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Jean Christophe: In Paris

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




He spoke with a thick accent through his nose.

"Ah! What a surprise!" he cried gaily, taking Christophe's hands in his
own clumsy paws, with their stubby fingers that looked as though they were
crammed into too tight a skin. He could not let go of Christophe's hands.
It was as though, he were encountering his best friend. Christophe was so
staggered that he wondered again if Kohn was not making fun of him. But
Kohn was doing nothing of the kind--or, rather, if he was joking, it was
no more than usual. There was no rancor about Kohn: he was too clever for
that. He had long ago forgotten the rough treatment he had suffered at
Christophe's hands: and if ever he did remember it, it did not worry him.
He was delighted to have the opportunity of showing his old schoolfellow
his importance and his new duties, and the elegance of his Parisian
manners. He was not lying in expressing his surprise: a visit from
Christophe was the last thing in the world that he expected: and if he was
too worldly-wise not to know that the visit was of set material purpose,
he took it as a reason the more for welcoming him, as it was, in fact, a
tribute to his power.

"And you have come from Germany? How is your mother?" he asked, with a
familiarity which at any other time would have annoyed Christophe, but now
gave him comfort in the strange city.

"But how was it," asked Christophe, who was still inclined to be
suspicious, "that they told me just now that Herr Kohn did not belong
here?"

"Herr Kohn doesn't belong here," said Sylvain Kohn, laughing. "My name
isn't Kohn now. My name is Hamilton."

He broke off.

"Excuse me," he said.

He went and shook hands with a lady who was passing and smiled grimacingly.
Then he came back. He explained that the lady was a writer famous for her
voluptuous and passionate novels. The modern Sappho had a purple ribbon
on her bosom, a full figure, bright golden hair round a painted face; she
made a few pretentious remarks in a mannish fashion with the accent of
Franche-Comté.

Kohn plied Christophe with questions. He asked about all the people at
home, and what had become of so-and-so, pluming himself on the fact that he
remembered everybody. Christophe had forgotten his antipathy; he replied
cordially and gratefully, giving a mass of detail about which Kohn cared
nothing at all, and presently he broke off again.

"Excuse me," he said.

And he went to greet another lady who had come in.

"Dear me!" said Christophe. "Are there only women writers in France?"

Kohn began to laugh, and said fatuously:

"France is a woman, my dear fellow. If you want to succeed, make up to the
women."

Christophe did not listen to the explanation, and went on with his own
story. To put a stop to it, Kohn asked:

"But how the devil do you come here?"

"Ah!" thought Christophe, "he doesn't know. That is why he was so amiable.
He'll be different when he knows."

He made it a point of honor to tell everything against himself: the brawl
with the soldiers, the warrant out against him, his flight from the
country.

Kohn rocked with laughter.

"Bravo!" he cried. "Bravo! That's a good story!"

He shook Christophe's hand warmly. He was delighted by any smack in the eye
of authority: and the story tickled him the more as he knew the heroes of
it: he saw the funny side of it.

"I say," he said, "it is past twelve. Will you give me the pleasure ...?
Lunch with me?"

Christophe accepted gratefully. He thought:

"This is a good fellow--decidedly a good fellow. I was mistaken."

They went out together. On the way Christophe put forward his request:

"You see how I am placed. I came here to look for work--music
lessons--until I can make my name. Could you speak for me?"

"Certainly," said Kohn. "To any one you like. I know everybody here. I'm at
your service."

He was glad to be able to show how important he was.

Christophe covered him with expressions of gratitude. He felt that he was
relieved of a great weight of anxiety.

At lunch he gorged with the appetite of a man who has not broken fast for
two days. He tucked his napkin round his neck, and ate with his knife.
Kohn-Hamilton was horribly shocked by his voracity and his peasant manners.
And he was, hurt, too, by the small amount of attention that his guest gave
to his bragging. He tried to dazzle him by telling of his fine connections
and his prosperity: but it was no good: Christophe did not listen, and
bluntly interrupted him. His tongue was loosed, and he became familiar. His
heart was full, and he overwhelmed Kohn with his simple confidences of his
plans for the future. Above all, he exasperated him by insisting on taking
his hand across the table and pressing it effusively. And he brought him to
the pitch of irritation at last by wanting to clink glasses in the German
fashion, and, with sentimental speeches, to drink to those at home and
to _Vater Rhein_. Kohn saw, to his horror, that he was on the point of
singing. The people at the next table were casting ironic glances in their
direction. Kohn made some excuse on the score of pressing business, and got
up. Christophe clung to him: he wanted to know when he could have a letter
of introduction, and go and see some one, and begin giving lessons.

