Jean Christophe, Vol. I by Romain Rolland

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One summer day, when it was very hot, and he had drunk copiously, and
argued in the market-place, he went home and began to work quietly in his
garden. He loved digging. Bareheaded under the sun, still irritated by his
argument, he dug angrily. Jean-Christophe was sitting in the arbor with a
book in his hand, but he was not reading. He was dreaming and listening to
the cheeping of the crickets, and mechanically following his grandfather's
movements. The old man's back was towards him; he was bending and plucking
out weeds. Suddenly Jean-Christophe saw him rise, beat against the air with
his arms, and fall heavily with his face to the ground. For a moment he
wanted to laugh; then he saw that the old man did not stir. He called to
him, ran to him, and shook him with all his strength. Fear seized him. He
knelt, and with his two hands tried to raise the great head from the
ground. It was so heavy and he trembled so that he could hardly move it.
But when he saw the eyes turned up, white and bloody, he was frozen with
horror and, with a shrill cry, let the head fall. He got up in terror, ran
away and out of the place. He cried and wept. A man passing by stopped the
boy. Jean-Christophe could not speak, but he pointed to the house. The man
went in, and Jean-Christophe followed him. Others had heard his cries, and
they came from the neighboring houses. Soon the garden was full of people.
They trampled the flowers, and bent down over the old man. They cried
aloud. Two or three men lifted him up. Jean-Christophe stayed by the gate,
turned to the wall, and hid his face in his hands. He was afraid to look,
but he could not help himself, and when they passed him he saw through his
fingers the old man's huge body, limp and flabby. One arm dragged along the
ground, the head, leaning against the knee of one of the men carrying the
body, bobbed at every step, and the face was scarred, covered with mud,
bleeding. The mouth was open and the eyes were fearful. He howled again,
and took to flight. He ran as though something were after him, and never
stopped until he reached home. He burst into the kitchen with frightful
cries. Louisa was cleaning vegetables. He hurled himself at her, and hugged
her desperately, imploring her help. His face was distorted with his sobs;
he could hardly speak. But at the first word she understood. She went
white, let the things fall from her hands, and without a word rushed from
the house.

Jean-Christophe was left alone, crouching against a cupboard. He went on
weeping. His brothers were playing. He could not make out quite what had
happened. He did not think of his grandfather; he was thinking only of the
dreadful sights he had just seen, and he was in terror lest he should be
made to return to see them again.

And as it turned out in the evening, when the other children, tired of
doing every sort of mischief in the house, were beginning to feel wearied
and hungry, Louisa rushed in again, took them by the hand, and led them to
their grandfather's house. She walked very fast, and Ernest and Rodolphe
tried to complain, as usual; but Louisa bade them be silent in such a tone
of voice that they held their peace. An instinctive fear seized them, and
when they entered the house they began to weep. It was not yet night. The
last hours of the sunset cast strange lights over the inside of the
house--on the door-handle, on the mirror, on the violin hung on the wall in
the chief room, which was half in darkness. But in the old man's room a
candle was alight, and the flickering flame, vying with the livid, dying
day, made the heavy darkness of the room more oppressive. Melchior was
sitting near the window, loudly weeping. The doctor, leaning over the bed,
hid from sight what was lying there. Jean-Christophe's heart beat so that
it was like to break. Louisa made the children kneel at the foot of the
bed. Jean-Christophe stole a glance. He expected something so terrifying
after what he had seen in the afternoon that at the first glimpse he was
almost comforted. His grandfather lay motionless, and seemed to be asleep.
For a moment the child believed that the old man was better, and that all
was at an end. But when he heard his heavy breathing; when, as he looked
closer, he saw the swollen face, on which the wound that he had come by in
the fall had made a broad scar; when he understood that here was a man at
point of death, he began to tremble; and while he repeated Louisa's prayer
for the restoration of his grandfather, in his heart he prayed that if the
old man could not get well he might be already dead. He was terrified at
the prospect of what was going to happen.

The old man had not been conscious since the moment of his fall. He only
returned to consciousness for a moment, enough to learn his condition, and
that was lamentable. The priest was there, and recited the last prayers
over him. They raised the old man on his pillow. He opened his eyes slowly,
and they seemed no longer to obey his will. He breathed noisily, and with
unseeing eyes looked at the faces and the lights, and suddenly he opened
his mouth. A nameless terror showed on his features.

