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

and that those who

thought the opposite, or pretended to think so, were one of two things:

fools or humbugs.

 

And so he never spoke of any new celebrity except in a tone of bitter

irony, and as he was not stupid he never failed to discover at the first

glance the weak or ridiculous sides of them. Any new name roused him to

distrust; before he knew anything about the man he was inclined to

criticise him—because he knew nothing about him. If he was sympathetic

towards Christophe it was because he thought that the misanthropic boy

found life as evil as he did himself, and that he was not a genius. Nothing

so unites the small of soul in their suffering and discontent as the

statement of their common impotence. Nothing so much restores the desire

for health or life to those who are healthy and made for the joy of life as

contact with the stupid pessimism of the mediocre and the sick, who,

because they are not happy, deny the happiness of others. Christophe felt

this. And yet these gloomy thoughts were familiar to him; but he was

surprised to find them on Vogel’s lips, where they were unrecognizable;

more than that, they were repugnant to him; they offended him.

 

He was even more in revolt against Amalia’s ways. The good creature did no

more than practise Christophe’s theories of duty. The word was upon her

lips at every turn. She worked unceasingly, and wanted everybody to work as

she did. Her work was never directed towards making herself and others

happier; on the contrary. It almost seemed as though it Was mainly intended

to incommode everybody and to make life as disagreeable as possible so as

to sanctify it. Nothing would induce her for a moment to relinquish her

holy duties in the household, that sacro-sanct institution which in so many

women takes the place of all other duties, social and moral. She would have

thought herself lost had she not on the same day, at the same time,

polished the wooden floors, washed the tiles, cleaned the door-handles,

beaten the carpets, moved the chairs, the cupboards, the tables. She was

ostentatious about it. It was as though it was a point of honor with her.

And after all, is it not in much the same spirit that many women conceive

and defend their honor? It is a sort of piece of furniture which they have

to keep polished, a well waxed floor, cold, hard—and slippery.

 

The accomplishment of her task did not make Frau Vogel more amicable. She

sacrificed herself to the trivialities of the household, as to a duty

imposed by God. And she despised those who did not do as she did, those who

rested, and were able to enjoy life a little in the intervals of work. She

would go and rouse Louisa in her room when from time to time she sat down

in the middle of her work to dream. Louisa would sigh, but she submitted to

it with a half-shamed smile. Fortunately, Christophe knew nothing about it;

Amalia used to wait until he had gone out before she made these irruptions

into their rooms, and so far she had not directly attacked him; he would

not have put up with it. When he was with her he was conscious of a latent

hostility within himself. What he could least forgive her was the noise she

made. He was maddened by it. When he was locked in his room—a little low

room looking out on the yard—with the window hermetically sealed, in spite

of the want of air, so as not to hear the clatter in the house, he could

not escape from it. Involuntarily he was forced to listen attentively for

the least sound coming up from below, and when the terrible voice which

penetrated all the walls broke out again after a moment of silence he was

filled with rage; he would shout, stamp with his foot, and roar insults at

her through the wall. In the general uproars no one ever noticed it; they

thought he was composing. He would consign Frau Vogel to the depths of

hell. He had no respect for her, nor esteem to check him. At such times it

seemed to him that he would have preferred the loosest and most stupid of

women, if only she did not talk, to cleverness, honesty, all the virtues,

when they make too much noise.

 

His hatred of noise brought him in touch with Leonard. In the midst of the

general excitement the boy was the only one to keep calm, and never to

raise his voice more at one moment than another. He always expressed

himself correctly and deliberately, choosing his words, and never hurrying.

Amalia, simmering, never had patience to wait until he had finished; the

whole family cried out upon his slowness. He did not worry about it.

Nothing could upset his calm, respectful deference. Christophe was the more

attracted to him when he learned that Leonard intended to devote his life

to the Church, and his curiosity was roused.

 

With regard to religion, Christophe was in a queer position; he did not

know himself how he stood towards it. He had never had time to think

seriously about it. He was not well enough educated, and he was too much

absorbed by the difficulties of existence to be able to analyze himself and

to set his ideas in order. His violence led him from one extreme to the

other, from absolute facts to complete negation, without troubling to find

out whether in either case he agreed with himself. When he was happy he

hardly thought of God at all, but he was quite ready to believe in Him.