"I'll see about it. To-day--this evening," said Kohn. "I'll talk about you
at once. You can be easy on that score."

Christophe insisted.

"When shall I know?"

"To-morrow ... to-morrow ... or the day after."

"Very well. I'll come back to-morrow."

"No, no!" said Kohn quickly. "I'll let you know. Don't you worry."

"Oh! it's no trouble. Quite the contrary. Eh? I've nothing else to do in
Paris in the meanwhile."

"Good God!" thought Kohn.... "No," he said aloud. "But I would rather write
to you. You wouldn't find me the next few days. Give me your address."

Christophe dictated it.

"Good. I'll write you to-morrow."

"To-morrow?"

"To-morrow. You can count on it"

He cut short Christophe's hand-shaking and escaped.

"Ugh!" he thought. "What a bore!"

As he went into his office he told the boy that he would not be in when
"the German" came to see him. Ten minutes later he had forgotten him.

Christophe went back to his lair. He was full of gentle thoughts.

"What a good fellow! What a good fellow!" he thought. "How unjust I was
about him. And he bears me no ill-will!"

He was remorseful, and he was on the point of writing to tell Kohn how
sorry he was to have misjudged him, and to beg his forgiveness for all the
harm he had done him. The tears came to his eyes as he thought of it. But
it was harder for him to write a letter than a score of music: and after he
had cursed and cursed the pen and ink of the hotel--which were, in fact,
horrible--after he had blotted, criss-crossed, and torn up five or six
sheets of paper, he lost patience and dropped it.

The rest of the day dragged wearily: but Christophe was so worn out by his
sleepless night and his excursions in the morning that at length he dozed
off in his chair. He only woke up in the evening, and then he went to bed:
and he slept for twelve hours on end.

* * * * *

Next day from eight o'clock on he sat waiting for the promised letter. He
had no doubt of Kohn's sincerity. He did not go out, telling himself that
perhaps Kohn would come round by the hotel on his way to his office. So as
not to be out, about midday he had his lunch sent up from the eating-house
downstairs. Then he sat waiting again. He was sure Kohn would come on his
way back from lunch. He paced up and down his room, sat down, paced up and
down again, opened his door whenever he heard footsteps on the stairs.
He had no desire to go walking about Paris to stay his anxiety. He lay
down on his bed. His thoughts went back and back to his old mother, who
was thinking of him too--she alone thought of him. He had an infinite
tenderness for her, and he was remorseful at having left her. But he did
not write to her. He was waiting until he could tell her that he had found
work. In spite of the love they had for each other, it would never have
occurred to either of them to write just to tell their love: letters were
for things more definite than that. He lay on the bed with his hands locked
behind his head, and dreamed. Although his room was away from the street,
the roar of Paris invaded the silence: the house shook. Night came again,
and brought no letter.

Came another day like unto the last.

On the third day, exasperated by his voluntary seclusion, Christophe
decided to go out. But from the impression of his first evening he was
instinctively in revolt against Paris. He had no desire to see anything:
no curiosity: he was too much taken up with the problem of his own life
to take any pleasure in watching the lives of others: and the memories of
lives past, the monuments of a city, had always left him cold. And so,
hardly had he set foot out of doors, than, although he had made up his mind
not to go near Kohn for a week, he went straight to his office.

The boy obeyed his orders, and said that M. Hamilton had left Paris on
business. It was a blow to Christophe. He gasped and asked when M. Hamilton
would return. The boy replied at random:

"In ten days."

Christophe went back utterly downcast, and buried himself in his room
during the following days. He found it impossible to work. His heart sank
as he saw that his small supply of money--the little sum that his mother
had sent him, carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief at the bottom of his
bag--was rapidly decreasing. He imposed a severe régime on himself. He
only went down in the evening to dinner in the little pot-house, where
he quickly became known to the frequenters of it as the "Prussian" or
"Sauerkraut." With frightful effort, he wrote two or three letters to
French musicians whose names he knew hazily. One of them had been dead
for ten years. He asked them to be so kind as to give him a hearing. His
spelling was wild, and his style was complicated by those long inversions
and ceremonious formulæ which are the custom in Germany. He addressed his
letters: "To the Palace of the Academy of France." The only man to read his
gave it to his friends as a joke.

