Jean Christophe, Vol. I by Romain Rolland

R >> Romain Rolland >> Jean Christophe, Vol. I

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51

So the child journeys through the forest of sounds, and round him he is
conscious of thousands of forces lying in wait for him, and calling to him
to caress or devour him....

One day Melchior came upon him thus. He made him jump with fear at the
sound of his great voice. Jean-Christophe, thinking he was doing wrong,
quickly put his hands up to his ears to ward off the blows he feared. But
Melchior did not scold him, strange to say; he was in a good temper, and
laughed.

"You like that, boy?" he asked, patting his head kindly. "Would you like me
to teach you to play it?"

Would he like!... Delighted, he murmured: "Yes." The two of them sat down
at the piano, Jean-Christophe perched this time on a pile of big books, and
very attentively he took his first lesson. He learned first of all that the
buzzing spirits have strange names, like Chinese names, of one syllable, or
even of one letter. He was astonished; he imagined them to be different
from that: beautiful, caressing names, like the princesses in the fairy
stories. He did not like the familiarity with which his father talked of
them. Again, when Melchior evoked them they were not the same; they seemed
to become indifferent as they rolled out from under his fingers. But
Jean-Christophe was glad to learn about the relationships between them,
their hierarchy, the scales, which were like a King commanding an army, or
like a band of negroes marching in single file. He was surprised to see
that each soldier, or each negro, could become a monarch in his turn, or
the head of a similar band, and that it was possible to summon whole
battalions from one end to the other of the keyboard. It amused him to hold
the thread which made them march. But it was a small thing compared with
what he had seen at first; his enchanted forest was lost. However, he set
himself to learn, for it was not tiresome, and he was surprised at his
father's patience. Melchior did not weary of it either; he made him begin
the same thing over again ten times. Jean-Christophe did not understand why
he should take so much trouble; his father loved him, then? That was good!
The boy worked away; his heart was filled with gratitude.

He would have been less docile had he known what thoughts were springing
into being in his father's head.

* * * * *

From that day on Melchior took him to the house of a neighbor, where three
times a week there was chamber music. Melchior played first violin, Jean
Michel the violoncello. The other two were a bank-clerk and the old
watchmaker of the _Schillerstrasse_. Every now and then the chemist joined
them with his flute. They began at five, and went on till nine. Between
each piece they drank beer. Neighbors used to come in and out, and listen
without a word, leaning against the wall, and nodding their heads, and
beating time with their feet, and filling the room with clouds of
tobacco-smoke. Page followed page, piece followed piece, but the patience
of the musicians was never exhausted. They did not speak; they were all
attention; their brows were knit, and from time to time they grunted with
pleasure, but for the rest they were perfectly incapable not only of
expressing, but even of feeling, the beauty of what they played. They
played neither very accurately nor in good time, but they never went off
the rails, and followed faithfully the marked changes of tone. They had
that musical facility which is easily satisfied, that mediocre perfection
which, is so plentiful in the race which is said to be the most musical in
the world. They had also that great appetite which does not stickle for the
quality of its food, so only there be quantity--that healthy appetite to
which all music is good, and the more substantial the better--it sees no
difference between Brahms and Beethoven, or between the works of the same
master, between an empty concerto and a moving sonata, because they are
fashioned of the same stuff.

Jean-Christophe sat apart in a corner, which was his own, behind the piano.
No one could disturb him there, for to reach it he had to go on all fours.
It was half dark there, and the boy had just room to lie on the floor if he
huddled up. The smoke of the tobacco filled his eyes and throat: dust, too;
there were large flakes of it like sheepskin, but he did not mind that, and
listened gravely, squatting there Turkish fashion, and widening the holes
in the cloth of the piano with his dirty little fingers. He did not like
everything that they played; but nothing that they played bored him, and he
never tried to formulate his opinions, for he thought himself too small to
know anything. Only some music sent him to sleep, some woke him up; it was
never disagreeable to him. Without his knowing it, it was nearly always
good music that excited him. Sure of not being seen, he made faces, he
wrinkled his nose, ground his teeth, or stuck out his tongue; his eyes
flashed with anger or drooped languidly; he moved his arms and legs with a
defiant and valiant air; he wanted to march, to lunge out, to pulverize the
world. He fidgeted so much that in the end a head would peer over the
piano, and say: "Hullo, boy, are you mad? Leave the piano.... Take your
hand away, or I'll pull your ears!" And that made him crestfallen and
angry. Why did they want to spoil his pleasure? He was not doing any harm.
Must he always be tormented! His father chimed in. They chid him for making
a noise, and said that he did not like music. And in the end he believed
it. These honest citizens grinding out concertos would have been astonished
if they had been told that the only person in the company who really felt
the music was the little boy.

