From Maintenant, Cravan’s short-lived literary review

MAINTENANT

A LITERARY REVIEW

DIRECTOR: Arthur Cravan

PARIS  ––  67, Rue Saint-Jacques, 67  –– PARIS

Price: 25 centimes

CONTENTS

André Gide by Arthur Cravan

On Words: Poetry

Unpublished documents on Oscar Wilde

Hie!: Poetry

– – –

André Gide

As I was feverishly dreaming, after a long period of extreme sloth, of becoming very rich (my God, how often I dream of this!); as I was in the midst of other eternal projects, and was gradually warming to the idea of achieving a fortune dishonestly, and in an unexpected manner, through poetry –– I have always tried to consider art as a means and not a goal –– I said to myself lightheartedly, “I should go to see Gide; he’s a millionaire. No –– what a joke –– I’m going to fleece the old hack!”

At once –– wasn’t getting worked up sufficient? –– I bestowed upon myself a prodigious talent for success. I wrote a note to Gide, referring to my relationship to Oscar Wilde; Gide agreed to see me. I was quite a sight, given my height, my shoulders, my beauty, my eccentricities, my words. Gide was delighted with me, I found him pleasant. We were already on our way to Algeria –– he repeated his voyage to Biskra and I was going to drag him all the way to the Somali coast. My head was soon bronzed, for I’ve always been somewhat ashamed of being white. And Gide paid for the first-class carriages, the noble steeds, the palaces, the lovers. I was finally able to provide substance to some of my thousands of souls. Gide paid, and paid, and still pays; I dare to hope that he won’t go after me for damages and interest if I acknowledge to him that, in the unhealthy profligacy of my wild imagination, he had to sell everything, including his sturdy Norman farmhouse to satisfy the whims of a child of his time.

Ahh, I still see myself as I saw myself then, my legs stretched out on the benches of the Mediterranean express, rattling off improbabilities to amuse my benefactor.

Perhaps it will be said of me that I have the manners of an Androgide. Could that be true?

Moreover, I have had such poor success with my petty projects of exploitation that I’ve decided to exact vengeance. And I will add, so as not to overly alarm our provincial readers, that I became allergic to Mr. Gide the day, as I indicated earlier, I realized I would never get a dime out of him and that, on the other hand, the worn jacket allows him to criticize, for reasons of excellence, the naked cherub by the name of Théophile Gautier.

Therefore, I went to see Monsieur Gide. I recall that at the time I did not have a suit, something I continue to regret, for it would have been easy for me to make an impression on him. As I got close to his villa, I recited the sensational phrases I would use during our conversation. A moment later I was ringing the doorbell. A maid answered the door (Monsieur Gide has no footman). I was shown to the first floor and asked to wait in a kind of small cell along a corridor that turned at a right angle. In passing, I cast a curious eye into the various rooms, seeking to gain some advance information on the guest rooms. Now, I was seated in my little corner. The windows, which looked cheap, allowed the light to fall on a desk on which appeared some pages fresh with ink. Naturally, I did not fail to commit the small indiscretion you suspect. Consequently, I can tell you that Monsieur Gide is a cruel taskmaster with his prose and likely supplies the typographers with nothing prior to the fourth draft.

The maid came to get me and led me to the ground floor. As I entered the salon, a pair of unruly lap dogs barked. Would the occasion lack refinement? Monsieur Gide was about to return. Meanwhile, I was free to look around. Modern, and rather dismal, furniture in a spacious room; no paintings, bare walls (simple intent or somewhat simplistic?), and most importantly a meticulousness that was very Protestant in its order and cleanliness. For a moment, I broke into an uncomfortable sweat thinking that I might have soiled the carpet. I would likely have pushed my curiosity a bit further or even yielded to the exquisite temptation of slipping some small knick-knack in my pocket if I didn’t have to overcome the very distinct sensation that Monsieur Gide was taking it all in through some small secret hole in the curtains. If I was mistaken, I beg Monsieur Gide to accept the public and immediate apologies I owe to his dignity.

