Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts by Roland Barthes
This month we have grown apart considerably. From the day that I could no longer love him with any hope, I could only very rapidly fall out of love with him. If he has the makings of a lover, he does not have those for becoming a friend; too many essential things divide us and in truth I do not respect him enough. Naturally this aversion is a very painful feeling because it draws much from the tiresome, ugly impulses of anger, jealousy, contempt, and sensitivity, all blended with passions, regrets, and hopes. But on the whole you could say that this affair is ending very quickly and leaving me much calmer than I would have thought. In the last two days I briefly decided to change rooms, but since his departure seems imminent and certain, I’m going to wait. (I must say also that I’m being careful because Hillairet, in quite a bad way himself, is about to drop in on me.)
As for my health, the situation is not clear and for the moment very uncertain. Outwardly I’m doing fine, I have regained weight, I look well, and my general state is good. Internally, the doctors are of two minds; first, after an X-ray, they decided that the cavity of my right lung (the one where a pneumothorax is impossible) was once again dehydrated and even if it’s a very small area and the rest is very clear, it might be necessary to wait to be able to do a thoracoplasty there eventually.52 But they said there was no hurry and would wait at least two months to discuss it again. Then in the last few days, during a [medical] exam, they seemed to hear noises on the left side, where the old pneumonia was. They’re going to do tomographies and I will let you know the results.53
Personally, I think that everything is […]54 and I’m not in a hurry to conclude anything; moreover I’m becoming, if not fatalistic, at least a little hardened. I understand that there will be no normal future for a very long time, for much longer than I would ever have imagined, and I would like get myself organized according to this idea.
At the moment, I’m not unhappy since I have a certain energy related to a certain pessimism. Thus I’m reading a lot (on the eighteenth century, related to a possible thesis), but I’m finding the method, rhythm, and progress of this reading more interesting than the content. I’m not leaving a single moment of my day empty, so as to avoid any vague melancholy, as it were. My reading is very methodical, but I do not have a single idea; that is the price of no imagination, of keeping idleness at bay, and at the moment I’m interested in this attitude. I have been asked to write a few pages for Existences, on the short trip I made to Greece.55 I still take pleasure in putting sentences together, but feel incommensurable nausea at rereading, rethinking, and submitting them. The important thing finally is to keep going, not to give up, not to be afraid. I have to stay in bed except at noon; no music; that is a big annoyance.
I’m doing English regularly with the delightful Grünwald, an excellent teacher, full of passion and thoughtfulness. He’s trying to teach me a host of everyday words, with an intense enthusiasm that’s conveyed through brisk comings and goings into his room to draw me the objects in question. I am not at all unhappy with the progress I’ve made in the last month.
I think I have about covered my thoughts, feelings, and occupations. I can tell you again how very dull all that is, and how I realize that your presence, your friendship, your life, your example, in fact a thousand essential and extraneous things about you, would add an irreplaceable brilliance to it.
Believe, my dear friend, in my faithful and very strong friendship,
R. Barthes
* * *
[Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet,] Monday, July 31, 1944
My dear friend,
I have learned from Caron that you have health problems. What exactly is happening? Is it an actual relapse? Where are you in it? What do you plan to do? Can you send me some word about all this? I’m anxious to hear from you. You know that despite my silence I have not forgotten you. I have thought of you very often, always missing your presence and your friendship. But I was not hoping that you would write to me, knowing how torn you are between so many occupations. If you’re not too tired, send me a short note, please, if only just a few lines to tell me how you are.
You know that since my relapse in March, the state of my health has not changed. I do not feel ill, but I confess that at the moment I can hardly get out of bed. I’m obliged to stay there until four when everyone goes for a walk. They’ll have to do a new set of X rays in a month; I am mesmerized that date, as if it should be a kind of liberation, even though in fact there’s little chance my regime will change.
Sometimes I see no harm in people and distract myself with the pleasures of conversation; sometimes I want to weep with loneliness and I read passionately. As Brissaud has me inclined, I cannot write without breaking the rules, as I sometimes do with remorse.56 And above all I have one crazy desire, a real need to leave the sanatorium.
Please write, and believe in my very faithful friendship.
