Antilliaanse Cahiers. Jaargang 3

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Pages from a diary in Geneva

3.6.1956.

The French dictionary gives two translation of ‘fountain’: ‘la fontaine’ and ‘le jet d'eau’. Yet there is a big difference between these. ‘Jet d'eau’ is a jet of water, which forms only part of a fountain. ‘Fountain’ is a jet of water plus its natural or artificial surroundings, which especially lends itself as a symbol for everything that can be regarded as a source of lucidity and rejuvenation.

‘Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine’, this marvellous line of Villon could not be replaced by the variation ‘je meurs de soif auprès du jet d'eau’.

Every time I look out of the window I am surprised anew by the fountain of Geneva. It is a jet of water that is spouted 120 metres high from an electric plant on the left bank (data from Guide Bleu). I am told that it is the highest water jet in whole Europe. I have almost expressed myself incorrectly and said that it falls open like a fan. That would certainly be a false image. Sometimes a jet of water from a fountain falls in even arcs on both sides, like a fan opens. Not so with this ‘jet d'eau’, which curves over to one side only. It looks more like an enormous goose-feather, the writing instrument of a titanic godess, who is head over heels in love. It can also be likened to a veil caught in a gust of wind.

Just now it is twelve o'clock noon, the rays of the sun are caught in the veil, forming a rainbow, that arches above the colorful waterscape. The lake is green with blue nuances. The boulevard is swarming with people in gay clothes. The bathing suits on the pier of the Paquis keep to hard elementary colors. The surface of the lake is crowded with sailing boats of

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different sizes with sails of glaring white, red, orange and green, and lake-boats, trading along the large lengths of the Swiss and French flags behind them. People and ships form centers of color, that continue spiral-shaped, in the vibration of the air. It is clearly one of the first real summer days.

4.6.1956.

It is my intention to pass the time on the hotel-terrace making notes for my diary while awaiting E. 's return. We will then have dinner here as the evening falls. In such a milieu you can scarcely eat, you can at the very least, ‘partake of the evening meal’. I have once more grown accustomed to the fountain (le jet d,eau, that is). It is no longer conspicuous, perhaps because the jets, out of the center of our solar system, do not produce shades of the rainbow now. My interest is caught elsewhere. I remark the hilly and mountainous landscape on the other side (the Rive Gauche). You could speak of a landscape in four plans. To begin with, you have the summer green of the parks. Geneva is called the ‘city of a thousand parks’. Maybe only the ‘city of parks’, the cardinal number is my own addition; the exageration must contribute to the ‘picturesque’. Then follows a fairly high range of hills in darker green. After this you have the first chain of mountains, grey-green in color. And finally, farthest in the distance, the pale silhouettes of the highest mountains of all, including Her Majesty the Mont Blanc. They are white rather than pale silhouettes, if I may be permitted this subtlety. You speak of pale souls, pale cities, pale minarets; it seems to me incorrect to speak of pale mountains. In any case they are silhouettes, I could not express it differently. They do not

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possess any volume, with their two-dimensional forms. They can become blurred and retreat to invisibility at any moment. When the highest peaks are invisible, the guides yield to the temptation of pointing out a medium high one as the Mont Blanc. The tourists should not be disappointed, there are whole tribes who come here especially far the view of Mont Blanc. Therefore the medium high peaks are known as the ‘Mont Blanc of the tourists’. Geneva has 210.000 inhabitants, 40,000 of which are foreigners. Just now, with the yearly Conference of the International Labour Organization, the number of foreigners has increased substantially. Moreover, the number of foreigners has increased relatively still more. The delegates to the conference do not remain indoors, they are always out. The women are by far in the majority, possibly because they are more conspicuous. From a Superintendent of police comes the statement that a temporary permit is extended to 500 prostitutes. He added that this was done chiefly in consideration of the delegates from the Arabian and Latin countries. For the one group in accordance with their polygamous beliefs and for the second to oblige them with an escape from their monogamy. They, the women, possess the charms of ‘L'Eve Future’ of Villiers de l'Ile Adam, the attractions of women who have little personality, but just the more make-up, the more sex-appeal.

I am continually seeing resemblances to people I have known elsewhere... High functionaries and women of dubious alloy from European and Caribbean cities. I will pass over this part in silence. Diaries can come before the eyes of others. Even in a diary you cannot speak quite open-heartedly. Files of autos and scooters are passing by. I discover more and more resemblances. I have the feeling I have seen this all formerly.

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The world is essentially the same everywhere. I am on the verge of ‘déjà vu’. Perhaps I am only tired. I would like to see my face in a mirror, that would be the only way to come to a conclusion. I am suddenly aware, that the tall waiter who serves me, is leaning against the wall with his arms folded laughing slowly to himself. From where this secret amusement? I look more sharply. The traffic has slackened considerably. I see two traffic policemen in smart grey uniforms. They stop all scooters and examine their licenses. The autos are allowed to go on, but the scooters are motioned aside. They are looking for scooters, because the motorcycles are also allowed to go on.

I turn to the waiter with the secret amusement.

‘What is the matter?’ I ask.

‘They are looking for a band of thieves.’

He evidently finds it a big joke, he cannot restrain his laughter. I thought that I should continue the conversation.

‘They are Italian, I suppose.’

The waiter looks intently at me, I am obviously on thin ice.

‘Why should they be Italian?’ he asks.

I am at a loss, and tell him that I saw an excellent film about Italian bicycle thieves. He looks at me dejectedly.

‘But, Sir, a film is only a film.’ I understood. The man is Italian. I have made my first blunder in Geneva. There is no doubt about that.

5.6.1956.

As I was crossing the Pont du Mont Blanc to the Rive Gauche a passage from Stendhal flashed through my mind. I think it is in ‘Mémoires d'un Touriste’. He considers it a piece of good luck to walk across the bridge in Geneva. You can see

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the young women approaching in the distance. Then you are given the opportunity to observe them in detail. He thinks the young women of Geneva are remarkably attractive; but, he adds, it does not take long before they show the deformations of Calvinism. He is of the opinion that the Milanese beauties (les belles Milanaises), on the contrary, as far as outer beauty is concerned, do not suffer from their association with the Jesuit confessors. Just now, walking across the bridge, I wondered what the reason could be for the difference between the girls of Geneva and those of Milan. Catholicism is a more human religion than Calvinism. It permits certain forms of exuberance that are beneficial to outer beauty. Especially in Milan where the genre is not the same as the Catholicism in Northern countries, which is often three parts Calvinism. In any case, the pedestrian, on his way from the Rive Droite to the Rive Gauche is amply rewarded. The young women come across the bridge with their attractions.

6.6.1956.

Opening of the Conference. The large conference hall is packed to the roof, with the exception of the platform where the committee table and the secretaries' tables are still empty. Including the guests in the public gallery, there must be some 1500 people present. The large number is in accordance with the principles of representation in the International Labour Organization. These are regulated in article 3 of the Statute of the International Labour Organization (commonly called the ILO, after the English initials). The article is predominated by two principles. Primarily by that of universalism; it stipulates that all members of the United Nations can be admitted without qualification, thus, irrespective of their

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constitutional structure. Soviet Russia, Franco Spain and Drees Netherlands are all equally welcome! The organization counts 76 member states which, with a few exceptions, are all represented at the 39th Conference. The article is further predominated by the idea of the tripartite system (called for short: tripartism); it provides that the member states will not only be represented by the Governments but also by deputies from the employers' and employees' organizations. These deputies, the delegates in the narrower sense, are aided by experts. The latter also in accordance with tripartism; there are experts of the Governments, of the employers and of the employees. The Delegation of the Netherlands numbers eighteen persons who are, at this historical moment, preparing to put on their headphones.

The conference is further attended by observers, coming from countries which have obtained a certain degree of self-government, though have not yet been admitted as members of the ILO. They are more or less exotic figures from semi-colonial territories. The names speak for themselves. The observers come from the Gold Coast, Jamaica, Malayan Federation, Malta, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somaliland and Trinidad. The Surinamese and Antillians could also attend the Conference in the capacity of observers, but they chose rather to participate in the Government delegation of the Netherlands as technical advisors. And lastly, the United Nations is also represented here today by its specialized organizations (Unesco, World Health Organization, etc.), as well as the international non-governmental organizations with which the ILO maintains permanent relations (e.g. I.C.F.T.U.).

Naturally the public gallery is filled with the ‘crême de la crême’ of the ‘haute ville’ (the fashionable quarter of

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Geneva): appealing young girls with a tendancy to blush fleetingly, or old maids with a Calvinistic tic, strewn among members of the diplomatic ranks in Geneva. A few conspicuous wenches are mixed in with the fashionable company, possibly a part of the 500 prostitutes who were permitted to attend for purposes not having a direct connection with the work of the International Labour Conference.

The main floor of the Conference hall is divided by aisles into four sections of benches, running some 25 rows deep; each bench seats four persons; two government delegates, one for the employers' and one for the employees' organizations. The government delegates have doublé the number of votes, in order to obviate precarious situations; precarious situations threaten at every moment during such a conference. The other participants, the experts and observers, have been given seats on the mezzanine floor and in the boxes which line the sides of this floor.

The experts (technical advisors) occupy benches in the middle and boxes on the right side. The boxes on the left are filled with observers. The public gallery is just above and to the rear of the mezzanine floor.

We await the appearance of the President of the Governing Body, who will take his place back of the committee table with his secretaries. It is the custom of the Conference to be opened by this functionary. In this case, he bears a distinctly English name, he is called Mr. Brown. The period of waiting is utilized in various ways. Some are more impatient than others. We play with the headphones in our hands. We try to orientate ourselves with the aid of the guide-book, a handy little book, the English one red, the French blue, the Spanish olive-green. In the first section to the right in the hall, quite

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in front, are sitting the Russian delegation. The leader, comrade Arutiunian, a Georgian of dark complexion, could be taken for a South American, were the fury on his face less obvious. The Americans are sitting in the same section, farther back; a pronounced figure cannot be distinguished among them; they all look the same, travelling salesmen who employ more or less civilized efforts to raise sales and to dodge taxes. In the delegation of the United Kingdom seated in the section to the left of the Americans, Mr. Snedden, a snappish representative of the employers' organization attracts notice. In the third section can be seen the delegations from Iran and Burma. We all have an especial interest in them. The chairmen of the delegations of Iran and Burma have both been nominated as candidates for the chairmanship of the 39th Conference of the International Labour Organization. Each of them is Minister of Social Affairs in his respective country, for the rest, they have very Little in common. They are antipodes. Mr. Raschid of Burma is a thin man, the Indo type with clear signs of rancorous feelings in the nervous twitches of his face. Mr. Mohsen Nasr of Iran is a rather stout diplomat with a sad and ironical expression on his face. Now I know, Mr. Mohsen Nasr is the double of Mr. Eduard Elias of Elsevier's Weekly, whom I have not seen for such a long time in The Hague, and whom I find here in Geneva now, disguised as the Minister of Social Affairs of Iran. Perhaps I should warn him that he is running the risk of being unmasked, but he is a man of the world and must know how to take care of himself. I am quite certain that Eduard Elias alias Mohsen Nasr will be the victor. Ironical sadness is a better weapon than nervous rancour for diplomats.

To the left, where the observers are sitting, the members of the Nigerian delegation are attracting much attention. They

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are dressed in native costumes, a tunic draped with multi-colored silk cloths. Mr. S.F. Okotie Eboh, Minister of Labour in Nigeria, attracts the most attention. He is the corpulent type of negro, wearing glasses with tortoise-shell upper rims, in the American fashion. Things are whispered about him, he is called Big Chief. He is head of the Government delegation, besides being chairman for the employers' as well as for the employees' organizations. The rumour goes that he owns 51 % of the shares of all companies in his country. It will be a falsehood, but the combination of pomp and bonhomie lends itself to the fabrication of legends. It pleases Europeans to place representatives of former colonies in a dubious light. The stories of corruption are made to order. It is extraordinarily difficult for a European to keep to sober facts when colonial problems are being treated, in such cases he is very soon the victim of unbridled fancy. The time passes. Now an army of photographers moves through the hall, their apparatuses flash. The persiflage disappears, and in its place comes the serious forehead or the knowing smile.

I look at the public gallery and try to find E... She has put on her dark glasses to protect herself against the flash of lights. I try to greet her. I raise my hand. A conspicuous lady answers my greeting. She thinks that I can no longer contain myself. She offers me a laugh with her lips, red as a dahlia. She murmurs the words: ‘Je suis martiniquaise’. The army of photographers rushes towards the platform. Some go and stand immediately in front of it, others climb the steps to the right and left. The members of the Governing Body enter, preceded by Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown stands erect for a few moments as though listening to a National anthem; the photographers' apparatuses flicker like nervous chirping birds in a volery. The

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photographers become annoying, they are gently pushed aside by the ushers. The 39th Conference has commenced.

Mr. Brown declares that it is the custom for the chairman of the Governing Body to open the Conference and offer some reflections in the light of the great events which have taken place during the preceding year. Well then, in compliance with this obligation, he finds it impossible to point to any spectacular event. Nevertheless he will not refrain from mentioning a certain improvement and a lessening of the international tension brought about by a meeting of The Big Four, held here in Geneva in July of last year.

Mr. Brown talks on. It is not likely that he attaches undue importance to the meetings at Geneva, nor to the Big Four, nor to the 72 lilliputians, but he is a man of common sense, who, for the time being, prefers the prying clique of the diplomats to the destructive spirit of military staffs. He likes the red and white roses of the Parc de la Grange better than the nuclear mushroom formations over the Pacific ocean.

