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Jean Christophe, Vol. I

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




"Yes.... That does not make us young again...." and stretched his legs.

After a yawn he added:

"... I beg pardon.... Did not sleep.... Supper at the theater last
night...." and yawned again.

Christophe hoped that Hassler would make some reference to what he had
just told him, but Hassler, whom the story had not interested at all, said
nothing about it, and he did not ask Christophe anything about his life.
When he had done yawning he asked:

"Have you been in Berlin long?"

"I arrived this morning," said Christophe.

"Ah!" said Hassler, without any surprise. "What hotel?"

He did not seem to listen to the reply, but got up lazily and pressed an
electric bell.

"Allow me," he said.

The little maid appeared with her impertinent manner.

"Kitty," said he, "are you trying to make me go without breakfast this
morning?"

"You don't think I am going to bring it here while you have some one with
you?"

"Why not?" he said, with a wink and a nod in Christophe's direction. "He
feeds my mind: I must feed my body."

"Aren't you ashamed to have some one watching you eat--like an animal in a
menagerie?"

Instead of being angry, Hassler began to laugh and corrected her:

"Like a domestic animal," he went on. "But do bring it. I'll eat my shame
with it."

Christophe saw that Hassler was making no attempt to find out what he
was doing, and tried to lead the conversation back. He spoke of the
difficulties of provincial life, of the mediocrity of the people, the
narrow-mindedness, and of his own isolation. He tried to interest him in
his moral distress. But Hassler was sunk deep in the divan, with his head
lying back on a cushion and his eyes half closed, and let him go on talking
without even seeming to listen; or he would raise his eyelids for a moment
and pronounce a few coldly ironical words, some ponderous jest at the
expense of provincial people, which cut short Christophe's attempts to talk
more intimately. Kitty returned with the breakfast tray: coffee, butter,
ham, etc. She put it down crossly on the desk in the middle of the untidy
papers. Christophe waited until she had gone before he went on with his
sad story which he had such difficulty in continuing. Hassler drew the
tray towards himself. He poured himself out some coffee and sipped at it.
Then in a familiar and cordial though rather contemptuous way he stopped
Christophe in the middle of a sentence to ask if he would take a cup.

Christophe refused. He tried to pick up the thread of his sentence, but he
was more and more nonplussed, and did not know what he was saying. He was
distracted by the sight of Hassler with his plate under his chin, like a
child, gorging pieces of bread and butter and slices of ham which he held
in his fingers. However, he did succeed in saying that he composed, that he
had had an overture in the _Judith_ of Hebbel performed. Hassler listened
absently.

"_Was_?" (What?) he asked.

Christophe repeated the title.

"_Ach! So, so!_" (Ah! Good, good!) said Hassler, dipping his bread and his
fingers into his cup. That was all.

Christophe was discouraged and was on the point of getting up and going,
but he thought of his long journey in vain, and summoning up all his
courage he murmured a proposal that he should play some of his works to
Hassler. At the first mention of it Hassler stopped him.

"No, no. I don't know anything about it," he said, with his chaffing and
rather insulting irony. "Besides, I haven't the time."

Tears came to Christophe's eyes. But he had vowed not to leave until he had
Hassler's opinion about his work. He said, with a mixture of confusion and
anger:

"I beg your pardon, but you promised once to hear me. I came to see you for
that from the other end of Germany. You shall hear me."

Hassler, who was not used to such ways, looked at the awkward young man,
who was furious, blushing, and near tears. That amused him, and wearily
shrugging his shoulders, he pointed to the piano, and said with an air of
comic resignation:

"Well, then!... There you are!"

On that he lay back on his divan, like a man who is going to sleep,
smoothed out his cushions, put them under his outstretched arms, half
closed his eyes, opened them for a moment to take stock of the size of the
roll of music which Christophe had brought from one of his pockets, gave a
little sigh, and lay back to listen listlessly.

Christophe was intimidated and mortified, but he began to play. It was not
long before Hassler opened his eyes and ears with the professional interest
of the artist who is struck in spite of himself by a beautiful thing. At
first he said nothing and lay still, but his eyes became less dim and his
sulky lips moved. Then he suddenly woke up, growling his surprise and
approbation. He only gave inarticulate interjections, but the form of them
left no doubt as to his feelings, and they gave Christophe an inexpressible
pleasure. Hassler forgot to count the number of pages that had been played
and were left to be played. When Christophe had finished a piece, he said:

"Go on!... Go on!..."

