Jean Christophe, Vol. I by Romain Rolland

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Every one in the offices knew him. He asked to see His Excellency the
Director of the Theaters, Baron de Hammer Langbach. A young clerk, sleek,
bald, pink-faced, with a white waistcoat and a pink tie, shook his hand
familiarly, and began to talk about the opera of the night before.
Jean-Christophe repeated his question. The clerk replied that His
Excellency was busy for the moment, but that if Jean-Christophe had a
request to make they could present it with other documents which were to
be sent in for His Excellency's signature. Jean-Christophe held out his
letter. The clerk read it, and gave a cry of surprise.

"Oh, indeed!" he said brightly. "That is a good idea. He ought to have
thought of that long ago! He never did anything better in his life! Ah, the
old sot! How the devil did he bring himself to do it?"

He stopped short. Jean-Christophe had snatched the paper out of his hands,
and, white with rage, shouted:

"I forbid you!... I forbid you to insult me!"

The clerk was staggered.

"But, my dear Jean-Christophe," he began to say, "whoever thought of
insulting you? I only said what everybody thinks, and what you think
yourself."

"No!" cried Jean-Christophe angrily.

"What! you don't think so? You don't think that he drinks?"

"It is not true!" said Jean-Christophe.

He stamped his foot.

The clerk shrugged his shoulders.

"In that case, why did he write this letter?"

"Because," said Jean-Christophe (he did not know what to say)--"because,
when I come for my wages every month, I prefer to take my father's at the
same time. It is no good our both putting ourselves out.... My father is
very busy."

He reddened at the absurdity of his explanation. The clerk looked at him
with pity and irony in his eyes. Jean-Christophe crumpled the paper in his
hands, and turned to go. The clerk got up and took him by the arm.

"Wait a moment," he said. "I'll go and fix it up for you."

He went into the Director's office. Jean-Christophe waited, with the eyes
of the other clerks upon him. His blood boiled. He did not know what he was
doing, what to do, or what he ought to do. He thought of going away before
the answer was brought to him, and he had just made up his mind to that
when the door opened.

"His Excellency will see you," said the too obliging clerk.

Jean-Christophe had to go in.

His Excellency Baron de Hammer Langbach, a little neat old man with
whiskers, mustaches, and a shaven chin, looked at Jean-Christophe over his
golden spectacles without stopping writing, nor did he give any response to
the boy's awkward bow.

"So," he said, after a moment, "you are asking, Herr Krafft ...?"

"Your Excellency," said Jean-Christophe hurriedly, "I ask your pardon. I
have thought better of it. I have nothing to ask."

The old man sought no explanation for this sudden reconsideration. He
looked more closely at Jean-Christophe, coughed, and said:

"Herr Krafft, will you give me the letter that is in your hand?"

Jean-Christophe saw that the Director's gaze was fixed on the paper which
he was still unconsciously holding crumpled up in his hand.

"It is no use, Your Excellency," he murmured. "It is not worth while now."

"Please give it me," said the old man quietly, as though he had not heard.

Mechanically Jean-Christophe gave him the crumpled letter, but he plunged
into a torrent of stuttered words while he held out his hand for the
letter. His Excellency carefully smoothed out the paper, read it, looked at
Jean-Christophe, let him flounder about with his explanations, then checked
him, and said with a malicious light in his eyes:

"Very well, Herr Krafft; the request is granted."

He dismissed him with a wave of his hand and went on with his writing.

Jean-Christophe went out, crushed.

"No offense, Jean-Christophe!" said the clerk kindly, when the boy came
into the office again. Jean-Christophe let him shake his hand without
daring to raise his eyes. He found himself outside the Palace. He was cold
with shame. Everything that had been said to him recurred in his memory,
and he imagined that there was an insulting irony in the pity of the people
who honored and were sorry for him. He went home, and answered only with a
few irritable words Louisa's questions, as though he bore a grudge against
her for what he had just done. He was racked by remorse when he thought of
his father. He wanted to confess everything to him, and to beg his pardon.
Melchior was not there. Jean-Christophe kept awake far into the night,
waiting for him. The more he thought of him the more his remorse quickened.
He idealized him; he thought of him as weak, kind, unhappy, betrayed by his
own family. As soon as he heard his step on the stairs he leaped from his
bed to go and meet him, and throw himself in his arms; but Melchior was in
such a disgusting state of intoxication that Jean-Christophe had not even
the courage to go near him, and he went to bed again, laughing bitterly at
his own illusions.

