But one can not leave Romains unread. His interest is more than a prose interest, he has verse technique, rhyme, terminal syzygy, but that is not what I mean. He is poetry in:
On ne m'a pas donné de lettres, ces jours-ci; Personne n'a songé, dans la ville, à m'écrire, Oh! je n'espérais rien; je sais vivre et penser Tout seul, et mon esprit, pour faire une flambée, N'attend pas qu'on lui jette une feuille noircie. Mais je sens qu'il me manque un plaisir familier, J'ai du bonheur aux mains quand j'ouvre une enveloppe; * * * * * * *
Je me plais beaucoup trop à rester dans les gares; Accoude sur le bois anguleux des barrières, Je regarde les trains s'emplir de voyageurs. * * * * * * *
Mon esprit solitaire est une goutte d'huile Sur la pensée et sur le songe de la ville Qui me laissent flotter et ne m'absorbent pas. * * * * * * *
would not be important unless they were followed by exposition. The point is that they are followed by exposition, to which they form a necessary introduction, defining Romains' angle of attack; and as a result the force of Romains is cumulative. His early books gather meaning as one reads through the later ones.
And I think if one opens him almost anywhere one can discern the authentic accent of a man saying something, not the desultory impagination of rehash.
Charles Vildrac is an interesting companion figure to his brilliant friend Romains. He conserves himself, he is never carried away by Romains' theories. He admires, differs, and occasionally formulates a corrective or corollary as in "Gloire."
Compare this poem with Romains' "Ode to the Crowd Here Present" and you get the two angles of vision.
Henry Spiess, a Genevan lawyer, has written an interesting series of sketches of the court-room. He is a more or less isolated figure. I have seen amusing and indecorous poems by George Fourest, but it is quite probable that they amuse because one is unfamiliar with their genre; still "La Blonde Négresse" (the heroine of his title), his satire of the symbolo-rhapsodicoes in the series of poems about her: "La négresse blonde, la blonde négresse," gathering into its sound all the swish and woggle of the sound-over-sensists; the poem on the beautiful blue-behinded baboon; that on the gentleman "qui ne craignait ni la vérole ni dieu"; "Les pianos du Casino au bord de la mer" (Laforgue plus the four-hour touch), are an egregious and diverting guffaw. (I do not think the book is available to the public. J.G. Fletcher once lent me a copy, but the edition was limited and the work seems rather unknown.)