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Jean Christophe: In Paris

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Christophe naïvely confessed that he had never seen the matter in that
light: and he was considerably perturbed by it. And honest Germans always
bring to a discussion an integrity which does not always go with the
passionate self-esteem of a Latin, however sincere he may be. It never
occurred to Christophe to support his argument by the citation of similar
crimes perpetrated by all nations all through the history of the world. He
was too proud to fall back upon any such humiliating excuse: he knew that,
as humanity advances, its crimes become more odious, for they stand in a
clearer light. But he knew also that if France were victorious in her turn
she would be no more moderate in the hour of victory than Germany had been,
and that yet another link would be added to the chain of the crimes of the
nations. So the tragic conflict would drag on for ever, in which the best
elements of European civilization were in danger of being lost.

Though the subject was terribly painful for Christophe, it was even more so
for Olivier. It meant for him, not only the sorrow of a great fratricidal
struggle between the two nations best fitted for alliance together. In
France the nation was divided, and one faction was preparing to fight the
other. For years pacific and anti-militarist doctrines had been spread and
propagated both by the noblest and the vilest elements of the nation. The
Government had for a long time held aloof, with the weak-kneed dilettantism
with which it handled everything which did not concern the immediate
interests of the politicians: and it never occurred to it that it might
be less dangerous frankly to maintain the most dangerous doctrines than
to leave them free to creep into the veins of the people and ruin their
capacity for war, while armaments were being prepared. These doctrines
appealed to the Free Thinkers who were dreaming of founding a European
brotherhood, working all together to make the world more just and human.
They appealed also to the selfish cowardice of the rabble, who were
unwilling to endanger their skins for anything or anybody.--These ideas had
been taken up by Olivier and many of his friends. Once or twice, in his
rooms, Christophe had been present at discussions which had amazed him. His
friend Mooch, who was stuffed full of humanitarian illusions, used to say,
with eyes blazing, quite calmly, that war must be abolished, and that the
best way of setting about it was to incite the soldiers to mutiny, and, if
necessary, to shoot down their leaders: and he would insist that it was
bound to succeed. Elie Elsberger would reply, coldly and vehemently, that,
if war were to break out, he and his friends would not set out for the
frontier before they had settled their account with the enemy at home.
André Elsberger would take Mooch's part.... One day Christophe came in for
a terrible scene between the two brothers. They threatened to shoot each
other. Although their bloodthirsty words were spoken in a bantering tone,
he had a feeling that neither of them had uttered a single threat which he
was not prepared to put into action. Christophe was amazed when he thought
of a race of men so absurd as to be always ready to commit suicide for the
sake of ideas.... Madmen. Crazy logicians. And yet they are good men. Each
man sees only his own ideas, and wishes to follow them through to the end,
without turning aside by a hair's breadth. And it is all quite useless: for
they crush each other out of existence. The humanitarians wage war on the
patriots. The patriots wage war on the humanitarians. And meanwhile the
enemy comes and destroys both country and humanity in one swoop.

"But tell me," Christophe would ask André Elsberger, "are you in touch with
the proletarians of the rest of the nations?"

"Some one has to begin. And we are the people to do it. We have always been
the first. It is for us to give the signal!"

"And suppose the others won't follow!"

"They will."

"Have you made treaties, and drawn up a plan?"

"What's the good of treaties? Our force is superior to diplomacy."

"It is not a question of ideas: it's a question of strategy. If you are
going to destroy war, you must borrow the methods of war. Draw up your plan
of campaign in the two countries. Arrange that on such and such a date in
France and Germany your allied troops shall take such and such a step. But,
if you go to work without a plan, how can you expect any good to come of
it? With chance on the one hand, and tremendous organized forces on the
other--the result would never be in doubt: you would be crushed out of
existence."

André Elsberger did not listen. He shrugged his shoulders and took refuge
in vague threats: a handful of sand, he said, was enough to smash the whole
machine, if it were dropped into the right place in the gears.

But it is one thing to discuss at leisure, theoretically, and quite another
to have to put one's ideas into practice, especially when one has to make
up one's mind quickly.... Those are frightful moments when the great tide
surges through the depths of the hearts of men! They thought they were free
and masters of their thoughts! But now, in spite of themselves, they are
conscious of being dragged onwards, onwards.... An obscure power of will is
set against their will. Then they discover that it is not they who exist
in reality, not they, but that unknown Force, whose laws govern the whole
ocean of humanity....