He was beginning to use human language.

"That's good! Good!" he exclaimed to himself. "Famous!... Awfully famous!
(_Schrecklich famos!_) But, damme!" He growled in astonishment. "What is
it?"

He had risen on his seat, was stretching for wind, making a trumpet with
his hand, talking to himself, laughing with pleasure, or at certain odd
harmonies, just putting out his tongue as though to moisten his lips. An
unexpected modulation had such an effect on him that he got up suddenly
with an exclamation, and came and sat at the piano by Christophe's side. He
did not seem to notice that Christophe was there. He was only concerned
with the music, and when the piece was finished he took the book and began
to read the page again, then the following pages, and went on ejaculating
his admiration and surprise as though he had been alone in the room.

"The devil!" he said. "Where did the little beast find that?..."

He pushed Christophe away with his shoulders and himself played certain
passages. He had a charming touch on the piano, very soft, caressing and
light. Christophe noticed his fine long, well-tended hands, which were a
little morbidly aristocratic and out of keeping with the rest. Hassler
stopped at certain chords and repeated them, winking, and clicking with his
tongue. He hummed with his lips, imitating the sounds of the instruments,
and went on interspersing the music with his apostrophes in which pleasure
and annoyance were mingled. He could not help having a secret initiative,
an unavowed jealousy, and at the same time he greedily enjoyed it all.

Although he went on talking to himself as though Christophe did not exist,
Christophe, blushing with pleasure, could not help taking Hassler's
exclamations to himself, and he explained what he had tried to do. At first
Hassler seemed not to pay any attention to what the young man was saying,
and went on thinking out loud; then something that Christophe said struck
him and he was silent, with his eyes still fixed on the music, which he
turned over as he listened without seeming to hear. Christophe grew more
and more excited, and at last he plumped into confidence, and talked with
naïve enthusiasm about his projects and his life.

Hassler was silent, and as he listened he slipped hack into his irony. He
had let Christophe take the book from his hands; with his elbow on the
rack of the piano and his hand on his forehead, he looked at Christophe,
who was explaining; his work with youthful ardor and eagerness. And he
smiled bitterly as he thought of his own beginning, his own hopes, and of
Christophe's hopes, and all the disappointments that lay in wait for him.

Christophe spoke with his eyes cast down, fearful of losing the thread of
what he had to say. Hassler's silence encouraged him. He felt that Hassler
was watching him and not missing a word that he said, and he thought he had
broken the ice between them, and he was glad at heart. When he had finished
he shyly raised his head--confidently, too--and looked at Hassler. All the
joy welling in him was frozen on the instant, like too early birds, when he
saw the gloomy, mocking eyes that looked into his without kindness. He was
silent.

After an icy moment, Hassler spoke dully. He had changed once more; he
affected a sort of harshness towards the young man. He teased him cruelly
about his plans, his hopes of success, as though he were trying to chaff
himself, now that he had recovered himself. He set himself coldly to
destroy his faith in life, his faith in art, his faith in himself. Bitterly
he gave himself as an example, speaking of his actual works in an insulting
fashion.

"Hog-waste!" he said. "That is what these swine want. Do you think there
are ten people in the world who love music? Is there a single one?"

"There is myself!" said Christophe emphatically. Hassler looked at him,
shrugged his shoulders, and said wearily:

"You will be like the rest. You will do as the rest have done. You will
think of success, of amusing yourself, like the rest.... And you will be
right...."

Christophe tried to protest, but Hassler cut him short; he took the music
and began bitterly to criticise the works which he had first been praising,
Not only did he harshly pick out the real carelessness, the mistakes in
writing, the faults of taste or of expression which had escaped the young
man, but he made absurd criticisms, criticisms which might have been made
by the most narrow and antiquated of musicians, from which he himself,
Hassler, had had to suffer all his life. He asked what was the sense of it
all. He did not even criticise: he denied; it was as though he were trying
desperately to efface the impression that the music had made on him in
spite of himself.

