Jean-Christophe, vol 1, Romain Rolland [book club recommendations .txt] 📗

his

fingers into his cup. That was all.

 

Christophe was discouraged and was on the point of getting up and going,

but he thought of his long journey in vain, and summoning up all his

courage he murmured a proposal that he should play some of his works to

Hassler. At the first mention of it Hassler stopped him.

 

“No, no. I don’t know anything about it,” he said, with his chaffing and

rather insulting irony. “Besides, I haven’t the time.”

 

Tears came to Christophe’s eyes. But he had vowed not to leave until he had

Hassler’s opinion about his work. He said, with a mixture of confusion and

anger:

 

“I beg your pardon, but you promised once to hear me. I came to see you for

that from the other end of Germany. You shall hear me.”

 

Hassler, who was not used to such ways, looked at the awkward young man,

who was furious, blushing, and near tears. That amused him, and wearily

shrugging his shoulders, he pointed to the piano, and said with an air of

comic resignation:

 

“Well, then!… There you are!”

 

On that he lay back on his divan, like a man who is going to sleep,

smoothed out his cushions, put them under his outstretched arms, half

closed his eyes, opened them for a moment to take stock of the size of the

roll of music which Christophe had brought from one of his pockets, gave a

little sigh, and lay back to listen listlessly.

 

Christophe was intimidated and mortified, but he began to play. It was not

long before Hassler opened his eyes and ears with the professional interest

of the artist who is struck in spite of himself by a beautiful thing. At

first he said nothing and lay still, but his eyes became less dim and his

sulky lips moved. Then he suddenly woke up, growling his surprise and

approbation. He only gave inarticulate interjections, but the form of them

left no doubt as to his feelings, and they gave Christophe an inexpressible

pleasure. Hassler forgot to count the number of pages that had been played

and were left to be played. When Christophe had finished a piece, he said:

 

“Go on!… Go on!…”

 

He was beginning to use human language.

 

“That’s good! Good!” he exclaimed to himself. “Famous!… Awfully famous!

(_Schrecklich famos!_) But, damme!” He growled in astonishment. “What is

it?”

 

He had risen on his seat, was stretching for wind, making a trumpet with

his hand, talking to himself, laughing with pleasure, or at certain odd

harmonies, just putting out his tongue as though to moisten his lips. An

unexpected modulation had such an effect on him that he got up suddenly

with an exclamation, and came and sat at the piano by Christophe’s side. He

did not seem to notice that Christophe was there. He was only concerned

with the music, and when the piece was finished he took the book and began

to read the page again, then the following pages, and went on ejaculating

his admiration and surprise as though he had been alone in the room.

 

“The devil!” he said. “Where did the little beast find that?…”

 

He pushed Christophe away with his shoulders and himself played certain

passages. He had a charming touch on the piano, very soft, caressing and

light. Christophe noticed his fine long, well-tended hands, which were a

little morbidly aristocratic and out of keeping with the rest. Hassler

stopped at certain chords and repeated them, winking, and clicking with his

tongue. He hummed with his lips, imitating the sounds of the instruments,

and went on interspersing the music with his apostrophes in which pleasure

and annoyance were mingled. He could not help having a secret initiative,

an unavowed jealousy, and at the same time he greedily enjoyed it all.

 

Although he went on talking to himself as though Christophe did not exist,

Christophe, blushing with pleasure, could not help taking Hassler’s

exclamations to himself, and he explained what he had tried to do. At first

Hassler seemed not to pay any attention to what the young man was saying,

and went on thinking out loud; then something that Christophe said struck

him and he was silent, with his eyes still fixed on the music, which he

turned over as he listened without seeming to hear. Christophe grew more

and more excited, and at last he plumped into confidence, and talked with

naïve enthusiasm about his projects and his life.

 

Hassler was silent, and as he listened he slipped hack into his irony. He

had let Christophe take the book from his hands; with his elbow on the

rack of the piano and his hand on his forehead, he looked at Christophe,

who was explaining; his work with youthful ardor and eagerness. And he

smiled bitterly as he thought of his own beginning, his own hopes, and of

Christophe’s hopes, and all the disappointments that lay in wait for him.

 

Christophe spoke with his eyes cast down, fearful of losing the thread of

what he had to say. Hassler’s silence encouraged him. He felt that Hassler

was watching him and not missing a word that he said, and he thought he had

broken the ice between them, and he was glad at heart. When he had finished

he shyly raised his head—confidently, too—and looked at Hassler. All the

joy welling in him was frozen on the instant, like too early birds, when he

saw the gloomy, mocking eyes that looked into his without kindness. He was

silent.

