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

him, trembled lest he should

enter…. And when at last he made up his mind to enter, she had just made

up her mind to turn the lock again.

 

Then he cursed himself for a fool. He leaned against the door with all his

strength. With his lips to the lock he implored her:

 

“Open.”

 

He called to Sabine in a whisper: she could hear his heated breathing. She

stayed motionless near the door: she was frozen: her teeth were chattering:

she had no strength either to open the door or to go to bed again….

 

The storm made the trees crack and the doors in the house bang…. They

turned away and went to their beds, worn out, sad and sick at heart.

The cocks crowed huskily. The first light of dawn crept through the wet

windows, a wretched, pale dawn, drowned in the persistent rain….

 

Christophe got up as soon as he could: he went down to the kitchen and

talked to the people there. He was in a hurry to be gone and was afraid

of being left alone with Sabine again. He was almost relieved when the

miller’s wife said that Sabine was unwell, and had caught cold during the

drive and would not be going that morning.

 

His journey home was melancholy. He refused to drive, and walked through

the soaking fields, in the yellow mist that covered the earth, the trees,

the houses, with a shroud. Like the light, life seemed to be blotted out.

Everything loomed like a specter. He was like a specter himself.

 

*

 

At home he found angry faces. They were all scandalized at his having

passed the night God knows where with Sabine. He shut himself up in his

room and applied himself to his work. Sabine returned the next day and shut

herself up also. They avoided meeting each other. The weather was still

wet and cold: neither of them went out. They saw each other through their

closed windows. Sabine was wrapped up by her fire, dreaming. Christophe

was buried in his papers. They bowed to each other a little coldly and

reservedly and then pretended to be absorbed again. They did not take

stock of what they were feeling: they were angry with each other, with

themselves, with things generally. The night at the farmhouse had been

thrust aside in their memories: they were ashamed of it, and did not know

whether they were more ashamed of their folly or of not having yielded to

it. It was painful to them to see each other: for that made them remember

things from which they wished to escape: and by joint agreement they

retired into the depths of their rooms so as utterly to forget each

other. But that was impossible, and they suffered keenly under the secret

hostility which they felt was between them. Christophe was haunted by the

expression of dumb rancor which he had once seen in Sabine’s cold eyes.

From such thoughts her suffering was not less: in vain did she struggle

against them, and even deny them: she could not rid herself of them. They

were augmented by her shame that Christophe should have guessed what was

happening within her: and the shame of having offered herself … the shame

of having offered herself without having given.

 

Christophe gladly accepted an opportunity which cropped up to go to Cologne

and Düsseldorf for some concerts. He was glad to spend two or three weeks

away from home. Preparation for the concerts and the composition of a new

work that he wished to play at them took up all his time and he succeeded

in forgetting his obstinate memories. They disappeared from Sabine’s mind

too, and she fell back into the torpor of her usual life. They came to

think of each other with indifference. Had they really loved each other?

They doubted it. Christophe was on the point of leaving for Cologne without

saying good-bye to Sabine.

 

On the evening before his departure they were brought together again by

some imperceptible influence. It was one of the Sunday afternoons when

everybody was at church. Christophe had gone out too to make his final

preparations for the journey. Sabine was sitting in her tiny garden warming

herself in the last rays of the sun. Christophe came home: he was in a

hurry and his first inclination when he saw her was; to bow and pass on.

But something held him back as he was passing: was it Sabine’s paleness, or

some indefinable feeling: remorse, fear, tenderness?… He stopped, turned

to Sabine, and, leaning over the fence, he bade her good-evening. Without

replying she held out her hand. Her smile was all kindness,—such kindness

as he had never seen in her. Her gesture seemed to say: “Peace between

us….” He took her hand over the fence, bent over it, and kissed it. She

made no attempt to withdraw it. He longed to go down on his knees and say,

“I love you.”… They looked at each other in silence. But they offered no

explanation. After a moment she removed her hand and turned her head. He

turned too to hide his emotion. Then they looked at each other again with

untroubled eyes. The sun was setting. Subtle shades of color, violet,

orange, and mauve, chased across the cold clear sky. She shivered and drew

her shawl closer about her shoulders with a movement that he knew well. He

asked:

 

“How are you?”

 

She made a little grimace, as if the question were not worth answering.

They went on looking at each other and were happy. It was as though they

had lost, and had just found each other again….

