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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




"How are you?"

She made a little grimace, as if the question were not worth answering.
They went on looking at each other and were happy. It was as though they
had lost, and had just found each other again....

At last he broke the silence and said:

"I am going away to-morrow."

There was alarm in Sabine's eyes.

"Going away?" she said.

He added quickly:

"Oh! only for two or three weeks."

"Two or three weeks," she said in dismay.

He explained that he was engaged for the concerts, but that when he came
back he would not stir all winter.

"Winter," she said. "That is a long time off...."

"Oh! no. It will soon be here."

She saddened and did not look at him.

"When shall we meet again?" she asked a moment later.

He did not understand the question: he had already answered it.

"As soon as I come back: in a fortnight, or three weeks at most."

She still looked dismayed. He tried to tease her:

"It won't be long for you," he said. "You will sleep."

"Yes," said Sabine.

She looked down, she tried to smile: but her eyes trembled.

"Christophe!..." she said suddenly, turning towards him.

There was a note of distress in her voice. She seemed to say:

"Stay! Don't go!..."

He took her hand, looked at her, did not understand the importance she
attached to his fortnight's absence: but he was only waiting for a word
from her to say:

"I will stay...."

And just as she was going to speak, the front door was opened and Rosa
appeared. Sabine withdrew her hand from Christophe's and went hurriedly
into her house. At the door she turned and looked at him once more--and
disappeared.

* * * * *

Christophe thought he should see her again in the evening. But he was
watched by the Vogels, and followed everywhere by his mother: as usual, he
was behindhand with his preparations for his journey and could not find
time to leave the house for a moment.

Next day he left very early. As he passed Sabine's door he longed to go in,
to tap at the window: it hurt him to leave her without saying good-bye:
for he had been interrupted by Rosa before he had had time to do so. But
he thought she must be asleep and would be cross with him if he woke her
up. And then, what could he say to her? It was too late now to abandon his
journey: and what if she were to ask him to do so?... He did not admit to
himself that he was not averse to exercising his power over her,--if need
be, causing her a little pain.... He did not take seriously the grief that
his departure brought Sabine: and he thought that his short absence would
increase the tenderness which, perhaps, she had for him.

He ran to the station. In spite of everything he was a little remorseful.
But as soon as the train had started it was all forgotten. There was youth
in his heart. Gaily he saluted the old town with its roofs and towers rosy
under the sun: and with the carelessness of those who are departing he said
good-bye to those whom he was leaving, and thought no more of them.

The whole time that he was at Düsseldorf and Cologne Sabine never once
recurred to his mind. Taken up from morning till night with rehearsals and
concerts, dinners and talk, busied with a thousand and one new things and
the pride and satisfaction of his success he had no time for recollection.
Once only, on the fifth night after he left home, he woke suddenly after a
dream and knew that he had been thinking of _her_ in his sleep and that the
thought of _her_ had wakened him up: but he could not remember how he had
been thinking of her. He was unhappy and feverish. It was not surprising:
he had been playing at a concert that evening, and when he left the hall
he had been dragged off to a supper at which he had drunk several glasses
of champagne. He could not sleep and got up. He was obsessed by a musical
idea. He pretended that it was that which had broken in upon his sleep and
he wrote it down. As he read through it he was astonished to see how sad
it was. There was no sadness in him when he wrote: at least, so he thought.
But he remembered that on other occasions when he had been sad he had only
been able to write joyous music, so gay that it offended his mood. He gave
no more thought to it. He was used to the surprises of his mind world
without ever being able to understand them. He went to sleep at once, and
knew no more until the next morning.

He extended his stay by three or four days. It pleased him to prolong it,
knowing he could return whenever he liked: he was in no hurry to go home.
It was only when he was on the way, in the train, that the thought of
Sabine came back to him. He had not written to her. He was even careless
enough never to have taken the trouble to ask at the post-office for any
letters that might have been written to him. He took a secret delight in
his silence: he knew that at home he was expected, that he was loved....
Loved? She had never told him so: he had never told her so. No doubt they
knew it and had no need to tell it. And yet there was nothing so precious
as the certainty of such an avowal. Why had they waited so long to make
it? When they had been on the point of speaking always something--some
mischance, shyness, embarrassment,--had hindered them. Why? Why? How much
time they had lost!... He longed to hear the dear words from the lips of
the beloved. He longed to say them to her: he said them aloud in the empty
carriage. As he neared the town he was torn with impatience, a sort of
agony.... Faster! Faster! Oh! To think that in an hour he would see her
again!...

