Jean-Christophe, vol 1, Romain Rolland [book club recommendations .txt] 📗
- Author: Romain Rolland
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officers, tenors, conductors, girl-friends, all with inscriptions, almost
all with verse—or at least what is accepted as verse in Germany. In the
center of the room, on a marble pillar, was enthroned a bust of Brahms,
with a beard; and, above the piano, little plush monkeys and cotillion
trophies hung by threads.
Minna would arrive late, her eyes still puffy with sleep, sulky; she would
hardly reach out her hand to Jean-Christophe, coldly bid him good-day, and,
without a word, gravely and with dignity sit down at the piano. When she
was alone, it pleased her to play interminable scales, for that allowed her
agreeably to prolong her half-somnolent condition and the dreams which she
was spinning for herself. But Jean-Christophe would compel her to fix her
attention on difficult exercises, and so sometimes she would avenge herself
by playing them as badly as she could. She was a fair musician, but she did
not like music—like many German women. But, like them, she thought she
ought to like it, and she took her lessons conscientiously enough, except
for certain moments of diabolical malice indulged in to enrage her master.
She could enrage him much more by the icy indifference with which she set
herself to her task. But the worst was when she took it into her head that
it was her duty to throw her soul into an expressive passage: then she
would become sentimental and feel nothing.
Young Jean-Christophe, sitting by her side, was not very polite. He never
paid her compliments—far from it. She resented that, and never let any
remark pass without answering it. She would argue about everything that he
said, and when she made a mistake she would insist that she was playing
what was written. He would get cross, and they would go on exchanging
ungracious words and impertinences. With her eyes on the keys, she never
ceased to watch Jean-Christophe and enjoy his fury. As a relief from
boredom she would invent stupid little tricks, with no other object than
to interrupt the lesson and to annoy Jean-Christophe. She would pretend
to choke, so as to make herself interesting; she would have a fit of
coughing, or she would have something very important to say to the maid.
Jean-Christophe knew that she was playacting; and Minna knew that
Jean-Christophe knew that she was playacting; and it amused her, for
Jean-Christophe could not tell her what he was thinking.
One day, when she was indulging in this amusement and was coughing
languidly, hiding her mouth in her handkerchief, as if she were on the
point of choking, but in reality watching Jean-Christophe’s exasperation
out of the corner of her eye, she conceived the ingenious idea of letting
the handkerchief fall, so as to make Jean-Christophe pick it up, which he
did with the worst grace in the world. She rewarded him with a “Thank you!”
in her grand manner, which nearly made him explode.
She thought the game too good not to be repeated. Next day she did it
again. Jean-Christophe did not budge; he was boiling with rage. She waited
a moment, and then said in an injured tone:
“Will you please pick up my handkerchief?”
Jean-Christophe could not contain himself.
“I am not your servant!” he cried roughly. “Pick it up yourself!”
Minna choked with rage. She got up suddenly from her stool, which fell
over.
“Oh, this is too much!” she said, and angrily thumped the piano; and she
left the room in a fury.
Jean-Christophe waited. She did not come back. He was ashamed of what he
had done; he felt that he had behaved like a little cad. And he was at the
end of his tether; she made fun of him too impudently! He was afraid lest
Minna should complain to her mother, and he should be forever banished from
Frau von Kerich’s thoughts. He knew not what to do; for if he was sorry for
his brutality, no power on earth would have made him ask pardon.
He came again on the chance the next day, although he thought that
Minna would refuse to take her lesson. But Minna, who was too proud to
complain to anybody—Minna, whose conscience was not shielded against
reproach—appeared again, after making him wait five minutes more than
usual; and she sat down at the piano, stiff, upright, without turning her
head or saying a word, as though Jean-Christophe no longer existed for her.
But she did not fail to take her lesson, and all the subsequent lessons,
because she knew very well that Jean-Christophe was a fine musician, and
that she ought to learn to play the piano properly if she wished to
be—what she wished to be—a well-bred young lady of finished education.
But how bored she was! How they bored each other!
*
One misty morning in March, when little flakes of snow were flying, like
feathers, in the gray air, they were in the studio. It was hardly daylight.
Minna was arguing, as usual, about a false note that she had struck, and
pretending that it “was written so.” Although he knew perfectly well that
she was lying, Jean-Christophe bent over the book to look at the passage in
question closely. Her hand was on the rack, and she did not move it. His
lips were near her hand. He tried to read and could not; he was looking at
something else—a thing soft, transparent, like the petals of a flower.
Suddenly—he did not know what he was thinking of—he pressed his lips as
hard as he could on the little hand.
They were both dumfounded by it. He flung backwards; she withdrew her
hand—both blushing. They said no word; they did not look at each other.
