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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

R >> Romain Rolland >> Jean Christophe, Vol. I




(Jean-Christophe's letter to the Grand Duke Leopold is inspired by
Beethoven's letter to the Prince Elector of Bonn, written when he was
eleven.)




MORNING


I

THE DEATH OF JEAN MICHEL


Years have passed. Jean-Christophe is nearly eleven. His musical education
is proceeding. He is learning harmony with Florian Holzer, the organist of
St. Martin's, a friend of his grandfather's, a very learned man, who
teaches him that the chords and series of chords that he most loves, and
the harmonica which softly greet his heart and ear, those that he cannot
hear without a little thrill running down his spine, are bad and forbidden.
When he asks why, no reply is forthcoming but that it is so; the rules
forbid them. As he is naturally in revolt against discipline, he loves them
only the more. His delight is to find examples of them in the great and
admired musicians, and to take them to his grandfather or his master. His
grandfather replies that in the great musicians they are admirable, and
that Beethoven and Bach can take any liberty. His master, less
conciliatory, is angry, and says acidly that the masters did better things.

Jean-Christophe has a free pass for the concerts and the theater. He has
learned to play every instrument a little. He is already quite skilful with
the violin, and his father procured him a seat in the orchestra. He
acquitted himself so well there that after a few months' probation he was
officially appointed second violin in the _Hof Musik Verein_. He has begun
to earn his living. Not too soon either, for affairs at home have gone from
bad to worse. Melchior's intemperance has swamped him, and his grandfather
is growing old.

Jean-Christophe has taken in the melancholy situation. He is already as
grave and anxious as a man. He fulfils his task valiantly, though it does
not interest him, and he is apt to fall asleep in the orchestra in the
evenings, because it is late and he is tired. The theater no longer rouses
in him the emotion it used to do when he was little. When he was
little--four years ago--his greatest ambition had been to occupy the place
that he now holds. But now he dislikes most of the music he is made to
play. He dare not yet pronounce judgment upon it, but he does find it
foolish; and if by chance they do play lovely things, he is displeased by
the carelessness with which they are rendered, and his best-beloved works
are made to appear like his neighbors and colleagues in the orchestra, who,
as soon as the curtain has fallen, when they have done with blowing and
scraping, mop their brows and smile and chatter quietly, as though they had
just finished an hour's gymnastics. And he has been close to his former
flame, the fair barefooted singer. He meets her quite often during the
_entr'acte_ in the saloon. She knows that he was once in love with her, and
she kisses him often. That gives him no pleasure. He is disgusted by her
paint and scent and her fat arms and her greediness. He hates her now.

The Grand Duke did not forget his pianist in ordinary. Not that the small
pension, which was granted to him with this title was regularly paid--it
had to be asked for--but from time to time Jean-Christophe used to receive
orders to go to the Palace when there were distinguished guests, or simply
when Their Highnesses took it into their heads that they wanted to hear
him. It was almost always in the evening, at the time when Jean-Christophe
wanted to be alone. He had to leave everything and hurry off. Sometimes he
was made to wait in the anteroom, because dinner was not finished. The
servants, accustomed to see him, used to address him familiarly. Then he
would be led into a great room full of mirrors and lights, in which
well-fed men and women used to stare at him with horrid curiosity. He had
to cross the waxed floor to kiss Their Highnesses' hands, and the more he
grew the more awkward he became, for he felt that he was in a ridiculous
position, and his pride used to suffer.

When it was all done he used to sit at the piano and have to play for these
idiots. He thought them idiots. There were moments when their indifference
so oppressed him as he played that he was often on the point of stopping in
the middle of a piece. There was no air about him; he was near suffocation,
seemed losing his senses. When he finished he was overwhelmed with
congratulations and laden with compliments; he was introduced all round. He
thought they looked at him like some strange animal in the Prince's
menagerie, and that the words of praise were addressed rather to his master
than to himself. He thought himself brought low, and he developed a morbid
sensibility from which he suffered the more as he dared not show it. He saw
offense in the most simple actions. If any one laughed in a corner of the
room, he imagined himself to be the cause of it, and he knew not whether it
were his manners, or his clothes, or his person, or his hands, or his feet,
that caused the laughter. He was humiliated by everything. He was
humiliated if people did not talk to him, humiliated if they did,
humiliated if they gave him sweets like a child, humiliated especially when
the Grand Duke, as sometimes happened, in princely fashion dismissed him by
pressing a piece of money into his hand. He was wretched at being poor and
at being treated as a poor boy. One evening, as he was going home, the
money that he had received weighed so heavily upon him that he threw it
through a cellar window, and then immediately he would have done anything
to get it back, for at home there was a month's old account with the
butcher to pay.

