That’s not our strength, alas, us Germans. For the French, yes. Still Cartesians clear as crystal, these fellows. Infrastructural formalists each and every one of them—despite Vichy and Oradour, Algeria and Monsieur le Général de Gaulle. Despite the inundation of their intellectual world by Spaniards, Balkans, Russian Jews. A culturally homogeneous national style, you know. That’s what Scherping says too, our mutual friend and missing link, big-time publisher, mass-culture maker, so he ought to know—perhaps not without a touch of nationalist envy, but no matter, the fellow is a masochist. Arouses our sensual memorality. In any case: the Frenchman’s gift for form has always been apparent in his literature. First rate! Not a superfluous syllable. Every chef d’oeuvre its own table of contents, so to speak. Never a word too many. Exemplary. Yes, and their wines? You agree with our friend Schwab, right? And the women—let’s not get into that. And the French cuisine—mmm, mmm. And the Impressionists too, logically; and of course Paris! Paris, man! The music, needless to say, comes from us. Offenbach (a Jew, but musically pure German). Wagner (first a scandal, but then acceptance). The only native a fellow who sounds like what French girls wash their pussies in: Bizet (highly esteemed by Nietzsche, to be sure).

As for my part, sir, I’ll sing about Paris in any style you’d like—for instance art nouveau-ish waltz-wave-welling: And if it weren’t for Paree, then I might dream of you and mehehee (whirl and hop) in your most decent bed (ramtata) . . . or else brisk, with marching brass blaring: Oh come to the drum to Paree, old bum!!! (thundering drums and clashing cymbals) . . . Life is a swallow’s flight.

For the French, that is. For us, it’s not so smooth and clear. We’re known for being musical, but verbally we’re rather cloudy, amorphous, nebulous. No wonder, what with all that hard-to-communicate fatefulness of ours. The conflict-ridden soul, you know. Too many, too vast, too stormy are the thoughts that circle our heads. The everlasting struggle between pure philosophy and great art. “J’comprends jamais c’qu’tu veux dire, mon ours”—Gaia’s constant complaint. Ours des Carpates, mind you, not a German bear.

Actually, I’m no more German than you, Citizen Brodny, are American, no matter how set apart you may be, an ocean away, how clearly gone from one part of the world to another; no matter with what Anglo-Saxon pragmatism you can chatter on about the European nations’ gift for form, their formal strength, their formal problems. (One man’s meat is another man’s poison, as they say—or do you prefer the equivalent in Yiddish? I can be of assistance either way, not just a professional literary flunky but also a polyglot homme à tout faire, a linguistic opportunist) . . .

But then, what difference does it make who is what? We are not simply and resolutely one thing or the other. Not in these dynamic times. Sometimes, a man is both and yet neither, a blend of nothing and everything. People like us, for instance. A refugee’s fate. An émigré’s lot. We lost our true fatherlands and then forgot them among the lotus-eaters. Or elsewhere, somewhere along the way.