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移除书签THE DEATH OF JEAN MICHEL
Years have passed. Jean-Christophe is nearly eleven. His musical education is proceeding. —
He is learning harmony with Florian Holzer, the organist of St. Martin’s, a friend of his grandfather’s, a very learned man, who teaches him that the chords and series of chords that he most loves, and the harmonica which softly greet his heart and ear, those that he cannot hear without a little thrill running down his spine, are bad and forbidden. —
When he asks why, no reply is forthcoming but that it is so; the rules forbid them. —
As he is naturally in revolt against discipline, he loves them only the more. —
His delight is to find examples of them in the great and admired musicians, and to take them to his grandfather or his master. —
His grandfather replies that in the great musicians they are admirable, and that Beethoven and Bach can take any liberty. —
His master, less conciliatory, is angry, and says acidly that the masters did better things.
Jean-Christophe has a free pass for the concerts and the theater. —
He has learned to play every instrument a little. —
He is already quite skilful with the violin, and his father procured him a seat in the orchestra. —
He acquitted himself so well there that after a few months’ probation he was officially appointed second violin in the Hof Musik Verein. —
He has begun to earn his living. Not too soon either, for affairs at home have gone from bad to worse. —
Melchior’s intemperance has swamped him, and his grandfather is growing old.
Jean-Christophe has taken in the melancholy situation. —
He is already as grave and anxious as a man. —
He fulfils his task valiantly, though it does not interest him, and he is apt to fall asleep in the orchestra in the evenings, because it is late and he is tired. —
The theater no longer rouses in him the emotion it used to do when he was little. —
When he was little—four years ago—his greatest ambition had been to occupy the place that he now holds. —
But now he dislikes most of the music he is made to play. —
He dare not yet pronounce judgment upon it, but he does find it foolish; —
and if by chance they do play lovely things, he is displeased by the carelessness with which they are rendered, and his best-beloved works are made to appear like his neighbors and colleagues in the orchestra, who, as soon as the curtain has fallen, when they have done with blowing and scraping, mop their brows and smile and chatter quietly, as though they had just finished an hour’s gymnastics. —
And he has been close to his former flame, the fair barefooted singer. —
He meets her quite often during the entr’acte in the saloon. —
She knows that he was once in love with her, and she kisses him often. —
That gives him no pleasure. —
He is disgusted by her paint and scent and her fat arms and her greediness. He hates her now.
The Grand Duke did not forget his pianist in ordinary. —
Not that the small pension, which was granted to him with this title was regularly paid—it had to be asked for—but from time to time Jean-Christophe used to receive orders to go to the Palace when there were distinguished guests, or simply when Their Highnesses took it into their heads that they wanted to hear him. —
It was almost always in the evening, at the time when Jean-Christophe wanted to be alone. —
He had to leave everything and hurry off. —
Sometimes he was made to wait in the anteroom, because dinner was not finished. —
The servants, accustomed to see him, used to address him familiarly. —
Then he would be led into a great room full of mirrors and lights, in which well-fed men and women used to stare at him with horrid curiosity. —
He had to cross the waxed floor to kiss Their Highnesses’ hands, and the more he grew the more awkward he became, for he felt that he was in a ridiculous position, and his pride used to suffer.
When it was all done he used to sit at the piano and have to play for these idiots. —
He thought them idiots. There were moments when their indifference so oppressed him as he played that he was often on the point of stopping in the middle of a piece. —
There was no air about him; he was near suffocation, seemed losing his senses. —
When he finished he was overwhelmed with congratulations and laden with compliments; —
he was introduced all round. He thought they looked at him like some strange animal in the Prince’s menagerie, and that the words of praise were addressed rather to his master than to himself. —
He thought himself brought low, and he developed a morbid sensibility from which he suffered the more as he dared not show it. —
He saw offense in the most simple actions. —
If any one laughed in a corner of the room, he imagined himself to be the cause of it, and he knew not whether it were his manners, or his clothes, or his person, or his hands, or his feet, that caused the laughter. —
He was humiliated by everything. He was humiliated if people did not talk to him, humiliated if they did, humiliated if they gave him sweets like a child, humiliated especially when the Grand Duke, as sometimes happened, in princely fashion dismissed him by pressing a piece of money into his hand. —
He was wretched at being poor and at being treated as a poor boy. —
One evening, as he was going home, the money that he had received weighed so heavily upon him that he threw it through a cellar window, and then immediately he would have done anything to get it back, for at home there was a month’s old account with the butcher to pay.
His relatives never suspected these injuries to his pride. —
They were delighted at his favor with the Prince. —
Poor Louisa could conceive of nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid society. —
As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his boon-fellows. —
But Jean-Christophe’s grandfather was happier than any. —
He pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social distinction, and he took unbounded pride in seeing his grandson, moving among those who had these things. —
He delighted in them as though such glory was a reflection upon himself, and in spite of all his efforts to appear calm and indifferent, his face used to glow. —
On the evenings when Jean-Christophe went to the Palace, old Jean Michel used always to contrive to stay about the house on some pretext or another. —
He used to await his grandson’s return with childish impatience, and when Jean-Christophe came in he would begin at once with a careless air to ply him with seeming idle questions, such as:
“Well, did things go well to-night?”
Or he would make little hints like:
“Here’s our Jean-Christophe; he can tell us some news.”
Or he would produce some ingenious compliment by way of flattery:
“Here’s our young nobleman!”
But Jean-Christophe, out of sorts and out of temper, would reply with a curt “Good-evening!” —
and go and sulk in a corner. But the old man would persist, and ply him with more direct questions, to which the boy replied only “Yes,” or “No.” Then the others would join in and ask for details. —
Jean-Christophe would look more and more thunderous. —
They had to drag the words from his lips until Jean Michel would lose his temper and hurl insults at him. —
Then Jean-Christophe would reply with scant respect, and the end would be a rumpus. —
The old man would go out and slam the door. —
So Jean-Christophe spoiled the joy of these poor people, who had no inkling of the cause of his bad temper. —
It was not their fault if they had the souls of servants, and never dreamed that it is possible to be otherwise.
Jean-Christophe was turned into himself, and though he never judged his family, yet he felt a gulf between himself and them. —
No doubt he exaggerated what lay between them, and in spite of their different ways of thought it is quite probable that they could have understood each other if he had been able to talk intimately to them. —
But it is known that nothing is more difficult than absolute intimacy between children and parents, even when there is much love between them, for on the one side respect discourages confidence, and on the other the idea, often erroneous, of the superiority of age and experience prevents them taking seriously enough the child’s feelings, which are often just as interesting as those of grown-up persons, and almost always more sincere.
But the people that Jean-Christophe saw at home and the conversation that he heard there widened the distance between himself and his family.
Melchior’s friends used to frequent the house—mostly musicians of the orchestra, single men and hard drinkers. —
They were not bad fellows, but vulgar. They made the house shake with their footsteps and their laughter. —
They loved music, but they spoke of it with a stupidity that was revolting. —
The coarse indiscretion of their enthusiasm wounded the boy’s modesty of feeling. —
When they praised a work that he loved it was as though they were insulting him personally. —
He would stiffen himself and grow pale, frozen, and pretend not to take any interest in music. —
He would have hated it had that been possible. —
Melchior used to say:
“The fellow has no heart. He feels nothing. I don’t know where he gets it from.”
Sometimes they used to sing German four-part songs—four-footed as well—and these were all exactly like themselves—slow-moving, solemn and broad, fashioned of dull melodies. —
Then Jean-Christophe used to fly to the most distant room and hurl insults at the wall.
His grandfather also had friends: the organist, the furniture-dealer, the watch-maker, the contra-bass—garrulous old men, who used always to pass round the same jokes and plunge into interminable discussions on art, politics, or the family trees of the countryside, much less interested in the subjects of which they talked than happy to talk and to find an audience.
As for Louisa, she used only to see some of her neighbors who brought her the gossip of the place, and at rare intervals a “kind lady,” who, under pretext of taking an interest in her, used to come and engage her services for a dinner-party, and pretend to watch over the religious education of the children.
