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

It was

a great sorrow to him. He had ideas sometimes which he thought admirable.

He would run tremblingly to his table. Could he keep his inspiration this

time? But hardly had he taken pen in hand than he found himself alone in

silence, and all his efforts to call to life again the vanished voices

ended only in bringing to his ears familiar melodies of Mendelssohn or

Brahms.

 

“There are,” says George Sand, “unhappy geniuses who lack the power of

expression, and carry down to their graves the unknown region of their

thoughts, as has said a member of that great family of illustrious mutes

or stammerers—Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire.” Old Jean Michel belonged to that

family. He was no more successful in expressing himself in music than in

words, and he always deceived himself. He would so much have loved to talk,

to write, to be a great musician, an eloquent orator! It was his secret

sore. He told no one of it, did not admit it to himself, tried not to think

of it; but he did think of it, in spite of himself, and so there was the

seed of death in his soul.

 

Poor old man! In nothing did he succeed in being absolutely himself. There

were in him so many seeds of beauty and power, but they never put forth

fruit; a profound and touching faith in the dignity of Art and the moral

value of life, but it was nearly always translated in an emphatic and

ridiculous fashion; so much noble pride, and in life an almost servile

admiration of his superiors; so lofty a desire for independence, and,

in fact, absolute docility; pretensions to strength of mind, and every

conceivable superstition; a passion for heroism, real courage, and so much

timidity!—a nature to stop by the wayside.

 

*

 

Jean Michel had transferred all his ambitions to his son, and at first

Melchior had promised to realize them. From childhood he had shown great

musical gifts. He learned with extraordinary facility, and quickly acquired

as a violinist a virtuosity which for a long time made him the favorite,

almost the idol, of the Court concerts. He played the piano and other

instruments pleasantly. He was a fine talker, well, though a little

heavily, built, and was of the type which passes in Germany for classic

beauty; he had a large brow that expressed nothing, large regular features,

and a curled beard—a Jupiter of the banks of the Rhine. Old Jean Michel

enjoyed his son’s success; he was ecstatic over the virtuoso’s _tours de

force_, he who had never been able properly to play any instrument. In

truth, Melchior would have had no difficulty in expressing what he thought.

The trouble was that he did not think; and he did not even bother about it.

He had the soul of a mediocre comedian who takes pains with the inflexions

of his voice without caring about what they express, and, with anxious

vanity, watches their effect on his audience.

 

The odd thing was that, in spite of his constant anxiety about his stage

pose, there was in him, as in Jean Michel, in spite of his timid respect

for social conventions, a curious, irregular, unexpected and chaotic

quality, which made people say that the Kraffts were a bit crazy. It did

not harm him at first; it seemed as though these very eccentricities were

the proof of the genius attributed to him; for it is understood among

people of common sense that an artist has none. But it was not long

before his extravagances were traced to their source—usually the bottle.

Nietzsche says that Bacchus is the God of Music, and Melchior’s instinct

was of the same opinion; but in his case his god was very ungrateful to

him; far from giving him the ideas he lacked, he took away from him the few

that he had. After his absurd marriage—absurd in the eyes of the world,

and therefore also in his own—he gave himself up to it more and more. He

neglected his playing—so secure in his own superiority that very soon he

lost it. Other virtuosi came to succeed him in public favor. That

was bitter to him, but instead of rousing his energy, these rebuffs only

discouraged him. He avenged himself by crying down his rivals with his

pot-fellows. In his absurd conceit he counted on succeeding his father as

musical director: another man was appointed. He thought himself persecuted,

and took on the airs of a misunderstood genius. Thanks to the esteem in

which old Krafft was held, he kept his place as a violin in the orchestra,

but gradually he lost all his lessons in the town. And if this blow struck

most at his vanity, it touched his purse even more. For several years the

resources of his household had grown less and less, following on various

reverses of fortune. After having known plenty, want came, and every day

increased. Melchior refused to take notice of it; he did not spend one

penny the less on his toilet or his pleasures.

 

He was not a bad man, but a half-good man, which is perhaps worse—weak,

without spring, without moral strength, but for the rest, in his own

opinion, a good father, a good son, a good husband, a good man—and perhaps

he was good, if to be so it is enough to possess an easy kindness, which

is quickly touched, and that animal affection by which a man loves his kin

as a part of himself. It cannot even be said that he was very egoistic; he

had not personality enough for that. He was nothing. They are a terrible

thing in life, these people who are nothing. Like a dead weight thrown into

the air, they fall, and must fall; and in their fall they drag with them

everything that they have.

