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Jean Christophe: In Paris

R >> Romain Rolland >> Jean Christophe: In Paris




Christophe, as usual, was incapable of concealing what he felt, and moved
towards the young man: but as he made his way he wondered what he should
say to him: and he hesitated and stood still looking to right and left, as
though he were moving without any fixed object. But the young man was not
taken in, and saw that Christophe was moving towards himself: he was so
nervous at the thought of speaking to him that he tried to slip into the
next room: but he was glued to his place by his very bashfulness. So they
came face to face. It was some moments before they could find anything to
say. And as they went on standing like that each thought the other must
think him absurd. At last Christophe looked straight at the young man, and
said with a smile, in a gruff voice:

"You're not a Parisian?"

In spite of his embarrassment the young man smiled at this unexpected
question, and replied in the negative. His light voice, with its hint of a
musical quality, was like some delicate instrument.

"I thought not," said Christophe. And, as he saw that he was a little
confused by the singular remark, he added:

"It is no reproach."

But the young man's embarrassment was only increased.

There was another silence. The young man made an effort to speak: his lips
trembled: it seemed that he had a sentence on the tip of his tongue, but he
could not bring himself to speak it. Christophe eagerly studied his mobile
face, the muscles of which he could see twitching under the clear skin:
he did not seem to be of the same clay as the people all about him in the
room, with their heavy, coarse faces, which were only a continuation of
their necks, part and parcel of their bodies. In the young man's face the
soul shone forth: in every part of it there was a spiritual life.

He could not bring himself to speak. Christophe went on genially:

"What are you doing among all these people?"

He spoke out loud with that strange freedom of manner which made him hated.
His friend blushed and could not help looking round to see if he had been
heard: and Christophe disliked the movement. Then, instead of answering, he
asked with a shy, sweet smile:

"And you?"

Christophe began to laugh as usual, rather loudly.

"Yes. And I," he said delightedly.

The young man at last summoned up his courage.

"I love your music so much!" he said, in a choking voice.

Then he stopped and tried once more, vainly, to get the better of his
shyness. He was blushing, and knew it: and he blushed the more, up to his
temples and round to his ears. Christophe looked at him with a smile, and
longed to take him in his arms. The young man looked at him timidly.

"No," he said. "Of course, I can't ... I can't talk about that ... not
here...."

Christophe took his hand with a grin. He felt the stranger's thin fingers
tremble in his great paw and press it with an involuntary tenderness: and
the young man felt Christophe's paw affectionately crush his hand. They
ceased to hear the chatter of the people round them. They were alone
together and they knew that they were friends.

It was only for a second, for then Madame Roussin touched Christophe on the
arm with her fan and said:

"I see that you have introduced yourselves and don't need me to do so. The
boy came on purpose to meet you this evening."

Then, rather awkwardly, they parted.

Christophe asked Madame Roussin:

"Who is he?"

"What?" said she. "You don't know him? He is a young poet and writes very
prettily. One of your admirers. He is a good musician and plays the piano
quite nicely. It is no good discussing you in his presence: he is mad
about you. The other day he all but came to blows about you with Lucien
Lévy-Coeur."

"Oh! Bless him for that!" said Christophe.

"Yes, I know you are unjust to poor Lucien. And yet he too loves your
work."

"Ah! don't tell me that! I should hate myself."

"It is so, I assure you."

"Never! never! I will not have it. I forbid him to do so."

"Just what your admirer said. You are both mad. Lucien was just explaining
one of your compositions to us. The shy boy you met just now got up,
trembling with anger, and forbade him to mention your name. Think of it!...
Fortunately I was there. I laughed it off: Lucien did the same: and the
boy was utterly confused and relapsed into silence: and in the end he
apologized."

"Poor boy!" said Christophe.

He was touched by it.

"Where did he go?" he asked, without listening to Madame Roussin, who had
already begun to talk about something else.

He went to look for him. But his unknown friend had disappeared. Christophe
returned to Madame Roussin:

"Tell me, what is his name?"

"Who?" she asked.

"The boy you were talking about just now."

"Your young poet?" she said. "His name is Olivier Jeannin."