Christophe was horrified and made no attempt to reply. How could he reply
to absurdities which he blushed to hear on the lips of a man whom he
esteemed and loved? Besides, Hassler did not listen to him. He stopped at
that, stopped dead, with the book in his hands, shut; no expression in his
eyes and his lips drawn down in bitterness. At last he said, as though he
had once more forgotten Christophe's presence:

"Ah! the worst misery of all is that there is not a single man who can
understand you!"

Christophe was racked with emotion. He turned suddenly, laid his hand on
Hassler's, and with love in his heart he repeated:

"There is myself!"

But Hassler did not move his hand, and if something stirred in his heart
for a moment at that boyish cry, no light shone in his dull eyes, as they
looked at Christophe. Irony and evasion were in the ascendant. He made a
ceremonious and comic little bow in acknowledgment.

"Honored!" he said.

He was thinking:

"Do you, though? Do you think I have lost my life for you?"

He got up, threw the book on the piano, and went with his long spindle legs
and sat on the divan again. Christophe had divined his thoughts and had
felt the savage insult in them, and he tried proudly to reply that a man
does not need to be understood by everybody; certain souls are worth a
whole people; they think for it, and what they have thought the people have
to think.--But Hassler did not listen to him. He had fallen back into his
apathy, caused by the weakening of the life slumbering in him. Christophe,
too sane to understand the sudden change, felt that he had lost. But he
could not resign himself to losing after seeming to be so near victory. He
made desperate efforts to excite Hassler's attention once more. He took
up his music book and tried to explain the reason, for the irregularities
which Hassler had remarked. Hassler lay back on the sofa and preserved a
gloomy silence. He neither agreed nor contradicted; he was only waiting for
him to finish.

Christophe saw that there was nothing more to be done. He stopped short in
the middle of a sentence. He rolled up his music and got up. Hassler got
up, too. Christophe was shy and ashamed, and murmured excuses. Hassler
bowed slightly, with a certain haughty and bored distinction, coldly held
out his hand politely, and accompanied him to the door without a word of
suggestion that he should stay or come again.

* * * * *

Christophe found himself in the street once more, absolutely crushed. He
walked at random; he did not know where he was going. He walked down
several streets mechanically, and then found himself at a station of the
train by which he had come. He went back by it without thinking of what he
was doing. He sank down on the seat with his arms and legs limp. It was
impossible to think or to collect his ideas; he thought of nothing, he did
not try to think. He was afraid to envisage himself. He was utterly empty.
It seemed to him that there was emptiness everywhere about him in that
town. He could not breathe in it. The mists, the massive houses stifled
him. He had only one idea, to fly, to fly as quickly as possible,--as if by
escaping from the town he would leave in it the bitter disillusion which he
had found in it.

He returned to his hotel. It was half-past twelve. It was two hours since
he had entered it,--with what a light shining in his heart! Now it was
dead.

He took no lunch. He did not go up to his room. To the astonishment of the
people of the hotel, he asked for his bill, paid as though he had spent the
night there, and said that he was going. In vain did they explain to him
that there was no hurry, that the train he wanted to go by did not leave
for hours, and that he had much better wait in the hotel. He insisted on
going to the station at once. He was like a child. He wanted to go by the
first train, no matter which, and not to stay another hour in the place.
After the long journey and all the expense he had incurred,--although he
had taken his holiday not only to see Hassler, but the museums, and to hear
concerts and to make certain acquaintances--he had only one idea in his
head: To go....

