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

Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




But since she had lived with the Vogels a change had come about in her. The
disparaging temper of the family had found her an easier prey because she
was crushed and had no strength to resist. Amalia had taken her in hand:
and from morning to night when they were working together alone, and Amalia
did all the talking, Louisa, broken and passive, unconsciously assumed the
habit of judging and criticising everything. Frau Vogel did not fail to
tell her what she thought of Christophe's conduct. Louisa's calmness
irritated her. She thought it indecent of Louisa to be so little concerned
about what put him beyond the pale: she was not satisfied until she had
upset her altogether. Christophe saw it. Louisa dared not reproach him: but
every day she made little timid remarks, uneasy, insistent: and when he
lost patience and replied sharply, she said no more: but still he could see
the trouble in her eyes: and when he came home sometimes he could see that
she had been weeping. He knew his mother too well not to be absolutely
certain that her uneasiness did not come from herself.--And he knew well
whence it came.

He determined to make an end of it. One evening when Louisa was unable to
hold back her tears and had got up from the table in the middle of supper
without Christophe being able to discover what was the matter, he rushed
downstairs four steps at a time and knocked at the Vogels' door. He was
boiling with rage. He was not only angry about Frau Vogel's treatment of
his mother: he had to avenge himself for her having turned Rosa against
him, for her bickering against Sabine, for all that he had had to put up
with at her hands for months. For months he had borne his pent-up feelings
against her and now made haste to let them loose.

He burst in on Frau Vogel and in a voice that he tried to keep calm, though
it was trembling with fury, he asked her what she had told his mother to
bring her to such a state.

Amalia took it very badly: she replied that she would say what she pleased,
and was responsible to no one for her actions--to him least of all. And
seizing the opportunity to deliver the speech which she had prepared, she
added that if Louisa was unhappy he had to go no further for the cause of
it than his own conduct, which was a shame to himself and a scandal to
everybody else.

Christophe was only waiting for her onslaught to strike out, He shouted
angrily that his conduct was his own affair, that he did not care a rap
whether it pleased Frau Vogel or not, that if she wished to complain of it
she must do so to him, and that she could say to him whatever she liked:
that rested with her, but he _forbade_ her--(did she hear?)--_forbade_ her
to say anything to his mother: it was cowardly and mean so to attack a poor
sick old woman.

Frau Vogel cried loudly. Never had any one dared to speak to her in such a
manner. She said that she was not to be lectured fey a rapscallion,--and in
her own house, too!--And she treated him with abuse.

The others came running up on the noise of the quarrel,--except Vogel, who
fled from anything that might upset, his health. Old Euler was called to
witness by the indignant Amalia and sternly bade Christophe in future to
refrain from speaking to or visiting them. He said that they did not need
him to tell them what they ought to do, that they did their duty and would
always do it.

Christophe declared that he would go and would never again set foot in
their house. However, he did not go until he had relieved his feelings by
telling them what he had still to say about their famous Duty, which had
become to him a personal enemy. He said that their Duty was the sort of
thing to make him love vice. It was people like them who discouraged good,
by insisting on making it unpleasant. It was their fault that so many find
delight by contrast among those who are dishonest, but amiable and
laughter-loving. It was a profanation of the name of duty to apply it to
everything, to the most stupid tasks, to trivial things, with a stiff and
arrogant severity which ends by darkening and poisoning life. Duty, he
said, was exceptional: it should be kept for moments of real sacrifice, and
not used to lend the lover of its name to ill-humor and the desire to be
disagreeable to others. There was no reason, because they were stupid
enough or ungracious enough to be sad, to want everybody else to be so too
and to impose on everybody their decrepit way of living.... The first of
all virtues is joy. Virtue must be happy, free, and unconstrained. He who
does good must give pleasure to himself. But this perpetual upstart Duty,
this pedagogic tyranny, this peevishness, this futile discussion, this
acrid, puerile quibbling, this ungraciousness, this charmless life, without
politeness, without silence, this mean-spirited pessimism, which lets slip
nothing that can make existence poorer than it is, this vainglorious
unintelligence, which finds it easier to despise others than to understand
them, all this middle-class morality, without greatness, without largeness,
without happiness, without beauty, all these things are odious and hurtful:
they make vice appear more human than virtue.

