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Jean Christophe: In Paris

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Next day Madame Jeannin went to see her sister, who lived in a luxurious
flat in the _Boulevard Hausmann_. She hoped, though she did not say so,
that they would be invited to stay there until they had found their feet.
The welcome she received was enough to undeceive her. The Poyet-Delormes
were furious at their relative's failure: especially Madame Delorme, who
was afraid that it would be set against her, and might injure her husband's
career, and she thought it shameless of the ruined family to come and
cling to them, and compromise them even more. The magistrate was of the
same opinion: but he was a kindly man: he would have been more inclined
to help, but for his wife's intervention--to which he knuckled under.
Madame Poyet-Delorme received her sister with icy coldness. It cut Madame
Jeannin to the heart: but she swallowed down her pride: she hinted at the
difficulty of her position and the assistance she hoped to receive from the
Poyets. Her sister pretended not to understand, and did not even ask her to
stay to dinner: they were ceremoniously invited to dine at the end of the
week. The invitation did not come from Madame Poyet either, but from the
magistrate, who was a little put out at his wife's treatment of her sister,
and tried to make amends for her curtness: he posed as the good-natured
man: but it was obvious that it did not come easily to him and that he was
really very selfish. The unhappy Jeannins returned to their hotel without
daring to say what they thought of their first visit.

They spent the following days in wandering about Paris, looking for a fiat:
they were worn out with going up stairs, and disheartened by the sight of
the great barracks crammed full of people, and the dirty stairs, and the
dark rooms, that seemed so depressing to them after their own big house in
the country. They grew more and more depressed. And they were always shy
and timid in the streets, and shops, and restaurants, so that they were
cheated at every turn. Everything they asked for cost an exorbitant sum: it
was as though they had the faculty of turning everything they touched into
gold: only, it was they who had to pay out the gold. They were incredibly
simple and absolutely incapable of looking after themselves.

Though there was little left to hope for from Madame Jeannin's sister, the
poor lady wove illusions about the dinner to which they were invited. They
dressed for it with fluttering hearts. They were received as guests, and
not as relations--though nothing more was expended on the dinner than the
ceremonious manner. The children met their cousins, who were almost the
same age as themselves, but they were not much more cordial than their
father and mother. The girl was very smart and coquettish, and spoke to
them with a lisp and a politely superior air, with affectedly honeyed
manners which disconcerted them. The boy was bored by this duty-dinner with
their poor relations: and he was as surly as could be. Madame Poyet-Delorme
sat up stiffly in her chair, and, even when she handed her a dish, seemed
to be reading her sister a lesson. Madame Poyet-Delorme talked trivialities
to keep the conversation from becoming serious. They never got beyond
talking of what they were eating for fear of touching upon any intimate
and dangerous topic. Madame Jeannin made an effort to bring them round to
the subject next her heart: Madame Poyet-Delorme cut her short with some
pointless remark, and she had not the courage to try again.

After dinner she made her daughter play the piano by way of showing off her
talents. The poor girl was embarrassed and unhappy and played execrably.
The Poyets were bored and anxious for her to finish. Madame Poyet exchanged
glances with her daughter, with an ironic curl of her lips: and as the
music went on too long she began to talk to Madame Jeannin about nothing in
particular. At last Antoinette, who had quite lost her place, and saw to
her horror that, instead of going on, she had begun again at the beginning,
and that there was no reason why she should ever stop, broke off suddenly,
and ended with two inaccurate chords and a third which was absolutely
dissonant. Monsieur Poyet said:

"Bravo!"

And he asked for coffee.

Madame Poyet said that her daughter was taking lessons with Pugno: and the
young lady "who was taking lessons with Pugno" said:

"Charming, my dear...."

And asked where Antoinette had studied.

The conversation dropped. They had exhausted the knick-knacks in the
drawing-room and the dresses of Madame and Mademoiselle Poyet. Madame
Jeannin said to herself:

"I must speak now. I must...."

