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

my wages every month, I prefer to take my father’s at the

same time. It is no good our both putting ourselves out…. My father is

very busy.”

 

He reddened at the absurdity of his explanation. The clerk looked at him

with pity and irony in his eyes. Jean-Christophe crumpled the paper in his

hands, and turned to go. The clerk got up and took him by the arm.

 

“Wait a moment,” he said. “I’ll go and fix it up for you.”

 

He went into the Director’s office. Jean-Christophe waited, with the eyes

of the other clerks upon him. His blood boiled. He did not know what he was

doing, what to do, or what he ought to do. He thought of going away before

the answer was brought to him, and he had just made up his mind to that

when the door opened.

 

“His Excellency will see you,” said the too obliging clerk.

 

Jean-Christophe had to go in.

 

His Excellency Baron de Hammer Langbach, a little neat old man with

whiskers, mustaches, and a shaven chin, looked at Jean-Christophe over his

golden spectacles without stopping writing, nor did he give any response to

the boy’s awkward bow.

 

“So,” he said, after a moment, “you are asking, Herr Krafft …?”

 

“Your Excellency,” said Jean-Christophe hurriedly, “I ask your pardon. I

have thought better of it. I have nothing to ask.”

 

The old man sought no explanation for this sudden reconsideration. He

looked more closely at Jean-Christophe, coughed, and said:

 

“Herr Krafft, will you give me the letter that is in your hand?”

 

Jean-Christophe saw that the Director’s gaze was fixed on the paper which

he was still unconsciously holding crumpled up in his hand.

 

“It is no use, Your Excellency,” he murmured. “It is not worth while now.”

 

“Please give it me,” said the old man quietly, as though he had not heard.

 

Mechanically Jean-Christophe gave him the crumpled letter, but he plunged

into a torrent of stuttered words while he held out his hand for the

letter. His Excellency carefully smoothed out the paper, read it, looked at

Jean-Christophe, let him flounder about with his explanations, then checked

him, and said with a malicious light in his eyes:

 

“Very well, Herr Krafft; the request is granted.”

 

He dismissed him with a wave of his hand and went on with his writing.

 

Jean-Christophe went out, crushed.

 

“No offense, Jean-Christophe!” said the clerk kindly, when the boy came

into the office again. Jean-Christophe let him shake his hand without

daring to raise his eyes. He found himself outside the Palace. He was cold

with shame. Everything that had been said to him recurred in his memory,

and he imagined that there was an insulting irony in the pity of the people

who honored and were sorry for him. He went home, and answered only with a

few irritable words Louisa’s questions, as though he bore a grudge against

her for what he had just done. He was racked by remorse when he thought of

his father. He wanted to confess everything to him, and to beg his pardon.

Melchior was not there. Jean-Christophe kept awake far into the night,

waiting for him. The more he thought of him the more his remorse quickened.

He idealized him; he thought of him as weak, kind, unhappy, betrayed by his

own family. As soon as he heard his step on the stairs he leaped from his

bed to go and meet him, and throw himself in his arms; but Melchior was in

such a disgusting state of intoxication that Jean-Christophe had not even

the courage to go near him, and he went to bed again, laughing bitterly at

his own illusions.

 

When Melchior learned a few days later of what had happened, he was in a

towering passion, and, in spite of all Jean-Christophe’s entreaties, he

went and made a scene at the Palace. But he returned with his tail between

his legs, and breathed not a word of what had happened. He had been

very badly received. He had been told that he would have to take a very

different tone about the matter, that the pension had only been continued

out of consideration for the worth of his son, and that if in the

future there came any scandal concerning him to their ears, it would be

suppressed. And so Jean-Christophe was much surprised and comforted to see

his father accept his living from day to day, and even boast about having

taken, the initiative in the sacrifice.

 

But that did not keep Melchior from complaining outside that he had been

robbed by his wife and children, that he had put himself out for them all

his life, and that now they let him want for everything. He tried also to

extract money from Jean-Christophe by all sorts of ingenious tricks and

devices, which often used to make Jean-Christophe laugh, although he was

hardly ever taken in by them. But as Jean-Christophe held firm, Melchior

did not insist. He was curiously intimidated by the severity in the eyes

of this boy of fourteen who judged him. He used to avenge himself by some

stealthy, dirty trick. He used to go to the cabaret and eat and drink as

much as he pleased, and then pay nothing, pretending that his son would

pay his debts. Jean-Christophe did not protest, for fear of increasing

the scandal, and he and Louisa exhausted their resources in discharging

Melchior’s debts. In the end Melchior more and more lost interest in his

work as violinist, since he no longer received his wages, and his absence

from the theater became so frequent that, in spite of Jean-Christophe’s

entreaties, they had to dismiss him. The boy was left to support his

father, his brothers, and the whole household.

