André Gide, Cologne 1943
This meeting between André Gide and Ernst Robert Curtius1 is recorded in Gide’s published journals (Cologne, March 16, 1943). Both men stayed in Europe throughout the war.
You chose the artist’s freedom, as it is, To stand apart, as best you could survey The whole of Europe ailing under arms, And neither sympathized nor ran away. Above it all, you later would describe, A culture being scrapped for cheap cement. A ruined church stood dignified beside The café front where on that day you met With Curtius, all uniformed and prim, As Aryan as anyone could be. Ashamed he said, but focused on the task Of reasserting Latin unity. By coffee and old cigarettes that day, The bombing raids a distant afterthought, Among you rang the names which had affixed The artist‘s right to work despite the rot. What could you do at seventy but die In prison, not a martyr but a fool. Instead you chose to live and keep alive That private life which then became a school. It’s simple then, all orderly and prim, Like Curtius who spoke of nothing more But music, love and language, interlinked, Not once to touch the horrors of the war.
1
Pronounced in German court-zi-us