Finally, the man appeared. (What struck me most from that moment on, was that he offered me absolutely nothing, other than a chair, even though, around four in the afternoon, a cup of tea, for the thrifty, or better yet, a cordial and some Oriental tobacco will serve quite well in European society to bring about that indispensable disposition that enables it to be brilliant from time to time.)

“Monsieur Gide,” I began, “I took the liberty of visiting you and yet I feel I must tell you straight out that I much prefer boxing, for example, to literature.”

“Yet literature is the only thing we have in common,” he answered dryly.

I thought: how exciting!

Thus we spoke of literature and, as he was about to ask me the question that must have been especially important to him, “What have you read of mine,” I said, without batting an eye, and while looking at him with the utmost frankness, “I am afraid to read you.” I imagine that Monsieur Gide must have batted his eye a good deal.

Gradually, I managed to declaim the words I had been rehearsing a short while earlier, thinking that the novelist would be grateful to be able to use the nephew after he had used the uncle. So I casually blurted out “The Bible is the best selling book.” A moment later, as he was expressing sufficient good will to inquire about my relatives: “My mother and I,” I responded rather drolly, “were not made to understand one another.”

Literature again being the subject, I took advantage of this to disparage at least two hundred living authors, Jewish writers, and Charles-Henri Hirsch in particular, adding: “Heine is the Christ of modern Jewish writers.” From time to time I cast discreet and malicious glances at my host, who repaid me with muffled laughter; however, I am forced to acknowledge, he lagged far behind, merely contenting himself, or so it seemed, to register what I had said, because he probably had nothing prepared.

At one point, interrupting a philosophical conversation and striving to resemble a Buddha who unseals his lips once in ten thousand years, I murmured, “The big Joke is in the Absolute.” About to withdraw and in mimicking the tone of voice of someone very tired and very old, I asked “Monsieur Gide, where are we as far as the time is concerned?” Discovering that it was quarter to six, I rose, affectionately shook the hand of the artist, and left, my head bearing the impression of one of our most illustrious contemporaries, a portrait that I’m going to sketch for you here, if my dear readers will again kindly lend me their attention for a moment.

Monsieur Gide does not look like a much wanted child, nor an elephant, nor like several men: he looks like an artist; and I would offer him this one compliment –– and one that is disagreeable –– that his small plurality derives from the fact that he could easily be taken for a ham actor. There is nothing remarkable in his bone structure; his hands are those of an idler, very white, very white indeed! Overall, he’s a small individual. –– Monsieur Gide must weigh about 120 pounds and measure roughly five and a half feet tall. –– His gait betrays a prose writer who will never be able to write a line of verse. Moreover, he looks unhealthy and, near his temples, small flakes of skin larger than dandruff detach themselves, an inconvenience people explain by saying that someone “is peeling,” although the expression is vulgar.

And yet the artist does not bear the noble ravages of the prodigy who squanders his fortune and his health. No, a hundred times no. On the contrary, the artist appears to demonstrate that he takes meticulous care of himself, that he is hygienic, and in no way resembles someone like Verlaine, who bore his syphilis languorsly; and I believe, unless he denies it, that I am not going out on a limb by claiming that he spends little time with women or in houses of ill repute; and it is indeed by these signs that we are pleased to announce, as we might often have had the occasion to do so in the past, that he is prudent.

I saw Monsieur Gide only once in the street. He was leaving my apartment. He had only a few steps to go before turning the corner and disappearing from sight. And I saw him stop before a bookstore: and yet there was a surgical instrument store and a candy store nearby. . . .

Since then, Monsieur Gide wrote to me once (1) and I never saw him again.

I have given you the man and would willingly have revealed the work, if, on a single point, I hadn’t needed to repeat myself.

Arthur Cravan

Librarie – Papeterie

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(1) Monsieur Gide’s signed letter can be had at our offices for the price of 0.15 francs.