The procedural questions follow; first the election of a chairman of the Governing Body. The French delegate, a rather large man with a pug nose expresses his regret that the chairman cannot be chosen by unanimous approval this time; there were two candidates this year though it had been the custom until now to nominate only one. After this intelligent remark, the delegate of Ceylon announces that he will vote for Mr. Raschid, because his country has already ratified 21 labour conventions. According to this line of thought, though be it mentioned here in all modesty, the representative of the Netherlands Antilles should then be chosen as chairman. At present, in the Netherlands Antilles, some 33 conventions have

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been declared applicable. The Turkish delegate motivates his vote by remarking on the venerable antiquity of the Persian civilization. Mr. Mohsen Nasr's smile expresses his sad though honoured feelings. He understands. The odd motivations must serve to cover the conflicting situation. The Asiatic countries support Mr. Raschid, the Western countries Mr. Mohsen Nasr. The contest is decided in favor of the Western countries. The Asiatics did not succeed in winning the support of all the members of the Arabian league and the South American caucus.

Some moments later Mr. Brown has relinquished his chairman's seat to the rather stout diplomat with the sad, ironical expression. Here they call him Mohsen Nasr, in the café's in the Hague, they would call him Mr. Elias. It is now 1 o' clock p.m.

7.6.1956.

Notes from the Salle des Pas Perdus. I know that during the next three weeks I will find myself regularly in this space. I would hardly call it a hall, it is a large space in which one of the walls is formed by a view of the garden, the lake of Geneva, the chains of hills and the sky. The garden and lake of Geneva can only be seen if you stand close to the window. I am sitting in an arm-chair quite at the back. I can see only the grey-blue sky. Emptiness also predominates inside. Here and there in one of the leather arm-chairs sits a delegate, reveiling in doing nothing (dolce far niente). Now and then someone steps from the elevator; the elevator boy stands subserviently aside. To the left in the corner, near the window, is a long writing-table. A couple of South Americans and Arabs are sitting there now, writing yard-long letters full of fatherly

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pride and feudal worry or love letters with terms of double entendre and fancies.

The monotony is broken by an invasion of a group of tourists, being conducted around the building. The guide places himself before the window, points to the view and begins to talk. His voice sounds familiar to me, but I cannot place it at first. I stare at his back and only succeed in recognizing him when he is compelled to turn around by my stare. He has recognized me, I see it from the expression of surprise on his face. Beyond a doubt, he is a White Russian, whom I have known in Paris about the beginning of the thirties. We both belonged to the Bohème of Montparnasse then. He was known generally as a talented artist. He made especially good posters. Yet he was more interesting as a person than as an artist. The story went, that he was the son of a former lieutenant-general, who had exchanged the cavalry for the diplomatic service, in which he had represented his country at Constantinople for a rather long time. It was to this fact, that his son's predilection for cupola-like forms was attributed. He was a ‘tall handsome young man’, with an extremely wry smile, who always endeavored to keep his distance by speaking on an objective basis. He seldom allowed himself to be drawn into a political discussion, but restricted himself to remarks about the art of painting and music and especially about the Russian Ballet. He believed that communism, a system of pronounced political character, would excercise little or no influence on the arts.

‘Vous verrez,’ he said, ‘in twenty or thirty years from now, it will again be Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Pavlowa, though with other names, who will conquer the European public and the European heart.’

His name emerges again from my memory. Alexey Vsevolo-

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dovitch. He has recognized me, but probably asks himself with a wry expression if I belong to reality or to the world of ghosts. I do not feel much like reassuring him. It does not seem the right moment to renew the contact of a quarter of a century ago. I do not move a muscle but stare glassily in front of me, I refrain from any human movement or expression and fully answer to the idea of a ghost. Finally he convinces himself that I belong to the world of apparitions, and walks on with his herd. I get up, walk to the window and return again to one of the empty arm-chairs. Someone has left the art page of a French newspaper behind. I pick it up and become absorbed in a notice concerning Salvador Dali. I see the announcement of a brochure by S.D., with as title ‘Les Cocus du Vieil Art Moderne’ (Collection Libelles, Fasquelle Paris). In it he proposes to give an exposition of his development from Salvador Dali to Avidadollars, the anagram with which André Breton has sketched the painter's lust for gold. Further, some maxims were given about Dali's attitude towards certain edibles. He names the cauliflower as his favorite vegetable, because it reminds him most of a boiled chicken. Vermicelli he appreciates because of its suppleness, absence of taste and other virgin-like qualities. Without a doubt, S.D.'s significance lies in his hard boiled absurdity. If desired, the kitchen term can be omitted and experimental absurdity put in its place (plastic genre).

I have forgotten S.D. again. Now I am listening to the conversation of a Dutch pair, who do not recognize in me a fellow-countryman and continue their conversation in a clearly audible tone. It is a reporter, who betrays his background of the better classes, by a certain affectation in his speech. He is just unfolding his opinion of the Swiss. His partner is a young

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woman with the double face from the ‘ugly period’ of Picasso (exhibition 1946 at Amsterdam). The one face looks highly critical, the other confines itself to as high a degree of admiration. I listen:

‘Generally speaking, the difference between the German Swiss and French Swiss can be formulated like this. The German Swiss has too little, the French Swiss too much civilization. The German Swiss makes a boorish, the French Swiss a dull impression.’

I do not know if I also suffer from a double face, in any case I am prepared to declare my approval of the mans marginalia.

9.6.1956.

Visited today the exposition ‘The railroad in art’ (Le chemin de fer dans l'art) in the Musée d'Art et d'histoire.

I would like to differentiate three periods:

1.

the heroic epoch of railroad traffic. The railroad still had to secure a place for itself in the world. It was recommended by sugary English prints and caricatured by the marvellous engravings of Daumier. Daumier's engravings are in themselves a justification for the existence of this mechanical animal;

2.

the intimate period. The smoky mechanical animal has become a part of our familiar surroundings. The impressionists have a tendency to envelop it in smoke clouds which spread slowly in the overdamp Western-European atmosphere. Lovers of painting are necessarily reminded of Claude Monet's Gare St. Lazare, a painting that is sadly missing here. The intimate period has a certain number of themes, which always reappear on the canvasses: the mechanical caterpillar in the spacious landscape, the lonely village stations, cold and desolate, that

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touch you co the core, the mathematical line-play of rails in the yards. The names of early and late impressionists come to our mind. In this intimate period they best fit the characteristic given by Schmidt Degener in his splendid essay about Flaubert: a mixture, he writes, of romanticism and realism, of imagination and observation;

3.

the energetic period of railroad traffic. The world, in general, has lost its intimacy, it is attuned only to its energies. It strives to turn around as swiftly as possible, it delights in nuclear fantasies, it will probably explode. The locomotive, with its sparks and flames, plays a more important role than the compartments where the travelling salesmen lay down a card, a young mother nurses her baby or an abbot with a purple calotte enjoys a Cezanne pear. Maurice de Vlaminck had already one leg in the energetic period, but the best exponents are the futurists.

Involuntarily one thinks of the end of ‘Awater’ by M. Nijhoff:

...I'd seen a train which I must run to catch.
The fireman shovels coal on to the fire.
Leaning aside the driver scans the night.
Beyond the platform, o'er the gleaming rails,
the semaphores intone their overture.

and the last lines:

...She chants, she bends a knee in clouds of steam
to leave at last at the appointed hour.^*)

Nijhoff is too sensitive to be a futurist. He was not a steel animal, at times he was even a woolly one.

*) From the translation by Daan van der Vat

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10.6.1956.

Aboard the Lake boat ‘Lausanne’ between Montreux and Geneva. The article about romantic-rationalism from the same hand that now uses this pen, was written in quite another climate than Schmidt Degener's splendid essay about Flaubert. The only thing they have in common, this angular, apodictic article and the flowing, polished essay, is that they couple as opposites imagination and reason, lyricism and documentation. When I wrote that article, Flaubert was far from my thoughts. In fact up to that time I had never been able to finish a novel of Flaubert; deep in my soul, his refined grade of artisticity could not compensate for his suppressed emotionality.

The authors I was thinking of then were Edgar Allan Poe, Byron, Kierkegaard and Unamuno. I could add many more to this list but will suffice with the above. Of these four only Poe can be placed on a parallel with Flaubert. Poe sought, as Flaubert did, for the equilibrium of opposing aspirations. Not so the other three.

Kierkegaard and Unamuno also understood romanticism and ratio, but their aspiration was not towards an equilibrium of opposites. They were pure imaginative authors who worked out their imagination in the sphere of rationalism. The ratio was for them the instrument on which their imagination played. It is in this that they approach the so-called existential authors and it is also because of this that it would be beside the point to compare Kierkegaard with Hegel in the same way in which a comparison could be drawn between Kant and Hegel. Byron was again a quite different case. The commonplace that brands him an out-and-out romantic, hits the mark. He was driven

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by the imagination. With it, he had a keen eye for the peculiarities and particularly the absurdities of his surroundings. But as a romantic, he used his wealth of observations as obstacles, which had to be overcome in order to reach the free sphere of lyricism.

In this, he was not equal to himself. I look through the poems that I have marked during the years. The poem about his wife belongs to the kind of lyricism without a backbone, the swooning lyricism. It places him in the professional class of Lamartine. He also knew the type of romanticism which is practiced on a realistic basis. Dutch literature possesses a wealth of this kind of romanticism in poets such as Roland Holst and Jacques Bloem. One of the most beautiful poems of this genre is the poem ‘Loneliness’ of Roland Holst:

‘The wind and the grey weather pass over my heart...’

One of Byron's poems of this kind is the psychologically complicated but lyrically lucid poem:

When we two parted
in silence and tears.

Pure lyricism such as Shelley's and in a lesser degree Keats', in the modern form such as Van Ostayen's and the experimentalists' was unknown to Byron. His power of observation stood too much in the way for that, His lyrical drama ‘Manfred’ is a continual effort to break earthly ties; his ‘Don Juan’, on the other hand, the acceptance of fetters. ‘The Prisoner of Chillon’ is one of the rare poems of Byron in which a harmonious fusion of opposites is achieved. Then we find ourselves in the climate of Flaubert. The difference is, that with Flaubert, an equilibrium is attained through the frustration of emotions and with Byron this occurs without restraining his romanticism.

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I still find the opening lines with the aged grey head terrible, but as a whole the poem is decidedly impressing.

In an edition of 1850 I found the following note in an introduction bearing no signature: ‘This is a beautiful poem; and we cannot help considering it the more so from there being nothing of the author's idiosyncrasy mingled with it - a very rare circumstance in Byron's writings.’

‘The Prisoner of Chillon’ is generally regarded as being inspired by François de Bonivard, who was kept prisoner by the Duke of Savoy for seven years in the dungeon of Chillon. This legend is carefully cultivated on the Lake of Geneva and especially at Chillon. For the benefit of the tourist industry. Naturally the facts are known. In the first (or second?) publication Byron, who was not averse to documented footnotes, added an explanation, which is mostly not included in other publications:

‘When this poem was composed I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonivard or I should have endeavored to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtue.’

The courage and virtues of Bonivard were not those of a romantic, but of a libertine. It is always taken too much for granted that the freedom of Geneva was won exclusively by Calvinists. Nothing is less true. In reality the story is quite different. The freedom of Geneva began with the libertines, with Bonivard as their leader. I cherish the illusion of writing a study about Bonivard sometime.

11.6.1956.

The ‘Théâtre de Pôche’, on the Grand'Rue is not much larger than two rooms ‘en suite’. The type that families use

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for giving chamber concerts, where the guests listen with an attentive ear and critical expression until the intermission when they are served with a cup of tea, a slice of lemmon, a spoonful of sugar and a smile from the hostess. Then they can give their opinions on what they have heard. It is full in the Théâtre de Pôche. A comedy of Noel Coward is being given. It is about two pairs who have changed partners with each other because they no longer ‘got along’, and who ‘got along’ still worse after the exchange. It is laughable enough but, because of the limited space, you hardly dare to laugh heartily.

In one of the back seats, a shout of laughter breaks out. The élite in the front rows turn around, looking disturbed. They are evidently searching for the person guilty of disturbing the order. The actors, afraid of loosing the attention, stop playing. Finally the tension is broken when one of the leading actors, in fact there are only leading roles in the piece, remarks that an exchange has also taken place between players and audience. After a civilized laugh the play is continued.

It seems to me that the Théâtre de Pôche in Geneva is more suited to recitation of elegies than for laughable situations.

12.6.1956.

Meanwhile, the meetings of the ILO are being carried on at top speed. The immense building is a buzzing bee-hive, with lights going on and off in the halls, where swarms of people are being consumed by their inner grievances or permit themselves to make use of their right of ‘voice and vote’. The speakers, especially if they enjoy their own eloquence, are much less dangerous than those who have character but not much talent.

To begin with there are the meetings of the different groups:

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1.	The well-dressed employer's attorneys, who assume an injured air of innocence. If these men are to be believed, the social will having them work at a loss.
2.	The employees, who are not rigged up so poorly either, though they have not wholly discarded the viscous clothing from the times of social abasement.
3.	The government delegates are a group of ash-grey head officials who are worrying about how to get out of this hornet's nest.

Secondly, there are the committee meetings, composed according to the rules of the tripartite system. The delegates sit at one of the three rows of tables placed at right angles to the chairman's table. The government delegates sit in the middle row in order to be more easily pelted by the employers and employees and partly also to work as buffers between these two groups considered since Marx to be natural enemies. The chairmen are of different nationalities. We have intellectual Israeli, accademical Pakistani. Hindus with algebraic formulas of wisdom, Arabs who become false with excitement, dreamy Latinos, Englishmen with an Oxford accent, Dutch with instructions to see first what the others do.

Every committee has its personal character, which is determined by the subject that is being dealt with. They could be divided in three classes: technical, spectacular though not hazardous, and political-explosive.

For example, I will risk characterizing the following committees as being technical for the time being, while awaiting the grievances they may afford the employers.