If they wanted him to keep quiet, why did they play airs which make you
march? In those pages were rearing horses, swords, war-cries, the pride of
triumph; and they wanted him, like them, to do no more than wag his head
and beat time with his feet! They had only to play placid dreams or some of
those chattering pages which talk so much and say nothing. There are plenty
of them, for example, like that piece of Goldmark's, of which the old
watchmaker had just said with a delighted smile: "It is pretty. There is no
harshness in it. All the corners are rounded off...." The boy was very
quiet then. He became drowsy. He did not know what they were playing hardly
heard it; but he was happy; his limbs were numbed, and he was dreaming.

His dreams were not a consecutive story; they had neither head nor tail. It
was rarely that he saw a definite picture; his mother making a cake, and
with a knife removing the paste that clung to her fingers; a water-rat that
he had seen the night before swimming in the river; a whip that he wanted
to make with a willow wand.... Heaven knows why these things should have
cropped up in his memory at such a time! But most often he saw nothing at
all, and yet he felt things innumerable and infinite. It was as though
there were a number of very important things not to be spoken of, or not
worth speaking of, because they were so well known, and because they had
always been so. Some of them were sad, terribly sad; but there was nothing
painful in them, as there is in the things that belong to real life; they
were not ugly and debasing, like the blows that Jean-Christophe had from
his father, or like the things that were in his head when, sick at heart
with shame, he thought of some humiliation; they filled the mind with a
melancholy calm. And some were bright and shining, shedding torrents of
joy. And Jean-Christophe thought: "Yes, it is _thus_--thus that I will do
by-and-by." He did not know exactly what _thus_ was, nor why he said it,
but he felt that he had to say it, and that it was clear as day. He heard
the sound of a sea, and he was quite near to it, kept from it only by a
wall of dunes. Jean-Christophe had no idea what sea it was, or what it
wanted with him, but he was conscious that it would rise above the barrier
of dunes. And then!... Then all would be well, and he would be quite happy.
Nothing to do but to hear it, then, quite near, to sink to sleep to the
sound of its great voice, soothing away all his little griefs and
humiliations. They were sad still, but no longer shameful nor injurious;
everything seemed natural and almost sweet.

Very often it was mediocre music that produced this intoxication in him.
The writers of it were poor devils, with no thought in their heads but the
gaining of money, or the hiding away of the emptiness of their lives by
tagging notes together according to accepted formulae--or to be original, in
defiance of formulae. But in the notes of music, even when handled by an
idiot, there is such a power of life that they can let loose storms in a
simple soul. Perhaps even the dreams suggested by the idiots are more
mysterious and more free than those breathed by an imperious thought which
drags you along by force; for aimless movement and empty chatter do not
disturb the mind in its own pondering....

So, forgotten and forgetting, the child stayed in his corner behind the
piano, until suddenly he felt ants climbing up his legs. And he remembered
then that he was a little boy wife dirty nails, and that he was rubbing his
nose against a white-washed wall, and holding his feet in his hands.

On the day when Melchior, stealing on tiptoe, had surprised the boy at the
keyboard that was too high for him, he had stayed to watch him for a
moment, and suddenly there had flashed upon him: "A little prodigy!... Why
had he not thought of it?... What luck for the family!..." No doubt he had
thought that the boy would be a little peasant like his mother. "It would
cost nothing to try. What a great thing it would be! He would take him all
over Germany, perhaps abroad. It would be a jolly life, and noble to boot."
Melchior never failed to look for the nobility hidden in all he did, for it
was not often that he failed to find it, after some reflection.

