Graham Greene (31 page)

17th December 1952

Dear Alex,

I had a very friendly and nice drink the other evening with Trevor Howard and George More O’Ferrall. The subject of the end of the film cropped up again and O’Ferrall was very ready that I should speak to you about it, although he doesn’t quite agree with my ideas. So I am making a last appeal to you!

The success of the book was partly based on the controversial aspect of the suicide and the priest’s reaction to it. Not only did his attitude come as a surprise to people but it also provided the book with something in the nature of a happy ending. In the last script I was shown the words of the priest were transposed so that they came in before the suicide and therefore had no particular force or
validity. It was merely excusing a man for a deed he had not yet committed.

I know there is censorship trouble with the suicide, but I suggested to Dalrymple
⁴³
and to George More O’Ferrall at our last meeting before O’Ferrall went to West Africa the following means for evading the censorship difficulty and also getting over the full force of the book’s subject.

In an earlier scene of the script the doctor had referred to suicide and to the matter of angina pectoris which is undetectable in a postmortem. At the end Scobie can bear things no longer and decides to shoot himself. At the same time he wants to cover up the real motives of his suicide so as to give as little pain as possible. Having loaded his revolver therefore he sits down and writes a letter to his wife saying that the pain he has been secretly suffering proves to be angina and that he cannot face it any longer and asks her forgiveness for his cowardice. At this point he is called out on police duty to deal with Yusef and leaves his revolver behind. As in the present script he is shot, deliberately courting a bullet. Practically the only increase in length is that now his wife or Wilson finds the letter so that she knows he died with the full intention of suicide in his mind. We then have the priest’s commentary and rebuke of Mrs. Scobie as at the end of the book. Not only does the film become more controversial and more interesting, but the ending is far less melancholy than if we simply leave it at the death. O’Ferrall objects that this would mean probably at least one more day’s shooting if not two, but I would urge you to consider the wisdom of shooting it in this way even if on later consideration you cut it to the form it now takes.

Affectionately,

Graham

No change was made. Howard’s performance is generally regarded as brilliant, but the film inevitably suffers by comparison with the book.

The Welsh poet and painter David Jones
(1895–1974)
is best known for his long poem
The Anathemata
(
1952),
which depicts British history and mythology in terms of the Eucharist. He is regarded by some as a major, if neglected, figure.

5 St. James’s Street, | London S.W.1 | 23rd February 1953

Dear David,

Being a little drunk, as perhaps one should always be when reading a really new poem, please accept my homage for
Anathemata.
For weeks now it has been lying on a chair while I waited for the courage to read it. As one grows older one grows more and more disinclined to read a really new thing. One is afraid one won’t understand, which hurts one’s pride, (and there are great passages in your poem which I don’t understand), and one is afraid of being unduly disturbed. But please will you accept from me lying on a sofa, suffering from a bad cold, a sense of excitement which makes one mark passage after passage on page after page. I have read the ending with immense excitement, but I haven’t yet got to it. This is a silly letter, but anyway I shall be right out of the country before you receive it.

Yours,
     Graham

TO R. K. NARAYAN

C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. | 19th November 1953

My dear Narayan,

I’ve been so glad to see first-class reviews of your novels recently in
The New Yorker
and other American papers. It’s taken a long time for your genius to come through to the public, but at last it really seems to be making itself felt.

I am going out again East this winter to Indo-China and it occurs
to me that it might be possible for me to stop off at Calcutta on the way home and come down to Madras if there was a chance of seeing you. You know how much I should love to do that and how much I should love to see ‘Malgudi’, but I trust you as an old friend to tell me if it would be in any way difficult or awkward. Alas! politics thrust their way into every human relationship. Please let me trust you to tell me of any difficulty, just as you could trust me if you were living in London and rang up for a drink to say that I couldn’t manage it as I had somebody there with whom I wished to be alone! […]

TO LADY DIANA COOPER

Duff Cooper died of a haemorrhage
1
January
1954
.