1.	The committee on Vocational training in Agriculture.
2.	The committee on Weekly Rest (for the purpose of providing a weekly rest for workers in commerce and offices).

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3.	The Finance Committee.

The committee to which the writer of these lines belongs can unquestionably be counted among the spectacular but not hazardous. It is the committee for Information and Reports about the application of Conventions and Recommendations. The criticism and remarks, coming mostly from the employees, also then and when from the employers, are generally given in the form of polite questions addressed to the government delegates. They are concerned with such matters as:

1.	An incentive towards ratification of the conventions. At the moment 110 have been formulated by the ILO. The Netherlands, Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles have ratified respectively 35, 33 and 34.
2.	The commitment of obligations resulting from the ratification, i.e. the observance of the conventions. The Latinos have quite a habit of ratifying conventions but not observing them. It astonishes them, that this assemblage is surprised at this. Their countries are mostly under more or less benevolent dictators with a democratic constitution and preamble borrowed from the ‘droits de l'homme et du citoyen’. The Latinos have all read Rousseau, some of them only the cover jacket of ‘Contrat Social’, as a matter of fact, the most important part of the book; others discover everyday anew different nuances in the portrait of the most kittenish figure in the world literature, Mme de Warens.
3.	The transmission of reports and information delivered to the Director General, to the labour organizations concerned, an observance which is easily forgotten by many governments because of their innate shyness for union leaders, but which does not lack clarity, particularly in the English text: ‘Each member shall communicate to the representative organizations

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recognized for the purpose of article 3 copies of the information and reports communicated to the Director General in pursuance of article 19 and 22.’

The chairman of the workers' group is Mr. Cool, a Fleming who uses French. He makes an efficient and sympathetic impression.

The chairman of the employers' group in this committee is a reasonable man, who is without the usual disdain of the employer. He is primarily occupied with putting the Latinos in their place. The most hypocritical delegates are to be found in the English and French group. The Englishman is a careless ‘thin man’, unrecognizable behind his glasses and red beard. The Frenchman rocks back and forth, with his hands between his knees and shrinks with fear every time a question is put to him by a workers' representative, a thin negro with a flossy little beard, from Dahomey. If his answer is unsatisfactory the employees restrict themselves to subdued but prolonged jeering.

Now and then I go for a look at the explosive committees:

1)	The committee charged with drawing up measures relating to forced labour. Explosive committee par excellence! Inflammable! The Western powers accuse the peoples' democracies of political forced labour, the terror in the satelite countries is emphasized. The totalitarian countries in their turn will not neglect exploiting the capitalistic exploitation in a demagogic manner.
2)	The committee for Resolutions is also counted among the very dangerous this year. At first sight this committee looks as innocent as a babe. Its task is to pass judgements on draft resolutions, which are proposed by the member states. However, only a fleeting glance at a few of these drafts is necessary in

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order to sense the conflict. To begin with, the two super powers will have to make a statement about the reduction of armaments. It will be a sleuthhound's search for the aggressor. After all, no one arms himself if he does not see the helmeted head of his opponent rise above the horizon. There is also a proposed resolution which commits the member states to declare the labour conventions automatically applicable in the non metropolitan countries. This resolution is proposed by the Polish delegate and threatens to raise the tumult of a bear garden.

The resolution lacks all reasonableness: the application of a convention takes for granted the existence of certain social measures which in many cases have not been taken in the former colonies.

The Polish delegation, fed as it is by the Kremlin, is not concerned with reasonableness, but with a semblance of reasonableness. It is concerned with branding certain western powers to the core with the stamp of colonialism. It will not succeed, but in the meantime, it has had its ‘say’, its accusations formulated and put on the record. There are also resolutions of a more innocent nature.

1)	measures to be taken in connection with automation
2)	reduction in the number of working hours
3)	the abolition of discrimination in salary on the basis of ability.

The number of people filling the public gallery forms a barometer for the sharpness of the conflict.

The committee meetings are held as much as possible in the mornings in halls which, though rather spacious, still seem too small for the members plus their secretarial staffs. It is mostly so dark (because of the overcast skies, quite unusual in

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this month) that the lights have to be turned on, giving to daylight a false atmosphere well suited to these controversial meetings.

The members are given the opportunity to follow the plenary meetings in the afternoon in the large meeting hall (40 by 40), where the opening was held. The vehement clashes of the big powers are saved up for the plenary sittings. Any subject can flame up at any moment, at least if the head persons are present. It is remarkable then how quickly the public gallery fills up. The sensation loving public seems to sniff it. I have been told that the sympathizers of the contending parties are warned by wire-pullers, but it seems to me that the public as such has a good nose for sensational events. Tom, Dick or Harry would give his life to see a negro lynched, a royal palace in flames or a prophet being stoned. We have not yet reached the high point of the plenary sittings, what we see ate only skirmishes, even though the clashes have not been left out. Up to now the discussions have kept to questions of procedure and the report that is delivered by the Director General at the yearly assembly.

Questions of Procedure.

a)	Election of the chairman, which has already taken place at the opening, with the result that the half amused, half saddened Mr. Mohsen Nasr presides behind the highest table on the platform in the plenary meeting hall.
b)	Election of underchairmen. Passed unnoticed.
c)	Election of the chairmen for the various groups of the governments, employers and employees. No particulars.
d.	Forming of the committee of proposals, whose function

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	is to place before the plenary assembly eventual proposals of the members. The Frenchman M. Houck (large with a pug nose) is appointed chairman.
e)	Forming of Committees charged with treating the subjects placed on the agenda.

This is the first serious point of opposition between the totalitarian countries and certain western delegates. In the employers' groups, the western delegates have made use of their majority to exclude representatives of the totalitarian countries as members of the committees. The totalitarian countries entered a protest. The difference of opinion is expressed in the antithesis universalism and tripartism. The communist representatives call for universalism, exclusion is stamped as discrimination by them. The democratic representatives are of the opinion that tripartism would be neglected by appointing employers who had no freedom with regard to their government. The discussion has been going on for some days. There is seldom any humour in the words, on the contrary the more scoffing. The government delegates, the ash-grey officials, have managed to conjure up a compromise. Article 56 of the Standing Orders will be used, which makes it possible to appoint so called ‘deputy members’ who should not be mistaken for the so called substitutes. Substitutes vote for the same nationality as the members they replace. Deputy members, if necessary, occupy a place when the group concerned is not wholly present and votes for his own nationality. The employers start perspiring, now they must take care to be always present. The late sleeping will have to be dispersed with. The Russians make life impossible. In the lobbies they walk around reading to one another article 56 of the Standing Orders as if it was a precious poem, and the incerpretation of

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the meaning of ‘deputy member’, as if it concerned the nylon veil of Isis.

The discussion regarding the report of the Director General bears chiefly a propaganda-tinted character. It is seldom judged according to its own merit. It is used as pretext, it is employed for other purposes than those for which it is intended. The Sovjet use it as a spring-board for an attack on the United States. Japan carries on propaganda for its budding new industry. The representative of India becomes entangled as a fakir in the algebraic net of his wisdom. A representative of Pakistan floats on an academic level, he is impervious, you can watch him disappear. The big chief displays all his magnificence.

During the last hours the scoffing diminishes considerably. The head persons leave the hall. The public gallery empties. More and more empty places can be seen on the benches. I go to the restaurant and drink a café espresso. The coffee reminds you how near Italy is.

These meetings, different though they are, have one thing in common: that the chairman, mostly a powerful political figure, looses his self assurance as soon as complicated questions arise. He becomes pale, or blushes, according to his complexion and bends himself into a thousand curves, forwards, backwards, sideways to try to catch an answer from the intelligent secretaries.

1.6.1956.

It is around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I return from the Palais des Nations. I take the bus that rides to the Cornavin station. I get off between the two nude statues in a half reclining position, a young woman, who turns her face away

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from a young man who, with his blind, sculptured eyes enjoys the excitation of his companion. This flirtation in stone is all the more conspicuous because the figures are slightly larger than life size. The first few days it attracted my attention, now I have become used to it, but in the company of notables I permit myself an allusion by way of badinage. I walk past the sidewalk cafés, they remind me of Paris, that metropolis of perfidie et féerie. I have passed many hours during the last week on one of the iron-lace chairs, at one of the iron-lace tables. But first I have bought a pile of newspapers in a store where writing-materials are sold. La Gazette de Genève, La Suisse, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Figaro, New York Herald, the Observer etc. etc. The newspaper magnates have had, since my earliest youth, a very good client in me. Benjamin Constant sighs somewhere: ‘Charlotte, Charlotte et les livres’. He could no more keep away from ‘das ewig Weibliche’ than from printed paper. Mostly I only read the headlines and paragraphs in heavy print, perhaps I am not a very thorough newspaper reader, but a lavish newspaper buyer I surely am. There are few things I take so much pleasure in as sitting at a sidewalk café, with a cup of coffee before me on the table and a pile of newspapers next to me on a chair, which I am able to scramble through to my heart's content.

Today I have withstood the temptation of the cafés; I walked right on to the Rue du Mont Blanc on my way to the hotel. I nearly said to my house, the hotel begins to take on the familiarity of an own home. I like sidewalk cafés, a feeling that many share with me, but I find sauntering around a town, especially a foreign town exceedingly nice. I stand still in front of a travelling company (agence de voyage). Nowadays you see such exquisite posters with bronzed bodies in bikinis, the

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bows of ships, the musculature and despair of Michel Angelo in the Sixtine Chapel, processions and steer's horns in the yellow Andalusian sun. I must have been taken by surprise, and step inside the office. It strikes me again how dark Swiss interiors can be. A man behind the counter comes to attention to catch my questions and put them through an intellectual process. He believes, he has misunderstood and asks me to repeat my question.

‘Je voudrais avoir des détails sur les excursions à Moscou.’

He answers irritably: ‘Ah monsieur, ce sont pas des excursions, ce sont des croisières.’

‘Ça revient au même,’ I try to defend myself.

‘Mais pas du tout. Une excursion ne prend que quelques heures, mais une croisière...’

He is a peevish Parisian, who evidently feels compromised by the ‘croisière en U.R.S.S.’, pronounced like ‘ours’ (bear) by the French, which is advertised on a poster decorated with cupolas of the Kremlin in the window. ‘Croisière en U.R.S.S.’ prix à partir de 80.000 frs. y compris le train spécial Leningrad-Moscou et retour.’ I can read all of that on the cover of the folder, which he hands me silently. In answer to my next question he suffices with pointing to the folder which I have taken from him. Moscou awakens undue admiration or odd reactions of fear. Then I forget the incident and a few moments later turn into a side street to the left. I stand before a restaurant where the menu is framed in a small window. I enjoy an imaginary evening meal. First a consommé Madrilène, because the jelly is fresh in your mouth and tastes of nothing. Then poached turbot, because this also tastes of nothing, so that my mouth remains fresh. It is clear that I have ascetic tendencies today and will surely order vichy water for wine.

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I will finish with an espresso, to have at least enjoyed something nice. I like Italians, for their unrestrained joy of living, their military uselessness and their immeasurable art treasures, but today most of all for their ‘espresso’. A little further on I stop in front of the windows of a large book shop. I am confirmed in the opinion that the Swiss have a child-like or doting attitude as regards printed paper, the illustrated works are far in the majority, the ones about flora and fauna as well as those about works of art through all the ages in word and image. Les voix du silence. Then I continue my journey, until I feel magnetically attracted by the interior of a shop with bathroom fixtures. A large supply of bath tubs, wash bowls and other necessaries of an intimate nature, but most of all I am attracted by the name, hanging in flourishing letters on the sign board outside. The owner bears my own surname. He is called Charles Debrot. It is not the first time that I have stood in front of this shop; I wait until a client enters and draws the shop keeper out of his hiding place. He interests me strongly because of our common surname, evidently we both descend from Adam and Eve Debrot. In the second half of the 18th century my forefather, who was called Isaac Debrot (an apostate Calvinist of course) left Neuchâtel to seek his fortune in the colonies. On my father's side I am of Swiss origin. The front door opens with a warning bell (as they do in Holland). Watch, if you wait a moment we can get a look at Charles Debrot again. I am not interested in the client or the bathroom fixtures, I am only interested in the shop keeper, the member of my family. He is a small melancholy plumber. He combines lead poison with the fatigue of the ‘citoyen de Genève’. He casts a searching glance through the window, he has recognized me, my presence on the other side of his display has once before

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awakened his curiosity; he has not recognized a member of the family, he only wonders what the indefinable stranger can have up his sleeve. He is surely not Swiss he thinks, though he could well be, but of an unusual type. Jean Jacques Rousseau also looked at times like an Armenian. Complete certainty can after all not be provided. In the long run Calvin sowed confusion rather than shaped order. I could try to answer his questions, but I am no Jean Calvin, I give profuse thanks for the chance not to cause more confusion. On my father's side I am French Swiss, on my mother's side the Spanish temperament predominates. I have a secret, that I only confide to others under very exceptional circumstances. I vacillate between Swiss moroseness and Iberian anarchy. I am, in terms of the automobile salesmen, an hispano-suiza, a much too exceptional combination for finding a solution without having a large fortune or being exceptionally fortunate. Up to now I have enjoyed a certain measure of fortunateness, a fortune of any significance I have always lacked. I decide not to bother my kinsman any longer and continue my walk homewards (or only hotelwards?). As a matter of fact I have only to walk through two empty streets, at right angles, and I am already standing before the porter's desk. E. has left a note for me, she has gone to do some errands, women mean practically everything with this term, and will be back in a few minutes.