He went back to the station. As he had been told, his train did not leave
for three hours. And also the train was not express--(for Christophe had to
go by the cheapest class)--stopped on the way. Christophe would have done
better to go by the next train, which went two hours later and caught
up the first. But that meant spending two more hours in the place, and
Christophe could not bear it. He would not even leave the station while he
was waiting.--A gloomy period of waiting in those vast and empty halls,
dark and noisy, where strange shadows were going in and out, always busy,
always hurrying; strange shadows who meant nothing to him, all unknown
to him, not one friendly face. The misty day died down. The electric
lamps, enveloped in fog, flushed the night and made it darker than ever.
Christophe grew more and more depressed as time went on, waiting in agony
for the time to go. Ten times an hour he went to look at the train
indicators to make sure that he had not made a mistake. As he was reading
them once more from end to end to pass the time, the name of a place caught
his eye. He thought he knew it. It was only after a moment that he
remembered that it was where old Schulz lived, who had written him such
kind and enthusiastic letters. In his wretchedness the idea came to him of
going to see his unknown friend. The town was not on the direct line on
his way home, but a few hours away, by a little local line. It meant a
whole night's journey, with two or three changes and interminable waits.
Christophe never thought about it. He decided suddenly to go. He had an
instinctive need of clinging to sympathy of some sort. He gave himself no
time to think, and telegraphed to Schulz to say that he would arrive next
morning. Hardly had he sent the telegram than he regretted it. He laughed
bitterly at his eternal illusions. Why go to meet a new sorrow?--But it was
done now. It was too late to change his mind.

These thoughts filled his last hour of waiting--his train at last was
ready. He was the first to get into it, and he was so childish that he only
began to breathe again when the train shook, and through the carriage
window he could see the outlines of the town fading into the gray sky under
the heavy downpour of the night. He thought he must have died if he had
spent the night in it.

At the very hour--about six in the evening--a letter from Hassler came for
Christophe at his hotel. Christophe's visit stirred many things in him.
The whole afternoon he had been thinking of it bitterly, and not without
sympathy for the poor boy who had come to him with such eager affection
to be received so coldly. He was sorry for that reception and a little
angry with himself. In truth, it had been only one of those fits of sulky
whimsies to which he was subject. He thought to make it good by sending
Christophe a ticket for the opera and a few words appointing a meeting
after the performance--Christophe never knew anything about it. When he did
not see him, Hassler thought:

"He is angry. So much the worse for him!"

He shrugged his shoulders and did not wait long for him.

Next day Christophe was far away--so far that all eternity would not have
been enough to bring them together. And, they were both separated forever.

* * * * *

Peter Schulz was seventy-five. He had always had delicate health, and age
had not spared him. He was fairly tail, but stooping, and his head hung
down to his chest. He had a weak throat and difficulty in breathing.
Asthma, catarrh, bronchitis were always upon him, and the marks of the
struggles he had to make--many a night sitting up in his bed, bending
forward, dripping with sweat in the effort to force a breath of air
into his stifling lungs--were in the sorrowful lines on his long, thin,
clean-shaven face. His nose was long and a little swollen at the top. Deep
lines came from under his eyes and crossed his cheeks, that were hollow
from his toothlessness. Age and infirmity had not been the only sculptors
of that poor wreck of a man: the sorrows of life also had had their share
in its making.--And in spite of all he was not sad. There was kindness and
serenity in his large mouth. But in his eyes especially there was that
which gave a touching softness to the old face. They were light gray,
limpid, and transparent. They looked straight, calmly and frankly. They hid
nothing of the soul. Its depths could be read in them.

His life had been uneventful. He had been alone for years. His wife was
dead. She was not very good, or very intelligent, and she was not at all
beautiful. But he preserved a tender memory of her. It was twenty-five
years since he had lost her, and he had never once failed a night to have a
little imaginary conversation, sad and tender, with her before he went to
sleep. He shared all his doings with her.--He had had no children. That was
the great sorrow of his life. He had transferred his need of affection to
his pupils, to whom he was attached as a father to his sons. He had found
very little return. An old heart can feel very near to a young heart and
almost of the same age; knowing how brief are the years that lie between
them. But the young man never has any idea of that. To him an old man is a
man of another age, and besides, he is absorbed by his immediate anxieties
and instinctively turns away from the melancholy end of all his efforts.
Old Schulz had sometimes found gratitude in his pupils who were touched
by the keen and lively interest he took in everything good or ill that
happened to them. They used to come and see him from time to time. They
used to write and thank him when they left the university. Some of them
used to go on writing occasionally during the years following. And then old
Schulz would hear nothing more of them except in the papers which kept him
informed of their advancement, and he would be as glad of their success
as though it was his own. He was never hurt by their silence. He found a
thousand excuses for it. He never doubted their affection and used to
ascribe even to the most selfish the feelings that he had for them.

