Jean-Christophe, vol 1 by Romain Rolland (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕
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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“When?”
“To-night.”
“Really! You will do that?”
“I will go.”
She took her shawl and put it round her head.
“Write a letter. I will take it to her. Come with me. I will give you some
ink.”
She took him into the inner room. At the door she turned, and addressing
her lover:
“And do you get ready,” she said. “You must take him. You must not leave
him until you have seen him over the frontier.”
He was as eager as anybody to see Christophe over into France and farther
if possible.
Lorchen went into the next room with Christophe. He was still hesitating.
He was torn by grief at the thought that he would not be able to embrace
his mother. When would he see her again? She was so old, so worn out, so
lonely! This fresh blow would be too much for her. What would become of her
without him?… But what would become of him if he stayed and were
condemned and put in prison for years? Would not that even more certainly
mean destitution and misery for her? If he were free, though far away, he
could always help her, or she could come to him.—He had not time to see
clearly in his mind. Lorchen took his hands—she stood near him and looked
at him; their faces were almost touching; she threw her arms round his neck
and kissed his mouth:
“Quick! Quick!” she whispered, pointing to the table, He gave up trying to
think. He sat down. She tore a sheet of squared paper with red lines from
an account book.
He wrote:
“My DEAR MOTHER: Forgive me. I am going to hurt you much. I cannot do
otherwise. I have done nothing wrong. But now I must fly and leave the
country. The girl who brings you this letter will tell you everything. I
wanted to say good-bye to you. They will not let me. They say that I should
be arrested. I am so unhappy that I have no will left. I am going over the
frontier but I shall stay near it until you have written to me; the girl
who brings you my letter will bring me your reply. Tell me what to do. I
will do whatever you say. Do you want me to come back? Tell me to come
back! I cannot bear the idea of leaving you alone. What will you do to
live? Forgive me! Forgive me! I love you and I kiss you….”
“Be quick, sir, or we shall be too late,” said Lorchen’s swain, pushing the
door open.
Christophe wrote his name hurriedly and gave the letter to Lorchen.
“You will give it to her yourself?”
“I am going,” she said.
She was already ready to go.
“To-morrow,” she went on, “I will bring you her reply; you must wait for me
at Leiden,—(the first station beyond the German frontier)—on the
platform.”
(She had read Christophe’s letter over his shoulder as he wrote.)
“You will tell me everything and how she bore the blow and everything she
says to you? You will not keep anything from me?” said Christophe
beseechingly.
“I will tell you everything.”
They were not so free to talk now, for the young man was at the door
watching them:
“And then, Herr Christophe,” said Lorchen, “I will go and see her sometimes
and I will send you news of her; do not be anxious.”
She shook hands with him vigorously like a man.
“Let us go!” said the peasant.
“Let us go!” said Christophe.
All three went out. On the road they parted. Lorchen went one way and
Christophe, with his guide, the other. They did not speak. The crescent
moon veiled in mists was disappearing behind the woods. A pale light
hovered over the fields. In the hollows the mists had risen thick and milky
white. The shivering trees were bathed in the moisture of the air.—They
were not more than a few minutes gone from the village when the peasant
flung back sharply and signed to Christophe to stop. They listened. On the
road in front of them they heard the regular tramp of a troop of soldiers
coming towards them. The peasant climbed the hedge into the fields.
Christophe followed him. They walked away across the plowed fields. They
heard the soldiers go by on the road. In the darkness the peasant shook his
fist at them. Christophe’s heart stopped like a hunted animal that hears
the baying of the hounds. They returned to the road again, avoiding the
villages and isolated farms where the barking of the dogs betrayed them to
the countryside. On the slope of a wooded hill they saw in the distance the
red lights of the railway. They took the direction of the signals and
decided to go to the first station. It was not easy. As they came down into
the valley they plunged into the fog. They had to jump a few streams. Soon
they found themselves in immense fields of beetroot and plowed land; they
thought they would never be through. The plain was uneven; there were
little rises and hollows into which they were always in danger of falling.
At last after walking blindly through the fog they saw suddenly a few yards
away the signal light of the railway at the top of an embankment. They
climbed the bank. At the risk of being run over they followed the rails
until they were within a hundred yards of the station; then they took to
the road again. They reached the station twenty minutes before the train
went. In spite of Lorchen’s orders the peasant left Christophe; he was in a
hurry to go back to see what had happened to the others and to his own
property.