So thought Christophe: and in his desire to hurt those who had wounded him,
he did not see that he was being as unjust as those of whom he spoke.

No doubt these unfortunate people were, almost as he saw them. But it was
not their fault: it was the fault of their ungracious life, which had made
their faces, their doings, and their thoughts ungracious. They had suffered
the deformation of misery--not that great misery which swoops down and
slays or forges anew--but the misery of ever recurring ill-fortune, that
small misery which trickles down drop by drop from the first day to the
last.... Sad, indeed! For beneath these rough exteriors what treasures in
reserve are there, of uprightness, of kindness, of silent heroism!... The
whole strength of a people, all the sap of the future.

Christophe was not wrong in thinking duty exceptional. But love is so no
less. Everything is exceptional. Everything that is of worth has no worse
enemy--not the evil (the vices are of worth)--but the habitual. The mortal
enemy of the soul is the daily wear and tear.

Ada was beginning to weary of it. She was not clever enough to find new
food for her love in an abundant nature like that of Christophe. Her senses
and her vanity had extracted from it all the pleasure they could find in
it. There was left her only the pleasure of destroying it. She had that
secret instinct common to so many women, even good women, to so many men,
even clever men, who are not creative either of art, or of children, or of
pure action,--no matter what: of life--and yet have too much life in apathy
and resignation to bear with their uselessness. They desire others to be as
useless as themselves and do their best to make them so. Sometimes they do
so in spite of themselves: and when they become aware of their criminal
desire they hotly thrust it back. But often they hug it to themselves: and
they set themselves according to their strength--some modestly in their own
intimate circle--others largely with vast audiences--to destroy everything
that has life, everything that loves life, everything that deserves life.
The critic who takes upon himself to diminish the stature of great men and
great thoughts--and the girl who amuses herself with dragging down her
lovers, are both mischievous beasts of the same kind.--But the second is
the pleasanter of the two.

Ada then would have liked to corrupt Christophe a little, to humiliate him.
In truth, she was not strong enough. More intelligence was needed, even in
corruption. She felt that: and it was not the least of her rankling
feelings against Christophe that her love could do him no harm. She did not
admit the desire that was in her to do him harm: perhaps she would have
done him none if she had been able. But it annoyed her that she could not
do it. It is to fail in love for a woman not to leave her the illusion of
her power for good or evil over her lover: to do that must inevitably be to
impel her irresistibly to the test of it. Christophe paid no attention to
it. When Ada asked him jokingly:

"Would you leave your music for me?"

(Although she had no wish for him to do so.)

He replied frankly:

"No, my dear: neither you nor anybody else can do anything against that. I
shall always make music."

"And you say you love?" cried she, put out.

She hated his music--the more so because she did not understand it, and it
was impossible for her to find a means of coming to grips with this
invisible enemy and so to wound Christophe in his passion. If she tried to
talk of it contemptuously, or scornfully to judge Christophe's
compositions, he would shout with laughter; and in spite of her
exasperation Ada would relapse into silence: for she saw that she was being
ridiculous.

But if there was nothing to be done in that direction, she had discovered
another weak spot in Christophe, one more easy of access: his moral faith.
In spite of his squabble with the Vogels, and in spite of the intoxication
of his adolescence, Christophe had preserved an instinctive modesty, a need
of purity, of which he was entirely unconscious. At first it struck Ada,
attracted and charmed her, then made her impatient and irritable, and
finally, being the woman she was, she detested it. She did not make a
frontal attack. She would ask insidiously:

"Do you love me?"

"Of course!"

"How much do you love me?"

"As much as it is possible to love."

"That is not much ... after all!... What would you do for me?"

"Whatever you like."

"Would you do something dishonest."

"That would be a queer way of loving."

"That is not what I asked. Would you?"

"It is not necessary."

"But if I wished it?"

"You would be wrong."

"Perhaps.... Would you do it?"

He tried to kiss her. But she thrust him away.

"Would you do it? Yes or no?"

"No, my dear."

She turned her back on him and was furious.

"You do not love me. You do not know what love is."

"That is quite possible," he said good-humoredly. He knew that, like
anybody else, he was capable in a moment of passion of committing some
folly, perhaps something dishonest, and--who knows?--even more: but he
would have thought shame of himself if he had boasted of it in cold blood,
and certainly it would be dangerous to confess it to Ada. Some instinct
warmed him that the beloved foe was lying in ambush, and taking stock of
his smallest remark; he would not give her any weapon against him.