After a week Christophe went once more to the publisher's office. This time
he was in luck. He met Sylvain Kohn going out, on the doorstep. Kohn made a
face as he saw that he was caught: but Christophe was so happy that he did
not see that. He took his hands in his usual uncouth way, and asked gaily:

"You've been away? Did you have a good time?"

Kohn said that he had had a very good time, but he did not unbend.
Christophe went on:

"I came, you know.... They told you, I suppose?... Well, any news? You
mentioned my name? What did they say?"

Kohn looked blank. Christophe was amazed at his frigid manner: he was not
the same man.

"I mentioned you," said Kohn: "but I haven't heard yet. I haven't had time.
I have been very busy since I saw you--up to my ears in business. I don't
know how I can get through. It is appalling. I shall be ill with it all."

"Aren't you well?" asked Christophe anxiously and solicitously.

Kohn looked at him slyly, and replied:

"Not at all well. I don't know what is the matter, the last few days. I'm
very unwell."

"I'm so sorry," said Christophe, taking his arm. "Do be careful. You must
rest. I'm so sorry to have been a bother to you. You should have told me.
What is the matter with you, really?"

He took Kohn's sham excuses so seriously that the little Jew was hard put
to it to hide his amusement, and disarmed by his funny simplicity. Irony is
so dear a pleasure to the Jews--(and a number of Christians in Paris are
Jewish in this respect)--that they are indulgent with bores, and even with
their enemies, if they give them the opportunity of tasting it at their
expense. Besides, Kohn was touched by Christophe's interest in himself. He
felt inclined to help him.

"I've got an idea," he said. "While you are waiting for lessons, would you
care to do some work for a music publisher?"

Christophe accepted eagerly.

"I've got the very thing," said Kohn. "I know one of the partners in a big
firm of music publishers--Daniel Hecht. I'll introduce you. You'll see what
there is to do. I don't know anything about it, you know. But Hecht is a
real musician. You'll get on with him all right."

They parted until the following day. Kohn was not sorry to be rid of
Christophe by doing him this service.

* * * * *

Next day Christophe fetched Kohn at his office. On his advice, he had
brought several of his compositions to show to Hecht. They found him in his
music-shop near the Opéra. Hecht did not put himself out when they went
in: he coldly held out two fingers to take Kohn's hand, did not reply to
Christophe's ceremonious bow, and at Kohn's request he took them into the
next room. He did not ask them to sit down. He stood with his back to the
empty chimney-place, and stared at the wall.

Daniel Hecht was a man of forty, tall, cold, correctly dressed, a marked
Phenician type; he looked clever and disagreeable: there was a scowl on his
face: he had black hair and a beard like that of an Assyrian King, long
and square-cut. He hardly ever looked straight forward, and he had an
icy brutal way of talking which sounded insulting even when he only said
"Good-day." His insolence was more apparent than real. No doubt it emanated
from a contemptuous strain in his character: but really it was more a part
of the automatic and formal element in him. Jews of that sort are quite
common: opinion is not kind towards them: that hard stiffness of theirs is
looked upon as arrogance, while it is often in reality the outcome of an
incurable boorishness in body and soul.

Sylvain Kohn introduced his protégé, in a bantering, pretentious voice,
with exaggerated praises. Christophe was abashed by his reception, and
stood shifting from one foot to the other, holding his manuscripts and his
hat in his hand. When Kohn had finished, Hecht, who up to then had seemed
to be unaware of Christophe's existence, turned towards him disdainfully,
and, without looking at him, said:

"Krafft ... Christophe Krafft.... Never heard the name."

To Christophe it was as though he had been struck, full in the chest. The
blood rushed to his cheeks. He replied angrily:

"You'll hear it later on."

Hecht took no notice, and went on imperturbably, as though Christophe did
not exist:

"Krafft ... no, never heard it."

He was one of those people for whom not to be known to them is a mark
against a man.

He went on in German:

"And you come from the _Rhine-land_?... It's wonderful how many people
there are there who dabble in music! But I don't think there is a man among
them who has any claim to be a musician."

He meant it as a joke, not as an insult: but Christophe did not take it so.
He would have replied in kind if Kohn had not anticipated him.

"Oh, come, come!" he said to Hecht. "You must do me the justice to admit
that I know nothing at all about it."

"That's to your credit," replied Hecht.

"If I am to be no musician in order to please you," said Christophe dryly,
"I am sorry, but I'm not that."