And she fidgeted. Just as she had pulled herself together to begin, Madame
Poyet mentioned casually, without any attempt at an apology, that they were
very sorry but they had to go out at half-past nine: they had an invitation
which they had been unable to decline. The Jeannins were at a loss, and
got up at once to go. The Poyets made some show of detaining them. But
a quarter of an hour later there was a ring at the door: the footman
announced some friends of the Poyets, neighbors of theirs, who lived in the
flat below. Poyet and his wife exchanged glances, and there were hurried
whisperings with the servants. Poyet stammered some excuse, and hurried
the Jeannins into the next room. (He was trying to hide from his friends
the existence, and the presence in his house, of the compromising family.)
The Jeannins were left alone in a room without a fire. The children were
furious at the affront. Antoinette had tears in her eyes and insisted on
their going. Her mother resisted for a little: but then, after they had
waited for some time, she agreed. They went out. In the hall they were
caught by Poyet, who had been told by a servant, and he muttered excuses:
he pretended that he wanted them to stay: but it was obvious that he was
only eager for them to go. He helped them on with their cloaks, and hurried
them to the door with smiles and handshakes and whispered pleasantries, and
closed the door on them. When they reached their hotel the children burst
into angry tears. Antoinette stamped her foot, and swore that she would
never enter their house again.

Madame Jeannin took a flat on the fourth floor near the _Jardin des
Plantes_. The bedrooms looked on to the filthy walls of a gloomy courtyard:
the dining-room and the drawing-room--(for Madame Jeannin insisted on
having a drawing-room)--on to a busy street. All day long steam-trams went
by and hearses crawling along to the Ivry Cemetery. Filthy Italians, with a
horde of children, loafed about on the seats, or spent their time in shrill
argument. The noise made it impossible to have the windows open: and in the
evening, on their way home, they had to force their way through crowds of
bustling, evil-smelling people, cross the thronged and muddy streets, pass
a horrible pothouse, that was on the ground floor of the next house, in
the door of which there were always fat, frowsy women with yellow hair and
painted faces, eying the passers-by.

Their small supply of money soon gave out. Every evening with sinking
hearts they took stock of the widening hole in their purse. They tried
to stint themselves: but they did not know how to set about it: that is
a science which can only be learned by years of experimenting, unless it
has been practised from childhood. Those who are not naturally economical
merely waste their time in trying to be so: as soon as a fresh opportunity
of spending money crops up, they succumb to the temptation: they are always
going to economize next time: and when they do happen to make a little
money, or to think they have made it, they rush out and spend ten times the
amount on the strength of it.

At the end of a few weeks the Jeannins' resources were exhausted. Madame
Jeannin had to gulp down what was left of her pride, and, unknown to her
children, she went and asked Poyet for money. She contrived to see him
alone at his office, and begged him to advance her a small sum until they
had found work to keep them alive. Poyet, who was weak and human enough,
tried at first to postpone the matter, but finally acceded to her request.
He gave her two hundred francs in a moment of emotion, which mastered him,
and he repented of it immediately afterwards,--when he had to make his
peace with Madame Poyet, who was furious with her husband's weakness, and
her sister's slyness.

* * * * *

All day and every day the Jeannins were out and about in Paris, looking
for work. Madame Jeannin, true to the prejudices of her class, would not
hear of their engaging in any other profession than those which are called
"liberal"--no doubt because they leave their devotees free to starve. She
would even have gone so far as to forbid her daughter to take a post as
a family governess. Only the official professions, in the service of the
State, were not degrading in her eyes. They had to discover a means of
letting Olivier finish his education so that he might become a teacher. As
for Antoinette, Madame Jeannin's idea was that she should go to a school
to teach, or to the Conservatoire to win the prize for piano playing. But
the schools at which she applied already had teachers enough, who were
much better qualified than her daughter with her poor little elementary
certificate: and, as for music, she had to recognize that Antoinette's
talent was quite ordinary compared with that of so many others who did not
get on at all. They came face to face with the terrible struggle for life,
and the blind waste of talent, great and small, for which Paris can find no
use.