She would return to the charge again, and ask him:

"Do you love me because you love me, or because I love you?"

"Because I love you."

"Then if I did not love you, you would still love me?"

"Yes."

"And if I loved some one else you would still love me?"

"Ah! I don't know about that.... I don't think so.... In any case you would
be the last person to whom I should say so."

"How would it be changed?"

"Many things would be changed. Myself, perhaps. You, certainly."

"And if I changed, what would it matter?"

"All the difference in the world. I love you as you are. If you become
another creature I can't promise to love you."

"You do not love, you do not love! What is the use of all this quibbling?
You love or you do not love. If you love me you ought to love me just as I
am, whatever I do, always."

"That would be to love you like an animal."

"I want to be loved like that."

"Then you have made a mistake," said he jokingly. "I am not the sort of man
you want. I would like to be, but I cannot. And I will not."

"You are very proud of your intelligence! You love your intelligence more
than you do me."

"But I love you, you wretch, more than you love yourself. The more
beautiful and the more good you are, the more I love you."

"You are a schoolmaster," she said with asperity.

"What would you? I love what is beautiful. Anything ugly disgusts me."

"Even in me?"

"Especially in you."

She drummed angrily with her foot.

"I will not be judged."

"Then complain of what I judge you to be, and of what I love in you," said
he tenderly to appease her.

She let him take her in his arms, and deigned to smile, and let him kiss
her. But in a moment when he thought she had forgotten she asked uneasily:

"What do you think ugly in me?"

He would not tell her: he replied cowardly:

"I don't think anything ugly in you."

She thought for a moment, smiled, and said:

"Just a moment, Christli: you say that you do not like lying?"

"I despise it."

"You are right," she said. "I despise it too. I am of a good conscience. I
never lie."

He stared at her: she was sincere. Her unconsciousness disarmed him.

"Then," she went on, putting her arms about his neck, "why would you be
cross with me if I loved some one else and told you so?"

"Don't tease me."

"I'm not teasing: I am not saying that I do love some one else: I am saying
that I do not.... But if I did love some one later on...."

"Well, don't let us think of it."

"But I want to think of it.... You would not be angry, with me? You could
not be angry with me?"

"I should not be angry with you. I should leave you. That is all."

"Leave me? Why? If I still loved you ...?"

"While you loved some one else?"

"Of course. It happens sometimes."

"Well, it will not happen with us."

"Why?"

"Because as soon as you love some one else, I shall love you no longer, my
dear, never, never again."

"But just now you said perhaps.... Ah! you see you do not love me!"

"Well then: all the better for you."

"Because ...?"

"Because if I loved you when you loved some one else it might turn out
badly for you, me, and him."

"Then!... Now you are mad. Then I am condemned to stay with you all my
life?"

"Be calm. You are free. You shall leave me when you like. Only it will not
be _au revoir_: it will be good-bye."

"But if I still love you?"

"When people love, they sacrifice themselves to each other."

"Well, then ... sacrifice yourself!"

He could not help laughing at her egoism: and she laughed too.

"The sacrifice of one only," he said, "means the love of one only."

"Not at all. It means the love of both. I shall not love you much longer if
you do not sacrifice yourself for me. And think, Christli, how much you
will love me, when you have sacrificed yourself, and how happy you will
be."

They laughed and were glad to have a change from the seriousness of the
disagreement.

He laughed and looked at her. At heart, as she said, she had no desire to
leave Christophe at present: if he irritated her and often bored her she
knew the worth of such devotion as his: and she loved no one else. She
talked so for fun, partly because she knew he disliked it, partly because
she took pleasure in playing with equivocal and unclean thoughts like a
child which delights to mess about with dirty water. He knew this. He did
not mind. But he was tired of these unwholesome discussions, of the silent
struggle against this uncertain and uneasy creature whom he loved, who
perhaps loved him: he was tired from the effort that he had to make to
deceive himself about her, sometimes tired almost to tears. He would think:
"Why, why is she like this? Why are people like this? How second-rate life
is!"... At the same time he would smile as he saw her pretty face above
him, her blue eyes, her flower-like complexion, her laughing, chattering
lips, foolish a little, half open to reveal the brilliance of her tongue
and her white teeth. Their lips would almost touch: and he would look at
her as from a distance, a great distance, as from another world: he would
see her going farther and farther from him, vanishing in a mist.... And
then he would lose sight of her. He could hear her no more. He would fall
into a sort of smiling oblivion, in which he thought of his music, his
dreams, a thousand things foreign, to Ada.... Ah! beautiful music!... so
sad, so mortally sad! and yet kind, loving.... Ah! how good it is!... It is
that, it is that.... Nothing else is true....