The elevator carries me to the third floor, where I live for this month. I turn the key in the lock and open the door of room no... I undergo a surprise and remain standing on the threshold. A transformation has taken place in the room. It is no longer part of a hotel, it has become a ‘home’. Sooner or later E. always manages to metamorphose even the most banal cubby-hole of a hotel room into a home. The rancid hotel

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lodging is changed into an intimate bedroom. It is an oblong room, characterized by me during its rancid lodging period as a cubby-hole, with a wide window on one of the short sides. The heads of the beds are standing against the wall of the longer left side. Between the window and E.'s bed is the dressing table with toilet articles, some belletristic books and a slender silver vase containing pink and lavender sweet-peas. Above the bed I see the photo of our fourteen year old daughter, with her clear light eyes under dark hair. The light eyes come from Neuchâtel, their clear look descends from Toledo, the straight hair is probably of Indian origin. Between the other bed and the short side where the door is, my aluminum booktrunk stands against the wall. Aluminum made of bauxite from Surinam. The small table next to my bed is crowded with books, the reading lamp is pushed to the side; I have learned gradually that it is necessary to take very many books with me when I travel if I would remain calm. How did Benjamin Constant say it again? ‘Charlotte, Charlotte, et des livres.’ To begin with I must have room for the Conference documents. The ILO produces more pamphlets than I have ever seen for the preparation of a Conference. You absolutely must have these documents, at least if you do not intend to sit mum. It is remarkable how much the Latin Americans like to sit mum. Perhaps they are happy people, created for dolce far niente, the lovely doing of nothing at all. ‘And do you know why I don't do a darn’, a Latin American asked me recently. ‘Porque no me de la gana!’ In other words he does not give a hang! Then I must have room for works about Switzerland and Swiss authors. That is a requisite of diplomatic courtesy, especially if you bear a Swiss name and are related to Swiss neurologists, plumbers and high-class barbers. Finally I need room for the

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numerous books of verse, that I turn to as a therapy for my Swiss misanthropic and Spanish anarchistic complexity of emotions. I dislike pseudonyms, otherwise I would commit plagiarism and in future sign myself as Maldoror II. It is not easy to defend oneself against misanthropy and melancholy. I remain standing at the door in a stupefaction of intimacy. What is it that is special about the metamorphosis. The sphere of which the objects become a part? The interchange of light and dark? The smell of being home which is wafted to me? It would be useless to try to give answers to these and a number of other questions concerning the same things.

17.6.1956.

Have had this week repeatedly contact with the Russians. Political, artistic, religious (sic).

First Contact. Of a distinctly Soviet political nature. Reception given by the Soviet Delegation in Hotel Metropole (Rive Gauche). Colonial participants invited in large numbers and present in large numbers. Contact with the younger peoples should be promoted in every possible way. Truc à la Russe.

The smile à la Russe in this company is only worn when in conversation with African representatives of a pronounced dark tint (violet-black). The Soviet Russians possess the formality of the middle-classes and the tenseness of the fanatic. Their look alternates between scrutinizing, then they want to do business, and staring in the distance, then they discern a future for others still enveloped in mist. Arutiunian, the leader of the Russian delegation, is a small dark man, who walks with firm steps, his arms held away from his body. He is a man of muscular tension with at times, on his face, the expression of injury born of resentment. The Russians form a nucleus of

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terrible Ivans around which the guests move with the meekness of satelites. The Arabians are the most outstanding in the way of resentment, they exceed all bounds; I would like to meet an Arabian who could give me a finely detailed explanation for this. The negroes have much less resentment and besides their resentment has more nuances and is in some respects even amusing with its suavity. A representative from Barbados, as black as is seldom seen, winks at me. He has seen through the ‘truc à la Russe’. I wink back, with the result that a few moments later we are carrying on a conversation about the international situation in general.

The strongest form of meekness is excercised by the intellectual pro-communists from Western Europe, who are more than willing to add their approval to the callousness of Stalin and Beria as well as to the drollery of K. and B. They are intellectual grubbers. A grubber-intellectual confides in me that he has only come for the vodka and caviar; he offers me a vodka, that I accept eagerly though not without calling his attention to the fact that it is hardly the place or the time to make discourteous remarks about the Soviet. He ignores this and tells me how many drops of lemmon to put on my caviar to give it the most delicious taste. The western representatives thread their way among the communists and the pro's more as observers than as guests. I have not completely given up hope for the Russians. The Russian will never be a common middle-class man. Emphasis on the common. He is much too vital for that.

Second Contact. Musical event of the year in Geneva. The Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra with the famous conductor Mravinsky. He has been decorated with the Stalin order. The Victoria Hall is sold out to the last seat. With much difficulty

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we succeeded in getting places on the stage behind the orchestra. This has its good sides, we can look straight in the face of the conductor. He is a tall blond man around fifty with a long face, pronouncedly dolichocephalic, with sparse hair. The mephistopholes type. Soon one recognizes in him the artistic arrivé. He conducts especially with his eyebrows, which are raised on the right side, on the left or drawn together in an ominous frown. In a moment of trance his head is thrown back, his eyes closed and this attitude is accompanied by a loud dicking of the tongue against the roof of his mouth. I realize suddenly, Mravinsky makes me think of Hans Heinz Ewers, whom I once heard lecture during my first year at college in Utrecht. The orchestra plays Tchaikovsky and Schostakovitch. The latter has also been given the Stalin order. The music is a continual variation between vigour and inebriation. Without a doubt we have virtuosi before us, but the performance is calculated too much on effect for my taste. An inebriated mephisto, pardon me!

Third Contact. Russian Ballet. In the basement of the Palais des Nations artistic and documentary films from Rumania, the United States, the U.R.S.S. etc., are shown. Up to now I have only been able to see the ballet ‘Romeo and Julieta’ of Prokofiev. It is quite impressing. You could say that Russian art stands on the border of naturalism and mysticism. I have certain objections to choreography used as an illustration to a drama; it should be dramatic by its own means. Though that does not mean that at other moments I am not filled with admiration. Especially with the solo dances of Ulanova which, like clear melodies, rise above the orchestral group dances. Ulanova is, without a doubt, the greatest dancer since world war II. She possesses that rare combination of the dancer's

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sadness and lucidity, weaned of all the annoying qualities of a certain type of prima ballerina. Her face shows apprehension, girlish and at the same time motherly.

Fourth Contact. June 17th, 11 o'clock a.m. We approach the miniature basilica (Greek orthodox). Basilique de pôche. A large cupola in the center with four smaller ones around it. The smaller cupolas look like reflections of the large one, while the large cupola in its turn looks like the reflection of a still larger one in a quite different world.

The interior, to begin with, is made up of the space under the large middle cupola, which is supported by slender pillars. In front of this is a space designated chiefly for the worshippers. Directly opposite the entrance and separated from it by the circular formed space under the middle cupola and the space for the worshippers, is the altar and space for the priests. The liturgy of the Greek orthodox church has much in common with the Roman Catholic mass, though it differs in so far that the two groups participating in the celebration: the priest and the worshippers, are more independent of one another. The priests who celebrate the liturgy are in a space apart, the holy space it could be called; they are separated from the worshippers, who occupy themselves individually during the liturgy with lighting candles before the icons. In the Roman Catholic church it is not the custom for worshippers to permit themselves these liberties.

Sometimes the bishop enters the circular space to recite a prayer or make the sign of the cross over the worshippers who then cross themselves super abundantly, The hands make flying movements to the face, breast and shoulders. The crosses of the worshippers look like reflections of the bishop's gestures. When the bishop withdraws it is quiet and empty for awhile in the

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holy circle, but before long the worshippers again step forward and continue their inner contact with the icons; they kneel humbly, cross themselves, press their lips to the frame of the icon and finally light their candles which emphasizes the byzantine expression of the saints. Most of the worshippers are crowded back of the pillars. I see as many men as women among them, as many young as older people. This last fact is especially remarkable. The friendly faces are in the minority, although this House of God evidently does not evoke sullen expressions either. Most faces show the matter-of-fact look of emigrants, who have given up hope, but have nevertheless retained their belief. When a tall man in an English tweed suit, who has just kissed an icon turns around, I recognize Alexey Vsevolodovitch. He fixes his eyes on me with the cruel, ironic smile so typical for Russians of all political opinions. It seems to me that it is not the place for two former habitués of Montparnasse to meet again. Once more I assume the role of an apparition, I look with glassy inhuman eyes straight before me. He hesitates a moment and then continues his journey along the wall of icons with the long slender wax candles in his hand. A feeling of pity rises in me, he is probably an extremely lonesome man.

The Russians are closer to the young nations than the West Europeans. Of that I am certain. Probably because they, likewise, have achieved no more equilibrium. Marxism is for them a means of enforcing self-discipline. If they only enforce self-restraint, then discipline will, without a doubt, be missing. The result can then become a very sad affair indeed. With their bad conscience they will drive many of the younger nations to ruin. I think of the parable that Dostoyevsky used as motto for Demons: ‘Then went the devils out of the man, and entered

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into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.’ (St. Luke 8, 32-36).

18.6.1956.

A walk in the afternoon along the Grand'Rue. Full of charm. Jewelers, antique shops, book shops and intimate restaurants. We have been inside various shops and had rubies, emeralds and topazes shown to us. The jewelers sized us up out of the corners of their eyes, asking themselves if we could mean serious business. It all depends on what one understands by that. The emeralds especially were of a gorgeous depth, like some strips of sea on a tropical coast. The nearer to the cathedral you come the more pious the book shops, at least to judge from the windows. Various shops specialize in existential-theological works. Atheistic existentialism does not find much favour in the Grand'Rue. Heidegger and Sartre had better not try anything here, they would be put out immediately. Thus all the more demand for Christian existentialism. Take this book shop for example: three rows of Calvin, the same work in twenty languages. ‘Institutio Religionis Christianae’. The English translation is called ‘Introduction to Christian Religion’. I remember the last words of Calvin: Praised be God. Two rows of Karl Barth. I have been told recently that personalistic socialism did not originate with Denis de Rougemont, as is generally believed in some countries, but with Karl Barth. I shall probably never read Karl Barth, Protestant theologians give me the ‘creeps’ or simply migraine. With the exception of Søren Kierkegaard, who is also abundantly represented here. In 1922 Louis Dugas wrote a book of which the title alone justifies publication: ‘Les Grands Timides’. Among these he counts Jean Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin

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Constant, Stendhal, Chateaubriand, Mérimée. He has evidently limited himself to French authors, otherwise Kierkegaard would have fitted excellently in this group. In his method of seduction he uses all the suavities of feigned timidity, other kinds of seducers use other means. Ask the Italian Casanova (biological excitation), the Andalusian Don Juan (the humbug of passion), the Frenchman Valmont (intrigues of perfidie et féerie), the English use the Platonic prescription. For Plato, Plato paves the way.

The musings before a window full of existential-theological works is broken by a fine drizzle. I look at my watch; it is 7 o'clock. Praised be God! We take refuge in the restaurant Plat d'Argent that advertises itself as having been established in the 17th century. It is a specimen of the restaurant de pôche, in which the limited space can offer as well intimacy as closeness.

The Swiss evidently like these small, crowded eating houses, the chalets ‘Petite Suisse’ in other parts of the world are also of this genre. I have a certain fear of them, I suffer at times from claustrophobia. Nevertheless it is very cozy to-night. The guests are mostly middle-aged (for the middle-aged who seek their diversions outside the home, as the advertisements might put it). They do not bother about others. A contrast to the meddlesomeness which makes cafés in Dutch towns insupportable places. The guests this evening are only concerned with themselves. I am an exception in this case, I have caught many bad habits from the Dutch: I listen to those around me and can follow various conversations. The Swiss are talking about the shopping they have done; about a new pastor, who, up to now, has shown his good sides, in his sermons as well as in his sick visits; still he must be watched, his youth warrants

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that, after all youth is the time of capriciousness and sin: again and again the conversation turns to a city-councillor who is disappointing because of his insolence and instability, he seems to press towards friendship with the Russian satelites. ‘And between you and me’, the speaker bends forward with his hand before his mouth. He whispers, but I understand him clearly. He whispers, translated in English: ‘Between you and me and let it go no further, perhaps he has got syphilis’. A few tables away on the other side is sitting the journalist of the better classes whom I have already seen in the Salle des Pas Perdus, also this time accompanied by the woman with the two faces of Picasso. He himself has a Dutch face with ears that stand out and a slightly oriental profile. Dutch families owe a large part of their fortunes to the former Dutch East Indies and the West (meaning Surinam), their race mixture comes from these countries and not from the armies of Alva. Recently I made the acquaintance of a certain baroness of the languorous type; I would not come from the West if I could not recognize the race mixture at once. Something of the kind is meant when one hears about the ‘taint’ in a certain family in the Hague. How shocking, this family seems to have negro blood. Dear me, how will the Dutch patriciate get over such a blot. I tell you the revolution is near at hand, very near. How could it be otherwise. Negro blood in Dutch veins!

The journalist of good family must have done a service for the French at some time or other, he wears the ‘bouton’ of the Legion d'Honneur in his lapel. Though possibly it is only the replica of a real poppy-bud. At this moment he is reading the ‘Neue Zürcher Zeitung’ to his friend. It must be an old paper for he is reading about Eden's statement given at Norwich, concerning the conflict in Cyprus. He seems to be amused

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with the English premier as well as with the German language. He imitates the hissing Prussian accent. I remember one of the last times I was with Menno Ter Braak. It was at the Italian restaurant Chez Eliza in the Hague. It must have been in April 1940, a few weeks before the German invasion. The restaurant seemed to be graced chiefly with a German dientele that evening. This highly irritated Ter Braak. Then he began imitating the Prussian accent, as the superjournalist is now doing. I can follow him word for word: ‘Der Premier Minister erklärte weiter, es sei schon oft angeregt worden eine Nato basis auf griechischem Boden sollte für die britischen Bedürfnisse genügen... (unable to understand the next words)... Dem sei aber nicht so (repeated three times with undue emphasis on “dem”)... Das Wohlergehen des Vereinigten Königreiches und des jenigen Westeuropas hängt heute ab von der Versorgung mit Oel aus dem mitteren Osten...’

