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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




* * * * *

After dinner in the evening when it was very hot it was impossible to stay
in the stifling yard, where the sun shone the whole afternoon. The only
place in the house where it was possible to breathe was the rooms looking
into the street, Euler and his son-in-law used sometimes to go and sit on
the doorstep with Louisa. Frau Vogel and Rosa would only appear for a
moment: they were kept by their housework: Frau Vogel took a pride in
showing that she had no time for dawdling: and she used to say, loudly
enough to be overheard, that all the people sitting there and yawning on
their doorsteps, without doing a stitch of work, got on her nerves. As she
could not--(to her sorrow)--compel them to work, she would pretend not to
see them, and would go in and work furiously. Rosa thought she must do
likewise. Euler and Vogel would discover draughts everywhere, and fearful
of catching cold, would go up to their rooms: they used to go to bed early,
and would have thought themselves ruined had they changed the least of
their habits. After nine o'clock only Louisa and Christophe would be left.
Louisa spent the day in her room: and, In the evening, Christophe used to
take pains to be with her, whenever he could, to make her take the air. If
she were left alone she would never go out: the noise of the street
frightened her. Children were always chasing each other with shrill cries.
All the dogs of the neighborhood took it up and barked. The sound of a
piano came up, a little farther off a clarinet, and in the next street a
cornet à piston. Voices chattered. People came and went and stood in groups
in front of their houses. Louisa would have lost her head if she had been
left alone in all the uproar. But when her son was with her it gave her
pleasure. The noise would gradually die down. The children and the dogs
would go to bed first. The groups of people would break up. The air would
become more pure. Silence would descend upon the street. Louisa would tell
in her thin voice the little scraps of news that she had heard from Amalia
or Rosa. She was not greatly interested in them. But she never knew what to
talk about to her son, and she felt the need of keeping in touch with him,
of saying something to him. And Christophe, who felt her need, would
pretend to be interested in everything she said: but he did not listen. He
was off in vague dreams, turning over in his mind the doings of the day.
One evening when they were sitting there--while his mother Was talking he
saw the door of the draper's shop open. A woman came out silently and sat
in the street. Her chair was only a few yards from Louisa. She was sitting
in the darkest shadow. Christophe could not see her face: but he recognized
her. His dreams vanished. The air seemed sweeter to him. Louisa had not
noticed Sabine's presence, and went on with her chatter in a low voice.
Christophe paid more attention to her, and, he felt impelled to throw out a
remark here and there, to talk, perhaps to be heard. The slight figure sat
there without stirring, a little limp, with her legs lightly crossed and
her hands lying crossed in her lap. She was looking straight in front of
her, and seemed to hear nothing. Louisa was overcome with drowsiness. She
went in. Christophe said he would stay a little longer.

It was nearly ten. The street was empty. The people were going indoors. The
sound of the shops being shut was heard. The lighted windows winked and
then were dark again. One or two were still lit: then they were blotted
out. Silence.... They were alone, they did not look at each other, they
held their breath, they seemed not to be aware of each other. From the
distant fields came the smell of the new-mown hay, and from a balcony in a
house near by the scent of a pot of cloves. No wind stirred. Above their
heads was the Milky Way. To their right red Jupiter. Above a chimney
Charles' Wain bent its axles: in the pale green sky its stars flowered like
daisies. From the bells of the parish church eleven o'clock rang out and
was caught up by all the other churches, with their voices clear or
muffled, and, from the houses, by the dim chiming of the clock or husky
cuckoos.

They awoke suddenly from their dreams, and got up at the same moment. And
just as they were going indoors they both bowed without speaking.
Christophe went up to his room. He lighted his candle, and sat down by his
desk with his head in his hands, and stayed so for a long time without a
thought. Then he sighed and went to bed.

Next day when he got up, mechanically he went to his window to look down
into Sabine's room. But the curtains were drawn. They were drawn the whole
morning. They were drawn ever after.

