Jean-Christophe, vol 1 by Romain Rolland (fb2 epub reader .txt) đź“•
He waited for contradiction, and spat on the fire. Then, as neither mother nor child raised any objection, he was for going on, but relapsed into silence.
* * * * *
They said no more. Both Jean Michel, sitting by the fireside, and Louisa, in her bed, dreamed sadly. The old man, in spite of what he had said, had bitter thoughts about his son's marriage, and Louisa was thinking of it also, and blaming herself, although she had nothing wherewith to reproach herself.
She had been a servant when, to everybody's surprise, and her own especially, she married Melchior Krafft, Jean Michel's son. The Kraffts were without fortune, but were considerable people in the little Rhine town in which the old man had settled down more than fifty years before. Both father and son were musicians, and known to all the musicians of the country from Cologne to Mannheim. Melchior played the violin at the Hof-Theater, and Jean Michel had formerly been director of the grand-ducal concerts. The o
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know anything! Not only was Schulz in touch with every manifestation of the
art of the day that Christophe knew, but he knew an immense amount about
musicians of the past and of other countries of whom Christophe had never
heard. His memory was a great reservoir in which all the beautiful waters
of the heavens were collected. Christophe never wearied of dipping into it,
and Schulz was glad of Christophe’s interest. He had sometime? found
willing listeners or docile pupils, but he had never yet found a young and
ardent heart with which he could share his enthusiasms, which sometimes so
swelled in him that he was like to choke.
They had become the best friends in the world when unhappily the old man
chanced to express his admiration for Brahms. Christophe was at once coldly
angry; he dropped Schulz’s arm and said harshly that anyone who loved
Brahms could not be his friend. That threw cold water on their happiness.
Schulz was too timid to argue, too honest to lie, and murmured and tried to
explain. But Christophe stopped him:
“Enough?”
It was so cutting that it was impossible to reply. There was an icy
silence. They walked on. The two old men dared not look at each other. Kunz
coughed and tried to take up the conversation again and to talk of the
woods and the weather; but Christophe sulked and would not talk and only
answered with monosyllables. Kunz, finding no response from him, tried to
break the silence by talking to Schulz; but Schulz’s throat was dry, he
could not speak. Christophe watched him out of the corner of his eyes
and he wanted to laugh; he had forgiven him already. He had never been
seriously angry with him; he even thought it brutal to make the poor old
man sad; but he abused his power and would not appear to go back on what he
had said. They remained so until they left the woods; nothing was to be
heard but the weary steps of the two downcast old men; Christophe whistled
through his teeth and pretended not to see them. Suddenly he could bear it
no longer. He burst out laughing, turned towards Schulz and gripped his
arm:
“My dear good old Schulz!” he said, looking at him affectionately. “Isn’t
it beautiful? Isn’t it beautiful?”
He was speaking of the country and the fine day, but his laughing eyes
seemed to say:
“You are good. I am a brute. Forgive me! I love you much.”
The old man’s heart melted. It was as though the sun had shone again
after an eclipse. But a short time passed before he could utter a word.
Christophe took his arm and went on talking to him more amiably than ever;
in his eagerness he went faster and faster without noticing the strain upon
his two companions. Schulz did not complain; he did not even notice his
fatigue; he was so happy. He knew that he would have to pay for that day’s
rashness; but he thought:
“So much the worse for to-morrow! When he is gone I shall have plenty of
time to rest.”
But Kunz, who was not so excited, followed fifteen yards behind and looked
a pitiful object. Christophe noticed it at last. He begged his pardon
confusedly and proposed that they should lie down in a meadow in the shade
of the poplars. Of course Schulz acquiesced without a thought for the
effect it might have on his bronchitis. Fortunately Kunz thought of it for
him; or at least he made it an excuse for not running any risk from the
moisture of the grass when he was in such a perspiration. He suggested that
they should take the train back to the town from a station close by. They
did so. In spite of their fatigue they had to hurry, so as not to be late,
and they reached the station just as the train came in.
At the sight of them a big man threw himself out of the door of a carriage
and roared the names of Schulz and Kunz, together with all their titles and
qualities, and he waved his arms like a madman. Schulz and Kunz shouted in
reply and also waved their arms; they rushed to the big man’s compartment
and he ran to meet them, jostling the people on the platform. Christophe
was amazed and ran after them asking:
“What is it?”
And the others shouted exultantly:
“It is Pottpetschmidt!”
The name did not convey much to him. He had forgotten the toasts at
dinner. Pottpetschmidt in the carriage and Schulz and Kunz on the step were
making a deafening noise, they were marveling at their encounter. They
climbed into the train as it was going. Schulz introduced Christophe.
Pottpetschmidt bowed as stiff as a poker and his features lost all
expression; then when the formalities were over he caught hold of
Christophe’s hand and shook it five or six times, as though he were trying
to pull his arm out, and then began to shout again. Christophe was able to
make out that he thanked God and his stars for the extraordinary meeting.