When Melchior learned a few days later of what had happened, he was in a
towering passion, and, in spite of all Jean-Christophe's entreaties, he
went and made a scene at the Palace. But he returned with his tail between
his legs, and breathed not a word of what had happened. He had been
very badly received. He had been told that he would have to take a very
different tone about the matter, that the pension had only been continued
out of consideration for the worth of his son, and that if in the
future there came any scandal concerning him to their ears, it would be
suppressed. And so Jean-Christophe was much surprised and comforted to see
his father accept his living from day to day, and even boast about having
taken, the initiative in the _sacrifice_.

But that did not keep Melchior from complaining outside that he had been
robbed by his wife and children, that he had put himself out for them all
his life, and that now they let him want for everything. He tried also to
extract money from Jean-Christophe by all sorts of ingenious tricks and
devices, which often used to make Jean-Christophe laugh, although he was
hardly ever taken in by them. But as Jean-Christophe held firm, Melchior
did not insist. He was curiously intimidated by the severity in the eyes
of this boy of fourteen who judged him. He used to avenge himself by some
stealthy, dirty trick. He used to go to the cabaret and eat and drink as
much as he pleased, and then pay nothing, pretending that his son would
pay his debts. Jean-Christophe did not protest, for fear of increasing
the scandal, and he and Louisa exhausted their resources in discharging
Melchior's debts. In the end Melchior more and more lost interest in his
work as violinist, since he no longer received his wages, and his absence
from the theater became so frequent that, in spite of Jean-Christophe's
entreaties, they had to dismiss him. The boy was left to support his
father, his brothers, and the whole household.

So at fourteen Jean-Christophe became the head of the family.

* * * * *

He stoutly faced his formidable task. His pride would not allow him to
resort to the charity of others. He vowed that he would pull through alone.
From his earliest days he had suffered too much from seeing his mother
accept and even ask for humiliating charitable offerings. He used to argue
the matter with her when she returned home triumphant with some present
that she had obtained from one of her patronesses. She saw no harm in it,
and was glad to be able, thanks to the money, to spare Jean-Christophe a
little, and to bring another meager dish forth for supper. But
Jean-Christophe would become gloomy, and would not talk all evening, and
would even refuse, without giving any reason, to touch food gained in this
way. Louisa was vexed, and clumsily urged her son to eat. He was not to be
budged, and in the end she would lose her temper, and say unkind things to
him, and he would retort. Then he would fling his napkin on the table and
go out. His father would shrug his shoulders and call him a _poseur_; his
brothers would laugh at him and eat his portion.

But he had somehow to find a livelihood. His earnings from the orchestra
were not enough. He gave lessons. His talents as an instrumentalist, his
good reputation, and, above all, the Prince's patronage, brought him a
numerous _clientele_ among the middle classes. Every morning from nine
o'clock on he taught the piano to little girls, many of them older than
himself, who frightened him horribly with their coquetry and maddened him
with the clumsiness of their playing. They were absolutely stupid as far
as music went, but, on the other hand, they had all, more or less, a keen
sense of ridicule, and their mocking looks spared none of Jean-Christophe's
awkwardnesses. It was torture for him. Sitting by their side on the edge of
his chair, stiff, and red in the face; bursting with anger, and not daring
to stir; controlling himself so as not to say stupid things, and afraid of
the sound of his own voice, so that he could hardly speak a word; trying
to look severe, and feeling that his pupil was looking at him out of the
corner of her eye, he would lose countenance, grow confused in the middle
of a remark; fearing to make himself ridiculous, he would become so, and
break out into violent reproach. But it was very easy for his pupils to
avenge themselves, and they did not fail to do so, and upset him by a
certain way of looking at him, and by asking him the simplest questions,
which made him blush up to the roots of his hair; or they would ask him to
do them some small service, such as fetching something they had forgotten
from a piece of furniture, and that was for him a most painful ordeal, for
he had to cross the room under fire of malicious looks, which pitilessly
remarked the least awkwardness in his movements and his clumsy legs, his
stiff arms, his body cramped by his shyness.