* * * * *

Next evening Christophe proposed to his mother that they should go again to
sit by the door. He did so regularly. Louisa was glad of it: she did not
like his shutting himself up in his room immediately after dinner with the
window and shutters closed.--The little silent shadow never failed to come
and sit in its usual place. They gave each other a quick nod, which Louisa
never noticed. Christophe would talk to his mother. Sabine would smile at
her little girl, playing in the street: about nine she would go and put her
to bed and would then return noiselessly. If she stayed a little Christophe
would begin to be afraid that she would not come back. He would listen for
sounds in the house, the laughter of the little girl who would not go to
sleep: he would hear the rustling of Sabine's dress before she appeared on
the threshold of the shop. Then he would look away and talk to his mother
more eagerly. Sometimes he would feel that Sabine was looking at him. In
turn he would furtively look at her. But their eyes would never meet.

The child was a bond between them. She would run about in the street with
other children. They would find amusement in teasing a good-tempered dog
sleeping there with his nose in his paws: he would cock a red eye and at
last would emit a growl of boredom: then they would fly this way and that
screaming in terror and happiness. The little girl would give piercing
shrieks, and look behind her as though she were being pursued; she would
throw herself into Louisa's lap, and Louisa would smile fondly. She would
keep the child and question her: and so she would enter into conversation
with Sabine. Christophe never joined in. He never spoke to Sabine. Sabine
never spoke to him. By tacit agreement they pretended to ignore each other.
But he never lost a word of what they said as they talked over him. His
silence seemed unfriendly to Louisa. Sabine never thought it so: but it
would make her shy, and she would grow confused in her remarks. Then she
would find some excuse for going in.

For a whole week Louisa kept indoors for a cold. Christophe and Sabine were
left alone. The first time they were frightened by it. Sabine, to seem at
her ease, took her little girl on her knees and loaded her with caresses.
Christophe was embarrassed and did not know whether he ought to go on
ignoring what was happening at his side. It became difficult: although they
had not spoken a single word to each other, they did know each other,
thanks to Louisa. He tried to begin several times: but the words stuck in
his throat. Once more the little girl extricated them from their
difficulty. She played hide-and-seek, and went round Christophe's chair. He
caught her as she passed and kissed her. He was not very fond of children:
but it was curiously pleasant to him to kiss the little girl. She struggled
to be free, for she was busy with her game. He teased her, she bit his
hands: he let her fall. Sabine laughed. They looked at the child and
exchanged a few trivial words. Then Christophe tried--(he thought he
must)--to enter into conversation: but he had nothing very much to go upon:
and Sabine did not make his task any the easier: she only repeated what he
said:

"It is a fine evening."

"Yes. It is a very fine evening."

"Impossible to breathe in the yard."

"Yes. The yard was stifling."

Conversation became very difficult. Sabine discovered that it was time to
take the little girl in, and went in herself: and she did not appear again.

Christophe was afraid she would do the same on the evenings that followed
and that she would avoid being left alone with him, as long as Louisa was
not there. But on the contrary, the next evening Sabine tried to resume
their conversation. She did so deliberately rather than for pleasure: she
was obviously taking a great deal of trouble to find subjects of
conversation, and bored with the questions she put: questions and answers
came between heartbreaking silences. Christophe remembered his first
interviews with Otto: but with Sabine their subjects were even more limited
than then, and she had not Otto's patience. When she saw the small success
of her endeavors she did not try any more: she had to give herself too much
trouble, and she lost interest in it. She said no more, and he followed her
lead.

And then there was sweet peace again. The night was calm once more, and
they returned to their inward thoughts. Sabine rocked slowly in her chair,
dreaming. Christophe also was dreaming. They said nothing. After half an
hour Christophe began to talk to himself, and in a low voice cried out with
pleasure in the delicious scent brought by the soft wind that came from a
cart of strawberries. Sabine said a word or two in reply. Again they were
silent. They were enjoying the charm of these indefinite silences, and
trivial words. Their dreams were the same, they had but one thought: they
did not know what it was: they did not admit it to themselves. At eleven
they smiled and parted.

Next day they did not even try to talk: they resumed their sweet silence.
At long intervals a word or two let them know that they were thinking of
the same things.

Sabine began to laugh.

"How much better it is," she said, "not to try to talk! One thinks one
must, and it is so tiresome!"

"Ah!" said Christophe with conviction, "if only everybody thought the
same."

They both laughed. They were thinking of Frau Vogel.

"Poor woman!" said Sabine; "how exhausting she is!"

"She is never exhausted," replied Christophe gloomily.

She was tickled by his manner and his jest.

"You think it amusing?" he asked. "That is easy for you. You are
sheltered."

