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

him: they distrusted—especially Frau Vogel—these

artistic temperaments. But as they were naturally discontented and always

inclined to think themselves persecuted by fate, they persuaded themselves

that they had counted on the marriage of Christophe and Rosa; as soon as

they were quite certain that such a marriage would never come to pass, they

saw in it the mark of the usual ill luck. Logically, if fate were

responsible for their miscalculation, Christophe could not be: but the

Vogels’ logic was that which gave them the greatest opportunity for finding

reasons for being sorry for themselves. So they decided that if Christophe

had misconducted himself it was not so much for his own pleasure as to give

offense to them. They were scandalized. Very religious, moral, and oozing

domestic virtue, they were of those to whom the sins of the flesh are the

most shameful, the most serious, almost the only sins, because they are the

only dreadful sins—(it is obvious that respectable people are never likely

to be tempted to steal or murder).—And so Christophe seemed to them

absolutely wicked, and they changed their demeanor towards him. They were

icy towards him and turned away as they passed him. Christophe, who was in

no particular need of their conversation, shrugged his shoulders at all the

fuss. He pretended not to notice Amalia’s insolence: who, while she

affected contemptuously to avoid him, did all that she could to make him

fall in with her so that she might tell him all that was rankling in her.

 

Christophe was only touched by Rosa’s attitude. The girl condemned him more

harshly even than his family. Not that this new love of Christophe’s seemed

to her to destroy her last chances of being loved by him: she knew that she

had no chance left—(although perhaps she went on hoping: she always

hoped).—But she had made an idol of Christophe: and that idol had crumbled

away. It was the worst sorrow for her … yes, a sorrow more cruel to the

innocence and honesty of her heart, than being disdained and forgotten by

him. Brought up puritanically, with a narrow code of morality, in which she

believed passionately, what she had heard about Christophe had not only

brought her to despair but had broken her heart. She had suffered already

when he was in love with Sabine: she had begun then to lose some of her

illusions about her hero. That Christophe could love so commonplace a

creature seemed to her inexplicable and inglorious. But at least that love

was pure, and Sabine was not unworthy of it. And in the end death had

passed over it and sanctified it…. But that at once Christophe should

love another woman,—and such a woman!—was base, and odious! She took upon

herself the defense of the dead woman against him. She could not forgive

him for having forgotten her…. Alas! He was thinking of her more than

she: but she never thought that in a passionate heart there might be room

for two sentiments at once: she thought it impossible to be faithful to the

past without sacrifice of the present. Pure and cold, she had no idea of

life or of Christophe: everything in her eyes was pure, narrow, submissive

to duty, like herself. Modest of soul, modest of herself, she had only one

source of pride: purity: she demanded it of herself and of others. She

could not forgive Christophe for having so lowered himself, and she would

never forgive him.

 

Christophe tried to talk to her, though not to explain himself—(what could

he say to her? what could he say to a little puritanical and naïve

girl?).—He would have liked to assure her that he was her friend, that he

wished for her esteem, and had still the right to it He wished to prevent

her absurdly estranging herself from him.—But Rosa avoided him in stern

silence: he felt that she despised him.

 

He was both sorry and angry. He felt that he did not deserve such contempt;

and yet in the end he was bowled over by it: and thought himself guilty. Of

all the reproaches cast against him the most bitter came from himself when

he thought of Sabine. He tormented himself.

 

“Oh! God, how is it possible? What sort of creature am I?…”

 

But he could not resist the stream that bore him on. He thought that life

is criminal: and he closed his eyes so as to live without seeing it. He had

so great a need to live, and be happy, and love, and believe!… No: there

was nothing despicable in his love! He knew that it was impossible to be

very wise, or intelligent, or even very happy in his love for Ada: but what

was there in it that could be called vile? Suppose—(he forced the idea on

himself)—that Ada were not a woman of any great moral worth, how was the

love that he had for her the less pure for that? Love is in the lover, not

in the beloved. Everything is worthy of the lover, everything is worthy of

love. To the pure all is pure. All is pure in the strong and the healthy of

mind. Love, which adorns certain birds with their loveliest colors, calls

forth from the souls that are true all that is most noble in them. The

desire to show to the beloved only what is worthy makes the lover take

pleasure only in those thoughts and actions which are in harmony with the

beautiful image fashioned by love. And the waters of youth in which the

soul is bathed, the blessed radiance of strength and joy, are beautiful and

health-giving, making the heart great.

 

That his friends misunderstood him filled him with bitterness. But the

worst trial of all was that his mother was beginning to be unhappy about

it.

 

The good creature was far from sharing the narrow views of the Vogels. She

had seen real sorrows too near ever to try to invent others. Humble, broken

by life, having received little joy from it, and having asked even less,

resigned to everything that happened, without even trying to understand it,

she was careful not to judge or censure others: she thought she had no

right. She thought herself too stupid to pretend that they were wrong when

they did not think as she did: it would have seemed ridiculous to try to

impose on others the inflexible rules of her morality and belief. Besides

that, her morality and her belief were purely instinctive: pious and pure

in herself she closed her eyes to the conduct of others, with the

indulgence of her class for certain faults and certain weaknesses. That had

been one of the complaints that her father-in-law, Jean Michel, had lodged

against her: she did not sufficiently distinguish between those who were

honorable and those who were not: she was not afraid of stopping in the

street or the market-place to shake hands and talk with young women,

notorious in the neighborhood, whom a respectable woman ought to pretend to

ignore. She left it to God to distinguish between good and evil, to punish

or to forgive. From others she asked only a little of that affectionate

sympathy which is so necessary to soften the ways of life. If people were

only kind she asked no more.

 

But since she had lived with the Vogels a change had come about in her. The

disparaging temper of the family had found her an easier prey because she

was crushed and had no strength to resist. Amalia had taken her in hand:

and from morning to night when they were working together alone, and Amalia

did all the talking, Louisa, broken and passive, unconsciously assumed the

habit of judging and criticising everything. Frau Vogel did not fail to

tell her what she thought of Christophe’s conduct. Louisa’s calmness

irritated her. She thought it indecent of Louisa to be so little concerned

about what put him beyond the pale: she was not satisfied until she had

upset her altogether. Christophe saw it. Louisa dared not reproach him: but

every day she made little timid remarks, uneasy, insistent: and when he

lost patience and replied sharply, she said no more: but still he could see

the trouble in her eyes: and when he came home sometimes he could see that

she had been weeping. He knew his mother too well not to be absolutely

certain that her uneasiness did not come from herself.—And he knew well

whence it came.

 

He determined to make an end of it. One evening when Louisa was unable to

hold back her tears and had got up from the table in the middle of supper

without Christophe being able to discover what was the matter, he rushed

downstairs four steps at a time and knocked at the Vogels’ door. He was

boiling with rage. He was not only angry about Frau Vogel’s treatment of

his mother: he had to avenge himself for her having turned Rosa against

him, for her bickering against Sabine, for all that he had had to put up

with at her hands for months. For months he had borne his pent-up feelings

against her and now made haste to let them loose.

 

He burst in on Frau Vogel and in a voice that he tried to keep calm, though

it was trembling with fury, he asked her what she had told his mother to

bring her to such a state.

 

Amalia took it very badly: she replied that she would say what she pleased,

and was responsible to no one for her actions—to him least of all. And

seizing the opportunity to deliver the speech which she had prepared, she

added that if Louisa was unhappy he had to go no further for the cause of

it than his own conduct, which was a shame to himself and a scandal to

everybody else.

 

Christophe was only waiting for her onslaught to strike out, He shouted

angrily that his conduct was his own affair, that he did not care a rap

whether it pleased Frau Vogel or not, that if she wished to complain of it

she must do so to him, and that she could say to him whatever she liked:

that rested with her, but he forbade her—(did she hear?)—forbade her

to say anything to his mother: it was cowardly and mean so to attack a poor

sick old woman.

 

Frau Vogel cried loudly. Never had any one dared to speak to her in such a

manner. She said that she was not to be lectured fey a rapscallion,—and in

her own house, too!—And she treated him with abuse.

 

The others came running up on the noise of the quarrel,—except Vogel, who

fled from anything that might upset, his health. Old Euler was called to

witness by the indignant Amalia and sternly bade Christophe in future to

refrain from speaking to or visiting them. He said that they did not need

him to tell them what they ought to do, that they did their duty and would

always do it.

 

Christophe declared that he would go and would never again set foot in

their house. However, he did not go until he had relieved his feelings by

telling them what he had still to say about their famous Duty, which had

become to him a personal enemy. He said that their Duty was the sort of

thing to make him love vice. It was people like them who discouraged good,

by insisting on making it unpleasant. It was their fault that so many find

delight by contrast among those who are dishonest, but amiable and

laughter-loving. It was a profanation of the name of duty to apply it to

everything, to the most stupid tasks, to trivial things, with a stiff and