Men of the firmest intelligence, men the most secure in their faith, now
saw it dissolve at the first puff of reality, and stood turning this way
and that, not daring to make up their minds, and often, to their immense
surprise, deciding upon a course of action entirely different from any
that they had foreseen. Some of the most eager to abolish war suddenly
felt a vigorous passionate pride in their country leap into being in their
hearts. Christophe found Socialists, and even revolutionary syndicalists,
absolutely bowled over by their passionate pride in a duty utterly foreign
to their temper. At the very beginning of the upheaval, when as yet
he hardly believed that the affair could be serious, he said to André
Elsberger, with his usual German want of tact, that now was the moment to
apply his theories, unless he wanted Germany to take France. André fumed,
and replied angrily:

"Just you try!... Swine, you haven't even guts enough to muzzle your
Emperor and shake off the yoke, in spite of your thrice-blessed Socialist
Party, with its four hundred thousand members and its three million
electors. We'll do it for you! Take us? We'll take you...."

And as they were held on and on in suspense, they grew restless and
feverish. André was in torment. He knew that his faith was true, and yet
he could not defend it! He felt that he was infected by the moral epidemic
which spreads among the people of a nation the collective insanity of their
ideas, the terrible spirit of war! It attacked everybody about Christophe,
and even Christophe himself. They were no longer on speaking terms, and
kept themselves to themselves.

But it was impossible to endure such suspense for long. The wind of action
willy-nilly sifted the waverers into one group or another. And one day,
when it seemed that they must be on the eve of the ultimatum,--when, in
both countries, the springs of action were taut, ready for slaughter,
Christophe saw that everybody, including the people in his own house, had
made up their minds. Every kind of party was instinctively rallied round
the detested or despised Government which represented France. Not only
the honest men of the various parties: but the esthetes, the masters of
depraved art, took to interpolating professions of patriotic faith in their
work. The Jews were talking of defending the soil of their ancestors. At
the mere mention of the flag tears came to Hamilton's eyes. And they were
all sincere: they were all victims of the contagion. André Elsberger and
his syndicalist friends, just as much as the rest, and even more: for,
being crushed by necessity and pledged to a party that they detested, they
submitted with a grim fury and a stormy pessimism which made them crazy for
action. Aubert, the artisan, torn between his cultivated humanitarianism
and his instinctive chauvinism, was almost beside himself. After many
sleepless nights he had at last found a formula which could accommodate
everything: that France was synonymous with Humanity. Thereafter he never
spoke to Christophe. Almost all the people in the house had closed their
doors to him. Even the good Arnauds never invited him. They went on playing
music and surrounding themselves with art; they tried to forget the general
obsession. But they could not help thinking of it. When either of them
alone happened to meet Christophe alone, he or she would shake hands
warmly, but hurriedly and furtively. And if, the very same day, Christophe
met them together, they would pass him by with a frigid bow. On the
other hand, people who had not spoken to each other for years now rushed
together. One evening Olivier beckoned to Christophe to go near the window,
and, without a word, he pointed to the Elsbergers talking to Commandant
Chabran in the garden below.

Christophe had no time to be surprised at such a revolution in the minds of
his friends. He was too much occupied with his own mind, in which there had
been an upheaval, the consequences of which he could not master. Olivier
was much calmer than he, though he had much more reason to be upset. Of
all Christophe's acquaintance, he seemed to be the only one to escape the
contagion. Though he was oppressed by the anxious waiting for the outbreak
of war, and the dread of schism at home, which he saw must happen in spite
of everything, he knew the greatness of the two hostile faiths which sooner
or later would come to grips: he knew also that it is the part of France to
be the experimental ground in human progress, and that all new ideas need
to be watered with her blood before they can come to flower. For his own
part, he refused to take part in the skirmish. While the civilized nations
were cutting each other's throats he was fain to repeat the device of
Antigone: "_I am made for love, and not for hate_."--For love and for
understanding, which is another form of love. His fondness for Christophe
was enough to make his duty plain to him. At a time when millions of human
beings were on the brink of hatred, he felt that the duty and happiness of
friends like himself and Christophe was to love each other, and to keep
their reason uncontaminated by the general upheaval. He remembered how
Goethe had refused to associate himself with the liberation movement of
1813, when hatred sent Germany to march out against France.

Christophe felt the same: and yet he was not easy in his mind. He who in a
way had deserted Germany, and could not return thither, he who had been fed
with the European ideas of the great Germans of the eighteenth century, so
dear to his old friend Schulz, and detested the militarist and commercial
spirit of New Germany, now found himself the prey of gusty passions: and he
did not know whither they would lead him. He did not tell Olivier, but he
spent his days in agony, longing for news. Secretly he put his affairs in
order and packed his trunk. He did not reason the thing out. It was too
strong for him. Olivier watched him anxiously, and guessed the struggle
which was going on in his friend's mind: and he dared not question him.
They felt that they were impelled to draw closer to each other than ever,
and they loved each other more: but they were afraid to speak: they
trembled lest they should discover some difference of thought which might
come between them and divide them, as their old misunderstanding had done.
Often their eyes would meet with an expression of tender anxiety, as
though they were on the eve of parting for ever. And they were silent and
oppressed.

* * * * *

But still on the roof of the house that was being built on the other side
of the yard, all through those days of gloom, with the rain beating down on
them, the workmen were putting the finishing touches: and Christophe's
friend, the loquacious slater, laughed and shouted across:

"There! The house is finished!"

* * * * *

Happily, the storm passed as quickly as it had come. The chancelleries
published bulletins announcing the return of fair weather, barometrically
as it were. The howling dogs of the Press were despatched to their kennels.
In a few hours the tension was relieved. It was a summer evening, and
Christophe had rushed in breathless to convey the good news to Olivier. He
was happy, and could breathe again. Olivier looked at him with a little sad
smile. And he dared not ask him the question that lay next his heart. He
said:

"Well: you have seen them all united, all these people who could not
understand each other."

"Yes," said Christophe good-humoredly, "I have seen them united. You're
such humbugs! You all cry out upon each other, but at bottom you're all of
the same mind."

"You seem to be glad of it," remarked Olivier.

"Why not? Because they were united at my expense?... Bah! I'm strong enough
for that ... Besides, it's a fine thing to feel the mighty torrent rushing
you along, and the demons that were let loose in your hearts...."

"They terrify me," said Olivier. "I would rather have eternal solitude than
have my people united at such a cost."

They relapsed into silence: and neither of them dared approach the subject
which was troubling them. At last Olivier pulled himself together, and, in
a choking voice, said:

"Tell me frankly, Christophe: you were going away?"

Christophe replied:

"Yes."

Olivier was sure that he would say it. And yet his heart ached for it. He
said:

"Tell me, Christophe: could you ... could you ...?"

Christophe drew his hand over his forehead and said:

"Don't let's talk of it. I don't like to think of it."

Olivier went on sorrowfully:

"You would have fought against us?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it."

"But, in your heart, you had decided?"

Christophe said:

"Yes."

"Against me?"

"Never against you. You are mine. Where I am, you are too."

"But against my country?"

"For my country."

"It is a terrible thing," said Olivier. "I love my country, as you do. I
love France: but could I slay my soul for her? Could I betray my conscience
for her? That would be to betray her. How could I hate, having no hatred,
or, without being guilty of a lie, assume a hatred that I did not feel? The
modern State was guilty of a monstrous crime--a crime which will prove its
undoing--when it presumed to impose its brazen laws on the free Church of
those spirits the very essence of whose being is to love and understand.
Let Cæsar be Cæsar, but let him not assume the Godhead! Let him take our
money and our lives: over our souls he has no rights: he shall not stain
them with blood. We are in this world to give it light, not to darken it:
let each man fulfil his duty! If Cæsar desires war, then let Cæsar have
armies for that purpose, armies as they were in olden times, armies of
men whose trade is war! I am not so foolish as to waste my time in vainly
moaning and groaning in protest against force. But I am not a soldier in
the army of force. I am a soldier in the army of the spirit: with thousands
of other men who are my brothers-in-arms I represent France in that army.
Let Cæsar conquer the world if he will! We march to the conquest of truth."