When he was unhappy he thought of Him, but did not believe; it seemed to

him impossible that a God could authorize unhappiness and, injustice. But

these difficulties did not greatly exercise him. He was too fundamentally

religious to think much about God. He lived in God; he had no need to

believe in Him. That is well enough for the weak and worn, for those whose

lives are anæmic. They aspire to God, as a plant does to the sun. The dying

cling to life. But he who bears in his soul the sun and life, what need has

he to seek them outside himself?

 

Christophe would probably never have bothered about these questions had he

lived alone. But the obligations of social life forced him to bring his

thoughts to bear on these puerile and useless problems, which occupy a

place out of all proportion in the world; it is impossible not to take them

into account since at every step they are in the way. As if a healthy,

generous creature, overflowing with strength and love, had not a thousand

more worthy things to do than to worry as to whether God exists or no!…

If it were only a question of believing in God! But it is needful to

believe in a God, of whatever shape or size and color and race. So far

Christophe never gave a thought to the matter. Jesus hardly occupied his

thoughts at all. It was not that he did not love him: he loved him when

he thought of him: but he never thought of him. Sometimes he reproached

himself for it, was angry with himself, could not understand why he did not

take more interest in him. And yet he professed, all his family professed;

his grandfather was forever reading the Bible; he went regularly to Mass;

he served it in a sort of way, for he was an organist; and he set about

his task conscientiously and in an exemplary manner. But when he left the

church he would have been hard put to it to say what he had been thinking

about. He set himself to read the Holy Books in order to fix his ideas,

and he found amusement and even pleasure in them, just as in any beautiful

strange books, not essentially different from other books, which no

one ever thinks of calling sacred. In truth, if Jesus appealed to him,

Beethoven did no less. And at his organ in Saint Florian’s Church, where

he accompanied on Sundays, he was more taken up with his organ than with

Mass, and he was more religious when he played Bach than when he played

Mendelssohn, Some of the ritual brought him to a fervor of exaltation. But

did he then love God, or was it only the music, as an impudent priest said

to him one day in jest, without thinking of the unhappiness which his quip

might cause in him? Anybody else would not have paid any attention to it,

and would not have changed his mode of living—(so many people put up with

not knowing what they think!) But Christophe was cursed with an awkward

need for sincerity, which filled him with scruples at every turn. And when

scruples came to him they possessed him forever. He tortured himself; he

thought that he had acted with duplicity. Did he believe or did he not?…

He had no means, material or intellectual—(knowledge and leisure are

necessary)—of solving the problem by himself. And yet it had to be solved,

or he was either indifferent or a hypocrite. Now, he was incapable of being

either one or the other.

 

He tried timidly to sound those about him. They all seemed to be sure

of themselves. Christophe burned to know their reasons. He could not

discover them. Hardly did he receive a definite answer; they always talked

obliquely. Some thought him arrogant, and said that there is no arguing

these things, that thousands of men cleverer and better than himself had

believed without argument, and that he needed only to do as they had done.

There were some who were a little hurt, as though it were a personal

affront to ask them such a question, and yet they were of all perhaps the

least certain of their facts. Others shrugged their shoulders and said with

a smile: “Bah! it can’t do any harm.” And their smile said: “And it is so

useful!…” Christophe despised them with all his heart.

 

He had tried to lay his uncertainties before a priest, but he was

discouraged by the experiment. He could not discuss the matter seriously

with him. Though his interlocution was quite pleasant, he made Christophe

feel, quite politely, that there was no real equality between them; he

seemed to assume in advance that his superiority was beyond dispute, and

that the discussion could not exceed the limits which he laid down for

it, without a kind of impropriety; it was just a fencing bout, and was

quite inoffensive. When Christophe wished to exceed the limits and to ask

questions which the worthy man was pleased not to answer, he stepped back

with a patronizing smile, and a few Latin quotations, and a fatherly

objurgation to pray, pray that God would enlighten him. Christophe

issued from the interview humiliated and wounded by his love of polite

superiority. Wrong or right, he would never again for anything in the world

have recourse to a priest. He admitted that these men were his superiors in

intelligence or by reason of their sacred calling; but in argument there is

neither superiority, nor inferiority, nor title, nor age, nor name; nothing

is of worth but truth, before which all men are equal.

 

So he was glad to find a boy of his own age who believed. He asked no

more than belief, and he hoped that Leonard would give him good reason

for believing. He made advances to him. Leonard replied with his usual

gentleness, but without eagerness; he was never eager about anything. As

they could not carry on a long conversation in the house without