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

haltingly and horribly out of

tune, scraps of monotonous chants, which seemed grim in their heartiness to

Schulz when he was far from gay himself. He was coughing, propped up by a

heap of pillows. He was trying to read Montaigne, whom he loved; but now

he did not find as much pleasure in reading him as usual. He let the book

fall, and was breathing with difficulty and dreaming. The parcel of music

was on the bed. He had not the courage to open it. He was sad at heart. At

last he sighed, and when he had very carefully untied the string, he put

on his spectacles and began to read the pieces of music. His thoughts were

elsewhere, always returning to memories which he was trying to thrust

aside.

 

The book he was holding was Christophe’s. His eyes fell on an old canticle

the words of which Christophe had taken from a simple, pious poet of the

seventeenth century, and had modernized them. The Christliches Wanderlied

(The Christian Wanderer’s Song) of Paul Gerhardt.

 

_Hoff! O du arme Seele,

Hoff! und sei unverzagt.

 

Enwarte nur der Zeit,

So wirst du schon erblicken

Die Sonne der schönsten Freud._

 

Hope, oh! thou wretched soul,

Hope, hope and be valiant!

 

*

 

Only wait then, wait,

And surely thou shalt see

The sun of lovely Joy.

 

Old Schulz knew the ingenuous words, but never had they so spoken to him,

never so nearly…. It was not the tranquil piety, soothing and lulling the

soul by its monotony. It was a soul like his own. It was his own soul, but

younger and stronger, suffering, striving to hope, striving to see, and

seeing, Joy. His hands trembled, great tears trickled down his cheeks. He

read on:

 

_Auf! Auf! gieb deinem Schmerze

Und Sorgen gute Nacht!

Lass fahren was das Herze

Betrübt und traurig macht!_

 

Up! Up! and give thy sorrow

And all thy cares goodnight;

And all that grieves and saddens

Thy heart be put to flight.

 

Christophe brought to these thoughts a boyish and valiant ardor, and the

heroic laughter in it showed forth in the last naïve and confident verses:

 

_Bist du doch nicht Regente,

Der alles führen, soll,

Gott sitzt im Regimente,

Und führet alles wohl._

 

Not thou thyself art ruler

Whom all things must obey,

But God is Lord decreeing—

All follows in His way.

 

And when there came the superbly defiant stanzas which in his youthful

barbarian insolence he had calmly plucked from their original position in

the poem to form the conclusion of his Lied:

 

_Und obgleich alle Teufel

Hier wollten wiederstehn,

So wird doch ohne Zweifel,

Gott nicht zurücke gehn.

 

Was er ihm vorgenommen,

Und was er haben will,

Das muss doch endlich Rommen

Zu seinem Zweck und Ziel._

 

And even though all Devils

Came and opposed his will,

There were no cause for doubting,

God will be steadfast still:

 

What He has undertaken,

All His divine decree—

Exactly as He ordered

At last shall all things be.

 

… then there were transports of delight, the intoxication of war, the

triumph of a Roman Imperator.

 

The old man trembled all over. Breathlessly he followed the impetuous music

like a child dragged along by a companion. His heart beat. Tears trickled

down. He stammered:

 

“Oh! My God!… Oh! My God!…”

 

He began to sob and he laughed; he was happy. He choked. He was attacked by

a terrible fit of coughing. Salome, the old servant, ran to him, and she

thought the old man was going to die. He went on crying, and coughing, and

saying over and over again:

 

“Oh! My God!… My God!…”

 

And in the short moments of respite between the fits of coughing he laughed

a little hysterically.

 

Salome thought he was going mad. When at last she understood the cause of

his agitation, she scolded him sharply:

 

“How can anybody get into such a state over a piece of foolery!… Give it

me! I shall take it away. You shan’t see it again.”

 

But the old man held firm, in the midst of his coughing, and he cried to

Salome to leave him alone. As she insisted, he grew angry, swore, and

choked himself with his oaths. Never had she known him to be angry and to

stand out against her. She was aghast and surrendered her prize. But she

did not mince her words with him. She told him he was an old fool and said

that hitherto she had thought she had to do with a gentleman, but that now

she saw her mistake; that he said things which would make a plowman blush,

that his eyes were starting from his head, and if they had been pistols

would have killed her…. She would have gone on for a long time in that

strain if he had not got up furiously on his pillow and shouted at her:

 

“Go!” in so peremptory a voice that she went, slamming the door and

declaring that he might call her as much as he liked, only she would not

put herself out and would leave him alone to kick the bucket.

 

Then silence descended upon the darkening room. Once more the bells pealed

placidly and grotesquely through the calm evening. A little ashamed of his

anger, old Schulz was lying on his back, motionless, waiting, breathless,

for the tumult in his heart to die down. He was clasping the precious

Lieder to his breast and laughing like a child.

