Jean-Christophe, vol 1 by Romain Rolland (fb2 epub reader .txt) ๐
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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to talk to Gottfried of sad things; but he seemed not to hear, or he would
not reply in the same tone; he would go on talking gravely or merrily of
things which soothed and interested her. At last he persuaded her to go
out of the house, which she had never left since her accident. He made her
go a few yards round the garden at first, and then for a longer distance
in the fields. And at last she learned to find her way everywhere and to
make out everything as though she could see. She even notices things to
which we never pay any attention, and she is interested in everything,
whereas before she was never interested in much outside herself. That
time Gottfried stayed with us longer than usual. We dared not ask him to
postpone his departure, but he stayed of his own accord until he saw that
she was calmer. And one dayโshe was out there in the yard,โI heard her
laughing. I cannot tell you what an effect that had on me. Gottfried looked
happy too. He was sitting near me. We looked at each other, and I am not
ashamed to tell you, sir, that I kissed him with all my heart. Then he said
to me:
โโNow I think I can go. I am not needed any more.โ
โI tried to keep him. But he said:
โโNo. I must go now. I cannot stay any longer.โ
โEverybody knew that he was like the Wandering Jew: he could not stay
anywhere; we did not insist. Then he went, but he arranged to come here
more often, and every time it was a great joy for Modesta; she was always
better after his visits. She began to work in the house again; her brother
married; she looks after the children; and now she never complains and
always looks happy. I sometimes wonder if she would be so happy if she had
her two eyes. Yes, indeed, sir, there are days, when I think that it would
be better to be like her and not to see certain ugly people and certain
evil things. The world is growing very ugly, it grows worse every dayโฆ.
And yet I should be very much afraid of God taking me at my word, and for
my part I would rather go on seeing the world, ugly as it isโฆ.โ
Modesta came back and the conversation changed. Christophe wished to go
now that the weather was fair again, but they would not let him. He had to
agree to stay to supper and to spend the night with them. Modesta sat near
Christophe and did not leave him all the evening. He would have liked to
talk intimately to the girl whose lot filled him with pity. But she gave
him no opportunity. She would only try to ask him about Gottfried. When
Christophe told her certain things she did not know, she was happy and a
little jealous. She was a little unwilling to talk of Gottfried herself;
it was apparent that she did not tell everything, and when she did tell
everything she was sorry for it at once; her memories were her property,
she did not like sharing them with another; in her affection she was as
eager as a peasant woman in her attachment to her land; it hurt her to
think that anybody could love Gottfried as much as she. It is true that
she refused to believe it; and Christophe, understanding, left her that
satisfaction. As he listened to her he saw that, although she had seen
Gottfried and had even seen him with indulgent eyes, since her blindness
she had made of him an image absolutely different from the reality, and she
had transferred to the phantom of her mind all the hunger for love that was
in her. Nothing had disturbed her illusion. With the bold certainty of the
blind, who calmly invent what they do not know, she said to Christophe:
โYou are like him.โ
He understood that for years she had grown used to living in a house with
closed shutters through which the truth could not enter. And now that
she had learned to see in the darkness that surrounded her, and even to
forget the darkness, perhaps she would have been afraid of a ray of light
filtering through the gloom. With Christophe she recalled a number of
rather silly trivialities in a smiling and disjointed conversation in which
Christophe could not be at his ease. He was irritated by her chatter; he
could not understand how a creature who had suffered so much had not become
more serious in her suffering, and he could not find tolerance for such
futility; every now and then he tried to talk of graver things, but they
found no echo; Modesta could notโor would notโfollow him.
They went to bed. It was long before Christophe could sleep. He was
thinking of Gottfried and trying to disengage him from the image of
Modestaโs childish memories. He found it difficult and was irritated. His
heart ached at the thought that Gottfried had died there and that his body
had no doubt lain in that very bed. He tried to live through the agony
of his last moments, when he could neither speak nor make the blind girl
understand, and had closed his eyes in death. He longed to have been able
to raise his eyelids and to read the thoughts hidden under them, the
mystery of that soul, which had gone without making itself known, perhaps
even without knowing itself! It never tried to know itself, and all its
wisdom lay in not desiring wisdom, or in not trying to impose its will on
circumstance, but in abandoning itself to the force of circumstance, in
accepting it and loving it. So he assimilated the mysterious essence of
the world without even thinking of it. And if he had done so much good to
the blind girl, to Christophe, and doubtless to many others who would be
forever unknown, it was because, instead of bringing the customary words of
the revolt of man against nature, he brought something of the indifferent
peace of Nature, and reconciled the submissive soul with her. He did good
like the fields, the woods, all Nature with which he was impregnated.
