August 5th, 1939 – from Anne Lindbergh’s journal – continued from this excerpt
[St.-Ex and I talked] of translations — the difficulties of: “There is a German poet I like very much, who excites me more than anyone I have read ina long time,” I start to say.
“Rainer Maria Rilke,” he finishes quietly for me.
“But how did you know?” I ask, astonished. He just waves his hands a little and smiles.
“Il a pris le chemin interieur,” (“He has chosen the inner road.”) I say.
“Oui,” again smiling, with perfect understanding.
It is his life that interests me, I say, his inner struggle, and Van Gogh’s too. What I don’t like in Van Gogh, I say, is that he forces it on you, does it with the fist. It is German, whereas Cezanne simply holds it out in his hands, to take. (But he thinks Van Gogh has more). But still, I finish, perhaps it isn’t fair to say that — so much of one’s judgment is the stage of life … He finishes for me. “The stage one happens to be in oneself.”
… I realize now, looking back, that I talked too much. It ran over like joy — like a child, like Land [one of her sons] showing me his treasures. “Regarde! Regarde!” Like talking to Margot, the first time I met her … — the desire to throw out the rope and see how much they’ll take. Is it slack? No, it’s taut — all taken!
“I feel as though I had been sleeping for years or had lain in the lowest hold of a ship that, loaded with heavy things, sailed through strange distances. Oh, to climb up on deck once more and feel the winds and the birds, and to see how the great, great nights come with their gleaming stars…” (Rilke)…
That strange childish desire to give it all — “It is so vast an alleviation” as V. Woolf says.
Of Americans being closer to the French than to the English. Of the childlike quality of Americans I noticed everywhere on coming back from abroad. He agreed: “Yes, but that I find very refreshing.”
Of living abroad and how it dislodges you for good. Of the French being closer to the soil, able to revive, come back. The separation in England between classes.
Of flying — had I taken a license? I found I was saying, “Before I was married I had not lived in the world of action at all. Then I felt it was the only world and that my world must be thrown away — it didn’t count for anything; only action counted, and so I did all that … but now …”
He smiled. “Oui,” and went on to ask had I gone into biology, too. [Charles had taken up a huge interest in biology.] No, I hadn’t, I answered, adding that I thought there was a danger when husbands and wives were in the same profession. I quoted D.H. Lawrence saying of marriage that man and woman should be like the two poles which hold the world between them. “Oh — pas si loin que tout ca!” (“Oh — not as far off as all that!”) He laughed, and then gave a definition of his own, an image of the bees, gathering honey from different sources, and each bringing it home to the hive.
At some point I talk to him about Whitehead and his Adventures of Ideas. I quote, “Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end …”
“It never reaches it,” he interrupts, with a sigh.
But I go on trying to translate the place in Whitehead where he speaks of the waves of new ideas beating on civilization, adventure being always part of the new idea: “Without adventure a civilization is in full decay.” But I find it hard to translate, from memory, too, and finally I say in discouragement:
“Mais, je dis les choses banales.” (“I am just saying banalities.”)
“Oh, non — moi, j’avais toujours eu ces idees, mais je ne les ai jamais vues autre part,” he reassures me. (“Oh no — I, I have always had these ideas, but I have never seen them anywhere else.”)
[Note from Sheila: Hm. No wonder Charles got jealous.]
By the time we got to Huntington, looking at each station hopefully, I was beginning to feel terrified that this pitch would break and worried about talking too much and boring him. I hoped against hope that C. would be at the station. But he wasn’t.
We took a taxi.
It was cooler and the trees smelled fresh, of rain and honeysuckle.
When we got to the house (Thor barking and leaping, Jon calling from the window, “Did you find a turtle?”) I was really dashed to find that not only was C. not there, but there was no word from him. I felt wiolted. Will we have the whole evening alone? If only C. were here.
[To be continued.]