But of all who came to the house, none was more repugnant to Jean-Christophe than his Uncle Theodore, a stepson of his grandfather’s, a son by a former marriage of his grandmother Clara, Jean Michel’s first wife. —
He was a partner in a great commercial house which did business in Africa and the Far East. He was the exact type of one of those Germans of the new style, whose affectation it is scoffingly to repudiate the old idealism of the race, and, intoxicated by conquest, to maintain a cult of strength and success which shows that they are not accustomed to seeing them on their side. —
But as it is difficult at once to change the age-old nature of a people, the despised idealism sprang up again in him at every turn in language, manners, and moral habits and the quotations from Goethe to fit the smallest incidents of domestic life, for he was a singular compound of conscience and self-interest. —
There was in him a curious effort to reconcile the honest principles of the old German bourgeoisie with the cynicism of these new commercial condottieri—a compound which forever gave out a repulsive flavor of hypocrisy, forever striving to make of German strength, avarice, and self-interest the symbols of all right, justice, and truth.
Jean-Christophe’s loyalty was deeply injured by all this. —
He could not tell whether his uncle were right or no, but he hated him, and marked him down for an enemy. —
His grandfather had no great love for him either, and was in revolt against his theories; —
but he was easily crushed in argument by Theodore’s fluency, which was never hard put to it to turn into ridicule the old man’s simple generosity. —
In the end Jean Michel came to be ashamed of his own good-heartedness, and by way of showing that he was not so much behind the times as they thought, he used to try to talk like Theodore; —
but the words came hollow from his lips, and he was ill at ease with them. —
Whatever he may have thought of him, Theodore did impress him. —
He felt respect for such practical skill, which he admired the more for knowing himself to be absolutely incapable of it. —
He used to dream of putting one of his grandsons to similar work. That was Melchior’s idea also. —
He intended to make Rodolphe follow in his uncle’s footsteps. —
And so the whole family set itself to flatter this rich relation of whom they expected help. —
He, seeing that he was necessary to them, took advantage of it to cut a fine masterful figure, He meddled in everything, gave advice upon everything, and made no attempt to conceal his contempt for art and artists. —
Rather, he blazoned it abroad for the mere pleasure of humiliating his musicianly relations, and he used to indulge in stupid jokes at their expense, and the cowards used to laugh.
Jean-Christophe, especially, was singled out as a butt for his uncle’s jests. —
He was not patient under them. He would say nothing, but he used to grind his teeth angrily, and his uncle used to laugh at his speechless rage. —
But one day, when Theodore went too far in his teasing, Jean-Christophe, losing control of himself, spat in his face. —
It was a fearful affair. The insult was so monstrous that his uncle was at first paralyzed by it; —
then words came back to him, and he broke out into a flood of abuse. —
Jean-Christophe sat petrified by the enormity of the thing that he had done, and did not even feel the blows that rained down upon him; —
but when they tried to force him down on his knees before his uncle, he broke away, jostled his mother aside, and ran out of the house. —
He did not stop until he could breathe no more, and then he was right out in the country. —
He heard voices calling him, and he debated within himself whether he had not better throw himself into the river, since he could not do so with his enemy. —
He spent the night in the fields. At dawn he went and knocked at his grandfather’s door. —
The old man had been so upset by Jean-Christophe’s disappearance—he had not slept for it—that he had not the heart to scold him. —
He took him home, and then nothing was said to him, because it was apparent that he was still in an excited condition, and they had to smooth him down, for he had to play at the Palace that evening. —
But for several weeks Melchior continued to overwhelm him with his complaints, addressed to nobody in particular, about the trouble that a man takes to give an example of an irreproachable life and good manners to unworthy creatures who dishonor him. —
And when his Uncle Theodore met him in the street, he turned his head and held his nose by way of showing his extreme disgust.
Finding so little sympathy at home, Jean-Christophe spent as little time there as possible. —
He chafed against the continual restraint which they strove to set upon him. —
There were too many things, too many people, that he had to respect, and he was never allowed to ask why, and Jean-Christophe did not possess the bump of respect. —
The more they tried to discipline him and to turn him into an honest little German bourgeois, the more he felt the need of breaking free from it all. —
It would have been his pleasure after the dull, tedious, formal performances which he had to attend in the orchestra or at the Palace to roll in the grass like a fowl, and to slide down the grassy slope on the seat of his new trousers, or to have a stone-fight with the urchins of the neighborhood. —
It was not because he was afraid of scoldings and thwackings that he did not do these things more often, but because he had no playmates. —
He could not get on with other children. —
Even the little guttersnipes did not like playing with him, because he took every game too seriously, and struck too lustily. —
He had grown used to being driven in on himself, and to living apart from children of his own age. —
He was ashamed of not being clever at games, and dared not take part in their sport. —
And he used to pretend to take no interest in it, although he was consumed by the desire to be asked to play with them. —
But they never said anything to him, and then he would go away hurt, but assuming indifference.
He found consolation in wandering with Uncle Gottfried when he was in the neighborhood. —
He became more and more friendly with him, and sympathized with his independent temper. —
He understood so well now Gottfried’s delight in tramping the roads without a tie in the world! —
Often they used to go out together in the evening into the country, straight on, aimlessly, and as Gottfried always forgot the time, they used to come back very late, and then were scolded. —
Gottfried knew that it was wrong, but Jean-Christophe used to implore, and he could not himself resist the pleasure of it. —
About midnight he would stand in front of the house and whistle, an agreed signal. —
Jean-Christophe would be in his bed fully dressed. —
He would slip out with his shoes in his hand, and, holding his breath, creep with all the artful skill of a savage to the kitchen window, which opened on to the road. —
He would climb on to the table; Gottfried would take him on his shoulders, and then off they would go, happy as truants.
Sometimes they would go and seek out Jeremy the fisherman, a friend of Gottfried’s, and then they would slip out in his boat under the moon. —
The water dropping from the oars gave out little arpeggios, then chromatic scales. —
A milky vapor hung tremulous over the surface of the waters. The stars quivered. —
The cocks called to each other from either bank, and sometimes in the depths of the sky they heard the trilling of larks ascending from earth, deceived by the light of the moon. —
They were silent. Gottfried hummed a tune. —
Jeremy told strange tales of the lives of the beasts—tales that gained in mystery from the curt and enigmatic manner of their telling. —
The moon hid herself behind the woods. They skirted the black mass of the hills. —
The darkness of the water and the sky mingled. There was never a ripple on the water. —
Sounds died down. The boat glided through the night. Was she gliding? Was she moving? —
Was she still?… The reeds parted with a sound like the rustling of silk. —
The boat grounded noiselessly. They climbed out on to the bank, and returned on foot. —
They would not return until dawn. They followed the river-bank. —
Clouds of silver ablets, green as ears of corn, or blue as jewels, teemed in the first light of day. —
They swarmed like the serpents of Medusa’s head, and flung themselves greedily at the bread thrown to them; —
they plunged for it as it sank, and turned in spirals, and then darted away in a flash, like a ray of light. —
The river took on rosy and purple hues of reflection. The birds woke one after another. —
The truants hurried back. Just as carefully as when they had set out, they returned to the room, with its thick atmosphere, and Jean-Christophe, worn out, fell into bed, and slept at once, with his body sweet-smelling with the smell of the fields.
All was well, and nothing would have been known, but that one day Ernest, his younger brother, betrayed Jean-Christophe’s midnight sallies. —
From that moment they were forbidden, and he was watched. —
But he contrived to escape, and he preferred the society of the little peddler and his friends to any other. —
His family was scandalized. Melchior said that he had the tastes of a laborer. —
Old Jean Michel was jealous of Jean-Christophe’s affection for Gottfried, and used to lecture him about lowering himself so far as to like such vulgar company when he had the honor of mixing with the best people and of being the servant of princes. —
It was considered that Jean-Christophe was lacking in dignity and self-respect.
In spite of the penury which increased with Melchior’s intemperance and folly, life was tolerable as long as Jean Michel was there. —
He was the only creature who had any influence over Melchior, and who could hold him back to a certain extent from his vice. —
The esteem in which he was generally held did serve to pass over the drunkard’s freaks, and he used constantly to come to the aid of the household with money. —
Besides the modest pension which he enjoyed as retired Kapellmeister, he was still able to earn small sums by giving lessons and tuning pianos. —
He gave most of it to his daughter-in-law, for he perceived her difficulties, though she strove to hide them from him. —
Louisa hated the idea that he was denying himself for them, and it was all the more to the old man’s credit in that he had always been accustomed to a large way of living and had great needs to satisfy. —
Sometimes even his ordinary sacrifices were not sufficient, and to meet some urgent debt Jean Michel would have secretly to sell a piece of furniture or books, or some relic that he set store by. —
Melchior knew that his father made presents to Louisa that were concealed from himself, and very often he would lay hands on them, in spite of protest. —
But when this came to the old man’s ears—not from Louisa, who said nothing of her troubles to him, but from one of his grandchildren—he would fly into a terrible passion, and there were frightful scenes between the two men. —
They were both extraordinarily violent, and they would come to round oaths and threats—almost it seemed as though they would come to blows. —
But even in his most angry passion respect would hold Melchior in check, and, however drunk he might be, in the end he would bow his head to the torrent of insults and humiliating reproach which his father poured out upon him. —
But for that he did not cease to watch for the first opportunity of breaking out again, and with his thoughts on the future, Jean Michel would be filled with melancholy and anxious fears.
“My poor children,” he used to say to Louisa, “what will become, of you when I am no longer here? —
… Fortunately,” he would add, fondling Jean-Christophe, “I can go on until this fellow pulls you out of the mire.” —
But he was out in his reckoning; he was at the end of his road. No one would have suspected it. —
He was surprisingly strong. He was past eighty; —
he had a full head of hair, a white mane, still gray in patches, and in his thick beard were still black hairs. —
He had only about ten teeth left, but with these he could chew lustily. —
It was a pleasure to see him at table. He had a hearty appetite, and though, he reproached Melchior for drinking, he always emptied his bottle himself. —
He had a preference for white Moselle. For the rest—wine, beer, cider—he could do justice to all the good things that the Lord hath made. —
He was not so foolish as to lose his reason in his cups, and he kept to his allowance. —
It is true that it was a plentiful allowance, and that a feebler intelligence must have been made drunk by it. —
He was strong of foot and eye, and indefatigably active. —
He got up at six, and performed his ablutions scrupulously, for he cared for his appearance and respected his person. —
He lived alone in his house, of which he was sole occupant, and never let his daughter-in-law meddle with his affairs. —
He cleaned out his room, made his own coffee, sewed on his buttons, nailed, and glued, and altered; —
and going to and fro and up and down stairs in his shirt-sleeves, he never stopped singing in a sounding bass which he loved to let ring out as he accompanied himself with operatic gestures. —
And then he used to go out in all weathers. —
He went about his business, omitting none, but he was not often punctual. —
He was to be seen at every street corner arguing with some acquaintance or joking with some woman whose face he had remembered, for he loved pretty women and old friends. —
And so he was always late, and never knew the time. But he never let the dinner-hour slip by. —
He dined wherever he might be, inviting himself, and he would not go home until late—after nightfall, after a visit to his grandchildren. —
Then he would go to bed, and before he went to sleep read a page of his old Bible, and during the night—for he never slept for more than an hour or two together—he would get up to take down one of his old books, bought second-hand—history, theology, belles-lettres, or science. —
He used to read at random a few pages, which interested and bored him, and he did not rightly understand them, though he did not skip a word, until sleep came to him again. —
On Sunday he would go to church, walk with the children, and play bowls. —
He had never been ill, except for a little gout in his toes, which used to make him swear at night while he was reading his Bible. It seemed as though he might live to be a hundred, and he himself could see no reason why he should not live longer. —
When people said that he would die a centenarian, he used to think, like another illustrious old man, that no limit can be appointed to the goodness of Providence, The only sign that he was growing old was that he was more easily brought to tears, and was becoming every day more irritable. —
The smallest impatience with him could throw him into a violent fury. —
His red face and short neck would grow redder than ever. —
He would stutter angrily, and have to stop, choking. —
The family doctor, an old friend, had warned him to take care and to moderate both his anger and his appetite. —
But with an old man’s obstinacy he plunged into acts of still greater recklessness out of bravado, and he laughed at medicine and doctors. —
He pretended to despise death, and did not mince his language when he declared that he was not afraid of it.
One summer day, when it was very hot, and he had drunk copiously, and argued in the market-place, he went home and began to work quietly in his garden. —
He loved digging. Bareheaded under the sun, still irritated by his argument, he dug angrily. —
Jean-Christophe was sitting in the arbor with a book in his hand, but he was not reading. —
He was dreaming and listening to the cheeping of the crickets, and mechanically following his grandfather’s movements. —
The old man’s back was towards him; he was bending and plucking out weeds. —
Suddenly Jean-Christophe saw him rise, beat against the air with his arms, and fall heavily with his face to the ground. —
For a moment he wanted to laugh; then he saw that the old man did not stir. —
He called to him, ran to him, and shook him with all his strength. Fear seized him. —
He knelt, and with his two hands tried to raise the great head from the ground. —
It was so heavy and he trembled so that he could hardly move it. —
But when he saw the eyes turned up, white and bloody, he was frozen with horror and, with a shrill cry, let the head fall. —
He got up in terror, ran away and out of the place. He cried and wept. —
A man passing by stopped the boy. Jean-Christophe could not speak, but he pointed to the house. —
The man went in, and Jean-Christophe followed him. —
Others had heard his cries, and they came from the neighboring houses. —
Soon the garden was full of people. They trampled the flowers, and bent down over the old man. —
They cried aloud. Two or three men lifted him up. —
Jean-Christophe stayed by the gate, turned to the wall, and hid his face in his hands. —
He was afraid to look, but he could not help himself, and when they passed him he saw through his fingers the old man’s huge body, limp and flabby. —
One arm dragged along the ground, the head, leaning against the knee of one of the men carrying the body, bobbed at every step, and the face was scarred, covered with mud, bleeding. —
The mouth was open and the eyes were fearful. He howled again, and took to flight. —
He ran as though something were after him, and never stopped until he reached home. —
He burst into the kitchen with frightful cries. Louisa was cleaning vegetables. —
He hurled himself at her, and hugged her desperately, imploring her help. —
His face was distorted with his sobs; he could hardly speak. —
But at the first word she understood. —
She went white, let the things fall from her hands, and without a word rushed from the house.
Jean-Christophe was left alone, crouching against a cupboard. He went on weeping. —
His brothers were playing. He could not make out quite what had happened. —
He did not think of his grandfather; he was thinking only of the dreadful sights he had just seen, and he was in terror lest he should be made to return to see them again.
And as it turned out in the evening, when the other children, tired of doing every sort of mischief in the house, were beginning to feel wearied and hungry, Louisa rushed in again, took them by the hand, and led them to their grandfather’s house. —
She walked very fast, and Ernest and Rodolphe tried to complain, as usual; —
but Louisa bade them be silent in such a tone of voice that they held their peace. —
An instinctive fear seized them, and when they entered the house they began to weep. —
It was not yet night. The last hours of the sunset cast strange lights over the inside of the house—on the door-handle, on the mirror, on the violin hung on the wall in the chief room, which was half in darkness. —
But in the old man’s room a candle was alight, and the flickering flame, vying with the livid, dying day, made the heavy darkness of the room more oppressive. —
Melchior was sitting near the window, loudly weeping. —
The doctor, leaning over the bed, hid from sight what was lying there. —
Jean-Christophe’s heart beat so that it was like to break. —
Louisa made the children kneel at the foot of the bed. Jean-Christophe stole a glance. —
He expected something so terrifying after what he had seen in the afternoon that at the first glimpse he was almost comforted. —
His grandfather lay motionless, and seemed to be asleep. —
For a moment the child believed that the old man was better, and that all was at an end. —
But when he heard his heavy breathing; when, as he looked closer, he saw the swollen face, on which the wound that he had come by in the fall had made a broad scar; —
when he understood that here was a man at point of death, he began to tremble; —
and while he repeated Louisa’s prayer for the restoration of his grandfather, in his heart he prayed that if the old man could not get well he might be already dead. —
He was terrified at the prospect of what was going to happen.