Hecht, still looking aside, went on, as indifferently as ever.

"You have written music? What have you written? _Lieder_, I suppose?"

"_Lieder_, two symphonies, symphonic poems, quartets, piano suites, theater
music," said Christophe, boiling.

"People write a great deal in Germany," said Hecht, with scornful
politeness.

It made him all the more suspicious of the newcomer to think that he had
written so many works, and that he, Daniel Hecht, had not heard of them.

"Well," he said, "I might perhaps find work for you as you are recommended
by my friend Hamilton. At present we are making a collection, a 'Library
for Young People,' in which we are publishing some easy pianoforte pieces.
Could you 'simplify' the _Carnival_ of Schumann, and arrange it for six and
eight hands?"

Christophe was staggered.

"And you offer that to me, to me--me...?"

His naïve "Me" delighted Kohn: but Hecht was offended.

"I don't see that there is anything surprising in that," he said. "It is
not such easy work as all that! If you think it too easy, so much the
better. We'll see about that later on. You tell me you are a good musician.
I must believe you. But I've never heard of you."

He thought to himself:

"If one were to believe all these young sparks, they would knock the
stuffing out of Johannes Brahms himself."

Christophe made no reply--(for he had vowed to hold himself in
check)--clapped his hat on his head, and turned towards the door. Kohn
stopped him, laughing:

"Wait, wait!" he said. And he turned to Hecht: "He has brought some of his
work to give you an idea."

"Ah!" said Hecht warily. "Very well, then: let us see them."

Without a word Christophe held out his manuscripts. Hecht cast his eyes
over them carelessly.

"What's this? A _suite for piano_ ... (reading): _A Day_.... Ah! Always
program music!..."

In spite of his apparent indifference he was reading carefully. He was an
excellent musician, and knew his job: he knew nothing outside it: with the
first bar or two he gauged his man. He was silent as he turned over the
pages with a scornful air: he was struck by the talent revealed in them:
but his natural reserve and his vanity, piqued by Christophe's manner, kept
him from showing anything. He went on to the end in silence, not missing a
note.

"Yes," he said, in a patronizing tone of voice, "they're well enough."

Violent criticism would have hurt Christophe less.

"I don't need to be told that," he said irritably.

"I fancy," said Hecht, "that you showed me them for me to say what I
thought."

"Not at all."

"Then," said Hecht coldly, "I fail to see what you have come for."

"I came to ask for work, and nothing else."

"I have nothing to offer you for the time being, except what I told you.
And I'm not sure of that. I said it was possible, that's all."

"And you have no other work to offer a musician like myself?"

"A musician like you?" said Hecht ironically and cuttingly. "Other
musicians at least as good as yourself have not thought the work beneath
their dignity. There are men whose names I could give you, men who are now
very well known in Paris, have been very grateful to me for it."

"Then they must have been--swine!" bellowed Christophe.--(He had already
learned certain of the most useful words in the French language)--"You are
wrong if you think you have to do with a man of that kidney. Do you think
you can take me in with looking anywhere but at me, and clipping your
words? You didn't even deign to acknowledge my bow when I came in.... But
what the hell are you to treat me like that? Are you even a musician? Have
you ever written anything?... And you pretend to teach me how to write--me,
to whom writing is life!... And you can find nothing better to offer me,
when you have read my music, than a hashing up of great musicians, a filthy
scrabbling over their works to turn them into parlor tricks for little
girls!... You go to your Parisians who are rotten enough to be taught their
work by you! I'd rather die first!"

It was impossible to stem the torrent of his words.

Hecht said icily:

"Take it or leave it."

Christophe went out and slammed the doors. Hecht shrugged, and said to
Sylvain Kohn, who was laughing:

"He will come to it like the rest."

At heart he valued Christophe. He was clever enough to feel not only the
worth of a piece of work, but also the worth of a man. Behind Christophe's
outburst he had marked a force. And he knew its rarity--in the world of
art more than anywhere else. But his vanity was ruffled by it: nothing
would ever induce him to admit himself in the wrong. He desired loyally
to be just to Christophe, but he could not do it unless Christophe came
and groveled to him. He expected Christophe to return: his melancholy
skepticism and his experience of men had told him how inevitably the will
is weakened and worn down by poverty.