* * * * *

It was half-past six in the morning when he reached home. Nobody was up
yet. Sabine's windows were closed. He went into the yard on tiptoe so
that she should not hear him. He chuckled at the thought of taking her by
surprise. He went up to his room. His mother was asleep. He washed and
brushed his hair without making any noise. He was hungry: but he was
afraid of waking Louisa by rummaging in the pantry. He heard footsteps in
the yard: he opened his window softly and saw Rosa, first up as usual,
beginning to sweep. He called her gently. She started in glad surprise when
she saw him: then she looked solemn. He thought she was still offended with
him: but for the moment he was in a very good temper. He went down to her.

"Rosa, Rosa," he said gaily, "give me something to eat or I shall eat you!
I am dying of hunger!"

Rosa smiled and took him to the kitchen on the ground floor. She poured him
out a bowl of milk and then could not refrain from plying him with a string
of questions about his travels and his concerts. But although he was quite
ready to answer them,--(in the happiness of his return he was almost glad
to hear Rosa's chatter once more)--Rosa stopped suddenly in the middle of
her cross-examination, her face fell, her eyes turned away, and she became
sorrowful. Then her chatter broke out again: but soon it seemed that she
thought it out of place and once more she stopped short. And he noticed it
then and said:

"What is the matter, Rosa? Are you cross with me?"

She shook her head violently in denial, and turning towards him with her
usual suddenness took his arm with both hands:

"Oh! Christophe!..." she said.

He was alarmed. He let his piece of bread fall from his hands.

"What! What is the matter?" he stammered.

She said again:

"Oh! Christophe!... Such an awful thing has happened!"

He thrust away from the table. He stuttered:

"H--here?"

She pointed to the house on the other side of the yard.

He cried:

"Sabine!"

She wept:

"She is dead."

Christophe saw nothing. He got up: he almost fell: he clung to the table,
upset the things on it: he wished to cry out. He suffered fearful agony. He
turned sick.

Rosa hastened to his side: she was frightened: she held his head and wept.

As soon as he could speak he said;

"It is not true!"

He knew that it was true. But he wanted to deny it, he wanted to pretend
that it could not be. When he saw Rosa's face wet with tears he could doubt
no more and he sobbed aloud.

Rosa raised her head:

"Christophe!" she said.

He hid his face in his hands. She leaned towards him.

"Christophe!... Mamma is coming!..."

Christophe got up.

"No, no," he said. "She must not see me."

She took his hand and led him, stumbling and blinded by his tears, to a
little woodshed which opened on to the yard. She closed the door. They were
in darkness. He sat on a block of wood used for chopping sticks. She sat on
the fagots. Sounds from without were deadened and distant. There he could
weep without fear of being heard. He let himself go and sobbed furiously.
Rosa had never seen him weep: she had even thought that he could not weep:
she knew only her own girlish tears and such despair in a man filled her
with terror and pity. She was filled with a passionate love for Christophe.
It was an absolutely unselfish love: an immense need of sacrifice, a
maternal self-denial, a hunger to suffer for him, to take his sorrow upon
herself. She put her arm round his shoulders.

"Dear Christophe," she said, "do not cry!"

Christophe turned from her.

"I wish to die!"

Rosa clasped her hands.

"Don't say that, Christophe!"

"I wish to die. I cannot ... cannot live now.... What is the good of
living?"

"Christophe, dear Christophe! You are not alone. You are loved...."

"What is that to me? I love nothing now. It is nothing to me whether
everything else live or die. I love nothing: I loved only her. I loved only
her!"

He sobbed louder than ever with his face buried in his hands. Rosa could
find nothing to say. The egoism of Christophe's passion stabbed her to
the heart. Now when she thought herself most near to him, she felt more
isolated and more miserable than ever. Grief instead of bringing them
together thrust them only the more widely apart. She wept bitterly.

After some time, Christophe stopped weeping and asked:

"How?... How?..."

Rosa understood.

"She fell ill of influenza on the evening you left. And she was taken
suddenly...."