The name rang in Christophe's ears like some familiar melody. The shadowy
figure of a girl floated for a moment before his eyes. But the new image,
the image of his friend blotted it out at once.

* * * * *

Christophe went home. He strode through the streets of Paris mingling with
the throng. He saw nothing, heard nothing; he was insensible to everything
about him. He was like a lake cut off from the rest of the world by a ring
of mountains. Not a breath stirred, not a sound was heard, all was still.
Peace. He said to himself over and over again:

"I have a friend."




ANTOINETTE




I


The Jeannins were one of those old French families who have remained
stationary for centuries in the same little corner of a province, and have
kept themselves pure from any infusion of foreign blood. There are more
of them than one would think in France, in spite of all the changes in
the social order: it would need a great upheaval to uproot them from
the soil to which they are held by so many ties, the profound nature of
which is unknown to them. Reason counts for nothing in their devotion to
the soil, and interest for very little: and as for sentimental historic
memories, they only hold good for a few literary men. What does bind them
irresistibly is the obscure though very strong feeling, common to the dull
and the intelligent alike, of having been for centuries past a parcel of
the land, of living in its life, breathing the same air, hearing the heart
of it beating against their own, like the heart of the beloved, feeling its
slightest tremor, the changing hours and seasons and days, bright or dull,
and hearing the voices and the silence of all things in Nature. It is not
always the most beautiful country, nor that which has the greatest charm of
life, that most strongly grips the affections, but rather it is the region
where the earth seems simplest and most humble, nearest man, speaking to
him in a familiar friendly tongue.

Such was the country in the center of France where the Jeannins lived.
A flat, damp country, an old sleepy little town, wearily gazing at its
reflection in the dull waters of a still canal: round about it were
monotonous fields, plowed fields, meadows, little rivers, woods, and again
monotonous fields.... No scenery, no monuments, no memories. Nothing
attractive. It is all dull and oppressive. In its drowsy torpor is a hidden
force. The soul tasting it for the first time suffers and revolts against
it. But those who have lived with it for generations cannot break free:
it eats into their very bones: and the stillness of it, the harmonious
dullness, the monotony, have a charm for them and a sweet savor which they
cannot analyze, which they malign, love, and can never forget.

* * * * *

The Jeannins had always lived there. The family could be traced back to
the sixteenth century, living in the town or its neighborhood: for of
course they had a great-uncle who had devoted his life to drawing up the
genealogical tree of their obscure line of humble, industrious people:
peasants, farmers, artisans, then clerks, country notaries, working in
the subprefecture of the district, where Augustus Jeannin, the father of
the present head of the house, had successfully established himself as a
banker: he was a clever man, with a peasant's cunning and obstinacy, but
honest as men go, not over-scrupulous, a great worker, and a good liver:
he had made himself respected and feared everywhere by his genial malice,
his bluntness of speech, and his wealth. Short, thick-set, vigorous, with
little sharp eyes set in a big red face, pitted with smallpox, he had been
known as a petticoat-hunter: and he had not altogether lost his taste for
it. He loved a spicy yarn and good eating. It was a sight to see him at
meals, with his son Antoine sitting opposite him, with a few old friends
of their kidney: the district judge, the notary, the Archdeacon of the
Cathedral:--(old Jeannin loved stuffing the priest: but also he could stuff
with the priest, if the priest were good at it):--hearty old fellows built
on the same Rabelaisian lines. There was a running fire of terrific stories
to the accompaniment of thumps on the table and roars of laughter, and
the row they made could be heard by the servants in the kitchen and the
neighbors in the street.

Then old Augustus caught a chill, which turned to pneumonia, through going
down into his cellars one hot summer's day in his shirt-sleeves to bottle
his wine. In less than twenty-four hours he had departed this life for the
next world, in which he hardly believed, properly equipped with all the
Sacraments of the Church, having, like a good Voltairian provincial,
submitted to it at the last moment in order to pacify his women, and also
because it did not matter one way or the other.... And then, one never
knows....