The two children lost heart and exaggerated their uselessness: they
believed that they were mediocre, and did their best to convince themselves
and their mother that it was so. Olivier, who had had no difficulty in
shining at his provincial school, was crushed by his various rebuffs: he
seemed to have lost possession of all his gifts. At the school for which he
won a scholarship, the results of his first examinations were so disastrous
that his scholarship was taken away from him. He thought himself utterly
stupid. At the same time he had a horror of Paris, and its swarming
inhabitants, and the disgusting immorality of his schoolfellows, and their
shameful conversation, and the bestiality of a few of them who did not
spare him from their abominable proposals. He was not even strong enough to
show his contempt for them. He felt degraded by the mere thought of their
degradation. With his mother and sister, he took refuge in the heartfelt
prayers which they used to say every evening after the day of deceptions
and private humiliations, which to their innocence seemed to be a taint,
of which they dared not tell each other. But, in contact with the latent
spirit of atheism which is in the air of Paris, Olivier's faith was
beginning to crumble away, without his knowledge, like whitewash trickling
down a wall under the beating of the rain. He went on believing: but all
about him God was dying.

His mother and sister pursued their futile quest. Madame Jeannin turned
once more to the Poyets, who were anxious to be quit of them, and offered
them work. Madame Jeannin was to go as reader to an old lady who was
spending the winter in the South of France. A post was found for Antoinette
as governess in a family in the West, who lived all the year round in the
country. The terms were not bad, but Madame Jeannin refused. It was not
so much for herself that she objected to a menial position, but she was
determined that Antoinette should not be reduced to it, and unwilling
to part with her. However unhappy they might be, just because they were
unhappy, they wished to be together.--Madame Poyet took it very badly. She
said that people who had no means of living had no business to be proud.
Madame Jeannin could not refrain from crying out upon her heartlessness.
Madame Poyet spoke bitterly of the bankruptcy and of the money that Madame
Jeannin owed her. They parted, and the breach between them was final. All
relationship between them was broken off. Madame Jeannin had only one
desire left: to pay back the money she had borrowed. But she was unable to
do that.

They resumed their vain search for work. Madame Jeannin went to see the
deputy and the senator of her department, men whom Monsieur Jeannin had
often helped. Everywhere she was brought face to face with ingratitude
and selfishness. The deputy did not even answer her letters, and when she
called on him he sent down word that he was out. The senator commiserated
her ponderously on her unhappy position, which he attributed to "the
wretched Jeannin," whose suicide he stigmatized harshly. Madame Jeannin
defended her husband. The senator said that of course he knew that the
banker had acted, not from dishonesty, but from stupidity, and that he was
a fool, a poor gull, who knew nothing, and would go his own way without
asking anybody's advice or taking a warning from any one. If he had only
ruined himself, there would have been nothing to say: that would have
been his own affair. But--not to mention the ruin that he had brought on
others,--that he should have reduced his wife and children to poverty and
deserted them and left them to get out of it as best they could ... it was
Madame Jeannin's own business if she chose to forgive him, if she were a
saint, but for his part, he, the senator, not being a saint--(s, a, i, n,
t),--but, he flattered himself, just a plain man--(s, a, i, n),--a plain,
sensible, reasonable human being,--he could find no reason for forgiveness:
a man who, in such circumstances, could kill himself, was a wretch. The
only extenuating circumstance he could find in Jeannin's case was that he
was not responsible for his actions. With that he begged Madame Jeannin's
pardon for having expressed himself a little emphatically about her
husband: he pleaded the sympathy that he felt for her: and he opened his
drawer and offered her a fifty-franc note,--charity--which she refused.

She applied for a post in the offices of a great Government department. She
set about it clumsily and inconsequently, and all her courage oozed out at
the first attempt. She returned home so demoralized that for several days
she could not stir. And, when she resumed her efforts, it was too late. She
did not find help either with the church-people, either because they saw
there was nothing to gain by it, or because they took no interest in a
ruined family, the head of which had been notoriously anti-clerical. After
days and days of hunting for work Madame Jeannin could find nothing better
than a post as music-teacher in a convent--an ungrateful task, ridiculously
ill-paid. To eke out her earnings she copied music in the evenings for an
agency. They were very hard on her. She was severely called to task for
omitting words and whole lines, as she did in spite of her application,
for she was always thinking of so many other things and her wits were
wool-gathering. And so, after she had stayed up through the night till
her eyes and her back ached, her copy was rejected. She would return home
utterly downcast. She would spend days together moaning, unable to stir
a finger. For a long time she had been suffering from heart trouble,
which had been aggravated by her hard struggles, and filled her with dark
forebodings. Sometimes she would have pains, and difficulty in breathing
as though she were on the point of death. She never went out without her
name and address written on a piece of paper in her pocket in case she
should collapse in the street. What would happen if she were to disappear?
Antoinette comforted her as best she could by affecting a confidence which
she did not possess: she begged her to be careful and to let her go and
work in her stead. But the little that was left of Madame Jeannin's pride
stirred in her, and she vowed that at least her daughter should not know
the humiliation she had to undergo.