Christophe remembered the evenings he had spent with Gottfried in the
country, his walks as a child, the stories and songs in the night. He
remembered also the last walk he had taken with his uncle, on the hill
above the town, on a cold winterโs morning, and the tears came to his eyes
once more. He did not try to sleep, so as to remain with his memories. He
did not wish to lose one moment of that night in the little place, filled
with the soul of Gottfried, to which he had been led as though impelled by
some unknown force. But while he lay listening to the irregular trickling
of the fountain and the shrill cries of the bats, the healthy fatigue of
youth mastered his will, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke the sun was shining: everybody on the farm was already at
work. In the hall he found only the old woman and the children. The young
couple were in the fields, sand Modesta had gone to milk. They looked for
her in vain. She was nowhere to be found. Christophe said he would not wait
for her return. He did not much want to see her, and he said that he was in
a hurry. He set out after telling the old woman to bid the others good-bye
for him.
As he was leaving the village at a turn of the road he the blind girl
sitting on a bank under a hawthorn hedge. She got up as she heard him
coming, approached him smiling, took his hand, and said:
โCome.โ
They climbed up through meadows to a little shady flowering field filled
with tombstones, which looked down on the village. She led him to a grave
and said:
โHe is there.โ
They both knelt down. Christophe remembered another grave by which he had
knelt with Gottfried, and he thought:
โSoon it will be my turn.โ
But there was no sadness in his thought. A great peace was ascending from
the earth. Christophe leaned over the grave and said, in a whisper to
Gottfried:
โEnter into me!โฆโ
Modesta was praying, with her hands clasped and her lips moving in silence.
Then she went round the grave on her knees, feeling the ground and the
grass and the flowers with her hands. She seemed to caress them, her quick
fingers seemed to see. They gently plucked the dead stalks of the ivy and
the faded violets. She laid her hand on the curb to get up. Christophe saw
her fingers pass furtively over Gottfriedโs name, lightly touching each
letter. She said:
โThe earth is sweet this morning.โ
She held out her hand to him. He gave her his. She made him touch the moist
warm earth. He did not loose her hand. Their locked fingers plunged into
the earth. He kissed Modesta. She kissed him, too.
They both rose to their feet. She held out to him a few fresh violets she
had gathered, and put the faded ones into her bosom. They dusted their
knees and left the cemetery without a word. In the fields the larks were
singing. White butterflies danced about their heads. They sat down in a
meadow a few yards away from each other. The smoke of the village was
ascending direct to the sky that was washed by the rain. The still canal
glimmered between the poplars. A gleaming blue mist wrapped the meadows and
woods in its folds.
Modesta broke the silence. She spoke in a whisper of the beauty of the day
as though she could see it. She drank in the air through her half-open
lips; she listened for the sounds of creatures and things. Christophe also
knew the worth of such music. He said what she was thinking and could not
have said. He named certain of the cries and imperceptible tremors that
they could hear in the grass, in the depths of the air. She said:
โAh! You see that, too?โ
He replied that Gottfried had taught him to distinguish them.
โYou, too?โ she said a little crossly.
He wanted to say to her:
โDo not be jealous.โ
But he saw the divine light smiling all about them: he looked at her blind
eyes and was filled with pity.
โSo,โ he asked, โit was Gottfried taught you?โ
She said โYes,โ and that they gave her more delight than ever beforeโฆ.
She did not say before โwhat.โ She never mentioned the words โeyesโ or
โblind.โ
They were silent for a moment. Christophe looked at her in pity. She felt
that he was looking at her. He would have liked to tell her how much he
pitied her. He would have liked her to complain, to confide in him. He
asked kindly:
โYou have been very unhappy?โ
She sat dumb and unyielding. She plucked the blades of grass and munched
them in silence. After a few moments,โ(the song of a lark was going
farther and farther from them in the sky),โChristophe told her how he
too had been unhappy, and how Gottfried had helped him. He told her all
his sorrows, his trials, as though he were thinking aloud or talking to
a sister. The blind girlโs face lit up as he told his story, which she
followed eagerly. Christophe watched her and saw that she was on the point
of speaking. She
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