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I
met Jan Weiss through his friend from our Russian legions,
Ladislav Plechatý, who Weiss writes about in his letter to
brother Filipský.1)
Ladislav
Plechatý, then a civil servant of the Foreign Ministry, was at
the time, apart from other things, an editor of the fiction
section of a legionnaire daily newspaper, Národní osvobození
(National Liberation), where I published some of my works as
well. Here stemmed Weiss’s interest in me, fuelled by the fact
that I was at the time also an editorial-staff secretary (in
fact, the main editor) of a legionnaire semi-monthly Legionářské
besedy (Legionnaire Chats). The head of its editorial circle was
a poet and writer, popular already in the legions, Rudolf Medek,
at the time the director of Památník odboje (The Resistance
Memorial) in Prague. (Later on, I became his adjutant in this
office.)
I
met Weiss (after telephone calls) in the literary café Tůmovka
in Prague II, The Lazarská Street. Jan Weiss was at that time
already the author of his first published novel, The
Hut of Death, which surprised us by being published by such
an unliterary publishing house as Volná myšlenka (Free Idea).
We
have probably already then agreed that Weiss was going to
contribute to Legionářské besedy and he soon handed in the
manuscript of his theater play Penza, which was then published in Legionářské besedy.
The
manuscript of Weiss’s drama was typed on the paper of octavo
of the time. Weiss gave it to me as a whole, it was already
finished. Therefore, a question arises whether Weiss’s drama Penza
may be the very first legionary drama since Langer and Štěpánek’s
dramas from the lives of the legions appeared (if I am not
mistaken) later on.
Jan
Weiss liked Legionářské besedy, and because at the time he
was interested in a greater publicity of his name, he asked me
if he could be placed on the title page of the ending first year
also as a member of its editorial circle. This was done, both in
the first and second years.
I
met Jan Weiss almost every day for many years (never on
Saturdays and Sundays). I introduced him to the chief editor of
Legionářské besedy, Rudolf Medek and another editor of
Besedy, J. O. Novotný, who was (which was important for Weiss)
also the editor of the leading literary magazine of the time,
Cesta (The Journey), specifically its critical part. These
affectionate and very personal friendships made Weiss happy and
cheerful. We used to meet J. O. Novotny then almost every day
and we went to (after the office hours) various coffee shops (as
well as wine shops) in the Old Town and Malá Strana in Prague.
These were then little cafes with young waitresses (who the
businessmen often alternated), not particularly luxurious or
especially formal, thus with low prices. In some of these cafes,
Jan Weiss even used to dance to gramophone music. And it was
always tango, graceful and refined, that he chose. However, the
leader during the dance was not himself but his dancing partner,
yes? A girl! Sometimes, we used stay at these places (as they
were one next to another in a street) quite late into the night.
Weiss once told me that he tried to find some of these wine
sellers by himself but he could not find a way in this mixture
of lanes in the Old Town in Prague, so he (for instance) was not
able to find the street where was the huge and famous
Hendrych’s secondhand bookstore, or the Řetězová Street and
so on.
The
main topic of discussion during these so frequent meetings was
of course literary matters and the critic J. O. Novotny often
had the main say, bringing lots of interesting news from the
editor’s office of the magazine Cesta, but also about other
literary personalities (Šalda, Růžena Svobodová, Božena
Benešová, etc.). He of course knew also everything about the
young authors, who published in Cesta and elsewhere, stuff from
their lives, interesting details about their origin etc. etc.
This J. O. Novotný was among us called only “Jóťas”, a
name invented by Medek, like the name “Jakub” given to Jan
Weiss (only among us), like I used to be in this intimate trio
only “Julek” (according to my prose piece, published in
Cesta). Medek then naturally was, already in the legions, the
“bárin”2)of
all that.
Medek
presented us in the Literární odbor Umělecké besedy (Literary
Department of Artist Fellowship), where he also signed us up as
its members. In the same way, he signed us as members of the
Kruh českých spisovatelů (Circle of Czech Writers), which
pleased Weiss very much, since in the board of the Literary
Section of the time, thus at the meeting, there were Karel Matěj
Čapek-Chod, the critic Miloslav Hýsek, Viktor Dyk, Hanuš Jelínek,
the critic Karel Sezima and others. The people present at the
meetings at other times were František Skácelík, Štěpán Jež
and Jiří Mařánek, all of whom became Weiss’s friends and
he liked them very much. After the board meetings of the
Literary Section, we often went to a famous wine shop and so on.
Only there did Weiss have a wonderful time, since here in
particular he got to know Viktor Dyk and Hanuš Jelínek (“Hanouche”).
– (It is interesting that Karel Sezima did not take part in
these meetings because Dyk, Jelínek and Medek considered him to
be an intriguer, faultfinder and egoist.) Rudolf Medek naturally
always paid the bill for me and Weiss (“bárin”!), which
Weiss liked very much; he even dreamed about how nice it would
be if he himself (“Jakub”) was so famous one day and could
do the same for others.
