The Death of a World

Chanson de Rolland

THE DEATH OF A WORLD--Remain Rol-land--Holt ($3.50). "The master ringers are Business and Money: politics have had their day. Economics reigns. And it certainly cannot be said that wisdom chokes them! For they have not always a human countenance. They are often octopuses, formless anonymous monsters, whose thousand arms grope, and whose blind trunks lap in the dark. And the few individuals, whose personalities . . . still keep afloat . . . are nearly all, today, artificial products, without roots or seeds, without ancestors or descendants, without ties, associates or future." This is the theme of the latest stave in Romain Rolland's protracted swan son?. Author Rolland's famed ten-volume Jean Christophe, published before the War, told everything there was to tell about a musician of genius. The Soul Enchanted, of which the Death of a World is the fourth but not last installment, has a woman as hero. (Other volumes: Annette and Sylvie, Summer, If other and Son.) Even if 67-year-old Author Holland should not live to complete his plan, readers will find The Death of a World integral in itself. Annette Riviere and her only son Marc do not join in the rejoicing with which Paris greets the Armistice. Annette's warm heart fears what will happen to Marc in the post-War maelstrom, but her cool head warns her to keep her hands off. They are very poor, and Annette steadfastly refuses to take money from her half-sister Sylvie. who as the shrewd mistress of a millionaire is riding high on the tidal wave. When Marc finishes school, he and his mother part--she to go to Rumania as companion in a rich family, he to sink or swim for himself in Paris. His Aunt Sylvie tempts him beyond his strength: for a while he joins her roistering household. But he soon has enough of it and goes back to semi-starvation and odd jobs. Annette. who has also had her troubles in Rumania, comes back to Paris and takes a job as secretary to a notorious gutter-journalist; rumor quickly calls her his mistress. Marc avoids her, falls on worse & worse days, finally collapses into dangerous illness. Assia. a Russian girl who lives in the next room, nurses him, sends for Annette, and mother and son are reconciled. When Marc is convalescent he and Assia fall in love. Assia, who has been through a scarring mill, tells Annette her life story, offers to leave Marc. But wise Annette tells her to forget it, gives them her blessing.

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