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

was not without its uses

in restoring some common sense to the boy, who was almost beside himself

with his grandfather’s praises. It was not quite enough. Jean-Christophe,

of course, decided that his grandfather was much cleverer than his father,

and though he sat down at the piano without sulking, he did so not so much

for the sake of obedience as to be able to dream in peace, as he always did

while his fingers ran, mechanically over the keyboard. While he played his

interminable exercises he heard a proud voice inside himself saying over

and over again: “I am a composer—a great composer.”

 

From that day on, since he was a composer, he set himself to composing.

Before he had even learned to write, he continued to cipher crotchets and

quavers on scraps of paper, which he tore from the household account-books.

But in the effort to find out what he was thinking, and to set it down in

black and white, he arrived at thinking nothing, except when he wanted to

think something. But he did not for that give up making musical phrases,

and as he was a born musician he made them somehow, even if they meant

nothing at all. Then he would take them in triumph to his grandfather, who

wept with joy over them—he wept easily now that he was growing old—and

vowed that they were wonderful.

 

All this was like to spoil him altogether. Fortunately, his own good sense

saved him, helped by the influence of a man who made no pretension of

having any influence over anybody, and set nothing before the eyes of the

world but a commonsense point of view. This man was Louisa’s brother.

 

Like her, he was small, thin, puny, and rather round-shouldered. No one

knew exactly how old he was; he could not be more than forty, but he looked

more than fifty. He had a little wrinkled face, with a pink complexion, and

kind pale blue eyes, like faded forget-me-nots. When he took off his cap,

which he used fussily to wear everywhere from his fear of draughts, he

exposed a little pink bald head, conical in shape, which was the great

delight of Jean-Christophe and his brothers. They never left off teasing

him about it, asking him what he had done with his hair, and, encouraged by

Melchior’s pleasantries, threatening to smack it. He was the first to laugh

at them, and put up with their treatment of him patiently. He was a

peddler; he used to go from village to village with a pack on his back,

containing everything—groceries, stationery, confectionery, handkerchiefs,

scarves, shoes, pickles, almanacs, songs, and drugs. Several attempts had

been made to make him settle down, and to buy him a little business—a

store or a drapery shop. But he could not do it. One night he would get up,

push the key under the door, and set off again with his pack. Weeks and

months went by before he was seen again. Then he would reappear. Some

evening they would hear him fumbling at the door; it would half open, and

the little bald head, politely uncovered, would appear with its kind eyes

and timid smile. He would say, “Good-evening, everybody,” carefully wipe

his shoes before entering, salute everybody, beginning with the eldest, and

go and sit in the most remote corner of the room. There he would light his

pipe, and sit huddled up, waiting quietly until the usual storm of

questions was over. The two Kraffts, Jean-Christophe’s father and

grandfather, had a jeering contempt for him. The little freak seemed

ridiculous to them, and their pride was touched by the low degree of the

peddler. They made him feel it, but he seemed to take no notice of it, and

showed them a profound respect which disarmed them, especially the old man,

who was very sensitive to what people thought of him. They used to crush

him with heavy pleasantries, which often brought the blush to Louisa’s

cheeks. Accustomed to bow without dispute to the intellectual superiority

of the Kraffts, she had no doubt that her husband and father-in-law were

right; but she loved her brother, and her brother had for her a dumb

adoration. They were the only members of their family, and they were both

humble, crushed, and thrust aside by life; they were united in sadness and

tenderness by a bond of mutual pity and common suffering, borne in secret.

With the Kraffts—robust, noisy, brutal, solidly built for living, and

living joyously—these two weak, kindly creatures, out of their setting, so

to speak, outside life, understood and pitied each other without ever

saying anything about it.

 

Jean-Christophe, with the cruel carelessness of childhood, shared the

contempt of his father and grandfather for the little peddler. He made fun

of him, and treated him as a comic figure; he worried him with stupid

teasing, which his uncle bore with his unshakable phlegm. But

Jean-Christophe loved him, without quite knowing why. He loved him first of

all as a plaything with which he did what he liked. He loved him also

because he always gave him something nice—a dainty, a picture, an amusing

toy. The little man’s return was a joy for the children, for he always had

some surprise for them. Poor as he was, he always contrived to bring them

each a present, and he never forgot the birthday of any one of the family.

He always turned up on these august days, and brought out of his pocket

some jolly present, lovingly chosen. They were so used to it that they

hardly thought of thanking him; it seemed natural, and he appeared to be

sufficiently repaid by the pleasure he had given. But Jean-Christophe, who

did not sleep very well, and during the night used to turn over in his mind

the events of the day, used sometimes to think that his uncle was very

kind, and he used to be filled with floods of gratitude to the poor man. He

never showed it when the day came, because he thought that the others would

laugh at him. Besides, he was too little to see in kindness all the rare

value that it has. In the language of children, kind and stupid are almost

synonymous, and Uncle Gottfried seemed to be the living proof of it.