"To conquer," said Christophe, "you must vanquish, you must live. Truth is
no hard dogma, secreted by the brain, like a stalactite by the walls of
a cave. Truth is life. It is not to be found in your own head, but to be
sought for in the hearts of others. Attach yourself to them, be one with
them. Think as much as you like, but do you every day take a bath of
humanity. You must live in the life of others and love and bow to destiny."

"It is our fate to be what we are. It does not depend on us whether we
shall or shall not think certain things, even though they be dangerous. We
have reached such a pitch of civilization that we cannot turn back."

"Yes, you have reached the farthest limit of the plateau of civilization,
that dizzy height to which no nation can climb without feeling an
irresistible desire to fling itself down. Religion and instinct are
weakened in you. You have nothing left but intelligence. You are machines
grinding out philosophy. Death comes rushing in upon you."

"Death comes to every nation: it is a matter of centuries."

"Have done with your centuries! The whole of life is a matter of days and
hours. If you weren't such an infernally metaphysical lot, you'd never
go shuffling over into the absolute, instead of seizing and holding the
passing moment."

"What do you want? The flame burns the torch away. You can't both live and
have lived, my dear Christophe."

"You must live."

"It is a great thing to have been great."

"It is only a great thing when there are still men who are alive enough and
great enough to appreciate it."

"Wouldn't you much rather have been the Greeks, who are dead, than any of
the people who are vegetating nowadays?"

"I'd much rather be myself, Christophe, and very much alive."

Olivier gave up the argument. It was not that he was without an answer.
But it did not interest him. All through the discussion he had only been
thinking of Christophe. He said, with a sigh:

"You love me less than I love you."

Christophe took his hand and pressed it tenderly:

"Dear Olivier," he said, "I love you more than my life. But you must
forgive me if I do not love you more than Life, the sun of our two races. I
have a horror of the night into which your false progress drags me. All
your sentiments of renunciation are only the covering of the same Buddhist
Nirvana. Only action is living, even when it brings death. In this world
we can only choose between the devouring flame and night. In spite of the
sad sweetness of dreams in the hour of twilight, I have no desire for that
peace which is the forerunner of death. The silence of infinite space
terrifies me. Heap more fagots upon the fire! More! And yet more! Myself
too, if needs must. I will not let the fire dwindle. If it dies down, there
is an end of us, an end of everything."

"What you say is old," said Olivier; "it comes from the depths of the
barbarous past."

He took down from his shelves a book of Hindoo poetry, and read the sublime
apostrophe of the God Krishna:

"_Arise, and fight with a resolute heart. Setting no store by pleasure or
pain, or gain or loss, or victory or defeat, fight with all thy might...._"

Christophe snatched the book from his hands and read:

"_... I have nothing in the world to bid me toil: there is nothing that is
not mine: and yet I cease not from my labor. If I did not act, without a
truce and without relief, setting an example for men to follow, all men
would perish. If for a moment I were to cease from my labors, I should
plunge the world in chaos, and I should he the destroyer of life._"

"Life," repeated Olivier,--"what is life?"

"A tragedy," said Christophe. "Hurrah!"

* * * * *

The panic died down. Every one hastened to forget, with a hidden fear in
their hearts. No one seemed to remember what had happened. And yet it was
plain that it was still in their thoughts, from the joy with which they
resumed their lives, the pleasant life from day to day, which is never
truly valued until it is endangered. As usual when danger is past, they
gulped it down with renewed avidity.

Christophe flung himself into creative work with tenfold vigor. He dragged
Olivier after him. In reaction against their recent gloomy thoughts they
had begun to collaborate in a Rabelaisian epic. It was colored by that
broad materialism which follows on periods of moral stress. To the
legendary heroes--Gargantua, Friar John, Panurge--Olivier had added, on
Christophe's inspiration, a new character, a peasant, Jacques Patience,
simple, cunning, sly, resigned, who was the butt of the others, putting up
with it when he was thrashed and robbed,--putting up with it when they made
love to his wife, and laid waste his fields,--tirelessly putting his house
in order and cultivating his land,--forced to follow the others to war,
bearing the burden of the baggage, coming in for all the kicks, and still
putting up with it,--waiting, laughing at the exploits of his masters and
the thrashings they gave him, and saying, "They can't go on for ever,"
foreseeing their ultimate downfall, looking out for it out of the corner of
his eye, and silently laughing at the thought of it, with his great mouth
agape. One fine day it turned out that Gargantua and Friar John were
drowned while they were away on a crusade. Patience honestly regretted
their loss, merrily took heart of grace, saved Panurge, who was drowning
also, and said:

"I know that you will go on playing your tricks on me: you don't take me
in: but I can't do without you: you drive away the spleen, and make me
laugh."