"So I am," said Sabine. "I lock myself in." She had a little soft laugh
that hardly sounded. Christophe heard it with delight in the calm of the
evening. He snuffed the fresh air luxuriously.

"Ah! It is good to be silent!" he said, stretching his limbs.

"And talking is no use!" said she.

"Yes," returned Christophe, "we understand each other so well!"

They relapsed into silence. In the darkness they could not see each other.
They were both smiling.

And yet, though they felt the same, when they were together--or imagined
that they did--in reality they knew nothing of each other. Sabine did not
bother about it. Christophe was more curious. One evening he asked her:

"Do you like music?"

"No," she said simply. "It bores me, I don't understand it."

Her frankness charmed him. He was sick of the lies of people who said that
they were mad about music, and were bored to death when they heard it: and
it seemed to him almost a virtue not to like it and to say so. He asked if
Sabine read.

"So. She had no books."

He offered to lend her his.

"Serious books?" she asked uneasily.

"Not serious books if she did not want them. Poetry."

"But those are serious books."

"Novels, then."

She pouted.

"They don't interest you?"

"Yes. She was interested in them: but they were always too long: she never
had the patience to finish them. She forgot the beginning: skipped chapters
and then lost the thread. And then she threw the book away."

"Fine interest you take!"

"Bah! Enough for a story that is not true. She kept her interest for better
things than books."

"For the theater, then?"

"No.... No."

"Didn't she go to the theater?"

"No. It was too hot. There were too many people. So much better at home.
The lights tired her eyes. And the actors were so ugly!"

He agreed with her in that. But there were other things in the theater: the
play, for instance.

"Yes," she said absently. "But I have no time."

"What do you do all day?"

She smiled.

"There is so much to do."

"True," said he. "There is your shop."

"Oh!" she said calmly. "That does not take much time."

"Your little girl takes up your time then?"

"Oh! no, poor child! She is very good and plays by herself."

"Then?"

He begged pardon for his indiscretion. But she was amused by it.

"There are so many things."

"What things?"

"She could not say. All sorts of things. Getting up, dressing, thinking of
dinner, cooking dinner, eating dinner, thinking of supper, cleaning her
room.... And then the day was over.... And besides you must have a little
time for doing nothing!"

"And you are not bored?"

"Never."

"Even when you are doing nothing?"

"Especially when I am doing nothing. It is much worse doing something: that
bores me."

They looked at each other and laughed.

"You are very happy!" said Christophe. "I can't do nothing."

"It seems to me that you know how."

"I have been learning lately."

"Ah! well, you'll learn."

When he left off talking to her he was at his ease and comfortable. It was
enough for him to see her. He was rid of his anxieties, and irritations,
and the nervous trouble that made him sick at heart. When he was talking to
her he was beyond care: and so when he thought of her. He dared not admit
it to himself: but as soon as he was in her presence, he was filled with a
delicious soft emotion that brought him almost to unconsciousness. At night
he slept as he had never done.

* * * * *

When he came back from his work he would look into this shop. It was not
often that he did not see Sabine. They bowed and smiled. Sometimes she was
at the door and then they would exchange a few words: and he would open the
door and call the little girl and hand her a packet of sweets.

One day he decided to go in. He pretended that he wanted some waistcoat
buttons. She began to look for them: but she could not find them. All the
buttons were mixed up: it was impossible to pick them out. She was a little
put out that he should see her untidiness. He laughed at it and bent over
the better to see it.

"No," she said, trying to hide the drawers with her hands. "Don't look! It
is a dreadful muddle...."

She went on looking. But Christophe embarrassed her. She was cross, and as
she pushed the drawer back she said:

"I can't find any. Go to Lisi, in the next street. She is sure to have
them. She has everything that people want."

He laughed at her way of doing business.

"Do you send all your customers away like that?"

"Well. You are not the first," said Sabine warmly.

And yet she was a little ashamed:

"It is too much trouble to tidy up," she said. "I put off doing it from day
to day.... But I shall certainly do it to-morrow."

"Shall I help you?" asked Christophe.

She refused. She would gladly have accepted: but she dared not, for fear of
gossip. And besides it humiliated her.

They went on talking.

"And your buttons?" she said to Christophe a moment later. "Aren't you
going to Lisi?"

"Never," said Christophe. "I shall wait until you have tidied up."

