The Play of the Eyes by Elias Canetti

Author:Elias Canetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Some people ridiculed Musil’s helplessness in practical matters. The first time I mentioned Musil to Broch, who was well aware of his worth and not inclined to malice, he said to me: “He’s king of a paper empire.” He meant that Musil was lord of people and things only when at his writing desk, and that otherwise, in practical life, he was defenseless against things and circumstances, bewildered, dependent on other people’s help. Everyone knew that Musil couldn’t handle money, that he even hated to touch it. He was reluctant to go anywhere alone; his wife was almost always with him, it was she who bought the tickets on the streetcar and who paid at the café. He carried no money on him, I never saw a coin or bank note in his hand. It may be that money was incompatible with his notions of hygiene. He refused to think of money, it bored and upset him. He was quite satisfied to let his wife shoo money away from him like flies. He had lost what he had through inflation, and his financial situation was very difficult. His means were hardly equal to the long-drawn-out undertaking he had let himself in for.

When he returned to Vienna, some friends founded a Musil Society, the purpose of which was to enable him to work on The Man without Qualities. Its members obligated themselves to monthly contributions. He had a list of contributors and reports were given him about the regularity with which they paid up. I don’t think the existence of this Society shamed him. He believed, quite correctly, that these people knew what they were doing. They felt honored at being permitted to contribute to his work. It would have been even better if more people had felt the urge to join. I always suspected that he regarded this Musil Society as a kind of secret society, membership in which was a high honor. I often wondered if he would have barred persons he regarded as inferior. It took a sublime contempt for money to keep up his work on The Man without Qualities under such circumstances. When Hitler occupied Austria, the jig was up; most members of the Musil Society were Jews.

In the last years of his life, when he was living in utter poverty in Switzerland, Musil paid dearly for his contempt for money. Painful as it is for me to think of his humiliating situation, I wouldn’t have wanted him any different. His sovereign contempt for money, which was not combined with any ascetic tendencies, his lack of any talent for moneymaking, which is so commonplace that one hesitates to call it a talent, partook, it seems to me, of his innermost essence. He made no fuss about it, did not affect to rebel against it and never spoke of it. He took a serene pride in ignoring its implications for his own life, while keeping well in mind what it meant to others.

Broch was a member of the Musil Society and paid his dues regularly.

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