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

shook his whole body. In his dreams he was haunted by wild music. He

awoke in the night. The Beethoven overture that he had heard at the concert

was roaring in his ears. It filled the room with its mighty beat. He sat,

up in his bed, rubbed his eyes and ears, and asked himself if he were

asleep. No; he was not asleep. He recognized the sound, he recognized

those roars of anger, those savage cries; he heard the throbbing of that

passionate heart leaping in his bosom, that tumult of the blood; he felt

on his face the frantic heating of the wind; lashing and destroying, then

stopping suddenly, cut off by an Herculean will. That Titanic soul entered

his body, blew out his limbs and his soul, and seemed to give them colossal

proportions. He strode over all the world. He was like a mountain, and

storms raged within him—storms of wrath, storms of sorrow!… Ah, what

sorrow!… But they were nothing! He felt so strong!… To suffer—still to

suffer!… Ah, how good it is to be strong! How good it is to suffer when a

man is strong!…

 

He laughed. His laughter rang out in the silence of the night. His father

woke up and cried:

 

“Who is there?”

 

His mother whispered:

 

“Ssh! the boy is dreaming!”

 

All then were silent; round them all was silence. The music died away, and

nothing sounded but the regular breathing of the human creatures asleep in

the room, comrades in misery, thrown together by Fate in the same frail

barque, bound onwards by a wild whirling force through the night.

 

(Jean-Christophe’s letter to the Grand Duke Leopold is inspired by

Beethoven’s letter to the Prince Elector of Bonn, written when he was

eleven.)

MORNING I THE DEATH OF JEAN MICHEL

Years have passed. Jean-Christophe is nearly eleven. His musical education

is proceeding. He is learning harmony with Florian Holzer, the organist of

St. Martin’s, a friend of his grandfather’s, a very learned man, who

teaches him that the chords and series of chords that he most loves, and

the harmonica which softly greet his heart and ear, those that he cannot

hear without a little thrill running down his spine, are bad and forbidden.

When he asks why, no reply is forthcoming but that it is so; the rules

forbid them. As he is naturally in revolt against discipline, he loves them

only the more. His delight is to find examples of them in the great and

admired musicians, and to take them to his grandfather or his master. His

grandfather replies that in the great musicians they are admirable, and

that Beethoven and Bach can take any liberty. His master, less

conciliatory, is angry, and says acidly that the masters did better things.

 

Jean-Christophe has a free pass for the concerts and the theater. He has

learned to play every instrument a little. He is already quite skilful with

the violin, and his father procured him a seat in the orchestra. He

acquitted himself so well there that after a few months’ probation he was

officially appointed second violin in the Hof Musik Verein. He has begun

to earn his living. Not too soon either, for affairs at home have gone from

bad to worse. Melchior’s intemperance has swamped him, and his grandfather

is growing old.

 

Jean-Christophe has taken in the melancholy situation. He is already as

grave and anxious as a man. He fulfils his task valiantly, though it does

not interest him, and he is apt to fall asleep in the orchestra in the

evenings, because it is late and he is tired. The theater no longer rouses

in him the emotion it used to do when he was little. When he was

little—four years ago—his greatest ambition had been to occupy the place

that he now holds. But now he dislikes most of the music he is made to

play. He dare not yet pronounce judgment upon it, but he does find it

foolish; and if by chance they do play lovely things, he is displeased by

the carelessness with which they are rendered, and his best-beloved works

are made to appear like his neighbors and colleagues in the orchestra, who,

as soon as the curtain has fallen, when they have done with blowing and

scraping, mop their brows and smile and chatter quietly, as though they had

just finished an hour’s gymnastics. And he has been close to his former

flame, the fair barefooted singer. He meets her quite often during the

entr’acte in the saloon. She knows that he was once in love with her, and

she kisses him often. That gives him no pleasure. He is disgusted by her

paint and scent and her fat arms and her greediness. He hates her now.

 

The Grand Duke did not forget his pianist in ordinary. Not that the small

pension, which was granted to him with this title was regularly paid—it

had to be asked for—but from time to time Jean-Christophe used to receive

orders to go to the Palace when there were distinguished guests, or simply

when Their Highnesses took it into their heads that they wanted to hear

him. It was almost always in the evening, at the time when Jean-Christophe

wanted to be alone. He had to leave everything and hurry off. Sometimes he

was made to wait in the anteroom, because dinner was not finished. The

servants, accustomed to see him, used to address him familiarly. Then he

would be led into a great room full of mirrors and lights, in which

well-fed men and women used to stare at him with horrid curiosity. He had

to cross the waxed floor to kiss Their Highnesses’ hands, and the more he

grew the more awkward he became, for he felt that he was in a ridiculous

position, and his pride used to suffer.

