Jean-Christophe, vol 1 by Romain Rolland (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

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“To-morrow, he is coming to-morrow morning!…’

 

“What?” asked Kunz, still mystified.

 

“Krafft!” cried Schulz.

 

Kunz pondered the word for a moment; then a loud exclamation showed that he

had understood.

 

“I am coming down!” he shouted.

 

The window was closed. He appeared on the steps with a lamp in his hand and

came down into the garden. He was a little stout old man, with a large gray

head, a red beard, red hair on his face and hands. He took little steps and

he was smoking a porcelain pipe. This good natured, rather sleepy little

man had never worried much about anything. For all that, the news brought

by Schulz excited him; he waved his short arms and his lamp and asked:

 

“What? Is it him? Is he really coming?”

 

“To-morrow morning!” said Schulz, triumphantly waving the telegram.

 

The two old friends went and sat on a seat in the arbor. Schulz took the

lamp. Kunz carefully unfolded the telegram and read it slowly in a whisper.

Schulz read it again aloud over his shoulder. Kunz went on looking at the

paper, the marks on the telegram, the time when it had been sent, the time

when it had arrived, the number of words. Then he gave the precious paper

back to Schulz, who was laughing happily, looked at him and wagged his head

and said:

 

“Ah! well … Ah! well!…”

 

After a moment’s thought and after drawing in and expelling a cloud of

tobacco smoke he put his hand on Schulz’s knee and said:

 

“We must tell Pottpetschmidt.”

 

“I was going to him,” said Schulz.

 

“I will go with you,” said Kunz.

 

He went in and put down his lamp and came back immediately. The two old men

went on arm in arm. Pottpetschmidt lived at the other end of the village.

Schulz and Kunz exchanged a few absent words, but they were both pondering

the news. Suddenly Kunz stopped and whacked on the ground with his stick:

 

“Oh! Lord!” he said…. “He is away!”

 

He had remembered that Pottpetschmidt had had to go away that afternoon for

an operation at a neighboring town where he had to spend the night and stay

a day or two. Schulz was distressed. Kunz was equally put out. They were

proud of Pottpetschmidt; they would have liked to show him off. They stood

in the middle of the road and could not make up their minds what to do.

 

“What shall we do? What shall we do?” asked Kunz.

 

“Krafft absolutely must hear Pottpetschmidt,” said Schulz.

 

He thought for a moment and said:

 

“We must sent him a telegram.”

 

They went to the post office and together they composed a long and excited

telegram of which it was very difficult to understand a word, Then they

went back. Schulz reckoned:

 

“He could be here to-morrow morning if he took the first train.”

 

But Kunz pointed out that it was too late and that the telegram would not

be sent until the morning. Schulz nodded, and they said:

 

“How unfortunate!”

 

They parted at Kunz’s door; for in spite of his friendship for Schulz it

did not go so far as to make him commit the imprudence of accompanying

Schulz outside the village, and even to the end of the road by which he

would have had to come back alone in the dark. It was arranged that Kunz

should dine on the morrow with Schulz. Schulz looked anxiously at the sky:

 

“If only it is fine to-morrow!”

 

And his heart was a little lighter when Kunz, who was supposed to have a

wonderful knowledge of meteorology, looked gravely at the sky—(for he was

no less anxious than Schulz that Christophe should see their little

countryside in all its beauty)—and said:

 

“It will be fine to-morrow.”

 

*

 

Schulz went along the road to the town and came to it not without having

stumbled more than once in the ruts and the heaps of stones by the wayside.

Before he went home he called in at the confectioner’s to order a certain

tart which was the envy of the town. Then he went home, but just as he was

going in he turned back to go to the station to find out the exact time

at which the train arrived. At last he did go home and called Salome and

discussed at length the dinner for the morrow. Then only he went to bed

worn out; but he was as excited as a child on Christmas Eve, and all night

he turned about and about and never slept a wink. About one o’clock in the

morning he thought of getting up to go and tell Salome to cook a stewed

carp for dinner; for she was marvelously successful with that dish. He did

not tell her; and it was as well, no doubt. But he did get up to arrange

all sorts of things in the room he meant to give Christophe; he took

a thousand precautions so that Salome should not hear him, for he was

afraid of being scolded. All night long he was afraid of missing the train

although Christophe could not arrive before eight o’clock. He was up very

early. He first looked at the sky; Kunz had not made a mistake; it was

glorious weather. On tiptoe Schulz went down to the cellar; he had not been

there for a long time, fearing the cold and the steep stairs; he selected

his best wines, knocked his head hard against the ceiling as he came up

again, and thought he was going to choke when he reached the top of the

stairs with his full basket. Then he went to the garden with his shears;

ruthlessly he cut his finest roses and the first branches of lilac in

flower. Then he went up to his room again, shaved feverishly, and cut

himself more than once. He dressed carefully and set out for the station.

