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

a path, waited and held their

breath. The barking stopped; the dog had lost the scent. They heard his yap

once again in the distance; then silence came upon the woods. Not a sound,

only the mysterious hum of millions of creatures, insects, and creeping

things, moving unceasingly, destroying the forest—the measured breathing

of death, which never stops. The boys listened, they did not stir. Just

when they got up, disappointed, and said, “It is all over; he will not

come!” a little hare plunged out of the thicket. He came straight upon

them. They saw him at the same moment, and gave a cry of joy. The hare

turned in his tracks and jumped aside. They saw him dash into the brushwood

head over heels. The stirring of the rumpled leaves vanished away like a

ripple on the face of waters. Although they were sorry for having cried

out, the adventure filled them with joy. They rocked with laughter as they

thought of the hare’s terrified leap, and Jean-Christophe imitated it

grotesquely. Otto did the same. Then they chased each other. Otto was the

hare, Jean-Christophe the dog. They plunged through woods and meadows,

dashing through hedges and leaping ditches. A peasant shouted at them,

because they had rushed over a field of rye. They did not stop to hear him.

Jean-Christophe imitated the hoarse barking of the dog to such perfection

that Otto laughed until he cried. At last they rolled down a slope,

shouting like mad things. When they could not utter another sound they sat

up and looked at each other, with tears of laughter in their eyes. They

were quite happy and pleased with themselves. They were no longer trying to

play the heroic friend; they were frankly what they were—two boys.

 

They came back arm-in-arm, singing senseless songs, and yet, when they were

on the point of returning to the town, they thought they had better resume

their pose, and under the last tree of the woods they carved their initials

intertwined. But then good temper had the better of their sentimentality,

and in the train they shouted with laughter whenever they looked at

each other. They parted assuring each other that they had had a “hugely

delightful” (_kolossal entzückend_) day, and that conviction gained with

them when they were alone once more.

 

*

 

They resumed their work of construction more patient and ingenious even

than that of the bees, for of a few mediocre scraps of memory they

fashioned a marvelous image of themselves and their friendship. After

having idealized each other during the week, they met again on the Sunday,

and in spite of the discrepancy between the truth and their illusion, they

got used to not noticing it and to twisting things to fit in with their

desires.

 

They were proud of being friends. The very contrast of their natures

brought them together. Jean-Christophe knew nothing so beautiful as Otto.

His fine hands, his lovely hair, his fresh complexion, his shy speech,

the politeness of his manners, and his scrupulous care of his appearance

delighted him. Otto was subjugated by Jean-Christophe’s brimming strength

and independence. Accustomed by age-old inheritance to religious respect

for all authority, he took a fearful joy in the company of a comrade in

whose nature was so little reverence for the established order of things.

He had a little voluptuous thrill of terror whenever he heard him decry

every reputation in the town, and even mimic the Grand Duke himself.

Jean-Christophe knew the fascination that he exercised over his friend,

and used to exaggerate his aggressive temper. Like some old revolutionary,

he hewed away at social conventions and the laws of the State. Otto would

listen, scandalized and delighted. He used timidly to try and join in, but

he was always careful to look round to see if any one could hear.

 

Jean-Christophe never failed, when they walked together, to leap the fences

of a field whenever he saw a board forbidding it, or he would pick fruit

over the walls of private grounds. Otto was in terror lest they should be

discovered. But such feelings had for him an exquisite savor, and in the

evening, when he had returned, he would think himself a hero. He admired

Jean-Christophe fearfully. His instinct of obedience found a satisfying

quality in a friendship in which he had only to acquiesce in the will of

his friend. Jean-Christophe never put him to the trouble of coming to a

decision. He decided everything, decreed the doings of the day, decreed

even the ordering of life, making plans, which admitted of no discussion,

for Otto’s future, just as he did for his own family. Otto fell in

with them, though he was a little put aback by hearing Jean-Christophe

dispose of his fortune for the building later on of a theater of his own

contriving. But, intimidated by his friend’s imperious tones, he did not

protest, being convinced also by his friend’s conviction that the money

amassed by Commerzienrath Oscar Diener could be put to no nobler use.

Jean-Christophe never for a moment had any idea that he might be violating

Otto’s will. He was instinctively a despot, and never imagined that his

friend’s wishes might be different from his own. Had Otto expressed a

desire different from his own, he would not have hesitated to sacrifice his

own personal preference. He would have sacrificed even more for him. He was

consumed by the desire to run some risk for him. He wished passionately

that there might appear some opportunity of putting his friendship to the

test. When they were out walking he used to hope that they might meet some

danger, so that he might fling himself forward to face it. He would have

loved to die for Otto. Meanwhile, he watched over him with a restless

solicitude, gave him his hand in awkward places, as though he were a girl.

He was afraid that he might be tired, afraid that he might be hot, afraid

that he might be cold. When they sat down under a tree he took off his coat

to put it about his friend’s shoulders; when they walked he carried his

cloak. He would have carried Otto himself. He used to devour him with his

eyes like a lover, and, to tell the truth, he was in love.

 

He did not know it, not knowing yet what love was. But sometimes, when they

were together, he was overtaken by a strange unease—the same that had

choked him on that first day of their friendship in the pine-woods—and the

blood would rush to his face and set his cheeks aflame. He was afraid. By

an instinctive unanimity the two boys used furtively to separate and run

away from each other, and one would lag behind on the road. They would

pretend to be busy looking for blackberries in the hedges, and they did not

know what it was that so perturbed them.

 

But it was in their letters especially that their feelings flew high. They

were not then in any danger of being contradicted by facts, and nothing

could check their illusions or intimidate them. They wrote to each other

two or three times a week in a passionately lyric style. They hardly ever

spoke of real happenings or common things; they raised great problems in an

apocalyptic manner, which passed imperceptibly from enthusiasm to despair.

They called each other, “My blessing, my hope, my beloved, my Self.” They

made a fearful hash of the word “Soul.” They painted in tragic colors the

sadness of their lot, and were desolate at having brought into the

existence of their friend the sorrows of their existence.

 

“I am sorry, my love,” wrote Jean-Christophe, “for the pain which I bring

you. I cannot bear that you should suffer. It must not be. _I will not have

it_.” (He underlined the words with a stroke of the pen that dug into the

paper.) “If you suffer, where shall I find strength to live? I have no

happiness but in you. Oh, be happy! I will gladly take all the burden of

sorrow upon myself! Think of me! Love me! I have such great need of being

loved. From your love there comes to me a warmth which gives me life. If

you knew how I shiver! There is winter and a biting wind in my heart. I

embrace your soul.”

 

“My thought kisses yours,” replied Otto.

 

“I take your face in my hands,” was Jean-Christophe’s answer, “and what I

have not done and will not do with my lips I do with all my being. I kiss

you as I love you, Prudence!”,

 

Otto pretended to doubt him.

 

“Do you love me as much as I love you?”

 

“O God,” wrote Jean-Christophe, “not as much, but ten a hundred, a thousand

times more! What! Do you not feel it? What would you have me do to stir

your heart?”

 

“What a lovely friendship is ours!” sighed Otto. “Was, there ever its like

in history? It is sweet and fresh as a dream. If only it does not pass

away! If you were to cease to love me!”

 

“How stupid you are, my beloved!” replied Jean-Christophe. “Forgive me, but

your weakling fear enrages me. How can you ask whether I shall cease to

love you! For me to live is to love you. Death is powerless against my

love. You yourself could do nothing if you wished to destroy it. Even if

you betrayed me, even if you rent my heart, I should die with a blessing

upon you for the love with which you fill me. Once for all, then, do not be

uneasy, and vex me no more with these cowardly doubts!”

 

But a week later it was he who wrote:

 

“It is three days now since I heard a word fall from your lips. I tremble.

Would you forget me? My blood freezes at the thought…. Yes, doubtless….

The other day only I saw your coldness towards me. You love me no longer!

You are thinking of leaving me!… Listen! If you forget me, if you ever

betray me, I will kill you like a dog!”

 

“You do me wrong, my dear heart,” groaned Otto. “You draw tears from me. I

do not deserve this. But you can do as you will. You have such rights over

me that, if you were to break my soul, there would always be a spark left

to live and love you always!”

 

“Heavenly powers!” cried Jean-Christophe. “I have made my friend weep!…

Heap insults on me, beat me, trample me underfoot! I am a wretch! I do not

deserve your love!”

 

They had special ways of writing the address on their letters, of placing

the stamp—upside down, askew, at bottom in a corner of the envelope—to

distinguish their letters from those which they wrote to persons who did

not matter. These childish secrets had the charm of the sweet mysteries of

love.

 

*

 

One day, as he was returning from a lesson, Jean-Christophe saw Otto

in the street with a boy of his own age. They were laughing and talking

familiarly. Jean-Christophe went pale, and followed them with his eyes

until they had disappeared round the corner of the street. They had not

seen him. He went home. It was as though a cloud had passed over the sun;

all was dark.

 

When they met on the following Sunday, Jean-Christophe said nothing at

first; but after they had been walking for half an hour he said in a

choking voice:

 

“I saw you on Wednesday in the Königgasse.”

 

“Ah!” said Otto.

 

And he blushed.

 

Jean-Christophe went on:

 

“You were not