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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




"Wait ... wait ..." she said in a low voice, trying to take breath.

He looked at her. She was looking away; she was smiling, breathing hard,
with her lips parted; her hand was trembling in Jean-Christophe's. They
felt the blood throbbing in their linked hands and their trembling fingers.
Around them all was silent. The pale shoots of the trees were quivering in
the sun; a gentle rain dropped from the leaves with silvery sounds, and in
the sky were the shrill cries of swallows.

She turned her head towards him; it was a lightning flash. She flung her
arms about his neck; he flung himself into her arms.

"Minna! Minna! My darling!..."

"I love you, Jean Christophe! I love you!"

They sat on a wet wooden seat. They were filled with love, sweet, profound,
absurd. Everything else had vanished. No more egoism, no more vanity, no
more reservation. Love, love--that is what their laughing, tearful eyes
were saying. The cold coquette of a girl, the proud boy, were devoured with
the need of self-sacrifice, of giving, of suffering, of dying for each
other. They did not know each other; they were not the same; everything was
changed; their hearts, their faces, their eyes, gave out a radiance of the
most touching kindness and tenderness. Moments of purity, of self-denial,
of absolute giving of themselves, which through life will never return!

After a desperate murmuring of words and passionate promises to belong to
each other forever, after kisses and incoherent words of delight, they saw
that it was late, and they ran back hand in hand, almost falling in the
narrow paths, bumping into trees, feeling nothing, blind and drunk with the
joy of it.

When he left her he did not go home; he could not have gone to sleep. He
left the town, and walked over the fields; he walked blindly through the
night. The air was fresh, the country dark and deserted. A screech-owl
hooted shrilly. Jean-Christophe went on like a sleep-walker. The little
lights of the town quivered on the plain, and the stars in the dark sky. He
sat on a wall by the road and suddenly burst into tears. He did not know
why. He was too happy, and the excess of his joy was compounded of sadness
and delight; there was in it thankfulness for his happiness, pity for
those who were not happy, a melancholy and sweet feeling of the frailty of
things, the mad joy of living. He wept for delight, and slept in the midst
of his tears. When he awoke dawn was peeping. White mists floated over the
river, and veiled the town, where Minna, worn out; was sleeping, while in
her heart was the light of her smile of happiness.

* * * * *

They contrived to meet again in the garden next morning and told their love
once more, but now the divine unconsciousness of it all was gone. She was a
little playing the part of the girl in love, and he, though more sincere,
was also playing a part. They talked of what their life should be. He
regretted his poverty and humble estate. She affected to be generous, and
enjoyed her generosity. She said that she cared nothing for money. That was
true, for she knew nothing about it, having never known the lack of it. He
promised that he would become a great artist; that she thought fine and
amusing, like a novel. She thought it her duty to behave really like a
woman in love. She read poetry; she was sentimental. He was touched by the
infection. He took pains with his dress; he was absurd; he set a guard upon
his speech; he was pretentious. Frau von Kerich watched him and laughed,
and asked herself what could have made him so stupid.

But they had moments of marvelous poetry, and these would suddenly burst
upon them out of dull days, like sunshine through a mist. A look, a
gesture, a meaningless word, and they were bathed in happiness; they had
their good-byes in the evening on the dimly-lighted stairs, and their eyes
would seek each other, divine each other through the half darkness, and the
thrill of their hands as they touched, the trembling in their voices, all
those little nothings that fed their memory at night, as they slept so
lightly that the chiming of each hour would awake them, and their hearts
would sing "I am loved," like the murmuring of a stream.

They discovered the charm of things. Spring smiled with a marvelous
sweetness. The heavens were brilliant, the air was soft, as they had never
been before. All the town--the red roofs, the old walls, the cobbled
streets--showed with a kindly charm that moved Jean-Christophe. At night,
when everybody was asleep, Minna would get up from her bed, and stand by
the window, drowsy and feverish. And in the afternoon, when he was not
there, she would sit in a swing, and dream, with a book on her knees,
her eyes half closed, sleepy and lazily happy, mind and body hovering
in the spring air. She would spend hours at the piano, with a patience
exasperating to others, going over and over again scales and passages which
made her turn pale and cold with emotion. She would weep when she heard
Schumann's music. She felt full of pity and kindness for all creatures, and
so did he. They would give money stealthily to poor people whom they met in
the street, and would then exchange glances of compassion; they were happy
in their kindness.

