A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




He did not know it, not knowing yet what love was. But sometimes, when they
were together, he was overtaken by a strange unease--the same that had
choked him on that first day of their friendship in the pine-woods--and the
blood would rush to his face and set his cheeks aflame. He was afraid. By
an instinctive unanimity the two boys used furtively to separate and run
away from each other, and one would lag behind on the road. They would
pretend to be busy looking for blackberries in the hedges, and they did not
know what it was that so perturbed them.

But it was in their letters especially that their feelings flew high. They
were not then in any danger of being contradicted by facts, and nothing
could check their illusions or intimidate them. They wrote to each other
two or three times a week in a passionately lyric style. They hardly ever
spoke of real happenings or common things; they raised great problems in an
apocalyptic manner, which passed imperceptibly from enthusiasm to despair.
They called each other, "My blessing, my hope, my beloved, my Self." They
made a fearful hash of the word "Soul." They painted in tragic colors the
sadness of their lot, and were desolate at having brought into the
existence of their friend the sorrows of their existence.

"I am sorry, my love," wrote Jean-Christophe, "for the pain which I bring
you. I cannot bear that you should suffer. It must not be. _I will not have
it_." (He underlined the words with a stroke of the pen that dug into the
paper.) "If you suffer, where shall I find strength to live? I have no
happiness but in you. Oh, be happy! I will gladly take all the burden of
sorrow upon myself! Think of me! Love me! I have such great need of being
loved. From your love there comes to me a warmth which gives me life. If
you knew how I shiver! There is winter and a biting wind in my heart. I
embrace your soul."

"My thought kisses yours," replied Otto.

"I take your face in my hands," was Jean-Christophe's answer, "and what I
have not done and will not do with my lips I do with all my being. I kiss
you as I love you, Prudence!",

Otto pretended to doubt him.

"Do you love me as much as I love you?"

"O God," wrote Jean-Christophe, "not as much, but ten a hundred, a thousand
times more! What! Do you not feel it? What would you have me do to stir
your heart?"

"What a lovely friendship is ours!" sighed Otto. "Was, there ever its like
in history? It is sweet and fresh as a dream. If only it does not pass
away! If you were to cease to love me!"

"How stupid you are, my beloved!" replied Jean-Christophe. "Forgive me, but
your weakling fear enrages me. How can you ask whether I shall cease to
love you! For me to live is to love you. Death is powerless against my
love. You yourself could do nothing if you wished to destroy it. Even if
you betrayed me, even if you rent my heart, I should die with a blessing
upon you for the love with which you fill me. Once for all, then, do not be
uneasy, and vex me no more with these cowardly doubts!"

But a week later it was he who wrote:

"It is three days now since I heard a word fall from your lips. I tremble.
Would you forget me? My blood freezes at the thought.... Yes, doubtless....
The other day only I saw your coldness towards me. You love me no longer!
You are thinking of leaving me!... Listen! If you forget me, if you ever
betray me, I will kill you like a dog!"

"You do me wrong, my dear heart," groaned Otto. "You draw tears from me. I
do not deserve this. But you can do as you will. You have such rights over
me that, if you were to break my soul, there would always be a spark left
to live and love you always!"

"Heavenly powers!" cried Jean-Christophe. "I have made my friend weep!...
Heap insults on me, beat me, trample me underfoot! I am a wretch! I do not
deserve your love!"

They had special ways of writing the address on their letters, of placing
the stamp--upside down, askew, at bottom in a corner of the envelope--to
distinguish their letters from those which they wrote to persons who did
not matter. These childish secrets had the charm of the sweet mysteries of
love.

* * * * *

One day, as he was returning from a lesson, Jean-Christophe saw Otto
in the street with a boy of his own age. They were laughing and talking
familiarly. Jean-Christophe went pale, and followed them with his eyes
until they had disappeared round the corner of the street. They had not
seen him. He went home. It was as though a cloud had passed over the sun;
all was dark.

When they met on the following Sunday, Jean-Christophe said nothing at
first; but after they had been walking for half an hour he said in a
choking voice:

"I saw you on Wednesday in the _Königgasse_."

"Ah!" said Otto.

And he blushed.

Jean-Christophe went on:

"You were not alone."

"No," said Otto; "I was with some one."

Jean-Christophe swallowed down his spittle and asked in a voice which he
strove to make careless:

"Who was it?"

"My cousin Franz."