Strong in this assurance, immediately after supper, as soon as he had taken
his last mouthful, he dumped the child once more in front of the piano, and
made him go through the day's lesson until his eyes closed in weariness.
Then three times the next day. Then the day after that. Then every day.
Jean-Christophe soon tired of it; then he was sick to death of it; finally
he could stand it no more, and tried to revolt against it. There was no
point in what he was made to do: nothing but learning to run as fast as
possible over the keys, by loosening the thumb, or exercising the fourth
finger, which would cling awkwardly to the two next to it. It got on his
nerves; there was nothing beautiful in it. There was an end of the magic
sounds, and fascinating monsters, and the universe of dreams felt in one
moment.... Nothing but scales and exercises--dry, monotonous, dull--duller
than the conversation at meal-time, which was always the same--always about
the dishes, and always the same dishes. At first the child listened
absently to what his father said. When he was severely reprimanded he went
on with a bad grace. He paid no attention to abuse; he met it with bad
temper. The last straw was when one evening he heard Melchior unfold his
plans in the next room. So it was in order to put him on show like a trick
animal that he was so badgered and forced every day to move bits of ivory!
He was not even given time to go and see his beloved river. What was it
made them so set against him? He was angry, hurt in his pride, robbed of
his liberty. He decided that he would play no more, or as badly as
possible, and would discourage his father. It would be hard, but at all
costs he must keep his independence.

The very next lesson he began to put his plan into execution. He set
himself conscientiously to hit the notes awry, or to bungle every touch.
Melchior cried out, then roared, and blows began to rain. He had a heavy
ruler. At every false note he struck the boy's fingers, and at the same
time shouted in his ears, so that he was like to deafen him.
Jean-Christophe's face twitched tinder the pain of it; he bit his lips to
keep himself from crying, and stoically went on hitting the notes all
wrong, bobbing his head down whenever he felt a blow coming. But his system
was not good, and it was not long before he began to see that it was so.
Melchior was as obstinate as his son, and he swore that even if they were
to stay there two days and two nights he would not let him off a single
note until it had been properly played. Then Jean-Christophe tried too
deliberately to play wrongly, and Melchior began to suspect the trick, as
he saw that the boy's hand fell heavily to one side at every note with
obvious intent. The blows became more frequent; Jean-Christophe was no
longer conscious of his fingers. He wept pitifully and silently, sniffing,
and swallowing down his sobs and tears. He understood that he had nothing
to gain by going on like that, and that he would have to resort to
desperate measures. He stopped, and, trembling at the thought of the storm
which was about to let loose, he said valiantly:

"Papa, I won't play any more."

Melchior choked.

"What! What!..." he cried.

He took and almost broke the boy's arm with shaking it. Jean-Christophe,
trembling more and more, and raising his elbow to ward off the blows, said
again:

"I won't play any more. First, because I don't like being beaten. And
then...."

He could not finish. A terrific blow knocked the wind out of him, and
Melchior roared:

"Ah! you don't like being beaten? You don't like it?..."

Blows rained. Jean-Christophe bawled through his sobs:

"And then ... I don't like music!... I don't like music!..."

He slipped down from his chair. Melchior roughly put him back, and knocked
his knuckles against the keyboard. He cried:

"You shall play!"

And Jean-Christophe shouted:

"No! No! I won't play!"

Melchior had to surrender. He thrashed the boy, thrust him from the room,
and said that he should have nothing to eat all day, or the whole month,
until he had played all his exercises without a mistake. He kicked him out
and slammed the door after him,

Jean-Christophe found himself on the stairs, the dark and dirty stairs,
worm-eaten. A draught came through a broken pane in the skylight, and the
walls were dripping. Jean-Christophe sat on one of the greasy steps; his
heart was beating wildly with anger and emotion. In a low voice he cursed
his father:

"Beast! That's what you are! A beast ... a gross creature ... a brute! Yes,
a brute!... and I hate you, I hate you!... Oh, I wish you were dead! I wish
you were dead!"

His bosom swelled. He looked desperately at the sticky staircase and the
spider's web swinging in the wind above the broken pane. He felt alone,
lost in his misery. He looked at the gap in the banisters.... What if he
were to throw himself down?... or out of the window?... Yes, what if he
were to kill himself to punish them? How remorseful they would be! He heard
the noise of his fall from the stairs. The door upstairs opened suddenly.
Agonized voices cried: "He has fallen!--He has fallen!" Footsteps clattered
downstairs. His father and mother threw themselves weeping upon his body.
His mother sobbed: "It is your fault! You have killed him!" His father
waved his arms, threw himself on his knees, beat his head against the
banisters, and cried: "What a wretch am I! What a wretch am I!" The sight
of all this softened his misery. He was on the point of taking pity on
their grief; but then he thought that it was well for them, Had he enjoyed
his revenge....

