Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma

Guest of Guillaume Apollinaire

Author(s): Arnold Rönnebeck
Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring, 1947), pp. 153-158
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40086231 .
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 Guest of
Guillaume Apollinaire
BY ARNOLD RONNEBECK
Apollinaire, plump and theatricallooking, something
-like SachaGuitry,only much more voluminous,sat in a frail Louis
GuillaumeQuatorze chair in his modest apartment on the Boulevard Saint
Germain.He moved his fat hand invitingly: "Have some more tea, boys.
We'll go to the bistro later and have some Bordeauxwith our lobster."
"Never Bordeauxwith lobster,"cried a young German poet. "Don't
you know that only Rhine wine goes with lobster?"
Apollinaire lifted himself carefully out of the frail-appearingLouis
Quatorzeand moved a plump index slowly from right to left: "My dear
young man, what tastes good tastes good."
In a cornersat a man with very piercing eyes, almost frightening very
black eyes. These eyes seemed to observe everything and everybody. I
knew him. I had talked to him many times before. He closed one eye
and looked at me, pointing to the severalAfrican masks in the room. He
did not say anything. He only pointed and significantly closed the other
of his shoe-buttoneyes . . . and shook his head, gazing now at Apollinaire.
"What's the matter with you, Pablo?" Apollinaire asked. "You just
sit there and say nothing."
"Well, I will!" said Picasso."I tell you this is simply too much. You
can stand one African mask in your room, but how can you live with
four of them? And all these so-called modern paintings! Simply
terrible!"
Apollinaire shrugged his shoulders, sank back into his second-hand
Louis Quatorze chair, and hummed: "Connais-tu le pays on fleurit
Voranger. . . you know, Pablo, at times you are really quite original and
funny. I think I'll write a piece aboutyou one of these days.""Go ahead!"
said Picasso. "I'll get my revenge by doing a drawing or a painting of
you."
Both of them have done what they threatenedto do that rainy after-
noon above the BoulevardSaint Germain, and both pieces are character-
istic productsof their humorouscreators.Picasso'sportraitof Apollinaire
was published as a frontispiece to Alcools in the Mercure de France in

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154 BOOKS ABROAD

1913.Apollinaire'sarticleon Picassowas as far as I know published after

Apollinaire'sdeath in 1918.
For some reasonor other Apollinaire whispered to me: "Strange,my
mother brought me up, but I don't know who my father is. Some Polish
general, I've been told." (Apollinaire spoke French with a strong ac-
cent.) "Some say my father was an Italian priest.Anyhow I was born in
Rome ..."
He was interruptedby his guests. Being quick on his feet as many
heavy people are, he exclaimed: "Ah, Madame!" as he escorted a very
charming lady into the room. "Mes amis, c'est Madame la Comtesse de
Noailles."
Moment of respectfulsilence. Then the beady eyes flaredup threaten-
ingly and, ignoring the Countess, their owner went on: "But how can
you live with those things, Guillaume ? I am trying to develop a new
style of painting from only one of them I picked up for five francs in the
rue Bonaparte."
"Oh, I see," said the Countess. "Do I understandthat you are Mon-
sieur Picasso?"
"Oui, c'est moi."
Apparently embarrassedat Picasso'srudeness,Apollinaire waved his
pudgy hand in a broad gesture which said: "Pleasedon't pay any atten-
tion to him."
A very emaciated and poorly-dressedyoung man of about twenty-
two had picked up a violin in Apollinaire'sroom and accompaniedhim-
self pianissimoas he sang something melancholy in a language I did not
know. "Ah, comme c'est charmant!"exclaimed the Countess. Nobody
else said anything. The emaciatedyoung man quietly nodded his thanks
and, suddenly looking sixty, sat down in a chair, still holding the violin.
Picassofinally becameinterestedin the African masks and examined
them one by one. Strange plucked sounds came from the violin. "That
was Persiandancing,"said the young man. "Giveme Omar Khayyam,let
me look at Persian vases, bracelets,tiles, but this African and modern
stuff- no!"
Another man came in. He was quietly introduced as a certain Ezra
Pound.
"Yes, I'm writing," he said. "I'm always writing. And I like to talk
about literature,especiallymy own. Politics? Politics? No, politics don't
interestme a bit!"
"Well, what are you going to do about things, Ezra?" asked Apol-