 

It was when the situation of his family had reached its most difficult

point, that little Jean-Christophe began to understand what was going on

about him.

 

He was no longer the only child. Melchior gave his wife a child every year,

without troubling to think what was to become of it later. Two had died

young; two others were three and four years old. Melchior never bothered

about them. Louisa, when she had to go out, left them with Jean-Christophe,

now six years old.

 

The charge cost Jean-Christophe something, for he had to sacrifice to his

duty his splendid afternoons in the fields. But he was proud of being

treated as a man, and gravely fulfilled his task. He amused the children as

best he could by showing them his games, and he set himself to talk to them

as he had heard his mother talking to the baby. Or he would carry them in

his arms, one after another, as he had seen her do; he bent under their

weight, and clenched his teeth, and with all his strength clutched his

little brother to his breast, so as to prevent his falling. The children

always wanted to be carried—they were never tired of it; and when

Jean-Christophe could do no more, they wept without ceasing. They made him

very unhappy, and he was often troubled about them. They were very dirty,

and needed maternal attentions. Jean-Christophe did not know what to do.

They took advantage of him. Sometimes he wanted to slap them, but he

thought, “They are little; they do not know,” and, magnanimously, he let

them pinch him, and beat him, and tease him. Ernest used to howl for

nothing; he used to stamp his feet and roll about in a passion; he was a

nervous child, and Louisa had bidden Jean-Christophe not to oppose his

whims. As for Rodolphe, he was as malicious as a monkey; he always took

advantage of Jean-Christophe having Ernest in his arms, to play all sorts

of silly pranks behind his back; he used to break toys, spill water, dirty

his frock, and knock the plates over as he rummaged in the cupboard.

 

And when Louisa returned, instead of praising Jean-Christophe, she used to

say to him, without scolding him, but with an injured air, as she saw the

havoc; “My poor child, you are not very clever!”

 

Jean-Christophe would be mortified, and his heart would grow big within

him.

 

*

 

Louisa, who let no opportunity escape of earning a little money, used to

go out as cook for exceptional occasions, such, as marriages or baptismal

feasts. Melchior pretended to know nothing about it—it touched his

vanity—but he was not annoyed with her for doing it, so long as he did not

know. Jean-Christophe had as yet no idea of the difficulties of life; he

knew no other limit to his will than the will of his parents, and that did

not stand much in his way, for they let him do pretty much as he pleased.

His one idea was to grow up, so as to be able to do as he liked. He had no

conception of obstacles standing in the way at every turn, and he had never

the least idea but that his parents were completely their own masters. It

was a shock to his whole being when, for the first time, he perceived that

among men there are those who command, and those who are commanded, and

that his own people were not of the first class; it was the first crisis of

his life.

 

It happened one afternoon. His mother had dressed him in his cleanest

clothes, old clothes given to her which Louisa’s ingenuity and patience had

turned to account. He went to find her, as they had agreed, at the house

in which she was working. He was abashed at the idea of entering alone. A

footman was swaggering in the porch; he stopped the boy, and asked him

patronizingly what he wanted. Jean-Christophe blushed, and murmured that

he had come to see “Frau Krafft”—as he had been told to say.

 

“Frau Krafft? What do you want with Frau Krafft?” asked the footman,

ironically emphasizing the word Frau, “Your mother? Go down there.

You will find Louisa in the kitchen at the end of the passage.”

 

He went, growing redder and redder. He was ashamed to hear his mother

called familiarly Louisa. He was humiliated; he would have liked to run

away down to his dear river, and the shelter of the brushwood where he used

to tell himself stories.

 

In the kitchen he came upon a number of other servants, who greeted him

with noisy exclamations. At the back, near the stove, his mother smiled at

him with tender embarrassment. He ran to her, and clung to her skirts. She

was wearing a white apron, and holding a wooden spoon. She made him more

unhappy by trying to raise his chin so as to look in his face, and to make

him hold out his hand to everybody there and say good-day to them. He would

not; he turned to the wall and hid his face in his arms. Then gradually he

gained courage, and peeped out of his hiding-place with merry bright eyes,

which hid again every time any one looked at him. He stole looks at the

people there. His mother looked busy and important, and he did not know her

like that; she went from one saucepan to another, tasting, giving advice,

in a sure voice explaining recipes, and the cook of the house listened

respectfully. The boy’s heart swelled with pride as he saw how much his

mother was appreciated, and the great part that she played in this splendid

room, adorned with magnificent objects of gold and silver.

 

Suddenly conversation ceased. The door opened. A lady entered with a

rustling of the