R. Barthes
* * *
[Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet,] Sunday, January 14, 1945
My dear Canetti,
You well know how the life one leads here makes periods of long silence very natural and they mean nothing more than that one is very lazy, even though one loves one’s friends as much as ever. After mail was interrupted during the Liberation, I didn’t have the heart to start writing again to anyone and yet I was always thinking of you with so much affection. In September I received a long letter from you written before the events of August and it moved me and made me think. I really wanted to answer it, naturally, and then I was consumed by the monotony of the days, little personal affairs, everything that absorbs a weak nature like mine (weak but nonetheless faithful). Now I learn from M. Cohen that you have had a relapse.57 But I have also learned that your book is finished and you have found a publisher.58 I imagine you’re thinking more about the latter than the former. But I wonder what you will do now. Why not write something less medical? I have thought again and again, seriously and admiringly, about the notes you read me. Why not write something like that? One is so used to seeing you cheering others, and you give the impression of needing it so little yourself that when some kind of health problem strikes you, there’s nothing to say, except how loved you are and how your friends are affected by everything that happens to you, good or bad (I thought of you so much during the Liberation). That is the reason for this short note.
My health is not bad; I’m endlessly doing the cure and will be for a long time still. I feel fairly well. I must leave for Switzerland with the mob (ten times more numerous than I would like) that is going to Leysin. But that departure seems to be increasingly problematic; they said just today that the trains are canceled.
The material output of my life for the last six months has been slim; I successfully completed a few music classes, but that is about all. On the other hand, I am very busy spiritually (!) with one or two fellows, which has taken up the better part of my time and strength. But I think that’s where I give the best of myself; I have no regrets, I have lived well, I would like to say nobly. And to learn the value of what I’ve done, it’s better to ask them rather than me. At the moment, it is a wasteland.
My dear Canetti, I think of you with most sincere affection and hope to see you again.
R. Barthes
* * *
[Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet,] Saturday, February 3, 1945
My dear Canetti,
A brief note before leaving because I need to tell you what a pleasure it was to see you again. I found it all too short and I remain hungry for more. No doubt embarrassed by the good sister’s presence, I didn’t know how to say to you, in parting, that I hoped very much for your quick and good recovery—I think of it often—and generally I wanted to thank you for everything that a friend like you always brings of strength and clarity into the life of a man like me, when so many loves basically bring us nothing and are capable of nothing. I’m going away more peaceful because of what you said, although I do not have the impression that it will be a long separation. We will see each other soon
Your friend,
Roland Barthes
* * *
Clinique Alexandre, Leysin, Vaud, March 16, 1945
My dear Canetti,
I have no idea if and when this letter will reach you; mail is extremely slow and unreliable, correspondences practically impossible. I have received only one letter from my mother, but alas there’s a god—or a devil—for such things, and those at Saint-Hilaire have been luckier; from there I’ve received very embarrassing letters and cards (if not for my virtue, at least for my answers).
Perhaps you already know through the rumor mill that we have been wonderfully received here, taking those couple words literally and implying all the details you could imagine. Food, lodging, cleanliness, and care are almost perfect, of a standard incomparable to that of France—which is to be expected—but particularly to that of Saint-Hilaire. After a month of this comfortable life—and I think our illness excuses us from denying ourselves comforts—it’s impossible to think of Saint-Hilaire without distaste and perhaps even without harshness. I’m doing well, despite having caught a nasty flu upon my arrival. The doctors are extremely cautious; I cannot go out and will not be going out for a long time, no doubt. But that doesn’t stop me from having access to all the cigarettes, cigars, cake, etc. that I want. For three years, my cure had only ever given me the impression that there was no change; here they know the positive, truly reorienting value of rest. The climate—spring all day long for a month of the cure—as well as the silence and the meticulous cleanliness of our living quarters produce a deep rest and everything relaxes, really seems colored with the happiness of nothing to do, of living, and of healing. If I’m dwelling on this tableau, my dear Canetti, it’s because ever since I observed the difference between here and Saint-Hilaire I am tormented by the idea that it is absolutely necessary for you to come here. I truly feel it as a very grave necessity; I know nothing about your disease, and it’s impossible, of course, for my opinion to weigh much against the considerations for your care and comfort from all the eminent doctors looking after you—and you yourself. But I believe that a friend can truly feel what is necessary—from a strictly practical perspective—for another friend. If you really must have an operation, why not consider that it may go better for you here? I’m not speaking of the medical question, which you know and I do not. There is a surgeon here, de Rham, who, it seems, is a great star.59 But more importantly there is abundant, fortifying food, generally providing all that we have lacked for the last five years. There are all the medications and products you could want. I tell you that one gradually—and unfortunately—gets used to all the restrictions, imperfections, miseries, and shortages, basically vital to survival in France. When you come here and reestablish a normal routine, it’s frightening to think how you endured it, and it’s especially frightening to think that others you love are enduring it. My dear Canetti, please, I beg you to try and come here as quickly as possible. This is not just a polite request, I am actually begging you, and forgive me for insisting and for wanting this once to interfere in plans and decisions that are not my business. I, who am resistant by nature to any even slightly categorical opinion, this time I am too convinced of the good that it will do you not to try to get you here as quickly as possible.