The old man had not been conscious since the moment of his fall. —
He only returned to consciousness for a moment, enough to learn his condition, and that was lamentable. —
The priest was there, and recited the last prayers over him. —
They raised the old man on his pillow. —
He opened his eyes slowly, and they seemed no longer to obey his will. —
He breathed noisily, and with unseeing eyes looked at the faces and the lights, and suddenly he opened his mouth. —
A nameless terror showed on his features.
“But then …” he gasped—”but I am going to die!”
The awful sound of his voice pierced Jean-Christophe’s heart. —
Never, never was it to fade from his memory. The old man said no more. —
He moaned like a little child. The stupor took him once more, but his breathing became more and more difficult. —
He groaned, he fidgeted with his hands, he seemed to struggle against the mortal sleep. —
In his semi-consciousness he cried once:
“Mother!”
Oh, the biting impression that it made, this mumbling of the old man, calling in anguish on his mother, as Jean-Christophe would himself have done—his mother, of whom he was never known to talk in life, to whom he now turned instinctively, the last futile refuge in the last terror! —
… Then he seemed to be comforted for a moment. He had once more a flicker of consciousness. —
His heavy eyes, the pupils of which seemed to move aimlessly, met those of the boy frozen in his fear. —
They lit up. The old man tried to smile and speak. —
Louisa took Jean-Christophe and led him to the bedside. —
Jean Michel moved his lips, and tried to caress his head with his hand, but then he fell back into his torpor. It was the end.
They sent the children into the next room, but they had too much to do to worry about them, and Jean-Christophe, under the attraction of the horror of it, peeped through the half-open door at the tragic face on the pillow; —
the man strangled by the firm, clutch that had him by the neck; —
the face which grew ever more hollow as he watched; —
the sinking of the creature into the void, which seemed to suck it down like a pump; —
and the horrible death-rattle, the mechanical breathing, like a bubble of air bursting on the surface of waters; —
the last efforts of the body, which strives to live when the soul is no longer. —
Then the head fell on one side on the pillow. —
All, all was silence.
A few moments later, in the midst of the sobs and prayers and the confusion caused by the death, Louisa saw the child, pale, wide-eyed, with gaping mouth, clutching convulsively at the handle of the door. —
She ran to him. He had a seizure in her arms. She carried him away. He lost consciousness. —
He woke up to find himself in his bed. He howled in terror, because he had been left alone for a moment, had another seizure, and fainted again. —
For the rest of the night and the next day he was in a fever. —
Finally, he grew calm, and on the next night fell into a deep sleep, which lasted until the middle of the following day. —
He felt that some one was walking in his room, that his mother was leaning over his bed and kissing him. —
He thought he heard the sweet distant sound of bells. —
But he would not stir; he was in a dream.
When he opened his eyes again his Uncle Gottfried was sitting at the foot of his bed. —
Jean-Christophe was worn out, and could remember nothing. —
Then his memory returned, and: he began to weep. —
Gottfried got up and kissed him.
“Well, my boy—well?” he said gently.
“Oh, uncle, uncle!” sobbed the boy, clinging to him.
“Cry, then …” said Gottfried. “Cry!”
He also was weeping.
When he was a little comforted Jean-Christophe dried his eyes and looked at
Gottfried. Gottfried understood that he wanted to ask something.
“No,” he said, putting a finger to his lips, “you must not talk. It is good to cry, bad to talk.”
The boy insisted.
“It is no good.”
“Only one thing—only one!…”
“What?”
Jean-Christophe hesitated.
“Oh, uncle!” he asked, “where is he now?”
Gottfried answered:
“He is with the Lord, my boy.”
But that was not what Jean-Christophe had asked.
“No; you do not understand. Where is he—he himself?” (He meant the body.)
He went on in a trembling voice:
“Is he still in the house?”
“They buried the good man this morning,” said Gottfried. “Did you not hear the bells?”
Jean-Christophe was comforted. Then, when he thought that he would never see his beloved grandfather again, he wept once more bitterly.
“Poor little beast!” said Gottfried, looking pityingly at the child.
Jean-Christophe expected Gottfried to console him, but Gottfried made no attempt to do so, knowing that it was useless.
“Uncle Gottfried,” asked the boy, “are not you afraid of it, too?”
(Much did he wish that Gottfried should not have been afraid, and would tell him the secret of it!)
”‘Ssh!” he said, in a troubled voice….
“And how is one not to be afraid?” he said, after a moment. —
“But what can one do? It is so. One must put up with it.”
Jean-Christophe shook his head in protest.
“One has to put up with it, my boy,” said Gottfried. —
“He ordered it up yonder. One has to love what He has ordered.”
“I hate Him!” said Jean-Christophe, angrily shaking his fist at the sky.
Gottfried fearfully bade him be silent. Jean-Christophe himself was afraid of what he had just said, and he began to pray with Gottfried. —
But blood boiled, and as he repeated the words of servile humility and resignation there was in his inmost heart a feeling of passionate revolt and horror of the abominable thing and the monstrous Being who had been able to create it.
Days passed and nights of rain over the freshly-turned earth under which lay the remains of poor old Jean Michel. —
At the moment Melchior wept and cried and sobbed much, but the week was not out before Jean-Christophe heard him laughing heartily. —
When the name of the dead man was pronounced in his presence, his face grew longer and a lugubrious expression came into it, but in a moment he would begin to talk and gesticulate excitedly. —
He was sincerely afflicted, but it was impossible for him to remain sad for long.
Louisa, passive and resigned, accepted the misfortune as she accepted everything. —
She added a prayer to her daily prayers; —
she went regularly to the cemetery, and cared for the grass as if it were part of her household.
Gottfried paid touching attention to the little patch of ground where the old man slept. —
When he came to the neighborhood, he brought a little souvenir—a cross that he had made, or flowers that Jean Michel had loved. —
He never missed, even if he were only in the town for a few hours, and he did it by stealth.
Sometimes Louisa took Jean-Christophe with her on her visits to the cemetery. —
Jean-Christophe revolted in disgust against the fat patch of earth clad in its sinister adornment of flowers and trees, and against the heavy scent which mounts to the sun, mingling with the breath of the sonorous cypress. —
But he dared not confess his disgust, because he condemned it in himself as cowardly and impious. —
He was very unhappy. His grandfather’s death haunted him incessantly, and yet he had long known what death was, and had thought about it and been afraid of it. —
But he had never before seen it, and he who sees it for the first time learns that he knew nothing, neither of death nor of life. —
One moment brings everything tottering. Reason is of no avail. —
You thought you were alive, you thought you had some experience of life; —
you see then that you knew nothing, that you have been living in a veil of illusions spun by your own mind to hide from your eyes the awful countenance of reality. —
There is no connection between the idea of suffering and the creature who bleeds and suffers. —
There is no connection between the idea of death and the convulsions of body and soul in combat and in death. —
Human language, human wisdom, are only a puppet-show of stiff mechanical dolls by the side of the grim charm of reality and the creatures of mind and blood, whose desperate and vain efforts are strained to the fixing of a life which crumbles away with every day.
