Almost until his death (in 1951), Gide continued to write, polish and edit his Journal—probably his most important work. But besides his own publications, his role in and influence upon the French literary scene were also exerted through the Nouvelle Revue Française, which he had established in 1909 with a few friends. (When the Nazis occupied France, Otto Abetz, who was in charge of German cultural policy, observed: “There are three powers in France: communism, the big banks and the Nouvelle Revue Française.”)
Gide was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1947. The official statement of the Nobel Committee was typically vague, but Gide wrote a clear reply:
If I have represented anything it is, I believe, the spirit of free inquiry, independence, insubordination even, protest against what the heart and reason refuse to approve. I firmly believe that the spirit of inquiry lies at the origin of our culture. It is this spirit that the so-called totalitarian regimes, of left and right, are trying to crush and gag… What matters here is the protection of that spirit that is “the salt of the earth” and which can still save the world… the struggle of culture against barbarism.[24]
CHARACTER
Gide had a genius for friendship. Those who were in close and constant contact with him all loved him. If we except the sad onset of senility in his very last years — which, in the end, generated some strain in the harmony of his small “family” circle — for most of his life, his presence seems to have brought permanent stimulation and delight to his entourage. “Good nature is the most selfish of all virtues,” Hazlitt had observed, and indeed it was Gide’s colossal self-centredness that enabled him to be generally benign to all. His selfishness was quite absolute — on this account, those who knew him best and had most affection for him could entertain no illusion[25] — and thus he was also tolerant and easy-going: his unflappably pleasant disposition[26] was built upon a bedrock of indifference to whatever did not have a direct bearing on his own person.[27] His aptitude for happiness was irrepressible and disarming — as he confided to the Tiny Lady: “It is incredible how difficult I find it not to be happy!”[28]
Gide enlivened all that he touched; routine and stagnation were banned from his life. He was in a state of permanent “availability,” vibrant anticipation of what the next moment would bring. He really never settled down anywhere: “What I need is constant change, I dislike all habits.”[29] He was unable to remain in any place for long, either physically or mentally.[30] He spent more time in hotel rooms and in friends’ houses than in his own apartment — which presented the forlorn, uncomfortable, gloomy, littered, impersonal and unwelcoming aspect of a temporary shelter, hardly ever lived in, with naked light bulbs dangling from the ceiling and mothballs stacked upon the seats of the armchairs. In a sense, his entire existence was but one long holiday, his leisure was unlimited, his freedom boundless, and his money plentiful. He had no family responsibilities, no professional obligations. At any time, on the spur of a fancy, he could travel to exotic places; and then, on his return, he would rest in the splendid country mansions of various acquaintances, where he enjoyed the status of guest of honour — and of shameless parasite. Most of his initiatives were taken under the impulse of a sudden inspiration, all his moves were dictated by mood and whim. Yet, for a superficial observer, these appearances of carefree and luxurious bohemia could be as misleading as the sight of a bee drifting from flower to flower on a beautiful summer afternoon: the insect may look happily intoxicated on fragrances and sunlight, whereas it is in fact relentlessly driven by the single-minded urge to deliver a load of nectar back to its honey-making factory. As Herbart perceptively remarked,[31] gratuitousness was utterly foreign to Gide (which is ironical, considering that he coined in his fiction the very notion of l’acte gratuit!): with him “impressions, readings, things and people are being sorted out and assessed in the light of one single criterion: their usefulness.” In this particular respect, it is significant to note the recurrence in his diaries of expressions such as “profit” and “benefit”; whenever he records encounters with new books or visitors, instead of saying “this book is beautiful” or “this person is charming,” most often he writes: “I greatly benefited from reading…,” “I derived much profit from the conversation of…” Similar phrases crop up literally dozens of times in the Journal.
What redeemed his monstrous self-absorption and made his company so pleasant and rewarding for his intimates was his restless and ravenous appetite for discovery, his polymorphous curiosity. Béatrix Beck recalls how exhilarating it was to work as his secretary; at the time, she wrote to her sister: “Gide has become my only interest — which means that, from now on, I am interested in everything.”[32] Gide used to end his letters with the courtesy phrase “Attentivement vôtre”—but, for him, this was not an empty formula; he was indeed paying attention to his interlocutor, whoever he or she might be — and therein resided the rare quality of the Gidean dialogue.* Furthermore, his attention was not directed at people only, it seems to have extended to all creatures. For instance, the Tiny Lady recorded a typical scene: “At lunchtime, in the midst of an exciting conversation, he abruptly stops and examines a fly that has a tiny parasite on one leg. In this area, nothing escapes his eye.”[33] Or again, when he went to visit Herman Hesse at home in Switzerland (Gide had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and Hesse was to receive it the following year), during this first meeting between the two grand old men of letters (they had already been corresponding for some time), most of Gide’s time and attention were lavished on a cat which had just had kittens.[34] Thus, the interview passed agreeably for both: Hesse was fascinated by Gide, and Gide was fascinated by Hesse’s cat.
Yet, in his dealings with people, one could say of him what André Suarès said of Goethe: “He does not care for a man, however talented, if he cannot extract from him something that may be of use to his own development.”[35] His curiosity was always alert, but quick to shift to another object. The instant warmth of his welcome was only matched by the abruptness with which he could drop hapless visitors once they were no longer of interest to him. Or again, he could not recognise in the street persons with whom he had enjoyed long, congenial and intimate exchanges shortly before; they had exhausted their usefulness, they were already obliterated from his memory.[36] He became easily bored not only with new acquaintances in life, but even with the creatures of his own imagination: he could not write long novels, for, after a while, he lost interest in his own characters.[37] He worked ceaselessly, however (his stern Calvinist education had instilled in him a deep aversion for laziness and waste), but he could not remain long attached to the same task, and this explains why his best writing is to be found in his slim novellas, in his short critical essays, and above all in the discontinuous jottings of his Journal.
CHOICES
Gide’s indecisiveness, hesitations, ditherings, vacillations and contradictions were legendary among his friends. With him, no decision was ever stable or final; sometimes, in the very same breath, he managed to opt simultaneously for one course of action — and for its exact opposite. It was impossible to predict what, in the end, would be his choice, and it was wiser not even to ask.[38] He thrived on ambiguity, he relished muddle. In any debate, his interventions were so twisted and contradictory — each affirmation being cancelled by a reservation, and each reservation questioned by an afterthought — that it was impossible to know if he supported or opposed the point at stake.[39] This attitude was displayed in all matters — big and smalclass="underline" whether he should seek reconciliation with God, and whether he should have coffee after lunch.[40]