"Oh!" said Sabine, who had already forgotten what she had just said, "don't
wait all that time!"

Her frankness delighted them both.

Christophe went to the drawer that she had shut.

"Let me look."

She ran to prevent his doing so.

"No, now please. I am sure I haven't any."

"I bet you have."

At once he found the button he wanted, and was triumphant. He wanted
others. He wanted to go on rummaging; but she snatched the box from his
hands, and, hurt in her vanity, she began to look herself.

The light was fading. She went to the window. Christophe sat a little away
from her: the little girl clambered on to his knees. He pretended to listen
to her chatter and answered her absently. He was looking at Sabine and she
knew that he was looking at her. She bent over the box. He could see her
neck and a little of her cheek.--And as he looked he saw that she was
blushing. And he blushed too.

The child went on talking. No one answered her. Sabine did not move.
Christophe could not see what she was doing, he was sure she was doing
nothing: she was not even looking at the box in her hands. The silence went
on and on. The little girl grew uneasy and slipped down from Christophe's
knees.

"Why don't you say anything?"

Sabine turned sharply and took her in her arms. The box was spilled on the
floor: the little girl shouted with glee and ran on hands and knees after
the buttons rolling under the furniture. Sabine went to the window again
and laid her cheek against the pane. She seemed to be absorbed in what she
saw outside.

"Good-night!" said Christophe, ill at ease. She did not turn her head, and
said in a low voice:

"Good-night."

* * * * *

On Sundays the house was empty during the afternoon. The whole family went
to church for Vespers. Sabine did not go. Christophe jokingly reproached
her with it once when he saw her sitting at her door in the little garden,
while the lovely bells were bawling themselves hoarse summoning her. She
replied in the same tone that only Mass was compulsory: not Vespers: it was
then no use, and perhaps a little indiscreet to be too zealous: and she
liked to think that God would be rather pleased than angry with her.

"You have made God in your own image," said Christophe.

"I should be so bored if I were in His place," replied she with conviction.

"You would not bother much about the world if you were in His place."

"All that I should ask of it would be that it should not bother itself
about me."

"Perhaps it would be none the worse for that," said Christophe.

"Tssh!" cried Sabine, "we are being irreligious."

"I don't see anything irreligious in saying that God is like you. I am sure
He is flattered."

"Will you be silent!" said Sabine, half laughing, half angry. She was
beginning to be afraid that God would be scandalized. She quickly turned
the conversation.

"Besides," she said, "it is the only time in the week when one can enjoy
the garden in peace."

"Yes," said Christophe. "They are gone." They looked at each other.

"How silent it is," muttered Sabine. "We are not used to it. One hardly
knows where one is...."

"Oh!" cried Christophe suddenly and angrily.

"There are days when I would like to strangle her!" There was no need to
ask of whom he was speaking.

"And the others?" asked Sabine gaily.

"True," said Christophe, a little abashed. "There is Rosa."

"Poor child!" said Sabine.

They were silent.

"If only it were always as it is now!" sighed Christophe.

She raised her laughing eyes to his, and then dropped them. He saw that she
was working.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

(The fence of ivy that separated the two gardens was between them.)

"Look!" she said, lifting a basin that she was holding in heir lap. "I am
shelling peas."

She sighed.

"But that is not unpleasant," he raid, laughing.

"Oh!" she replied, "it is disgusting, always having to think of dinner."

"I bet that if it were possible," he said, "you would go without your
dinner rather than haw the trouble of cooking it."

"That's true," cried she.

"Wait! I'll come and help you."

He climbed over the fence and came to her.

She was sitting in a chair in the door. He sat on a step at her feet. He
dipped into her lap for handfuls of green pods; and he poured the little
round peas into the basin that Sabine held between her knees. He looked
down. He saw Sabine's black stockings clinging to her ankles and feet--one
of her feet was half out of its shoe. He dared not raise his eyes to look
at her.

The air was heavy. The sky was dull and clouds hung low: There was no wind.
No leaf stirred. The garden was inclosed within high walls: there was no
world beyond them.