In vain did she wear herself out and cut down their expenses: what she
earned was not enough to keep them alive. They had to sell the few jewels
which they had kept. And the worst blow of all came when the money, of
which they were in such sore need, was stolen from Madame Jeannin the very
day it came into her hands. The poor flustered creature took it into her
head while she was out to go into the _Bon Marché_, which was on her way:
it was Antoinette's birthday next day, and she wanted to give her a little
present. She was carrying her purse in her hand so as not to lose it. She
put it down mechanically on the counter for a moment while she looked at
something. When she put out her hand for it the purse was gone. It was the
last blow for her.

A few days later, on a stifling evening at the end of August,--a hot
steaming mist hung over the town,--Madame Jeannin came in from her copying
agency, whither she had been to deliver a piece of work that was wanted in
a hurry. She was late for dinner, and had saved her three sous' bus fare
by hurrying home on foot to prevent her children being anxious. When she
reached the fourth floor she could neither speak nor breathe. It was not
the first time she had returned home in that condition: the children took
no notice of it. She forced herself to sit down at table with them. They
were both suffering from the heat and did not eat anything: they had to
make an effort to gulp down a few morsels of food, and a sip or two of
stale water. To give their mother time to recover they did not talk--(they
had no desire to talk)--and looked out of the window.

Suddenly Madame Jeannin waved her hands in the air, clutched at the table,
looked at her children, moaned, and collapsed. Antoinette and Olivier
sprang to their feet just in time to catch her in their arms. They were
beside themselves, and screamed and cried to her:

"Mother! Mother! Dear, dear mother!"

But she made no sound. They were at their wit's end. Antoinette clung
wildly to her mother's body, kissed her, called to her. Olivier ran to the
door of the flat and yelled:

"Help! Help!"

The housekeeper came running upstairs, and when she saw what had happened
she ran for a doctor. But when the doctor arrived, he could only say that
the end had come. Death had been instantaneous--happily for Madame
Jeannin--although it was impossible to know what thoughts might have been
hers during the last moments when she knew that she was dying and leaving
her children alone in such misery.

They were alone to bear the horror of the catastrophe, alone to weep, alone
to perform the dreadful duties that follow upon death. The porter's wife, a
kindly soul, helped them a little: and people came from the convent where
Madame Jeannin had taught: but they were given no real sympathy.

The first moments brought inexpressible despair. The only thing that saved
them was the very excess of that despair, which made Olivier really ill.
Antoinette's thoughts were distracted from her own suffering, and her one
idea was to save her brother: and her great, deep love filled Olivier and
plucked him back from the violent torment of his grief. Locked in her arms,
near the bed where their mother was lying in the glimmer of a candle,
Olivier said over and over again that they must die, that they must both
die, at once: and he pointed to the window. In Antoinette, too, there was
the dark desire: but she fought it down: she wished to live....

"Why? Why?"

"For her sake," said Antoinette--(she pointed to her mother).--"She is
still with us. Think ... after all that she has suffered for our sake, we
must spare her the crowning sorrow, that of seeing us die in misery....
Ah!" (she went on emphatically).... "And then, we must not give way. I will
not! I refuse to give in. You must, you shall be happy, some day!"

"Never!"

"Yes. You shall be happy. We have had too much unhappiness. A change will
come: it must. You shall live your life. You shall have children, you shall
be happy, you shall, you shall!"

"How are we to live? We cannot do it...."

"We can. What is it, after all? We have to live somehow until you can earn
your living. I will see to that. You will see: I'll do it. Ah! If only
mother had let me do it, as I could have done...."

"What will you do? I will not have you degrading yourself. You could not do
it."

