“He had done a great many things, he had gone to the austrian mountains with the austrians, he had gone to Germany with the germans and he had gone to Hungary with hungarians and he had gone to England with the english. He had not gone to Russia although he had been in Paris with russians. As Picasso always said of him, Roché is very nice but he is only a translation.
Later he was often at 27 rue de Fleurus with various nationalities and Gertrude Stein rather liked him. She always said of him he is so faithful, perhaps one need never see him again but one knows that somewhere Roché is faithful. He did give her one delightful sensation in the very early days of their acquaintance. Three Lives, Gertrude Stein’s first book was just then being written and Roché who could read english was very impressed by it. One day Gertrude Stein was saying something about herself and Roché said good good excellent that is very important for your biography. She was terribly touched, it was the first time that she really realized that some time she would have a biography. It is quite true that although she has not seen him for years somewhere Roché is probably perfectly faithful.”
(Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, pp. 704 in the Library of America edition of Writings 1903–1932)
.I was unable to find out Roché’s hungarian roots (connections)about 1903. Could someone help me?
Frigyes Görgényi
You might try getting in touch with Atlas Press, who are putting out an edition of Roché in English – I don’t know if they’d know about this, but they’d know who knows.
Sorry for my poor English: my profession is medical doctor,but I retired and am dealing with Marcel Duchamp. I wrote a biography on MD, appeared in 1995, and later a book which contains his chess parties (in hungarian!!).My only publication in English (First author Ivan Bottlik) Marcel Duchamp and Correspondence Chess appeared in “Chess Mail”, December 1999.