But his books were his greatest refuge. They neither forgot nor deceived
him. The souls which he cherished in them had risen above the flood of
time. They were inscrutable, fixed for eternity in the love they inspired
and seemed to feel, and gave forth once more to those who loved them. He
was Professor of Æsthetics and the History of Music, and he was like an old
wood quivering with the songs of birds. Some of these songs sounded very
far away. They came from the depths of the ages. But they were not the
least sweet and mysterious of all.--Others were familiar and intimate to
him, dear companions; their every phrase reminded him of the joys and
sorrows of his past life, conscious or unconscious:--(for under every day
lit by the light of the sun there are unfolded other days lit by a light
unknown)--And there were some songs that he had never yet heard, songs
which said the things that he had been long awaiting and needing; and his
heart opened to receive them like the earth to receive rain. And so old
Schulz listened, in the silence of his solitary life, to the forest filled
with birds, and, like the monk of the legend, who slept in the ecstasy of
the song of the magic bird, the years passed over him and the evening of
life was come, but still he had the heart of a boy of twenty.

He was not only rich in music. He loved the poets--old and new. He had a
predilection for those of his own country, especially for Goethe; but he
also loved those of other countries. He was a learned man and could read
several languages. In mind he was a contemporary of Herder and the great
_Weltbürger_--the "citizens of the world" of the end of the eighteenth
century. He had lived through the years of bitter struggle which preceded
and followed seventy, and was immersed in their vast idea. And although
he adored Germany, he was not "vainglorious" about it. He thought, with
Herder, that "_among all vainglorious men, he who is vainglorious of his
nationality is the completest fool_," and, with Schiller, that "_it is a
poor ideal only to write for one nation_." And he was timid of mind, but
his heart was large, and ready to welcome lovingly everything beautiful in
the world. Perhaps he was too indulgent with mediocrity; but his instinct
never doubted as to what was the best; and if he was not strong enough
to condemn the sham artists admired by public opinion, he was always
strong enough to defend the artists of originality and power whom public
opinion disregarded. His kindness often led him astray. He was fearful of
committing any injustice, and when he did not like what others liked, he
never doubted but that it must be he who was mistaken, and he would manage
to love it. It was so sweet to him to love! Love and admiration were even
more necessary to his moral being than air to his miserable lungs. And so
how grateful he was to those who gave him a new opportunity of showing
them!--Christophe could have no idea of what his _Lieder_ had been to him.
He himself had not felt them nearly so keenly when he had written them. His
songs were to him only a few sparks thrown out from his inner fire. He had
cast them forth and would cast forth others. But to old Schulz they were a
whole world suddenly revealed to him--a whole world to be loved. His life
had been lit up by them.

* * * * *

A year before he had had to resign his position at the university. His
health, growing more and more precarious, prevented his lecturing. He was
ill and in bed when Wolf's Library had sent him as usual a parcel of the
latest music they had received, and in it were Christophe's _Lieder_. He
was alone. He was without relatives. The few that he had had were long
since dead. He was delivered into the hands of an old servant, who profited
by his weakness to make him do whatever she liked. A few friends hardly
younger than himself used to come and see him from time to time, but they
were not in very good health either, and when the weather was bad they too
stayed indoors and missed their visits. It was winter then and the streets
were covered with melting snow. Schulz had not seen anybody all day. It was
dark in the room. A yellow fog was drawn over the windows like a screen,
making it impossible to see out. The heat of the stove was thick and
oppressive. From the church hard by an old peal of bells of the seventeenth
century chimed every quarter of an hour, haltingly and horribly out of
tune, scraps of monotonous chants, which seemed grim in their heartiness to
Schulz when he was far from gay himself. He was coughing, propped up by a
heap of pillows. He was trying to read Montaigne, whom he loved; but now
he did not find as much pleasure in reading him as usual. He let the book
fall, and was breathing with difficulty and dreaming. The parcel of music
was on the bed. He had not the courage to open it. He was sad at heart. At
last he sighed, and when he had very carefully untied the string, he put
on his spectacles and began to read the pieces of music. His thoughts were
elsewhere, always returning to memories which he was trying to thrust
aside.

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