 

So at fourteen Jean-Christophe became the head of the family.

 

*

 

He stoutly faced his formidable task. His pride would not allow him to

resort to the charity of others. He vowed that he would pull through alone.

From his earliest days he had suffered too much from seeing his mother

accept and even ask for humiliating charitable offerings. He used to argue

the matter with her when she returned home triumphant with some present

that she had obtained from one of her patronesses. She saw no harm in it,

and was glad to be able, thanks to the money, to spare Jean-Christophe a

little, and to bring another meager dish forth for supper. But

Jean-Christophe would become gloomy, and would not talk all evening, and

would even refuse, without giving any reason, to touch food gained in this

way. Louisa was vexed, and clumsily urged her son to eat. He was not to be

budged, and in the end she would lose her temper, and say unkind things to

him, and he would retort. Then he would fling his napkin on the table and

go out. His father would shrug his shoulders and call him a poseur; his

brothers would laugh at him and eat his portion.

 

But he had somehow to find a livelihood. His earnings from the orchestra

were not enough. He gave lessons. His talents as an instrumentalist, his

good reputation, and, above all, the Prince’s patronage, brought him a

numerous clientèle among the middle classes. Every morning from nine

o’clock on he taught the piano to little girls, many of them older than

himself, who frightened him horribly with their coquetry and maddened him

with the clumsiness of their playing. They were absolutely stupid as far

as music went, but, on the other hand, they had all, more or less, a keen

sense of ridicule, and their mocking looks spared none of Jean-Christophe’s

awkwardnesses. It was torture for him. Sitting by their side on the edge of

his chair, stiff, and red in the face; bursting with anger, and not daring

to stir; controlling himself so as not to say stupid things, and afraid of

the sound of his own voice, so that he could hardly speak a word; trying

to look severe, and feeling that his pupil was looking at him out of the

corner of her eye, he would lose countenance, grow confused in the middle

of a remark; fearing to make himself ridiculous, he would become so, and

break out into violent reproach. But it was very easy for his pupils to

avenge themselves, and they did not fail to do so, and upset him by a

certain way of looking at him, and by asking him the simplest questions,

which made him blush up to the roots of his hair; or they would ask him to

do them some small service, such as fetching something they had forgotten

from a piece of furniture, and that was for him a most painful ordeal, for

he had to cross the room under fire of malicious looks, which pitilessly

remarked the least awkwardness in his movements and his clumsy legs, his

stiff arms, his body cramped by his shyness.

 

From these lessons he had to hasten to rehearsal at the theater. Often he

had no time for lunch, and he used to carry a piece of bread and some cold

meat in his pocket to eat during the interval. Sometimes he had to take

the place of Tobias Pfeiffer, the Musik Direktor, who was interested in

him, and sometimes had him to conduct the orchestra rehearsals instead of

himself. And he had also to go on with his own musical education. Other

piano lessons filled his day until the hour of the performance, and very

often in the evening after the play he was sent for to play at the Palace.

There he had to play for an hour or two. The Princess laid claim to a

knowledge of music. She was very fond of it, but had never been able

to perceive the difference between good and bad. She used to make

Jean-Christophe play through strange programmes, in which dull rhapsodies

stood side by side with masterpieces. But her greatest pleasure was to make

him improvise, and she used to provide him with heartbreakingly sentimental

themes.

 

Jean-Christophe used to leave about midnight, worn out, with his hands

burning, his head aching, his stomach empty. He was in a sweat, and outside

snow would be falling, or there would be an icy fog. He had to walk across

half the town to reach home. He went on foot, his teeth chattering, longing

to sleep and to cry, and he had to take care not to splash his only evening

dress-suit in the puddles.

 

He would go up to his room, which he still shared with his brothers, and

never was he so overwhelmed by disgust and despair with his life as at the

moment when in his attic, with its stifling smell, he was at last permitted

to take off the halter of his misery. He had hardly the heart to undress

himself. Happily, no sooner did his head touch the pillow than he would

sink into a heavy sleep which deprived him of all consciousness of his

troubles.

 

But he had to get up by dawn in summer, and before dawn in winter. He

wished to do his own work. It was all the free time that he had between

five o’clock and eight. Even then he had to waste some of it by work to

command, for his title of Hof Musicus and his favor with the Grand Duke

exacted from him official compositions for the Court festivals.

 

So the very source of his life was poisoned. Even his dreams were not free,

but, as usual, this restraint made them only the stronger. When nothing

hampers action, the soul has fewer reasons for