 

One evening when Melchior was dining out, Gottfried was left alone in the

living-room, while Louisa put the children to bed. He went out, and sat by

the river a few yards away from the house. Jean-Christophe, having nothing

better to do, followed him, and, as usual, tormented him with his puppy

tricks until he was out of breath, and dropped down on the grass at his

feet. Lying on his belly, he buried his nose in the turf. When he had

recovered his breath, he cast about for some new crazy thing to say. When

he found it he shouted it out, and rolled about with laughing, with his

face still buried in the earth. He received no answer. Surprised by the

silence, he raised his head, and began to repeat his joke. He saw

Gottfried’s face lit up by the last beams of the setting sun cast through

golden mists. He swallowed down his words. Gottfried smiled with his eyes

half closed and his mouth half open, and in his sorrowful face was an

expression of sadness and unutterable melancholy. Jean-Christophe, with his

face in his hands, watched him. The night came; little by little

Gottfried’s face disappeared. Silence reigned. Jean-Christophe in his turn

was filled with the mysterious impressions which had been reflected on

Gottfried’s face. He fell into a vague stupor. The earth was in darkness,

the sky was bright; the stars peeped out. The little waves of the river

chattered against the bank. The boy grew sleepy. Without seeing them, he

bit off little blades of grass. A grasshopper chirped near him. It seemed

to him that he was going to sleep.

 

Suddenly, in the dark, Gottfried began to sing. He sang in a weak, husky

voice, as though to himself; he could not have been heard twenty yards

away. But there was sincerity and emotion in his voice; it was as though he

were thinking aloud, and that through the song, as through clear water, the

very inmost heart of him was to be seen. Never had Jean-Christophe heard

such singing, and never had he heard such a song. Slow, simple, childish,

it moved gravely, sadly, a little monotonously, never hurrying—with long

pauses—then setting out again on its way, careless where it arrived, and

losing itself in the night. It seemed to come from far away, and it went no

man knows whither. Its serenity was full of sorrow, and beneath its seeming

peace there dwelt an agony of the ages. Jean-Christophe held his breath; he

dared not move; he was cold with emotion. When it was done he crawled

towards Gottfried, and in a choking voice said:

 

“Uncle!”

 

Gottfried did not reply.

 

“Uncle!” repeated the boy, placing his hands and chin on Gottfried’s knees.

 

Gottfried said kindly:

 

“Well, boy…”

 

“What is it, uncle? Tell me! What were you singing?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Tell me what it is!”

 

“I don’t know. Just a song.”

 

“A song that you made.”

 

“No, not I! What an idea!… It is an old song.”

 

“Who made it?”

 

“No one knows….”

 

“When?”

 

“No one knows….”

 

“When you were little?”

 

“Before I was born, before my father was born, and before his father, and

before his father’s father…. It has always been.”

 

“How strange! No one has ever told me about it.”

 

He thought for a moment.

 

“Uncle, do you know any other?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Sing another, please.”

 

“Why should I sing another? One is enough. One sings when one wants to

sing, when one has to sing. One must not sing for the fun of it.”

 

“But what about when one makes music?”

 

“That is not music.”

 

The boy was lost in thought. He did not quite understand. But he asked for

no explanation. It was true, it was not music, not like all the rest. He

went on:

 

“Uncle, have you ever made them?”

 

“Made what?”

 

“Songs!”

 

“Songs? Oh! How should I make them? They can’t be made.”

 

With his usual logic the boy insisted:

 

“But, uncle, it must have been made once….”

 

Gottfried shook his head obstinately.

 

“It has always been.”

 

The boy returned to the attack:

 

“But, uncle, isn’t it possible to make other songs, new songs?”

 

“Why make them? There are enough for everything. There are songs for when

you are sad, and for when you are gay; for when you are weary, and for when

you are thinking of home; for when you despise yourself, because you have

been a vile sinner, a worm upon the earth; for when you want to weep,

because people have not been kind to you; and for when your heart is glad

because the world is beautiful, and you see God’s heaven, which, like Him,

is always kind, and seems to laugh at you…. There are songs for

everything, everything. Why should I make them?”

 

“To be a great man!” said the boy, full of his grandfather’s teaching and

his simple dreams.

 

Gottfried laughed softly. Jean-Christophe, a little hurt, asked him:

 

“Why are you laughing?”

 

Gottfried said:

 

“Oh! I?… I am nobody.”

 

He kissed the boy’s head, and said:

 

“You want to be a great man?”

 

“Yes,” said Jean-Christophe proudly. He thought Gottfried would admire him.

But Gottfried replied:

 

“What for?”

 

Jean-Christophe was taken aback. He thought for a moment, and said: