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

to the end of his life.

 

At last it was finished, and Jean Michel leaned against the mantelpiece,

and read over their handiwork in a voice trembling with pleasure, while

Melchior sat straddled across a chair, and looked at the ceiling and wagged

his chair and, as a connoisseur, rolled round his tongue the style of the

following epistle:

 

“_Most Noble and Sublime Highness! Most

Gracious Lord!_

 

“From my fourth year Music has been the first occupation of my childish

days. So soon as I allied myself to the noble Muse, who roused my soul to

pure harmony, I loved her, and, as it seemed to me, she returned my love.

Now I am in my sixth year, and for some time my Muse in hours of

inspiration has whispered in my ears: ‘Be bold! Be bold! Write down the

harmonies of thy soul!’ ‘Six years old,’ thought I, ‘and how should I be

bold? What would the learned in the art say of me?’ I hesitated. I

trembled. But my Muse insisted. I obeyed. I wrote.

 

“And now shall I,

 

“O Most Sublime Highness!

 

“—shall I have the temerity and audacity to place upon the steps of Thy

Throne the first-fruits of my youthful labors?… Shall I make so bold as

to hope that Thou wilt let fall upon them the august approbation of Thy

paternal regard?…

 

“Oh, yes! For Science and the Arts have ever found in Thee their sage

Mæcenas, their generous champion, and talent puts forth its flowers under

the ægis of Thy holy protection.

 

“In this profound and certain faith I dare, then, approach Thee with these

youthful efforts. Receive them as a pure offering of my childish

veneration, and of Thy goodness deign,

 

“O Most Sublime Highness!

 

“to glance at them, and at their young author, who bows at Thy feet deeply

and in humility!

 

“_From the most submissive, faithful, and obedient servant of His Most

Noble and Most Sublime Highness_,

 

“JEAN-CHRISTOPHE KRAFFT.”

 

Jean-Christophe heard nothing. He was very happy to have finished, and,

fearing that he would be made to begin again, he ran away to the fields. He

had no idea of what he had written, and he cared not at all. But when the

old man had finished his reading he began again to taste the full flavor of

it, and when the second reading came to an end Melchior and he declared

that it was a little masterpiece. That was also the opinion of the Grand

Duke, to whom the letter was presented, with a copy of the musical work. He

was kind enough to send word that he found both quite charming. He granted

permission for the concert, and ordered that the hall of his Academy of

Music should be put at Melchior’s disposal, and deigned to promise that he

would have the young artist presented to himself on the day of the

performance.

 

Melchior set about organizing the concert as quickly as possible. He

engaged the support of the Hof Musik Verein, and as the success of his

first ventures had blown out his sense of proportion, he undertook at the

same time to publish a magnificent edition of the Pleasures of Childhood.

He wanted to have printed on the cover of it a portrait of Jean-Christophe

at the piano, with himself, Melchior, standing by his side, violin in hand.

He had to abandon that, not on account of the cost—Melchior did not stop

at any expense—but because there was not time enough. He fell back on an

allegorical design representing a cradle, a trumpet, a drum, a wooden

horse, grouped round a lyre which put forth rays like the sun. The

title-page bore, together with a long dedication, in which the name of the

Prince stood out in enormous letters, a notice to the effect that “Herr

Jean-Christophe Krafft was six years old.” He was, in fact, seven and a

half. The printing of the design was very expensive. To meet the bill for

it, Jean Michel had to sell an old eighteenth-century chest, carved with

faces, which he had never consented to sell, in spite of the repeated

offers of Wormser, the furniture-dealer. But Melchior had no doubt but the

subscriptions would cover the cost, and beyond that the expenses of

printing the composition.

 

One other question occupied his mind: how to dress Jean-Christophe on the

day of the concert. There was a family council to decide the matter.

Melchior would have liked the boy to appear in a short frock and bare legs,

like a child of four. But Jean-Christophe was very large for his age, and

everybody knew him. They could not hope to deceive any one. Melchior had a

great idea. He decided that the boy should wear a dress-coat and white tie.

In vain did Louisa protest that they would make her poor boy ridiculous.

Melchior anticipated exactly the success and merriment that would be

produced by such an unexpected appearance. It was decided on, and the

tailor came and measured Jean-Christophe for his little coat. He had also

to have fine linen and patent-leather pumps, and all that swallowed up

their last penny. Jean-Christophe was very uncomfortable in his new

clothes. To make him used to them they made him try on his various

garments. For a whole month he hardly left the piano-stool. They taught him

to bow. He had never a moment of liberty. He raged against it, but dared

not rebel, for he thought that he was going to accomplish something

startling. He was both proud and afraid of it. They pampered him; they were

afraid he would catch cold; they swathed his neck in scarves; they warmed

his boots in case they were wet; and at table he had the best of

everything.

 

At last the great day arrived. The barber came to preside over his toilet

and curl Jean-Christophe’s rebellious hair. He did not leave it until he

had made it look like a sheepskin. All the family walked round

Jean-Christophe and declared that he was superb. Melchior, after looking

him up and down, and turning him about and about, was seized with an idea,

and went off to fetch a large flower, which he put in his buttonhole. But

when Louisa saw him she raised her hands, and cried out distressfully that

he looked like a monkey. That hurt him cruelly. He did not know whether to

be ashamed or proud of his garb. Instinctively he felt humiliated, and he

was more so at the concert. Humiliation was to be for him the outstanding

emotion of that memorable day.

 

*

 

The concert was about to begin. The hall was half empty; the Grand Duke had

not arrived. One of those kindly and well-informed friends who always

appear on these occasions came and told them that there was a Council being

held at the Palace, and that the Grand Duke would not come. He had it on

good authority. Melchior was in despair. He fidgeted, paced up and down,

and looked repeatedly out of the window. Old Jean Michel was also in

torment, but he was concerned, for his grandson. He bombarded him with

instructions. Jean-Christophe was infected by the nervousness of his

family. He was not in the least anxious about his compositions, but he was

troubled by the thought of the bows that he had to make to the audience,

and thinking of them brought him to agony.

 

However, he had to begin; the audience was growing impatient. The orchestra

of the Hof Musik Verein began the Coriolan Overture. The boy knew

neither Coriolan nor Beethoven, for though he had often heard Beethoven’s

music, he had not known it. He never bothered about the names of the works

he heard. He gave them names of his own invention, while he created little

stories or pictures for them. He classified them usually in three

categories: fire, water, and earth, with a thousand degrees between each.

Mozart belonged almost always to water. He was a meadow by the side of a

river, a transparent mist floating over the water, a spring shower, or a

rainbow. Beethoven was fire—now a furnace with gigantic flames and vast

columns of smoke; now a burning forest, a heavy and terrible cloud,

flashing lightning; now a wide sky full of quivering stars, one of which

breaks free, swoops, and; dies on a fine September night setting the heart

beating. Now; the imperious ardor of that heroic soul burned him like fire.

Everything else disappeared. What was it all to him?—Melchior in despair,

Jean Michel agitated, all the busy world, the audience, the Grand Duke,

little Jean-Christophe. What had.’ he to do with all these? What lay

between them and him? Was that he—he, himself?… He was given up to the

furious will that carried him headlong. He followed it breathlessly, with

tears in his eyes, and his legs numb, thrilling from the palms of his hands

to the soles of his feet. His blood drummed! “Charge!” and he trembled in

every limb. And as he listened so intensely, Hiding behind a curtain, his

heart suddenly leaped violently. The orchestra had stopped short in the

middle of a bar, and after a moment’s silence, it broke into a crashing of

brass and cymbals with a military march, officially strident. The

transition from one sort of music to another was so brutal, so unexpected,

that Jean-Christophe ground his teeth and stamped his foot with rage, and

shook his fist at the wall. But Melchior rejoiced. The Grand Duke had come

in, and the orchestra was saluting him with the National Anthem. And in a

trembling voice Jean Michel gave his last instructions to his grandson.

 

The overture began again, and this time was finished. It was now

Jean-Christophe’s turn. Melchior had arranged the programme to show off at

the same time the skill of both father and son. They were to play together

a sonata of Mozart for violin and piano. For the sake of effect he had

decided that Jean-Christophe should enter alone. He was led to the entrance

of the stage and showed the piano at the front, and for the last time it

was explained what he had to do, and then he was pushed on from the wings.

 

He was not much afraid, for he was used to the theater; but when he found

himself alone on the platform, with hundreds of eyes staring at him, he

became suddenly so frightened that instinctively he moved backwards and

turned towards the wings to go back again. He saw his father there

gesticulating and with his eyes blazing. He had to go on. Besides, the

audience had seen him. As he advanced there arose a twittering of

curiosity, followed soon by laughter, which grew louder and louder.

Melchior had not been wrong, and the boy’s garb had all the effect

anticipated. The audience rocked with laughter at the sight of the child

with his long hair and gipsy complexion timidly trotting across the

platform in the evening dress of a man of the world. They got up to see him

better. Soon the hilarity was general. There was nothing unkindly in it,

but it would have made the most hardened musician lose his head.

Jean-Christophe, terrified by the noise, and the eyes watching, and the

glasses turned upon him, had only one idea: to reach the piano as quickly

as possible, for it seemed to him a refuge, an island in the midst of the

sea. With head down, looking neither to right nor left, he ran quickly

across the platform, and when he reached the middle of it, instead of

bowing to the audience, as had been arranged, he turned his back on it, and

plunged straight