 

After an icy moment, Hassler spoke dully. He had changed once more; he

affected a sort of harshness towards the young man. He teased him cruelly

about his plans, his hopes of success, as though he were trying to chaff

himself, now that he had recovered himself. He set himself coldly to

destroy his faith in life, his faith in art, his faith in himself. Bitterly

he gave himself as an example, speaking of his actual works in an insulting

fashion.

 

“Hog-waste!” he said. “That is what these swine want. Do you think there

are ten people in the world who love music? Is there a single one?”

 

“There is myself!” said Christophe emphatically. Hassler looked at him,

shrugged his shoulders, and said wearily:

 

“You will be like the rest. You will do as the rest have done. You will

think of success, of amusing yourself, like the rest…. And you will be

right….”

 

Christophe tried to protest, but Hassler cut him short; he took the music

and began bitterly to criticise the works which he had first been praising,

Not only did he harshly pick out the real carelessness, the mistakes in

writing, the faults of taste or of expression which had escaped the young

man, but he made absurd criticisms, criticisms which might have been made

by the most narrow and antiquated of musicians, from which he himself,

Hassler, had had to suffer all his life. He asked what was the sense of it

all. He did not even criticise: he denied; it was as though he were trying

desperately to efface the impression that the music had made on him in

spite of himself.

 

Christophe was horrified and made no attempt to reply. How could he reply

to absurdities which he blushed to hear on the lips of a man whom he

esteemed and loved? Besides, Hassler did not listen to him. He stopped at

that, stopped dead, with the book in his hands, shut; no expression in his

eyes and his lips drawn down in bitterness. At last he said, as though he

had once more forgotten Christophe’s presence:

 

“Ah! the worst misery of all is that there is not a single man who can

understand you!”

 

Christophe was racked with emotion. He turned suddenly, laid his hand on

Hassler’s, and with love in his heart he repeated:

 

“There is myself!”

 

But Hassler did not move his hand, and if something stirred in his heart

for a moment at that boyish cry, no light shone in his dull eyes, as they

looked at Christophe. Irony and evasion were in the ascendant. He made a

ceremonious and comic little bow in acknowledgment.

 

“Honored!” he said.

 

He was thinking:

 

“Do you, though? Do you think I have lost my life for you?”

 

He got up, threw the book on the piano, and went with his long spindle legs

and sat on the divan again. Christophe had divined his thoughts and had

felt the savage insult in them, and he tried proudly to reply that a man

does not need to be understood by everybody; certain souls are worth a

whole people; they think for it, and what they have thought the people have

to think.—But Hassler did not listen to him. He had fallen back into his

apathy, caused by the weakening of the life slumbering in him. Christophe,

too sane to understand the sudden change, felt that he had lost. But he

could not resign himself to losing after seeming to be so near victory. He

made desperate efforts to excite Hassler’s attention once more. He took

up his music book and tried to explain the reason, for the irregularities

which Hassler had remarked. Hassler lay back on the sofa and preserved a

gloomy silence. He neither agreed nor contradicted; he was only waiting for

him to finish.

 

Christophe saw that there was nothing more to be done. He stopped short in

the middle of a sentence. He rolled up his music and got up. Hassler got

up, too. Christophe was shy and ashamed, and murmured excuses. Hassler

bowed slightly, with a certain haughty and bored distinction, coldly held

out his hand politely, and accompanied him to the door without a word of

suggestion that he should stay or come again.

 

*

 

Christophe found himself in the street once more, absolutely crushed. He

walked at random; he did not know where he was going. He walked down

several streets mechanically, and then found himself at a station of the

train by which he had come. He went back by it without thinking of what he

was doing. He sank down on the seat with his arms and legs limp. It was

impossible to think or to collect his ideas; he thought of nothing, he did

not try to think. He was afraid to envisage himself. He was utterly empty.

It seemed to him that there was emptiness everywhere about him in that

town. He could not breathe in it. The mists, the massive houses stifled

him. He had only one idea, to fly, to fly as quickly as possible,—as if by

escaping from the town he would leave in it the bitter disillusion which he

had found in it.

 

He returned to his hotel. It was half-past twelve. It was two hours since

he had entered it,—with what a light shining in his heart! Now it was

dead.

 

He took no lunch. He did not go up to his room. To the astonishment of the

people of the hotel, he asked for his bill, paid as though he had spent the

night there, and said that he was going. In vain did they explain to him

that there was no hurry, that the train he wanted to go by did not leave

for hours, and that he had much better wait in the hotel. He insisted on

going to the station at once. He was like a child. He wanted to go by the

first train, no matter which, and not to stay another hour in the place.

After the long journey and all the expense he had incurred,—although he

had taken his holiday not only to see Hassler, but