"But then ..." he gasped--"but I am going to die!"

The awful sound of his voice pierced Jean-Christophe's heart. Never, never
was it to fade from his memory. The old man said no more. He moaned like a
little child. The stupor took him once more, but his breathing became more
and more difficult. He groaned, he fidgeted with his hands, he seemed to
struggle against the mortal sleep. In his semi-consciousness he cried once:

"Mother!"

Oh, the biting impression that it made, this mumbling of the old man,
calling in anguish on his mother, as Jean-Christophe would himself have
done--his mother, of whom he was never known to talk in life, to whom he
now turned instinctively, the last futile refuge in the last terror!...
Then he seemed to be comforted for a moment. He had once more a flicker of
consciousness. His heavy eyes, the pupils of which seemed to move
aimlessly, met those of the boy frozen in his fear. They lit up. The old
man tried to smile and speak. Louisa took Jean-Christophe and led him to
the bedside. Jean Michel moved his lips, and tried to caress his head with
his hand, but then he fell back into his torpor. It was the end.

They sent the children into the next room, but they had too much to do to
worry about them, and Jean-Christophe, under the attraction of the horror
of it, peeped through the half-open door at the tragic face on the pillow;
the man strangled by the firm, clutch that had him by the neck; the face
which grew ever more hollow as he watched; the sinking of the creature into
the void, which seemed to suck it down like a pump; and the horrible
death-rattle, the mechanical breathing, like a bubble of air bursting on
the surface of waters; the last efforts of the body, which strives to live
when the soul is no longer. Then the head fell on one side on the pillow.
All, all was silence.

A few moments later, in the midst of the sobs and prayers and the confusion
caused by the death, Louisa saw the child, pale, wide-eyed, with gaping
mouth, clutching convulsively at the handle of the door. She ran to him. He
had a seizure in her arms. She carried him away. He lost consciousness. He
woke up to find himself in his bed. He howled in terror, because he had
been left alone for a moment, had another seizure, and fainted again. For
the rest of the night and the next day he was in a fever. Finally, he grew
calm, and on the next night fell into a deep sleep, which lasted until the
middle of the following day. He felt that some one was walking in his room,
that his mother was leaning over his bed and kissing him. He thought he
heard the sweet distant sound of bells. But he would not stir; he was in a
dream.

When he opened his eyes again his Uncle Gottfried was sitting at the foot
of his bed. Jean-Christophe was worn out, and could remember nothing. Then
his memory returned, and: he began to weep. Gottfried got up and kissed
him.

"Well, my boy--well?" he said gently.

"Oh, uncle, uncle!" sobbed the boy, clinging to him.

"Cry, then ..." said Gottfried. "Cry!"

He also was weeping.

When he was a little comforted Jean-Christophe dried his eyes and looked at
Gottfried. Gottfried understood that he wanted to ask something.

"No," he said, putting a finger to his lips, "you must not talk. It is good
to cry, bad to talk."

The boy insisted.

"It is no good."

"Only one thing--only one!..."

"What?"

Jean-Christophe hesitated.

"Oh, uncle!" he asked, "where is he now?"

Gottfried answered:

"He is with the Lord, my boy."

But that was not what Jean-Christophe had asked.

"No; you do not understand. Where is he--he _himself_?" (He meant the
body.)

He went on in a trembling voice:

"Is _he_ still in the house?"

"They buried the good man this morning," said Gottfried. "Did you not hear
the bells?"

Jean-Christophe was comforted. Then, when he thought that he would never
see his beloved grandfather again, he wept once more bitterly.

"Poor little beast!" said Gottfried, looking pityingly at the child.

Jean-Christophe expected Gottfried to console him, but Gottfried made no
attempt to do so, knowing that it was useless.

"Uncle Gottfried," asked the boy, "are not you afraid of it, too?"

(Much did he wish that Gottfried should not have been afraid, and would
tell him the secret of it!)

"'Ssh!" he said, in a troubled voice....

"And how is one not to be afraid?" he said, after a moment. "But what can
one do? It is so. One must put up with it."

Jean-Christophe shook his head in protest.

"One has to put up with it, my boy," said Gottfried. "_He_ ordered it up
yonder. One has to love what _He_ has ordered."

"I hate Him!" said Jean-Christophe, angrily shaking his fist at the sky.