The child had gone out with one of the neighbors. They were alone. They
said nothing. They could say nothing. Without looking he went on taking
handfuls of peas from Sabine's lap: his fingers trembled as he touched her:
among the fresh smooth pods they met Sabine's fingers, and they trembled
too. They could not go on. They sat still, not looking at each other: she
leaned back in her chair with her lips half-open and her arms hanging: he
sat at her feet leaning against her: along his shoulder and arm he could
feel the warmth of Sabine's leg. They were breathless. Christophe laid his
hands against the stones to cool them: one of his hands touched Sabine's
foot, that she had thrust out of her shoe, and he left it there, could not
move it. They shivered. Almost they lost control. Christophe's hand closed
on the slender toes of Sabine's little foot. Sabine turned cold, the sweat
broke out on her brow, she leaned towards Christophe....

Familiar voices broke the spell. They trembled. Christophe leaped to his
feet and crossed the fence again. Sabine picked up the shells in her lap
and went in. In the yard he turned. She was at her door. They looked at
each other. Drops of rain were beginning to patter on the leaves of the
trees.... She closed her door. Frau Vogel and Rosa came in.... He went up
to his room....

In the yellow light of the waning day drowned in the torrents of rain, he
got up from his desk in response to an irresistible impulse: he ran to his
window and held out his arms to the opposite window. At the same moment
through the opposite window in the half-darkness of the room he saw--he
thought he saw--Sabine holding out her arms to him.

He rushed from his room. He went downstairs. He ran to the garden fence. At
the risk of being seen he was about to clear it. But when he looked at the
window at which she had appeared, he saw that the shutters were closed. The
house seemed to be asleep. He stopped. Old Euler, going to his cellar, saw
him and called him. He retraced his footsteps. He thought he must have been
dreaming.

It was not long before Rosa began to see what was happening. She had no
diffidence and she did not yet know what jealousy was. She was ready to
give wholly and to ask nothing in return. But if she was sorrowfully
resigned to not being loved by Christophe, she had never considered the
possibility of Christophe loving another.

One evening, after dinner, she had just finished a piece of embroidery at
which she had been working for months. She was happy, and wanted for once
in a way to leave her work and go and talk to Christophe. She waited until
her mother's back was turned and then slipped from the room. She crept from
the house like a truant. She wanted to go and confound Christophe, who had
vowed scornfully that she would never finish her work. She thought it would
be a good joke to go and take them by surprise in the street. It was no use
the poor child knowing how Christophe felt towards her: she was always
inclined to measure the pleasure which others should have at seeing her by
that which she had herself in meeting them.

She went out. Christophe and Sabine were sitting as usual in front of the
house. There was a catch at Rosa's heart. And yet she did not stop for the
irrational idea that was in her: and she chaffed Christophe warmly. The
sound of her shrill voice in the silence of the night struck on Christophe
like a false note. He started in his chair, and frowned angrily. Rosa waved
her embroidery in his face triumphantly. Christophe snubbed her
impatiently.

"It is finished--finished!" insisted Rosa.

"Oh! well--go and begin another," said Christophe curtly.

Rosa was crestfallen. All her delight vanished. Christophe went on crossly:

"And when you have done thirty, when you are very old, you will at least be
able to say to yourself that your life has not been wasted!"

Rosa was near weeping.

"How cross you are, Christophe!" she said.

Christophe was ashamed and spoke kindly to her. She was satisfied with so
little that she regained confidence: and she began once more to chatter
noisily: she could not speak low, she shouted deafeningly, like everybody
in the house. In spite of himself Christophe could not conceal his
ill-humor. At first he answered her with a few irritated monosyllables:
then he said nothing at all, turned his back on her, fidgeted in his chair,
and ground his teeth as she rattled on. Rosa saw that he was losing his
temper and knew that she ought to stop: but she went on louder than ever.
Sabine, a few yards away, in the dark, said nothing, watched the scene with
ironic impassivity. Then she was weary and, feeling that the evening was
wasted, she got up and went in. Christophe only noticed her departure after
she had gone. He got up at once and without ceremony went away with a curt
"Good-evening."

Rosa was left alone in the street, and looked in bewilderment at the door
by which he had just gone in. Tears came to her eyes. She rushed in, went
up to her room without a sound, so as not to have to talk to her mother,
undressed hurriedly, and when she was in her bed, buried under the clothes,
sobbed and sobbed. She made no attempt to think over what had passed: she
did not ask herself whether Christophe loved Sabine, or whether Christophe
and Sabine could not bear her: she knew only that all was lost, that life
was useless, that there was nothing left to her but death.

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