, height, exaltation

Eliade, 377n elite, 92, 225, 235, 340, 390n. See also aristocracy enter, 6, 12, 14, 70, 86, 105, 114, 162, 281, 286, 287, 289, 308, 334, 341, 385n. See also leave escape, xiv, 8, 9, 13, 31, 41, 49, 103, 105, 108, 114, 177, 189, 194, 211, 239, 241, 243, 247, 250, 268, 269, 275, 281, 291, 309, 312, 319, 320, 330, 370η, 387η, 396n, 402n, 404n. See also leave eternal, 27, 38, 41, 44, 45, 52, 103, 114, 155, 161, 207, 224, 225, 230, 239, 243, 245, 320, 340, 342, 345, 356, 375n, 407n exaltation, 119, 157, 158, 166, 167, 330. See also elevation exile, 180, 181, 198, 199, 202, 228, 248, 288, 293. See also distance fall, 15, 16, 19, 40, 99, 100, 114, 123, 124, 153, 186, 194, 197, 208, 210, 211, 215, 217, 226, 228, 229, 232, 233, 244, 251, 259-65, 267, 268, 271, 274, 278, 279, 280, 283, 286, 290, 291, 293, 298, 307, 338, 372η, 380η, 381n, 398n, 406n fascism, 38, 94, 114, 120, 141, 168, 189, 200, 201, 206, 282, 294, 299, 381n-86n, 388n Fernandez, 374n Fitch, 397n fixed point, 10, 11, 26, 27, 28, 46, 56, 113, 230, 231, 272, 285, 292, 397n, 402n Flaubert, 8, 372n float, 173, 176, 181, 186, 201, 202, 210, 212, 229, 265, 271, 272, 301, 366n, 389n, 391n, 394n flock, herd, 9, 43, 44, 62, 86,

444 • Index flock, herd (cont.) 108, 111, 116, 180, 192, 222, 299, 308 floor, 269, 270, 272, 275 flying, 50, 243, 279, 301, 320, 321, 323-31, 332. See also survoler Forster, 9, 11, 370n Fortier, 396n Fowlie, 391n freedom, 4-6, 41, 46, 50, 53, 54, 57, 59, 62, 79, 86, 88, 91, 92, 105, 106, 110, 112, 126, 128, 129, 136, 145, 147, 155, 156, 160, 167, 172-80, 188, 196, 198-201, 206, 214, 217, 237, 241, 242—44, 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 260, 264, 275, 281, 286, 290, 292, 309, 317, 321, 324, 327, 334-35, 336, 353, 357, 358, 361, 391n, 404n Friedman, 401n Gadamer, 392n gallop, 16, 64, 65, 70, 73, 80, 121, 159, 296 Gay-Crosier, 390n, 397n, 398n Gide, 172, 345 Gilbert, 395n Gilman, 372n Giono, 332, 347-49, 405n Glicksberg, 214, 391n go back down, 60, 62, 188, 207, 243, 244, 246, 287, 288 go down, 10, 13, 14, 35, 36, 39, 40, 46, 47, 52, 55, 62, 86, 160, 177-79, 181, 182, 184, 188, 209, 211, 212, 214, 232, 233, 244, 245, 263, 266, 282, 298, 299, 308-310, 318, 321, 324, 325, 330, 332, 333, 344, 350, 371n, 405n, 406n; descendre dans la rue (go down into the street), 189, 190, 192, 193; s'enfoncer (go down gradu­ ally, sink down), 46, 53, 76, 149, 179, 215