She would shake his arm. A voice would cry:

"Eh, what's the matter with you? You are mad, quite mad. Why do you look at
me like that? Why don't you answer?"

Once more he would see the eyes looking at him. Who was it?... Ah! yes....
He would sigh.

She would watch him. She would try to discover what he was thinking of. She
did not understand: but she felt that it was useless: that she could not
keep hold of him, that there was always a door by which he could escape.
She would conceal her irritation.

"Why are you crying?" she asked him once as he returned from one of his
strange journeys into another life.

He drew his hands across his eyes. He felt that they were wet.

"I do not know," he said.

"Why don't you answer? Three times you have said the same thing."

"What do you want?" he asked gently.

She went back to her absurd discussions. He waved his hand wearily.

"Yes," she said. "I've done. Only a word more!" And off she started again.

Christophe shook himself angrily.

"Will you keep your dirtiness to yourself!"

"I was only joking."

"Find cleaner subjects, then!"

"Tell me why, then. Tell me why you don't like it."

"Why? You can't argue as to why a dump-heap smells. It does smell, and that
is all! I hold my nose and go away."

He went away, furious: and he strode along taking in great breaths of the
cold air.

But she would begin again, once, twice, ten times. She would bring forward
every possible subject that could shock him and offend his conscience.

He thought it was only a morbid jest of a neurasthenic girl, amusing
herself by annoying him. He would shrug his shoulders or pretend not to
hear her: he would not take her seriously. But sometimes he would long to
throw her out of the window: for neurasthenia and the neurasthenics were
very little to his taste....

But ten minutes away from her were enough to make him forget everything
that had annoyed him. He would return to Ada with a fresh store of hopes
and new illusions. He loved her. Love is a perpetual act of faith. Whether
God exist or no is a small matter: we believe, because we believe. We love
because we love; there is no need of reasons!...

* * * * *

After Christophe's quarrel with the Vogels it became impossible for them to
stay in the house, and Louisa had to seek another lodging for herself and
her son.

One day Christophe's younger brother Ernest, of whom they had not heard for
a long time, suddenly turned up. He was out of work, having been dismissed
in turn from all the situations he had procured; his purse was empty and
his health ruined; and so he had thought it would be as well to
re-establish himself in his mother's house.

Ernest was not on bad terms with either of his brothers: they thought very
little of him and he knew it: but he did not bear any grudge against them,
for he did not care. They had no ill-feeling against him. It was not worth
the trouble. Everything they said to him slipped off his back without
leaving a mark. He just smiled with his sly eyes, tried to look contrite,
thought of something else, agreed, thanked them, and in the end always
managed to extort money from one or other of them. In spite of himself
Christophe was fond of the pleasant mortal who, like himself, and more than
himself, resembled their father Melchior in feature. Tall and strong like
Christophe, he had regular features, a frank expression, a straight nose, a
laughing mouth, fine teeth, and endearing manners. When even Christophe saw
him he was disarmed and could not deliver half the reproaches that he had
prepared: in his heart he had a sort of motherly indulgence for the
handsome boy who was of his blood, and physically at all events did him
credit. He did not believe him to be bad: and Ernest was not a fool.
Without culture, he was not without brains: he was even not incapable of
taking an interest in the things of the mind. He enjoyed listening to
music: and without understanding his brother's compositions he would listen
to them with interest. Christophe, who did not receive too much sympathy
from his family, had been glad to see him at some of his concerts.

