GERMAN IMPRESSIONS
19
definitely announce our intentions with regard to Germany, so that
they could envisage their future as part of the British Empire more
clearly. For it was as part of the British Empire that they now were
ready to see themselves, and there is nothing very striking about the
question of a prominent Catholic priest, Father R--, to me: Did
I believe that, in ten years, the British Zone might be granted
Dominion Status?
Another attitude which they shared was a bitter and uncon–
cealed resentment and fear of the French whose occupation of part
of the Rhineland they regarded as the greatest of the indignities
which they had to endure. The French, they said, were beaten, they
were finished as a nation and as an Empire, and the resurrection of
the corpse of France by the power of the allies was intolerable to
them.
Until the day of the atom bomb, they shared in common with
nearly all Germans, the view that Russia would eventually either
occupy the whole of the European mainland or else be defeated by
the Western powers. The habit of envisaging every situation in terms
of power, forced their minds to this conclusion. They pointed out that
the greater part of the American am1y soon would have left the con–
tinent and then that the balance of power between Russia and the
West would be altered decisively in favour of Russia. To the German
mind, the conclusion that Russia will attack the West is inevitable.
GUILT
One morning I called on C-- again. He was sitting at his table
which was piled up with many heaps of books. One of these was
The Ondt and the Gracehopper,
a fragment of
Finnegans Wake.
This
contained many marginal notes by C-- explaining the derivations
of some of these punning portmanteau inventions of Joyce. The book
was inscribed to C-- by James Joyce.
For some time we talked about Joyce. Then he said: 'I want
to sell this book, but I don't know how much it is worth.' I said
'I'll try to find out in London. But in any case you couldn't sell it
there now, on account of various Exchange regulations.' 'That does
not matter. In a year or eighteen months would do.' "Why do you
want to sell your books? Are you hard up?' 'No I'm not. And in any
case there is nothing to buy in Gennany. I used to like beautiful
books and charming things, but now I want to get rid of them all.
I have collected bad editions of all the books which I shall want to