 

At last he broke the silence and said:

 

“I am going away to-morrow.”

 

There was alarm in Sabine’s eyes.

 

“Going away?” she said.

 

He added quickly:

 

“Oh! only for two or three weeks.”

 

“Two or three weeks,” she said in dismay.

 

He explained that he was engaged for the concerts, but that when he came

back he would not stir all winter.

 

“Winter,” she said. “That is a long time off….”

 

“Oh! no. It will soon be here.”

 

She saddened and did not look at him.

 

“When shall we meet again?” she asked a moment later.

 

He did not understand the question: he had already answered it.

 

“As soon as I come back: in a fortnight, or three weeks at most.”

 

She still looked dismayed. He tried to tease her:

 

“It won’t be long for you,” he said. “You will sleep.”

 

“Yes,” said Sabine.

 

She looked down, she tried to smile: but her eyes trembled.

 

“Christophe!…” she said suddenly, turning towards him.

 

There was a note of distress in her voice. She seemed to say:

 

“Stay! Don’t go!…”

 

He took her hand, looked at her, did not understand the importance she

attached to his fortnight’s absence: but he was only waiting for a word

from her to say:

 

“I will stay….”

 

And just as she was going to speak, the front door was opened and Rosa

appeared. Sabine withdrew her hand from Christophe’s and went hurriedly

into her house. At the door she turned and looked at him once more—and

disappeared.

 

*

 

Christophe thought he should see her again in the evening. But he was

watched by the Vogels, and followed everywhere by his mother: as usual, he

was behindhand with his preparations for his journey and could not find

time to leave the house for a moment.

 

Next day he left very early. As he passed Sabine’s door he longed to go in,

to tap at the window: it hurt him to leave her without saying good-bye:

for he had been interrupted by Rosa before he had had time to do so. But

he thought she must be asleep and would be cross with him if he woke her

up. And then, what could he say to her? It was too late now to abandon his

journey: and what if she were to ask him to do so?… He did not admit to

himself that he was not averse to exercising his power over her,—if need

be, causing her a little pain…. He did not take seriously the grief that

his departure brought Sabine: and he thought that his short absence would

increase the tenderness which, perhaps, she had for him.

 

He ran to the station. In spite of everything he was a little remorseful.

But as soon as the train had started it was all forgotten. There was youth

in his heart. Gaily he saluted the old town with its roofs and towers rosy

under the sun: and with the carelessness of those who are departing he said

good-bye to those whom he was leaving, and thought no more of them.

 

The whole time that he was at Düsseldorf and Cologne Sabine never once

recurred to his mind. Taken up from morning till night with rehearsals and

concerts, dinners and talk, busied with a thousand and one new things and

the pride and satisfaction of his success he had no time for recollection.

Once only, on the fifth night after he left home, he woke suddenly after a

dream and knew that he had been thinking of her in his sleep and that the

thought of her had wakened him up: but he could not remember how he had

been thinking of her. He was unhappy and feverish. It was not surprising:

he had been playing at a concert that evening, and when he left the hall

he had been dragged off to a supper at which he had drunk several glasses

of champagne. He could not sleep and got up. He was obsessed by a musical

idea. He pretended that it was that which had broken in upon his sleep and

he wrote it down. As he read through it he was astonished to see how sad

it was. There was no sadness in him when he wrote: at least, so he thought.

But he remembered that on other occasions when he had been sad he had only

been able to write joyous music, so gay that it offended his mood. He gave

no more thought to it. He was used to the surprises of his mind world

without ever being able to understand them. He went to sleep at once, and

knew no more until the next morning.

 

He extended his stay by three or four days. It pleased him to prolong it,

knowing he could return whenever he liked: he was in no hurry to go home.

It was only when he was on the way, in the train, that the thought of

Sabine came back to him. He had not written to her. He was even careless

enough never to have taken the trouble to ask at the post-office for any

letters that might have been written to him. He took a secret delight in

his silence: he knew that at home he was expected, that he was loved….

Loved? She had never told him so: he had never told her so. No doubt they

knew it and had no need to tell it. And yet there was nothing so precious

as the certainty of such an avowal. Why had they waited so long to make

it? When they had been on the point of speaking always something—some

mischance, shyness, embarrassment,—had hindered them. Why? Why? How much

time they had lost!… He longed to hear the dear words from the lips of

the beloved. He longed to say them to her: he said them aloud in the empty

carriage. As he neared the town