 

*

 

He spent the following days of solitude in a sort of ecstasy. He thought no

more of his illness, of the winter, of the gray light, or of his

loneliness. Everything was bright and filled with love about him. So near

to death, he felt himself living again in the young soul of an unknown

friend.

 

He tried to imagine Christophe. He did not see him as anything like what

he was. He saw him rather as an idealized version of himself, as he would

have liked to be: fair, slim, with blue eyes, and a gentle, quiet voice,

soft, timid and tender. He idealized everything about him: his pupils,

his neighbors, his friends, his old servant. His gentle, affectionate

disposition and his want of the critical faculty—in part voluntary, so as

to avoid any disturbing thought—surrounded him with serene, pure images

like himself. It was the kindly lying which he needed if he were to live.

He was not altogether deceived by it, and often in his bed at night he

would sigh as he thought of a thousand little things which had happened

during the day to contradict his idealism. He knew quite well that old

Salome used to laugh at him behind his back with her gossips, and that

she used to rob him regularly every week. He knew that his pupils were

obsequious with him while they had need of him, and that after they had

received all the services they could expect from him they deserted him.

He knew that his former colleagues at the university had forgotten him

altogether since he had retired, and that his successor attacked him in his

articles, not by name, but by some treacherous allusion, and by quoting

some worthless thing that he had said or by pointing out his mistakes—(a

procedure very common in the world of criticism). He knew that his told

friend Kunz had lied to him that very afternoon, and that he would never

see again the books which his other friend, Pottpetschmidt, had borrowed

for a few days,—which was hard for a man who, like himself, was as

attached to his books as to living people. Many other sad things, old or

new, would come to him. He tried not to think of them, but they were there

all the same. He was conscious of them. Sometimes the memory of them would

pierce him like some rending sorrow.

 

“Oh! My God! My God!…”

 

He would groan in the silence of the night.—And then fee would discard

such hurtful thoughts; he would deny them; he would try to be confident,

and optimistic, and to believe in human truth; and he would believe.

How often had his illusions been brutally destroyed!—But always others

springing into life, always, always…. He could not do without them.

 

The unknown Christophe became a fire of warmth to his life. The first cold,

ungracious letter which he received from him would have hurt him—(perhaps

it did so)—but he would not admit it, and it gave him a childish joy. He

was so modest and asked so little of men that the little he received from

them was enough to feed his need of loving and being grateful to them. To

see Christophe was a happiness which he had never dared to hope for, for

he was too old now to journey to the banks of the Rhine, and as for asking

Christophe to come to him, the idea had never even occurred to him.

 

Christophe’s telegram reached him in the evening, just as he was sitting

down to dinner. He did not understand at first. He thought he did not know

the signature. He thought there was some mistake, that the telegram was not

for him. He read it three times. In his excitement his spectacles would not

stay on his nose. The lamp gave a very bad light, and the letters danced

before his eyes. When he did understand he was so overwhelmed that he

forgot to eat. In vain did Salome shout at him. He could not swallow a

morsel. He threw his napkin on the table, unfolded,—a thing he never did.

He got up, hobbled to get his hat and stick, and went out. Old Schulz’s

first thought on receiving such good news was to go and share it with

others, and to tell his friends of Christophe’s coming.

 

He had two friends who were music mad like himself, and he had succeeded in

making them share his enthusiasm for Christophe. Judge Samuel Kunz and the

dentist, Oscar Pottpetschmidt, who was an excellent singer. The three old

friends had often talked about Christophe, and they had played all his

music that they could find. Pottpetschmidt sang, Schulz accompanied, and

Kunz listened. They would go into ecstasies for hours together. How often

had they said while they were playing:

 

“Ah! If only Krafft were here!”

 

Schulz laughed to himself in the street for the joy he had and was going to

give. Night was falling, and Kunz lived in a little village half an hour

away from the town. But the sky was clear; it was a soft April evening.

The nightingales were singing. Old Schulz’s heart was overflowing with

happiness. He breathed without difficulty, he walked like a boy. He strode

along gleefully, without heeding the stones against which he kicked in the

darkness. He turned blithely into the side of the road when carts came

along, and exchanged a merry greeting with the drivers, who looked at him

in astonishment when the lamps showed the old man climbing up the bank of

the road.

 

Night was fully come when he reached Kunz’s house, a little way out of the

village in a little garden. He drummed on the door and shouted at the top

of his voice. A window was opened and Kunz appeared in alarm. He peered

through the door and asked:

 

“Who is there? What is it?”

 

Schulz was out of breath, but he called gladly:

 

“Krafft—Krafft is coming to-morrow….” Kunz did not understand; but he

recognized the voice:

 

“Schulz!… What! At this hour? What is it?” Schulz repeated: