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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leaves, lit up her tired face, with its rather blotchy complexion, her
white, soft, and rather thick hair, and her lips, parted in a smile. She
was enjoying her hour of rest. It was the best moment of the week to her.
She made use of it to sink into that state so sweet to those who suffer,
when thoughts dwell on nothing, and in torpor nothing speaks save the heart
and that is half asleep.
โMother,โ he said, โI want to go out. I am going by Buir. I shall be rather
late.โ
Louisa, who was dozing off, trembled a little. Then she turned her head
towards him and looked at him with her calm, kind eyes.
โYes, my dear, go,โ she said. โYou are right; make use of the fine
weather.โ
She smiled at him. He smiled at her. They looked at each other for a
moment, then they said goodnight affectionately, nodding and smiling with
the eyes.
He closed the door softly. She slipped back into her reverie, which her
sonโs smile had lit up with a bright ray of light like the sunbeam on the
pale leaves of the convolvulus.
So he left herโforever.
*
An October evening. A pale watery sun. The drowsy country is sinking to
sleep. Little village bells are slowly ringing in the silence of the
fields. Columns of smoke rise slowly in the midst of the plowed fields. A
fine mist hovers in the distance. The white fogs are awaiting the coming of
the night to riseโฆ. A dog with his nose to the ground was running in
circles in a field of beet. Great flocks of crows whirled against the gray
sky.
Christophe went on dreaming, having no fixed object, but yet instinctively
he was walking in a definite direction. For several weeks his walks round
the town had gravitated whether he liked it or not towards another village
where he was sure to meet a pretty girl who attracted him. It was only an
attraction, but it was very vivid and rather disturbing. Christophe could
hardly do without loving some one; and his heart was rarely left empty;
it always had some lovely image for its idol. Generally it did not matter
whether the idol knew of his love; his need was to love, the fire must
never be allowed to go out; there must never be darkness in his heart.
The object of this new flame was the daughter of a peasant whom he had met,
as Eliรฉzer met Rebecca, by a well; but she did not give him to drink; she
threw water in his face. She was kneeling by the edge of a stream in a
hollow in the bank between two willows, the roots of which made a sort of
nest about her; she was washing linen vigorously; and her tongue was not
less active than her arms; she was talking and laughing loudly with other
girls of the village who were washing opposite her or the other side of the
stream. Christophe was lying in the grass a few yards away, and, with his
chin resting in his hands, he watched them. They were not put out by it;
they went on chattering in a style which sometimes did not lack bluntness.
He hardly listened; he heard only the sound of their merry voices, mingling
with the noise of their washing pots, and with the distant lowing of the
cows in the meadows, and he was dreaming, never taking his eyes off the
beautiful washerwoman. A bright young face would make him glad for a whole
day. It was not long before the girls made out which of them he was looking
at; and they made caustic remarks to each other; the girl he preferred was
not the least cutting in the observations she threw at him. As he did not
budge, she got up, took a bundle of linen washed and wrung, and began to
lay it out on the bushes near him so as to have an excuse for looking at
him. As she passed him she continued to splash him with her wet clothes
and she looked at him boldly and laughed. She was thin and strong: she had
a fine chin, a little underhung, a short nose, arching eyebrows, deep-set
blue eyes, bold, bright and hard, a pretty mouth with thick lips, pouting a
little like those of a Greek maid, a mass of fair hair turned up in a knot
on her head, and a full color. She carried her head very erect, tittered at
every word she said and even when she said nothing, and walked like a man,
swinging her sunburned arms. She went on laying out hey linen while she
looked at Christophe with a provoking smileโwaiting for him to speak.
Christophe stared at her too; but he had no desire to talk to her. At last
she burst out laughing to his face and turned back towards her companions.
He stayed lying where he was until evening fell and he saw her go with her
bundle on her back and her bare arms crossed, her back bent under her load,
still talking and laughing.