But Ernest's chief talent was the knowledge that he possessed of the
character of his two brothers, and his skill in making use of his
knowledge. It was no use Christophe knowing Ernest's egoism and
indifference: it was no use his seeing that Ernest never thought of his
mother or himself except when he had need of them: he was always taken in
by his affectionate ways and very rarely did he refuse him anything. He
much preferred him to his other brother Rodolphe, who was orderly and
correct, assiduous in his business, strictly moral, never asked for money,
and never gave any either, visited his mother regularly every Sunday,
stayed an hour, and only talked about himself, boasting about himself, his
firm, and everything that concerned him, never asking about the others, and
taking mo interest in them, and going away when the hour was up, quite
satisfied with having done his duty. Christophe could not bear him. He
always arranged to be out when Rodolphe came. Rodolphe was jealous of him:
he despised artists, and Christophe's success really hurt him, though he
did not fail to turn his small fame to account in the commercial circles in
which he moved: but he never said a word about it either to his mother or
to Christophe: he pretended to ignore it. On the other hand, he never
ignored the least of the unpleasant things that happened to Christophe.
Christophe despised such pettiness, and pretended not to notice it: but it
would really have hurt him to know, though he never thought about it, that
much of the unpleasant information that Rodolphe had about him came from
Ernest. The young rascal fed the differences between Christophe and
Rodolphe: no doubt he recognized Christophe's superiority and perhaps even
sympathized a little ironically with his candor. But he took good care to
turn it to account: and while he despised Rodolphe's ill-feeling he
exploited it shamefully. He flattered his vanity and jealousy, accepted his
rebukes deferentially and kept him primed with the scandalous gossip of the
town, especially with everything concerning Christophe,--of which he was
always marvelously informed. So he attained his ends, and Rodolphe, in
spite of his avarice, allowed Ernest to despoil him just as Christophe did.

So Ernest made use and a mock of them both, impartially. And so both of
them loved him.

In spite of his tricks Ernest was in a pitiful condition when he turned up
at his mother's house. He had come from Munich, where he had found and, as
usual, almost immediately lost a situation. He had had to travel the best
part of the way on foot, through storms of rain, sleeping God knows where.
He was covered with mud, ragged, looking like a beggar, and coughing
miserably. Louisa was upset and Christophe ran to him in alarm when they
saw him come in. Ernest, whose tears flowed easily, did not fail to make
use of the effect he had produced: and there was a general reconciliation:
all three wept in each other's arms.

Christophe gave up his room: they warmed the bed, and laid the invalid in
it, who seemed to be on the point of death. Louisa and Christophe sat by
his bedside and took it in turns to watch by him. They called in a doctor,
procured medicines, made a good fire in the room, and gave him special
food.

Then they had to clothe him from head to foot: linen, shoes, clothes,
everything new. Ernest left himself in their hands. Louisa and Christophe
sweated to squeeze the money from their expenditure. They were very
straitened at the moment: the removal, the new lodgings, which were dearer
though just as uncomfortable, fewer lessons for Christophe and more
expenses. They could just make both ends meet. They managed somehow. No
doubt Christophe could have applied to Rodolphe, who was more in a position
to help Ernest, but he would not: he made it a point of honor to help his
brother alone. He thought himself obliged to do so as the eldest,--and
because he was Christophe. Hot with shame he had to accept, to declare his
willingness to accept an offer which he had indignantly rejected a
fortnight before,--a proposal from an agent of an unknown wealthy amateur
who wanted to buy a musical composition for publication under his own name.
Louisa took work out, mending linen. They hid their sacrifice from each
other: they lied about the money they brought home.

When Ernest was convalescent and sitting huddled up by the fire, he
confessed one day between his fits of coughing that he had a few
debts.--They were paid. No one reproached him. That would not have been
kind to an invalid and a prodigal son who had repented and returned home.
For Ernest seemed to have been changed by adversity and sickness. With
tears in his eyes he spoke of his past misdeeds: and Louisa kissed him and
told him to think no more of them. He was fond: he had always been able to
get round his mother by his demonstrations of affection: Christophe had
once been a little jealous of him. Now he thought it natural that the
youngest and the weakest son should be the most loved. In spite of the
small difference in their ages he regarded him almost as a son rather than
as a brother. Ernest showed great respect for him: sometimes he would
allude to the burdens that Christophe was taking upon himself, and to his
sacrifice of money: but Christophe would not let him go on, and Ernest
would content himself with showing his gratitude in his eyes humbly and
affectionately. He would argue with the advice that Christophe gave him:
and he would seem disposed to change his way of living and to work
seriously as soon as he was well again.

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