The critical face of his partner is doomed to silence, the admiring one comes to life. Now the journalist has put the paper aside. He has started another subject. I cannot follow him, he is speaking with his mouth practically closed, while he is munching small pieces of bread between two courses. He is speaking in a muffled tone. It must be a dreadful subject. His friend becomes more and more critical. Finally she shows only one face. She observes her companion with a mounting astonishment that borders on antagonism. What subject has the super journalist now touched on? Formerly I could also hear whispering. Whisperings in the evening breeze were child's play, for me. I am growing older, my hair is getting grey, sorrow clouds my mental faculties, the sharpness of my hearing has diminished. What is the journalist with the poppy bud in his lapel saying? It dawns on me. He can no longer

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contain himself. From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. He has turned to the Royal crisis. That will be the beginning of the end for him. Look out my good fellow. To-night you will find yourself out in the cold!

19.6.1956.

Periodic annual meetings show a similarity of aspect every year anew, which is also true of the I.L.O. Conferences. Every year the problems of working conditions and labour relations are discussed again. Labour relations in the broadest sense: relations between the State on the one hand and employers' and workers' organizations on the other; relations between labour and management and further, relations between man and machine. These discussions take place every year but every Conference has its own stamp, its specialité, that which distinguishes it from all the former years and from those to come. It is interrupted by an international conflict or a certain controversy assumes dimensions which are out of all proportion, or a particular event - an attempt at murder is committed on the chairman or secretary of the Conference - demands special attention. It is not yet certain whether this conference will end without a spectacular event, but I would be willing to assert that the 39th Conference of the International Labour Organization will remain known chiefly for its discussions in connection with the Mc Nair Report. Though here they are not called discussions, but exchange of views. Controversial associations are avoided as much as possible in controversial situations.

The Mc Nair Report is called in full ‘Report of the Committee on freedom of employers' and workers' organizations from government's domination and control’. The whole

[p. 88]

problem is included in this formula. The International Labour Organization is governed by two principles, the principle of universality and the principle of tripartism. Universality can be traced throughout the history of the I.L.O. since it was established in 1919; it is a principle which stresses the desirability of the widest possible participation of all countries as members, irrespective of their constitutional structure. The only delegate, the Dutch employers' representative Mr. Fennema (faithful advocate of the genre Walline, in his turn faithful advocate of the snippy Snedden), who doubts this, has only shown that he is not very well informed on the history of the I.L.O. Tripartism, which is set down in so many words in art. 3 of the I.L.O. Constitution, holds that the member states shall participate according to the tripartite system, in other words, they shall send not only governmental delegates and their advisers but also employers' and workpeoples' delegates with their respective advisers, although a certain preponderance is given the governments since they are entitled to nominate two delegates, both with a right of vote as against one delegate for employers and one for workpeople each. One can only praise this principle to which, according to authorities on labour law, the I.L.O. owes its survival from the chaos of the second world war. It cannot be too highly valued. We are now faced with the problem whether these progressive principles are still pertinent to this organization, thus we are faced with an immense problem. In recent years i.e. since the admittance of the U.R.S.S. to the Organization (1954), the question has arisen, from which certain employers are chiefly tormented as by a creeping ailment, the predominant question, whether the tripartite system can be considered as operative for countries where the employers and workpeople cannot be

[p. 89]

regarded as being free from state control. State control, it is among the phrases that in this connection is ‘gelassen ausgesprochen’, that is to say, in which not everyone understands the same thing. What is the difference between Stalin and Lieftinck or Krushchev and Van de Kieft, between state communism and socialism. The difference is clear enough prima facie, but how must the definition sound à tête reposée. Before forming an opinion about the tripartite principle under the present circumstances, another question should be answered, namely, what are the forms of state control existing at the present time. For this we have called upon Mr. Mc Nair, among others. To find an answer to the vexed question stated above, the Governing Body of this organization appointed a committee composed of three wise men who were required to prepare a report to be submitted to them at the earliest possible date. The three wise men to whom this request was made at the 128th Session of the Governing Body in March 1955 are: Sir Arnold D. Mc Nair, in the meantime promoted to Lord Mc Nair, former President of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, former member of the Committee on the Application of International Labour Conventions; Senor don Pedro de Alba (without any resemblance or relationship to the ‘iron duke’), former President of the Senate of Mexico, and former representative of the Government of Mexico in the Governing Body of the International Labour Office; Mr. Justice A.R. Cornelius, Judge of the Federal Court of Pakistan, known for his capability and integrity, both of which qualities are always loudly acclaimed and always earnestly mistrusted. Lord Mc Nair was appointed chairman of this committee, for which reason the report, which has now been submitted to the Conference is called, in short, the Mc Nair Report. Thus, it is a

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report concerning the freedom of employers' and workers' organizations from governmental control. The committee worked with exemplary speed and, during three sessions within the course of a year, carried out its task. The first session, held in Geneva in July 1955, should be regarded as the chief one, since then the decision was made as to the procedure to be adopted in preparing this report. It was in the first place seen to be impracticable to undertake an on-the-spot inquiry, not only because of the time available but because an on-the-spot inquiry would be highly dependant, in certain cases even predominantly dependant, on authorities on-the-spot. Equally, it was deemed impossible to undertake a full-scale examination based on the evidence from any source whatsoever; such an inquiry would mean a labyrinth which, in as far as it is traversable for the learned investigators would, in any case, offer no escape to the less learned delegates.

The report was based on information from the following three sources:

1)	official information already obtained by the International Labour Office,
2)	further information to be supplied by the governments of member states,
3)	opinions offered by the most representative employers' and workers' organizations.

Concerning state participation, the committee has, in the main, divided its analysis into two groups of governmental activities.

I. The committee names inter alia the following governmental activities in connection with industry.

a)	industry is a concession which is granted under certain conditions,

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b)	the administration of the industry is wholly or for a part in governmental hands,
c)	the industry forms part of a welfare plan under supervision of the governmental department related to it,
d)	the industry forms a part of state possessions, in capitalistic countries through shareholding, in communistic countries through the socialization of the instruments and means of production.

II. A second form of participation is determined by the relationship of the state towards the employers' and workers' organizations. Herewith the freedom of association, thus also the right of labour unions to organize, should be considered; the provisions for registration of these organizations; governmental intervention in electing committee functionaries; the forms of arbitration in labour disputes and finally, the regulation of collective labour conventions and the existence or non existence of a prohibition on strikes and lock-outs in the different countries belonging to the International Labour Organization.

The second and third sessions were held respectively in London in September 1955 and in January and February 1956 (at an unnamed place).

The exchange of views about the report took place on the 14th and 15th of this month at the plenary sitting, an exchange of views, which brought only disappointment for most people. According to some because the delegates did not have sufficient time to study the document which, together with the appendices, comprises 2000 stenciled pages. According to others, who gave a less favourable opinion of the Conference, because the I.L.O. delegates are degenerating steadily into the ignorant-arrogant-intrigant type of politician and consequently

[p. 92]

will not let themselves be told anything by wise men.

The social conscience goes on speaking, notwithstanding the degenerate delegates. In the lobbies the problems that the three wise gentlemen, among whom a freshly dubbed lord, have raised, are being discussed continually. The exchange of views only becomes lively in the lobbies. See how they orate and perorate. There go the Messrs. Snedden, Walline and Fennema, snippy gentlemen who call themselves employers but who, in reality, are well-dressed, well-spoken employers' defenders with the consummate disdain that usually distinguishes these gentlemen. There go the comrades from behind the iron curtain, Arutiunian, Surguchef and Solovjof, displaying the hefty-legged rancor with which they try to solve weighty problems, to the great amusement of the Genevan demi-monde. Their speciality is to be sought in the cutting of Genevan knots! There go the delegates of India, representatives of hypocrisy, with the floating gestures and injured voices that are so well suited to the narrow-fitting white jodhpurs and long black jackets. I am very lucky. I am now walking next to Mr. Corneille Edoh-Coffi, one of the few people at this Conference for whom you can cherish an unreserved appreciation, apart from the rightness or wrongness of his opinions! Who shall decide about that? And at this perilous moment in the history of the world! Who can allow himself time for that? How can I study documents of 2000 pages if I must also worry about the rightness of opinions in the lobbies? Do not make me laugh! The devil. I prefer to enjoy the company of Monsieur Corneille Edoh-Coffi. He is a thoroughbred bastard. Rather a nice jeu de mot on my part! A thoroughbred bastard! I think that the future of the world will have to flourish on bastards. I have proclaimed this view once before in a light comedy in seven

[p. 93]

dialogues, but permit me to repeat it now in my diary in the solemn serious loneliness of night time. Monsieur Corneille Edoh-Coffi is a choice bastard, a flower among bastards, one has only to listen to the name to realize that. With Corneille, something of the French civilization has been passed on to him, but he lacks all the grimness of the French poet. For that, he is too close to the other part of his name, which still smells of the coffee plantations. He is a small, slender mulatto, with a round face with a thin mustache, that gives something debonair, something fin-de-siècle to his appearance. He comes from Dahomey. I see his native land before me on the map. It lies between Togo and Nigeria below the hump of West Africa. He is one of the technical advisers to the French workers' delegate of the Conference. He is the head secretary of the united railway employees, affiliated to the Federation of Christian Workers in Dahomey. He is proud of his function, that you can see, after all not everyone is the head secretary of a labour organization; you can also see that he doesn't give a hang, after all he is a workers' delegate, who has to rub it in to ‘them’, with the full knowledge that ‘they’ will pay him back if once they get the chance. ‘Did you sleep well, Monsieur Debrot?’ Mr. Edoh-Coffi begins the conversation.

‘No,’ I answer, ‘I have been reflecting on the Mc Nair report the whole night.’

He has to laugh heartily, but becomes serious again at once and gives an extensive argumentation about the exchange of views which have been going on for some days. What strikes me most is that he agrees and at the same time disagrees with everyone. And I must say I have to coincide with this standpoint then and there. I have never yet met anyone who has not been both right and wrong at the same time. That is true of

[p. 94]

philosophers of the Kantian-Hegelian-Sartrian genre but also of politicians of the ignorant-arrogant-intrigant type. It is true of both Chambers of Parliament at The Hague. It is also true of the General assembly in New York or Geneva or at the public party meetings in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.

I listen attentively to the words of my so gracefully mustached friend, who doesn't care a hang. ‘Monsieur Debrot (he pronounces my name with a French accent as if he repeatedly wishes to express his wonder that I should belong to another than the French nation)... Monsieur Debrot... Of course I cannot do otherwise than agree completely with the employers. The Kremlin comrades have concentrated all power in the hands of the party, they have paralyzed the human being. The employers are right, the Kremlin has paralyzed the human being. But fairness demands that we also look at the wrong side of the employers. We must announce it from the roof tops. Mind you! From the roof tops! The employers do not have the interest of the workers at heart. Will you maintain that Monsieur Walline and his kind look after the interest of the workers? A child could not be fooled by it. They look exclusively after their private incomes, their profits, their dividends, their interest, their stocks, their coupon scissors or any other symbol you like. The symbol in this case does not interest me, not in the least. Mind you! Pardon the English that I throw in, it is like that in the colonies and former colonies, English is getting priority, it will become the world language. Tant pis pour nous, Monsieur Debrot... They are shareholders, the employers, even when, for the rest, they can be counted among the decent people. They become vitally dangerous, quite vitally dangerous if one stretches a hand towards their shares. Par exemple, your prime minister, I mean

[p. 95]

the Dutch prime minister in The Hague. A thoroughly decent person, even a socialist! Yet he set loose the police action in Indonesia. Mollet does the same in Algiers, he is also a socialist and a fellow of modest origin without pretensions as well. Take Eden, for example, from better circles but without a doubt not less decent than Mr. Mollet or your prime minister and yet he declares openly that the English oil interests demand that the Cypriots ideal of independance should be nipped in the bud. The employers are vitally dangerous if a hand is laid on their money. However that does not mean that I'll let myself be tempted by the communistic viewpoint, - I'll be damned if I will -, even though they fill all coloured people full of vodka and spread them with caviar (he licks his lips at the thought of these delicacies). The Kremlin comrades are right of course when they assert that their employers, their managers and their workers, despite all of the state control, can make an important contribution to the exchange of views of the International Labour Organization. The problem now is not concerned with the preservation of labour peace, as it was thirty years ago, but with the improvement of labour conditions and relations, which are important in every country. Is there anyone in the world who can deny something so obvious? I know, the world is an insane asylum, but even in an insane asylum this truth is no longer denied (his comparison of society with an insane asylum, where certain truths are no longer denied, seems to amuse him immensely). But as I have already said, I cannot be tempted by the communistic ideology. This ideology emanates trom collectivity and not from the human being. A monstrous idea, a distorted, false doctrine. It is the human being who lives and dies, not collectivity. Collectivity can behave with or without animation, but it is the human

[p. 96]

being who has a soul. In that sense I can agree with Mr. Tripathi of India, who believes that the worker is of prime importance and not the legalistic exchange of views about labour conventions, which may or may not be considered for amendments and ratifications.

Mr. Edoh-Coffi speaks without raising his voice; even when the subject lends itself to that, he does not raise it. An unusual characteristic for a coloured person. He must certainly have practiced to acquire it! The art of understatement, the art of simple words. Instead of raising his voice he starts to beam. Then with his sparse mustache, he looks a little like a sly cat. I like him very much.

I feel I must interrupt him. I once heard a speech by Krishna Menon in New York, one could also say witnessed it. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach regions. Mr. Tripathi also goes far in the way of hypocrisy. I often agree word for word with Mr. Tripathi's opinions, but his gestures and diction simply nauseate me physically (la nausée internationale, I call that nowadays).

