The Difficulty of Being Read Online Free PDF Page B

pains. After the death of Raymond Radiguet, whom I thought of as my son, these pains had gained such an ascendency that Louis Laloy, at Monte Carlo, advised the palliative. Opium is a living substance. It does not like to be hustled. It made me ill. It was only after a quite long trial that it came to my aid. But it slowed up the works and I feared it. My numerous attempts to flee from it, my checks, my relapses, my success (due to Dr Lichwitz) after five failures, would be worth dwelling on at length. How many cells I escape from, how many sentriestake aim at me, how many fortresses I am led back to, the walls of which I succeed in vaulting!
    My first important escape (for I do not count those from school, my flight to Marseilles and other escapades) was in 1912. I came of a family that loved music and painting, and for whom literature meant little or nothing. My father used to paint. Whenever an artist opens his box I smell the oil paints. I see him. My grandfather collected excellent pictures, Stradivarius and Greek busts. He arranged quartets. In which he played the cello. I drew. I wrote. I gave myself up, blindly, to gifts, which if they are not channelled scatter our efforts and act like a pox. Naturally people flattered me. I met no obstacles. I found followers. I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
    Without any doubt this line was leading straight to the
Académie
. One day I met Gide. He made me ashamed of my writing. I was embellishing it with arabesques. He was the source of a sudden awakening, the approach to which cost me dear. Few people will allow one to discover oneself. They accuse us of going over to the other camp. Deserter here, suspect there: it is the loneliness of Calchas. *
    The Russian Ballet of Serge de Diaghilev played its part in this critical phase. He was splashing Paris with colour. The first time I attended one of his performances (they were giving
Le Pavillon d’Armide
) I was in a stall rented by my family. The whole thing unfolded far away behind the footlights, in that burning bush in which the theatre blazes for those who do not regularly go backstage.
    I met Serge de Diaghilev at Madame Sert’s. From thatmoment I became a member of the company. I no longer saw Nijinsky except from the wings or from the box in which, behind Madame Sert, topped with her Persian aigrette, Diaghilev followed his dancers with a pair of tiny mother-of-pearl opera glasses.
    What memories I have of all this! What could I not write about it! That is not my purpose. After the scandal of
Le Sacre
, I went to join Stravinsky at Leysin, where he was looking after his wife. There I finished the
Potomak
, begun at Offranville at J. E. Blanche’s house, under the eye of Gide. Returning to Maisons-Laffitte I decided to put an end to it or to be reborn. I became a recluse. I tortured myself. I questioned myself. I insulted myself. I punished myself with self-denial.
    I kept nothing of myself but the ashes. The war came. It found me well prepared to escape its traps, to judge what it brings, what it takes away and how it delivers us from stupidity, now busy elsewhere. I had the good fortune to be living close to the marines. Among them an incredible freedom of thought prevailed. I have described this in the
Discours du Grand Sommeil
and in
Thomas l’Imposteur
. †
    I repeat that, in Paris, the field was free. We occupied it. As early as 1916 our revolution began.
    After Stravinsky, Picasso. At last I knew the secret without knowledge of which all mental effort is fruitless. A world existed in which the artist finds before he seeks and finds unceasingly. A world where the wars are the wars of religion. Picasso, Stravinsky were its leaders.
    One attaches too much importance to the word genius. One is too economical with it. Stendhal used it to describe a woman who knew how to step into a carriage. In this sense I had genius and very little talent. My mind went by