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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place he would be lost. He loathed the brutal militarism which he felt
weighing down upon him, the sabers clanking on the pavement, the piles of
arms, and the guns placed outside the barracks, their muzzles gaping down
on the town, ready to fire. Scandalous novels, which were then making a
great stir, denounced the corruption of the garrisons, great and small:
the officers were represented as mischievous creatures, who, outside
their automatic duties, were only idle and spent their time in drinking,
gambling, getting into debt, living on their families, slandering one
another, and from top to bottom of the hierarchy they abused their
authority at the expense of their inferiors. The idea that he would one
day have to obey them stuck in Christophe’s throat. He could not, no, he
could never bear it, and lose his own self-respect by submitting to their
humiliations and injustice…. He had no idea of the moral strength in some
of them, or of all that they might be suffering themselves: lost illusions,
so much strength and youth and honor and faith, and passionate desire for
sacrifice, turned to ill account and spoiled,—the pointlessness of a
career, which, if it is only a career, if it has not sacrifice as its end,
is only a grim activity, an inept display, a ritual which is recited
without belief in the words that are said….
His country was not enough for Christophe. He felt in himself that unknown
force which wakes suddenly, irresistibly, in certain species of birds, at
definite times, like the ebb and flow of the tides:—the instinct of the
great migrations. As he read the volumes of Herder and Fichte which old
Schulz had left him, he found souls like his own, not “sons of the soil”
slavishly bound to the globe, but “spirits, sons of the sun” turning
invincibly to the light wheresoever it comes.
Whither should he go? He did not know. But instinctively his eyes turned to
the Latin South. And first to France—France, the eternal refuge of Germany
in distress. How often had German thought turned to France, without ceasing
to slander her! Even since seventy, what an attraction emanated from the
town which had been shattered and smoking under the German guns! The most
revolutionary and the most reactionary forms of thought and art had found
alternately and sometimes at once example and inspiration there. Like so
many other great German musicians in distress, Christophe turned towards
Paris…. What did he know of the French? Two women’s faces and some chance
reading. That was enough for him to imagine a country of light, of gaiety,
of courage, and even of a little Gallic boasting, which does not sort ill
with the bold youth of the heart. He believed it all, because he needed to
believe it all, because, with all his soul, he would have liked it to be
so.
*
He made up his mind to go. But he could not go because of his mother.
Louisa was growing old. She adored her son, who was her only joy, and she
was all that he most loved on earth. And yet they were always hurting each
other. She hardly understood Christophe, and did not try to understand him.
She was only concerned to love him. She had a narrow, timid, dull mind, and
a fine heart; an immense need of loving and being loved in which there was
something touching and sad. She respected her son because he seemed to her
to be very learned; but she did all she could to stifle his genius. She
thought he would stay all his life with her in their little town. They
had lived together for years, and she could not imagine that he would not
always be the same. She was happy: why should he not be happy, too? All her
dreams for him soared no higher than seeing him married to some prosperous
citizen of the town, hearing him play the organ at church on Sundays, and
never having him leave her. She regarded her son as though he were still
twelve years old. She would have liked him never to be more than that.
Innocently she inflicted torture on the unhappy man who was suffocated in
that narrow world.
And yet there was much truth—moral greatness—in that unconscious
philosophy of the mother, who could not understand ambition and saw all the
happiness of life in the family affections and the accomplishment of humble
duties. She was a creature who wished to love and only to love. Sooner
renounce life, reason, logic, the material world, everything, rather
than love! And that love was infinite, suppliant, exacting: it gave
everything—it wished to be given everything; it renounced life for love,
and it desired that renunciation from others, from the beloved. What a
power is the love of a simple soul! It makes it find at once what the
groping reasoning of an uncertain genius like Tolstoy, or the too refined
art of a dying civilization, discovers after a lifetime—ages—of bitter
struggle and exhausting effort! But the imperious world which was seething
in Christophe had very different laws and demanded another wisdom.
For a long time he had been wanting to announce his determination to his
mother. But he was fearful of the grief it would bring to her, and just
as he was about to speak he would lose his courage and put it off. Two or
three times he did timidly allude to his departure, but Louisa did not take
him seriously:—perhaps she preferred not to take him seriously, so as to
persuade him that he was talking in jest. Then he dared not go on; but he
would remain gloomy and thoughtful, or it was apparent that he had some
secret burden upon his soul. And the poor woman, who had an intuition as to
the nature of that secret, tried fearfully to delay the confession of it.
Sometimes in the evening, when they were sitting, silent, in the light of
the lamp, she would suddenly feel that he was going to speak, and then in
terror she would begin to talk, very quickly, at random, about nothing in
particular. She hardly knew what she was saying, but at all costs she must
keep him from speaking. Generally her instinct made her find the best means
of imposing silence on him: she would complain about her health, about
the swelling of her hands and feet, and the cramps in her legs. She would
exaggerate her sickness: call herself an old, useless, bed-ridden woman. He
was not deceived by her simple tricks. He would look at her sadly in dumb
reproach, and after a moment he would get up, saying that he was tired, and
go to bed.
But all her devices could not save Louisa for long. One evening, when she
resorted to them once more, Christophe gathered his courage and put his
hand on his mother’s and said:
“No, mother. I have something to say to you.” Louisa was horrified, but she
tried to smile and say chokingly:
“What is it, my dear?”
Christophe stammered out his intention of going. She tried to take it as a
joke and to turn the conversation as usual, but he was not to be put off,
and went on so deliberately and so seriously that there was no possibility
of doubt. Then she said nothing. Her pulse stopped, and she sat there dumb,
frozen, looking at him with terror in her eyes. Such sorrow showed in her
eyes as he spoke that he too stopped, and they sat, both speechless. When
at last she was able to recover her breath, she said—(her lips
trembled)—:
“It is impossible…. It is impossible….”
Two large tears trickled down her cheeks. He turned his head away in
despair and hid his face in his hands. They wept. After some time he went
to his room and shut himself up until the morrow. They made no reference to
what had happened, and as he did not speak of it again she tried to pretend
that he had abandoned the project. But she lived on tenterhooks.
There came a time when he could hold himself in no longer. He had to speak
even if it broke his heart: he was suffering too much. The egoism of his
sorrow mastered the idea of the suffering he would bring to her. He spoke.
He went through with it, never looking at his mother, for fear of being too
greatly moved. He fixed the day for his departure so as to avoid a second
discussion—(he did not know if he could again win the sad courage that was
in him that day). Louisa cried:
“No, no! Stop, stop!…”
He set his teeth and went on implacably. When he had finished (she was
sobbing) he took her hands and tried to make her understand how it was
absolutely necessary for his art and his life for him to go away for some
time. She refused to listen. She wept and said:
“No, no!… I will not….”
After trying to reason with her, in vain, he left her, thinking that the
night would bring about a change in her ideas. But when they met next day
at breakfast he began once more to talk of his plans. She dropped the piece
of bread she was raising to her lips and said sorrowfully and
reproachfully:
“Why do you want to torture me?”
He was touched, but he said:
“Dear mother, I must.”
“No, no!” she replied. “You must not…. You want to hurt me…. It is a
madness….”
They tried to convince each other, but they did not listen to each other.
He saw that argument was wasted; it would only make her suffer more, and he
began ostentatiously to prepare for his departure.
When she saw that no entreaty would stop him, Louisa relapsed into a gloomy
stupor. She spent her days locked up in her room and without a light, when
evening came. She did not speak or eat. At night he could hear her weeping.
He was racked by it. He could have cried out in his grief, as he lay all
night twisting and turning in his bed, sleeplessly, a prey to his remorse.
He loved her so. Why must he make her suffer?… Alas! She would not be the
only one: he saw that clearly…. Why had destiny given him the desire and
strength of a mission which must make those whom he loved suffer?
“Ah!” he thought. “If I were free, if I were not drawn on by the cruel need
of being what I must be, or else of dying in shame and disgust with myself,
how happy would I make you—you whom I love! Let me live first; do, fight,
suffer, and then I will come hack to you and love you more than ever. How I
would like only to love, love, love!…”
He never could have been strong enough to resist the perpetual reproach
of the grief-stricken soul had that reproach been strong enough to remain
silent. But Louisa, who was weak and rather talkative, could not keep the
sorrow that was stifling her to herself. She told her neighbors. She told
her two other sons. They could not miss such a fine opportunity of putting
Christophe in the wrong. Rodolphe especially, who had never ceased to be
jealous of his elder brother, although there was little enough reason for
it at the time—Rodolphe, who was cut to the quick by the least praise
of Christophe, and was secretly afraid of his future success, though he
never dared admit so base a thought—(for he was clever enough
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