‘Monsieur Corneille, pardon Monsieur Edoh-Coffi’ (Corneille is his given name). Bastards frequently have grand first names (Zola, Achille, Rainbow, Nonplusultra...)

He beams: ‘Ça n'a pas aucune importance. Continuez s.v.p....’

‘Well, then, Monsieur Edoh-Coffi, I have no confidence in Mr. Tripathi's words. They are delusions.’

‘I would dislike accusing Mr. Tripathi directly of not having virtuous aims, but still he makes a serious mistake.’

‘I would like to hear from you what that is.’

He strokes his thin mustache with an elegant French gesture, and gives a definition of the Indian delegate's mistake.

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‘The human being is of prime importance and not the worker. The human being is always of prime importance and not a certain capacity of the human being.’

‘We can only help the human being in one of his capacities and not as such,’ I put in.

‘C'est parfaitement exacte. But the last word for the Christian is not to be spoken by the International Labour Organization, but by the Oecumenical Church.’

‘You mean that man cannot be helped by social measures only.’

‘I believe that throughout history religion has been repeatedly misused but I believe that certain answers can only be given by religion.’

‘The answer to the final questions, you mean.’

‘Yes, if only one sees, that the final questions are already contained in the first.’

‘I believe you are right,’ I answer in English, because of a feeling of embarrasment perhaps.

Nevertheless he corrects me: ‘I believe I am quite right’.

I repeat his words, more out of sympathy than that I really share his opinions in all respects: ‘Of course, I believe you are quite right’.

From the distance another colored man of the muscular English type, with multi-colored silk draperies beckons to him. He takes leave of me with a pat on the shoulder: ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Debrot...’ And he smiles, not without shyness, as if he would recommend to me a certain degree of lightheartedness, despite the bitter earnestness of this historic moment.

20.6.1956.

I get off the bus at the square in front of the station

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(Cornavin station). I want to walk on but am stopped. I feel a man in a grey tweed jacket staring at me from the café terrace. I walk up to him.

‘Sit down,’ he says, as if we were still living in Montparnasse anno 1930.

‘With pleasure.’ I answer and sit down on a chair at the round iron table.

I ask what he will have. He takes a glass of milk and asks for some salt with it. I order a beer (demi-blonde).

‘You can play the part of a ghost admirably,’ he laughs in a tone, that sounds very much freer than formerly.

‘Yes,’ I answer, ‘I've learned that with the years. I have had to live in such different countries and move in such different milieus, that I've learned to avoid certain problems and certain people.’

He mimics my voice: ‘Problems and people and not people with their problems’.

I continue: ‘It would take too much time to renew old contacts. I am quite experienced in the rôle of a ghost.’

He laughs: ‘Human contact demands much time and even more energy of the soul’ (literally ‘une forte énergie d'âme’).

He laughs again: ‘Yes, yes, the rôle of ghost. My rôle has more the character of a ghostly nitchevo. I had enough talent to succeed as an artist, but not enough talent to be an artist and a human being at the same time. Therefore I gave up the artist. I am under the impression that, to a certain extent (à un certain degré) I am beginning to succeed as a human being. Life acquires a certain transparency, now I see it from inside, not, as formerly from the outside. I have had to give up my ambition for it. It did not go with me.’

‘Don't you draw any more then?’

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‘Very seldom. And then only to tempt a well-kept or rich lady into my chaste bed.’

‘God will forgive you, no doubt,’ I riposte alluding to our meeting in the miniature basilica (église de pôche). He does not laugh. It is without the slightest sign of cynicism that he ends the conversation: ‘Why should God bother about our idiosyncrasies. He judges us according to our transparency.’

I ask him a few questions about the surroundings of Geneva. He can tell me precisely the visiting hours of the various places worth seeing.

Finally we sit before empty glasses. We take leave of one another.

‘Shall we make another appointment,’ I suggest.

‘Let's leave it to chance,’ he answers.

‘Do svidánya, Alexey Vsevolodovitch.’

‘Do svidánya, Nikolai Ivanovitch.’

He is the only person who ever called me by this name.

21.6.1956.

It was in the columns of one of the many newspapers I devour, that I accidentally learned of the existence of Louis Dugas' book about the ‘Grands Timides’. There is an advantage in reading more newspapers than is strictly necessary. I asked immediately at a book shop about the advent of Dugas' book. The pretty sales girl with her Houbigant scent, told me that it was published in 1922, that it had already been sold out for some time and, as all really good books, was not being considered for reprinting (she smiled and with it the exhalation of Houbigant scent increased), but offered to make an effort to procure the book for me second hand. In so much Houbigant scent I could hardly do otherwise than show my mischievous

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side, for which reason I remarked subtly, that I was not yet at the second hand phase but that I still moved under the sign of ‘Vient de paraître’, of ‘Virgo’.

On the street I murmured a few lines of Apollinaire ‘tendre comme le souvenir’.

Tandis que nous n'y sommes pas
les jeunes filles deviennent belles -

Between us, I do not need Dugas' book at all. I know more than enough about it. It is among the books that derive their raison d'être already from their titles. Les grands timides! I would like to say ‘Victims of Diffidence’, a nice, but quite incorrect translation. The artists who are dominated by timidity are not, by a long way, all victims of diffidence. I know still more about Dugas' book, the literary chronicler also told in passing, that it was concerned with the following authors: Jean Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Constant, Stendhal, Chateaubriand and Mérimée. If the intention was to keep to French literature, then the choice could not have been better. Also the sequence deserves praise! Jean Jacques is the only victim of diffidence, the other four found their way through it. Jean Jacques could be called the ‘victime’, the other four the ‘débrouillards’ of diffidence.

You can be respected as a capable bank director or as an accomplished burglar and lack every kind of diffidence, shyness, bashfullness, to be short, timidity, but you cannot be an artist without knowing something of these. Every artist knows diffidence but not every artist is dominated by it. The diffident person has more annoyance from a split personality than his happier brothers, he exists of two persons: the one who acts, and the other who looks on, with the necessary lucidity. The

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one who acts does not need to be afflicted with histrionic qualities at all but generally he shows dramatic or spectacular traits. Rousseau is a world reformer, Chateaubriand is a shield-bearer of Christianity, Stendhal is an impassioned lover, Mérimée has gone in for adventure and Benjamin Constant is among the individuals who are always tied up in a knot. Another peculiarity of the timid person is, that the actor reacts on the spectator, who sees through the dramatic qualities of his double self, by using all means at his disposal to mask his real nature. Just look into the history of the timid ones and very soon you will be aware of two unusual talents; a sharp, psychological intuition and alongside it, an unusual talent for mystification.

Dugas' choice is excellent, and also his sequence, at least if it is arranged according to the seriousness of the case. The victim always comes first, when he has once made the sacrifice of his life. Mérimée is, without a doubt, the most social among these five. His polished style, with a tendency for understatement which borders on frigidity, betrays directly the diffident person, but his is not a serious case; he lives in the adventurous sphere of vendetta, banderilla and tarantella, where there is plenty of dagger stabbing, but none that reaches Monsieur Mérimée's own heart. He is a capable chairman of a committee for the care of monuments, in any case he has safeguarded himself. With Chateaubriand it is quite different. He is the prototype of the ‘timide réactionaire’, he masks his real nature, that of an extremely sensitive half religious, half aesthetic personality not by understatement of the tempered word, but by weightiness: overstatement of the legitimistic dogmas and doctrines. Stendhal is in many respects the opposite of Chateaubriand, he represents the most lovable expression

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of the most lovable emotion. He is preeminently the man of the simple word. He did not cultivate the frigidity of his friend Mérimée, he lacked the opressiveness of departmental officials and had a predilection for the laxity of morals and warmth of heart, which he believed especially to have found in his second fatherland, Italy. He is, in any case, far from being a victim of timidity. The actor does not let himself be paralyzed, by the spectator.

The real tragedy of timidity begins with Benjamin Constant, the well known Swiss who, as is known, was not very proud of being Swiss. There are many passages in his diaries, letters and novels (Adolphe and Cécile) that offer proof, that the actor in this photophobic albino was mesmerized by the look of his double self, which restrained him from certain actions but which, through his hysterical short-circuits also incited him to the exageration of other actions. There are moments in Constant's life, that only crop up in serious cases of timidity. Examples of these monstrous short-circuits are the suicidal attempts in Paris and at the castle of Mézery with the aim of capturing the love respectively of Mlle Pourat and Mme de Stael. In the second case he succeeded too! He was, no doubt, not lacking in certain scampish qualities which are so highly regarded by certain ladies of the higher circles.

‘Throw the fellow out of the window,’ is how the Count de Montmorency seems to have reacted when told in the silence of midnight about the love-struck intellectual's attempt at suicide.

The real tragedy of timidity, with all of its profoundly sad consequences takes place with Rousseau, le pauvre Jean Jacques. In certain biographies about Jean Jacques Rousseau a sharp line of division is drawn between the period of ‘La Nouvelle Héloise’, ‘Le Contrat Social’ and ‘Emile’ and the

[p. 103]

period in which the ‘Confessions’ were written. This line of division certainly exists but it is less essential and also less pathological than is generally represented. In all of Rousseau's works an effort to create a harmonious unity between his personal longings and social duties can be seen. In the first three here mentioned he was able to mask the radical element from his longings by moderating the revolutionary element (by mitigating it, as we would now say). That happens in the ‘Nouvelle Héloise’, where he pretends to accept the marriage laws of the eighteenth century. It happens in ‘Emile’, where, after all, he also preaches a stoicism which should even be prepared to accept the ‘lettres de cachets’, and in the ‘Contrat Social’, where the doctrine of freedom, which should be given up for the sake of gaining a still loftier freedom keeps a back door open for the despotism of Versailles. In this respect the ‘Confessions’ form a drastic contrast to the works which were written before the ‘Lettre de la Montagne’. The ‘Confessions’ should be read as a novel that deals with the complot of Voltaire and his kind against J.J. Rousseau, or better still, the world of the eighteenth century against the day-dream, castle-building world of Rousseau. The ‘Confessions’, read in the only manner that it should be read, thus as a novel, appears to be nothing less than the French eighteenth century precursor of Kafka's ‘Process’. The events of 1789 proved Rousseau to have been right: these two worlds, the eighteenth century of Voltaire and the dream world of Rousseau, could not be considered for peaceful co-existence.

In the Netherlands the timid type is rare. Holland is not a country of timidity, but of intimacy. The fatherland of timidity must be sought in Switzerland. It might be identical with la Suisse Romande.

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22.6.1956.

In the ‘Mémoires d'un Touriste’, procurable at the moment in an inexpensive edition of Calman Levy, Stendhal wrote as follows about Jean Jacques Rousseau:

At last it is given me to see this beautiful lake again, so vast, so magnificently enclosed by its surroundings. The ideas it awakens in you are less pondrous, less sublime perhaps, but more tender than those of the real sea. It was Rousseau who gave his lake its reputation, and this great man is still misprized or depreciated in most of the lovely villages I can see on its shores in the distance. In Savoy they ignore even his name. In the Swiss villages he is reviled every day, and I am glad for him. In the interest of this great man who is dead, it is better that he is despised. The more unjust the feelings toward him, the longer his fame will endure. The name of Macchiavelli will probably last longer than that of Montesquieu, though their merits were equal; but Macchiavelli has to his advantage the furious hatred of the rascals, whom Montesquieu took the trouble to manage. Besides that Montesquieu died a rich man while the other died in extreme poverty.

As always in Geneva, I begin with going to the Promenade Saint Antoine for a view of the lake. From there I wander through the town and before calling for my letters and attending to my affairs, I visit the house where Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in 1712. It has recently been restored; it looks now like one of the six-story buildings which are of late marring the beauty of Paris. But I am consoled with the thought that I have so often been in the little room with the projecting beams, where Jean Jacques Rousseau was born. Once I found living in it a poor watchmaker, who had the

[p. 105]

complete works of Rousseau in a bad edition and who had understood the contents. We talked for an hour about the ‘Contrat Social’, the principle merit of which, according to me, is to be found in its title. In general, you could say, the workers in Geneva can follow a kind of reasoning, which in France would seem far beyond the scope of their class; but on the other hand, they would never show so much enthusiasm for the ‘Gamin de Paris’ or for the admirable Bouffé, as the young workers who sit in the cheap seats of the ‘Gymnase’ do. To foreigners, especially foreigners of the better classes, the Genevan workers are a source of annoyance: they are never obsequious.

I go to pay my respects to the statue of Rousseau on the little island, half way across the new bridge. It is the first time I see it; all honour to Mr. Pradier, Genevan sculptor! He has eyes for the antique but he also has eyes for nature; among the contemporary sculptors, he is the man who can best make a leg or an arm. If his statues should be broken in pieces and buried and found as fragments one day, it would be difficult to know what century they belonged to, but they would find a place of honour in some museum or other.

The statue of ‘Jean Jacques’, as the people of Geneva call him, is about eight feet high. The head is very impressing and seen from the front the whole figure is effective. Jean Jacques sits facing the lake that was so dear to him. How happy it would have made him to know that once a statue of him would be erected in his fatherland, that he believed so ungrateful, and that it would be placed where it was!

Rousseau is seated, with a pencil in his hand; he is absorbed in some thought that he is on the point of writing down; in his left hand he holds a tablet which rests on his knee. His

[p. 106]

attitude, inspired by the ‘Confessions’, is that of a man who has jumped out of his bed to write down an idea which is tormenting him. The top part of the figure is barely covered by a shirt. The pedestal was only completed recently. They used for it one of those enormous blocks of granite, washed down by the waters from the near-by Alps, from where, exactly, no one knows; polished and shining, it is of a pleasant grey tone.