His relatives never suspected these injuries to his pride. They were
delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of
nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid
society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his
boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He
pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but
he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social distinction,
and he took unbounded pride in seeing his grandson, moving among those who
had these things. He delighted in them as though such glory was a
reflection upon himself, and in spite of all his efforts to appear calm and
indifferent, his face used to glow. On the evenings when Jean-Christophe
went to the Palace, old Jean Michel used always to contrive to stay about
the house on some pretext or another. He used to await his grandson's
return with childish impatience, and when Jean-Christophe came in he would
begin at once with a careless air to ply him with seeming idle questions,
such as:

"Well, did things go well to-night?"

Or he would make little hints like:

"Here's our Jean-Christophe; he can tell us some news."

Or he would produce some ingenious compliment by way of flattery:

"Here's our young nobleman!"

But Jean-Christophe, out of sorts and out of temper, would reply with a
curt "Good-evening!" and go and sulk in a corner. But the old man would
persist, and ply him with more direct questions, to which the boy replied
only "Yes," or "No." Then the others would join in and ask for details.
Jean-Christophe would look more and more thunderous. They had to drag the
words from his lips until Jean Michel would lose his temper and hurl
insults at him. Then Jean-Christophe would reply with scant respect, and
the end would be a rumpus. The old man would go out and slam the door. So
Jean-Christophe spoiled the joy of these poor people, who had no inkling of
the cause of his bad temper. It was not their fault if they had the souls
of servants, and never dreamed that it is possible to be otherwise.

Jean-Christophe was turned into himself, and though he never judged his
family, yet he felt a gulf between himself and them. No doubt he
exaggerated what lay between them, and in spite of their different ways of
thought it is quite probable that they could have understood each other if
he had been able to talk intimately to them. But it is known that nothing
is more difficult than absolute intimacy between children and parents, even
when there is much love between them, for on the one side respect
discourages confidence, and on the other the idea, often erroneous, of the
superiority of age and experience prevents them taking seriously enough the
child's feelings, which are often just as interesting as those of grown-up
persons, and almost always more sincere.

But the people that Jean-Christophe saw at home and the conversation that
he heard there widened the distance between himself and his family.

Melchior's friends used to frequent the house--mostly musicians of the
orchestra, single men and hard drinkers. They were not bad fellows, but
vulgar. They made the house shake with their footsteps and their laughter.
They loved music, but they spoke of it with a stupidity that was revolting.
The coarse indiscretion of their enthusiasm wounded the boy's modesty of
feeling. When they praised a work that he loved it was as though they were
insulting him personally. He would stiffen himself and grow pale, frozen,
and pretend not to take any interest in music. He would have hated it had
that been possible. Melchior used to say:

"The fellow has no heart. He feels nothing. I don't know where he gets it
from."

Sometimes they used to sing German four-part songs--four-footed as
well--and these were all exactly like themselves--slow-moving, solemn and
broad, fashioned of dull melodies. Then Jean-Christophe used to fly to the
most distant room and hurl insults at the wall.

His grandfather also had friends: the organist, the furniture-dealer, the
watch-maker, the contra-bass--garrulous old men, who used always to pass
round the same jokes and plunge into interminable discussions on art,
politics, or the family trees of the countryside, much less interested in
the subjects of which they talked than happy to talk and to find an
audience.

As for Louisa, she used only to see some of her neighbors who brought her
the gossip of the place, and at rare intervals a "kind lady," who, under
pretext of taking an interest in her, used to come and engage her services
for a dinner-party, and pretend to watch over the religious education of
the children.