Grenier, 400n Grossetete, 13, 17, 372n group, 33, 64, 68, 80, 89, 99, 102, 105, 107, 141, 206, 207, 228, 285, 381n, 407n Graver, 110, 381n, 383n, 385n, 386n growth, 50, 66, 76, 120, 121, 156, 210, 216, 220, 377, 378n Guedj, 377n Guenon, 396n Guerin, 11, 371n haughtiness, 18, 127, 286, 338, 342, 345, 394n hearing, 75, 77, 191, 195, 284, 316, 317, 348, 370n, 401n Hegel, 237 height, 13, 20-22, 23, 24, 30, 32-34, 37, 39, 43, 48, 50, 56, 88, 116, 119, 121, 126, 151, 152, 157, 161, 162, 165, 166, 168, 169, 183, 186, 187, 188, 202, 207, 213, 225, 227, 245, 249, 259, 260, 261, 263, 266, 269, 271, 273, 276, 278, 286, 299, 322, 324, 330, 333, 338, 339, 340, 342, 387n, 394n, 400n; high and low, 153, 162, 213, 271, 276, 333; loftiness, 137, 152, 153, 158, 294, 338. See also above, elevation Helbo, 389n, 390n hill, 23-55, 85, 86, 94, 95, 115, 157, 173, 174, 183, 184, 208, 227, 230, 245, 259, 329, 340, 347-50, 380n, 395n Hines, 388n history, 73, 225-29, 231, 232, 234, 238, 239-41, 246, 247, 250, 286-88, 290-92, 294, 305, 328 Hollingdale, 405n horizontal, 43, 46, 65, 67, 97, 117, 160, 256, 266, 267, 273, 379n; horizontal movement, 16, 27, 28-29, 40, 61, 64, 80, 95,

Index * 445 322; horizontal plane, 10, 101, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271, 403n; horizontal position, 38, 59, 66, 87, 90, 92, 93, 187, 188, 205, 206, 209, 249, 267, 276, 277, 284; horizontal world, 16, 17, 28, 38, 198, 265, 280 Huizer, 393n humanity, 5, 8, 23, 71, 93, 99, 107, 108, 114, 143, 147, 166, 167, 184, 186, 187, 189, 192, 193, 194, 197, 198, 217, 220, 221-23, 224, 225, 231, 238, 239, 241, 246, 254, 255, 257, 266, 267, 269, 273, 274, 275, 285, 288, 290, 291, 292, 297, 320, 334, 350, 358, 359, 361, 363, 371η, 372n, 378n, 380n, 387η, 394n, 403n, 406n; hu­ man verticality, 57, 59, 66, 83, 87, 91, 95, 187, 197, 296, 304, 316, 323, 325, 376n; in­ human, nonhuman, 24, 202, 217, 230, 255, 257, 274, 355, 400n, 402n; subhuman, 62, 66, 75, 94, 188, 197, 205, 255, 296, 298, 299, 304, 317; su­ perhuman, 67, 167, 181, 197, 202, 231, 258, 348, 349, 350, 357, 359, 360, 388n Husserl, 214 Icarus, 265 ignorance, see unaware, uncon­ scious impurity, see purity in the world, 4, 7, 18, 47, 105, 144, 196, 199, 226-28, 239, 242, 250, 292, 309, 343 instant, see moment intellectual, 6, 7, 11, 39, 42, 52, 54, 70, 72, 110, 115, 118, 122, 133, 138, 139, 140, 144, 146, 148, 162, 164, 186, 189, 190, 198, 204, 215, 216, 217, 221, 237, 294, 298, 305-310,

313, 315, 328, 336, 352, 353, 369η, 392η, 393n, 401n, 406n; social role of the intellectual, 9, 64, 66, 72, 73, 94, 96, 106, 109, 110, 122, 125, 126, 129, 130, 134—36, 137, 141, 150, 163, 189, 200, 211, 217, 219, 220, 237, 238, 328, 336, 352, 359, 362, 382n, 393n, 397n; space of intellectuality, 9, 10, 12, 32, 39, 72, 94, 95, 114, 131, 143, 182, 183, 198, 200, 202, 204, 210, 213, 219, 220, 224, 228, 229, 234, 235, 240, 263, 270, 286, 288, 326, 327, 335, 336, 358, 369n, 371n, 384n intersubjectivity, xi, 218, 393n Ionesco, 332, 335, 400n—404n Issacharoff, 284, 399n ivory tower, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 20, 23, 140, 186, 214, 288, 289, 331, 342, 347, 370n, 398n Jagmetti, 69, 377n Jeanson, 286-88, 399n Kemp, 6, 369, 393n Kierkegaard, 298 kneel, 59, 97, 216 Koestler, 370n Lamont, 401n Lapp, 378n lasting, 45, 47, 50, 64, 73, 87, 104, 136, 139, 148, 163, 197, 209, 214, 225, 246, 292, 293 Lattre, 378n leader, 37, 63, 64, 72, 73, 81, 88-93, 99, 104, 107, 108, 114—16, 120-22, 125, 141, 156, 165, 175, 189, 201, 206, 282, 285, 340, 381n; leader's body, 95, 116, 120, 122, 141, 155, 156, 189, 282, 299 leap, 298, 299, 307, 394n leave, 6, 49, 77, 105, 108, 111,