His son Antoine succeeded him in business. He was a fat little man,
rubicund and expansive, clean-shaven, except for his mutton-chop whiskers,
and he spoke quickly and with a slight stutter, in a loud voice,
accompanying his remarks with little quick, curt gestures. He had not his
father's grasp of finance: but he was quite a good manager. He had only
to look after the established undertakings, which went on developing day
by day, by the mere fact of their existence. He had the advantage of a
business reputation in the district, although he had very little to do
with the success of the firm's ventures. He only contributed method and
industry. For the rest he was absolutely honorable, and was everywhere
deservedly esteemed. His pleasant unctuous manners, though perhaps a little
too familiar for some people, a little too expansive, and just a little
common, had won him a very genuine popularity in the little town and
the surrounding country. He was more lavish with his sympathy than with
his money: tears came readily to his eyes: and the sight of poverty so
sincerely moved him that the victim of it could not fail to be touched
by it.

Like most men living in small towns, his thoughts were much occupied with
politics. He was an ardent moderate Republican, an intolerant Liberal, a
patriot, and, like his father, extremely anti-clerical. He was a member of
the Municipal Council: and, like the rest of his colleagues, he delighted
in playing tricks on the _curé_ of the parish, or on the Lent preacher,
who roused so much enthusiasm in the ladies of the town. It must not be
forgotten that the anti-clericalism of the little towns in France is
always, more or less, an episode in domestic warfare, and is a subtle form
of that silent, bitter struggle between husbands and wives, which goes on
in almost every house.

Antoine Jeannin had also some literary pretensions. Like all provincials of
his generation, he had been brought up on the Latin Classics, many pages of
which he knew by heart, and also a mass of proverbs, and on La Fontaine and
Boileau,--the Boileau of _L'Art Poétique_, and, above all, of _Lutrin_,--on
the author of _La Pucelle_, and the _poetæ minores_ of the eighteenth
century, in whose manner he squeezed out a certain number of poems. He was
not the only man of his acquaintance possessed by that particular mania,
and his reputation gained by it. His rhyming jests, his quatrains,
couplets, acrostics, epigrams, and songs, which were sometimes rather
risky, though they had a certain coarsely witty quality, were often quoted.
He was wont to sing the mysteries of digestion: the Muse of the Loire
districts is fain to blow her trumpet like the famous devil of Dante:

"... _Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta._"

This sturdy, jovial, active little man had taken to wife a woman of a
very different character,--the daughter of a country magistrate, Lucie de
Villiers. The De Villiers--or rather Devilliers, for their name had split
in its passage through time, like a stone which cracks in two as it goes
hurtling down a hillside--were magistrates from father to son; they were of
that old parliamentary race of Frenchmen who had a lofty idea of the law,
and duty, the social conventions, their personal, and especially their
professional, dignity, which was fortified by perfect honesty, tempered
with a certain conscious uprightness. During the preceding century they had
been infected by nonconformist Jansenism, which had given them a grumbling
pessimistic quality, as well as a contempt for the Jesuit attitude of mind.
They did not see life as beautiful: and, rather than smooth away life's
difficulties, they preferred to exaggerate them so as to have good reason
to complain. Lucie de Villiers had certain of these characteristics, which
were so directly opposed to the not very refined optimism of her husband.
She was tall--taller than he by a head--slender, well made; she dressed
well and elegantly, though in a rather sober fashion, which made her
seem--perhaps designedly--older than she was: she was of a high moral
quality: but she was hard on other people; she would countenance no fault,
and hardly even a caprice: she was thought cold and disdainful. She was
very pious, and that gave rise to perpetual disputes with her husband.
For the rest, they were very fond of each other: and, in spite of their
frequent disagreements, they could not have lived without each other. They
were both rather unpractical: he from want of perception--(he was always
in danger of being taken in by good looks and fine words),--she from her
absolute inexperience of business--(she knew nothing about it: and having
always been kept outside it, she took no interest in it).

* * * * *

They had two children: a girl, Antoinette, the elder by five years; and a
boy, Olivier.

Antoinette was a pretty dark-haired child, with a charming, honest face of
the French type, round, with sharp eyes, a round forehead, a fine chin,
a little straight nose--"one of those very pretty, fine, noble noses" (as
an old French portrait-painter says so charmingly) "in which there was
a certain imperceptible play of expression, which animated the face,
and revealed the subtlety of the workings of her mind as she talked or
listened." She had her father's gaiety and carelessness.