"Ah!" said Jean-Christophe; and after a moment: "You have never said
anything about him to me."

"He lives at Rheinbach."

"Do you see him often?"

"He comes here sometimes."

"And you, do you go and stay with him?"

"Sometimes."

"Ah!" said Jean-Christophe again.

Otto, who was not sorry to turn the conversation, pointed out a bird who
was pecking at a tree. They talked of other things. Ten minutes later
Jean-Christophe broke out again:

"Are you friends with him?"

"With whom?" asked Otto.

(He knew perfectly who was meant.)

"With your cousin."

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing!"

Otto did not like his cousin much, for he used to bother him with bad
jokes; but a strange malign instinct made him add a few moments later:

"He is very nice."

"Who?" asked Jean-Christophe.

(He knew quite well who was meant.)

"Franz."

Otto waited for Jean-Christophe to say something, but he seemed not to have
heard. He was cutting a switch from a hazel-tree. Otto went on:

"He is amusing. He has all sorts of stories."

Jean-Christophe whistled carelessly.

Otto renewed the attack:

"And he is so clever ... and distinguished!..."

Jean-Christophe shrugged his shoulders as though to say:

"What interest can this person have for me?"

And as Otto, piqued, began to go on, he brutally cut him short, and pointed
out a spot to which to run.

They did not touch on the subject again the whole afternoon, but they were
frigid, affecting an exaggerated politeness which was unusual for them,
especially for Jean-Christophe. The words stuck in his throat. At last he
could contain himself no longer, and in the middle of the road he turned to
Otto, who was lagging five yards behind. He took him fiercely by the hands,
and let loose upon him:

"Listen, Otto! I will not--I will not let you be so friendly with Franz,
because ... because you are my friend, and I will not let you love any one
more than me! I will not! You see, you are everything to me! You cannot ...
you must not!... If I lost you, there would be nothing left but death. I do
not know what I should do. I should kill myself; I should kill you! No,
forgive me!..."

Tears fell from his eyes.

Otto, moved and frightened by the sincerity of such grief, growling out
threats, made haste to swear that he did not and never would love anybody
so much as Jean-Christophe, that Franz was nothing to him, and that he
would not see him again if Jean-Christophe wished it. Jean-Christophe drank
in his words, and his heart took new life. He laughed and breathed heavily;
he thanked Otto effusively. He was ashamed of having made such a scene, but
he was relieved of a great weight. They stood face to face and looked at
each other, not moving, and holding hands. They were very happy and very
much embarrassed. They became silent; then they began to talk again, and
found their old gaiety. They felt more at one than ever.

But it was not the last scene of the kind. Now that Otto felt his power
over Jean-Christophe, he was tempted to abuse it. He knew his sore spot,
and was irresistibly tempted to place his finger on it. Not that he had
any pleasure in Jean-Christophe's anger; on the contrary, it made him
unhappy--but he felt his power by making Jean-Christophe suffer. He was not
bad; he had the soul of a girl.

In spite of his promises, he continued to appear arm in arm with Franz or
some other comrade. They made a great noise between them, and he used to
laugh in an affected way. When Jean-Christophe reproached him with it,
he used to titter and pretend not to take him seriously, until, seeing
Jean-Christophe's eyes change and his lips tremble with anger, he would
change his tone, and fearfully promise not to do it again, and the next day
he would do it. Jean-Christophe would write him furious letters, in which
he called him:

"Scoundrel! Let me never hear of you again! I do not know you! May the
devil take you and all dogs of your kidney!"

But a tearful word from Otto, or, as he ever did, the sending of a flower
as a token of his eternal constancy, was enough for Jean-Christophe to be
plunged in remorse, and to write:

"My angel, I am mad! Forget my idiocy. You are the best of men. Your little
finger alone is worth more than all stupid Jean-Christophe. You have the
treasures of an ingenuous and delicate tenderness. I kiss your flower with
tears in my eyes. It is there on my heart. I thrust it into my skin with
blows of my fist. I would that it could make me bleed, so that I might the
more feel your exquisite goodness and my own infamous folly!..."

