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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




Poor Louisa took him quite seriously and raised her hands in horror.

"You won't say that!... You are mad! Mad!"

It amused him to make her uneasy by playing upon her credulity until he
became so extravagant that Louisa began to see that he was making fun of
her.

"You are stupid, my boy!"

He laughed and kissed her. He was in a wonderfully good humor. On his walk
he had found a beautiful musical theme, and he felt it frolicking in him
like a fish in water. He refused to go to the Palace until he had had
something to eat. He was as hungry as an ape. Louisa then supervised his
dressing, for he was beginning to tease her again, pretending that he
was quite all right as he was with his old clothes and dusty boots. But
he changed them all the same, and cleaned his boots, whistling like a
blackbird and imitating all the instruments in an orchestra. When he
had finished his mother inspected him and gravely tied his tie for him
again. For once in a way he was very patient, because he was pleased with
himself--which was not very usual. He went off saying that he was going to
elope with Princess Adelaide--the Grand Duke's daughter, quite a pretty
woman, who was married to a German princeling and had come to stay with her
parents for a few weeks. She had shown sympathy for Christophe when he was
a child, and he had a soft side for her. Louisa used to declare that he was
in love with her, and he would pretend to be so in fun.

He did not hurry; he dawdled and looked into the shops, and stopped to
pat some dog that he knew as it lay on its side and yawned in the sun.
He jumped over the harmless railings which inclosed the Palace square--a
great empty square, surrounded with houses, with two little fountains, two
symmetrical bare flower-beds, divided, as by a parting, by a gravel path,
carefully raked and bordered by orange trees in tubs. In the middle was
the bronze statue of some unknown Grand Duke in the costume of Louis
Philippe, on a pediment adorned at the four corners by allegorical figures
representing the Virtues. On a seat one solitary man was dozing over his
paper. Behind the silly moat of the earthworks of the Palace two sleepy
cannon yawned upon the sleepy town. Christophe laughed at the whole thing.

He entered the Palace without troubling to take on a more official manner.
At most he stopped humming, but his thoughts went dancing on inside him. He
threw his hat on the table in the hall and familiarly greeted the old
usher, whom he had known since he was a child. (The old man had been there
on the day when Christophe had first entered the Palace, on the evening
when he had seen Hassler.) But to-day the old man, who always used to reply
good-humoredly to Christophe's disrespectful sallies, now seemed a little
haughty. Christophe paid no heed to it. A little farther on, in the
ante-chamber, he met a clerk of the chancery, who was usually full of
conversation and very friendly. He was surprised to see him hurry past him
to avoid having to talk. However, he did not attach any significance to it,
and went on and asked to be shown in.

He went in. They had just finished dinner. His Highness was in one of the
drawing-rooms. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, smoking, and talking
to his guests, among whom Christophe saw _his_ princess, who was also
smoking. She was lying back in an armchair and talking in a loud voice to
some officers who made a circle about her. The gathering was lively. They
were all very merry, and when Christophe entered he heard the Grand Duke's
thick laugh. But he stopped dead when he saw Christophe. He growled and
pounced on him.

"Ah! There you are!" he said. "You have condescended to come at last? Do
you think you can go on making fun of me any longer? You're a blackguard,
sir!"

Christophe was so staggered by this brutal attack that it was some time
before he could utter a word. He was thinking that he was only late, and
that that could not have provoked such violence. He murmured:

"What have I done, Your Highness?"

His Highness did not listen and went on angrily:

"Be silent! I will not be insulted by a blackguard!" Christophe turned
pale, and gulped so as to try to speak, for he was choking. He made an
effort, and said:

"Your Highness, you have no right--you have no right to insult me without
telling me what I have done."

The Grand Duke turned to his secretary, who produced a paper from his
pocket and held it out to him. He was in such a state of exasperation as
could not be explained only by his anger: the fumes of good wine had their
share in it, too. He came and stood in front of Christophe, and like a
toreador with his cape, furiously waved the crumpled newspaper in his face
and shouted:

"Your muck, sir!... You deserve to have your nose rubbed in it!"

Christophe recognized the socialist paper.

"I don't see what harm there is in it," he said.