But of all who came to the house, none was more repugnant to
Jean-Christophe than his Uncle Theodore, a stepson of his grandfather's, a
son by a former marriage of his grandmother Clara, Jean Michel's first
wife. He was a partner in a great commercial house which did business in
Africa and the Far East. He was the exact type of one of those Germans of
the new style, whose affectation it is scoffingly to repudiate the old
idealism of the race, and, intoxicated by conquest, to maintain a cult of
strength and success which shows that they are not accustomed to seeing
them on their side. But as it is difficult at once to change the age-old
nature of a people, the despised idealism sprang up again in him at every
turn in language, manners, and moral habits and the quotations from Goethe
to fit the smallest incidents of domestic life, for he was a singular
compound of conscience and self-interest. There was in him a curious effort
to reconcile the honest principles of the old German _bourgeoisie_ with the
cynicism of these new commercial _condottieri_--a compound which forever
gave out a repulsive flavor of hypocrisy, forever striving to make of
German strength, avarice, and self-interest the symbols of all right,
justice, and truth.

Jean-Christophe's loyalty was deeply injured by all this. He could not tell
whether his uncle were right or no, but he hated him, and marked him down
for an enemy. His grandfather had no great love for him either, and was in
revolt against his theories; but he was easily crushed in argument by
Theodore's fluency, which was never hard put to it to turn into ridicule
the old man's simple generosity. In the end Jean Michel came to be ashamed
of his own good-heartedness, and by way of showing that he was not so much
behind the times as they thought, he used to try to talk like Theodore; but
the words came hollow from his lips, and he was ill at ease with them.
Whatever he may have thought of him, Theodore did impress him. He felt
respect for such practical skill, which he admired the more for knowing
himself to be absolutely incapable of it. He used to dream of putting one
of his grandsons to similar work. That was Melchior's idea also. He
intended to make Rodolphe follow in his uncle's footsteps. And so the whole
family set itself to flatter this rich relation of whom they expected help.
He, seeing that he was necessary to them, took advantage of it to cut a
fine masterful figure, He meddled in everything, gave advice upon
everything, and made no attempt to conceal his contempt for art and
artists. Rather, he blazoned it abroad for the mere pleasure of humiliating
his musicianly relations, and he used to indulge in stupid jokes at their
expense, and the cowards used to laugh.

Jean-Christophe, especially, was singled out as a butt for his uncle's
jests. He was not patient under them. He would say nothing, but he used to
grind his teeth angrily, and his uncle used to laugh at his speechless
rage. But one day, when Theodore went too far in his teasing,
Jean-Christophe, losing control of himself, spat in his face. It was a
fearful affair. The insult was so monstrous that his uncle was at first
paralyzed by it; then words came back to him, and he broke out into a flood
of abuse. Jean-Christophe sat petrified by the enormity of the thing that
he had done, and did not even feel the blows that rained down upon him; but
when they tried to force him down on his knees before his uncle, he broke
away, jostled his mother aside, and ran out of the house. He did not stop
until he could breathe no more, and then he was right out in the country.
He heard voices calling him, and he debated within himself whether he had
not better throw himself into the river, since he could not do so with his
enemy. He spent the night in the fields. At dawn he went and knocked at his
grandfather's door. The old man had been so upset by Jean-Christophe's
disappearance--he had not slept for it--that he had not the heart to scold
him. He took him home, and then nothing was said to him, because it was
apparent that he was still in an excited condition, and they had to smooth
him down, for he had to play at the Palace that evening. But for several
weeks Melchior continued to overwhelm him with his complaints, addressed to
nobody in particular, about the trouble that a man takes to give an example
of an irreproachable life and good manners to unworthy creatures who
dishonor him. And when his Uncle Theodore met him in the street, he turned
his head and held his nose by way of showing his extreme disgust.