That did not keep him from slapping his thigh a moment later and crying out
upon the misfortune of having had to go away—he who never went away—just
when the Herr Kapellmeister was coming. Schulz’s telegram had only
reached him that morning an hour after the train went; he was asleep when
it arrived and they had not thought it worth while to wake him. He had
stormed at the hotel people all morning. He was still storming. He had sent
his patients away, cut his business appointments and taken the first train
in his haste to return, but the infernal train had missed the connection on
the main line; Pottpetschmidt had had to wait three hours at a station; he
had exhausted all the expletives in his vocabulary and fully twenty times
had narrated his misadventures to other travelers who were also waiting,
and a porter at the station. At last he had started again. He was fearful
of arriving too late … But, thank God! Thank God!…
He took Christophe’s hands again and crushed them in his vast paws with
their hairy fingers. He was fabulously stout and tall in proportion; he had
a square head, close cut red hair, a clean-shaven pockmarked face, big
eyes, large nose, thin lips, a double chin, a short neck, a monstrously
wide back, a stomach like a barrel, arms thrust out by his body, enormous
feet and hands; a gigantic mass of flesh, deformed by excess in eating and
drinking; one of those human tobacco-jars that one sees sometimes rolling
along the streets in the towns of Bavaria, which keep the secret of that
race of men that is produced by a system of gorging similar to that of the
Strasburg geese. He listened with joy and warmth like a pot of butter, and
with his two hands on his outstretched knees, or on those of his neighbors,
he never stopped talking, hurling consonants into the air like a catapult
and making them roll along. Occasionally he would have a fit of laughing
which made him shake all over; he would throw back his head, open his
mouth, snorting, gurgling, choking. His laughter would infect Schulz and
Kunz and when it was over they would look at Christophe as they dried their
eyes. They seemed to be asking him:
“Hein!… And what do you say?”
Christophe said nothing; he thought fearfully:
“And this monster sings my music?”
They went home with Schulz. Christophe hoped to avoid Pottpetschmidt’s
singing and made no advances in spite of Pottpetschmidt’s hints. He was
itching to be heard. But Schulz and Kunz were too intent oh showing their
friend off; Christophe had to submit. He sat at the piano rather
ungraciously; he thought:
“My good man, my good man, you don’t know what is in store for you; have a
care! I will spare you nothing.”
He thought that he would hurt Schulz and he was angry at that; but he
was none the less determined to hurt him rather than have this Falstaff
murdering his music. He was spared the pain of hurting his old friend: the
fat man had an admirable voice. At the first bars Christophe gave a start
of surprise. Schulz, who never took his eyes off him, trembled; he thought
that Christophe was dissatisfied; and he was only reassured when he saw his
face grow brighter and brighter as he went on playing. He was lit up by
the reflection of Christophe’s delight; and when the song was finished and
Christophe turned round and declared that he had never heard any of his
songs sung so well, Schulz found a joy in all sweeter and greater than
Christophe’s in his satisfaction, sweeter and greater than Pottpetschmidt’s
in his triumph; for they had only their own pleasure, and Schulz had that
of his two friends. They went on with the music. Christophe cried aloud; he
could not understand how so ponderous and common a creature could succeed
in reading the idea of his Lieder. No doubt there were not exactly all
the shades of meaning, but there was the impulse and the passion which he
had never quite succeeded in imparting to professional singers. He looked
at Pottpetschmidt and wondered:
“Does he really feel that?”
But he could not see in his eyes any other light than that of satisfied
vanity. Some unconscious force stirred in that solid flesh. The blind
passion was like an army fighting without knowing against whom or why. The
spirit of the Lieder took possession of it and it obeyed gladly, for it
had need of action; and, left to itself, it never would have known how.
Christophe fancied that on the day of the Creation the Great Sculptor
did not take very much trouble to put in order the scattered members of
his rough-hewn creatures, and that He had adjusted them anyhow without
bothering to find out whether they were suited to each other, and so every
one was made up of all sorts of pieces; and one man was scattered among
five or six different men; his brain was with one, his heart with another,
and the body belonging to his soul with yet another; the instrument was
on one side, the performer on the other. Certain creatures remained like
wonderful violins, forever shut up in their cases, for want of anyone with
the art to play them. And those who were fit to play them were found all
their lives to put up with wretched scraping fiddles. He had all the more
reason for thinking so as he was furious with himself for never having been
able properly to sing a page of music. He had an untuned voice and could
never hear himself without disgust.
However, intoxicated by his success, Pottpetschmidt began to “put
expression” into Christophe’s Lieder, that is to say he substituted his
own for Christophe’s. Naturally he did not think that the music gained by
the change, and he grew gloomy. Schulz saw it. His lack of the critical
faculty and his admiration for his friends would not have allowed him of
his own accord to set it down to Pottpetschmidt’s bad taste. But his
affection for Christophe made him perceptive of the young man’s finest
shades of thought; he was no longer in himself, he was in Christophe;
and he too suffered from Pottpetschmidt’s affectations. He tried hard
to stop his going down that perilous slope. It was not easy to silence
Pottpetschmidt. Schulz found it enormously difficult, when
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