My morale is not bad although I’m lazy, but in the last six days I’ve taken heart and I’m studying languages every morning fairly seriously. In the evenings I read—always for that famous thesis—without making any decisions. Right now I’m researching—without getting bored—Michelet. I’m sharing a room with David—I’ve told you about him.60 I am going through a lot with him, joys and suffering as always. I can no longer bear Caron—and no longer see him. His enormous faults dazzle me, each time he speaks—a specialist in stupid, empty sentences blurted out with conviction—and each time he eats—he makes a pig of himself and impudently bullies others—and each time he makes a gesture—he has a conceited way of rolling a cigarette and puts on snobbish airs about smoking only bad tobacco, here where excellent tobacco abounds, as a sort of pretense of manliness—and every time—and this is the last straw—he makes an appearance. He combs his hair carefully into a quiff that looks horrible on him and fills me with contempt. Your turn to laugh at my vehemence. But at least we are basically in agreement now.
I wonder very much about your health. Have you already left? Is there improvement? What operation is it exactly? What is it similar to? You must come here as soon as possible, please.
Believe in my most affectionate and faithful friendship.
Roland Barthes
There are thirty of us here alone in a very good clinic in Leysin-Village. One or two per room. Two nurses and a resident physician, Dr. Bruno Klein, an Austrian. Weekly checkups by an excellent Belgian doctor, Dr. Van Roleghem, and cardiology supervision. Perfect individual care, unknown at Saint-Hilaire.
* * *
Clinique Alexandre, Leysin-Village, Vaud, Switzerland, June 8, 1945
My dear friend,
I wrote you a long letter when I arrived, but perhaps you didn’t receive it since you haven’t answered me. I will not write at length today, I would simply like to ask you to send me your news. I worry about you often. I want so much for you to be able to come here and take care of yourself. Please answer me and bring me up to date on your health.
Mine is good. My general state is much improved and I want to stay here as long as possible in order to heal. For the first time in a long time, I have a taste for work; I’m doing Michelet and that will help me find a working method. I have some other projects, and patience and perseverance for the first time.
I would like the pleasure of writing to you at greater length, but above all I would like you to write to me. I await your letter.
Very affectionately and faithfully,
Roland Barthes
* * *
Clinique Alexandre, Leysin, July 12, 1945
My dear friend,
Great joy and emotion at receiving your long letter. I love you very much and I often think of you (the other night I had a long dream in which you were mixed up and many pleasant things happened to us). Your intelligence and your friendship do me much good, although the first often intimidates me and the second I am always a little afraid of not deserving. I understand very well that you are not coming and I will even tell you that I will no longer be so insistent with you. You would find appreciable material advantages here, but if you get less worked up than I do, even so, the stupidity of this country would drive you mad and you would think only of leaving, as I do. My very dear friend, I would love to write you at greater length, but I don’t have the heart to make small talk so long as I think my letter could arrive at the time of your operation. I earnestly ask you to send me word as soon as you possibly can to give me details on your health, or even have someone write to me if your operation has worn you out. Don’t take my request lightly and don’t be slow to answer out of modesty, fill a letter with your news and all the practical details of yourself. You cannot know my exact feelings, you cannot know how attached I am to you; don’t let me go without news.