446 · Index leave (cont.) 230, 247, 321, 324. See also enter, escape left wing, xv, 381n, 386n. See also communism, Marxism Levi-Strauss, 376n Lewis, 401n lie down, 86, 87, 93, 177, 205, 206, 208, 211, 325, 348, 349, 401n lightness, 15, 22, 112, 155, 178, 179, 184, 185, 186, 191, 213, 223, 229, 246, 280, 295, 301, 303, 316, 324, 325-27, 372n, 394n. See also ascension, weight limits of commitment, 12, 35, 52, 165, 181, 212, 218, 352. See also corpus literature of commitment, xvi, 274, 351, 367n, 391n, 405n. See also committed literature loft, 272-75, 398n look, 8, 9-10, 11, 15, 21, 23, 30-32, 36, 38, 42, 43, 45, 51, 52, 57, 73, 75, 81, 82, 83, 86, 96, 115, 140, 157, 166, 186, 187, 194, 195, 196, 198, 200, 211, 213, 231, 234, 236, 246, 264, 266, 276, 284, 285, 287, 327, 328, 329, 337, 348, 370n. See also blindness, ob­ servation look down, 8, 9, 13, 16, 34, 42, 44, 88, 119, 125, 127, 159, 182, 183, 186-88, 190, 196, 198, 203, 204, 213, 229, 230, 233, 234, 249, 260, 281, 288, 289, 290, 309, 315, 328, 329, 333, 339, 341, 358, 360. See also dominer, survoler losing oneself, being lost, 38, 52, 62, 89, 105, 107, 110, 114, 179, 196, 209, 215, 226, 360 Lucretius, 339 Mabire, 167, 388n

Mailhot, 259, 264, 265, 395n, 397n, 398n Malraux, 351-63, 385n, 406n407n Mannheim, 393n Marxism, 5, 222, 228, 288, 306, 367n, 376n Mascolo, 393n mass, masses, 33, 34, 64, 66, 67, 68, 96, 99, 105, 135, 149, 160, 181, 295, 340, 380n, 392n. See also crowd Matore, 14, 372n, 403n Matvejevitc, 368n, 369n, 405n mediocrity, 34, 45, 113, 114, 133, 151, 158, 163, 169, 273, 294 memory, see retrospection Michelet, 227 middle class, 133, 158, 163, 218, 234 middle ground, 133, 169, 239, 248, 254, 267, 272, 275, 285, 290-91, 293, 322, 323, 347, 386n. See also compromise midst, being in the midst of, 18, 19, 25, 28, 36, 37, 39, 41, 91, 94, 105, 112, 114, 123, 124, 141, 165, 176, 189, 341, 380n militancy, 5-7, 38—40, 52, 54, 60, 72, 77, 110, 122, 143, 183, 203, 216, 217, 242, 246, 251-56, 260, 295-97, 305, 306, 308, 317, 335, 346, 355, 369n mists, fog, 31, 119, 120, 142, 176, 248, 264, 266, 278, 305, 326. See also clouds moment, xiv, 21, 44, 45, 57, 73, 87, 99, 109, 110, 113, 125, 126, 131, 137, 138, 140, 145, 147, 148, 151, 163, 177, 188, 200, 225, 241, 245, 246, 248, 250, 252, 258, 259, 264, 292, 347, 353, 354, 356, 357, 360 Moncrieff, 372n Montherlant, 338-46, 385n, 405n