Hotel Majestic, | Saigon, | Jan. 2 [1954]

Dear Diana,

Please forgive an incoherent note. I have just read of Duff’s death. Why does one think selfishly of the loss to his friends & only after a second of time of his loss to you – the real loser? Perhaps because one knows you have him always, & we only had him for a few years. Do please
not
answer this silly inadequate note. When I get to Hanoi tomorrow, I’ll arrange for a Mass – you won’t mind, will you? It’s the expression – the only one we have – of the sense that life isn’t over.

Affectionately,
     Graham Greene

TO EVELYN WAUGH

In a letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo
(1877–1970),
Secretary of the Holy Office, advised that
The Power and the Glory
had been ‘denounced to this Sacred Congregation. He noted indulgently that Greene was a convert, but observed that in the novel man’s wretchedness carries the day and that the work is injurious to the
priesthood. ‘The novel moreover portrays a state of affairs so paradoxical, so extraordinary and so erroneous as to disconcert unenlightened persons, who form the majority of the readers.’ Greene was instructed not to permit further editions or translations. In a letter of
2
May
1954
, Waugh declared himself ready to join a demonstration on Greene’s behalf but assumed he would not want anything of the kind.

C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1. | May 3 [1954]

Dear Evelyn,

I was very touched by your generous letter & so complete an offer of help. I think however that for the time being – for the sake of the Church even, whom the Inquisitor may well injure in the eyes of non-Catholics – slowness & caution are required, two qualities I detest. Of course I doubt if the situation would ever have got this far without our Cardinal Kipps.
⁴⁴

My answers go off this week, & if the Inquisitor proceeds to publication, then I will be very grateful for your support.

I can’t tell you how glad I was to get your letter. What a good friend you are!

Affectionately,
     Graham

TO MONSIGNOR GIOVANNI BATTISTA MONTINI (LATER POPE PAUL VI)

With the advice of his friend Archbishop David Mathew
(1902–75),
a papal diplomat, Greene composed a ‘casuistical’ response and sent a copy to the cultured Montini (1
897–1978),
a future pope, who as Pro-Secretary of State was the most influential of Pope Pius XII’s advisers.
⁴⁵

[6 May 1954]

Your Excellency will be aware of my profound and filial devotion to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff. I am therefore the more deeply disturbed by the difficulty which has arisen in regard to the judgment of the Holy Office in respect of my book,
The Power and the Glory.
I feel it is only right that I should send to Your Excellency a copy of a letter I have today addressed to His Eminence, Cardinal Pizzardo.

It is not that I ask Your Excellency for any comment on this matter which is so intimately painful to myself. I feel however that I should keep you informed on this question.

I remain with respect

Your Excellency’s devoted servant in Christ,
     Graham Greene

Montini had already been involved – on
1
October
1953
he had written to Cardinal Pizzardo defending the book.
⁴⁶

[
c
. 6 May 1954]

It is not without hesitation that I presume to address Your Eminence: but, in the present delicate situation, I have grounds, it seems to me, to present you with an account of the facts.

On 9 April, during an audience which His Eminence Cardinal Griffin, Archbishop of Westminster, granted me, he handed me the copy of a letter which Your Eminence had written to him on 16 November. The delay in the communication of this document is due to my absence from London: I was in Indochina, where I was doing
my utmost to make world opinion, for which my articles are intended, understand the difficulties faced by the heroic Catholics of Indochina confronted with the Communist menace.

I wish to emphasize that, throughout my life as a Catholic, I have never ceased to feel deep sentiments of personal attachment to the Vicar of Christ, fostered in particular by admiration for the wisdom with which the Holy Father has constantly guided God’s Church. I have always been vividly impressed by the high spirituality which characterizes the Government of Pius XII. Your Eminence knows that I had the honour of a private audience during the holy year 1950. I shall retain my impression of it until my last breath. Your Eminence will therefore understand how distraught I am to learn that my book
The Power and the Glory
has been the object of criticism from the Holy Office. The aim of the book was to oppose the power of the sacraments and the indestructibility of the Church on the one hand with, on the other, the merely temporal power of an essentially Communist state.

