A Tragic Document
ET NUNC MANET IN TE is the title Gide gave to the confession in which he poured out the first agony of his grief and remorse after the death of his wife in 1938. Later he printed thirteen copies of it for private circulation only, with the addition of intimate passages which he had omitted from the volume of his Journal published in 1940. After his death a Swiss firm, claiming that he had intended it to be published posthumously, brought it out in a commercial edition in 1951, but this was immediately repudiated by Gide's literary executors and family. The book has been received by some with sympathy and by others with blame. Biographers must certainly feel glad that it was published, for without it there would have been a serious gap in our understanding of Gide. It is moreover a tragic and deeply moving document. Those who consider that the picture that he gives of himself is an unflattering one should remember that he wrote it in an agony of self-flagellation at the sudden realisation that the book between himself and his wife was now closed, that there was nothing any more that he could do, and that her life might well have been humanly wasted through his fault. He could now gaze at her with- out fearing, as he had always done in life, her withdrawal, and it came on him suddenly, with bitter force, how severely she must always have judged him. Then, in his mind, he reviewed their life together and was more merciless to himself that anyone else could have been. Yet he too was deserving of compassion. The situation between them had been tragic. They had loved one another deeply and yet had wounded each other bitterly. She used to tell him that she owed the best and the worst in her life to him, her happiest and also her saddest moments. While he had always called his relationship with her the secret drama of his life, he had never truly loved anyone save her.
Their marriage had been based on unsound foundations. They were first cousins and close friends since childhood. She was the elder, and he had-always deferred to her, so that he was not able later to take the virile lead which marriage demands, while she was too shy and reserved, too proud and ignorant, to be able to break down his inhibitions. She was moreover not without her own complexes, a fear and horror of sex, scarred as she had been as a child by the discovery of her mother's infidelity. Then he withdrew, pretending to himself that she was above carnal appetites, and took refuge in homosexuality. It was only after her death, as he reflected that she might have wished to have a child, that he considered the wrong he had unwittingly done her. Nothing can 'excuse some of his behaviour as he relates it—if it is indeed true—but she was not without her share of blame. Theie was a hard, inflexible and fanatical streak in her composition. She lived beside him for forty years in silent disapproval, always wishing him other than he was, yet never expressing anything openly. Then, although all his works were addressed to her, she would show no interest in any of them and never read them, making this patently clear by leaving the pages of his contributions uncut in a periodical in which she had read the other articles. Another time she gave away a present he had carefully chosen for her ; not only gave it away but told him she was doing so.
Yet through most of their life together they seemed to live in amity if not in great intimacy. Appearances were saved until Gide's open liaison with Marc, of which she could not feign ignorance. She suffered deeply both in her love and pride, and when he had gone over to England with his young friend she destroyed all his letters to her, forty years of letters, as if to cut out all traces of him from her life. When he returned home and had occasion to ask to see the letters to verify some facts for his autobiography, She confessed to him that she had burnt them. He was shattered by this unforeseen blow. He knew that his letters to her were her creation as well as his, that in them he had poured the best of himself, and now it was as if she had killed their child, his and hers, when she destroyed them. He wept for over a week, in the living-room with her, and at night . alone in his own room, hoping that she would come to him, that she would make some sign. But she went about the little daily jobs, never looking his way ; that was the bitterest blow of all. For twenty years there was estrangement between them, and he only lived "a posthumous life, on the fringe of real life." It was only when she feared for his safety during the ill-fated Russian trip that she relented and there was a reconciliation in extremis between them.
Professor Justin O'Brien has written a well-informed introduction which gives all the relevant facts without taking sides. He adds a letter to an unknown correspondent which throws light on the problem, in which Gide says: "As a general rule it is better to sacrifice oneself than to sacrifice another person to oneself. But all that is theory; in practice it happens that one becomes aware of the sacrifice only long after it is accomplished."
Many will wonder why the Logbook of the Coiners has been chosen for production in an edition limited to five hundred copies. It is an interesting work, butdoes not compare with Gide's finished creations. It goes with the novel, and elucidates much that is. not clear in it. The English omits a passage on page 20, an important passage in which Gide discusses the manner of starting a novel. A book produced so expensively should have had an introduction.
Professor O'Brien has translated both works. His notes are excellent and scholarly, and his translation reads easily on the whole, but there are some inaccuracies. "Agonie" in French is much stronger than "suffering" in English and means only the death agony. When Gide says that "au moment d 'alter me coucher" he reflects on the manner in which he has spent his day, he is referring to going to bed and does not mean "at the moment when I start to lie down." "Deboires" are disappointments. Madeleine Gide must have suffered many disappointments from her husband, but never "rebuffs." Professor O'Brien translates "m...querie" as roguishness," but that is the last thing one could imagine in con- nection with her, though she could often use gentle and light irony.
ENID STARKIE.
Previous page