He saw her again a few days later at the town market among heaps of carrots
and tomatoes and cucumbers and cabbages. He lounged about watching the
crowd of women, selling, who were standing in a line by their baskets
like slaves for sale. The police official went up to each of them with
his satchel and roll of tickets, receiving a piece of money and giving a
paper. The coffee seller went from row to row with a basket full of little
coffee pots. And an old nun, plump and jovial, went round the market with
two large baskets on her arms and without any sort of humility begged
vegetables, or talked of the good God. The women shouted: the old scales
with their green painted pans jingled and clanked with the noise of their
chains; the big dogs harnessed to the little carts barked loudly, proud of
their importance. In the midst of the rabble Christophe saw Rebecca.โHer
real name was Lorchen (Eleanor).โOn her fair hair she had placed a large
cabbage leaf, green and white, which made a dainty lace cap for her. She
was sitting on a basket by a heap of golden onions, little pink turnips,
haricot beans, and ruddy apples, and she was munching her own apples one
after another without trying to sell them. She never stopped eating. From
time to time she would dry her chin and wipe it with her apron, brush back
her hair with her arm, rub her cheek against her shoulder, or her nose with
the back of her hand. Or, with her hands on her knees, she would go on and
on throwing a handful of shelled peas from one to the other. And she would
look to right and left idly and indifferently. But she missed nothing of
what was going on about her. And without seeming to do so she marked every
glance cast in her direction. She saw Christophe. As she talked to her
customers she had a way of raising her eyebrows and looking at her admirer
over their heads. She was as dignified and serious as a Pope; but inwardly
she was laughing at Christophe. And he deserved it; he stood there a few
yards away devouring her with his eyes, then he went away without speaking
to her. He had not the least desire to do so.
He came back more than once to prowl round the market and the village where
she lived. She would be about the yard of the farm; he would stop on the
road to look at her. He did not admit that he came to see her, and indeed
he did so almost unconsciously. When, as often happened, he was absorbed by
the composition of some work he would be rather like a somnambulist: while
his conscious soul was following its musical ideas the rest of him would be
delivered up to the other unconscious soul which is forever watching for
the smallest distraction of the mind to take the freedom of the fields. He
was often bewildered by the buzzing of his musical ideas when he was face
to face with her; and he would go on dreaming as he watched her. He could
not have said that he loved her; he did not even think of that; it gave him
pleasure to see her, nothing more. He did not take stock of the desire
which was always bringing him back to her.
His insistence was remarked. The people at the farm joked about it, for
they had discovered who Christophe was. But they left him in peace; for he
was quite harmless. He looked silly enough in truth; but he never bothered
about it.
*
There was a holiday in the village. Little boys were crushing crackers
between stones and shouting โGod save the Emperor!โ (โ_Kaiser lebe!
Hoch!_โ). A cow shut up in the barn and the men drinking at the inn were
to be heard. Kites with long tails like comets dipped and swung in the air
above the fields. The fowls were scratching frantically in the straw and
the golden dung-heap; the wind blew out their feathers like the skirts of
an old lady. A pink pig was sleeping voluptuously on his side in the sun.
Christophe made his way towards the red roof of the inn of the _Three
Kings_ above which floated a little flag. Strings of onions hung by the
door, and the windows were decorated with red and yellow flowers. He went
into the saloon, filled with tobacco smoke, where yellowing chromos hung on
the walls and in the place of honor a colored portrait of the Emperor-King
surrounded with a wreath of oak leaves. People were dancing. Christophe was
sure his charmer would be there. He sat in a corner of the room from which
he could watch the movement of the dancers undisturbed. But in spite of all
this care to pass unnoticed Lorchen spied him out in his corner. While she
waltzed indefatigably she threw quick glances at him over her partnerโs
shoulder to make sure that he was still looking at her; and it amused her
to excite him; she coquetted with the young men of the village, laughing
the while with her wide mouth. She talked a great deal and said silly
things and was not very different from the girls of the polite world who
think they must laugh and move about and play to the gallery when anybody
looks at them, instead of keeping their foolishness to themselves. But they
are not so very foolish either; for they know quite well that the gallery
only looks at them and does not listen to what they say.โWith his elbows
on the table and his chin in his hands Christophe watched the girlโs tricks
with burning, furious eyes; his mind was free enough not to be taken in by
her wiles, but he was not enough himself not to be led on by them; and he
growled with rage and he laughed in silence and shrugged his shoulders in
falling into the snare.
Not only the girl was watching him; Lorchenโs father also had his eyes
on him. Thick-set and short, bald-headedโa big head with a short
noseโsunburned skull with a fringe of hair that had been fair and hung in
thick curls like Dรผrerโs St. John, clean-shaven, expressionless face, with
a long pipe in the corner of his mouth, he was talking very deliberately
to some other peasants while all the time he was watching Christopheโs
pantomime out of the corner of
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