Index · 447 Mounier, 335, 369η, 393n-94n mountain, mountain top, 8, 11, 21, 24, 43, 45, 49, 107, 119, 152, 157, 158, 160, 184, 227, 253, 254, 264, 269, 276, 331, 332, 333, 343, 347^.8, 349, 376n, 395n. See also peak mud, 14, 16, 48, 86, 88, 89, 91, 114, 133, 212, 213, 219, 280, 287, 344 Mury, 7, 369n, 406n myopia, see blindness Nietzsche, 303, 332, 333, 405n Nizan, 218-24, 288, 335, 338, 392n N0jgaard, 397n, 398n O'Brien, 395n, 397n observation, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 21, 30-32, 34, 36, 45, 46, 56, 60, 83, 85, 86, 95, 96, 102, 115, 122, 125, 143, 164, 168, 182, 186, 187, 188, 198, 205, 230, 276, 304, 336, 337, 358, 385n, 387n. See also contem­ plation, look Ouston, 48, 374n outside, being out of the world, 7, 8, 18, 105, 126, 144, 199, 203, 210, 211, 219, 224, 225, 228-30, 232, 234, 236, 241, 245, 268, 287, 288, 309, 329, 336, 356, 359 paradigm, xiii, xiv, 22, 53, 184, 185, 225, 250, 340, 353; per­ ception of paradigms, 21, 45, 112, 136, 184, 226, 336 Pascal, 345 path, road, 61, 64, 86, 108, 113, 121, 123, 124, 147, 156, 173, 177, 178, 179, 188, 200, 201, 211, 217, 256, 263, 283, 292, 297, 308, 353, 360, 388n, 389n, 394n. See also street peak, 14, 26, 33, 39, 42, 43, 44,

50, 53, 94, 158, 166, 169, 232, 245, 246, 248, 261, 264, 265, 322. See also mountain, mountain top Peguy, 352, 405n people, popular, 34, 41, 52, 54, 64, 66, 67, 69, 74, 99, 111, 131, 132, 133, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158, 159, 160, 163, 194, 228, 235, 276, 277, 279, 281, 283, 290, 374n. See also work­ ers perch, perching, 95, 182, 183, 184, 204 Perusat, 385n phenomenology, vii, ix, x, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, 4, 24, 181, 192, 214, 281, 329, 365n, 366n, 371n Pingaud, 393n plain, 10, 27, 31, 32, 36, 38, 39, 44, 45, 50, 52, 60, 62, 75, 77, 83, 86, 88, 101, 114, 116, 117, 121, 157, 158, 159, 182, 183, 208, 209, 246, 264, 265, 333, 339, 343, 347, 348, 350, 376n, 407n plant, 52, 54, 66, 73, 74, 76, 121, 217, 296, 334, 335, 374n, 378n, 386n plateau, 26, 30, 31, 36, 43, 121, 157, 158, 161, 182, 183, 269, 330, 387n Pouillon, 214, 391n Poulet, 181, 214, 215, 369n, 389n practical, 11, 34, 39, 41, 54, 137, 157, 168, 200, 237, 238, 363 praxis, 216, 224, 238, 240, 319, 402η predictions, xi, xii, 11, 21, 22, 27, 47, 138 preferences, see value preunderstanding, see understand­ ing Prevost, 372n, 385n Prince, 186, 390n, 391n