It was seven o’clock. Salome had not succeeded in making him take so much

as a drop of milk, for he declared that Christophe would not have had

breakfast when he arrived and that they would have breakfast together when

they came from the station.

 

He was at the station three-quarters of an hour too soon. He waited and

waited for Christophe and finally missed him. Instead of waiting patiently

at the gate he went on to the platform and lost his head in the crowd of

people coming and going. In spite of the exact information of the telegram

he had imagined, God knows why, that Christophe would arrive by a different

train from that which brought him; and besides it had never occurred to

him that Christophe would get out of a fourth-class carriage. He stayed

on for more than half an hour waiting at the station, when Christophe,

who had long since arrived, had gone straight to his house. As a crowning

misfortune Salome had just gone out to do her shopping; Christophe found

the door shut. The woman next door whom Salome had told to say, in case

any one should ring, that she would soon be back, gave the message without

any addition to it. Christophe, who had not come to see Salome and did

not even know who she was, thought it a very bad joke; he asked if _Herr

Universitäts Musikdirektor_ Schulz was not at home. He was told “Yes,” but

the woman could not tell him where he was. Christophe was furious and went

away.

 

When old Schulz came back with a face an ell long and learned from Salome,

who had just come in too, what had happened he was in despair; he almost

wept. He stormed at his servant for her stupidity in going out while he was

away and not having even given instructions that Christophe was to be kept

waiting. Salome replied in the same way that she could not imagine that he

would be so foolish as to miss a man whom he had gone to meet. But the old

man did not stay to argue with her; without losing a moment he hobbled out

of doors again and went off to look for Christophe armed with the very

vague clues given him by his neighbors.

 

Christophe had been offended at finding nobody and not even a word of

excuse. Not knowing what to do until the next train he went and walked

about the town and the fields, which, he thought very pretty. It was

a quiet reposeful little town sheltered between gently sloping hills;

there were gardens round the houses, cherry-trees and flowers, green

lawns, beautiful shady trees, pseudo-antique ruins, white busts of bygone

princesses on marble columns in the midst of the trees, with gentle

and pleasing faces. All about the town were meadows, and hills. In the

flowering trees blackbirds whistled joyously, for many little orchestras

of flutes gay and solemn. It was not long before Christophe’s ill-humor

vanished; he forgot Peter Schulz.

 

The old man rushed vainly through the streets questioning people; he went

up to the old castle on the hill above the town, and was coming back in

despair when, with his keen, far-sighted eyes, he saw some distance away a

man lying in a meadow in the shade of a thorn. He did not know Christophe;

he had no means of being sure that it was he. Besides, the man’s back

was turned towards him and his face was half hidden in the grass. Schulz

prowled along the road and about the meadow with his heart beating:

 

“It is he … No, it is not he…”

 

He dared not call to him. An idea struck him; he began to sing the last

bars of Christophe’s Lied:

 

“Auf! Auf!…” (Up! Up!…)

 

Christophe rose to it like a fish out of the water and shouted the

following bars at the top of his voice. He turned gladly. His face was red

and there was grass in his hair. They called to each other by name and ran

together. Schulz strode across the ditch by the road; Christophe leaped the

fence. They shook hands warmly and went back to the house laughing and

talking loudly. The old man told how he had missed him. Christophe, who a

moment before had decided to go away without making any further attempt to

see Schulz, was at once conscious of his kindness and simplicity and began

to love him. Before they arrived they had already confided many things to

each other.

 

When they reached the house they found Kunz, who, having learned that

Schulz had gone to look for Christophe, was waiting quietly. They were

given café au lait. But Christophe said that he had breakfasted at an

inn. The old man was upset; it was a real grief to him that Christophe’s

first meal in the place should not have been in his house; such small

things were of vast importance to his fond heart. Christophe, who

understood him, was amused by it secretly, and loved him the more for it.

And to console him he assured him that he had appetite enough for two

breakfasts; and he proved his assertion.

 

All his troubles had gone from his mind; he felt that he was among true

friends and he began to recover. He told them about his journey and his

rebuffs in a humorous way; he looked like a schoolboy on holiday. Schulz

beamed and devoured him with his eyes and laughed heartily.

 

It was not long before conversation turned upon the secret bond that

united the three of them: Christophe’s music. Schulz was longing to hear

Christophe play