To tell the truth, they were kind only by fits and starts. Minna suddenly
discovered how sad was the humble life of devotion of old Frida, who had
been a servant in the house since her mother's childhood, and at once she
ran and hugged her, to the great astonishment of the good old creature, who
was busy mending the linen in the kitchen. But that did not keep her from
speaking harshly to her a few hours later, when Frida did not come at once
on the sound of the bell. And Jean-Christophe, who was consumed with love
for all humanity, and would turn aside so as not to crush an insect, was
entirely indifferent to his own family. By a strange reaction he was
colder and more curt with them the more affectionate he was to all other
creatures; he hardly gave thought to them; he spoke abruptly to them, and
found no interest in seeing them. Both in Jean-Christophe and Minna their
kindness was only a surfeit of tenderness which overflowed at intervals to
the benefit of the first comer. Except for these overflowings they were
more egoistic than ever, for their minds were filled only with the one
thought, and everything was brought back to that.

How much of Jean-Christophe's life was filled with the girl's face! What
emotion was in him when he saw her white frock in the distance, when he was
looking for her in the garden; when at the theater, sitting a few yards
away from their empty places, he heard the door of their box open, and the
mocking voice that he knew so well; when in some outside conversation the
dear name of Kerich cropped up! He would go pale and blush; for a moment or
two he would see and hear nothing. And then there would be a rush of blood
over all his body, the assault of unknown forces.

The little German girl, naïve and sensual, had odd little tricks. She would
place her ring on a little pile of flour, and he would have to get it again
and again with his teeth without whitening his nose. Or she would pass a
thread through a biscuit, and put one end of it in her mouth and one in
his, and then they had to nibble the thread to see who could get to the
biscuit first. Their faces would come together; they would feel each
other's breathing; their lips would touch, and they would laugh forcedly,
while their hands would turn to ice. Jean-Christophe would feel a desire to
bite, to hurt; he would fling back, and she would go on laughing forcedly.
They would turn away, pretend indifference, and steal glances at each
other.

These disturbing games had a disquieting attraction for them; they wanted
to play them, and yet avoided them. Jean-Christophe was fearful of them,
and preferred even the constraint of the meetings when Frau von Kerich or
some one else was present. So outside presence could break in upon the
converse of their loving hearts; constraint only made their love sweeter
and more intense. Everything gained infinitely in value; a word, a
movement of the lips, a glance were enough to make the rich new treasure
of their inner life shine through the dull veil of ordinary existence.
They alone could see it, or so they thought, and smiled, happy in their
little mysteries. Their words were no more than those of a drawing-room
conversation about trivial matters; to them they were an unending song of
love. They read the most fleeting changes in their faces and voices as in
an open book; they could have read as well with their eyes closed, for they
had only to listen to their hearts to hear in them the echo of the heart
of the beloved. They were full of confidence in life, in happiness, in
themselves. Their hopes were boundless. They loved, they were loved, happy,
without a shadow, without a doubt, without a fear of the future. Wonderful
serenity of those days of spring! Not a cloud in the sky. A faith so fresh
that it seems that nothing can ever tarnish it. A joy so abounding that
nothing can ever exhaust it. Are they living? Are they dreaming? Doubtless
they are dreaming. There is nothing in common between life and their
dream--nothing, except in that moment of magic: they are but a dream
themselves; their being has melted away at the touch of love.

* * * * *

It was not long before Frau von Kerich perceived their little intrigue,
which they thought very subtly managed, though it was very clumsy. Minna
had suspected it from the moment when her mother had entered suddenly one
day when she was talking to Jean-Christophe, and standing as near to him as
she could, and on the click of the door they had darted apart as quickly
as possible, covered with confusion. Frau von Kerich had pretended to see
nothing. Minna was almost sorry. She would have liked a tussle with her
mother; it would have been more romantic.