"What! What!" screamed the Grand Duke. "You are impudent!... This rascally
paper, which insults me from day to day, and spews out filthy insults upon
me!..."

"Sire," said Christophe, "I have not read it."

"You lie!" shouted the Grand Duke.

"You shall not call me a liar," said Christophe. "I have not read it. I am
only concerned with reviews, and besides, I have the right to write in
whatever paper I like."

"You have no right but to hold your tongue. I have been too kind to you. I
have heaped kindness upon you, you and yours, in spite of your misconduct
and your father's, which would have justified me in cutting you off. I
forbid you to go on writing in a paper which is hostile to me. And further:
I forbid you altogether to write anything in future without my authority.
I have had enough of your musical polemics. I will not allow any one who
enjoys my patronage to spend his time in attacking everything which is dear
to people of taste and feeling, to all true Germans. You would do better to
write better music, or if that is impossible, to practise your scales and
exercises. I don't want to have anything to do with a musical Bebel who
amuses himself by decrying all our national glories and upsetting the minds
of the people. We know what is good, thank God. We do not need to wait for
you to tell us. Go to your piano, sir, or leave us in peace!"

Standing face to face with Christophe the fat man glared at him
insultingly. Christophe was livid, and tried to speak. His lips moved; he
stammered:

"I am not your slave. I shall say what I like and write what I like ..."

He choked. He was almost weeping with shame and rage. His legs were
trembling. He jerked his elbow and upset an ornament on a table by his
side. He felt that he was in a ridiculous position. He heard people
laughing. He looked down the room, and as through a mist saw the princess
watching the scene and exchanging ironically commiserating remarks with her
neighbors. He lost count of what exactly happened. The Grand Duke shouted.
Christophe shouted louder than he without knowing what he said. The
Prince's secretary and another official came towards him and tried to stop
him. He pushed them away, and while he talked he waved an ash-tray which he
had mechanically picked up from the table against which he was leaning. He
heard the secretary say:

"Put it down! Put it down!"

And he heard himself shouting inarticulately and knocking on the edge of
the table with the ash-tray.

"Go!" roared the Grand Duke, beside himself with rage. "Go! Go! I'll have
you thrown out!"

The officers had come up to the Prince and were trying to calm him. The
Grand Duke looked apoplectic. His eyes were starting from his head, he
shouted to them to throw the rascal out. Christophe saw red. He longed to
thrust his fist in the Grand Duke's face; but he was crushed under a weight
of conflicting feelings: shame, fury, a remnant of shyness, of German
loyalty, traditional respect, habits of humility in the Prince's presence.
He tried to speak; he could not. He tried to move; he could not. He could
not see or hear. He suffered them to push him along and left the room.

He passed through the impassive servants who had come up to the door, and
had missed nothing of the quarrel. He had to go thirty yards to cross the
ante-chamber, and it seemed a lifetime. The corridor grew longer and longer
as he walked up it. He would never get out!... The light of day which
he saw shining downstairs through the glass door was his haven. He went
stumbling down the stairs. He forgot that he was bareheaded. The old usher
reminded him to take his hat. He had to gather all his forces to leave the
castle, cross the court, reach his home. His teeth were chattering when he
opened the door. His mother was terrified by his face and his trembling. He
avoided her and refused to answer her questions. He went up to his room,
shut himself in, and lay down. He was shaking so that he could not undress.
His breathing came in jerks and his whole body seemed shattered.... Oh! If
only he could see no more, feel no more, no longer have to bear with his
wretched body, no longer have to struggle against ignoble life, and fall,
fall, breathless, without thought, and no longer be anywhere!... With
frightful difficulty he tore off his clothes and left them on the ground,
and then flung himself into his bed and drew the coverings over him. There
was no sound in the room save that of the little iron bed rattling on the
tiled floor.

Louisa listened at the door. She knocked in vain. She called softly. There
was no reply. She waited, anxiously listening through the silence. Then she
went away. Once or twice during the day she came and listened, and again
at night, before she went to bed. Day passed, and the night. The house was
still. Christophe was shaking with fever. Every now and then he wept, and
in the night he got up several times and shook his fist at the wall. About
two o'clock, in an access of madness, he got up from his bed, sweating and
half naked. He wanted to go and kill the Grand Duke, He was devoured by
hate and shame. His body and his heart writhed in the fire of it. Nothing
of all the storm in him could be heard outside; not a word, not a sound.
With clenched teeth he fought it down and forced it back into himself.