Later
on, Medek was also a member of the fourth class of the Czech
Academy. I know that here too Weiss was interested in Medek
helping him achieve various awards and supports.
Ladislav
Plechatý, as the Foreign Ministry civil servant and a literary
personality had an influential job in the Radio Journal as well.
Therefore, he asked Weiss and me to contribute to his
broadcasting with short (“audio”) reports. Jan Weiss
welcomed everything new like this, but I do not remember what or
how many times he contributed.
Weiss’s
friendship with me and Plechatý reached its peak on a family
occasion when the two of us were the best men at Jan Weiss’s
wedding. A photo from this wedding (the group in front of the
Old-Town town hall) was then publicized by Plechatý in a
certain illustrated weekly magazine, owned by Zamini3).
Then I was entrusted with the task (as Medek’s adjutant,
responsible for social things as well) to organize a reception
festive enough, which I did. The wedding reception was in a
certain significant restaurant in the Celetná Street (roughly
opposite the Štorch publishing house), but I do not remember
its name any longer. And – in return? Jan Weiss was the
witness (godfather) at the official sing-up of my daughter Eve’s
birth in February 1928, when he promised to dedicate to her all
the books he had already written and he was still going to write;
which eventually happened.
In
the fall of 1934, I was displaced to Mukačevo on business
(Medek, thanks to his extravagance of a legion hero and famous
writer, could not have been moved there, therefore at least his
reliable adjutant was taken from him) and after my repeated
displacement to Prague to the Vojenský ústav vědecký (Army-Science
Institute) in 1936, I almost did not meet Weiss, which was the
result of MNO4)
not wanting me to meet Medek.
My
meetings with Weiss resumed then after the liberation of our
republic in May 1945, again in the Literary Department of Umělecká
beseda. I used to go to Beseda regularly, once a week, like
Weiss. Naturally, we were happy and merry again and had lots of
literary and political talks. We agreed. I know that at that
time Weiss still did not like the official literary gods and
their “pen-clubs”, while he began to love more and more
Olbracht, Vančura and other writers of their kind. As to
painters, he personally knew Jan Slavíček (already from
Medek’s circle) but he especially loved Jan Zrzavý. He was
not interested in classical music very much.
(Weiss
was not interested in sport either. – – He hated the press
of Jiří Stříbrný and Czech fascists.)
Jan
Weiss pleasantly surprised me by a comment in press made for my
fiftieth birthday, which appeared in the second issue of a new
magazine of the Literary Department of Umělecká beseda, Doba
(The Era). He knew
that my novel work about Leoš Janáček was going to be
published in the Otto publishing house, that it was supposed to
be announced to the book market in the monthly of this
publishing house. He did not know, however, what obstacles were
made to its publication.5)
Apart
from what is already known, you will probably not learn more
about Jan Weiss’s life in the Russian legions. We did not talk
to each other much about those (for us already past) times. As
far as I know, Weiss did not participate in any fighting, he
knew only his office duty. Neither did he ever speak about
personally meeting Jaroslav Hašek. As far as I am informed, he
did not publish anything in our magazines in Russia. And I hope
this is a final truth because, already in Russia and later on
more at home, I knew all the members of our editorial staff in
Russia, I therefore know a lot about their whole organization
and work.
I
do not know when he started to publish at home but, as I have
already mentioned, it was the literary section of our
legionnaire magazine, directed first by Ladislav Plechatý and
then Josef Kopta. He placed his more extensive prose works, as I
have already mentioned too, in Cesta,
where his novel The House
of One Thousand Floors was gradually published, and then
another novel, Bianka
Braselli. Of course, he also regularly contributed to the
magazine of the Literary Department of Umělecká beseda, Lumír
and, after the upheaval in 1945, to the magazine Doba.
Since
he used to meet J. O. Novotný (“Jóťas”), it is not
impossible that he published in the Sunday fiction section of Národní
listy too. And he may have published in other literary magazines
as Weiss’s greatest effort then was to achieve the greatest
publicity of his name.
*
And
this is probably everything that I remember about Jan Weiss
these days (when I am so painfully ill). Considering the
unfavorable circumstances I live in here in the countryside, I
am not able to impart anything from his correspondence, nor any
facts about his literary development and final portrayal. The
summary is: Jan Weiss was a very gentle, nice and honest man. He
loved people in general. He did not like arrogance, genteelness
and pride. He loved modesty and merry frankness. Away from the
nobility, closer to the ordinary people. And only with people
and only with people – housekeepers, artisans, masters of
their fields. He wanted the same thing for the intelligentsia.
No bureaucratic office work! And read, read. Literature is the
provider of a different life! Indeed? With this life! And –
that was what he tried strived for. Let there be an everlasting
honor to his good memory.
Zlenice,
May 15 and 17, 1977
Footnotes
1)
Legionářské besedy, 1926, 11–12, August, 332–333.
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