From these lessons he had to hasten to rehearsal at the theater. Often he
had no time for lunch, and he used to carry a piece of bread and some cold
meat in his pocket to eat during the interval. Sometimes he had to take
the place of Tobias Pfeiffer, the _Musik Direktor_, who was interested in
him, and sometimes had him to conduct the orchestra rehearsals instead of
himself. And he had also to go on with his own musical education. Other
piano lessons filled his day until the hour of the performance, and very
often in the evening after the play he was sent for to play at the Palace.
There he had to play for an hour or two. The Princess laid claim to a
knowledge of music. She was very fond of it, but had never been able
to perceive the difference between good and bad. She used to make
Jean-Christophe play through strange programmes, in which dull rhapsodies
stood side by side with masterpieces. But her greatest pleasure was to make
him improvise, and she used to provide him with heartbreakingly sentimental
themes.

Jean-Christophe used to leave about midnight, worn out, with his hands
burning, his head aching, his stomach empty. He was in a sweat, and outside
snow would be falling, or there would be an icy fog. He had to walk across
half the town to reach home. He went on foot, his teeth chattering, longing
to sleep and to cry, and he had to take care not to splash his only evening
dress-suit in the puddles.

He would go up to his room, which he still shared with his brothers, and
never was he so overwhelmed by disgust and despair with his life as at the
moment when in his attic, with its stifling smell, he was at last permitted
to take off the halter of his misery. He had hardly the heart to undress
himself. Happily, no sooner did his head touch the pillow than he would
sink into a heavy sleep which deprived him of all consciousness of his
troubles.

But he had to get up by dawn in summer, and before dawn in winter. He
wished to do his own work. It was all the free time that he had between
five o'clock and eight. Even then he had to waste some of it by work to
command, for his title of _Hof Musicus_ and his favor with the Grand Duke
exacted from him official compositions for the Court festivals.

So the very source of his life was poisoned. Even his dreams were not free,
but, as usual, this restraint made them only the stronger. When nothing
hampers action, the soul has fewer reasons for action, and the closer the
walls of Jean-Christophe's prison of care and banal tasks were drawn about
him, the more his heart in its revolt felt its independence. In a life
without obstacles he would doubtless have abandoned himself to chance and
to the voluptuous sauntering of adolescence. As he could be free only for
an hour or two a day, his strength flowed into that space of time like a
river between walls of rock. It is a good discipline for art for a man to
confine his efforts between unshakable bounds. In that sense it may be said
that misery is a master, not only of thought, but of style; it teaches
sobriety to the mind as to the body. When time is doled out and thoughts
measured, a man says no word too much, and grows accustomed to thinking
only what is essential; so he lives at double pressure, having less time
for living.

This had happened in Jean-Christophe's case. Under his yoke he took
full stock of the value of liberty and he never frittered away the
precious minutes with useless words or actions. His natural tendency
to write diffusely, given up to all the caprice of a mind sincere but
indiscriminating, found correction in being forced to think and do as much
as possible in the least possible time. Nothing had so much influence on
his artistic and moral development--not the lessons of his masters, nor the
example of the masterpieces. During the years when the character is formed
he came to consider music as an exact language, in which every sound has a
meaning, and at the same time he came to loathe those musicians who talk
without saying anything.

And yet the compositions which he wrote at this time were still far from
expressing himself completely, because he was still very far from having
completely discovered himself. He was seeking himself through the mass of
acquired feelings which education imposes on a child as second nature. He
had only intuitions of his true being, until he should feel the passions
of adolescence, which strip the personality of its borrowed garments as a
thunder-clap purges the sky of the mists that hang over it. Vague and great
forebodings were mingled in him with strange memories, of which he could
not rid himself. He raged against these lies; he was wretched to see how
inferior what he wrote was to what he thought; he had bitter doubts of
himself. But he could not resign himself to such a stupid defeat. He longed
passionately to do better, to write great things, and always he missed
fire. After a moment of illusion as he wrote, he saw that what he had done
was worthless. He tore it up; he burned everything that he did; and, to
crown his humiliation, he had to see his official works, the most mediocre
of all, preserved, and he could not destroy them--the concerto, _The
Royal Eagle_, for the Prince's birthday and the cantata, _The Marriage
of Pallas_, written on the occasion of the marriage of Princess
Adelaide--published at great expense in _editions de luxe_, which
perpetuated his imbecilities for posterity; for he believed in posterity.
He wept in his humiliation.

Fevered years! No respite, no release--nothing to create a diversion from
such maddening toil; no games, no friends. How should he have them? In the
afternoon, when other children played, young Jean-Christophe, with his
brows knit in attention, was at his place in the orchestra in the dusty and
ill-lighted theater; and in the evening, when other children were abed, he
was still there, sitting in his chair, bowed with weariness.

No intimacy with his brothers. The younger, Ernest, was twelve. He was a
little ragamuffin, vicious and impudent, who spent his days with other
rapscallions like himself, and from their company had caught not only
deplorable manners, but shameful habits which good Jean-Christophe, who
had never so much as suspected their existence, was horrified to see one
day. The other, Rodolphe, the favorite of Uncle Theodore, was to go into
business. He was steady, quiet, but sly. He thought himself much superior
to Jean-Christophe, and did not admit his authority in the house, although
it seemed natural to him to eat the food that he provided. He had espoused
the cause of Theodore and Melchior's ill-feeling against Jean-Christophe
and used to repeat their absurd gossip. Neither of the brothers cared for
music, and Rodolphe, in imitation of his uncle, affected to despise it.
Chafing against Jean-Christophe's authority and lectures--for he took
himself very seriously as the head of the family--the two boys had tried to
rebel; but Jean-Christophe, who had lusty fists and the consciousness of
right, sent them packing. Still they did not for that cease to do with him
as they liked. They abused his credulity, and laid traps for him, into
which he invariably fell. They used to extort money from him with barefaced
lies, and laughed at him behind his back. Jean-Christophe was always taken
in. He had so much need of being loved that an affectionate word was enough
to disarm his rancor. He would have forgiven them everything for a little
love. But his confidence was cruelly shaken when he heard them laughing at
his stupidity after a scene of hypocritical embracing which had moved him
to tears, and they had taken advantage of it to rob him of a gold watch, a
present from the Prince, which they coveted. He despised them, and yet went
on letting himself be taken in from his unconquerable tendency to trust and
to love. He knew it. He raged against himself, and he used to thrash his
brothers soundly when he discovered once more that they had tricked him.
That did not keep him from swallowing almost immediately the fresh hook
which it pleased them to bait for him.

A more bitter cause of suffering was in store for him. He learned from
officious neighbors that his father was speaking ill of him. After having
been proud of his son's successes, and having boasted of them everywhere,
Melchior was weak and shameful enough to be jealous of them. He tried to
decry them. It was stupid to weep; Jean-Christophe could only shrug his
shoulders in contempt. It was no use being angry about it, for his father
did not know what he was doing, and was embittered by his own downfall. The
boy said nothing. He was afraid, if he said anything, of being too hard;
but he was cut to the heart.

They were melancholy gatherings at the family evening meal round the lamp,
with a spotted cloth, with all the stupid chatter and the sound of the jaws
of these people whom he despised and pitied, and yet loved in spite of
everything. Only between himself and his brave mother did Jean-Christophe
feel a bond of affection. But Louisa, like himself, exhausted herself
during the day, and in the evening she was worn out and hardly spoke, and
after dinner used to sleep in her chair over her darning. And she was so
good that she seemed to make no difference in her love between her husband
and her three sons. She loved them all equally. Jean-Christophe did not
find in her the trusted friend that he so much needed.

So he was driven in upon himself. For days together he would not speak,
fulfilling his tiresome and wearing task with a sort of silent rage. Such
a mode of living was dangerous, especially for a child at a critical age,
when he is most sensitive, and is exposed to every agent of destruction
and the risk of being deformed for the rest of his life. Jean-Christophe's
health suffered seriously. He had been endowed by his parents with a
healthy constitution and a sound and healthy body; but his very healthiness
only served to feed his suffering when the weight of weariness and too
early cares had opened up a gap by which it might enter. Quite early in
life there were signs of grave nervous disorders. When he was a small boy
he was subject to fainting-fits and convulsions and vomiting whenever he
encountered opposition. When he was seven or eight, about the time of the
concert, his sleep had been troubled. He used to talk, cry, laugh and weep
in his sleep, and this habit returned to him whenever he had too much to
think of. Then he had cruel headaches, sometimes shooting pains at the base
of his skull or the top of his head, sometimes a leaden heaviness. His eyes
troubled him. Sometimes it was as though red-hot needles were piercing his
eyeballs. He was subject to fits of dizziness, when he could not see to
read, and had to stop for a minute or two. Insufficient and unsound food
and irregular meals ruined the health of his stomach. He was racked by
internal pains or exhausted by diarrhea. But nothing brought him more
suffering than his heart. It beat with a crazy irregularity. Sometimes it
would leap in his bosom, and seem like to break; sometimes it would hardly
beat at all, and seem like to stop. At night his temperature would vary
alarmingly; it would change suddenly from fever-point to next to nothing.
He would burn, then shiver with cold, pass through agony. His throat would
go dry; a lump in it would prevent his breathing. Naturally his imagination
took fire. He dared not say anything to his family of what he was going
through, but he was continually dissecting it with a minuteness which
either enlarged his sufferings or created new ones. He decided that he had
every known illness one after the other. He believed that he was going
blind, and as he sometimes used to turn giddy as he walked, he thought that
he was going to fall down dead. Always that dreadful fear of being stopped
on his road, of dying before his time, obsessed him, overwhelmed him, and
pursued him. Ah, if he had to die, at least let it not be now, not before
he had tasted victory!...

Victory ... the fixed idea which never ceases to burn within him without
his being fully aware of it--the idea which bears him up through all his
disgust and fatigues and the stagnant morass of such a life! A dim and
great foreknowledge of what he will be some day, of what he is already!...
What is he? A sick, nervous child, who plays the violin in the orchestra
and writes mediocre concertos? No; far more than such a child. That is no
more than the wrapping, the seeming of a day; that is not his Being. There
is no connection between his Being and the existing shape of his face and
thought. He knows that well. When he looks at himself in the mirror he does
not know himself. That broad red face, those prominent eyebrows, those
little sunken eyes, that short thick nose, that sullen mouth--the whole
mask, ugly and vulgar, is foreign to himself. Neither does he know himself
in his writings. He judges, he knows that what he does and what he is are
nothing; and yet he is sure of what he will be and do. Sometimes he falls
foul of such certainty as a vain lie. He takes pleasure in humiliating
himself and bitterly mortifying himself by way of punishment. But his
certainty endures; nothing can alter it. Whatever he does, whatever he
thinks, none of his thoughts, actions, or writings contain him or express
him, He knows, he has this strange presentiment, that the more that he is,
is not contained in the present but is what he _will be_, what he _will be
to-morrow. He will be!_... He is fired by that faith, he is intoxicated by
that light! Ah, if only _To-day_ does not block the way! If only he does
not fall into one of the cunning traps which _To-day_ is forever laying for
him!

So he steers his bark across the sea of days, turning his eyes neither to
right nor left, motionless at the helm, with his gaze fixed on the bourne,
the refuge, the end that he has in sight. In the orchestra, among the
talkative musicians, at table with his own family, at the Palace, while he
is playing without a thought of what he is playing, for the entertainment
of Royal folk--it is in that future, that future which a speck may bring
toppling to earth--no matter, it is in that that he lives.

* * * * *

He is at his old piano, in his garret, alone. Night falls. The dying light
of day is cast upon his music. He strains his eyes to read the notes until
the last ray of light is dead. The tenderness of hearts that are dead
breathed forth from the dumb page fills him with love. His eyes are filled
with tears. It seems to him that a beloved creature is standing behind him,
that soft breathing caresses his cheek, that two arms are about his neck.
He turns, trembling. He feels, he knows, that he is not alone. A soul that
loves and is loved is there, near him. He groans aloud because he cannot
perceive it, and yet that shadow of bitterness falling upon his ecstasy
has sweetness, too. Even sadness has its light. He thinks of his beloved
masters, of the genius that is gone, though its soul lives on in the music
which it had lived in its life. His heart is overflowing with love; he
dreams of the superhuman happiness which must have been the lot of these
glorious men, since the reflection only of their happiness is still so much
aflame. He dreams of being like them, of giving out such love as this, with
lost rays to lighten his misery with a godlike smile. In his turn to be a
god, to give out the warmth of joy, to be a sun of life!...