He groaned.

"Dear God!... Why did you not write to me?"

She said:

"I did write. I did not know your address: you did not give us any. I went
and asked at the theater. Nobody knew it."

He knew how timid she was, and how much it must have cost her. He asked:

"Did she ... did she tell you to do that?"

She shook her head:

"No. But I thought ..."

He thanked her with a look. Rosa's heart melted.

"My poor ... poor Christophe!" she said.

She flung her arms round his neck and wept. Christophe felt the worth of
such pure tenderness. He had so much need of consolation! He kissed her:

"How kind you are," he said. "You loved her too?"

She broke away from him, she threw him a passionate look, did not reply,
and began to weep again.

That look was a revelation to him. It meant:

"It was not she whom I loved...."

Christophe saw at last what he had not known--what for months he had not
wished to see. He saw that she loved him.

"'Ssh," she said. "They are calling me." They heard Amalia's voice.

Rosa asked:

"Do you want to go back to your room?"

He said:

"No. I could not yet: I could not bear to talk to my mother.... Later
on...."

She said:

"Stay here. I will come back soon."

He stayed in the dark woodshed to which only a thread of light penetrated
through a small airhole filled with cobwebs. From the street there came up
the cry of a hawker, against the wall a horse in a stable next door was
snorting and kicking. The revelation that had just come to Christophe gave
him no pleasure; but it held his attention for a moment. It made plain many
things that he had not understood. A multitude of little things that he
had disregarded occurred to him and were explained. He was surprised to
find himself thinking of it; he was ashamed to be turned aside even for a
moment from his misery. But that misery was so frightful, so irrepressible
that the mistrust of self-preservation, stronger than his will, than his
courage, than his love, forced him to turn away from it, seized on this
new idea, as the suicide drowning seizes in spite of himself on the first
object which can help him, not to save himself, but to keep himself for a
moment longer above the water. And it was because he was suffering that
he was able to feel what another was suffering--suffering through him. He
understood the tears that he had brought to her eyes. He was filled with
pity for Rosa. He thought how cruel he had been to her--how cruel he must
still be. For he did not love her. What good was it for her to love him?
Poor girl!... In vain did he tell himself that she was good (she had just
proved it). What was her goodness to him? What was her life to him?...

He thought:

"Why is it not she who is dead, and the other who is alive?"

He thought:

"She is alive: she loves me: she can tell me that to-day, to-morrow, all my
life: and the other, the woman I love, she is dead and never told me that
she loved me: I never have told her that I loved her: I shall never hear
her say it: she will never know it...."

And suddenly he remembered that last evening: he remembered that they were
just going to talk when Rosa came and prevented it. And he hated Rosa....

The door of the woodshed was opened. Rosa called Christophe softly, and
groped towards him. She took his hand. He felt an aversion in her near
presence: in vain did he reproach himself for it: it was stronger than
himself.

Rosa was silent: her great pity had taught her silence. Christophe was
grateful to her for not breaking in upon his grief with useless words. And
yet he wished to know ... she was the only creature who could talk to him
of _her_. He asked in a whisper:

"When did she..."

(He dared not say: die.)

She replied:

"Last Saturday week."

Dimly he remembered. He said:

"At night?"

Rosa looked at him in astonishment and said:

"Yes. At night. Between two and three."

The sorrowful melody came back to him. He asked, trembling:

"Did she suffer much?"

"No, no. God be thanked, dear Christophe: she hardly suffered at all. She
was so weak. She did not struggle against it. Suddenly they saw that she
was lost...."

"And she ... did she know it?"

"I don't know. I think ..."

"Did she say anything?"

"No. Nothing. She was sorry for herself like a child."

"You were there?"

"Yes. For the first two days I was there alone, before her brother came."

He pressed her hand in gratitude.

"Thank you."

She felt the blood rush to her heart.

After a silence he said, he murmured the question which was choking him:

"Did she say anything ... for me?"

Rosa shook her head sadly. She would have given much to be able to let him
have the answer he expected: she was almost sorry that she could not lie
about it. She tried to console him:

"She was not conscious."

"But she did speak?"

"One could not make out what she said. It was in a very low voice."

"Where is the child?"

"Her brother took her away with him to the country."