Her mother took care to give her no opportunity for it; she was too clever
to be anxious, or to make any remark about it. But to Minna she talked
ironically about Jean-Christophe, and made merciless fun of his foibles;
she demolished him in a few words. She did not do it deliberately; she
acted upon instinct, with the treachery natural to a woman who is defending
her own. It was useless for Minna to resist, and sulk, and be impertinent,
and go on denying the truth of her remarks; there was only too much
justification for them, and Frau von Kerich had a cruel skill in flicking
the raw spot. The largeness of Jean-Christophe's boots, the ugliness of his
clothes, his ill-brushed hat, his provincial accent, his ridiculous way of
bowing, the vulgarity of his loud-voicedness, nothing was forgotten which
might sting Minna's vanity. Such remarks were always simple and made by the
way; they never took the form of a set speech, and when Minna, irritated,
got upon her high horse to reply, Frau von Kerich would innocently be off
on another subject. But the blow struck home, and Minna was sore under it.

She began to look at Jean-Christophe with a less indulgent eye. He was
vaguely conscious of it, and uneasily asked her:

"Why do you look at me like that?"

And she answered:

"Oh, nothing!"

But a moment after, when he was merry, she would harshly reproach him for
laughing so loudly. He was abashed; he never would have thought that he
would have to take care not to laugh too loudly with her: all his gaiety
was spoiled. Or when he was talking absolutely at his ease, she would
absently interrupt him to make some unpleasant remark about his clothes,
or she would take exception to his common expressions with pedantic
aggressiveness. Then he would lose all desire to talk, and sometimes would
be cross. Then he would persuade himself that these ways which so irritated
him were a proof of Minna's interest in him, and she would persuade herself
also that it was so. He would try humbly to do better. But she was never
much pleased with him, for he hardly ever succeeded.

But he had no time--nor had Minna--to perceive the change that was taking
place in her. Easter came, and Minna had to go with her mother to stay with
some relations near Weimar.

During the last week before the separation they returned to the intimacy of
the first days. Except for little outbursts of impatience Minna was more
affectionate than ever. On the eve of her departure they went for a long
walk in the park; she led Jean-Christophe mysteriously to the arbor, and
put about his neck a little scented bag, in which she had placed a lock of
her hair; they renewed their eternal vows, and swore to write to each other
every day; and they chose a star out of the sky, and arranged to look at it
every evening at the same time.

The fatal day arrived. Ten times during the night he had asked himself,
"Where will she be to-morrow?" and now he thought, "It is to-day. This
morning she is still here; to-night she will be here no longer." He went
to her house before eight o'clock. She was not up; he set out to walk in
the park; he could not; he returned. The passages were full of boxes and
parcels; he sat down in a corner of the room listening for the creaking of
doors and floors, and recognizing the footsteps on the floor above him.
Frau von Kerich passed, smiled as she saw him and, without stopping, threw
him a mocking good-day. Minna came at last; she was pale, her eyelids were
swollen; she had not slept any more than he during the night. She gave
orders busily to the servants; she held out her hand to Jean-Christophe,
and went on talking to old Frida. She was ready to go. Frau von Kerich came
back. They argued about a hat-box. Minna seemed to pay no attention to
Jean-Christophe, who was standing, forgotten and unhappy, by the piano. She
went out with her mother, then came back; from the door she called out to
Frau von Kerich. She closed the door. They were alone. She ran to him, took
his hand, and dragged him into the little room next door; its shutters were
closed. Then she put her face up to Jean-Christophe's and kissed him
wildly. With tears in her eyes she said:

"You promise--you promise that you will love me always?"

They sobbed quietly, and made convulsive efforts to choke their sobs down
so as not to be heard. They broke apart as they heard footsteps
approaching. Minna dried her eyes, and resumed her busy air with the
servants, but her voice trembled.

He succeeded in snatching her handkerchief, which she had let fall--her
little dirty handkerchief, crumpled and wet with her tears.

