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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




After he had written he felt comforted for a moment; first, because the
letter had given him the illusion of conversation with his absent fair, but
chiefly because he had no doubt but that Minna would reply to it at once.
He was very patient for the three days which he had allowed for the post
to take his letter to Minna and bring back her answer; but when the fourth
day had passed he began once more to find life difficult. He had no energy
or interest in things, except during the hour before the post's arrival.
Then he was trembling with impatience. He became superstitious, and looked
for the smallest sign--the crackling of the fire, a chance word--to give
him an assurance that the letter would come. Once that hour was passed he
would collapse again. No more work, no more walks; the only object of his
existence was to wait for the next post, and all his energy was expended in
finding strength to wait for so long. But when evening came, and all hope
was gone for the day, then he was crushed; it seemed to him that he could
never live until the morrow, and he would stay for hours, sitting at his
table, without speaking or thinking, without even the power to go to bed,
until some remnant of his will would take him off to it; and he would sleep
heavily, haunted by stupid dreams, which made him think that the night
would never end.

This continual expectation became at length a physical torture, an actual
illness. Jean-Christophe went so far as to suspect his father, his brother,
even the postman, of having taken the letter and hidden it from him. He was
racked with uneasiness. He never doubted Minna's fidelity for an instant.
If she did not write, it must be because she was ill, dying, perhaps dead.
Then he rushed to his pen and wrote a third letter, a few heartrending
lines, in which he had no more thought of guarding his feelings than of
taking care with his spelling. The time for the post to go was drawing
near; he had crossed out and smudged the sheet as he turned it over,
dirtied the envelope as he closed it. No matter! He could not wait until
the next post. He ran and hurled his letter into the box and waited in
mortal agony. On the next night but one he had a clear vision of Minna,
ill, calling to him; he got up, and was on the point of setting out on foot
to go to her. But where? Where should he find her?

On the fourth morning Minna's letter came at last--hardly a
half-sheet--cold and stiff. Minna said that she did not understand what
could have filled him with such stupid fears, that she was quite well, that
she had no time to write, and begged him not to get so excited in future,
and not to write any more.

Jean-Christophe was stunned. He never doubted Minna's sincerity. He blamed
himself; he thought that Minna was justly annoyed by the impudent and
absurd letters that he had written. He thought himself an idiot, and beat
at his head with his fist. But it was all in vain; he was forced to feel
that Minna did not love him as much as he loved her.

The days that followed were so mournful that it is impossible to describe
them. Nothingness cannot be described. Deprived of the only boon that made
living worth while for him--his letters to Minna--Jean-Christophe now only
lived mechanically, and the only thing which interested him at all was when
in the evening, as he was going to bed, he ticked off on the calendar,
like a schoolboy, one of the interminable days which lay between himself
and Minna's return. The day of the return was past. They ought to have
been at home a week. Feverish excitement had succeeded Jean-Christophe's
prostration. Minna had promised when she left to advise him of the day and
hour of their arrival. He waited from moment to moment to go and meet them;
and he tied himself up in a web of guesses as to the reasons for their
delay.

One evening one of their neighbors, a friend of his grandfather, Fischer,
the furniture dealer, came in to smoke and chat with Melchior after dinner
as he often did. Jean-Christophe, in torment, was going up to his room
after waiting for the postman to pass when a word made him tremble. Fischer
said that next day he had to go early in the morning to the Kerichs' to
hang up the curtains. Jean-Christophe stopped dead, and asked:

"Have they returned?"

"You wag! You know that as well as I do," said old Fischer roguishly. "Fine
weather! They came back the day before yesterday."

Jean-Christophe heard no more; he left the room, and got ready to go out.
His mother, who for some time had secretly been watching him without his
knowing it, followed him into the lobby, and asked him timidly where he was
going. He made no answer, and went out. He was hurt.

He ran to the Kerichs' house. It was nine o'clock in the evening. They were
both in the drawing-room and did not appear to be surprised to see him.
They said "Good-evening" quietly. Minna was busy writing, and held out her
hand over the table and went on with her letter, vaguely asking him for
his news. She asked him to forgive her discourtesy, and pretended to be
listening to what he said, but she interrupted him to ask something of her
mother. He had prepared touching words concerning all that he had suffered
during her absence; he could hardly summon a few words; no one was
interested in them, and he had not the heart to go on--it all rang so
false.

When Minna had finished her letter she took up some work, and, sitting a
little away from him, began to tell him about her travels. She talked about
the pleasant weeks she had spent--riding on horseback, country-house life,
interesting society; she got excited gradually, and made allusions to
events and people whom Jean-Christophe did not know, and the memory of
them made her mother and herself laugh. Jean-Christophe felt that he was
a stranger during the story; he did not know how to take it, and laughed
awkwardly. He never took his eyes from Minna's face, beseeching her to look
at him, imploring her to throw him a glance for alms. But when she did look
at him--which was not often, for she addressed herself more to her mother
than to him--her eyes, like her voice, were cold and indifferent. Was she
so constrained because of her mother, or was it that he did not understand?
He wished to speak to her alone, but Frau von Kerich never left them
for a moment. He tried to bring the conversation round to some subject
interesting to himself; he spoke of his work and his plans; he was dimly
conscious that Minna was evading him, and instinctively he tried to
interest her in himself. Indeed, she seemed to listen attentively enough;
she broke in upon his narrative with various interjections, which were
never very apt, but always seemed to be full of interest. But just as
he was beginning to hope once more, carried off his feet by one of her
charming smiles, he saw Minna put her little hand to her lips and yawn. He
broke off short. She saw that, and asked his pardon amiably, saying that
she was tired. He got up, thinking that they would persuade him to stay,
but they said nothing. He spun out his "Good-bye," and waited for a word to
ask him to come again next day; there was no suggestion of it. He had to
go. Minna did not take him to the door. She held out her hand to him--an
indifferent hand that drooped limply in his--and he took his leave of them
in the middle of the room.

He went home with terror in his heart. Of the Minna of two months before,
of his beloved Minna, nothing was left. What had happened? What had become
of her? For a poor boy who has never yet experienced the continual change,
the complete disappearance, and the absolute renovation of living souls,
of which the majority are not so much souls as collections of souls in
succession changing and dying away continually, the simple truth was too
cruel for him to be able to believe it. He rejected the idea of it in
terror, and tried to persuade himself that he had not been able to see
properly, and that Minna was just the same. He decided to go again to the
house next morning, and to talk to her at all costs.

He did not sleep. Through the night he counted one after another the chimes
of the clock. From one o'clock on he was rambling round the Kerichs' house;
he entered it as soon as he could. He did not see Minna, but Frau von
Kerich. Always busy and an early riser, she was watering the pots of
flowers on the veranda. She gave a mocking cry when she saw
Jean-Christophe.

"Ah!" she said. "It is you!... I am glad you have come. I have something to
talk to you about. Wait a moment...."

She went in for a moment to put down her watering can and to dry her hands,
and came back with a little smile as she saw Jean-Christophe's
discomfiture; he was conscious of the approach of disaster.

"Come into the garden," she said; "we shall be quieter."

In the garden that was full still of his love he followed Frau von Kerich.
She did not hasten to speak, and enjoyed the boy's uneasiness.

"Let us sit here," she said at last. They were sitting on the seat in the
place where Minna had held up her lips to him on the eve of her departure.

"I think you know what is the matter," said Frau von Kerich, looking
serious so as to complete his confusion. "I should never have thought it of
you, Jean-Christophe. I thought you a serious boy. I had every confidence
in you. I should never have thought that you would abuse it to try and
turn my daughter's head. She was in your keeping. You ought to have shown
respect for her, respect for me, respect for yourself."

There was a light irony in her accents. Frau von Kerich attached not the
least importance to this childish love affair; but Jean-Christophe was not
conscious of it, and her reproaches, which he took, as he took everything,
tragically, went to his heart.

"But, Madam ... but, Madam ..." he stammered, with tears in his eyes, "I
have never abused your confidence.... Please do not think that.... I am not
a bad man, that I swear!... I love Fräulein Minna. I love her with all my
Soul, and I wish to marry her."

Frau von Kerich smiled.

"No, my poor boy," she said, with that kindly smile in which was so much
disdain, as at last he was to understand, "no, it is impossible; it is just
a childish folly."

"Why? Why?" he asked.

He took her hands, not believing that she could be speaking seriously, and
almost reassured by the new softness in her voice. She smiled still, and
said:

"Because...."

He insisted. With ironical deliberation--she did not take him altogether
seriously--she told him that he had no fortune, that Minna had different
tastes. He protested that that made no difference; that he would be rich,
famous; that he would win honors, money, all that Minna could desire. Frau
von Kerich looked skeptical; she was amused by his self-confidence, and
only shook her head by way of saying no. But he stuck to it.

"No, Jean-Christophe," she said firmly, "no. It is not worth arguing. It is
impossible. It is not only a question of money. So many things! The
position...."

She had no need to finish. That was a needle that pierced to his very
marrow. His eyes were opened. He saw the irony of the friendly smile, he
saw the coldness of the kindly look, he understood suddenly what it was
that separated him from this woman whom he loved as a son, this woman who
seemed to treat him like a mother; he was conscious of all that was
patronizing and disdainful in her affection. He got up. He was pale. Frau
von Kerich went on talking to him in her caressing voice, but it was the
end; he heard no more the music of the words; he perceived under every word
the falseness of that elegant soul. He could not answer a word. He went.
Everything about him was going round and round.

When he regained his room he flung himself on his bed, and gave way to a
fit of anger and injured pride, just as he used to do when he was a little
boy. He bit his pillow; he crammed his handkerchief into his mouth, so that
no one should hear him crying. He hated Frau von Kerich. He hated Minna. He
despised them mightily. It seemed to him that he had been insulted, and he
trembled with shame and rage. He had to reply, to take immediate action. If
he could not avenge himself he would die.

He got up, and wrote an idiotically violent letter:

"MADAM,--

"I do not know if, as you say, you have been deceived in me. But I do know
that I have been cruelly deceived in you. I thought that you were my
friends. You said so. You pretended to be so, and I loved you more than my
life. I see now that it was all a lie, that your affection for me was only
a sham; you made use of me. I amused you, provided you with entertainment,
made music for you. I was your servant. Your servant: that I am not! I am
no man's servant!

"You have made me feel cruelly that I had no right to love your daughter.
Nothing in the world can prevent my heart from loving where it loves, and
if I am not your equal in rank, I am as noble as you. It is the heart that
ennobles a man. If I am not a Count, I have perhaps more honor than many
Counts. Lackey or Count, when a man insults me, I despise him. I despise as
much any one who pretends to be noble, and is not noble of soul.

"Farewell! You have mistaken me. You have deceived me. I detest you!

"He who, in spite of you, loves, and will love till death, Fräulein Minna,
_because she is his_, and nothing can take her from him."

Hardly had he thrown his letter into the box than he was filled with terror
at what he had done. He tried not to think of it, but certain phrases
cropped up in his memory; he was in a cold sweat as he thought of Frau von
Kerich reading those enormities. At first he was upheld by his very
despair, but next day he saw that his letter could only bring about a final
separation from Minna, and that seemed to him the direst of misfortunes. He
still hoped that Frau von Kerich, who knew his violent fits, would not take
it seriously, that she would only reprimand him severely, and--who
knows?--that she would be touched perhaps by the sincerity of his passion.
One word, and he would have thrown himself at her feet. He waited for five
days. Then came, a letter. She said:

"DEAR SIR,--

"Since, as you say, there has been a misunderstanding between us, it would
be wise not any further to prolong it. I should be very sorry to force upon
you a relationship which has become painful to you. You will think it
natural, therefore, that we should break it off. I hope that you will in
time to come have no lack of other friends who will be able to appreciate
you as you wish to be appreciated. I have no doubt as to your future, and
from a distance shall, with sympathy, follow your progress in your musical
career. Kind regards.

"JOSEPHA VON KERICH."

The most bitter reproaches would have been less cruel. Jean-Christophe saw
that he was lost. It is possible to reply to an unjust accusation. But what
is to be done against the negativeness of such polite indifference? He
raged against it. He thought that he would never see Minna again, and he
could not bear it. He felt how little all the pride in the world weighs
against a little love. He forgot his dignity; he became cowardly; he wrote
more letters, in which he implored forgiveness. They were no less stupid
than the letter in which he had railed against her. They evoked no
response. And everything was said.

* * * * *

He nearly died of it. He thought of killing himself. He thought of murder.
At least, he imagined that he thought of it. He was possessed by incendiary
and murderous desires. People have little idea of the paroxysm of love or
hate which sometimes devours the hearts of children. It was the most
terrible crisis of his childhood. It ended his childhood. It stiffened his
will. But it came near to breaking it forever.

He found life impossible. He would sit for hours with his elbows on the
window-sill looking down into the courtyard, and dreaming, as he used to
when he was a little boy, of some means of escaping from the torture of
life when it became too great. The remedy was there, under his eyes.
Immediate ... immediate? How could one know?... Perhaps after
hours--centuries--horrible sufferings!... But so utter was his childish
despair that he let himself be carried away by the giddy round of such
thoughts.

Louisa saw that he was suffering. She could not gauge exactly what was
happening to him, but her instinct gave her a dim warning of danger. She
tried to approach her son, to discover his sorrow, so as to console him.
But the poor woman had lost the habit of talking intimately to
Jean-Christophe. For many years he had kept his thoughts to himself, and
she had been too much taken up by the material cares of life to find time
to discover them or divine them. Now that she would so gladly have come to
his aid she knew not what to do. She hovered about him like a soul in
torment; she would gladly have found words to bring him comfort, and she
dared not speak for fear of irritating him. And in spite of all her care
she did irritate him by her every gesture and by her very presence, for she
was not very adroit, and he was not very indulgent. And yet he loved her;
they loved each other. But so little is needed to part two creatures who
are dear to each other, and love each other with all their hearts! A too
violent expression, an awkward gesture, a harmless twitching of an eye or a
nose, a trick of eating, walking, or laughing, a physical constraint which
is beyond analysis.... You say that these things are nothing, and yet they
are all the world. Often they are enough to keep a mother and a son, a
brother and a brother, a friend and a friend, who live in proximity to each
other, forever strangers to each other.

Jean-Christophe did not find in his mother's grief a sufficient prop in the
crisis through which he was passing. Besides, what is the affection of
others to the egoism of passion preoccupied with itself?

One night when his family were sleeping, and he was sitting by his desk,
not thinking or moving, he was engulfed in his perilous ideas, when a sound
of footsteps resounded down the little silent street, and a knock on the
door brought him from his stupor. There was a murmuring of thick voices. He
remembered that his father had not come in, and he thought angrily that
they were bringing him back drunk, as they had done a week or two before,
when they had found him lying in the street. For Melchior had abandoned all
restraint, and was more and more the victim of his vice, though his
athletic health seemed not in the least to suffer from an excess and a
recklessness which would have killed any other man. He ate enough for four,
drank until he dropped, passed whole nights out of doors in icy rain, was
knocked down and stunned in brawls, and would get up again next day, with
his rowdy gaiety, wanting everybody about him to be gay too.

Louisa, hurrying up, rushed to open the door. Jean-Christophe, who had not
budged, stopped his ears so as not to hear Melchior's vicious voice and the
tittering comments of the neighbors....

... Suddenly a strange terror seized him; for no reason he began to
tremble, with his face hidden in his hands. And on the instant a piercing
cry made him raise his head. He rushed to the door....

In the midst of a group of men talking in low voices, in the dark passage,
lit only by the flickering light of a lantern, lying, just as his
grandfather had done, on a stretcher, was a body dripping with water,
motionless. Louisa was clinging to it and sobbing. They had just found
Melchior drowned in the mill-race.

Jean-Christophe gave a cry. Everything else vanished; all his other sorrows
were swept aside. He threw himself on his fathers body by Louisa's side,
and they wept together.

Seated by the bedside, watching Melchior's last sleep, on whose face was
now a severe and solemn expression, he felt the dark peace of death enter
into his soul. His childish passion was gone from him like a fit of fever;
the icy breath of the grave had taken it all away. Minna, his pride, his
love, and himself.... Alas! What misery! How small everything showed by the
side of this reality, the only reality--death! Was it worth while to suffer
so much, to desire so much, to be so much put about to come in the end to
that!...