* * * * *

Next morning he came down as usual. He was a wreck. He said nothing and his
mother dared not question him. She knew, from the gossip of the
neighborhood. All day he stayed sitting by the fire, silent, feverish, and
with bent head, like a little old man. And when he was alone he wept in
silence.

In the evening the editor of the socialist paper came to see him. Naturally
he had heard and wished to have details. Christophe was touched by his
coming, and interpreted it naïvely as a mark of sympathy and a desire for
forgiveness on the part of those who had compromised him. He made a point
of seeming to regret nothing and he let himself go and said everything that
was rankling in him. It was some solace for him to talk freely to a man
who shared his hatred of oppression. The other urged him on. He saw a good
chance for his journal in the event, and an opportunity for a scandalous
article, for which he expected Christophe to provide him with material if
he did not write it himself; for he thought that after such an explosion
the Court musician would put his very considerable political talents and
his no less considerable little tit-bits of secret information about the
Court at the service of "the cause." As he did not plume himself on his
subtlety he presented the thing rawly in the crudest light. Christophe
started. He declared that he would write nothing and said that any attack
on the Grand Duke that he might make would be interpreted as an act of
personal vengeance, and that he would be more reserved now that he was free
than when, not being free, he ran some risk in saying what he thought. The
journalist could not understand his scruples. He thought Christophe narrow
and clerical at heart, but he also decided that Christophe was afraid. He
said:

"Oh, well! Leave it to us. I will write it myself. You need not bother
about it."

Christophe begged him to say nothing, but he had no means of restraining
him. Besides, the journalist declared that the affair was not his concern
only: the insult touched the paper, which had the right to avenge itself.
There was nothing to be said to that. All that Christophe could do was to
ask him on his word of honor not to abuse certain of his confidences which
had been made to his friend and not to the journalist. The other made no
difficulty about that. Christophe was not reassured by it. He knew too well
how imprudent he had been. When he was left alone he turned over everything
that he had said, and shuddered. Without hesitating for a moment, he wrote
to the journalist imploring him once more not to repeat what he had
confided to him. (The poor wretch repeated it in part himself in the
letter.)

Next day, as he opened the paper with feverish haste, the first thing he
read was his story at great length on the front page. Everything that he
had said on the evening before was immeasurably enlarged, having suffered
that peculiar deformation which everything has to suffer in its passage
through the mind of a journalist. The article attacked the Grand Duke and
the Court with low invective. Certain details which it gave were too
personal to Christophe, too obviously known only to him, for the article
not to be attributed to him in its entirety.

Christophe was crushed by this fresh blow. As he read a cold sweat came out
on his face. When he had finished he was dumfounded. He wanted to rush to
the office of the paper, but his mother withheld him, not unreasonably
being fearful of his violence. He was afraid of it himself. He felt that if
he went there he would do something foolish; and he stayed--and did a very
foolish thing. He wrote an indignant letter to the journalist in which he
reproached him for his conduct in insulting terms, disclaimed the article,
and broke with the party. The disclaimer did not appear.

Christophe wrote again to the paper, demanding that his letter should be
published. They sent him a copy of his first letter, written on the night
of the interview and confirming it. They asked if they were to publish
that, too. He felt that he was in their hands. Thereupon he unfortunately
met the indiscreet interviewer in the street. He could not help telling
him of his contempt for him. Next day the paper, without a spark of shame,
published an insulting paragraph about the servants of the Court, who even
when they are dismissed remain servants and are incapable of being free. A
few allusions to recent events left no room for doubt that Christophe was
meant.

* * * * *

When it became evident to everybody that Christophe had no single support,
there suddenly cropped up a host of enemies whose existence he had never
suspected. All those whom he had offended, directly or indirectly, either
by personal criticism or by attacking their ideas and taste, now took the
offensive and avenged themselves with interest. The general public whom
Christophe had tried to shake out of their apathy were quite pleased to see
the insolent young man, who had presumed to reform opinion and disturb the
rest of people of property, taken down a peg. Christophe was in the water.
Everybody did their best to duck him.