448 * Index prison, 13, 14, 19, 21, 41, 71, 72, 88, 102, 103, 123, 180, 196, 247, 267, 318, 340, 369n privilege, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, 36, 44, 45, 52, 56, 57, 83, 85, 86, 95, 100, 106, 116, 123, 143, 152, 172, 173, 174, 207, 210, 229, 230, 238, 246, 250, 262, 275, 276, 291, 358, 359 problematic, 5, 7, 9, 39, 122, 143, 171, 272, 351, 352, 353 prophecy, 11, 56, 241, 295, 305, 327-28, 329, 331, 347, 370n, 371n prospection, 8, 11, 26, 31, 36, 57, 73, 75, 85, 138, 140, 170, 178, 205, 215, 216, 217, 226, 227, 234, 241, 260, 281, 315, 328, 339, 353, 362, 371n protection, 10, 16, 97, 100, 101, 116, 120, 195, 197, 202, 320, 342, 357, 398n. See also secu­ rity Prouse, 400n Proust, 151 purity, 7, 9, 32, 34, 52, 127, 137, 154, 173, 211, 212, 213, 219, 220, 262, 263, 269, 277, 288, 337, 362, 394n pyramid, 18, 35, 372n rampage, 16, 64-65, 70, 73, 80, 121, 159, 296 Rastignac, 10 reactionary, 114, 315 reflection, 30, 34, 95, 146, 150, 200, 244, 335, 337. See also contemplation reptile, 38, 92, 175, 176, 206, 296, 334, 343 resolution (of forces, etc.), 7, 70, 97, 101, 114, 118, 267, 269, 275, 276, 280 retrospection, 21, 22, 46, 85, 113, 139, 140, 143, 178, 207, 216, 217, 231, 248, 252, 260, 261, 262, 274, 282, 334, 335, 362

reverie, 50, 83, 241, 248, 359, 370η, 371n, 373n, 374n, 375, 376η, 387n, 391n, 395n. See also dream revolt, 19, 59, 62, 63, 69, 70, 108, 111, 175, 203, 211, 244, 292, 294 revolution, 41, 42, 48, 50, 53, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 73, 77, 79, 80, 81, 89, 95, 99, 137, 159, 211, 216, 235, 238, 335, 358, 360, 363, 376n, 377n, 383n, 393n Richard, 13, 21, 372n right wing, xv, 89, 340, 381n, 386n. See also conservatism, fascism, reactionary riot, 16, 64-65, 70, 73, 80, 121, 159, 296 Ripoll, 378n rise and fall, 103, 164, 264, 265, 266, 290, 333, 344, 397n. See also ascension, climb river, 27, 341, 358, 360, 361 road, see path Rolland, 333, 334, 335, 405n roots, 39, 49, 53, 76, 79, 157, 208, 334, 335 routine, 32, 88, 95, 96, 137, 157, 183, 225, 242, 243, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 259, 273, 332, 342, 348 ruling classes, 222, 228, 234, 235, 236 Sartre, 5, 6, 38, 39, 172-241, 251, 255, 259, 261, 263, 264, 269, 273, 286, 287, 288, 292, 294, 304, 315, 317, 335, 338, 340, 341, 351, 368n, 369n, 381n, 389n-94n, 399n, 401n, 405n, 406n Schor, 376n—78n scorn, 9, 18-20, 33, 34, 41, 92, 93, 111, 119, 127, 128, 150, 152, 194, 212, 213, 261, 269, 281, 284, 286, 293, 294, 310, 311, 313, 315, 317, 342, 343,

Index · 449 344, 346, 356, 372η, 406η security, 12, 28, 49, 103, 152, 189, 213, 260. See also protec­ tion see, see look see from below, 45, 94, 205, 234, 235, 262, 350, 393n semiotics, vii Semprun, 368n serenity, 188, 189, 199, 219, 220, 229, 281, 315, 358, 372n shelter, 10, 16, 97, 100, 101, 116, 120, 195, 197, 202, 320, 342, 357, 398n. See also secu­ rity Sherwood, 395n, 396n Simon, 140, 141, 385n sit, 82, 83, 97, 199, 269, 285, 288, 310, 325, 401n. See also slouch, squat situation, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 20, 46, 54, 126, 141, 180, 196, 219, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232, 241, 245, 261, 272, 275, 277, 278, 287, 291, 316, 320, 340, 357, 361, 392n, 393n, 406n sky, 7, 10, 29, 32, 40, 41, 44, 48, 51, 85, 98, 116, 157, 158, 163, 166-68, 180, 181, 208, 210, 211, 213, 220, 221, 236, 240, 246, 249, 254, 256, 259, 264-67, 269, 272, 278, 279, 286, 289, 290, 291, 322, 323, 344, 348, 382n, 387n, 388n, 389η, 394η, 395n, 398n, 399n. See also earth and sky Slama, 381n slope, 25, 26, 32, 39, 48, 64, 95, 107, 160, 243, 245, 246, 259, 265, 283, 299, 338, 349 slouch, 199, 269, 277. See also sit, squat solidarity, 85-89, 105, 130, 175, 193, 195, 206, 207, 228, 247, 271, 275, 282, 284, 316, 331 solitude, 13, 20, 24, 27, 29, 32, 33, 61, 83, 89, 106, 112, 119, 122, 128, 131, 140, 169, 180,