Gottfried fearfully bade him be silent. Jean-Christophe himself was afraid
of what he had just said, and he began to pray with Gottfried. But blood
boiled, and as he repeated the words of servile humility and resignation
there was in his inmost heart a feeling of passionate revolt and horror of
the abominable thing and the monstrous Being who had been able to create
it.

Days passed and nights of rain over the freshly-turned earth under which
lay the remains of poor old Jean Michel. At the moment Melchior wept and
cried and sobbed much, but the week was not out before Jean-Christophe
heard him laughing heartily. When the name of the dead man was pronounced
in his presence, his face grew longer and a lugubrious expression came into
it, but in a moment he would begin to talk and gesticulate excitedly. He
was sincerely afflicted, but it was impossible for him to remain sad for
long.

Louisa, passive and resigned, accepted the misfortune as she accepted
everything. She added a prayer to her daily prayers; she went regularly to
the cemetery, and cared for the grass as if it were part of her household.

Gottfried paid touching attention to the little patch of ground where the
old man slept. When he came to the neighborhood, he brought a little
souvenir--a cross that he had made, or flowers that Jean Michel had loved.
He never missed, even if he were only in the town for a few hours, and he
did it by stealth.

Sometimes Louisa took Jean-Christophe with her on her visits to the
cemetery. Jean-Christophe revolted in disgust against the fat patch of
earth clad in its sinister adornment of flowers and trees, and against the
heavy scent which mounts to the sun, mingling with the breath of the
sonorous cypress. But he dared not confess his disgust, because he
condemned it in himself as cowardly and impious. He was very unhappy. His
grandfather's death haunted him incessantly, and yet he had long known what
death was, and had thought about it and been afraid of it. But he had never
before seen it, and he who sees it for the first time learns that he knew
nothing, neither of death nor of life. One moment brings everything
tottering. Reason is of no avail. You thought you were alive, you thought
you had some experience of life; you see then that you knew nothing, that
you have been living in a veil of illusions spun by your own mind to hide
from your eyes the awful countenance of reality. There is no connection
between the idea of suffering and the creature who bleeds and suffers.
There is no connection between the idea of death and the convulsions of
body and soul in combat and in death. Human language, human wisdom, are
only a puppet-show of stiff mechanical dolls by the side of the grim charm
of reality and the creatures of mind and blood, whose desperate and vain
efforts are strained to the fixing of a life which crumbles away with every
day.

Jean-Christophe thought of death day and night. Memories of the last agony
pursued him. He heard that horrible breathing; every night, whatever he
might be doing, he saw his grandfather again. All Nature was changed; it
seemed as though there were an icy vapor drawn over her. Round him,
everywhere, whichever way he turned, he felt upon his face the fatal
breathing of the blind, all-powerful Beast; he felt himself in the grip of
that fearful destructive Form, and he felt that there was nothing to be
done. But, far from crushing him, the thought of it set him aflame with
hate and indignation. He was never resigned to it. He butted head down
against the impossible; it mattered nothing that he broke his head, and was
forced to realize that he was not the stronger. He never ceased to revolt
against suffering. From that time on his life was an unceasing struggle
against the savagery of a Fate which he could not admit.

The very misery of his life afforded him relief from the obsession of his
thoughts. The ruin of his family, which only Jean Michel had withheld,
proceeded apace when he was removed. With him the Kraffts had lost their
chief means of support, and misery entered the house.

Melchior increased it. Far from working more, he abandoned himself utterly
to his vice when he was free of the only force that had held him in check.
Almost every night he returned home drunk, and he never brought back his
earnings. Besides, he had lost almost all his lessons. One day he had
appeared at the house of one of his pupils in a state of complete
intoxication, and, as a consequence of this scandal, all doors were closed
to him. He was only tolerated in the orchestra out of regard for the memory
of his father, but Louisa trembled lest he should he dismissed any day
after a scene. He had already been threatened with it on several evenings
when he had turned up in his place about the end of the performance.

Twice or thrice he had forgotten altogether to put in an appearance. And of
what was he not capable in those moments of stupid excitement when he was
taken with the itch to do and say idiotic things! Had he not taken it into
his head one evening to try and play his great violin concerto in the
middle of an act of the _Valkyrie_? They were hard put to it to stop him.
Sometimes, too, he would shout with laughter in the middle of a performance
at the amusing pictures that were presented on the stage or whirling in his
own brain. He was a joy to his colleagues, and they passed over many things
because he was so funny. But such indulgence was worse than severity, and
Jean-Christophe could have died for shame.

