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

it is.” She tried to calm herself and to

smile.

 

“I do try to be sensible. I do. But just nothing at all makes me cry….

You see, I’m doing it again…. Forgive me. I am so stupid. I am old. I

have no strength left. I have no taste for anything any more. I am no good

for anything. I wish I were buried with all the rest….”

 

He held her to him, close, like a child.

 

“Don’t worry, mother; be calm; don’t think about it….”

 

Gradually she grew quiet.

 

“It is foolish. I am ashamed…. But what is it? What is it?”

 

She who had always worked so hard could not understand why her strength had

suddenly snapped, and she was humiliated to the very depths of her being.

He pretended not to see it.

 

“A little weariness, mother,” he said, trying to speak carelessly. “It is

nothing; you will see; it is nothing.”

 

But he too was anxious. From his childhood he had been accustomed to see

her brave, resigned, in silence withstanding every test. And he was

astonished to see her suddenly broken: he was afraid.

 

He helped her to sort the things scattered on the floor. Every now and then

she would linger over something, but he would gently take it from her

hands, and she suffered him.

 

From that time on he took pains to be more with her. As soon as he had

finished his work, instead of shutting himself up in his room, as he loved

to do, he would return to her. He felt her loneliness and that she was not

strong enough to be left alone: there was danger in leaving her alone.

 

He would sit by her side in the evening near the open window looking on to

the road. The view would slowly disappear. The people were returning home.

Little lights appeared in the houses far off. They had seen it all a

thousand times. But soon they would see it no more. They would talk

disjointedly. They would point out to each other the smallest of the

familiar incidents and expectations of the evening, always with fresh

interest. They would have long intimate silences, or Louisa, for no

apparent reason, would tell some reminiscence, some disconnected story that

passed through her mind. Her tongue was loosed a little now that she felt

that she was with one who loved her. She tried hard to talk. It was

difficult for her, for she had grown used to living apart from her family;

she looked upon her sons and her husband as too clever to talk to her, and

she had never dared to join in their conversation. Christophe’s tender care

was a new thing to her and infinitely sweet, though it made her afraid. She

deliberated over her words; she found it difficult to express herself; her

sentences were left unfinished and obscure. Sometimes she was ashamed of

what she was saying; she would look at her son, and stop in the middle of

her narrative. But he would press her hand, and she would be reassured. He

was filled with love and pity for the childish, motherly creature, to whom

he had turned when he was a child, and now she turned to him for support.

And he took a melancholy pleasure in her prattle, that had no interest for

anybody but himself, in her trivial memories of a life that had always been

joyless and mediocre, though it seemed to Louisa to be of infinite worth.

Sometimes he would try to interrupt her; he was afraid that her memories

would make her sadder than ever, and he would urge her to sleep. She would

understand what he was at, and would say with gratitude in her eyes:

 

“No. I assure you, it does one good; let us stay a little longer.”

 

They would stay until the night was far gone and the neighbors were abed.

Then they would say goodnight, she a little comforted by being rid of some

of her trouble, he with a heavy heart under this new burden added to that

which already he had to bear.

 

The day came for their departure. On the night before they stayed longer

than usual in the unlighted room. They did not speak. Every now and then

Louisa moaned: “Fear God! Fear God!” Christophe tried to keep her attention

fixed on the thousand details of the morrow’s removal. She would not go to

bed until he gently compelled her. But he went up to his room and did not

go to bed for a long time. When leaning out of the window he tried to gaze

through the darkness to see for the last time the moving shadows of the

river beneath the house. He heard the wind in the tall trees in Minna’s

garden. The sky was black. There was no one in the street. A cold rain was

just falling. The weathercocks creaked. In a house near by a child was

crying. The night weighed with an overwhelming heaviness upon the earth and

upon his soul. The dull chiming of the hours, the cracked note of the

halves and quarters, dropped one after another into the grim silence,

broken only by the sound of the rain on the roofs and the cobbles.

 

When Christophe at last made up his mind to go to bed, chilled in body and

soul, he heard the window below him shut. And, as he lay, he thought sadly

that it is cruel for the poor to dwell on the past, for they have no right

to have a past, like the rich: they have no home, no corner of the earth

wherein to house their memories: their joys, their sorrows, all their days,

are scattered in the wind.

 

Next day in beating rain they moved their scanty furniture to their new

dwelling. Fischer, the old furniture dealer, lent them a cart and a pony;

he came and helped them himself. But they could not take everything, for

the rooms to which they were going were much smaller than the old.