But they began to weary of each other. It is false to pretend that little
quarrels feed friendship. Jean-Christophe was sore against Otto for the
injustice that Otto made him be guilty of. He tried to argue with himself;
he laid the blame upon his own despotic temper. His loyal and eager nature,
brought for the first time to the test of love, gave itself utterly, and
demanded a gift as utter without the reservation of one particle of the
heart. He admitted no sharing in friendship. Being ready to sacrifice all
for his friend, he thought it right and even necessary that his friend
should wholly sacrifice himself and everything for him. But he was
beginning to feel that the world was not built on the model of his own
inflexible character, and that he was asking things which others could not
give. Then he tried to submit. He blamed himself, he regarded himself as an
egoist, who had no right to encroach upon the liberty of his friend, and
to monopolize his affection. He did sincerely endeavor to leave him free,
whatever it might cost himself. In a spirit of humiliation he did set
himself to pledge Otto not to neglect Franz; he tried to persuade himself
that he was glad to see him finding pleasure in society other than his own.
But when Otto, who was not deceived, maliciously obeyed him, he could not
help lowering at him, and then he broke out again.

If necessary, he would have forgiven Otto for preferring other friends to
himself; but what he could not stomach was the lie. Otto was neither liar
nor hypocrite, but it was as difficult for him to tell the truth as for
a stutterer to pronounce words. What he said was never altogether true
nor altogether false. Either from timidity or from uncertainty of his own
feelings he rarely spoke definitely. His answers were equivocal, and, above
all, upon every occasion he made mystery and was secret in a way that set
Jean-Christophe beside himself. When he was caught tripping, or was caught
in what, according to the conventions of their friendship, was a fault,
instead of admitting it he would go on denying it and telling absurd
stories. One day Jean-Christophe, exasperated, struck him. He thought it
must be the end of their friendship and that Otto would never forgive him;
but after sulking for a few hours Otto came back as though nothing had
happened. He had no resentment for Jean-Christophe's violence--perhaps even
it was not unpleasing to him, and had a certain charm for him--and yet
he resented Jean-Christophe letting himself be tricked, gulping down all
his mendacities. He despised him a little, and thought himself superior.
Jean-Christophe, for his part, resented Otto's receiving blows without
revolting.

They no longer saw each other with the eyes of those first days. Their
failings showed up in full light. Otto found Jean-Christophe's independence
less charming. Jean-Christophe was a tiresome companion when they went
walking. He had no sort of concern for correctness. He used to dress as he
liked, take off his coat, open his waistcoat, walk with open collar, roll
up his shirt-sleeves, put his hat on the end of his stick, and fling out
his chest in the air. He used to swing his arms as he walked, whistle, and
sing at the top of his voice. He used to be red in the face, sweaty, and
dusty. He looked like a peasant returning from a fair. The aristocratic
Otto used to be mortified at being seen in his company. When he saw a
carriage coming he used to contrive to lag some ten paces behind, and to
look as though he were walking alone.

Jean-Christophe was no less embarrassing company when he began to talk at
an inn or in a railway-carriage when they were returning home. He used to
talk loudly, and say anything that came into his head, and treat Otto with
a disgusting familiarity. He used to express opinions quite recklessly
concerning people known to everybody, or even about the appearance of
people sitting only a few yards away from him, or he would enter into
intimate details concerning his health and domestic affairs. It was useless
for Otto to roll his eyes and to make signals of alarm. Jean-Christophe
seemed not to notice them, and no more controlled himself than if he had
been alone. Otto would see smiles on the faces of his neighbors, and would
gladly have sunk into the ground. He thought Jean-Christophe coarse, and
could not understand how he could ever have found delight in him.

What was most serious was that Jean-Christophe was just as reckless
and indifferent concerning all the hedges, fences, inclosures, walls,
prohibitions of entry, threats of fines, _Verbot_ of all sorts, and
everything that sought to confine his liberty and protect the sacred rights
of property against it. Otto lived in fear from moment to moment, and all
his protests were useless. Jean-Christophe grew worse out of bravado.

One day, when Jean-Christophe, with Otto at his heels, was walking
perfectly at home across a private wood, in spite of, or because of, the
walls fortified with broken bottles which they had had to clear, they found
themselves suddenly face to face with a gamekeeper, who let fire a volley
of oaths at them, and after keeping them for some time under a threat of
legal proceedings, packed them off in the most ignominious fashion. Otto
did not shine under this ordeal. He thought that he was already in jail,
and wept, stupidly protesting that he had gone in by accident, and that he
had followed Jean-Christophe without knowing whither he was going. When
he saw that he was safe, instead of being glad, he bitterly reproached
Jean-Christophe. He complained that Jean-Christophe had brought him
into trouble. Jean-Christophe quelled him with a look, and called him
"Lily-liver!" There was a quick passage of words. Otto would have left
Jean-Christophe if he had known how to find the way home. He was forced to
follow him, but they affected to pretend that they were not together.