Olivier was a delicate fair boy, short, like his father, but very different
in character. His health had been undermined by one illness after another
when he was a child: and although, as a result, he was petted by his
family, his physical weakness had made him a melancholy, dreamy little boy,
who was afraid of death and very poorly equipped for life. He was shy, and
preferred to be alone: he avoided the society of other children: he was
ill at ease with them: he hated their games and quarrels: their brutality
filled him with horror. He let them strike him, not from want of courage,
but from timidity, because he was afraid to defend himself, afraid of
hurting them: they would have bullied the life out of him, but for the
safeguard of his father's position. He was tender-hearted and morbidly
sensitive: a word, a sign of sympathy, a reproach, were enough to make him
burst into tears. His sister was much sturdier, and laughed at him, and
called him a "little fountain."

The two children were devoted to each other: but they were too different
to live together. They went their own ways and lived in their own dreams.
As Antoinette grew up, she became prettier: people told her so, and she
was well aware of it: it made her happy, and she wove romances about the
future. Olivier, in his sickly melancholy, was always rubbed up the wrong
way by contact with the outer world: and he withdrew into the circle of his
own absurd little brain: and he told himself stories. He had a burning,
almost feminine, longing to love and be loved: and, living alone, away from
boys of his own age, he had invented two or three imaginary friends: one
was called Jean, another Étienne, another François: he was always with
them. He never slept well, and he was always dreaming. In the morning, when
he was lifted out of bed, he would forget himself, and sit with his bare
legs dangling down, or sometimes with two stockings on one leg. He would go
off into a dream with his hands in the basin. He would forget himself at
his desk in the middle of writing or learning a lesson: he would dream for
hours on end: and then he would suddenly wake up, horrified to find that he
had learned nothing. At dinner he was abashed if any one spoke to him: he
would reply two minutes after he had been spoken to: he would forget what
he was going to say in the middle of a sentence. He would doze off to the
murmuring of his thoughts and the familiar sensations of the monotonous
provincial days that marched so slowly by: the great half-empty house, only
part of which they occupied: the vast and dreadful barns and cellars: the
mysterious closed rooms, the fastened shutters, the covered furniture,
veiled mirrors, and the chandeliers wrapped up: the old family portraits
with their haunting smiles: the Empire engravings, with their virtuous,
suave heroism: _Alcibiades and Socrates in the House of the Courtezan_,
_Antiochus and Stratonice_, _The Story of Epaminondas_, _Belisarius
Begging_.... Outside, the sound of the smith shoeing horses in the smithy
opposite, the uneven clink of the hammers on the anvil, the snorting of
the broken-winded horses, the smell of the scorched hoofs, the slapping of
the pats of the washerwomen kneeling by the water, the heavy thuds of the
butcher's chopper next door, the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the stones
of the street, the creaking of a pump, or the drawbridge over the canal,
the heavy barges laden with blocks of wood, slowly passing at the end
of the garden, drawn along by a rope: the little tiled courtyard, with
a square patch of earth, in which two lilac-trees grew, in the middle
of a clump of geraniums and petunias: the tubs of laurel and flowering
pomegranate on the terrace above the canal: sometimes the noise of a fair
in the square hard by, with peasants in bright blue smocks, and grunting
pigs.... And on Sunday, at church, the precentor, who sang out of tune, and
the old priest, who went to sleep as he was saying Mass: the family walk
along the station road, where all the time he had to take off his hat
politely to other wretched beings, who were under the same impression of
the necessity of going for a walk all together,--until at last they reached
the sunny fields, above which larks soared invisible,--or along by the
still mirror of the canal, on both sides of which were poplars rustling in
line.... And then there was the great provincial Sunday dinner, when they
went on and on eating and talking about food learnedly and with gusto: for
everybody was a connoisseur: and, in the provinces, eating is the chief
occupation, the first of all the arts. And they would talk business,
and tell spicy yarns, and every now and then discuss their neighbors'
illnesses, going into endless detail.... And the little boy, sitting in his
corner, would make no more noise than a little mouse, pick at his food, eat
hardly anything, and listen with all his ears. Nothing escaped him: and
when he did not understand, his imagination supplied the deficiency. He had
that singular gift, which is often to be remarked in the children of old
families and an old stock, on which the imprint of the ages is too strongly
marked, of divining thoughts, which have never passed through their minds
before, and are hardly comprehensible to them.--Then there was the kitchen,
where bloody and succulent mysteries were concocted: and the old servant
who used to tell him frightful and droll stories.... At last came evening,
the silent flitting of the bats, the terror of the monstrous creatures
that were known to swarm in the dark depths of the old house: huge rats,
enormous hairy spiders: and he would say his prayers, kneeling at the, foot
of his bed, and hardly know what he was saying: the little cracked bell of
the convent hard by would sound the bed-time of the nuns;--and so to bed,
the Island of Dreams....