After a moment of confused silence she began to play again; she was very
uneasy: her bosom rose and fell as though she were under some weight; she
struck wrong note after wrong note. He did not notice it; he was more
uneasy than she. His temples throbbed; he heard nothing; he knew not what
she was playing; and, to break the silence, he made a few random remarks in
a choking voice. He thought that he was forever lost in Minna’s opinion.
He was confounded by what he had done, thought it stupid and rude. The
lesson-hour over, he left Minna without looking at her, and even forgot
to say good-bye. She did not mind. She had no thought now of deeming
Jean-Christophe ill-mannered; and if she made so many mistakes in playing,
it was because all the time she was watching him out of the corner of her
eye with astonishment and curiosity, and—for the first time—sympathy.
When she was left alone, instead of going to look for her mother as usual,
she shut herself up in her room and examined this extraordinary event. She
sat with her face in her hands in front of the mirror. Her eyes seemed to
her soft and gleaming. She bit gently at her lip in the effort of thinking.
And as she looked complacently at her pretty face, she visualized the
scene, and blushed and smiled. At dinner she was animated and merry. She
refused to go out at once, and stayed in the drawing-room for part of the
afternoon; she had some work in her hand, and did not make ten stitches
without a mistake, but what did that matter! In a corner of the room, with
her back turned to her mother, she smiled; or, under a sudden impulse to
let herself go, she pranced about the room and sang at the top of her
voice. Frau von Kerich started and called her mad. Minna flung her arms
round her neck, shaking with laughter, and hugged and kissed her.
In the evening, when she went to her room, it was a long time before
she went to bed. She went on looking at herself in the mirror, trying
to remember, and having thought all through the day of the same
thing—thinking of nothing. She undressed slowly; she stopped every moment,
sitting on the bed, trying to remember what Jean-Christophe was like. It
was a Jean-Christophe of fantasy who appeared, and now he did not seem
nearly so uncouth to her. She went to bed and put out the light. Ten
minutes later the scene of the morning rushed back into her mind, and she
burst out laughing. Her mother got up softly and opened the door, thinking
that, against orders, she was reading in bed. She found Minna lying quietly
in her bed, with her eyes wide open in the dim candlelight.
“What is it?” she asked. “What is amusing you?”
“Nothing,” said Minna gravely. “I was thinking.”
“You are very lucky to find your own company so amusing. But go to sleep.”
“Yes, mamma,” replied Minna meekly. Inside herself she was grumbling; “Go
away! Do go away!” until the door was closed, and she could go on enjoying
her dreams. She fell into a sweet drowsiness. When she was nearly asleep,
she leaped for joy:
“He loves me…. What happiness! How good of him to love me!… How I love
him!”
She kissed her pillow and went fast asleep.
*
When next they were together Jean-Christophe was surprised at Minna’s
amiability. She gave him “Good-day,” and asked him how he was in a very
soft voice; she sat at the piano, looking wise and modest; she was an angel
of docility. There were none of her naughty schoolgirl’s tricks, but she
listened religiously to Jean-Christophe’s remarks, acknowledged that they
were right, gave little timid cries herself when she made a mistake and set
herself to be more accurate. Jean-Christophe could not understand it. In a
very short time she made astounding progress. Not only did she play better,
but with musical feeling. Little as he was given to flattery, he had to pay
her a compliment. She blushed with pleasure, and thanked him for it with a
look tearful with gratitude. She took pains with her toilet for him; she
wore ribbons of an exquisite shade; she gave Jean-Christophe little smiles
and soft glances, which he disliked, for they irritated him, and moved him
to the depths of his soul. And now it was she who made conversation, but
there was nothing childish in what she said; she talked gravely, and quoted
the poets in a pedantic and pretentious way. He hardly ever replied; he was
ill at ease. This new Minna that he did not know astonished and disquieted
him.
Always she watched him. She was waiting…. For what?… Did she know
herself?… She was waiting for him to do it again. He took good care not
to; for he was convinced that he had behaved like a clod; he seemed never
to give a thought to it. She grew restless, and one day when he was sitting
quietly at a respectful distance from her dangerous little paws, she was
seized with impatience: with a movement so quick that she had no time to
think of it, she herself thrust her little hand against his lips. He was
staggered by it, then furious and ashamed. But none the less he kissed it
very passionately. Her naïve effrontery enraged him; he was on the point of
leaving her there and then.
But he could not. He was entrapped. Whirling thoughts rushed in his mind;
he could make nothing of them. Like mists ascending from a valley they rose
from the depths of his heart. He wandered hither and thither at random
through this mist of love, and whatever he did, he did but turn round and
round an obscure
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