The boy was now first violin in the orchestra. He sat so that he could
watch over his father, and, when necessary, beseech him, and make him be
silent. It was not easy, and the best thing was not to pay any attention
to him, for if he did, as soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon
him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. Then
Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit
some outrageous prank. He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he
could not help hearing Melchior's utterances and the laughter of his
colleagues. Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows
that they were, had seen that, and were sorry for him. They would hush
their laughter, and only talk about his father when Jean-Christophe was not
by. But Jean-Christophe was conscious of their pity. He knew that as soon
as he had gone their jokes would break out again, and that Melchior was the
laughing-stock of the town. He could not stop him, and he was in torment.
He used to bring his father home after the play. He would take his arm, put
up with his pleasantries, and try to conceal the stumbling in his walk. But
he deceived no one, and in spite of all his efforts it was very rarely that
he could succeed in leading Melchior all the way home. At the corner of the
street Melchior would declare that he had an urgent appointment with some
friends, and no argument could dissuade him from keeping this engagement.
Jean-Christophe took care not to insist too much, so as not to expose
himself to a scene and paternal imprecations which might attract the
neighbors to their windows.

All the household money slipped away in this fashion. Melchior was not
satisfied with drinking away his earnings; he drank away all that his wife
and son so hardly earned. Louisa used to weep, but she dared not resist,
since her husband had harshly reminded her that nothing in the house
belonged to her, and that he had married her without a sou. Jean-Christophe
tried to resist. Melchior boxed his ears, treated him like a naughty child,
and took the money out of his hands. The boy was twelve or thirteen. He was
strong, and was beginning to kick against being beaten; but he was still
afraid to rebel, and rather than expose himself to fresh humiliations of
the kind he let himself be plundered. The only resource that Louisa and
Jean-Christophe had was to hide their money; but Melchior was singularly
ingenious in discovering their hiding-places when they were not there.

Soon that was not enough for him. He sold the things that he had inherited
from his father. Jean-Christophe sadly saw the precious relics go--the
books, the bed, the furniture, the portraits of musicians. He could say
nothing. But one day, when Melchior had crashed into Jean Michel's old
piano, he swore as he rubbed his knee, and said that there was no longer
room to move about in his own house, and that he would rid the house of
all such gimcrackery. Jean-Christophe cried aloud. It was true that the
rooms were too full, since all Jean Michel's belongings were crowded
into them, so as to be able to sell the house, that dear house in which
Jean-Christophe had spent the happiest hours of his childhood. It was true
also that the old piano was not worth much, that it was husky in tone, and
that for a long time Jean-Christophe had not used it, since he played on
the fine new piano due to the generosity of the Prince; but however old and
useless it might be, it was Jean-Christophe's best friend. It had awakened
the child to the boundless world of music; on its worn yellow keys he had
discovered with his fingers the kingdom of sounds and its laws; it had been
his grandfather's work (months had gone to repairing it for his grandson),
and he was proud of it; it was in some sort a holy relic, and
Jean-Christophe protested that his father had no right to sell it. Melchior
bade him be silent. Jean-Christophe cried louder than ever that the piano
was his, and that he forbade any one to touch it; but Melchior looked at
him with an evil smile, and said nothing.

Next day Jean-Christophe had forgotten the affair. He came home tired, but
in a fairly good temper. He was struck by the sly looks of his brothers.
They pretended to be absorbed in their books, but they followed him with
their eyes, and watched all his movements, and bent over their books
again when he looked at them. He had no doubt that they had played some
trick upon him, but he was used to that, and did not worry about it, but
determined, when he had found it out, to give them a good thrashing, as he
always did on such occasions. He scorned to look into the matter, and he
began to talk to his father, who was sitting by the fire, and questioned
him as to the doings of the day with an affectation of interest which
suited him but ill; and while he talked he saw that Melchior was exchanging
stealthy nods and winks with the two children. Something caught at his
heart. He ran into his room. The place where the piano had stood was empty!
He gave a cry of anguish. In the next room he heard the stifled laughter of
his brothers. The blood rushed to his face. He rushed in to them, and
cried:

"My piano!"

Melchior raised his head with an air of calm bewilderment which made
the children roar with laughter. He could not contain himself when he
saw Jean-Christophe's piteous look, and he turned aside to guffaw.
Jean-Christophe no longer knew what he was doing. He hurled himself like
a mad thing on his father. Melchior, lolling in his chair, had no time to
protect himself. The boy seized him by the throat and cried:

"Thief! Thief!"

