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

alone.”

 

“No,” said Otto; “I was with some one.”

 

Jean-Christophe swallowed down his spittle and asked in a voice which he

strove to make careless:

 

“Who was it?”

 

“My cousin Franz.”

 

“Ah!” said Jean-Christophe; and after a moment: “You have never said

anything about him to me.”

 

“He lives at Rheinbach.”

 

“Do you see him often?”

 

“He comes here sometimes.”

 

“And you, do you go and stay with him?”

 

“Sometimes.”

 

“Ah!” said Jean-Christophe again.

 

Otto, who was not sorry to turn the conversation, pointed out a bird who

was pecking at a tree. They talked of other things. Ten minutes later

Jean-Christophe broke out again:

 

“Are you friends with him?”

 

“With whom?” asked Otto.

 

(He knew perfectly who was meant.)

 

“With your cousin.”

 

“Yes. Why?”

 

“Oh, nothing!”

 

Otto did not like his cousin much, for he used to bother him with bad

jokes; but a strange malign instinct made him add a few moments later:

 

“He is very nice.”

 

“Who?” asked Jean-Christophe.

 

(He knew quite well who was meant.)

 

“Franz.”

 

Otto waited for Jean-Christophe to say something, but he seemed not to have

heard. He was cutting a switch from a hazel-tree. Otto went on:

 

“He is amusing. He has all sorts of stories.”

 

Jean-Christophe whistled carelessly.

 

Otto renewed the attack:

 

“And he is so clever … and distinguished!…”

 

Jean-Christophe shrugged his shoulders as though to say:

 

“What interest can this person have for me?”

 

And as Otto, piqued, began to go on, he brutally cut him short, and pointed

out a spot to which to run.

 

They did not touch on the subject again the whole afternoon, but they were

frigid, affecting an exaggerated politeness which was unusual for them,

especially for Jean-Christophe. The words stuck in his throat. At last he

could contain himself no longer, and in the middle of the road he turned to

Otto, who was lagging five yards behind. He took him fiercely by the hands,

and let loose upon him:

 

“Listen, Otto! I will not—I will not let you be so friendly with Franz,

because … because you are my friend, and I will not let you love any one

more than me! I will not! You see, you are everything to me! You cannot …

you must not!… If I lost you, there would be nothing left but death. I do

not know what I should do. I should kill myself; I should kill you! No,

forgive me!…”

 

Tears fell from his eyes.

 

Otto, moved and frightened by the sincerity of such grief, growling out

threats, made haste to swear that he did not and never would love anybody

so much as Jean-Christophe, that Franz was nothing to him, and that he

would not see him again if Jean-Christophe wished it. Jean-Christophe drank

in his words, and his heart took new life. He laughed and breathed heavily;

he thanked Otto effusively. He was ashamed of having made such a scene, but

he was relieved of a great weight. They stood face to face and looked at

each other, not moving, and holding hands. They were very happy and very

much embarrassed. They became silent; then they began to talk again, and

found their old gaiety. They felt more at one than ever.

 

But it was not the last scene of the kind. Now that Otto felt his power

over Jean-Christophe, he was tempted to abuse it. He knew his sore spot,

and was irresistibly tempted to place his finger on it. Not that he had

any pleasure in Jean-Christophe’s anger; on the contrary, it made him

unhappy—but he felt his power by making Jean-Christophe suffer. He was not

bad; he had the soul of a girl.

 

In spite of his promises, he continued to appear arm in arm with Franz or

some other comrade. They made a great noise between them, and he used to

laugh in an affected way. When Jean-Christophe reproached him with it,

he used to titter and pretend not to take him seriously, until, seeing

Jean-Christophe’s eyes change and his lips tremble with anger, he would

change his tone, and fearfully promise not to do it again, and the next day

he would do it. Jean-Christophe would write him furious letters, in which

he called him:

 

“Scoundrel! Let me never hear of you again! I do not know you! May the

devil take you and all dogs of your kidney!”

 

But a tearful word from Otto, or, as he ever did, the sending of a flower

as a token of his eternal constancy, was enough for Jean-Christophe to be

plunged in remorse, and to write:

 

“My angel, I am mad! Forget my idiocy. You are the best of men. Your little

finger alone is worth more than all stupid Jean-Christophe. You have the

treasures of an ingenuous and delicate tenderness. I kiss your flower with

tears in my eyes. It is there on my heart. I thrust it into my skin with

blows of my fist. I would that it could make me bleed, so that I might the

more feel your exquisite goodness and my own infamous folly!…”

 

But they began to weary of each other. It is false to pretend that little

quarrels feed friendship. Jean-Christophe was sore against Otto for the

injustice that Otto made him be guilty of. He tried to argue with himself;

he laid the blame upon his own despotic temper. His loyal and eager nature,

brought for the first time to the test of love, gave itself utterly, and

demanded a gift as utter without the reservation of one particle of the

heart. He admitted no sharing in friendship. Being ready to sacrifice all

for his friend, he thought it right and even necessary that his friend

should wholly sacrifice himself and everything for him. But he was

beginning to feel that the world was not built on the model of his own

inflexible character, and that he was asking things which others could not

give. Then he tried to submit. He blamed himself, he regarded himself as an

egoist, who had no right to encroach upon the liberty of his friend, and

to monopolize his affection. He did sincerely endeavor to leave him free,

whatever it might cost himself. In a spirit of humiliation he did set

himself to pledge Otto not to neglect Franz; he tried to persuade himself

that he was glad to see him finding pleasure in society other than his own.

But when Otto, who was not deceived, maliciously obeyed him, he could not

help lowering at him, and then he broke out again.

 

If necessary, he would have forgiven Otto for preferring other friends to

himself; but what he could not stomach was the lie. Otto was neither liar

nor hypocrite, but it was as difficult for him to tell the truth as for

a stutterer to pronounce words. What he said was never altogether true

nor altogether false. Either from timidity or from uncertainty of his own

feelings he rarely spoke definitely. His answers were equivocal, and, above

all, upon every occasion he made mystery and was secret in a way that set

Jean-Christophe beside himself. When he was caught tripping, or was caught

in what, according to the conventions of their friendship, was a fault,

instead of admitting it he would go on denying it and telling absurd

stories. One day Jean-Christophe, exasperated, struck him. He thought it

must be the end of their friendship and that Otto would never forgive him;

but after sulking for a few hours Otto came back as though nothing had

happened. He had no resentment for Jean-Christophe’s violence—perhaps even

it was not unpleasing to him, and had a certain charm for him—and yet

he resented Jean-Christophe letting himself be tricked, gulping down all

his mendacities. He despised him a little, and thought himself superior.

Jean-Christophe, for his part, resented Otto’s receiving blows without

revolting.

 

They no longer saw each other with the eyes of those first days. Their

failings showed up in full light. Otto found Jean-Christophe’s independence

less charming. Jean-Christophe was a tiresome companion when they went

walking. He had no sort of concern for correctness. He used to dress as he

liked, take off his coat, open his waistcoat, walk with open collar, roll

up his shirt-sleeves, put his hat on the end of his stick, and fling out

his chest in the air. He used to swing his arms as he walked, whistle, and

sing at the top of his voice. He used to be red in the face, sweaty, and

dusty. He looked like a peasant returning from a fair. The aristocratic

Otto used to be mortified at being seen in his company. When he saw a

carriage coming he used to contrive to lag some ten paces behind, and to

look as though he were walking alone.

 

Jean-Christophe was no less embarrassing company when he began to talk at

an inn or in a railway-carriage when they were returning home. He used to

talk loudly, and say anything that came into his head, and treat Otto with

a disgusting familiarity. He used to express opinions quite recklessly

concerning people known to everybody, or even about the appearance of

people sitting only a few yards away from him, or he would enter into

intimate details concerning his health and domestic affairs. It was useless

for Otto to roll his eyes and to make signals of alarm. Jean-Christophe

seemed not to notice them, and no more controlled himself than if he had

been alone. Otto would see smiles on the faces of his neighbors, and would

gladly have sunk into the ground. He thought Jean-Christophe coarse, and

could not understand how he could ever have found delight in him.

 

What was most serious was that Jean-Christophe was just as reckless

and indifferent concerning all the hedges, fences, inclosures, walls,

prohibitions of entry, threats of fines, Verbot of all sorts, and

everything that sought to confine his liberty and protect the sacred rights

of property against it. Otto lived in fear from moment to moment, and all

his protests were useless. Jean-Christophe grew worse out of bravado.

 

One day, when Jean-Christophe, with Otto at his heels, was walking

perfectly at home across a private wood, in spite of, or because of, the

walls fortified with broken bottles which they had had to clear, they found

themselves suddenly face to face with a gamekeeper, who let fire a volley

of oaths at them, and after keeping them for some time under a threat of

legal proceedings, packed them off in the most ignominious fashion. Otto

did not shine under this ordeal. He thought that he was already in jail,

and wept, stupidly protesting that he had gone in by accident, and that he

had followed Jean-Christophe without knowing whither he was going. When

he saw that he was safe, instead of being glad, he bitterly reproached

Jean-Christophe. He complained that Jean-Christophe had brought him

into trouble. Jean-Christophe quelled him with a look, and called him

“Lily-liver!” There was a quick passage of words. Otto would have left

Jean-Christophe if he had known how to find the way home. He was forced to

follow him, but they affected to pretend that they were not together.

 

A storm was brewing. In their anger they had not seen it coming. The baking

countryside resounded with the cries of insects. Suddenly all was still.

They only grew aware of the silence after a few minutes. Their ears buzzed.

They raised their eyes; the sky was black; huge, heavy, livid clouds

overcast it. They came up from every side like a cavalry-charge. They

seemed all to be hastening towards an invisible point, drawn