Christophe set the poem to music with great symphonic pictures, with soli
and chorus, mock-heroic battles, riotous country fairs, vocal buffooneries,
madrigals à la Jannequin, with tremendous childlike glee, a storm at sea,
the Island of Bells, and, finally, a pastoral symphony, full of the air
of the fields, and the blithe serenity of the flutes and oboes, and the
clean-souled folk-songs of Old France.--The friends worked away with
boundless delight. The weakly Olivier, with his pale cheeks, found new
health in Christophe's health. Gusts of wind blew through their garret. The
very intoxication of Joy! To be working together, heart to heart with one's
friend! The embrace of two lovers is not sweeter or more ardent than such
a yoking together of two kindred souls. They were so near in sympathy
that often the same ideas would flash upon them at the same moment. Or
Christophe would write the music for a scene for which Olivier would
immediately find words. Christophe impetuously dragged Olivier along in his
wake. His mind swamped that of his friend, and made it fruitful.

The joy of creation was enhanced by that of success. Hecht had just made up
his mind to publish the _David_: and the score, well launched, had had an
instantaneous success abroad. A great Wagnerian _Kapellmeister_, a friend
of Hecht's, who had settled in England, was enthusiastic about it: he had
given it at several of his concerts with considerable success, which,
with the _Kapellmeister's_ enthusiasm, had carried it over to Germany,
where also the _David_ had been played. The _Kapellmeister_ had entered
into correspondence with Christophe, and had asked him for more of his
compositions, offered to do anything he could to help him, and was engaged
in ardent propaganda in his cause. In Germany, the _Iphigenia_, which
had originally been hissed, was unearthed, and it was hailed as a work
of genius. Certain facts in Christophe's life, being of a romantic
nature, contributed not a little to the spurring of public interest. The
_Frankfurter Zeitung_ was the first to publish an enthusiastic article.
Others followed. Then, in France, a few people began to be aware that they
had a great musician in their midst. One of the Parisian conductors asked
Christophe for his Rabelaisian epic before it was finished: and Goujart,
perceiving his approaching fame, began to speak mysteriously of a friend
of his who was a genius, and had been discovered by himself. He wrote a
laudatory article about the admirable _David_,--entirely forgetting that
only the year before he had decried it in a short notice of a few lines.
Nobody else remembered it either or seemed to be in the least astonished
at his sudden change. There are so many people in Paris who are now loud
in their praises of Wagner and César Franck, where formerly they roundly
abused them, and actually use the fame of these men to crush those new
artists whom to-morrow they will be lauding to the skies!

Christophe did not set any great store on his success. He knew that he
would one day win through: but he had not thought that the day could be so
near at hand: and he was distrustful of so rapid a triumph. He shrugged
his shoulders, and said that he wanted to be left alone. He could have
understood people applauding the _David_ the year before, when he wrote it:
but now he was so far beyond it; he had climbed higher. He was inclined to
say to the people who came and talked about his old work:

"Don't worry me with that stuff. It disgusts me. So do you." And he plunged
into his new work again, rather annoyed at having been disturbed. However,
he did feel a certain secret satisfaction. The first rays of the light of
fame are very sweet. It is good, it is healthy, to conquer. It is like
the open window and the first sweet scents of the spring coming into a
house.--Christophe's contempt for his old work was of no avail, especially
with regard to the _Iphigenia_: there was a certain amount of atonement for
him in seeing that unhappy production, which had originally brought him
only humiliation, belauded by the German critics, and in great request
with the theaters, as he learned from a letter from Dresden, in which the
directors stated that they would be glad to produce the piece during their
next season.

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