Christophe had to make his mother leave the oldest and most useless of

their belongings. It was not altogether easy; the least thing had its worth

for her: a shaky table, a broken chair, she wished to leave nothing behind.

Fischer, fortified by the authority of his old friendship with Jean Michel,

had to join Christophe in complaining, and, good-fellow that he was and

understanding her grief, had even to promise to keep some of her precious

rubbish for her against the day when she should want it again. Then she

agreed to tear herself away.

 

The two brothers had been told of the removal, but Ernest came on the night

before to say that he could not be there, and Rodolphe appeared for a

moment about noon; he watched them load the furniture, gave some advice,

and went away again looking mightily busy.

 

The procession set out through the muddy streets. Christophe led the horse,

which slipped on the greasy cobbles. Louisa walked by her son’s side, and

tried to shelter him from the rain. And so they had a melancholy homecoming

in the damp rooms, that were made darker than ever by the dull light coming

from the lowering sky. They could not have fought against the depression

that was upon them had it not been for the attentions of their landlord and

his family. But, when the cart had driven away, as night fell, leaving the

furniture heaped up in the room; and Christophe and Louisa were sitting,

worn out, one on a box, the other on a sack; they heard a little dry cough

on the staircase; there was a knock at the door. Old Euler came in. He

begged pardon elaborately for disturbing his guests, and said that by way

of celebrating their first evening he hoped that they would be kind enough

to sup with himself and his family. Louisa, stunned by her sorrow, wished

to refuse. Christophe was not much more tempted than she by this friendly

gathering, but the old man insisted and Christophe, thinking that it would

be better for his mother not to spend their first evening in their new home

alone with her thoughts, made her accept.

 

They went down to the floor below, where they found the whole family

collected: the old man, his daughter, his son-in-law, Vogel, and his

grandchildren, a boy and a girl, both a little younger than Christophe.

They clustered around their guests, bade them welcome, asked if they were

tired, if they were pleased with their rooms, if they needed anything;

putting so many questions that Christophe in bewilderment could make

nothing of them, for everybody spoke at once. The soup was placed on the

table; they sat down. But the noise went on. Amalia, Euler’s daughter, had

set herself at once to acquaint Louisa with local details: with the

topography of the district, the habits and advantages of the house, the

time when the milkman called, the time when she got up, the various

tradespeople and the prices that she paid. She did not stop until she had

explained everything. Louisa, half-asleep, tried hard to take an interest

in the information, but the remarks which she ventured showed that she had

understood not a word, and provoked Amalia to indignant exclamations and

repetition of every detail. Old Euler, a clerk, tried to explain to

Christophe the difficulties of a musical career. Christophe’s other

neighbor, Rosa, Amalia’s daughter, never stopped talking from the moment

when they sat down,—so volubly that she had no time to breathe; she lost

her breath in the middle of a sentence, but at once she was off again.

Vogel was gloomy and complained of the food, and there were embittered

arguments on the subject. Amalia, Euler, the girl, left off talking to take

part in the discussion; and there were endless controversies as to whether

there was too much salt in the stew or not enough; they called each other

to witness, and, naturally, no two opinions were the same. Each despised

his neighbor’s taste, and thought only his own healthy and reasonable. They

might have gone on arguing until the Last Judgment.

 

But, in the end, they all joined in crying out upon the bad weather. They

all commiserated Louisa and Christophe upon their troubles, and in terms

which moved him greatly they praised him for his courageous conduct. They

took great pleasure in recalling not only the misfortunes of their guests,

but also their own, and those of their friends and all their acquaintance,

and they all agreed that the good are always unhappy, and that there is joy

only for the selfish and dishonest. They decided that life is sad, that it

is quite useless, and that they were all better dead, were it not the

indubitable will of God that they should go on living so as to suffer. All

these ideas came very near to Christophe’s actual pessimism, he thought the

better of his landlord, and closed his eyes to their little oddities.

 

When he went upstairs again with his mother to the disordered rooms, they

were weary and sad, but they felt a little less lonely; and while

Christophe lay awake through the night, for he could not sleep because of

his weariness and the noise of the neighborhood, and listened to the heavy

carts shaking the walls, and the breathing of the family sleeping below, he

tried to persuade himself that he would be, if not happy, at least less

unhappy here, with these good people—a little tiresome, if the truth be

told—who suffered from like misfortunes, who seemed to understand him, and

whom, he thought, he understood.

 

But when at last he did fall asleep, he was