When his story was ended, he found himself once more at the top of the
stairs in the dark; he looked down once more, and his desire to throw
himself down was gone. He even, shuddered a little, and moved away from the
edge, thinking that he might fall. Then he felt that he was a prisoner,
like a poor bird in a cage--a prisoner forever, with nothing to do but to
break his head and hurt himself. He wept, wept, and he robbed his eyes with
his dirty little hands, so that in a moment he was filthy. As he wept he
never left off looking at the things about him, and he found some
distraction in that. He stopped moaning for a moment to look at the spider
which, had just begun to move. Then he began with less conviction. He
listened to the sound of his own weeping, and went on, mechanically with
his sobbing, without much knowing why he did so. Soon he got up; he was
attracted by the window. He sat on the window-sill, retiring into the
background, and watched the spider furtively. It interested while it
revolted him.

Below the Rhine flowed, washing the walls of the house. In the staircase
window it was like being suspended over the river in a moving sky.
Jean-Christophe never limped down the stairs without taking a long look at
it, but he had never yet seen it as it was to-day. Grief sharpens the
senses; it is as though everything were more sharply graven on the vision
after tears have washed away the dim traces of memory. The river was like
a living thing to the child--a creature inexplicable, but how much more
powerful than all the creatures that he knew! Jean-Christophe leaned
forward to see it better; he pressed his mouth and flattened his nose
against the pane. Where was _it_ going? What did _it_ want? _It_ looked
free, and sure of its road.... Nothing could stop _it_. At all hours of the
day or night, rain or sun, whether there were joy or sorrow in the house,
_it_ went on going by, and it was as though nothing mattered to _it_, as
though _it_ never knew sorrow, and rejoiced in its strength. What joy to
be like _it_, to run through the fields, and by willow-branches, and over
little shining pebbles and crisping sand, and to care for nothing, to be
cramped by nothing, to be free!...

The boy looked and listened greedily; it was as though he were borne
along by the river, moving by with it.... When he closed his eyes he
saw color--blue, green, yellow, red, and great chasing shadows and
sunbeams.... What he sees takes shape. Now it is a large plain, reeds, corn
waving under a breeze scented with new grass and mint. Flowers on every
side--cornflowers, poppies, violets. How lovely it is! How sweet the air!
How good it is to lie down in the thick, soft grass!... Jean-Christophe
feels glad and a little bewildered, as he does when on feast-days his
father pours into his glass a little Rhine wine.... The river goes by....
The country is changed.... Now there are trees leaning over the water;
their delicate leaves, like little hands, dip, move, and turn about in
the water. A village among the trees is mirrored in the river. There are
cypress-trees, and the crosses of the cemetery showing above the white wall
washed by the stream. Then there are rocks, a mountain gorge, vines on the
slopes, a little pine-wood, and ruined castles.... And once more the plain,
corn, birds, and the sun....

The great green mass of the river goes by smoothly, like a single
thought; there are no waves, almost no ripples--smooth, oily patches.
Jean-Christophe does not see it; he has closed his eyes to hear it better.
The ceaseless roaring fills him, makes him giddy; he is exalted by this
eternal, masterful dream which goes no man knows whither. Over the turmoil
of its depths rush waters, in swift rhythm, eagerly, ardently. And from the
rhythm ascends music, like a vine climbing a trellis--arpeggios from silver
keys, sorrowful violins, velvety and smooth-sounding flutes.... The country
has disappeared. The river has disappeared. There floats by only a strange,
soft, and twilight atmosphere. Jean-Christophe's heart flutters with
emotion. What does he see now? Oh! Charming faces!... A little girl with
brown tresses calls to him, slowly, softly, and mockingly.... A pale
boy's face looks at him with melancholy blue eyes.... Others smile; other
eyes look at him--curious and provoking eyes, and their glances make
him blush--eyes affectionate and mournful, like the eyes of a dog--eyes
imperious, eyes suffering.... And the pale face of a woman, with black
hair, and lips close pressed, and eyes so large that they obscure her other
features, and they gaze upon Jean-Christophe with an ardor that hurts
him.... And, dearest of all, that face which smiles upon him with clear
gray eyes and lips a little open, showing gleaming white teeth.... Ah! how
kind and tender is that smile! All his heart is tenderness from it! How
good it is to love! Again! Smile upon me again! Do not go!... Alas! it is
gone!... But it leaves in his heart sweetness ineffable. Evil, sorrow,
are no more; nothing is left.... Nothing, only an airy dream, like serene
music, floating down a sunbeam, like the gossamers on fine summer days....
What has happened? What are these visions that fill the child with sadness
and sweet sorrow? Never had he seen them before, and yet he knew them and
recognized them. Whence come they? From what obscure abysm of creation? Are
they what has been ... _or what will be?_...