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 GUEST OF GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE 155

linaire. "Verysimple,"said Pound. "I invite you all to an absintheat my

place, 27 rue de la Rocolle. You will find me there day after tomorrow at
this time so that I can bore you with my stuff and hold the floor.I know
that I know that I know the King's English." "Stopthat GertrudeStein
patter!"a reactionaryyoung American shouted."But,"Pound continued,
"they wouldn't print me in La Nouvelle Revue Frangaise,the darned
fools!"
The emaciatedyoung man paced the floor,nervouslyswinging Apol-
linaire'sviolin bow as if he were conducting a symphony. He came over
to me and said, with a foreign accent which I couldn't place:
"Here,Monsieur,this is what Omar Khayyam saysin his Rubdiydt:
There was the door to which I found no \ey:
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
"All my life I have been haunted by that passage.You are living in this
town for severalyears,aren't you ? Can you tell me where I can see Per-
sian vases,rugs, jewelry?"
"Verysimple. We meet tomorrow afternoon, and I'll take you to the
Rue Laffitte.Almost nothing but art dealers, you know. At least three
Persianshops in one block, even manuscripts,miniatureson parchment,
silver-and-goldembroideredsilk veils, crowns with many pearls, emer-
alds, rubiesand sapphiresand fantasticrings. Do you know Persian?"
I got a faint smile but no answer.
"
"There was the door to which I found no \ey ... he mumbled, then
suddenly,almost screaming:"Yes,literature!That's the thing humanity
lives by: Omar Khayyam, Anatole France, Shakespeare,Goethe, and
don't forget Walt Whitman and the poor little English boy Dawson who
died too early."
# # # #

The Persiangentleman in the Rue Laffitteofferedto take our walking

sticks. "Oh no, thank you!"
"Now this is the finest piece we have. It seems to be too expensive for
any museum. Completely intact, you see. Priceless,absolutely priceless!
And here! Look at these miniatures. Illustrations to Omar, yes, all on
parchment,dated 1620,finest period, I think, don't you ?"
My mysteriousfriend carriedhis cane under his arm. All at once he
turned toward the miniatures and swished the priceless vase off the
table . . .
Through the quiet, the stunned quiet that followed the clatteron the

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156 BOOKS ABROAD

floor, I only heard the suppressed moaning of a man who had slumped
into an inlaid Persian chair.
"I tell you she is really priceless," the Persian gentleman breathed.
"Yes, absolutely priceless." His demeanor was strangely casual and de-
tached.
Action is needed, I thought. I started to gather the potsherds carefully
from the rug. There were inscriptions on them in fine Persian script,
scratched into the clay before firing. I picked up the bottom of the vase.
It was intact. I handed it to the owner of the potsherds. He read the in-
scription and gazed, gazed at me, gazed at my sobbing friend, gazed into
space, into nothing, shaking his head . . .
"Let me translate this," he finally said: " 'He who breads me shall be-
come wealthy! And here is more writing on the inside. Let's piece it
together . . . Oh yes, it's a quotation from Omar Khayyam and it says
something like . . . well, something about a tal\. And / and you and no
more. The rest is badly shattered. Wait, I have the Fitzgerald translation
of the Rubdiydt here. Also the Nicolas translation in French, but it's no
good, no good at all. You read English, of course? I know quite a little
of that language."
After at least half an hour of searching from page to page, I said:
"Could it be this passage?"
Some little tal\ awhile of Me and Thee
There was- and then no more of Thee and Me.
"Yes," cried the Persian, "that's it, yes !" A deep groan came from the
inlaid chair.
The quotation was the last two lines of the quatrain whose other two
lines had haunted my poor friend for so many years. By now he seemed
to be fainting. But the Rue Laffitte had no close-by drug stores where one
might get smelling salts or a pint of cognac for reviving purposes.
Out of the Bordeaux-colored velvet curtain in the background rushed
the Persian gentleman and held a small golden flask under my friend's
nostrils. Finally the poor fellow pulled himself together, pulled himself
out of the chair, staggered over to the fireplace where a little coal fire
was smoldering, broke his cane over his knee and threw the pieces on
the fire.
I wanted to say something to the Persian, but he looked at me as if
trying to smile. "No, no!" he said. "Please, no!" and put his hand on my
shoulder . . .
In the taxi my friend mumbled over and over to himself: "Some little