 

When it was all done he used to sit at the piano and have to play for these

idiots. He thought them idiots. There were moments when their indifference

so oppressed him as he played that he was often on the point of stopping in

the middle of a piece. There was no air about him; he was near suffocation,

seemed losing his senses. When he finished he was overwhelmed with

congratulations and laden with compliments; he was introduced all round. He

thought they looked at him like some strange animal in the Prince’s

menagerie, and that the words of praise were addressed rather to his master

than to himself. He thought himself brought low, and he developed a morbid

sensibility from which he suffered the more as he dared not show it. He saw

offense in the most simple actions. If any one laughed in a corner of the

room, he imagined himself to be the cause of it, and he knew not whether it

were his manners, or his clothes, or his person, or his hands, or his feet,

that caused the laughter. He was humiliated by everything. He was

humiliated if people did not talk to him, humiliated if they did,

humiliated if they gave him sweets like a child, humiliated especially when

the Grand Duke, as sometimes happened, in princely fashion dismissed him by

pressing a piece of money into his hand. He was wretched at being poor and

at being treated as a poor boy. One evening, as he was going home, the

money that he had received weighed so heavily upon him that he threw it

through a cellar window, and then immediately he would have done anything

to get it back, for at home there was a month’s old account with the

butcher to pay.

 

His relatives never suspected these injuries to his pride. They were

delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of

nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid

society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his

boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe’s grandfather was happier than any. He

pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but

he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social distinction,

and he took unbounded pride in seeing his grandson, moving among those who

had these things. He delighted in them as though such glory was a

reflection upon himself, and in spite of all his efforts to appear calm and

indifferent, his face used to glow. On the evenings when Jean-Christophe

went to the Palace, old Jean Michel used always to contrive to stay about

the house on some pretext or another. He used to await his grandson’s

return with childish impatience, and when Jean-Christophe came in he would

begin at once with a careless air to ply him with seeming idle questions,

such as:

 

“Well, did things go well to-night?”

 

Or he would make little hints like:

 

“Here’s our Jean-Christophe; he can tell us some news.”

 

Or he would produce some ingenious compliment by way of flattery:

 

“Here’s our young nobleman!”

 

But Jean-Christophe, out of sorts and out of temper, would reply with a

curt “Good-evening!” and go and sulk in a corner. But the old man would

persist, and ply him with more direct questions, to which the boy replied

only “Yes,” or “No.” Then the others would join in and ask for details.

Jean-Christophe would look more and more thunderous. They had to drag the

words from his lips until Jean Michel would lose his temper and hurl

insults at him. Then Jean-Christophe would reply with scant respect, and

the end would be a rumpus. The old man would go out and slam the door. So

Jean-Christophe spoiled the joy of these poor people, who had no inkling of

the cause of his bad temper. It was not their fault if they had the souls

of servants, and never dreamed that it is possible to be otherwise.

 

Jean-Christophe was turned into himself, and though he never judged his

family, yet he felt a gulf between himself and them. No doubt he

exaggerated what lay between them, and in spite of their different ways of

thought it is quite probable that they could have understood each other if

he had been able to talk intimately to them. But it is known that nothing

is more difficult than absolute intimacy between children and parents, even

when there is much love between them, for on the one side respect

discourages confidence, and on the other the idea, often erroneous, of the

superiority of age and experience prevents them taking seriously enough the

child’s feelings, which are often just as interesting as those of grown-up

persons, and almost always more sincere.

 

But the people that Jean-Christophe saw at home and the conversation that

he heard there widened the distance between himself and his family.

 

Melchior’s friends used to frequent the house—mostly musicians of the

orchestra, single men and hard drinkers. They were not bad fellows, but

vulgar. They made the house shake with their footsteps and their laughter.

They loved music, but they spoke of it with a stupidity that was revolting.

The coarse indiscretion of their enthusiasm wounded the boy’s modesty of

feeling. When they praised a work that he loved it was as though they were

insulting him personally. He would stiffen himself and grow pale, frozen,

and pretend not to take any interest in music. He would have hated it had

that been possible. Melchior used to say:

 

“The fellow has no heart. He feels nothing. I don’t know where he gets it

from.”

 

Sometimes they used to sing German four-part songs—four-footed as

well—and these were all exactly like themselves—slow-moving, solemn and

broad, fashioned of dull melodies. Then Jean-Christophe used to fly to the

most distant room and hurl insults at the wall.

 

His grandfather also had