No, truly, my dear friend, I don’t want to tell you all my inner troubles when I think that when you receive this letter you may be suffering from a thousand troubles and worries before or after surgery. How I would like to receive word that would free and calm my mind on your account. I’m doing much better, my morale is good, very full of hatred against the stench of this country. I have a mad hope of reviving, of rediscovering the intelligence, beauty, spirit, and passion of human beings and of knowledge. And I also have a mad desire to be your friend, without either of us being ill anymore. Please, recover quickly, come find me again so that we can rediscover each other and taste the world together, which you light up for me with your intelligence, your solicitude, and your affection. Forgive me this letter of effusive feelings. It’s a bit loose because I’m always afraid of words that are too crafted,
Roland Barthes
* * *
Leysin, August 17, 1945
My dear friend,
I was already reassured about your operation by word from Mme. Lardanchet; after your letter, I am filled with joy. All the same, that thoracoplasty was a kind of barrier beyond which life lay. And now you have crossed the bar, you are fully alive, you are moving forward again toward more life, more pleasures, more thoughts, more generosity, more friendship, more work, etc. And that is why I’m happy. I am incapable of not being selfish and of not rejoicing for myself. Moreover I think it’s better for you to know that your existence and your vitality are precious to me personally. The lift, the elation, the emotion that your letters, your inspiration, your advice, or the simple thought of you always give me add and will add to my own joy in life, my own security, and will continue to add to my temperament (that is, all of me) what they have always added.
All this month I’ve been worried about my health and only since yesterday when I had the results of an X-ray have I been reassured and regained a taste for life. I have been very tired, but it seems that it was nothing. Not that my X-rays show any progress; it’s nothing much, but something is always there. As to what it is hiding, we will know in a few days when the slow Swiss doctors will have done a tomography for which I have been asking for eight months. My plans will depend a bit upon the results; maybe I will be able to return to my own country (what a sweet weakness, not in the least jingoistic, to be able to say one’s own country!) next spring. It would be wonderful to meet in Paris then, almost healed, and both of us equally hungry for life and work.
I don’t know how to explain to you the complex conflict that dominates my work in Switzerland: I am working, and I am working quite a lot. How much time? Hours and hours each day, with exquisite pleasure and, in moments, with an intensity and such a strained impatience that it torments and tires me to be taking so long. I’ve developed the mind-set of an athlete of work. I’m setting a record for productivity and I top it every week, every month, increasing my pace, etc. What am I working on? That’s what I cannot explain to you completely, and not without a certain fear of surprise and perhaps ridicule—no, let us at least count on your friendship—or judgment. I have a consuming desire for knowledge (even as I know that is not the essential thing in life, even as I consider with utter despair this itch, this temptation, this vertigo, this impenitent humanistic nature of mine to be a vice). So for the last six months, with a will I’ve never before experienced, I have abandoned myself to all the powers of Faust. And the thirst for life and the thirst for knowledge are superimposed so that I’m unable to extricate myself from this contradiction. But at the same time, I feel sick over what is poorly known, what is known only from books and is said with assurance only at the cost of huge lies, deception, bluffing, etc. I no longer can or want to talk about anything other than what I know. And that is where the drama begins. One must know the technicalities of the things one talks about; and that is an infinitely long, infinitely tiring process; but I’m not renouncing it, I’m forging ahead. Although my interest in literature is, in short, only secondary, I’m passionately filling my present life with it, since everything else is refused me (and also because perhaps everything else will be increased tenfold later on). Three months ago I began a very careful inquiry into Michelet. Why Michelet? Largely through chance, a little through reflection (I wanted to see up close what that bizarre thing, the Romantic, was, that kilometric verbiage that happens to catch a few scintillating truths; I wanted to exorcise Romanticism, and then too, I am obsessed with a desire for research—an intuition of certain problems that appear to be entirely formal, which I will call for now the magnetism of the word, the mythology of the word). And ever since, I’ve been reading and annotating Michelet at a terrific pace. Disappointed by the good fellow, to put it mildly, but he is not really what continues to interest me, it’s all that magnetism attached to discourse, all that mythological fauna that a writer—even a Romantic—carries within himself, that makes me work my way through those indigestible books (in this case, I burn through them, I race through them in a day—without losing anything). It goes without saying that after Michelet I have other, much more interesting research projects. But I cannot bungle what I have begun. Often the vision of a Micheletian wilderness overwhelms me; once in a while I discover exciting things; but I have indomitable courage; I entered literature through the most thankless writer, and through him I must exit, I must produce something. I’m sticking to my plan, my grand plan, in which Michelet is only a marginal point, but a wonderful testing ground and a way to sharpen my spiritual tools.