The best times of the year were those that they spent in spring and autumn
at their country house some miles away from the town. There he could dream
at his ease: he saw nobody. Like most of the children of their class, the
little Jeannins were kept apart from the common children: the children
of servants and farmers, who inspired them with fear and disgust. They
inherited from their mother an aristocratic--or, rather, essentially
middle-class--disdain for all who worked with their hands. Olivier would
spend the day perched up in the branches of an ash reading marvelous
stories: delightful folklore, the _Tales_ of Musæus, or Madame d'Aulnoy,
or the _Arabian Nights_, or stories of travel. For he had that strange
longing for distant lands, "those oceanic dreams," which sometimes possess
the minds of boys in the little provincial towns of France. A thicket lay
between the house and himself, and he could fancy himself very far away.
But he knew that he was really near home, and was quite happy: for he did
not like straying too far alone: he felt lost with Nature. Round him the
wind whispered through the trees. Through the leaves that hid his nest
he could see the yellowing vines in the distance, and the meadows where
the straked cows were at pasture, filling the silence of the sleeping
country-side with their plaintive long-drawn lowing. The strident cocks
crowed to each other from farm to farm. There came up the irregular beat of
the flails in the barns. The fevered life of myriads of creatures swelled
and flowed through the peace of inanimate Nature. Uneasily Olivier would
watch the ever hurrying columns of the ants, and the bees big with their
booty, buzzing like organ-pipes, and the superb and stupid wasps who know
not what they want--the whole world of busy little creatures, all seemingly
devoured by the desire to reach their destination.... Where is it? They
do not know. No matter where! Somewhere.... Olivier was fearful amid that
blind and hostile world. He would start, like a young hare, at the sound of
a pine-cone falling, or the breaking of a rotten branch.... He would find
his courage again when he heard the rattling of the chains of the swing at
the other end of the garden, where Antoinette would be madly swinging to
and fro.

She, too, would dream: but in her own fashion. She would spend the day
prowling round the garden, eating, watching, laughing, picking at the
grapes on the vines like a thrush, secretly plucking a peach from the
trellis, climbing a plum-tree, or giving it a little surreptitious shake as
she passed to bring down a rain of the golden mirabelles which melt in the
mouth like scented honey. Or she would pick the flowers, although that was
forbidden: quickly she would pluck a rose that she had been coveting all
day, and run away with it to the arbor at the end of the garden. Then she
would bury her little nose in the delicious scented flower, and kiss it,
and bite it, and suck it: and then she would conceal her booty, and hide it
in her bosom between her little breasts, at the wonder of whose coming she
would gaze in eager fondness.... And there was an exquisite forbidden joy
in taking off her shoes and stockings, and walking bare-foot on the cool
sand of the paths, and on the dewy turf, and on the stones, cold in the
shadow, burning in the sun, and in the little stream that ran along the
outskirts of the wood, and kissing with her feet, and legs, and knees,
water, earth, and light. Lying in the shadow of the pines, she would hold
her hands up to the sun, and watch the light play through them, and she
would press her lips upon the soft satin skin of her pretty rounded arms.
She would make herself crowns and necklets and gowns of ivy-leaves and
oak-leaves: and she would deck them with the blue thistles, and barberry
and little pine-branches, with their green fruit: and then she looked like
a little savage Princess. And she would dance for her own delight round and
round the fountain; and, with arms outstretched, she would turn and turn
until her head whirled, and she would slip down on the lawn and bury her
face in the grass, and shout with laughter for minutes on end, unable to
stop herself, without knowing why.

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