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 GUEST OF GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE 157

tal\ there was of Me and Thee. No, I think I left out awhile. And then
no more of Thee and Me. I had forgotten the end, forgotten . . . No more,
no more . . ." he gurgled.
When I told this story to Apollinaire, who was- as usual- holding
court in the afternoon,he only grinned at me and recited: "Se non e vero,
e ben trovato. Have you gone in for mystery yarns? Look here. This is
much more important. Deplanche is finally going to publish my he
Bestiaireou Corteged'Orpheenext year,and Raoul Dufy has made some
marvelouswood engravings for it. To hell with your Persian vases!"
"Nonsense!"remarkedthe ever-presentEzra Pound from his corner.
A melancholy-lookingman with longish hair, black eyebrowsand an
unkempt moustache said softly: "Never mind, Guillaume, such things
can happen."
I learnedafter he had left that his name was Paul Valery . . .
# # # #
There was always the atmosphereof La vie de Boheme about Apol-
linaire. Strange individuals who apparently had nothing to do with
writing or literaturewould appearand sit down as if they belonged there.
Nobody introduced anybody to anybody because nobody knew any-
body'sname.
When in the autumn of 1911 1 rang Apollinaire'sbell, the aggressive
concierge shouted: "IIn'est pas la," and banged her little window prac-
tically into my nose. This happened severaltimes.
As a matter of fact, Apollinaire was in prison. He was in prison be-
causea statuettestolen from the Louvre had been tracedto his apartment
and was found there, gracing his fireplace. It appearsthat one of those
individuals who elbowed with the intelligentsia of Paris in his rooms
had stolen the little Greek marble statuette and, knowing that Apol-
linaire was very fond of the art of any period,had asked him to harborit
for a while, "just to look at it." After the real thief was apprehended,
Guillaume was releasedfrom La Sante with elaborateapologies from La
Cour d'Assises,judges and the variouslawyers.
But during those severalmonths behind bars Guillaume wrote some
of his most beautiful verses in Alcools, even though they smack a little
strongly of Verlaine, Rimbaud and Baudelaire in style and emotional
direction.Why shouldn't they, if he felt that way ?
# # m #
A few months later, my poor friend whose cane had broken the Per-
sian vase and whose name I have never learned knocked at my studio

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158 BOOKS ABROAD

door, smiling mysteriously,and without a word handed me a cablehe had

just receivedfrom New York. It read: YOUR UNCLE JAMES JUST
DECEASED LEAVES YOU IN HIS WILL SUM OF THREE
HUNDRED FIFTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS.
My friend bought the potsherdsand the Omar Khayyam miniatures
from the Persian gentleman in the Rue Laffitte.When we showed the
cable to Apollinaire, just releasedfrom prison, he was speechless.
# # # #

Eight years later, on World War One Armistice Day, Guillaume

Apollinaire died. He was only thirty-eightyearsold.
In the frenzied crowd that paraded down the Boulevard Saint Ger-
main were some of his literaryopponents who screamedup to his win-
dows: "Down with Guillaume, spit on Guillaume, trample on him!"
Maybe those were the last words he heard as he lay dying.
About a year before his death he wrote prophetically:
Hommes de I'avenir,souvenez-vousde moi,
]e vivaisa Vepoqueoil finissaientles rois.
- Denver, Colorado.

Ben Lucien Burman's popular Mis-
sissippi novel Blow for a handing (E. P.
Dutton) has been translated into Ger-
man by Dr. George Goyert, under the
title Der Grosse Strom, and has been
received by the German reviewers with
extraordinary enthusiasm.
Scandinavophiles as well as biblio-
philes will be interested in the announce-
ment of the formation of a new Swedish
society devoted to the cultivation of the
book arts, The Sallskapet Bokvanner-
na. Headed by Thure Nyman and a
number of prominent Swedish writers,
the society is sponsoring not only a series
of lectures by important literary figures
but also, for a broader international
membership, the publication of a quar-
terly entitled Bo\vdnnen and special
limited editions of works by Swedish
authors. The book dividend for 1946
has been announced as a limited edition
of a short story by Sigfrid Siwertz. Thure
Nyman's address is Box 6023, Stock-
holm 6.
The Russian Translation Project spon-
sored by the American Council of
Learned Societies and headed by W.
Chapin Huntington now has seventeen
titles ready for publication and plans to
publish some fifty titles altogether. They
are all bulky volumes, and in the words
of the Editor, "They vary from Grabar's
monumental History of Russian Art,
published in six volumes, which total
half a million words, to the short Life
of Lomonosov, which contains one tenth
as many." They are all serious books,
and deal with a great variety of matters.
The completion of Jules Romains'
enormous novelistic series Hommes de
bonne volonte coincided almost exactly
with his reception into the French Acad-
emy. He took the chair vacated by the
poet Abel Bonnard, who had the misfor-
tune to be a member of the Vichy gov-
ernment and is now, understandably, out
of France. Abel Bonnard's name was not
mentioned during the reception of his
successor.

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