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

to light in him: they horrified him. He thought of that

dark watching by the body of Melchior, of all that he had sworn to do, and,

surveying his life since then, he knew that he had failed to keep his vows.

What had he done in the year? What had he done for his God, for his art,

for his soul? What had he done for eternity? There was not a day that had

not been wasted, botched, besmirched. Not a single piece of work, not a

thought, not an effort of enduring quality. A chaos of desires destructive

of each other. Wind, dust, nothing…. What did his intentions avail him?

He had fulfilled none of them. He had done exactly the opposite of what

he had intended. He had become what he had no wish to be: that was the

balance-sheet of his life.

 

He did not go to bed. About six in the morning it was still dark,—he heard

Gottfried getting ready to depart.—For Gottfried had had no intentions of

staying on. As he was passing the town he had come as usual to embrace his

sister and nephew: but he had announced that he would go on next morning.

 

Christophe went downstairs. Gottfried saw his pale face and his eyes hollow

with a night of torment. He smiled fondly at him and asked him to go a

little of the way with him. They set out together before dawn. They had

no need to talk: they understood each other. As they passed the cemetery

Gottfried said:

 

“Shall we go in?”

 

When he came to the place he never failed to pay a visit to Jean Michel and

Melchior. Christophe had not been there for a year. Gottfried knelt by

Melchior’s grave and said:

 

“Let us pray that they may sleep well and not come to torment us.”

 

His thought was a mixture of strange superstitions and sound sense:

sometimes it surprised Christophe: but now it was only too dear to him.

They said no more until they left the cemetery.

 

When they had closed the creaking gate, and were walking along the wall

through the cold fields, waking from slumber, by the little path which led

them under the cypress trees from which the snow was dropping, Christophe

began to weep.

 

“Oh! uncle,” he said, “how wretched I am!”

 

He dared not speak of his experience in love, from an odd fear of

embarrassing or hurting Gottfried: but he spoke of his shame, his

mediocrity, his cowardice, his broken vows.

 

“What am I to do, uncle? I have tried, I have struggled: and after a year

I am no further on than before. Worse: I have gone back. I am good for

nothing. I am good for nothing! I have ruined my life. I am perjured!…”

 

They were walking up the hill above the town. Gottfried said kindly:

 

“Not for the last time, my boy. We do not do what we will to do. We will

and we live: two things. You must be comforted. The great thing is, you

see, never to give up willing and living. The rest does not depend on us.”

 

Christophe repeated desperately:

 

“I have perjured myself.”

 

“Do you hear?” said Gottfried.

 

(The cocks were crowing in all the countryside.)

 

“They, too, are crowing for another who is perjured. They crow for every

one of us, every morning.”

 

“A day will come,” said Christophe bitterly, “when, they will no longer

crow for me … A day to which there is no to-morrow. And what shall I have

made of my life?”

 

“There is always a to-morrow,” said Gottfried.

 

“But what can one do, if willing is no use?”

 

“Watch and pray.”

 

“I do not believe.”

 

Gottfried smiled.

 

“You would not be alive if you did not believe. Every one believes. Pray.”

 

“Pray to what?”

 

Gottfried pointed to the sun appearing on the horizon, red and frozen.

 

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a

year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories,

you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse

life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it,

do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when

it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now.

Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be

good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all

will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well,

you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then,

why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do

what we can…. Als ich kann.”

 

“It is not enough,” said Christophe, making a face.

 

Gottfried laughed pleasantly.

 

“It is more than anybody does. You are a vain fellow. You want to be a

hero. That is why you do such silly things…. A hero!… I don’t quite

know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does

what he can. The others do not do it.”

 

“Oh!” sighed Christophe. “Then what is the good of living? It is not worth

while. And yet there are people who say: ‘He who wills can!’”…

 

Gottfried laughed again softly.

 

“Yes?… Oh! well, they are liars, my friend. Or they do not will anything

much….”

 

They had reached the top of the hill. They embraced affectionately. The

little peddler went on, treading wearily. Christophe stayed there, lost in

thought, and watched him go. He repeated his uncle’s saying:

 

“Als ich kann (The best I can).”

 

And he smiled, thinking:

 

“Yes…. All the same…. It is enough.”