Finding so little sympathy at home, Jean-Christophe spent as little time
there as possible. He chafed against the continual restraint which they
strove to set upon him. There were too many things, too many people, that
he had to respect, and he was never allowed to ask why, and Jean-Christophe
did not possess the bump of respect. The more they tried to discipline him
and to turn him into an honest little German _bourgeois_, the more he felt
the need of breaking free from it all. It would have been his pleasure
after the dull, tedious, formal performances which he had to attend in the
orchestra or at the Palace to roll in the grass like a fowl, and to slide
down the grassy slope on the seat of his new trousers, or to have a
stone-fight with the urchins of the neighborhood. It was not because he was
afraid of scoldings and thwackings that he did not do these things more
often, but because he had no playmates. He could not get on with other
children. Even the little guttersnipes did not like playing with him,
because he took every game too seriously, and struck too lustily. He had
grown used to being driven in on himself, and to living apart from children
of his own age. He was ashamed of not being clever at games, and dared not
take part in their sport. And he used to pretend to take no interest in it,
although he was consumed by the desire to be asked to play with them. But
they never said anything to him, and then he would go away hurt, but
assuming indifference.

He found consolation in wandering with Uncle Gottfried when he was in the
neighborhood. He became more and more friendly with him, and sympathized
with his independent temper. He understood so well now Gottfried's delight
in tramping the roads without a tie in the world! Often they used to go out
together in the evening into the country, straight on, aimlessly, and as
Gottfried always forgot the time, they used to come back very late, and
then were scolded. Gottfried knew that it was wrong, but Jean-Christophe
used to implore, and he could not himself resist the pleasure of it. About
midnight he would stand in front of the house and whistle, an agreed
signal. Jean-Christophe would be in his bed fully dressed. He would slip
out with his shoes in his hand, and, holding his breath, creep with all the
artful skill of a savage to the kitchen window, which opened on to the
road. He would climb on to the table; Gottfried would take him on his
shoulders, and then off they would go, happy as truants.

Sometimes they would go and seek out Jeremy the fisherman, a friend of
Gottfried's, and then they would slip out in his boat under the moon. The
water dropping from the oars gave out little arpeggios, then chromatic
scales. A milky vapor hung tremulous over the surface of the waters. The
stars quivered. The cocks called to each other from either bank, and
sometimes in the depths of the sky they heard the trilling of larks
ascending from earth, deceived by the light of the moon. They were silent.
Gottfried hummed a tune. Jeremy told strange tales of the lives of the
beasts--tales that gained in mystery from the curt and enigmatic manner of
their telling. The moon hid herself behind the woods. They skirted the
black mass of the hills. The darkness of the water and the sky mingled.
There was never a ripple on the water. Sounds died down. The boat glided
through the night. Was she gliding? Was she moving? Was she still?... The
reeds parted with a sound like the rustling of silk. The boat grounded
noiselessly. They climbed out on to the bank, and returned on foot. They
would not return until dawn. They followed the river-bank. Clouds of silver
ablets, green as ears of corn, or blue as jewels, teemed in the first light
of day. They swarmed like the serpents of Medusa's head, and flung
themselves greedily at the bread thrown to them; they plunged for it as it
sank, and turned in spirals, and then darted away in a flash, like a ray of
light. The river took on rosy and purple hues of reflection. The birds woke
one after another. The truants hurried back. Just as carefully as when they
had set out, they returned to the room, with its thick atmosphere, and
Jean-Christophe, worn out, fell into bed, and slept at once, with his body
sweet-smelling with the smell of the fields.

All was well, and nothing would have been known, but that one day Ernest,
his younger brother, betrayed Jean-Christophe's midnight sallies. From that
moment they were forbidden, and he was watched. But he contrived to escape,
and he preferred the society of the little peddler and his friends to any
other. His family was scandalized. Melchior said that he had the tastes of
a laborer. Old Jean Michel was jealous of Jean-Christophe's affection for
Gottfried, and used to lecture him about lowering himself so far as to like
such vulgar company when he had the honor of mixing with the best people
and of being the servant of princes. It was considered that Jean-Christophe
was lacking in dignity and self-respect.

