Last Times by Victor Serge

Author:Victor Serge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

In a stifled voice Clémence proposed whisky and soda . . . no soda? She exposed to their gaze her “Venetian” throat, her “caryatid’s” arms. Félicien was raving mad! He was compromising himself, he was compromising her with his insolence. He was holding forth as if he were sitting in a café. Mûrier, sensing this judgment—the judgment of women without wit is no better than that of warriors—felt only a mournful exasperation.

And Lieutenant Gerhardt Koppel of the field staff of the Ninth Motorized Division, formerly a demolitions expert, now attached to the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, said to himself that intellectuals of this caliber, vain voluptuaries, cowardly and sophisticated, more harmful than useful—human beings of softened fiber, with hardened arteries and brains obscured by putrid old ideas—could be driven into line only by the most elementary methods: twenty percent of them behind barbed wire, sweeping the yard at six a.m., pushing the wheelbarrow at seven a.m.—and the other 80 percent would soften, become converted, develop so admirable an understanding of the inevitable course of history, begin to expatiate so learnedly on the true doctrine, that you might end by doubting yourself, doubting racial thought, doubting everything, if the hard, exalted, luminous and raucous words of the Führer—man of another essence—did not expel all doubts as TNT pulverized all obstacles.

Today, however, the directive was to recruit these debased rhetoricians of the world’s last Alexandria, men who were stupid enough to believe their own rhyming couplets. To this kind of mission, Koppel would greatly have preferred elevating research into problems of a very different nature. Given the probable capacity for resistance of a certain concrete pillbox, the crossfire of certain machine-gun nests, what charge should be employed, at what angle should it be placed? Reduce the foreseeable cost of the operation to the sacrifice of two lads of our own race, just two. Gerhardt drank his whisky neat. It was up to the major to speak first, in accordance with age, seniority, his experience with this kind of people . . . This is what they call a great poet!

Major Acker, sincerely saddened, for he loved Paris, France, Europe, the museums, good literature, old architecture, men molded, even to their souls, by this accumulation of work and riches, knew nonetheless that the old stones had to crumble, that the dominant race had to bring organization into chaos, that worn-out cultures succumbed to new powers. Could we live as things were? Acker calmly dissipated the brief silence, which in a few seconds had grown tense.

“Monsieur Félicien Mûrier, it would grieve me if we have importuned you, believe me. For years I have wanted to meet you, for me it is a real honor. I love the verses you have just quoted as much as you do, I know them by heart. Germany has had infinite patience, I might say, a geological patience. I possess your finest editions, they were my friends in time of peace—in the time of a peace without equality, of a dictated peace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.