May I remind Your Eminence that this book was written in 1938–39 before the menace which I myself witnessed in Mexico spread to Western Europe? I beg Your Eminence, in conclusion, to consider the fact that the book was published 14 years ago and, consequently, the rights have passed from my hands into those of publishers in different countries. In addition, the translations to which Your Eminence’s letter refers appeared for the most part several years ago and no new translation is envisaged.

I am sending His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster the names of the publishers concerned. They alone have the right to reprint.

I wish to assure Your Eminence of my profound respect for any communication emanating from the Sacred Congregation of the Index …

Your most humble and devoted servant
     Graham Greene

The Vatican quietly allowed the matter to drop.

TO R. K. NARAYAN

C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. | 19th July 1954

My dear Narayan,

I am about half-way through making small corrections in your book and hope to finish this week. The only title I thought of so far is ‘Waiting For The Mahatma’ but I don’t think this will be a very popular title.
⁴⁷

I was fascinated by the portrait you have drawn of Gandhi and that period in India’s history, the love story of Sriram and Bharati is charming, and the whole book will do you credit I am sure. I confess myself a little disappointed to find politics entering Malgudi if only because politics either date or become history, and I have always felt a kind of eternal quality in Malgudi.

Yours affectionately,
     Graham

TO EVELYN WAUGH

C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1. | 17th August 1954

Dear Evelyn,

I always type my letters to you since the sad day when you couldn’t read my signature! I do wish I had been able to come to the fête which from the accounts in the various papers I have read seems to have been great fun for the populace if not for you. Have I ever seen Rossetti’s only nude or is it a new acquisition?

I am off tomorrow on the spur of the moment to Haiti to have ten days holiday there with Peter Brook and Natasha. Do you know them? I like them both, especially Natasha, very very much.

No, I don’t think you should share my indignation about Colette’s
funeral
⁴⁸
as the indignation was really whipped up by an extremely good lunch, a lot of alcohol and some French friends who are dear to me. I wasn’t really protesting against the lack of an official mass but only against the way in which the announcement was made, and surely if the relatives want it it’s possible to have a few prayers said at a grave-side without involving the church officially. I have a strong impression that something of this kind was done for Conrad who had also lived the greater part of his life outside the Church but on consulting Aubry’s
Life
there is no mention of death. Anyway I don’t think that my letter has done any harm as it has made the Archbishop write a letter in reply explaining exactly the reasons which will now be understood by non-Catholics.

Yours ever,
     Graham

Will you keep this letter in case I need it to refresh my mind?

El Rancho Hotel | Port-Au-Prince, Haiti | Sunday, Aug. 30 [1954]

Dearest Cafryn,

I wonder if this will follow you to Ireland? Last night we were at a Voodoo ceremony until 3 in the morning. One reads about such things
⁴⁹
but to see them is incredible & terrifying. The first two hours were spent in a kind of parody of Catholic rites – a choir of white-clothed girls jigging & singing & responding, holy banners – one marked St. Jacques, the portrait of a saint, the kissing of crosses & vestments, endless prayers from the Houngan or priest recited in a
Catholic way, the ‘fairy’ motions of a server, a kind of Asperges with a jug of water – the horrible really began when the Agape began – a procession carrying fuel & food & dishes & a live hen. The man carrying the hen swung it like a censer, & then would dash to this & that member of the congregation & plaster his face & body with the live bird (you can imagine how I felt about that!). More interminable prayers & then the bird’s feet were cracked off like cheese biscuits & the attendant put the live bird’s head in his mouth & bit it off– the body of course went on flapping while he squeezed the blood out of the trunk (a small black boy a little older than James watched it all solemnly).