In spite of the penury which increased with Melchior's intemperance and
folly, life was tolerable as long as Jean Michel was there. He was the only
creature who had any influence over Melchior, and who could hold him back
to a certain extent from his vice. The esteem in which he was generally
held did serve to pass over the drunkard's freaks, and he used constantly
to come to the aid of the household with money. Besides the modest pension
which he enjoyed as retired _Kapellmeister_, he was still able to earn
small sums by giving lessons and tuning pianos. He gave most of it to his
daughter-in-law, for he perceived her difficulties, though she strove to
hide them from him. Louisa hated the idea that he was denying himself for
them, and it was all the more to the old man's credit in that he had always
been accustomed to a large way of living and had great needs to satisfy.
Sometimes even his ordinary sacrifices were not sufficient, and to meet
some urgent debt Jean Michel would have secretly to sell a piece of
furniture or books, or some relic that he set store by. Melchior knew that
his father made presents to Louisa that were concealed from himself, and
very often he would lay hands on them, in spite of protest. But when this
came to the old man's ears--not from Louisa, who said nothing of her
troubles to him, but from one of his grandchildren--he would fly into a
terrible passion, and there were frightful scenes between the two men. They
were both extraordinarily violent, and they would come to round oaths and
threats--almost it seemed as though they would come to blows. But even in
his most angry passion respect would hold Melchior in check, and, however
drunk he might be, in the end he would bow his head to the torrent of
insults and humiliating reproach which his father poured out upon him. But
for that he did not cease to watch for the first opportunity of breaking
out again, and with his thoughts on the future, Jean Michel would be filled
with melancholy and anxious fears.

"My poor children," he used to say to Louisa, "what will become, of you
when I am no longer here?... Fortunately," he would add, fondling
Jean-Christophe, "I can go on until this fellow pulls you out of the mire."
But he was out in his reckoning; he was at the end of his road. No one
would have suspected it. He was surprisingly strong. He was past eighty; he
had a full head of hair, a white mane, still gray in patches, and in his
thick beard were still black hairs. He had only about ten teeth left, but
with these he could chew lustily. It was a pleasure to see him at table. He
had a hearty appetite, and though, he reproached Melchior for drinking, he
always emptied his bottle himself. He had a preference for white Moselle.
For the rest--wine, beer, cider--he could do justice to all the good things
that the Lord hath made. He was not so foolish as to lose his reason in his
cups, and he kept to his allowance. It is true that it was a plentiful
allowance, and that a feebler intelligence must have been made drunk by it.
He was strong of foot and eye, and indefatigably active. He got up at six,
and performed his ablutions scrupulously, for he cared for his appearance
and respected his person. He lived alone in his house, of which he was sole
occupant, and never let his daughter-in-law meddle with his affairs. He
cleaned out his room, made his own coffee, sewed on his buttons, nailed,
and glued, and altered; and going to and fro and up and down stairs in his
shirt-sleeves, he never stopped singing in a sounding bass which he loved
to let ring out as he accompanied himself with operatic gestures. And then
he used to go out in all weathers. He went about his business, omitting
none, but he was not often punctual. He was to be seen at every street
corner arguing with some acquaintance or joking with some woman whose face
he had remembered, for he loved pretty women and old friends. And so he was
always late, and never knew the time. But he never let the dinner-hour slip
by. He dined wherever he might be, inviting himself, and he would not go
home until late--after nightfall, after a visit to his grandchildren. Then
he would go to bed, and before he went to sleep read a page of his old
Bible, and during the night--for he never slept for more than an hour or
two together--he would get up to take down one of his old books, bought
second-hand--history, theology, belles-lettres, or science. He used to read
at random a few pages, which interested and bored him, and he did not
rightly understand them, though he did not skip a word, until sleep came to
him again. On Sunday he would go to church, walk with the children, and
play bowls. He had never been ill, except for a little gout in his toes,
which used to make him swear at night while he was reading his Bible. It
seemed as though he might live to be a hundred, and he himself could see no
reason why he should not live longer. When people said that he would die a
centenarian, he used to think, like another illustrious old man, that no
limit can be appointed to the goodness of Providence, The only sign that he
was growing old was that he was more easily brought to tears, and was
becoming every day more irritable. The smallest impatience with him could
throw him into a violent fury. His red face and short neck would grow
redder than ever. He would stutter angrily, and have to stop, choking. The
family doctor, an old friend, had warned him to take care and to moderate
both his anger and his appetite. But with an old man's obstinacy he plunged
into acts of still greater recklessness out of bravado, and he laughed at
medicine and doctors. He pretended to despise death, and did not mince his
language when he declared that he was not afraid of it.

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