While I stood considering this statue, a passer-by stopped; I started a conversation with him.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘on the 28th of June there was a celebration for Jean Jacques, the anniversary of his birth-day. It was a fête for the children; it began with a procession of about two thousand boys and girls, who paraded before the house where he was born. Afterwards they walked down to the lake and came here where they placed the flowers they had been carrying at the foot of the statue. You can imagine, Monsieur, that this fête was not organized by the government though they put no obstacle in its way; this year they even authorized three companies of the national militia to accompany the immense file of two thousand children! It goes without saying that among them were no children belonging to those “messieurs du haut” (as the wealthy people who reside at the top of the town on and near the Promenade de la Treille are called). It is the simple folk who celebrate the anniversary of the man who makes our fatherland famous.

None belonging to the elite who reside on the Promenade de la Treille can have much liking for this great man, though they are careful not to show it openly. The simple folk, who know the attitude of these people, honour Rousseau especially to show that they do not partake of these feelings!

After taking leave of this good man, a worker who had

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apparently risen in the world, I took a ferry boat and with the stub of a pencil, wrote down his words, which I have just given literally. I appreciate this recital far more than all those I have heard at official dinners.’

So much for Stendhal. The tourist of to day should also make a pilgrimage to the statue of Rousseau on the tiny island, now called l'Isle de Jean Jacques Rousseau. Further information can be found in the Guide Bleu.

23.6.1956.

We have come to the final phase of the work assigned to the Committee on the Application of the Conventions and Recommendations of the International Labour Organization, called briefly Committee for the Conventions and Recommendations. I participate in this Committee as a member of the delegation of the Netherlands government and have therefore been present at the greater part of the fourteen sittings which are mostly held in the morning though a few times are continued through the whole day. At the present time I have not the slightest objection to these humdrum jobs; the proposals of the ‘maîtres de plaisir’, to take a boat cruise on the lake in the company of a hundred persons, a bus trip to the snowy flanks of the Alps or a slightly tipsy visit to the night clubs seem to me, if that is possible, still more humdrum. Well, then, the Committee for Conventions and Recommendations. This Committee was set up in accordance with article 7 of the Standing Orders of the Conference, to consider and report on item III of its agenda, which reads: ‘Information and Reports on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations’.

The work undertaken by this Committee was prepared

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previously by a Committee of Experts. Without this it would have been next to impossible for a Committee of more or less quick-tempered politicians to complete the work satisfactorily, especially if one takes into account the pronounced nihilistic, in some cases even destructive, character of a large number of present-day statesmen. What was it Richard III said? Macchiavelli is certainly an angel compared to many of these gentlemen.

Most of the committee rooms in the Palais des Nations are darker than would be expected in this month, possibly because it is a cold, rainy summer. The climate of Geneva is only attractive in sunny weather; when the clouds are low, one comes directly into contact with the icy flanks of the Mont Blanc. Especially the representatives from the Overseas Territories walk around shivering visibly. Room XIV where our Committee gathers is among the darkest in the building, it is situated in the basement. You can visualize such a room as follows: a long oblong space with in the middle, three rows of tables running parallel to each other; between the rows of tables the necessary aisles are left open for passage. In the middle row sit the Government representatives. The row to the right (right as seen from the Officers' table, which is placed in front of the room at right angles to the three tables of the delegates) is occupied by the employers and the row to the left by the workpeople. The officers' table is on a slightly raised platform, separated from the committee members by a balustered gate. The purpose of this gate could hardly be fathomed by the greatest philosopher after the deepest reflection, unless it might be to symbolize the objectivity of the officers and the desire not to be bound by any ‘rules of the game’ on the part of the Committee members. Behind the raised platform, at a

[p. 109]

still higher level are five closed glass cells, where some ladies with ear phones are acting rather showily and, to the naked eye, look as if they are talking inaudibly; it brings to mind a ‘red-light district’, but they are the simultaneous interpreters who ornament international conferences. In this Committee translations are made in five languages: French, English, Spanish, German and Russian. It is a pleasant diversion to follow the actions of these simultaneous interpreters behind the glass; they are mostly in couples. The work requires such mental exertion that it can only be carried on for a few minutes at a time, they must continually relieve each other. It is remarkable how many smart women are to be found among the simultaneous interpreters, physically smart I mean, but there are also the less smart kind among them, the so-so kind, destined for a modest middle-class marriage, and also a few monstrously ugly ones who, strangely enough, mirabile dictu I mean in latin, exercise an extraordinary attraction on the clergymen or former clergymen among the delegates. This is a specialty of ugly women, but then they must be monstrously ugly. It has always surprised me that a thesis has never been written on this subject; I shall mention it to Dr. van Lennep, professor of psychology in Utrecht. He is always interested in bringing up something out of the ordinary (I jot it down in my notebook but of course, won't be able to find it after a couple of days).

In the back of the room is a public gallery, also separated from the members by a railing which, in this case, does not lack significance. The gallery is mostly not very full. A few professors of international law; a few stray visitors who stare there eyes out; a few ladies who enjoy the big performances of their husbands and other bed-fellows. Between the railing and the delegates' seats a space is left open for tables with

[p. 110]

documents and some young women with existential hairdos and pert, pointed nipples, who are given charge of the documents which may be of use during these discussions, full of pinches and jams.

Rêvons toujours, ça coûte rien,
le bout d'un téton dans les dents -

At the officers' table sits the chairman, Mr. Bar-Niv, Government delegate of Israel, a small, pale intellectual who does not have much difficulty in conducting the sittings, he is clearly a man of experience who, during the pauses reflects on the problems of his country, not only the problems of the Middle-East but also the conflicts between the Zionists, who beckon all Jews to Palestine and the Judaists, who advise all Jews against such a serious step. At his left sits Mr. Posteraro, Italian delegate, who was chosen as reporter, a slender, poetical man who also follows the discussion with ease and when it breaks off, continues reading a book which seems to interest him greatly. During one of the pauses I cannot resist asking him the title of the book.

‘Il Diavolo’ of Giovanni Papini.

‘A suitable book for these surroundings’, I remark.

‘It has been placed on the index’, Signor Posteraro assures me, very proud that he does not favor sentimental-conventional authors.

‘On the index?’ I ask, ‘and I thought that Mr. Papini was in the good graces of the Holy Office.’

‘That was so formerly, but since the publication of “Il Diavolo” he is regarded as extremely dangerous...’

‘...and so he placed on the index.’

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Signor Posteraro looks at me with large sad eyes: ‘Giovanni Papini wants to convert the devil...’

‘...and the church believes that the fallen angel must burn for all eternity.’

Our conversation is broken off. This is not a place for poetical confidences.

On the right side of the chairman, Mr. Bar-Niv of Israel, sit the functionaries of the Labour Bureau, to help the officers and the committee. They include the representative of the Director General, assisted by the political and juridical secretaries. The political secretary is an ‘ever-smiling’ American who seeks a compromise under all circumstances, the juridical secretary, on the contrary, a serious young French intellectual, will not budge an inch from his ground. The representative of the Director General is an over-burdened Greek, who closes his eyes (literally, probably not figuratively) when the tragedy of the Cypriots is mentioned. The ability of these gentlemen is only equalled by their modesty. The Committee tables are occupied, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, by persons, whose aim seems to be to remain unnoticed. Circumstances, however, do not always permit this. If I close my eyes, the following persons stand out predominantly.

At the table of the Government Group. The Belgian member, of the blond, thick-set type, in whom the physical force of the countryman (West Flemish peasant) is blended with the byzantine bel-esprit of the intellectual; he has a tendency to give the discussions a ‘prolongement juridique’ or ‘philosophique’; a redhaired Englishman, who hides behind his Oxford accent, his thick glasses and his luxuriant beard; a Frenchman, who lacks many good qualities of the French, answers unintelligibly, teeters back and forth as though he were still in

[p. 112]

Kindergarten; a negro from Liberia, with his long, religious-shaped head clean shaven, who laughs at his own words; a stout lady from behind the Iron Curtain (I believe from Rumania), who reads long typed, common-place declarations in a quick tempo; Iberian representatives, who clothe distorted opinions in beautifully classical phrases; and lastly, the Dutch representative, an Antillian with sea-green eyes, whose expression varies between that of the attentive reporter and of the patient, who suffers from ideologic or neuralgic pains.

The Workpeople's Group is dominated by five persons, who are also five personalities. Mr. Cool, a heavy-set Belgian, of the union boss type, who interrupts at once, with his smooth-tongued, Flemish-toned French when the Government representatives try to evade the main issue with complicated trivialities (les balivernes). A Frenchman, with pronounced juridical talents, whose help is called in when the gentlemen try to screen themselves behind a legalistic net-work. Then we have a Brazilian representative, who turns Iberian phrases into plain language, after which all comments are superfluous. Monsieur Edoh-Coffi is also among the workers' group in this committee. He sits smiling into space, he had grown a silky beard for a few days; now that this has fallen under the gillette guillotine he contents himself with stroking his mustache. He is continually on the point of bursting into laughter at so much open insincerity on the part of the Government representatives. A little further away sits a negro with hollow temples, hollow cheeks, and long fingers that bend too far backwards when he supports his weary head. This weary negro has turned out to be the dread of the gentlemen of the Government delegations, though he only makes a very modest request of the chairman. ‘Mr. Chairman, I would be very much obliged if the Govern-

[p. 113]

ment representative of...... would be so kind as to repeat his last statement.’ Even for the most malafide official it seems to be awkward to repeat bold inaccuracies. One cannot become so hardened as not to retain something of childhood innocence.

The employers' group is represented practically by only one person, Mr. Bellingham Smith of the English employers' group. He is a personality such as one seldom finds at the Conference, especially in the circle of employers. He is an intelligent, lucid man, free from disdain and every other form of superficiallity. During the discussions he gave the Dominican delegate an unforgettably acrid quarter of an hour. Given in broad lines, the discussions proceeded as follows: First came the general debate which seemed to point to a general reconciliation. The various speakers pay a tribute to the Committee of Experts for the conscientious and painstaking work carried out by it which alone enabled this Committee to discharge its task in the comparatively short period of time at its disposal. To give only one example, it is no trivial task to study some 4,000 reports from the most widespread parts of the globe and to pick from these the salient, otherwise delicate, otherwise thorny points, to put before the Committee for deliberation. After this, again in a harmonious sphere (there is still not a trace of discord in the air), thanks is expressed for the help and assistance given by the International Labour Office which is already so over-taxed with administrative work. Especial mention is made in this connection of the fact that the office had found it possible this year to despatch typescript documents to the Governments at a comparatively early date, thus enabling them to study these far in advance of the opening of the session. The employers' group points out the importance of the participation of employers' and workers' organizations in the work of

[p. 114]

the I.L.O. It is remembered that the Constitution requires governments to communicate to these representative organizations copies of the information and reports which they submit to the Director General of the International Labour Office. Mr. Cool is already raising his large Flemish index finger with a warning gesture to call the attention of the government delegates to the existence of Art. 23 Par. 2 of the I.L.O. Constitution. Mr. Bellingham Smith joins the warning and at the same time points out the absurdity of countries which ratify conventions but do not bring their national legislation into line with them. The government delegates retreat to a defensive position, mete out abundant praise to the official organizations and offer their special advice for assistance to young underdeveloped countries, by the study of international labour relations, the forming of an efficient method of labour inspection and translations of documents in the language of the country. After these reconnoitering manoevres the general debate was terminated and the special subjects taken up. These discussions are primarily concerned with the following matters:

1)	Reports on ratified conventions.
2)	Reports on ratified conventions in ‘non-metropolitan’ countries. At the present time the term ‘non-metropolitan’ means those countries who do not look after their own foreign affairs (i.e. who have no Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
3)	Discrepencies between international and national legislation.
4)	Participation of the employers' and workers' organizations in the work of the I.L.O.
5)	The submitting of conventions accepted by the Conference to the competent authorities for ratification. For example,

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the conventions would never be ratified by the Netherlands if not first submitted by the Government to Parliament.

6)

The stand-point to be taken by the member-states concerning certain conventions, apart from whether or not they have ratified them, which are of fundamental importance to the harmonious development of labour relations and were especially recommended for this purpose by the preceding session of the Conference. At the present session the stand-point of the member-states as regards the Collective Bargaining Convention (C.A.O.) is being considered as well as the Equal Remuneration Convention.

The discussions chiefly take the form of questions that are put to the Government representatives and information supplied by the latter.

Some excerpts from these discussions may serve as proof for the justification of the I.L.O.'s existence, at least, if one advocates the improvement of labour relations, and that, in the broadest sense.

Examples of evasive answers.

Afghanistan. A Government representative states that the employers' and workers' organizations are in the formative stage, but copies of reports sent to the I.L.O. would be communicated to them, in conformity with art. 23 of the Constitution of the I.L.O. as soon as the organizations had been properly set up (example of an evasive answer of the Asiatic type).

Argentina. The present Government has only been in existence for eight months and was still facing the grave problem of reorganizing the administrative machinery after several years

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of chaos. The Government was fully aware of its international obligations and would do its best to apply the ratified conventions (example of an evasive answer of the South American type).

Examples of erratic answers (answers on an absurd plane).

Columbia. In 1950 a Labour Code was promulgated, the provisions of which are in many ways contrary to those of the Conventions ratified by Columbia in 1933. The question is, what provisions are now being applied. The replies to this question are made by two persons who are heard with a smile of astonishment. The one represents the play-boy type, small, heavy-set and laughing, who can be seen regularly driving about Geneva in a white Packard, the other is an intellectual with suppressed complexes, small, thin and hairy. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Justice had established the priority of international treaties over any internal legislation. De facto the provisions now applied were those of the national legislation. Put concretely: the International Convention no 3: Maternity Protection, provides for twelve weeks leave, the national legislation for eight weeks. The party concerned who is naturally not interested in terminology, has de jure the right to 12 weeks but is adjudged 8 weeks de facto. ‘De facto’ means here ‘in reality’. The play-boy states that owing to political conditions, the legislative assembly has not met for two years, but as soon as it meets once again, the Government would submit to it the modifications which should be made in the Labour Code.

