The Satanic Genius

GIOVANNI PAPINI

Showing That It Is Often a Mistake to Meet the Gods Face to Face

TWICE before, I had gone all the way from Rome to Paris to see him. The first time, so great was my awe, I could not gather sufficient courage to ring his door-bell. The second time, they told me, he had gone to England. So I made a third pilgrimage to the French capital, determined to see the most astounding literary genius of the age.

He had dominated my imagination for fifteen years. I felt drawn to him as one is drawn toward a reluctant but unalterable destiny. I knew his works by heart. My soul was colored by his dreams. I was a mirror for his aphorisms. I even tried to look like his melancholy heroes and to speak with their voice. In his work there was something of the spectral terror of Edgar Allan Poe, the solitude of Nietzsche, the lyricism of Shelley, the agony of Dostoyevsky—the flame of the inferno, the radiance of heaven, the laughter of children and the blasphemy of the fiends in Hell. I had heard that he was a woman-hater, a profound cynic, an atheist.

His. novels, like Strindberg's plays, were autobiographical. He appeared, thinly disguised, in his own books—a damned soul pursued by grief, a mad genius laughing in the face of destiny. I longed to meet him, to learn from him the atrocious secrets of his heart.

UNFORTUNATELY, I knew few people in Paris, but I had the good fortune, shortly after reaching there, to encounter a French artist to whom I confided my ambition and made my plea. He assured me that an interview could be arranged with the great man and then proceeded to arrange it.

The day came at last. The inspired one lived in an old-fashioned apartment in a dingy street. I climbed four flights of stairs, slowly, slowly, for my heart beat to suffocation and my legs trembled beneath me. I paused before his door, fascinated by a card on which I saw his magical name written in large, black letters. Finally, summoning courage, I rang.

A tall, emaciated woman opened the door. I whispered my errand and was admitted. The apartment did not have the air of belonging to a satanic genius. It was cheerful, clean and comfortable. I was asked to wait in the parlor —a hideous place, thickly carpeted, furnished in walnut and stuffed to the bursting-point with ornaments. At one side there was a bookcase neatly filled with thick volumes bound incalf. Between the windows, a desk supporting a typewriter, a dictionary and a thesaurus also bound in calf. Near by I saw a filing cabinet and an orderly heap of magazines and newspapers. The walls were covered with signed photographs of actors, playwrights and editors, crowned heads, dancers, philosophers, artists. I confess that I was shocked by two bad pastels of Naples and Switzerland.

I had expected to be ushered into the starkly simple studio of a brooding, misunderstood genius. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in that commonplace room to suggest the most popular atheist in Europe.

The door opened, and I saw standing before me, with his hat in his hand, a little, fat, bald man about fifty years old. In French, he asked me who I was, and what I wanted. My astonishment was so great that my voice failed me. Was it possible that this middle-class, mild, unruffled creature was the genius of my dreams ? Impossible! Incredible!

"Are you," I gasped, "are you the author of 'Severity,' 'God and Myself,' and 'Midnight' ?"

'I am, indeed," he beamed. "What can I do for you?"

I was speechless. I gazed at his round, polished head, striving to see visible marks of the violent thoughts born within that illustrious brain. I looked in vain into his candid blue eyes for traces of the revolutionary and demoniac intelligence which had so disrupted the intellectual world.

He smiled and sat down. "I understand," he said. "You are an Italian journalist. You desire an interview with me. Nothing easier, my dear fellow." He leaned forward, ran his finger down the card-index, selected a number, opened the file cabinet and took out a bundle of newspaper-clippings and photographs.

"Here," he said briskly, "you will find, written in French, the complete list of my works and an outline of their scope. You may select the photograph you like best. I prefer the profile—but take your choice!"

SEEING that I still regarded him with dumfounded eyes, the great man again opened the cabinet and took out a book bound in calf.

"Here I have had printed all my best notices. You may look it over. Pretty good, eh? Important critics. Much praise. An international reputati'on. If you want my autograph, I will oblige you, with pleasure."

The indefatigable genius rose, approached the desk and, with a big flourish, wrote his name on a sheet of paper.

I gazed, stupefied, disgusted, disillusioned. "You wish to know more about me?" he asked. "How I work, for instance? Nothing easier. I sit at my desk four hours a day but I never write more than a thousand words during that time. I use a dictionary and a thesaurus. I have a vast collection of classified material. In this box, for instance, there are nothing but adjectives. In that, metaphors. Up on the shelf, a complete list of paradoxes. In the desk drawer, descriptions of foreign cities and countries. Here, a complete list of plots in sixteen languages. I have a large assortment of jokes, scientific expressions, unusual sayings, medical terms, marine and military phraseology, geographical details. . . .

You will readily understand that with such an equipment I do not find it hard to write a novel.

I work mechanically, without too much thinking. A mere turn of the wrist, and it is done!

I draw a red line through the material I use so that there will be no danger of repetition. I am not one of those imbeciles who wait for the moment of inspiration. I am a business-man.

I work at regular hours and always under contract to some reputable publisher."

I tried to speak, but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth.

"See here," he cried, crossing his legs and swinging one patent-leather boot in a leisurely manner. "Couldn't we do a little business together? Couldn't you translate my works into Italian, or English? I would give you forty per cent of the royalties and exclusive rights."

AT that moment, fortunately for me, the telephone rang. The famous author leaped to his feet and rushed into the adjoining room, where I heard his voice rise in heated argument.

"I beg your pardon," he said presently, coming back again, "it was my publisher. There is a little difficulty with the Scandinavian booksellers. They owe me twelve thousand francs —and in these times. Still, one must live."

I rose, still speechless with disappointment. Those hands, those fat hands covered with rings—could they have penned so many marvelous phrases? Could they have written such mad poetry?

I bowed and edged myself toward the door. "I say!" he shouted. "Aren't you going to stay for tea? My wife and the children will be back shortly and we'll have tea together. You'll love the girls. One is thirteen and the other seven. I want you to meet my wife— she plays the piano and paints^water colors. Look! The Bay of Naples—by my wife. Mont Blanc, also by my wife. Like it?"

I sank back on one of the stuffed walnut chairs, hypnotized by his candid eyes. The tireless fellow, seeing my helplessness, opened the doors of the bookcase and ran his finger sharply along the rows of calf-bound volumes.

"Here," he said in a solemn voice, "are all my novels, poems, essays and plays—fifty-four of 'em. First editions on this side; translations here. Quite a lot of'em, aren't there? Look at the binding. Feel of it. Real calf. Cost a lot— but then, I couldn't neglect my children . . . " I was seized with a nameless panic of the spirit.

"I must go!" I shouted, leaping to my feet. "I must, absolutely! Let me go, do you hear?"

And, wjthout waiting for his reply, I charged through the door, took the corridor at one leap and gained first the hallway and then the street.