He went to the station with his friends in their carriage. Sitting opposite
each other Jean-Christophe and Minna hardly dared look at each other for
fear of bursting into tears. Their hands sought each other, and clasped
until they hurt. Frau von Kerich watched them with quizzical good-humor,
and seemed not to see anything. The time arrived. Jean-Christophe was
standing by the door of the train when it began to move, and he ran
alongside the carriage, not looking where he was going, jostling against
porters, his eyes fixed on Minna's eyes, until the train was gone. He went
on running until it was lost from sight. Then he stopped, out of breath,
and found himself on the station platform among people of no importance. He
went home, and, fortunately, his family were all out, and all through the
morning he wept.

* * * * *

For the first time he knew the frightful sorrow of parting, an intolerable
torture for all loving hearts. The world is empty; life is empty; all is
empty. The heart is choked; it is impossible to breathe; there is mortal
agony; it is difficult, impossible, to live--especially when all around you
there are the traces of the departed loved one, when everything about you
is forever calling up her image, when you remain in the surroundings in
which you lived together, she and you, when it is a torment to try to live
again in the same places the happiness that is gone. Then it is as though
an abyss were opened at your feet; you lean over it; you turn giddy; you
almost fall. You fall. You think you are face to face with Death. And so
you are; parting is one of his faces. You watch the beloved of your heart
pass away; life is effaced; only a black hole is left--nothingness.

Jean-Christophe went and visited all the beloved spots, so as to suffer
more. Frau von Kerich had left him the key of the garden, so that he could
go there while they were away. He went there that very day, and was like
to choke with sorrow. It seemed to him as he entered that he might find
there a little of her who was gone; he found only too much of her; her
image hovered over all the lawns; he expected to see her appear at all
the corners of the paths; he knew well that she would not appear, but he
tormented himself with pretending that she might, and he went over the
tracks of his memories of love--the path to the labyrinth, the terrace
carpeted with wistaria, the seat in the arbor, and he inflicted torture on
himself by saying: "A week ago ... three days ago ... yesterday, it was
so. Yesterday she was here ... this very morning...." He racked his heart
with these thoughts until he had to stop, choking, and like to die. In his
sorrow was mingled anger with himself for having wasted all that time, and
not having made use of it. So many minutes, so many hours, when he had
enjoyed the infinite happiness of seeing her, breathing her, and feeding
upon her. And he had not appreciated it! He had let the time go by without
having tasted to the full every tiny moment! And now!... Now it was too
late.... Irreparable! Irreparable!

He went home. His family seemed odious to him. He could not bear their
faces, their gestures, their fatuous conversation, the same as that of the
preceding day, the same as that of all the preceding days--always the same.
They went on living their usual life, as though no such misfortune had come
to pass in their midst. And the town had no more idea of it than they.
The people were all going about their affairs, laughing, noisy, busy; the
crickets were chirping; the sky was bright. He hated them all; he felt
himself crushed by this universal egoism. But he himself was more egoistic
than the whole universe. Nothing was worth while to him. He had no
kindness. He loved nobody.

He passed several lamentable days. His work absorbed him again
automatically: but he had no heart for living.

One evening when he was at supper with his family, silent and depressed,
the postman knocked at the door and left a letter for him. His heart knew
the sender of it before he had seen the handwriting. Four pairs of eyes,
fixed on him with undisguised curiosity, waited for him to read it,
clutching at the hope that this interruption might take them out of their
usual boredom. He placed the letter by his plate, and would not open it,
pretending carelessly that he knew what it was about. But his brothers,
annoyed, would not believe it, and went on prying at it; and so he was in
tortures until the meal was ended. Then he was free to lock himself up in
his room. His heart was beating so that he almost tore the letter as he
opened it. He trembled to think what might be in it; but as soon as he had
glanced over the first words he was filled with joy.

A few very affectionate words. Minna was writing to him by stealth. She
called him "Dear _Christlein_" and told him that she had wept much, had
looked at the star every evening, that she had been to Frankfort, which was
a splendid town, where there were wonderful shops, but that she had never
bothered about anything because she was thinking of him. She reminded him
that he had sworn to be faithful to her, and not to see anybody while she
was away, so that he might think only of her. She wanted him to work all
the time while she was gone, so as to make himself famous, and her too. She
ended by asking him if he remembered the little room where they had said
good-bye on the morning when she had left him: she assured him that she
would be there still in thought, and that she would still say good-bye to
him in the same way. She signed herself, "Eternally yours! Eternally!..."
and she had added a postscript bidding him buy a straw hat instead of his
ugly felt--all the distinguished people there were wearing them--a coarse
straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon.