Cuba. Concerning Convention no......: Night work (bakeries). The international and national legislation are in full conformity, night work is prohibited by both. In Havana,

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one of the most luxurious cities in the world, for reasons due to consumers' preferences a practice was established which constituted a violation not only of the Convention but also of the national legislation. The inhabitants of Havana insisted on being served fresh bread for breakfast. The Cuban representative is a tall, thin, slightly bent figure of the Antillian type with a mischievous touch (not malicious but extremely anarchical) who is of the opinion that nothing remains but to denounce the Convention or change the legislation. It would not do for the Government to refuse to comply with the demands of the consumers.

Liberia. The republic of rather black citizens from America has, up to now, ratified just one convention, and that, twenty-five years ago: in 1931, the convention concerning Forced Labour. Now there seems to be serious discrepencies between international and national legislation. An example. In section 1416, paragraph 4, of the Statute of the Republic of Liberia, concessions are granted the Public Works System to call up any male inhabitant between the ages of 16 and 60 years to perform the required work. The Liberian representative with the echo-laugh and long, religious head replies, that this section should be considered obsolete although it had not been repealed, as the government would then be accused by the conservative elements, of revolutionary intentions. Echo-laugh, coming from the distance, as in a dense jungle.

Indonesia. A government representative states that it is unfortunate that his Government had not yet been able to supply the reports in accordance with the provisions of the I.L.O. This was due partly to technical difficulties (a more specific explanation is not given) and partly to a lack of sufficient translators who could translate the texts from English

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into Indonesian. Further, he considers himself obliged to add, that according to the opinion of his Government, the Standard of labour legislation in a given country cannot be measured by the number of reports communicated to the International Labour Bureau by that country. He can assure the Committee that the labour laws in Indonesia were of a high Standard.

In cases with a juridical turn, Prof. William Rappard, professor of the University of Geneva for 25 years, participates in the discussions. When the answers are absurd or insipid, an expression of forlornness bordering on desperation is to be seen on the face of this extremely erudite but also extremely sensitive grey-haired man.

24.6.1956.

Today, for the sake of diversion, though also to complete our acquaintance with the city of Calvin, which is still full of libertine touches, we have ventured into the night life of Geneva. At the Cabaret M. We arrived rather late, attracted chiefly by the head number: Nadja Gamal, former favorite of King Farouk of Egypt. The visitors of the Cabaret M. are seated on the platform built around the dance floor, which also serves as a stage for the performers.

We find ourselves among delegates from the most diverse parts of the globe. To begin with, a dreamy effeminate Latino, greying at the temples, in whom the changing of presence and absence of mind occurs unnoticeably, in the company of a good-looking female simultaneous interpreter of the robust blond Baltic type, known for her mastery of various Slavic and Romanic languages. She has difficulty in keeping her attention fastened to the time and place, she is continually distracted and stares in the distance with her green-blue eyes or turns around

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suddenly; possibly she feels she is being spied upon, possibly she is longing for someone absent or for the impossible. Further there is an Englishman at our table, of the correct, rear-admiral type in mufti, accompanied by a sulky Arabian in dinner-jacket, who looks as if he should be handled with gloves. Then, attracting the general attention, we have with us a vigourous colored man from Nigeria with two frail French exponents of the demi-monde who, each in turn, tries to squeeze an offer of matrimony from their cavalier. Finally there is a gentleman in whom at first, to my surprise, subs. astonishment, subs. dismay, I thought to recognize the Dutch secretary of Social Affairs, but he turns out to be a Scandinavian who talks continuously in a language with an overabundance of vowels (oo's and ö's), though no one takes much trouble to understand him.

The numbers are definitely French in character; in night club jargon ‘existential’ means a mixture of vacant melancholy and absurd drollery. We see three numbers:

1)	a chanteuse, deathly pale in dark mourning clothes. We are involuntarily reminded of Eugene O'Neill's title: ‘Mourning becomes Electra’. Her singing is confined to half-moorish modulations of refrains about the love life in French provincial towns.
2)	a chansonnier in blue jacket somewhat shorter than those of the Paris porters and narrow overalls, deals with the same subject in the hazy-flat tone of Brassens.
3)	Finally Nadja Gamal, the former favorite of Farouk. Her art is confined to the rather helpless danse du ventre of the oriental beauty, the success of which depends on the nakedness and an incipient obesity. Obesitas sexualis. When the dance is over she disappears rapidly in the dressing-rooms,

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shy as a debutante. She was forced to come back by the long applause to receive a bouquet of flowers. The red and white roses of the parc de la Grange.

‘Tiens,’ calls out the simultaneous interpreter suddenly, ‘elle rougit jusqu'aux épaules.’

‘La naiveté et la perversité se touchent,’ I hear someone unknown mumble.

I am intrigued by the expression on the face of the Baltic interpreter, a mixture of wonder and creepiness as if she was watching the sinuous movements of an insect eating jungle flower.

29.6.1956.

Those who do not know better, would think that ‘white nights’ could only be experienced in the extreme North. In Stockholm or Leningrad for example. I also remember ‘white nights’ in Paris. They were strange summer nights, the transition from the light of the late sun to that of the rising moon took place almost imperceptibly. It was on one of those nights that I sat with Alexey Vsevolodovitch on the terrace of the ‘Select’ in Montparnasse. We both had a demi-blonde before us on the round iron table. (His preference for milk and salt must date from a later period). In the unusual light the houses became silhouette-like, as did the pedestrians who passed by the cafés. People and objects exposed long, intimate shadows.

Alexey Vsevolodovitch was also in an intimate mood; but even in intimacy he could not quite loose his tendency towards reserve and objectivity. As to form, they were objective statements, but to judge by the tone, they were more or less sad reflections, you could say requiem reflections, about lives that were forever closed.

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‘There was for example,’ so he began, after he had held the glass to his mouth longer than was necessary for one swallow, ‘there was the Italian painter Modigliani. He came from... Where was it he came from? From one of those jewels of cities, half antique half mediaeval, in Italy. Verona, a small Rome, Venice, with its impressionistic fall of light and its pickpocket mentality. Padua or Assisi, where the drama of St. Francis or Giotto, or of both combined, still goes on. Firenze with the mellow melancholie luxuriousness (he also alliterated in French and spoke of ‘la douce douleur de l'âme damnée’) of Botticelli. Perhaps he came from Ravenna, rich with Byzantine mosaic and world-famed for Dante's grave. Wherever it was he came from, in any case he lived a quiet and respectable life, without bothering about the wonders that surrounded him. He led the existence of an instructor in Italian language and literature, with children during the day, who listen to you with respect and at night your parents who dream by the lamp light of a professorship for their son in Rome or Bologne. Until once for a diversion, to get away from the monotony, he visits Paris and sees the lights for the first time, in which all objects: the women's profiles, the wheels of autos, the spreading ripples of the Seine, become so many wonders. No stronger addiction than that to wonder. He addresses a post card of the Place du Tertre to the head of a high school in Italy and simply states on it that he resigns as instructor in Italian language and literature, beginning with that date. From that day on he lives ‘de l'autre côté de la vie’. He does nothing but paint, drink immoderately, recite the Divina Comedia, with a louder voice to embarrassed passers by, or shout Lombardian songs with roguish touches.

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Chorus of young women

 

dime che grazzia vuoi di me?

 

Chorus of young men

 

una notte dormir con te...

After the news of his death it was as if it had become silent in Montparnasse. The thin Italian who must always be urged to keep quiet was heard no more in the ‘Dome’ and ‘Rotonde’ where he belonged to the boisterous type. Only die silence of Modigliani remained, a silence regularly to be seen at the exhibitions in his portraits of long-necked, slanting-headed women. All that was left of the boisterous artist was the silence. He was the deformation of Botticelli.

‘There was for example,’ he went on, after he had remained silent for awhile and refreshed himself once more with the beer, ‘there was for example, the Russian poet Pushkin. Essencially he did not differ from other poets, he was a vat full of contradictions. He possessed inspiration, he also possessed vitality. It is difficult to say what was predominant with him, inspiration or the thirst for life. Where did he come from? The answer will be given that his parents owned an estate in the province Pskov and that he spent a large part of his youth in Tsarskojeselo. But believe me, that is no answer. Where did he come from? I repeat in the silence of the white nights of Paris. He descended from the old Russian nobility and from the dark-tinted god-child of Czar Peter the Great. This was the conditio sine qua non for a mixture of refinement and barbarity. Where did the refinement come from? From the Ethiopian god-child or from die Russian pedigree? His life was a mixture of vitality and poetical inspiration. In Petersburg he led a dandy's life, with all the capriciousness and artificiality of a

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pampered boy at the age of puberty, though he joins the Decembrists, writes inflammatory verses and is banished to the province of - yes, where was it? In school we had to learn it to the last details! There he was obliged to wear out his life in loneliness, far from Moscow till the reigning monarch, who was it?, comes to his death naturally or by violence, and he is given grace by the new monarch on condition that he will lead an orderly life. Mais il ne se range pas. Les poètes ne se rangent jamais. Ils se dérangent davantage. He becomes ensnared in the charms of the most beautiful debutante of the season - I also knew the date, but let us not persist - he became ensnared in the net or charms of the most beautiful debutante of the season of eighteen hundred and so much in Moscow. In the school books, ‘il s'éprend de Nathalie Gontcharov, la plus belle débutante de Moscow, et son sort est scellé.’ Then he lives in court circles who do not understand his genius and who will not forgive his proud attitude and spirit of independence. He finds himself in the power of the young woman who only dreams of frills and the Viennese waltz. Nathalia did for Pushkin the most awful and the most glorious thing a woman can do for a poet. She made him profoundly unhappy.

His life varied between inspiration and the thirst for life. Voltaire was among his masters, with his frivolity of course, but also with his lucidity. But Lord Byron was also among them, with his melancholy in seven, if not more, nuances. Lightness and melancholy unite themselves in a grace, such as we do not know in any other author. The zenith of his art fell simultaneously with the nadir of his thirst for life. It would be too much to maintain that he was disgusted with Nathalia Gontcharov and the court circles. It is a law of good taste to

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remain courteous in the white nights. The zenith of art is achieved where no vital successes, no biological-vital and no social-vital ones are achieved. That was the pitiful and still beautiful life of Pushkin ‘le rejeton d'une antique familie noble au blason dédoré et le filleul éthiopien de Pierre le Grand...’

‘There was for example,’ Alexey went on with his story, while he pressed the empty glass to his forehead, as if to cool the feverish gnawing thoughts: ‘there was for example Anna Alexeyevna. I do not care at all where this feminine figure came from. Don't be afraid Anna Alexeyevna, I will not betray your secret. Anna Alexeyevna looked most like one of Modigliani's portraits of women, thin, long-necked with slanting head. Those who were familiar with Italian museums thought of a deformation of Botticelli. It was in the summer of 1914. It must even have been in August of that year. She stood just in front of the windows of the country estate, which was two hundred versts from Moscow, and stared outside. There is not much to see in Russia when you stare outside. Field, steppe, a few fir and birch woods. In the sky migrating birds. What kind of birds? That was also in the school books. Anna Alexeyevna waited the return of autumn, when she would return to Moscow again. Theaters, suppers, men's eyes, salons lined with mirrors, champagne that rocks to and fro in the glasses, and the salty taste of the granular caviar deep in your throat. Autumn returned but Anna remained two hundred versts from Moscow, war had broken out. The plans had to be deferred again, as they already had been once before because of her mother's death. Anna Alexeyevna passed the time thinking about the suitors who had sued for her hand. It became more and more silent on the estate. Her father, a general, had left for the Russian front. Her elder brother Vassily belonged to

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an army unit in the Carpathians. Her younger brother Sergey, so lively and hearty, was arrested, on suspicion of subversive actions. Anna wandered through the empty rooms and stood before the windows. The morning and evening sun kissed the horizon directly and circuitously felt its way also to the birchwood, the fields and the steppes. She mused on the suitors. The one was of high nobility, but not richly blessed with worldly goods, “d'une antique familie noble au blason dédoré”. Another possessed thousands of souls but also the character of a brute, pardon Mademoiselle, d'un fripon. A third one was an apostate priest, with an incomprehensible way of thinking, a way of thinking that resembles the labyrinth in gloomy fairy tales. She felt more “pour le rejeton d'une antique familie noble” etc. Enfin etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. One day she was disturbed in her musings by the news that a revolution had broken out among the sailors in St. Petersburg. Que faire? Que faire?

Anna Alexeyevna stood by the windows as usual. She tried again to think of the suitors but she could not. She simply could not. The suitors had disappeared completely from her imagination. Quite different beings had taken their place. Sailors who carry off an imperial family as prisoners, threatening them with bayonets. Arch-dukes and arch-duchesses, who are led before a firing squad, some accompanied by a pope with a copper crucifix. The pain-twisted faces of her father and her brothers.

The peasants told later of seeing her ride away in her brown velvet costume, in the interminable snowscape. She spoke to no one. She took leave of no one. She rode away on the greywhite horse, Anastasia. In the interminable snowscape. No one ever saw her again. The suitors are dead. Very probably Anna Alexeyevna is also dead.’

Alexey waved his empty glass in the air and called the waiter

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for ‘encore une demi-blonde’. I had listened breathlessly. The frightfulness of these stories did not lie in the content, not in the tone either. It lay in the look of reproach that he directed at me. It was not quite clear what he reproached me for. Possibly that I had not thought profoundly enough about the adventures of mankind. But there lay in his look, without a doubt, also the reproach, however unreasonable, that I was an accomplice to the suffering that those named, as well as countless others, had gone through.

The white nights of Paris are among my saddest and most beautiful memories.