MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
AFRIEND of mine has lent me an unusual book. It is the correspondence between Paul Claudel and Andre Gide, published by Gallimard, and edited with strength and intelligence by M. Robert Mallet. The letters cover-more than a quarter of a century, from 1899 to 1926, and are explained in copious and most valuable notes. I am impressed by the tact and persistence with which M. Mallet has induced these two formidable writers to reveal to the world their intimate and egoistic con- troversies of twenty-five years ago. I am even more impressed by the Olympian detachment with which M. Claudel and M. Gide have, by mutual consent, allowed the world to read the many harsh and trenchant things which they have recorded against each other Many of Gide's letters to Claudel were lost at the time of the Tokyo earthquake ; M. Mallet has filled in the gaps by quotations from Gide's diary ; and in compensation Gide has allowed the editor to include an interview in which Claudel asserts that his friend is devoid of all literary or intellectual talent and that the influence which he has exercised is one of the mysteries of our modern age. It is true that these two writers have not spoken to each-other for the last twenty-five years ; but it is strange and admirable that in their own lifetimes they should allow these recriminations to appear in print. This is a striking instance of the seriousness with which the French regard the profession of letters. Both Claudel and Gide are aware that in their different manners they have exercised an important influence upon two generations of their contemporaries ; they know that their mutual relations in the past will be of great significance to the students of their work ; and with magnificent impersonality they have permitted the publication of these letters and journals, subordinating all shyness to the need of informing the public truthfully of this eventful exchange of ideas. We should indeed be grateful to them for such abnegation ; it is rare indeed that two eminent persons should expose before strangers such excruciating perplexities.
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M. Mallet in his introduction records that when he was discussing the publication of this correspondence—now with .Claudel, now with Gide—he was struck by their desire for " authenticity," and by their realisation that these letters constituted a literary document which was so valuable as " evidence " as to be something above and outside themselves. I doubt whether even Goethe in his most Apollonian mood, would have displayed an equal indifference to the encouragement which such confessions would give to his detractors or the dismay which they might cause to his disciples. Gide must have realised that the acute distress which he'occasioned to Claudel by the frank revelation of his own temperament would be shared by many of his admirers ; Claude must have foreseen that the evangelical letters which he addressed to Gide might, to a later generation, appear insensitive and self-esteeming. Yet such was their realistic estimate of their own importance, such their convic- tion that the whole truth can never be durably harmful, that they have, to our benefit, permitted this publication, without regard to their personal feelings or repute. It is the utter sincerity of each of them which compels our admiration ; a sincerity which can allow of no false modesty and no conventional concealment. Claudel is as unreserved about his eucharistic ecstasies as Gide is frank about his physical disabilities. Most men would be embarrassed by the revelation of such intimacies ; soaring above the very peaks of Helicon, Claudel and Gide look down upon such petty shame with eagle eyes.
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It is not that Gide, even at his most uncertain period, really liked Claudel. He regarded him as forceful and hard, as an " immobile cyclone." "When Claudel was a young man," he writes, " he looked like a nail : now he looks like a steam hammer. . . . He talks unquenchably ; not for one instant do the ideas of other people check the flow of his own ; a bombardment would not deflect his monologue." Gide was awed by Claude! ; in his presence he found it impossible to be amusing ; he was oppressed by the vocifer force of Claudel's convictions ; he felt diminished, he felt afra " When I am with Claude!," he writes, " I become conscious of own shortcomings ; he dominates me ; he juts up above me has deeper foundations than I have, more surface, better health, richer than I am, has more genius, possesses strength, child faith and so on. In his presence I feel I must sit still and nothing. . . . His anger is a holy anger doubtless, but it is an just the same and as distressing to my nerves as the barking o dog in my ear." " Claudel," he writes to him, " I am afraid you." Clearly it is difficult to be fond of a friend of whom is afraid_ Claudel again, even in his most proselytising moods, disconcerted by Gide. Obviously he was a lost soul, and CIa admits a passion for lost souls. But it is distressing when a however lost, is so extremely outspoken and so damnably des It was exhilarating no doubt to be able to exhort his friend and write letters from Tientsin urging him to have the courage to grace. But Gide evidently did not relish exhortations, and display a disarming sauvagerie which led him to resent being prayed for frequently behind his back. Writing to Gide from Chuzenji July, 1926, Claudel assures him that all Catholics are worried the state of his soul and that he himself regards him with affecti mixed with " justifiable horror." This is the last letter in fascinating correspondence.
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One can detect five successive phases in this strange intellect communion. In the first phase Claudel adopts the direct or co minatory tone. " Why," he says to Gide suddenly, "do you hesit to be converted ?-" He denounces as execrable pride Gide's pla tive theory of " pagan saintliness." The direct approach halt proved unsuccessful, Claudel adopts more subtle methods sympathises deeply with Gide's " spiritual anguish " and contra• with it the joys which he himself has experienced in a state grace. " When I think," he writes, " of the blessings with wh God has overwhelmed me, my eyes fill with tears." Gide is cab, rassed and somewhat bored by these doxologies. There the occurs the awkward episode of the Caves du Vatican. Gide, ui Claudel's consent, had intended to use as an epigraph to this nog a phrase from one of Claudel's works. Claudel, before he has re- the book, begins to fear that it would be difficult for him, as devout Catholic, to be quoted in a book in which the person of t Sovereign Pontiff might be treated with disrespect. On reading I novel he becomes even more alarmed. With passionate insisten he begs Gide to suppress a passage which can only do harm to himself and other lost souls. Gide refuses obstinately to expun the passage, and a ten years grim silence results. In 1924, with publication of Gide's pamphlet, "Numquid et tu. . . ." Claudel again encouraged to believe that his friend's footsteps are approac ing the path of light. But the final stage is reached in May, 19' when Gide informs Claudel that he has mastered his spirit anguish and achieved felicity through work and love. " The Goet in him," writes Claudel, " has triumphed over the Christian."
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This excellent book describes the attraction and repulsion of fine intellects. Not for one instant did Gide's timid but incis] questions shake the massive certitudes of Claude! ; but had the latt been a little less angry, a trifle more conciliatory, he might w have weaned Gide (who had a naturally Christian soul and a stro sense of sin) away from paganism. One derives the impress] that Claude handled this intricate and prolonged situation WI much clumsiness ; souls are not to be rescued by the boat-hook a rowing coach. Yet it is long since have read a book wh sets so many thoughts and feelings stirring. Why should conve be so arrogant ? And why does one feel that one ought to I M. Gide a little less and M. Claudel a little More ? But, as a for warden of Wadham remarked, " The thing just cannot be don
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