Jean-Christophe thought of death day and night. Memories of the last agony pursued him. —
He heard that horrible breathing; every night, whatever he might be doing, he saw his grandfather again. —
All Nature was changed; it seemed as though there were an icy vapor drawn over her. —
Round him, everywhere, whichever way he turned, he felt upon his face the fatal breathing of the blind, all-powerful Beast; —
he felt himself in the grip of that fearful destructive Form, and he felt that there was nothing to be done. —
But, far from crushing him, the thought of it set him aflame with hate and indignation. —
He was never resigned to it. He butted head down against the impossible; —
it mattered nothing that he broke his head, and was forced to realize that he was not the stronger. —
He never ceased to revolt against suffering. —
From that time on his life was an unceasing struggle against the savagery of a Fate which he could not admit.
The very misery of his life afforded him relief from the obsession of his thoughts. —
The ruin of his family, which only Jean Michel had withheld, proceeded apace when he was removed. —
With him the Kraffts had lost their chief means of support, and misery entered the house.
Melchior increased it. Far from working more, he abandoned himself utterly to his vice when he was free of the only force that had held him in check. —
Almost every night he returned home drunk, and he never brought back his earnings. —
Besides, he had lost almost all his lessons. —
One day he had appeared at the house of one of his pupils in a state of complete intoxication, and, as a consequence of this scandal, all doors were closed to him. —
He was only tolerated in the orchestra out of regard for the memory of his father, but Louisa trembled lest he should he dismissed any day after a scene. —
He had already been threatened with it on several evenings when he had turned up in his place about the end of the performance.
Twice or thrice he had forgotten altogether to put in an appearance. —
And of what was he not capable in those moments of stupid excitement when he was taken with the itch to do and say idiotic things! —
Had he not taken it into his head one evening to try and play his great violin concerto in the middle of an act of the Valkyrie? —
They were hard put to it to stop him. Sometimes, too, he would shout with laughter in the middle of a performance at the amusing pictures that were presented on the stage or whirling in his own brain. —
He was a joy to his colleagues, and they passed over many things because he was so funny. —
But such indulgence was worse than severity, and Jean-Christophe could have died for shame.
The boy was now first violin in the orchestra. —
He sat so that he could watch over his father, and, when necessary, beseech him, and make him be silent. —
It was not easy, and the best thing was not to pay any attention to him, for if he did, as soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. —
Then Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit some outrageous prank. —
He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he could not help hearing Melchior’s utterances and the laughter of his colleagues. —
Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows that they were, had seen that, and were sorry for him. —
They would hush their laughter, and only talk about his father when Jean-Christophe was not by. —
But Jean-Christophe was conscious of their pity. —
He knew that as soon as he had gone their jokes would break out again, and that Melchior was the laughing-stock of the town. —
He could not stop him, and he was in torment. He used to bring his father home after the play. —
He would take his arm, put up with his pleasantries, and try to conceal the stumbling in his walk. —
But he deceived no one, and in spite of all his efforts it was very rarely that he could succeed in leading Melchior all the way home. —
At the corner of the street Melchior would declare that he had an urgent appointment with some friends, and no argument could dissuade him from keeping this engagement. —
Jean-Christophe took care not to insist too much, so as not to expose himself to a scene and paternal imprecations which might attract the neighbors to their windows.
All the household money slipped away in this fashion. —
Melchior was not satisfied with drinking away his earnings; —
he drank away all that his wife and son so hardly earned. —
Louisa used to weep, but she dared not resist, since her husband had harshly reminded her that nothing in the house belonged to her, and that he had married her without a sou. —
Jean-Christophe tried to resist. Melchior boxed his ears, treated him like a naughty child, and took the money out of his hands. —
The boy was twelve or thirteen. He was strong, and was beginning to kick against being beaten; —
but he was still afraid to rebel, and rather than expose himself to fresh humiliations of the kind he let himself be plundered. —
The only resource that Louisa and Jean-Christophe had was to hide their money; —
but Melchior was singularly ingenious in discovering their hiding-places when they were not there.
Soon that was not enough for him. He sold the things that he had inherited from his father. —
Jean-Christophe sadly saw the precious relics go—the books, the bed, the furniture, the portraits of musicians. —
He could say nothing. But one day, when Melchior had crashed into Jean Michel’s old piano, he swore as he rubbed his knee, and said that there was no longer room to move about in his own house, and that he would rid the house of all such gimcrackery. —
Jean-Christophe cried aloud. It was true that the rooms were too full, since all Jean Michel’s belongings were crowded into them, so as to be able to sell the house, that dear house in which Jean-Christophe had spent the happiest hours of his childhood. —
It was true also that the old piano was not worth much, that it was husky in tone, and that for a long time Jean-Christophe had not used it, since he played on the fine new piano due to the generosity of the Prince; —
but however old and useless it might be, it was Jean-Christophe’s best friend. —
It had awakened the child to the boundless world of music; —
on its worn yellow keys he had discovered with his fingers the kingdom of sounds and its laws; —
it had been his grandfather’s work (months had gone to repairing it for his grandson), and he was proud of it; —
it was in some sort a holy relic, and Jean-Christophe protested that his father had no right to sell it. —
Melchior bade him be silent. Jean-Christophe cried louder than ever that the piano was his, and that he forbade any one to touch it; —
but Melchior looked at him with an evil smile, and said nothing.
Next day Jean-Christophe had forgotten the affair. —
He came home tired, but in a fairly good temper. —
He was struck by the sly looks of his brothers. —
They pretended to be absorbed in their books, but they followed him with their eyes, and watched all his movements, and bent over their books again when he looked at them. —
He had no doubt that they had played some trick upon him, but he was used to that, and did not worry about it, but determined, when he had found it out, to give them a good thrashing, as he always did on such occasions. —
He scorned to look into the matter, and he began to talk to his father, who was sitting by the fire, and questioned him as to the doings of the day with an affectation of interest which suited him but ill; —
and while he talked he saw that Melchior was exchanging stealthy nods and winks with the two children. —
Something caught at his heart. He ran into his room. —
The place where the piano had stood was empty! —
He gave a cry of anguish. In the next room he heard the stifled laughter of his brothers. —
The blood rushed to his face. He rushed in to them, and cried:
“My piano!”
Melchior raised his head with an air of calm bewilderment which made the children roar with laughter. He could not contain himself when he saw Jean-Christophe’s piteous look, and he turned aside to guffaw. —
Jean-Christophe no longer knew what he was doing. —
He hurled himself like a mad thing on his father. —
Melchior, lolling in his chair, had no time to protect himself. —
The boy seized him by the throat and cried:
“Thief! Thief!”
It was only for a moment. Melchior shook himself, and sent Jean-Christophe rolling down on to the tile floor, though in his fury he was clinging to him like grim death. —
The boy’s head crashed against the tiles. Jean-Christophe got upon his knees. —
He was livid, and he went on saying in a choking voice:
“Thief, thief!… You are robbing us—mother and me…. Thief!… You are selling my grandfather!”
Melchior rose to his feet, and held his fist above Jean-Christophe’s head.
The boy stared at him with hate; in his eyes. He was trembling with rage.
Melchior began to tremble, too.
He sat down, and hid his face in his hands. The two children had run away screaming. —
Silence followed the uproar. Melchior groaned and mumbled. —
Jean-Christophe, against the wall, never ceased glaring at him with clenched teeth, and he trembled in every limb. —
Melchior began to blame himself.
“I am a thief! I rob my family! My children despise me! It were better if
I were dead!”
When he had finished whining, Jean-Christophe did not budge, but asked him harshly:
“Where is the piano?”
“At Wormser’s,” said Melchior, not daring to look at him.
Jean-Christophe took a step forward, and said:
“The money!”
Melchior, crushed, took the money from his pocket and gave it to his son.
Jean-Christophe turned towards the door. Melchior called him:
“Jean-Christophe!”
Jean-Christophe stopped. Melchior went on in a quavering voice:
“Dear Jean-Christophe … do not despise me!”
Jean-Christophe flung his arms round his neck and sobbed:
“No, father—dear father! I do not despise you! I am so unhappy!”
They wept loudly. Melchior lamented:
“It is not my fault. I am not bad. That’s true, Jean-Christophe? I am not bad?”