189, 274, 275, 282, 284, 293, 317, 336, 356, 359, 401n Sellers, 368n spy, 17, 18, 19, 127, 128, 137, 141, 142, 163, 385n squat, 60, 267, 268, 280, 284. See also sit, slouch stand, 37, 38, 46, 51, 64, 97, 181, 197, 262, 272, 284, 286; stand up, 59, 60, 62, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 103, 115, 124, 155, 175, 209, 349, 350, 375n, 376n, 380n; upright po­ sition, 58, 60, 65, 84, 87, 91, 95, 115, 116, 121, 173, 187, 197, 205, 208, 267, 268, 294, 296, 299, 304, 311, 323, 325, 375n, 376n Starobinski, 9, 370n Stendhal, 12-22, 46, 112, 123, 127, 163, 174, 207, 225, 315, 329, 332, 371n, 372n Stephane, 368n, 406n street, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 203, 204, 240, 272, 282, 283, 298, 299, 310, 313, 315, 317, 318, 358, 360. See also path strength, 32, 81, 90, 91, 95, 99, 108, 118, 120, 201, 282, 283, 285, 299-302, 310, 318, 325, 355 structuralism, 365n, 366n, 376n struggle, see effort summit, 14, 26, 33, 39, 42, 43, 44, 50, 53, 94, 158, 166, 169, 232, 245, 246, 248, 261, 264, 265, 322 superiority, 9, 10, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 36, 42, 54, 62, 72, 94, 115, 151, 162, 172, 173, 175, 181, 186, 189, 194, 196, 203, 204, 206, 211, 217, 219, 224, 232, 245, 249, 250, 260, 261, 263, 275, 281, 286, 299, 301, 305, 357 surface, 14, 47, 75, 76, 79, 80, 185, 199, 349 surrealism, 190, 371n

450 * Index surrounding, 17-19, 28, 31, 37, 42, 88, 89, 91, 92, 102, 121, 284, 381n survoler (overlook), 7, 182, 224, 225, 226, 229, 231, 233, 234, 329. See also dominer, flying, look down syntagm, xiii, xiv. See also time, flow of synthesis, 41, 104, 113, 125, 126, 133, 154, 155, 156, 238, 239, 240, 284; synthesis of earth and sky, 27, 33, 39, 55, 121, 153, 155, 162, 163, 167, 180, 256; synthesis of thought and action, 118, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 156, 167, 217, 239 Taine, 227 Tancock, 375n Tener, 321, 401n, 403n texts, vii, viii, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 352 thematics, viii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, 185, 218, 273, 332, 333, 335, 346, 352, 367n; thematics of commitment, vii, 12, 32, 85, 137, 171, 172, 183, 192, 242, 315, 319, 333, 347, 381n theme, viii, x, xiii, xiv, 89, 171, 332, 347, 368n thrust, 76, 79, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 99, 100, 103, 124, 125, 140, 162, 170, 210, 259, 325, 326, 378n, 387n time, flow of, 10, 21, 27, 44, 225, 231, 256, 280, 336, 341, 362 time held up, 21, 44, 45, 53, 85, 86, 196, 225, 241, 329, 353, 354, 356, 358 Tobi, 327, 403n tower, 9-10, 12-15, 20-22, 2325, 27, 36, 48, 56, 60, 95, 101, 107, 117, 119, 121, 124, 125, 173, 174,. 184, 185, 207,