A storm was brewing. In their anger they had not seen it coming. The baking
countryside resounded with the cries of insects. Suddenly all was still.
They only grew aware of the silence after a few minutes. Their ears buzzed.
They raised their eyes; the sky was black; huge, heavy, livid clouds
overcast it. They came up from every side like a cavalry-charge. They
seemed all to be hastening towards an invisible point, drawn by a gap in
the sky. Otto, in terror, dare not tell his fears, and Jean-Christophe took
a malignant pleasure in pretending not to notice anything. But without
saying a word they drew nearer together. They were alone in the wide
country. Silence. Not a wind stirred,--hardly a fevered tremor that made
the little leaves of the trees shiver now and then. Suddenly a whirling
wind raised the dust, twisted the trees and lashed them furiously. And the
silence came again, more terrible than before. Otto, in a trembling voice,
spoke at last.

"It is a storm. We must go home."

Jean-Christophe said:

"Let us go home."

But it was too late. A blinding, savage light flashed, the heavens roared,
the vault of clouds rumbled. In a moment they were wrapped about by the
hurricane, maddened by the lightning, deafened by the thunder, drenched
from head to foot. They were in deserted country, half an hour from the
nearest house. In the lashing rain, in the dim light, came the great red
flashes of the storm. They tried to run but, their wet clothes clinging,
they could hardly walk. Their shoes slipped on their feet, the water
trickled down their bodies. It was difficult to breathe. Otto's teeth
were chattering, and he was mad with rage. He said biting things to
Jean-Christophe. He wanted to stop; he declared that it was dangerous to
walk; he threatened to sit down on the road, to sleep on the soil in the
middle of the plowed fields. Jean-Christophe made no reply. He went on
walking, blinded by the wind, the rain, and the lightning; deafened by the
noise; a little uneasy, but unwilling to admit it.

And suddenly it was all over. The storm had passed, as it had come. But
they were both in a pitiful condition. In truth, Jean-Christophe was, as
usual, so disheveled that a little more disorder made hardly any difference
to him. But Otto, so neat, so careful of his appearance, cut a sorry
figure. It was as though he had just taken a bath in his clothes, and
Jean-Christophe, turning and seeing him, could not help roaring with
laughter. Otto was so exhausted that he could not even be angry.
Jean-Christophe took pity and talked gaily to him. Otto replied with a look
of fury. Jean-Christophe made him stop at a farm. They dried themselves
before a great fire, and drank hot wine. Jean-Christophe thought the
adventure funny, and tried to laugh at it; but that was not at all to
Otto's taste, and he was morose and silent for the rest of their walk. They
came back sulking and did not shake hands when they parted.

As a result of this prank they did not see each other for more than a week.
They were severe in their judgment of each other. But after inflicting
punishment on themselves by depriving themselves of one of their Sunday
walks, they got so bored that their rancor died away. Jean-Christophe made
the first advances as usual. Otto condescended to meet them, and they made
peace.

In spite of their disagreement it was impossible for them to do without
each other. They had many faults; they were both egoists. But their egoism
was naïve; it knew not the self-seeking of maturity which makes it so
repulsive; it knew not itself even; it was almost lovable, and did not
prevent them from sincerely loving each other! Young Otto used to weep on
his pillow as he told himself stories of romantic devotion of which he was
the hero; lie used to invent pathetic adventures, in which he was strong,
valiant, intrepid, and protected Jean-Christophe, whom he used to imagine
that he adored. Jean-Christophe never saw or heard anything beautiful or
strange without thinking: "If only Otto were here!" He carried the image
of his friend into his whole life, and that image used to be transfigured,
and become so gentle that, in spite of all that he knew about Otto, it used
to intoxicate him. Certain words of Otto's which he used to remember long
after they were spoken, and to embellish by the way, used to make him
tremble with emotion. They imitated each other. Otto aped Jean-Christophe's
manners, gestures, and writing. Jean-Christophe was sometimes irritated
by the shadow which repeated every word that he said and dished up his
thoughts as though they were its own. But he did not see that he himself
was imitating Otto, and copying his way of dressing, walking, and
pronouncing certain words. They were under a fascination. They were infused
one in the other; their hearts were overflowing with tenderness. They
trickled over with it on every side like a fountain. Each imagined that his
friend was the cause of it. They did not know that it was the waking of
their adolescence.