 

He returned to the town. The frozen snow crackled under his feet. The

bitter winter wind made the bare branches of the stunted trees on the hill

shiver. It reddened his cheeks, and made his skin tingle, and set his blood

racing. The red roofs of the town below were smiling under the brilliant,

cold sun. The air was strong and harsh. The frozen earth seemed to rejoice

in bitter gladness. And Christophe’s heart was like that. He thought:

 

“I, too, shall wake again.”

 

There were still tears in his eyes. He dried them with the back of his

hand, and laughed to see the sun dipping down behind a veil of mist. The

clouds, heavy with snow, were floating over the town, lashed by the squall.

He laughed at them. The wind blew icily….

 

“Blow, blow!… Do what you will with me. Bear me with you!… I know now

where I am going.”

REVOLT I SHIFTING SANDS

Free! He felt that he was free!… Free of others and of himself! The

network of passion in which he had been enmeshed for more than a year had

suddenly been burst asunder. How? He did not know. The filaments had given

before the growth of his being. It was one of those crises of growth in

which robust natures tear away the dead casing of the year that is past,

the old soul in which they are cramped and stifled.

 

Christophe breathed deeply, without understanding what had happened. An icy

whirlwind was rushing through the great gate of the town as he returned

from taking Gottfried on his way. The people were walking with heads

lowered against the storm. Girls going to their work were struggling

against the wind that blew against their skirts: they stopped every now

and then to breathe, with their nose and cheeks red, and they looked

exasperated, and as though they wanted to cry. He thought of that other

torment through which he had passed. He looked at the wintry sky, the town

covered with snow, the people struggling along past him: he looked about

him, into himself: he was no longer bound. He was alone!… Alone! How

happy to be alone, to be his own! What joy to have escaped from his bonds,

from his torturing memories, from the hallucinations of faces that he loved

or detested! What joy at last to live, without being the prey of life, to

have become his own master!…

 

He went home white with snow. He shook himself gaily like a dog. As he

passed his mother, who was sweeping the passage, he lifted her up, giving

little inarticulate cries of affection such as one makes to a tiny child.

Poor old Louisa struggled in her son’s arms: she was wet with the melting

snow: and she called him, with a jolly laugh, a great gaby.

 

He went up to his room three steps at a time.—He could hardly see himself

in his little mirror it was so dark. But his heart was glad. His room

was low and narrow and it was difficult to move in it, but it was like a

kingdom to him. He locked the door and laughed with pleasure. At last he

was finding himself! How long he had been gone astray! He was eager to

plunge into thought like a bather into water. It was like a great lake afar

off melting into the mists of blue and gold. After a night of fever and

oppressive heat he stood by the edge of it, with his legs bathed in the

freshness of the water, his body kissed by the wind of a summer morning. He

plunged in and swam: he knew not whither he was going, and did not care: it

was joy to swim whithersoever he listed. He was silent, then he laughed,

and listened for the thousand thousand sounds of his soul: it swarmed with

life. He could make out nothing: his head was swimming: he felt only a

bewildering happiness. He was glad to feel in himself such unknown forces:

and indolently postponing putting his powers to the test he sank back into

the intoxication of pride in the inward flowering, which, held back for

months, now burst forth like a sudden spring.

 

His mother called him to breakfast. He went down: he was giddy and

light-headed as though he had spent a day in the open air: but there was

such a radiance of joy in him that Louisa asked what was the matter. He

made no reply: he seized her by the waist and forced her to dance with him

round the table on which the tureen was steaming. Out of breath Louisa

cried that he was mad: then she clasped her hands.

 

“Dear God!” she said anxiously. “Sure, he is in love again!”

 

Christophe roared with laughter. He hurled his napkin into the air.

 

“In love?…” he cried. “Oh! Lord!… but no! I’ve had enough! You can be

easy on that score. That is done, done, forever!… Ouf!”

 

He drank a glassful of water.

 

Louisa looked at him, reassured, wagged her head, and smiled.

 

“That’s a drunkard’s pledge,” she said. “It won’t last until to-night.”

 

“Then the day is clear gain,” he replied good-humoredly.

 

“Oh, yes!” she said. “But what has made you so happy?”

 

“I am happy. That is all.”

 

Sitting opposite her with his elbows on the table he tried to tell her all

that he was going to do. She listened with kindly skepticism and gently

pointed out that his soup was going cold. He knew that she did not hear

what he was saying: but he did not care: he was talking for his