Sirrah, Sir! I bet the Dardanelles that this fucker from the "Investias" [sic] never read one line from my books! What does all his babble mean? What do I have in common with Sade, Sartre, Millner [sic] or the Pope? Does that dumb-ass even know anything about them? Can he even read? I don't think so. Can he write? Certainly not. He mumbles things with neither head nor tail, writes God knows what!... He gets paid! He mixes everything up, misunderstands everything, craps it all out, barks, and there we are. Just thinking that great empires employ such cretins makes one sick. Telling such bullshit about such a sad state of affairs! What would it be with more important ones? I'd like to talk about all these sad things to Dr. Braun or Mr. Sokoline, who I knew well... They'd be quite embarrassed... What crass morons those "Investians" are! And there we are for existentialism! Bang! Homosexuality! Weez! Voltaire! Boom! The moon! What a mess! What a shame!
     I don't mind making another slight effort, which is a gesture of supreme kindness for the Soviets, to fix a little detail in the History of French Literature for them, so they'll stop messing around with it. "C»line-the-literary-Zero" will teach them (since they know nothing, not even their own concerns, they dribble on themselves!) that Voyage au bout de la nuit was launched through an article published by Georges Altman in Henri Barbusse's Communist Le Monde in 1934 [sic]. The articles by Daudet, Descaves or Ajalbert only came "later." I, by the way, always had very cordial relations with Altmann. And secondly, I shall teach them that Voyage was automatically translated by the Soviets (without their asking me at any moment what I thought about it!) and that the translators were none other than Elsa Triolet and her husband Aragon, who didn't hesitate to retouch my text for the needs of their propaganda. By the way, the Soviets still owe me money for that translation. Before arguing with people, it's a good idea to pay them what they're owed. To start off with! Aren't the "Investians" aware that although I'm a "fascist criminal," "all my novels" were "forbidden" in Germany upon Hitler's arrival, and for the length of the Hitlerian reign? Do they know that my latest "German" editor is Julius Kittel, a Jew who fled to Marich-Ostrau, Morovia (1936)?
     Such stupidity discourages polemics and it is easy to understand why the spoken word is now reserved for bombs, mines and the deluge!