"And _she_?"

"She is there too. She was taken away last Monday week."

They began to weep again.

Frau Vogel's voice called Rosa once more. Christophe, left alone again,
lived through those days of death. A week, already a week ago.... O God!
What had become of her? How it had rained that week!... And all that time
he was laughing, he was happy!

In his pocket he felt a little parcel wrapped up in soft paper: they were
silver buckles that he had brought her for her shoes. He remembered the
evening when he had placed his hand on the little stockinged foot. Her
little feet: where were they now? How cold they must be!... He thought the
memory of that warm contact was the only one that he had of the beloved
creature. He had never dared to touch her, to take her in his arms, to hold
her to his breast. She was gone forever, and he had never known her. He
knew nothing of her, neither soul nor body. He had no memory of her body,
of her life, of her love.... Her love?... What proof had he of that?... He
had not even a letter, a token,--nothing. Where could he seek to hold her,
in himself, or outside himself?... Oh! Nothing! There was nothing left him
but the love he had for her, nothing left him but himself.--And in spite
of all, his desperate desire to snatch her from destruction, his need of
denying death, made him cling to the last piece of wreckage, in an act of
blind faith:

"... _he son gia morto: e ben, c'albergo cangi resto in te vivo. C'or mi
vedi e piangi, se l'un nell' altro amante si trasforma_."

"... I am not dead: I have changed my dwelling. I live still in thee who
art faithful to me. The soul of the beloved is merged in the soul of the
lover."

He had never read these sublime words: but they were in him. Each one of us
in turn climbs the Calvary of the age. Each one of us finds anew the agony,
each one of us finds anew the desperate hope and folly of the ages. Each
one of us follows in the footsteps of those who were, of those before us
who struggled with death, denied death--and are dead.

* * * * *

He shut himself up in his room. His shutters were closed all day so as not
to see the windows of the house opposite. He avoided the Vogels: they were
odious to his sight. He had nothing to reproach them with: they were too
honest, and too pious not to have thrust back their feelings in the face of
death. They knew Christophe's grief and respected it, whatever they might
think of it: they never uttered Sabine's name in his presence. But they had
been her enemies when she was alive: that was enough to make him their
enemy now that she was dead.

Besides they had not altered their noisy habits: and in spite of the
sincere though passing pity that they had felt, it was obvious that at
bottom they were untouched by the misfortune--(it was too natural)--perhaps
even they were secretly relieved by it. Christophe imagined so at least.
Now that the Vogels' intentions with regard to himself were made plain
he exaggerated them in his own mind. In reality they attached little
importance to him: he set too great store by himself. But he had no doubt
that the death of Sabine, by removing the greatest obstacle in the way of
his landlords' plans, did seem to them to leave the field clear for Rosa.
So he detested her. That they--(the Vogels, Louisa, and even Rosa)--should
have tacitly disposed of him, without consulting him, was enough in any
case to make him lose all affection for the person whom he was destined to
love. He shied whenever he thought an attempt was made upon his umbrageous
sense of liberty. But now it was not only a question of himself. The rights
which these others had assumed over him did not only infringe upon his
own rights but upon those of the dead woman to whom his heart was given.
So he defended them doggedly, although no one was for attacking them. He
suspected Rosa's goodness. She suffered in seeing him suffer and would
often come and knock at his door to console him and talk to him about the
other. He did not drive her away: he needed to talk of Sabine with some
one who had known her: he wanted to know the smallest of what had happened
during her illness. But he was not grateful to Rosa: he attributed ulterior
motives to her. Was it not plain that her family, even Amalia, permitted
these visits and long colloquies which she would never have allowed if they
had not fallen in with her wishes? Was not Rosa in league with her family?
He could not believe that her pity was absolutely sincere and free of
personal thoughts.

And, no doubt, it was not. Rosa pitied Christophe with all her heart. She
tried hard to see Sabine through Christophe's eyes, and through him to love
her: she was angry with herself for all the unkind feelings that she had
ever had towards her, and asked her pardon in her prayers at night. But
could she forget that she was alive, that she was seeing Christophe every
moment of the day, that she loved him, that she was no longer afraid of the
other, that the other was gone, that her memory would also fade away in its
turn, that she was left alone, that one day perhaps ...? In the midst of
her sorrow, and the sorrow of her friend more hers than her own, could she
repress a glad impulse, an unreasoning hope? For that too she was angry
with herself. It was only a flash. It was enough. He saw it. He threw her a
glance which froze her heart: she read in it hateful thoughts: he hated her
for being alive while the other was dead.