245, 317, 322, 347, 371n, 372n, 374n. See also ivory tower transcendence, xi, xii, 41, 48, 53, 105, 148, 165, 168, 171, 180, 190, 211, 228, 240, 256, 269, 296, 297, 321, 326, 330, 332, 344, 347, 406n unaware, unconscious, 54, 67, 102, 116, 121, 150, 188, 206, 243, 304, 315, 336, 369n, 374n, 398n underground, 48, 50, 59, 61, 62, 71, 72, 73-76, 77, 79, 80, 104, 116, 149, 206, 283, 321, 349, 378n understanding, 7, 12, 14, 21, 22, 53, 56, 57, 73, 85, 88, 95, 96, 104, 107, 113, 114, 116, 124, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 150, 164, 171, 188, 198, 211, 231, 235, 236, 243, 249, 250, 262, 274, 275, 282, 294, 302, 307, 310, 313, 314, 315, 327, 357, 362, 363, 366n, 371n; Cadamerian "understanding," vii, viii, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 4 value, preference, 140, 220, 356, 383n, 395n; preferring the air, 18, 33, 286; preferring the earth, 95, 175, 182, 198, 199, 210, 222, 223, 229, 236, 261, 288, 393n; values of commit­ ment, 18, 32, 33, 105, 106, 127, 167, 194, 206, 251, 334; values of commitment rejected, 315, 318, 319, 335, 338 vantage point, 9, 45, 56, 123, 124 vegetable, 52, 54, 66, 73, 74, 76, 121, 217, 296, 334, 335, 374n, 378n, 386n vermin, 17, 107, 159, 161 Vernois, 319, 401n, 402n, 404n vertical, 14, 16, 43, 60, 64, 65,

Index * 451 67, 93, 95, 97, 101, 116, 117, 160, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 197, 207, 210, 214, 229, 256, 261, 263, 264, 267-68, 269, 273, 284, 288, 294, 316, 319, 322, 323, 333, 375η, 376η, 379η, 398η, 401η; vertical axis, 10, 18, 21, 48, 67, 70, 80, 183, 259, 262, 268, 269, 271, 273, 285., 319, 321, 344, 357, 388η, 390η, 402η; vertical dis­ tance, 59, 81, 87, 94, 158, 168, 173, 182, 194, 196, 200, 205, 231, 236, 245, 246, 249, 251, 266, 277, 279, 280, 285, 345; vertical movement, 46, 50, 80, 259, 271, 279, 322. See also human verticality walk, 30, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 75, 77, 79, 82-84, 95, 96, 108, 124, 145, 155, 166, 179, 189, 192, 203, 211, 221, 223, 244, 245, 265, 282, 322, 323,

324, 331, 376n, 389n Watson, 403n weakness, 24, 31, 62, 85, 92, 97, 101, 105, 122, 152, 189, 197, 211, 300-303, 315, 318, 323, 326, 379n weight, 13, 68, 69, 178, 179, 183, 184, 222, 232, 237, 244, 257, 260, 278, 279, 280, 282, 291, 295, 299, 300, 301, 308, 310, 325, 326, 327, 354, 359, 377n, 394n. See also lightness window, 8, 187, 195, 203, 213, 315, 322, 401n Witt, 321, 402n workers, 54, 57, 60, 63, 79, 80, 202, 203, 217, 228, 229, 234, 235, 290, 369n. See also peo­ ple Wright, 6, 369n Zola, 56-81, 95, 99, 157, 236, 294, 296, 302, 304, 325, 375n-80n

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cryle, P. M. {Peter Maxwell), 1946The thematics of commitment. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. French literature—20th century—History and criti­ cism. 2. Commitment (Psychology) in literature. 3. French literature—19th century—History and criticism I. Title. PQ307.C56C79 1984 840'.9'353 84-42590 ISBN 0-691-06610-8 (alk. paper)