They did not come down upon him all at once. One tried first, to spy out
the land. Christophe made no response, and he struck more lustily. Others
followed, and then the whole gang of them. Some joined in the sport
simply for fun, like puppies who think it funny to leave their mark in
inappropriate places. They were the flying squadron of incompetent
journalists, who, knowing nothing, try to hide their ignorance by belauding
the victors and belaboring the vanquished. Others brought the weight of
their principles and they shouted like deaf people. Nothing was left of
anything when they had passed. They were the critics--with the criticism
which kills.

Fortunately for Christophe, he did not read the papers. A few devoted
friends took care to send him the most insulting. But he left them in a
heap on his desk and never thought of opening them. It was only towards
the end of it that his eyes were attracted by a great red mark round an
article. He read that his _Lieder_ were like the roaring of a wild beast;
that his symphonies seemed to have come from a madhouse; that his art was
hysterical, his harmony spasmodic, as a change from the dryness of his
heart and the emptiness of his thought. The critic, who was well known,
ended with these words:

"Herr Krafft as a journalist has lately given astounding proof of his style
and taste, which roused irresistible merriment in musical circles. He was
then given the friendly advice rather to devote himself to composition. But
the latest products of his muse have shown that this advice, though
well-meant, was bad. Herr Krafft should certainly devote himself to
journalism."

After reading the article, which prevented Christophe working the whole
morning, naturally he began to look for the other hostile papers, and
became utterly demoralized. But Louisa, who had a mania for moving
everything lying about, by way of "tidying up," had already burned them. He
was irritated at first and then comforted, and he held out the last of the
papers to her, and said that she had better do the same with that.

Other rebuffs hurt him more. A quartette which he had sent in manuscript
to a well-known society at Frankfort was rejected unanimously and returned
without explanation. An overture which an orchestra at Cologne seemed
disposed to perform was returned after a month as unplayable. But the worst
of all was inflicted on him by an orchestral society in the town. The
_Kapellmeister_, H. Euphrat, its conductor, was quite a good musician, but
like many conductors, he had no curiosity of mind. He suffered (or rather
he carried to extremes) the laziness peculiar to his class, which consists
in going on and on investigating familiar works, while it shuns any really
new work like the plague. He was never tired of organizing Beethoven,
Mozart, or Schumann festivals: in conducting these works he had only to let
himself be carried along by the purring of the familiar rhythms. On the
other hand, contemporary music was intolerable to him. He dared not admit
it and pretended to be friendly towards young talent; in fact, whenever he
was brought a work built on the old lines--a sort of hotch-potch of works
that had been new fifty years before--he would receive it very well, and
would even produce it ostentatiously and force it upon the public. It
did not disturb either his effects or the way in which the public was
accustomed to be moved. On the other hand, he was filled with a mixture
of contempt and hatred for anything which threatened to disturb that
arrangement and put him to extra trouble. Contempt would predominate if the
innovator had no chance of emerging from obscurity. But if there were any
danger of his succeeding, then hatred would predominate--of course until
the moment when he had gained an established success.

Christophe was not yet in that position: far from it. And so he was much
surprised when he was informed, by indirect overtures, that Herr H. Euphrat
would be very glad to produce one of his compositions. It was all the more
unexpected as he knew that the _Kapellmeister_ was an intimate friend of
Brahms and others whom he had maltreated in his criticisms. Being honest
himself, he credited his adversaries with the same generous feelings which
he would have had himself. He supposed that now that he was down they
wished to show him that they were above petty spite. He was touched by it.
He wrote effusively to Herr Euphrat and sent him a symphonic poem. The
conductor replied through his secretary coldly but politely, acknowledging
the receipt of his work, and adding that, in accordance with the rules of
the society, the symphony would be given out to the orchestra immediately
and put to the test of a general rehearsal before it could be accepted for
public hearing. A rule is a rule. Christophe had to bow to it, though it
was a pure formality which served to weed out the lucubrations of amateurs
which were sometimes a nuisance.