The miller brought his cart for Sabine's little furniture. Coming back from
a lesson Christophe saw heaped up before the door in the street the bed,
the cupboard, the mattress, the linen, all that she had possessed, all that
was left of her. It was a dreadful sight to him. He rushed past it. In the
doorway he bumped into Bertold, who stopped him.

"Ah! my dear sir," he said, shaking his hand effusively. "Ah! who would
have thought it when we were together? How happy we were! And yet it was
because of that day, because of that cursed row on the water, that she fell
ill. Oh well. It is no use complaining! She is dead. It will be our turn
next. That is life.... And how are you? I'm very well, thank God!"

He was red in the face, sweating, and smelled of wine. The idea that he was
her brother, that he had rights in her memory, hurt Christophe. It offended
him to hear this man talking of his beloved. The miller on the contrary
was glad, to find a friend with whom he could talk of Sabine: he did not
understand Christophe's coldness. He had no idea of all the sorrow that
his presence, the sudden calling to mind of the day at his farm, the happy
memories that he recalled so blunderingly, the poor relics of Sabine,
heaped upon the ground, which he kicked as he talked, set stirring in
Christophe's soul. He made some excuse for stopping Bertold's tongue. He
went up the steps: but the other clung to him, stopped him, and went on
with his harangue. At last when the miller took to telling him of Sabine's
illness, with that strange pleasure which certain people, and especially
the common people, take in talking of illness, with a plethora of painful
details, Christophe could bear it no longer--(he took a tight hold of
himself so as not to cry out in his sorrow). He cut him short:

"Pardon," he said curtly and icily. "I must leave you."

He left him without another word.

His insensibility revolted the miller. He had guessed the secret affection
of his sister and Christophe. And that Christophe should now show such
indifference seemed monstrous to him: he thought he had no heart.

Christophe had fled to his room: he was choking. Until the removal was
over he never left his room. He vowed that he would never look out of the
window, but he could not help doing so: and hiding in a corner behind the
curtain he followed the departure of the goods and chattels of the beloved
eagerly and with profound sorrow. When he saw them disappearing forever he
all but ran down to the street to cry: "No! no! Leave them to me! Do not
take them from me!" He longed to beg at least for some little thing, only
one little thing, so that she should not be altogether taken from him. But
how could he ask such a thing of the miller? It was nothing to him. She
herself had not known his love: how dared he then reveal it to another? And
besides, if he had tried to say a word he would have burst out crying....
No. No. He had to say nothing, to watch all go, without being able--without
daring to save one fragment from the wreck....

And when it was all over, when the house was empty, when the yard gate was
closed after the miller, when the wheels of his cart moved on, shaking the
windows, when they were out of hearing, he threw himself on the floor--not
a tear left in him, not a thought of suffering, of struggling, frozen, and
like one dead.

There was a knock at the door. He did not move. Another knock. He had
forgotten to lock the door. Rosa came in. She cried out on seeing him
stretched on the floor and stopped in terror. He raised his head angrily:

"What? What do you want? Leave me!"

She did not go: she stayed, hesitating, leaning against the floor, and said
again:

"Christophe...."

He got up in silence: he was ashamed of having been seen so. He dusted
himself with his hand and asked harshly:

"Well. What do you want?"

Rosa said shyly:

"Forgive me ... Christophe ... I came in ... I was bringing you...."

He saw that she had something in her hand.

"See," she said, holding it out to him. "I asked Bertold to give me a
little token of her. I thought you would like it...."

It was a little silver mirror, the pocket mirror in which she used to look
at herself for hours, not so much from coquetry as from want of occupation.
Christophe took it, took also the hand which held it.

"Oh! Rosa!..." he said.

He was filled with her kindness and the knowledge of his own injustice. On
a passionate impulse he knelt to her and kissed her hand.

"Forgive ... Forgive ..." he said.

Rosa did not understand at first: then she understood only too well: she
blushed, she trembled, she began to weep. She understood that he meant:

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