* * * * *

Jean-Christophe, who never distrusted any one, used to leave his papers
lying about. But an instinctive modesty made him keep together the drafts
of the letters which he scrawled to Otto, and the replies. But he did not
lock them up; he just placed them between the leaves of one of his
music-books, where he felt certain that no one would look for them. He
reckoned without his brothers' malice.

He had seen them for some time laughing and whispering and looking at
him; they were declaiming to each other fragments of speech which threw
them into wild laughter. Jean-Christophe could not catch the words, and,
following his usual tactics with them, he feigned utter indifference to
everything they might do or say. A few words roused his attention; he
thought he recognized them. Soon he was left without doubt that they had
read his letters. But when he challenged Ernest and Rodolphe, who were
calling each other "My dear soul," with pretended earnestness, he could
get nothing from them. The little wretches pretended not to understand,
and said that they had the right to call each other whatever they liked.
Jean-Christophe, who had found all the letters in their places, did not
insist farther.

Shortly afterwards he caught Ernest in the act of thieving; the little
beast was rummaging in the drawer of the chest in which Louisa kept her
money. Jean-Christophe shook him, and took advantage of the opportunity to
tell him everything that he had stored up against him. He enumerated, in
terms of scant courtesy, the misdeeds of Ernest, and it was not a short
catalogue. Ernest took the lecture in bad part; he replied impudently
that Jean-Christophe had nothing to reproach him with, and he hinted at
unmentionable things in his brother's friendship with Otto. Jean-Christophe
did not understand; but when he grasped that Otto was being dragged into
the quarrel he demanded an explanation of Ernest. The boy tittered; then,
when he saw Jean-Christophe white with anger, he refused to say any more.
Jean-Christophe saw that he would obtain nothing in that way; he sat down,
shrugged his shoulders, and affected a profound contempt for Ernest.
Ernest, piqued by this, was impudent again; he set himself to hurt his
brother, and set forth a litany of things each more cruel and more vile
than the last. Jean-Christophe kept a tight hand on himself. When at last
he did understand, he saw red; he leaped from his chair. Ernest had no time
to cry out. Jean-Christophe had hurled himself on him, and rolled with him
into the middle of the room, and beat his head against the tiles. On the
frightful cries of the victim, Louisa, Melchior, everybody, came running.
They rescued Ernest in a parlous state. Jean-Christophe would not loose his
prey; they had to beat and beat him. They called him a savage beast, and he
looked it. His eyes were bursting from his head, he was grinding his teeth,
and his only thought was to hurl himself again on Ernest. When they asked
him what had happened, his fury increased, and he cried out that he would
kill him. Ernest also refused to tell.

Jean-Christophe could not eat nor sleep. He was shaking with fever,
and wept in his bed. It was not only for Otto that he was suffering. A
revolution was taking place in him. Ernest had no idea of the hurt that
he had been able to do his brother. Jean-Christophe was at heart of a
puritanical intolerance, which could not admit the dark ways of life, and
was discovering them one by one with horror. At fifteen, with his free life
and strong instincts, he remained strangely simple. His natural purity and
ceaseless toil had protected him. His brother's words had opened up abyss
on abyss before him. Never would he have conceived such infamies, and now
that the idea of it had come to him, all his joy in loving and being loved
was spoiled. Not only his friendship with Otto, but friendship itself was
poisoned.

It was much worse when certain sarcastic allusions made him think, perhaps
wrongly, that he was the object of the unwholesome curiosity of the
town, and especially, when, some time afterwards, Melchior made a remark
about his walks with Otto. Probably there was no malice in Melchior, but
Jean-Christophe, on the watch, read hidden meanings into every word, and
almost he thought himself guilty. At the same time Otto was passing through
a similar crisis.

They tried still to see each other in secret. But it was impossible for
them to regain the carelessness of their old relation. Their frankness was
spoiled. The two boys who loved each other with a tenderness so fearful
that they had never dared exchange a fraternal kiss, and had imagined that
there could be no greater happiness than in seeing each other, and in being
friends, and sharing each other's dreams, now felt that they were stained
and spotted by the suspicion of evil minds. They came to see evil even in
the most innocent acts: a look, a hand-clasp--they blushed, they had evil
thoughts. Their relation became intolerable.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.