Christophe took a ticket for Leiden and waited alone in the empty
third-class waiting room. An official who was asleep on a seat came and
looked at Christophe’s ticket and opened the door for him when the train
came in. There was nobody in the carriage. Everybody in the train was
asleep. In the fields all was asleep. Only Christophe did not sleep in
spite of his weariness. As the heavy iron wheels approached the frontier he
felt a fearful longing to be out of reach. In an hour he would be free. But
till then a word would be enough to have him arrested…. Arrested! His
whole being revolted at the word. To be stifled by odious force!… He
could not breathe. His mother, his country, that he was leaving, were no
longer in his thoughts. In the egoism of his threatened liberty he thought
only of that liberty of his life which he wished to save. Whatever it might
cost! Even at the cost of crime. He was bitterly sorry that he had taken
the train instead of continuing the journey to the frontier on foot. He had
wanted to gain a few hours. A fine gain! He was throwing himself into the
jaws of the wolf. Surely they were waiting for him at the frontier station;
orders must have been given; he would be arrested…. He thought for a
moment of leaving the train while it was moving, before it reached the
station; he even opened the door of the carriage, but it was too late; the
train was at the station. It stopped. Fire minutes. An eternity. Christophe
withdrew to the end of the compartment and hid behind the curtain and
anxiously watched the platform on which a gendarme was standing motionless.
The station master came out of his office with a telegram in his hand and
went hurriedly up to the gendarme. Christophe had no doubt that it was
about himself. He looked for a weapon. He had only a strong knife with two
blades. He opened it in his pocket. An official with a lamp on his chest
had passed the station master and was running along the train. Christophe
saw him coming. His fist closed on the handle of the knife in his pocket
and he thought:
“I am lost.”
He was in such a state of excitement that he would have been capable of
plunging the knife into the man’s breast if he had been unfortunate enough
to come straight to him and open his compartment. But the official stopped
at the next carriage to look at the ticket of a passenger who had just
taken his seat. The train moved on again. Christophe repressed the
throbbing of his heart. He did not stir. He dared hardly say to himself
that he was saved. He would not say it until he had crossed the
frontier…. Day was beginning to dawn. The silhouettes of the trees were
starting out of the night. A carriage was passing on the road like a
fantastic shadow with a jingle of bells and a winking eye…. With his face
close pressed to the window Christophe tried to see the post with the
imperial arms which marked the bounds of his servitude. He was still
looking for it in the growing light when the train whistled to announce its
arrival at the first Belgian station.
He got up, opened the door wide, and drank in the icy air. Free! His whole
life before him! The joy of life!… And at once there came upon him
suddenly all the sadness of what he was leaving, all the sadness of what he
was going to meet; and he was overwhelmed by the fatigue of that night of
emotion. He sank down on the seat. He had hardly been in the station a
minute. When a minute later an official opened the door of the carriage he
found Christophe asleep. Christophe awoke, dazed, thinking he had been
asleep an hour; he got out heavily and dragged himself to the customs, and
when he was definitely accepted on foreign territory, having no more to
defend himself, he lay down along a seat in the waiting room and dropped
off and slept like a log.
*
He awoke about noon. Lorchen could hardly come before two or three o’clock.
While he was waiting for the trains he walked up and down the platform of
the little station. Then he went straight on into the middle of the fields;
It was a gray and joyless day giving warning of the approach of winter. The
light was dim. The plaintive whistle of a train stopping was all that broke
the melancholy silence. Christophe stopped a few yards away from the
frontier in the deserted country. Before him was a little pond, a clear
pool of water, in which the gloomy sky was reflected. It was inclosed by a
fence and two trees grew by its side. On the right, a poplar with leafless
trembling top. Behind, a great walnut tree with black naked branches like a
monstrous polypus. The black fruit of it swung heavily on it. The last
withered leaves were decaying and falling one by one upon the still
pond….
It seemed to him that he had already seen them, the two trees, the pond
…—and suddenly he had one of those moments of giddiness which open great
distances in the plain of life. A chasm in Time. He knew not where he was,
who he was, in what age he lived, through how many ages he had been so.
Christophe had a feeling that it had already been, that what was, now, was
not, now, but in some other time. He was no longer himself. He was able to
see himself from outside, from a great distance,
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