* * * * *

Christophe went home. Anger had given place to despair. He felt that he
was lost. The frail prop on which he had counted had failed him. He had no
doubt but that he had made a deadly enemy, not only of Hecht, but of Kohn,
who had introduced him. He was in absolute solitude in a hostile city.
Outside Diener and Kohn he knew no one. His friend Corinne, the beautiful
actress whom he had met in Germany, was not in Paris: she was still touring
abroad, in America, this time on her own account: the papers published
clamatory descriptions of her travels. As for the little French governess
whom he had unwittingly robbed of her situation,--the thought of her had
long filled him with remorse--how often had he vowed that he would find
her when he reached Paris. [Footnote: See _Jean-Christophe_--I: "Revolt."]
But now that he was in Paris he found that he had forgotten one important
thing: her name. He could not remember it. He could only recollect her
Christian name: Antoinette. And then, even if he remembered, how was he to
find a poor little governess in that ant-heap of human beings?

He had to set to work as soon as possible to find a livelihood. He had five
francs left. In spite of his dislike of him, he forced himself to ask the
innkeeper if he did not know of anybody in the neighborhood to whom he
could give music-lessons. The innkeeper, who had no great opinion of a
lodger who only ate once a day and spoke German, lost what respect he had
for him when he heard that he was only a musician. He was a Frenchman of
the old school, and music was to him an idler's job. He scoffed:

"The piano!... I don't know. You strum the piano! Congratulations!... But
'tis a queer thing to take to that trade as a matter of taste! When I hear
music, it's just for all the world like listening to the rain.... But
perhaps you might teach me. What do you say, you fellows?" he cried,
turning to some fellows who were drinking.

They laughed loudly.

"It's a fine trade," said one of them. "Not dirty work. And the ladies like
it."

Christophe did not rightly understand the French or the jest: he floundered
for his words: he did not know whether to be angry or not. The innkeeper's
wife took pity on him:

"Come, come, Philippe, you're not serious," she said to her husband. "All
the same," she went on, turning to Christophe, "there is some one who might
do for you."

"Who?" asked her husband.

"The Grasset girl. You know, they've bought a piano."

"Ah! Those stuck-up folk! So they have."

They told Christophe that the girl in question was the daughter of a
butcher: her parents were trying to make a lady of her; they would perhaps
like her to have lessons, if only for the sake of making people talk. The
innkeeper's wife promised to see to it.

Next day she told Christophe that the butcher's wife would like to see him.
He went to her house, and found her in the shop, surrounded with great
pieces of meat. She was a pretty, rather florid woman, and she smiled
sweetly, but stood on her dignity when she heard why he had come. Quite
abruptly she came to the question of payment, and said quickly that she did
not wish to give much, because the piano is quite an agreeable thing, but
not necessary: she offered him fifty centimes an hour. In any case, she
would not pay more than four francs a week. After that she asked Christophe
a little doubtfully if he knew much about music. She was reassured, and
became more amiable when he told her that not only did he know about music,
but wrote it into the bargain: that flattered her vanity: it would be a
good thing to spread about the neighborhood that her daughter was taking
lessons with a composer.

Next day, when Christophe found himself sitting by the piano--a horrible
instrument, bought second-hand, which sounded like a guitar--with the
butcher's little daughter, whose short, stubby fingers fumbled with the
keys; who was unable to tell one note from another; who was bored to tears;
who began at once to yawn in his face; and he had to submit to the mother's
superintendence, and to her conversation, and to her ideas on music and the
teaching of music--then he felt so miserable, so wretchedly humiliated,
that he had not even the strength to be angry about it. He relapsed into a
state of despair: there were evenings when he could not eat. If in a few
weeks he had fallen so low, where would he end? What good was it to have
rebelled against Hecht's offer? The thing to which he had submitted was
even more degrading.

One evening, as he sat in his room, he could not restrain his tears: he
flung himself on his knees by his bed and prayed.... To whom did he pray?
To whom could he pray? He did not believe in God; he believed that there
was no God.... But he had to pray--he had to pray within his soul. Only
the mean of spirit never need to pray. They never know the need that comes
to the strong in spirit of taking refuge within the inner sanctuary of
themselves. As he left behind him the humiliations of the day, in the vivid
silence of his heart Christophe felt the presence of his eternal Being, of
his God. The waters of his wretched life stirred and shifted above Him and
never touched Him: what was there in common between that and Him? All the
sorrows of the world rushing on to destruction dashed against that rock.
Christophe heard the blood beating in his veins, beating like an inward
voice, crying:

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