Now all is done, every haunting form is gone. Once more through a misty
veil, as though he were soaring high above it, the river in flood appears,
covering the fields, and rolling by, majestic, slow, almost still. And far,
far away, like a steely light upon the horizon, a watery plain, a line of
trembling waves--the sea. The river runs down to it. The sea seems to run
up to the river. She fires him. He desires her. He must lose himself in
her.... The music hovers; lovely dance rhythms swing out madly; all the
world is rocked in their triumphant whirligig.... The soul, set free,
cleaves space, like swallows' flight, like swallows drunk with the air,
skimming across the sky with shrill cries.... Joy! Joy! There is nothing,
nothing!... Oh, infinite happiness!...

Hours passed; it was evening; the staircase was in darkness. Drops of rain
made rings upon the river's gown, and the current bore them dancing away.
Sometimes the branch of a tree or pieces of black bark passed noiselessly
and disappeared. The murderous spider had withdrawn to her darkest corner.
And little Jean-Christophe was still leaning forward on the window-sill.
His face was pale and dirty; happiness shone in him. He was asleep.

III

E la faccia del sol nascere ombrata.
_Purgatorio_, xxx.

He had to surrender. In spite of an obstinate and heroic resistance, blows
triumphed over his ill-will. Every morning for three hours, and for three
hours every evening, Jean-Christophe was set before the instrument of
torture. All on edge with attention and weariness, with large tears rolling
down his cheeks and nose, he moved his little red hands over the black and
white keys--his hands were often stiff with cold--under the threatening
ruler, which descended at every false note, and the harangues of his
master, which were more odious to him than the blows. He thought that he
hated music. And yet he applied himself to it with a zest which fear of
Melchior did not altogether explain. Certain words of his grandfather had
made an impression on him. The old man, seeing his grandson weeping, had
told him, with that gravity which he always maintained for the boy, that it
was worth while suffering a little for the most beautiful and noble art
given to men for their consolation and glory. And Jean-Christophe, who was
grateful to his grandfather for talking to him like a man, had been
secretly touched by these simple words, which sorted well with his childish
stoicism and growing pride. But, more than by argument, he was bound and
enslaved by the memory of certain musical emotions, bound and enslaved to
the detested art, against which he tried in vain to rebel.

There was in the town, as usual in Germany, a theater, where opera,
opera-comique, operetta, drama, comedy, and vaudeville are presented--every
sort of play of every style and fashion. There were performances three
times a week from six to nine in the evening. Old Jean Michel never missed
one, and was equally interested in everything. Once he took his grandson
with him. Several days beforehand he told him at length what the piece was
about. Jean-Christophe did not understand it, but he did gather that there
would be terrible things in it, and while he was consumed with the desire
to see them he was much afraid, though he dared not confess it. He knew
that there was to be a storm, and he was fearful of being struck by
lightning. He knew that there was to be a battle, and he was not at all
sure that he would not be killed. On the night before, in bed, he went
through real agony, and on the day of the performance he almost wished that
his grandfather might be prevented from coming for him. But when the hour
was near, and his grandfather did not come, he began to worry, and every
other minute looked out of the window. At last the old man appeared, and
they set out together. His heart leaped in his bosom; his tongue was dry,
and he could not speak.

They arrived at the mysterious building which was so often talked about at
home. At the door Jean Michel met some acquaintances, and the boy, who was
holding his hand tight because he was afraid of being lost, could not
understand how they could talk and laugh quietly at such a moment.