He promised that he would drink no more. Jean-Christophe wagged his head doubtfully, and Melchior admitted that he could not resist it when he had money in his hands. —
Jean-Christophe thought for a moment and said:
“You see, father, we must…”
He stopped.
“What then?”
“I am ashamed…”
“Of whom?” asked Melchior naïvely.
“Of you.”
Melchior made a face and said:
“That’s nothing.”
Jean-Christophe explained that they would have to put all the family money, even Melchior’s contribution, into the hands of some one else, who would dole it out to Melchior day by day, or week by week, as he needed it. —
Melchior, who was in humble mood—he was not altogether starving—agreed to the proposition, and declared that he would then and there write a letter to the Grand Duke to ask that the pension which came to him should be regularly paid over in his name to Jean-Christophe. —
Jean-Christophe refused, blushing for his father’s humiliation. —
But Melchior, thirsting for self-sacrifice, insisted on writing. —
He was much moved by his own magnanimity. —
Jean-Christophe refused to take the letter, and when Louisa came in and was acquainted with the turn of events, she declared that she would rather beg in the streets than expose her husband to such an insult. —
She added that she had every confidence in him, and that she was sure he would make amends out of love for the children and herself. —
In the end there was a scene of tender reconciliation and Melchior’s letter was left on the table, and then fell under the cupboard, where it remained concealed.
But a few days later, when she was cleaning up, Louisa found it there, and as she was very unhappy about Melchior’s fresh outbreaks—he had forgotten all about it—instead of tearing it up, she kept it. —
She kept it for several months, always rejecting the idea of making use of it, in spite of the suffering she had to endure. —
But one day, when she saw Melchior once more beating Jean-Christophe and robbing him of his money, she could bear it no longer, and when she was left alone with the boy, who was weeping, she went and fetched the letter, and gave it him, and said:
“Go!”
Jean-Christophe hesitated, but he understood that there was no other way if they wished to save from the wreck the little that was left to them. —
He went to the Palace. He took nearly an hour to walk a distance that ordinarily took twenty minutes. —
He was overwhelmed by the shame of what he was doing. —
His pride, which had grown great in the years of sorrow and isolation, bled at the thought of publicly confessing his father’s vice. —
He knew perfectly well that it was known to everybody, but by a strange and natural inconsequence he would not admit it, and pretended to notice nothing, and he would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. —
And now, of his own accord, he was going!… Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. —
He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. —
He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. —
Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. —
There was no room for hesitation or pride; —
he had to swallow down his shame. He entered the Palace. —
On the staircase he almost turned and fled. He knelt down on a step; —
he stayed for several minutes on the landing, with his hand on the door, until some one coming made him go in.
Every one in the offices knew him. He asked to see His Excellency the Director of the Theaters, Baron de Hammer Langbach. —
A young clerk, sleek, bald, pink-faced, with a white waistcoat and a pink tie, shook his hand familiarly, and began to talk about the opera of the night before. —
Jean-Christophe repeated his question. The clerk replied that His Excellency was busy for the moment, but that if Jean-Christophe had a request to make they could present it with other documents which were to be sent in for His Excellency’s signature. —
Jean-Christophe held out his letter. The clerk read it, and gave a cry of surprise.
“Oh, indeed!” he said brightly. “That is a good idea. He ought to have thought of that long ago! —
He never did anything better in his life! Ah, the old sot! —
How the devil did he bring himself to do it?”
He stopped short. Jean-Christophe had snatched the paper out of his hands, and, white with rage, shouted:
“I forbid you!… I forbid you to insult me!”
The clerk was staggered.
“But, my dear Jean-Christophe,” he began to say, “whoever thought of insulting you? —
I only said what everybody thinks, and what you think yourself.”
“No!” cried Jean-Christophe angrily.
“What! you don’t think so? You don’t think that he drinks?”
“It is not true!” said Jean-Christophe.
He stamped his foot.
The clerk shrugged his shoulders.
“In that case, why did he write this letter?”
“Because,” said Jean-Christophe (he did not know what to say)—”because, when I come for my wages every month, I prefer to take my father’s at the same time. —
It is no good our both putting ourselves out…. —
My father is very busy.”
He reddened at the absurdity of his explanation. —
The clerk looked at him with pity and irony in his eyes. —
Jean-Christophe crumpled the paper in his hands, and turned to go. —
The clerk got up and took him by the arm.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “I’ll go and fix it up for you.”
He went into the Director’s office. Jean-Christophe waited, with the eyes of the other clerks upon him. —
His blood boiled. He did not know what he was doing, what to do, or what he ought to do. —
He thought of going away before the answer was brought to him, and he had just made up his mind to that when the door opened.
“His Excellency will see you,” said the too obliging clerk.
Jean-Christophe had to go in.
His Excellency Baron de Hammer Langbach, a little neat old man with whiskers, mustaches, and a shaven chin, looked at Jean-Christophe over his golden spectacles without stopping writing, nor did he give any response to the boy’s awkward bow.
“So,” he said, after a moment, “you are asking, Herr Krafft …?”
“Your Excellency,” said Jean-Christophe hurriedly, “I ask your pardon. —
I have thought better of it. I have nothing to ask.”
The old man sought no explanation for this sudden reconsideration. —
He looked more closely at Jean-Christophe, coughed, and said:
“Herr Krafft, will you give me the letter that is in your hand?”
Jean-Christophe saw that the Director’s gaze was fixed on the paper which he was still unconsciously holding crumpled up in his hand.
“It is no use, Your Excellency,” he murmured. “It is not worth while now.”
“Please give it me,” said the old man quietly, as though he had not heard.
Mechanically Jean-Christophe gave him the crumpled letter, but he plunged into a torrent of stuttered words while he held out his hand for the letter. —
His Excellency carefully smoothed out the paper, read it, looked at Jean-Christophe, let him flounder about with his explanations, then checked him, and said with a malicious light in his eyes:
“Very well, Herr Krafft; the request is granted.”
He dismissed him with a wave of his hand and went on with his writing.
Jean-Christophe went out, crushed.
“No offense, Jean-Christophe!” said the clerk kindly, when the boy came into the office again. —
Jean-Christophe let him shake his hand without daring to raise his eyes. —
He found himself outside the Palace. He was cold with shame. —
Everything that had been said to him recurred in his memory, and he imagined that there was an insulting irony in the pity of the people who honored and were sorry for him. —
He went home, and answered only with a few irritable words Louisa’s questions, as though he bore a grudge against her for what he had just done. —
He was racked by remorse when he thought of his father. —
He wanted to confess everything to him, and to beg his pardon. Melchior was not there. —
Jean-Christophe kept awake far into the night, waiting for him. —
The more he thought of him the more his remorse quickened. He idealized him; —
he thought of him as weak, kind, unhappy, betrayed by his own family. —
As soon as he heard his step on the stairs he leaped from his bed to go and meet him, and throw himself in his arms; —
but Melchior was in such a disgusting state of intoxication that Jean-Christophe had not even the courage to go near him, and he went to bed again, laughing bitterly at his own illusions.
When Melchior learned a few days later of what had happened, he was in a towering passion, and, in spite of all Jean-Christophe’s entreaties, he went and made a scene at the Palace. —
But he returned with his tail between his legs, and breathed not a word of what had happened. —
He had been very badly received. He had been told that he would have to take a very different tone about the matter, that the pension had only been continued out of consideration for the worth of his son, and that if in the future there came any scandal concerning him to their ears, it would be suppressed. —
And so Jean-Christophe was much surprised and comforted to see his father accept his living from day to day, and even boast about having taken, the initiative in the sacrifice.
But that did not keep Melchior from complaining outside that he had been robbed by his wife and children, that he had put himself out for them all his life, and that now they let him want for everything. —
He tried also to extract money from Jean-Christophe by all sorts of ingenious tricks and devices, which often used to make Jean-Christophe laugh, although he was hardly ever taken in by them. —
But as Jean-Christophe held firm, Melchior did not insist. —
He was curiously intimidated by the severity in the eyes of this boy of fourteen who judged him. —
He used to avenge himself by some stealthy, dirty trick. —
He used to go to the cabaret and eat and drink as much as he pleased, and then pay nothing, pretending that his son would pay his debts. —
Jean-Christophe did not protest, for fear of increasing the scandal, and he and Louisa exhausted their resources in discharging Melchior’s debts. —
In the end Melchior more and more lost interest in his work as violinist, since he no longer received his wages, and his absence from the theater became so frequent that, in spite of Jean-Christophe’s entreaties, they had to dismiss him. —
The boy was left to support his father, his brothers, and the whole household.
So at fourteen Jean-Christophe became the head of the family.
He stoutly faced his formidable task. His pride would not allow him to resort to the charity of others. —
He vowed that he would pull through alone. —
From his earliest days he had suffered too much from seeing his mother accept and even ask for humiliating charitable offerings. —
He used to argue the matter with her when she returned home triumphant with some present that she had obtained from one of her patronesses. —
She saw no harm in it, and was glad to be able, thanks to the money, to spare Jean-Christophe a little, and to bring another meager dish forth for supper. —
But Jean-Christophe would become gloomy, and would not talk all evening, and would even refuse, without giving any reason, to touch food gained in this way. —
Louisa was vexed, and clumsily urged her son to eat. —
He was not to be budged, and in the end she would lose her temper, and say unkind things to him, and he would retort. —
Then he would fling his napkin on the table and go out. —
His father would shrug his shoulders and call him a poseur; —
his brothers would laugh at him and eat his portion.
But he had somehow to find a livelihood. His earnings from the orchestra were not enough. —
He gave lessons. His talents as an instrumentalist, his good reputation, and, above all, the Prince’s patronage, brought him a numerous clientèle among the middle classes. —
Every morning from nine o’clock on he taught the piano to little girls, many of them older than himself, who frightened him horribly with their coquetry and maddened him with the clumsiness of their playing. —
They were absolutely stupid as far as music went, but, on the other hand, they had all, more or less, a keen sense of ridicule, and their mocking looks spared none of Jean-Christophe’s awkwardnesses. —
It was torture for him. Sitting by their side on the edge of his chair, stiff, and red in the face; —
bursting with anger, and not daring to stir; —
controlling himself so as not to say stupid things, and afraid of the sound of his own voice, so that he could hardly speak a word; —
trying to look severe, and feeling that his pupil was looking at him out of the corner of her eye, he would lose countenance, grow confused in the middle of a remark; —
fearing to make himself ridiculous, he would become so, and break out into violent reproach. —
But it was very easy for his pupils to avenge themselves, and they did not fail to do so, and upset him by a certain way of looking at him, and by asking him the simplest questions, which made him blush up to the roots of his hair; —
or they would ask him to do them some small service, such as fetching something they had forgotten from a piece of furniture, and that was for him a most painful ordeal, for he had to cross the room under fire of malicious looks, which pitilessly remarked the least awkwardness in his movements and his clumsy legs, his stiff arms, his body cramped by his shyness.
From these lessons he had to hasten to rehearsal at the theater. —
Often he had no time for lunch, and he used to carry a piece of bread and some cold meat in his pocket to eat during the interval. —
Sometimes he had to take the place of Tobias Pfeiffer, the Musik Direktor, who was interested in him, and sometimes had him to conduct the orchestra rehearsals instead of himself. —
And he had also to go on with his own musical education. —
Other piano lessons filled his day until the hour of the performance, and very often in the evening after the play he was sent for to play at the Palace. —
There he had to play for an hour or two. The Princess laid claim to a knowledge of music. —
She was very fond of it, but had never been able to perceive the difference between good and bad. —
She used to make Jean-Christophe play through strange programmes, in which dull rhapsodies stood side by side with masterpieces. —
But her greatest pleasure was to make him improvise, and she used to provide him with heartbreakingly sentimental themes.
Jean-Christophe used to leave about midnight, worn out, with his hands burning, his head aching, his stomach empty. —
He was in a sweat, and outside snow would be falling, or there would be an icy fog. —
He had to walk across half the town to reach home. —
He went on foot, his teeth chattering, longing to sleep and to cry, and he had to take care not to splash his only evening dress-suit in the puddles.
He would go up to his room, which he still shared with his brothers, and never was he so overwhelmed by disgust and despair with his life as at the moment when in his attic, with its stifling smell, he was at last permitted to take off the halter of his misery. —
He had hardly the heart to undress himself. —
Happily, no sooner did his head touch the pillow than he would sink into a heavy sleep which deprived him of all consciousness of his troubles.
But he had to get up by dawn in summer, and before dawn in winter. He wished to do his own work. —
It was all the free time that he had between five o’clock and eight. —
Even then he had to waste some of it by work to command, for his title of Hof Musicus and his favor with the Grand Duke exacted from him official compositions for the Court festivals.
So the very source of his life was poisoned. —
Even his dreams were not free, but, as usual, this restraint made them only the stronger. —
When nothing hampers action, the soul has fewer reasons for action, and the closer the walls of Jean-Christophe’s prison of care and banal tasks were drawn about him, the more his heart in its revolt felt its independence. —
In a life without obstacles he would doubtless have abandoned himself to chance and to the voluptuous sauntering of adolescence. —
As he could be free only for an hour or two a day, his strength flowed into that space of time like a river between walls of rock. —
It is a good discipline for art for a man to confine his efforts between unshakable bounds. —
In that sense it may be said that misery is a master, not only of thought, but of style; —
it teaches sobriety to the mind as to the body. —
When time is doled out and thoughts measured, a man says no word too much, and grows accustomed to thinking only what is essential; —
so he lives at double pressure, having less time for living.
This had happened in Jean-Christophe’s case. —
Under his yoke he took full stock of the value of liberty and he never frittered away the precious minutes with useless words or actions. —
His natural tendency to write diffusely, given up to all the caprice of a mind sincere but indiscriminating, found correction in being forced to think and do as much as possible in the least possible time. —
Nothing had so much influence on his artistic and moral development—not the lessons of his masters, nor the example of the masterpieces. —
During the years when the character is formed he came to consider music as an exact language, in which every sound has a meaning, and at the same time he came to loathe those musicians who talk without saying anything.
And yet the compositions which he wrote at this time were still far from expressing himself completely, because he was still very far from having completely discovered himself. —
He was seeking himself through the mass of acquired feelings which education imposes on a child as second nature. —
He had only intuitions of his true being, until he should feel the passions of adolescence, which strip the personality of its borrowed garments as a thunder-clap purges the sky of the mists that hang over it. —
Vague and great forebodings were mingled in him with strange memories, of which he could not rid himself. —
He raged against these lies; he was wretched to see how inferior what he wrote was to what he thought; —
he had bitter doubts of himself. But he could not resign himself to such a stupid defeat. —
He longed passionately to do better, to write great things, and always he missed fire. —
After a moment of illusion as he wrote, he saw that what he had done was worthless. He tore it up; —
he burned everything that he did; and, to crown his humiliation, he had to see his official works, the most mediocre of all, preserved, and he could not destroy them—the concerto, The Royal Eagle, for the Prince’s birthday and the cantata, The Marriage of Pallas, written on the occasion of the marriage of Princess Adelaide—published at great expense in éditions de luxe, which perpetuated his imbecilities for posterity; —
for he believed in posterity. He wept in his humiliation.
Fevered years! No respite, no release—nothing to create a diversion from such maddening toil; —
no games, no friends. How should he have them? —
In the afternoon, when other children played, young Jean-Christophe, with his brows knit in attention, was at his place in the orchestra in the dusty and ill-lighted theater; —
and in the evening, when other children were abed, he was still there, sitting in his chair, bowed with weariness.
No intimacy with his brothers. The younger, Ernest, was twelve. —
He was a little ragamuffin, vicious and impudent, who spent his days with other rapscallions like himself, and from their company had caught not only deplorable manners, but shameful habits which good Jean-Christophe, who had never so much as suspected their existence, was horrified to see one day. —
The other, Rodolphe, the favorite of Uncle Theodore, was to go into business. —
He was steady, quiet, but sly. He thought himself much superior to Jean-Christophe, and did not admit his authority in the house, although it seemed natural to him to eat the food that he provided. —
He had espoused the cause of Theodore and Melchior’s ill-feeling against Jean-Christophe and used to repeat their absurd gossip. —
Neither of the brothers cared for music, and Rodolphe, in imitation of his uncle, affected to despise it. —
Chafing against Jean-Christophe’s authority and lectures—for he took himself very seriously as the head of the family—the two boys had tried to rebel; —
but Jean-Christophe, who had lusty fists and the consciousness of right, sent them packing. —
Still they did not for that cease to do with him as they liked. —
They abused his credulity, and laid traps for him, into which he invariably fell. —
They used to extort money from him with barefaced lies, and laughed at him behind his back. —
Jean-Christophe was always taken in. He had so much need of being loved that an affectionate word was enough to disarm his rancor. —
He would have forgiven them everything for a little love. —
But his confidence was cruelly shaken when he heard them laughing at his stupidity after a scene of hypocritical embracing which had moved him to tears, and they had taken advantage of it to rob him of a gold watch, a present from the Prince, which they coveted. —
He despised them, and yet went on letting himself be taken in from his unconquerable tendency to trust and to love. —
He knew it. He raged against himself, and he used to thrash his brothers soundly when he discovered once more that they had tricked him. —
That did not keep him from swallowing almost immediately the fresh hook which it pleased them to bait for him.
A more bitter cause of suffering was in store for him. —
He learned from officious neighbors that his father was speaking ill of him. —
After having been proud of his son’s successes, and having boasted of them everywhere, Melchior was weak and shameful enough to be jealous of them. —
He tried to decry them. It was stupid to weep; —
Jean-Christophe could only shrug his shoulders in contempt. —
It was no use being angry about it, for his father did not know what he was doing, and was embittered by his own downfall. —
The boy said nothing. He was afraid, if he said anything, of being too hard; —
but he was cut to the heart.
They were melancholy gatherings at the family evening meal round the lamp, with a spotted cloth, with all the stupid chatter and the sound of the jaws of these people whom he despised and pitied, and yet loved in spite of everything. —
Only between himself and his brave mother did Jean-Christophe feel a bond of affection. —
But Louisa, like himself, exhausted herself during the day, and in the evening she was worn out and hardly spoke, and after dinner used to sleep in her chair over her darning. —
And she was so good that she seemed to make no difference in her love between her husband and her three sons. —
She loved them all equally. Jean-Christophe did not find in her the trusted friend that he so much needed.
So he was driven in upon himself. For days together he would not speak, fulfilling his tiresome and wearing task with a sort of silent rage. —
Such a mode of living was dangerous, especially for a child at a critical age, when he is most sensitive, and is exposed to every agent of destruction and the risk of being deformed for the rest of his life. —
Jean-Christophe’s health suffered seriously. —
He had been endowed by his parents with a healthy constitution and a sound and healthy body; —
but his very healthiness only served to feed his suffering when the weight of weariness and too early cares had opened up a gap by which it might enter. —
Quite early in life there were signs of grave nervous disorders. —
When he was a small boy he was subject to fainting-fits and convulsions and vomiting whenever he encountered opposition. —
When he was seven or eight, about the time of the concert, his sleep had been troubled. —
He used to talk, cry, laugh and weep in his sleep, and this habit returned to him whenever he had too much to think of. —
Then he had cruel headaches, sometimes shooting pains at the base of his skull or the top of his head, sometimes a leaden heaviness. —
His eyes troubled him. Sometimes it was as though red-hot needles were piercing his eyeballs. —
He was subject to fits of dizziness, when he could not see to read, and had to stop for a minute or two. —
Insufficient and unsound food and irregular meals ruined the health of his stomach. —
He was racked by internal pains or exhausted by diarrhea. —
But nothing brought him more suffering than his heart. It beat with a crazy irregularity. —
Sometimes it would leap in his bosom, and seem like to break; —
sometimes it would hardly beat at all, and seem like to stop. —
At night his temperature would vary alarmingly; —
it would change suddenly from fever-point to next to nothing. —
He would burn, then shiver with cold, pass through agony. His throat would go dry; —
a lump in it would prevent his breathing. Naturally his imagination took fire. —
He dared not say anything to his family of what he was going through, but he was continually dissecting it with a minuteness which either enlarged his sufferings or created new ones. —
He decided that he had every known illness one after the other. —
He believed that he was going blind, and as he sometimes used to turn giddy as he walked, he thought that he was going to fall down dead. —
Always that dreadful fear of being stopped on his road, of dying before his time, obsessed him, overwhelmed him, and pursued him. —
Ah, if he had to die, at least let it not be now, not before he had tasted victory!…
Victory … the fixed idea which never ceases to burn within him without his being fully aware of it—the idea which bears him up through all his disgust and fatigues and the stagnant morass of such a life! —
A dim and great foreknowledge of what he will be some day, of what he is already!… What is he? —
A sick, nervous child, who plays the violin in the orchestra and writes mediocre concertos? No; —
far more than such a child. That is no more than the wrapping, the seeming of a day; —
that is not his Being. There is no connection between his Being and the existing shape of his face and thought. —
He knows that well. When he looks at himself in the mirror he does not know himself. —
That broad red face, those prominent eyebrows, those little sunken eyes, that short thick nose, that sullen mouth—the whole mask, ugly and vulgar, is foreign to himself. —
Neither does he know himself in his writings. —
He judges, he knows that what he does and what he is are nothing; —
and yet he is sure of what he will be and do. —
Sometimes he falls foul of such certainty as a vain lie. —
He takes pleasure in humiliating himself and bitterly mortifying himself by way of punishment. —
But his certainty endures; nothing can alter it. —
Whatever he does, whatever he thinks, none of his thoughts, actions, or writings contain him or express him, He knows, he has this strange presentiment, that the more that he is, is not contained in the present but is what he will be, what he will be to-morrow. —
He will be!… He is fired by that faith, he is intoxicated by that light! —
Ah, if only To-day does not block the way! —
If only he does not fall into one of the cunning traps which To-day is forever laying for him!
So he steers his bark across the sea of days, turning his eyes neither to right nor left, motionless at the helm, with his gaze fixed on the bourne, the refuge, the end that he has in sight. —
In the orchestra, among the talkative musicians, at table with his own family, at the Palace, while he is playing without a thought of what he is playing, for the entertainment of Royal folk—it is in that future, that future which a speck may bring toppling to earth—no matter, it is in that that he lives.
He is at his old piano, in his garret, alone. Night falls. —
The dying light of day is cast upon his music. —
He strains his eyes to read the notes until the last ray of light is dead. —
The tenderness of hearts that are dead breathed forth from the dumb page fills him with love. —
His eyes are filled with tears. It seems to him that a beloved creature is standing behind him, that soft breathing caresses his cheek, that two arms are about his neck. —
He turns, trembling. He feels, he knows, that he is not alone. —
A soul that loves and is loved is there, near him. —
He groans aloud because he cannot perceive it, and yet that shadow of bitterness falling upon his ecstasy has sweetness, too. —
Even sadness has its light. He thinks of his beloved masters, of the genius that is gone, though its soul lives on in the music which it had lived in its life. —
His heart is overflowing with love; he dreams of the superhuman happiness which must have been the lot of these glorious men, since the reflection only of their happiness is still so much aflame. —
He dreams of being like them, of giving out such love as this, with lost rays to lighten his misery with a godlike smile. —
In his turn to be a god, to give out the warmth of joy, to be a sun of life!…
Alas! if one day he does become the equal of those whom he loves, if he does achieve that brilliant happiness for which he longs, he will see the illusion that was upon him….