He watched his father's sleep, and he was filled with an infinite pity. He
remembered the smallest of his acts of kindness and tenderness. For with
all his faults Melchior was not bad; there was much good in him. He loved
his family. He was honest. He had a little of the uncompromising probity of
the Kraffts, which, in all questions of morality and honor, suffered no
discussion, and never would admit the least of those small moral impurities
which so many people in society regard not altogether as faults. He was
brave, and whenever there was any danger faced it with a sort of enjoyment.
If he was extravagant himself, he was so for others too; he could not bear
anybody to be sad, and very gladly gave away all that belonged to him--and
did not belong to him--to the poor devils he met by the wayside. All his
qualities appeared to Jean-Christophe now, and he invented some of them, or
exaggerated them. It seemed to him that he had misunderstood his father. He
reproached himself with not having loved him enough. He saw him as broken
by Life; he thought he heard that unhappy soul, drifting, too weak to
struggle, crying out for the life so uselessly lost. He heard that
lamentable entreaty that had so cut him to the heart one day:

"Jean-Christophe! Do not despise me!"

And he was overwhelmed by remorse. He threw himself on the bed, and kissed
the dead face and wept. And as he had done that day, he said again:

"Dear father, I do not despise you. I love you. Forgive me!"

But that piteous entreaty was not appeased, and went on:

"De not despise me! Do not despise me!" And suddenly Jean-Christophe saw
himself lying in the place of the dead man; he heard the terrible words
coming from his own lips; he felt weighing on his heart the despair of a
useless life, irreparably lost. And he thought in terror: "Ah! everything,
all the suffering, all the misery in the world, rather than come to
that!..." How near he had been to it! Had he not all but yielded to the
temptation to snap off his life himself, cowardly to escape his sorrow? As
if all the sorrows, all betrayals, were not childish griefs beside the
torture and the crime of self-betrayal, denial of faith, of self-contempt
in death!

He saw that life was a battle without armistice, without mercy, in which he
who wishes to be a man worthy of the name of a man must forever fight
against whole armies of invisible enemies; against the murderous forces of
Nature, uneasy desires, dark thoughts, treacherously leading him to
degradation and destruction. He saw that he had been on the point of
falling into the trap. He saw that happiness and love were only the friends
of a moment to lead the heart to disarm and abdicate. And the little
puritan of fifteen heard the voice of his God:

"Go, go, and never rest."

"But whither, Lord, shall I go? Whatsoever I do, whithersoever I go, is not
the end always the same? Is not the end of all things in that?"

"Go on to Death, you who must die! Go and suffer, you who must suffer! You
do not live to be happy. You live to fulfil my Law. Suffer; die. But be
what you must be--a Man."




YOUTH


Christofori faciem die quaeunque tueris, Illa nempe die non morte mala
morieris.




I

THE HOUSE OF EULER


The house was plunged in silence. Since Melchior's death everything seemed
dead. Now that his loud voice was stilled, from morning to night nothing
was heard but the wearisome murmuring of the river.

Christophe hurled himself into his work. He took a fiercely angry pleasure
in self-castigation for having wished to be happy. To expressions of
sympathy and kind words he made no reply, but was proud and stiff. Without
a word he went about his daily task, and gave his lessons with icy
politeness. His pupils who knew of his misfortune were shocked by his
insensibility. But, those who were older and had some experience of sorrow
knew that this apparent coldness might, in a child, be used only to conceal
suffering: and they pitied him. He was not grateful for their sympathy.
Even music could bring him no comfort. He played without pleasure, and as a
duty. It was as though he found a cruel joy in no longer taking pleasure in
anything, or in persuading himself that he did not: in depriving himself of
every reason for living, and yet going on.

His two brothers, terrified by the silence of the house of death, ran away
from it as quickly as possible. Rodolphe went into the office of his uncle
Theodore, and lived with him, and Ernest, after trying two or three trades,
found work on one of the Rhine steamers plying between Mainz and Cologne,
and he used to come back only when he wanted money. Christophe was left
alone with his mother in the house, which was too large for them; and the
meagerness of their resources, and the payment of certain debts which had
been discovered after his father's death, forced them, whatever pain it
might cost, to seek another more lowly and less expensive dwelling.

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