"I can.... And there is nothing humiliating in working for one's
living--provided it be honest work. Don't you worry about it, please. You
will see, everything will come right. You shall be happy, we shall be
happy: dear Olivier, _she_ will be happy through us...."

The two children were the only mourners at their mother's grave. By common
consent they agreed not to tell the Poyets: the Poyets had ceased to exist
for them: they had been too cruel to their mother: they had helped her
to her death. And, when the housekeeper asked them if they had no other
relations, they replied:

"No. Nobody."

By the bare grave they prayed hand in hand. They set their teeth in
desperate resolve and pride and preferred their solitude to the presence of
their callous and hypocritical relations.--They returned on foot through
the throng of people who were strangers to their grief, strangers to their
thoughts, strangers to their lives, and shared nothing with them but their
common language. Antoinette had to support Olivier.

They took a tiny flat in the same house on the top floor--two little
attics, a narrow hall, which had to serve as a dining-room, and a kitchen
that was more like a cupboard. They could have found better rooms in
another neighborhood: but it seemed to them that they were still with their
mother in that house. The housekeeper took an interest in them for a time:
but she was soon absorbed in her own affairs and nobody bothered about
them. They did not know a single one of the other tenants: and they did not
even know who lived next door.

Antoinette obtained her mother's post as music-teacher at the convent. She
procured other pupils. She had only one idea: to educate her brother until
he was ready for the _École Normale_. It was her own idea, and she had
decided upon it after mature reflection: she had studied the syllabus and
asked about it, and had also tried to find out what Olivier thought:--but
he had no ideas, and she chose for him. Once at the _École Normale_ he
would be sure of a living for the rest of his life, and his future would
be assured. He must get in, somehow; whatever it cost, they would have to
keep alive till then. It meant five or six terrible years: they would win
through. The idea possessed Antoinette, absorbed her whole life. The poor
solitary existence which she must lead, which she saw clearly mapped out
in front of her, was only made bearable through the passionate exaltation
which filled her, her determination, by all means in her power, to save her
brother and make him happy. The light-hearted, gentle girl of seventeen or
eighteen was transfigured by her heroic resolution: there was in her an
ardent quality of devotion, a pride of battle, which no one had suspected,
herself least of all. In that critical period of a woman's life, during
the first fevered days of spring, when love fills all her being, and like
a hidden stream murmuring beneath the earth, laves her soul, envelops
it, floods it with tenderness, and fills it with sweet obsessions, love
appears in divers shapes: demanding that she should give herself, and
yield herself up to be its prey: for love the least excuse is enough, and
for its profound yet innocent sensuality any sacrifice is easy. Love made
Antoinette the prey of sisterly devotion.

Her brother was less passionate and had no such stay. Besides, the
sacrifice was made for him, it was not he who was sacrificed--which is so
much easier and sweeter when one loves. He was weighed down with remorse at
seeing his sister wearing herself out for him. He would tell her so, and
she would reply:

"Ah! My dear!... But don't you see that that is what keeps me going?
Without you to trouble me, what should I have to live for?"

He understood. He, too, in Antoinette's position, would have been jealous
of the trouble he caused her: but to be the cause of it!... That hurt his
pride and his affection. And what a burden it was for so weak a creature to
bear such a responsibility, to be bound to succeed, since on his success
his sister had staked her whole life! The thought of it was intolerable to
him, and, instead of spurring him on, there were times when it robbed him
of all energy. And yet she forced him to struggle on, to work, to live, as
he never would have done without her aid and insistence. He had a natural
predisposition towards depression,--perhaps even towards suicide:--perhaps
he would have succumbed to it had not his sister wished him to be ambitious
and happy. He suffered from the contradiction of his nature: and yet it
worked his salvation. He, too, was passing through a critical age, that
fearful period when thousands of young men succumb, and give themselves up
to the aberrations of their minds and senses, and for two or three years'
folly spoil their lives beyond repair. If he had had time to yield to his
thoughts he would have fallen into discouragement or perhaps taken to
dissipation: always when he turned in upon himself he became a prey to his
morbid dreams, and disgust with life, and Paris, and the impure
fermentation of all those millions of human beings mingling and rotting
together. But the sight of his sister's face was enough to dispel the
nightmare: and since she was living only that he might live, he would live,
yes, he would be happy, in spite of himself.

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