It was only for a moment. Melchior shook himself, and sent Jean-Christophe
rolling down on to the tile floor, though in his fury he was clinging
to him like grim death. The boy's head crashed against the tiles.
Jean-Christophe got upon his knees. He was livid, and he went on saying in
a choking voice:

"Thief, thief!... You are robbing us--mother and me.... Thief!... You are
selling my grandfather!"

Melchior rose to his feet, and held his fist above Jean-Christophe's head.
The boy stared at him with hate; in his eyes. He was trembling with rage.
Melchior began to tremble, too.

He sat down, and hid his face in his hands. The two children had run away
screaming. Silence followed the uproar. Melchior groaned and mumbled.
Jean-Christophe, against the wall, never ceased glaring at him with
clenched teeth, and he trembled in every limb. Melchior began to blame
himself.

"I am a thief! I rob my family! My children despise me! It were better if
I were dead!"

When he had finished whining, Jean-Christophe did not budge, but asked him
harshly:

"Where is the piano?"

"At Wormser's," said Melchior, not daring to look at him.

Jean-Christophe took a step forward, and said:

"The money!"

Melchior, crushed, took the money from his pocket and gave it to his son.
Jean-Christophe turned towards the door. Melchior called him:

"Jean-Christophe!"

Jean-Christophe stopped. Melchior went on in a quavering voice:

"Dear Jean-Christophe ... do not despise me!"

Jean-Christophe flung his arms round his neck and sobbed:

"No, father--dear father! I do not despise you! I am so unhappy!"

They wept loudly. Melchior lamented:

"It is not my fault. I am not bad. That's true, Jean-Christophe? I am not
bad?"

He promised that he would drink no more. Jean-Christophe wagged his head
doubtfully, and Melchior admitted that he could not resist it when he had
money in his hands. Jean-Christophe thought for a moment and said:

"You see, father, we must..."

He stopped.

"What then?"

"I am ashamed..."

"Of whom?" asked Melchior naively.

"Of you."

Melchior made a face and said:

"That's nothing."

Jean-Christophe explained that they would have to put all the family money,
even Melchior's contribution, into the hands of some one else, who would
dole it out to Melchior day by day, or week by week, as he needed it.
Melchior, who was in humble mood--he was not altogether starving--agreed
to the proposition, and declared that he would then and there write a
letter to the Grand Duke to ask that the pension which came to him should
be regularly paid over in his name to Jean-Christophe. Jean-Christophe
refused, blushing for his father's humiliation. But Melchior, thirsting
for self-sacrifice, insisted on writing. He was much moved by his own
magnanimity. Jean-Christophe refused to take the letter, and when Louisa
came in and was acquainted with the turn of events, she declared that she
would rather beg in the streets than expose her husband to such an insult.
She added that she had every confidence in him, and that she was sure he
would make amends out of love for the children and herself. In the end
there was a scene of tender reconciliation and Melchior's letter was left
on the table, and then fell under the cupboard, where it remained
concealed.

But a few days later, when she was cleaning up, Louisa found it there, and
as she was very unhappy about Melchior's fresh outbreaks--he had forgotten
all about it--instead of tearing it up, she kept it. She kept it for
several months, always rejecting the idea of making use of it, in spite of
the suffering she had to endure. But one day, when she saw Melchior once
more beating Jean-Christophe and robbing him of his money, she could bear
it no longer, and when she was left alone with the boy, who was weeping,
she went and fetched the letter, and gave it him, and said:

"Go!"

Jean-Christophe hesitated, but he understood that there was no other way
if they wished to save from the wreck the little that was left to them.
He went to the Palace. He took nearly an hour to walk a distance that
ordinarily took twenty minutes. He was overwhelmed by the shame of what
he was doing. His pride, which had grown great in the years of sorrow and
isolation, bled at the thought of publicly confessing his father's vice.
He knew perfectly well that it was known to everybody, but by a strange
and natural inconsequence he would not admit it, and pretended to notice
nothing, and he would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. And now,
of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of
turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away
just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother
and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them
and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and
come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he
had to swallow down his shame. He entered the Palace. On the staircase he
almost turned and fled. He knelt down on a step; he stayed for several
minutes on the landing, with his hand on the door, until some one coming
made him go in.