Jean-Christophe read the letter four times before he could quite take it
all in. He was so overwhelmed that he could not even be happy; and suddenly
he felt so tired that he lay down and read and re-read the letter and
kissed it again and again. He put it under his pillow, and his hand was
forever making sure that it was there. An ineffable sense of well-being
permeated his whole soul. He slept all through the night.

His life became more tolerable. He had ever sweet, soaring thoughts of
Minna. He set about answering her; but he could not write freely to her;
he had to hide his feelings: that was painful and difficult for him. He
continued clumsily to conceal his love beneath formulæ of ceremonious
politeness, which he always used in an absurd fashion.

When he had sent it he awaited Minna's reply, and only lived in expectation
of it. To win patience he tried to go for walks and to read. But his
thoughts were only of Minna: he went on crazily repeating her name over and
over again; he was so abject in his love and worship of her name that he
carried everywhere with him a volume of Lessing, because the name of Minna
occurred in it, and every day when he left the theater he went a long
distance out of his way so as to pass a mercery shop, on whose signboard
the five adored letters were written.

He reproached himself for wasting time when she had bid him so urgently to
work, so as to make her famous. The naïve vanity of her request touched
him, as a mark of her confidence in him. He resolved, by way of fulfilling
it, to write a work which should be not only dedicated, but consecrated,
to her. He could not have written any other at that time. Hardly had the
scheme occurred to him than musical ideas rushed in upon him. It was like
a flood of water accumulated in a reservoir for several months, until it
should suddenly rush down, breaking all its dams. He did not leave his room
for a week. Louisa left his dinner at the door; for he did not allow even
her to enter.

He wrote a quintette for clarionet and strings. The first movement was
a poem of youthful hope and desire; the last a lover's joke, in which
Jean-Christophe's wild humor peeped out. But the whole work was written for
the sake of the second movement, the _larghetto_, in which Jean-Christophe
had depicted an ardent and ingenuous little soul, which was, or was meant
to be, a portrait of Minna. No one would have recognized it, least of all
herself; but the great thing was that it was perfectly recognizable to
himself; and he had a thrill of pleasure in the illusion of feeling that he
had caught the essence of his beloved. No work had ever been so easily or
happily written; it was an outlet for the excess of love which the parting
had stored up in him; and at the same time his care for the work of art,
the effort necessary to dominate and concentrate his passion into a
beautiful and clear form, gave him a healthiness of mind, a balance in his
faculties, which gave him a sort of physical delight--a sovereign enjoyment
known to every creative artist. While he is creating he escapes altogether
from the slavery of desire and sorrow; he becomes then master in his turn;
and all that gave him joy or suffering seems then to him to be only the
fine play of his will. Such moments are too short; for when they are done
he finds about him, more heavy than ever, the chains of reality.

While Jean-Christophe was busy with his work he hardly had time to think
of his parting from Minna; he was living with her. Minna was no longer in
Minna; she was in himself. But when he had finished he found that he was
alone, more alone than before, more weary, exhausted by the effort; he
remembered that it was a fortnight since he had written to Minna and that
she had not replied.

He wrote to her again, and this time he could not bring himself altogether
to exercise the constraint which he had imposed on himself for the
first letter. He reproached Minna jocularly--for he did not believe it
himself--with having forgotten him. He scolded her for her laziness and
teased her affectionately. He spoke of his work with much mystery, so as to
rouse her curiosity, and because he wished to keep it as a surprise for her
when she returned. He described minutely the hat that he had bought; and he
told how, to carry out the little despot's orders--for he had taken all her
commands literally--he did not go out at all, and said that he was ill as
an excuse for refusing invitations. He did not add that he was even on bad
terms with the Grand Duke, because, in excess of zeal, he had refused to
go to a party at the Palace to which he had been invited. The whole letter
was full of a careless joy, and conveyed those little secrets so dear to
lovers. He imagined that Minna alone had the key to them, and thought
himself very clever, because he had carefully replaced every word of love
with words of friendship.

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