A few weeks later Christophe was told that his composition was to be
rehearsed. On principle everything was done privately and even the author
was not permitted to be present at the rehearsal. But by a generally agreed
indulgence the author was always admitted; only he did not show himself.
Everybody knew it and everybody pretended not to know it. On the appointed
day one of his friends brought Christophe to the hall, where he sat at the
back of a box. He was surprised to see that at this private rehearsal the
hall--at least the ground floor seats--were almost all filled; a crowd of
dilettante idlers and critics moved about and chattered to each other. The
orchestra had to ignore their presence.

They began with the Brahms _Rhapsody_ for alto, chorus of male voices, and
orchestra on a fragment of the _Harzreise im Winter_ of Goethe. Christophe,
who detested the majestic sentimentality of the work, thought that perhaps
the "Brahmins" had introduced it politely to avenge themselves by forcing
him to hear a composition of which he had written irreverently. The idea
made him laugh, and his good humour increased when after the _Rhapsody_
there came two other productions by known musicians whom he had taken to
task; there seemed to be no doubt about their intentions. And while he
could not help making a face at it he thought that after all it was quite
fair tactics; and, failing the music, he appreciated the joke. It even
amused him to applaud ironically with the audience, which made manifest its
enthusiasm for Brahms and his like.

At last it came to Christophe's symphony. He saw from the way the orchestra
and the people in the hall were looking at his box that they were aware of
his presence. He hid himself. He waited with the catch at his heart which
every musician feels at the moment when the conductor's wand is raised and
the waters of the music gather in silence before bursting their dam. He
had never yet heard his work played. How would the creatures of his dreams
live? How would their voices sound? He felt their roaring within him; and
he leaned over the abyss of sounds waiting fearfully for what should come
forth.

What did come forth was a nameless thing, a shapeless hotch-potch. Instead
of the bold columns which were to support the front of the building the
chords came crumbling down like a building in ruins; there was nothing to
be seen but the dust of mortar. For a moment Christophe was not quite sure
whether they were really playing his work. He cast back for the train, the
rhythm of his thoughts; he could not recognize it; it went on babbling
and hiccoughing like a drunken man clinging close to the wall, and he was
overcome with shame, as though he had himself been seen in that condition.
It was of no avail to think that he had not written such stuff; when an
idiotic interpreter destroys a man's thoughts he has always a moment of
doubt when he asks himself in consternation if he is himself responsible
for it. The audience never asks such a question; the audience believes in
the interpreter, in the singers, in the orchestra whom they are accustomed
to hear as they believe in their newspaper; they cannot make a mistake; if
they say absurd things, it is the absurdity of the author. This audience
was the less inclined to doubt because it liked to believe. Christophe
tried to persuade himself that the _Kapellmeister_ was aware of the hash
and would stop the orchestra and begin again. The instruments were not
playing together. The horn had missed his beat and had come in a bar too
late; he went on for a few minutes, and then stopped quietly to clean his
instrument. Certain passages for the oboe had absolutely disappeared.
It was impossible for the most skilled ear to pick up the thread of
the musical idea, or even to imagine that there was one. Fantastic
instrumentations, humoristic sallies became grotesque through the
coarseness of the execution. It was lamentably stupid, the work of an
idiot, of a joker who knew nothing of music. Christophe tore his hair. He
tried to interrupt, but the friend who was with him held him back, assuring
him that the _Herr Kapellmeister_ must surely see the faults of the
execution and would put everything right--that Christophe must not show
himself and that if he made any remark it would have a very bad effect. He
made Christophe sit at the very back of the box. Christophe obeyed, but he
beat his head with his fists; and every fresh monstrosity drew from him a
groan of indignation and misery.

"The wretches! The wretches!..."

He groaned, and squeezed his hands tight to keep himself from crying out.

Now mingled with the wrong notes there came up to him the muttering of the
audience, who were beginning to be restless. At first it was only a tremor;
but soon Christophe was left without a doubt; they were laughing. The
musicians of the orchestra had given the signal; some of them did not
conceal their hilarity. The audience, certain then that the music was
laughable, rocked with laughter. This merriment became general; it
increased at the return of a very rhythmical motif which the double-basses
accentuated in a burlesque fashion. Only the _Kapellmeister_ went on
through the uproar imperturbably beating time.

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