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

>were no longer listening. Then her eyes would light up again: and a few

words coming pat would show that she had heard and understood everything.

 

She coldly examined her brother’s judgment of Christophe: she knew Franz’s

crazes: her irony had had fine sport when she saw Christophe appear, whose

looks and distinction had been vaunted by her brother—(it seemed to her

that Franz had a special gift for seeing facts as they are not: or perhaps

he only thought it a paradoxical joke).—But when she looked at Christophe

more closely she recognized that what Franz had said was not altogether

false: and as she went on with her scrutiny she discovered in Christophe a

vague, unbalanced, though robust and bold power: that gave her pleasure,

for she knew, better than any, the rarity of power. She was able to

make Christophe talk about whatever she liked, and reveal his thoughts,

and display the limitations and defects of his mind: she made him play

the piano: she did not love music but she understood it: and she saw

Christophe’s musical originality, although his music had roused no sort of

emotion in her. Without the least change in the coldness of her manner,

with a few short, apt, and certainly not flattering, remarks she showed her

growing interest in Christophe.

 

Christophe saw it: and he was proud of it: for he felt the worth of such

judgment and the rarity of her approbation. He made no secret of his desire

to win it: and he set about it so naïvely as to make the three of them

smile: he talked only to Judith and for Judith: he was as unconcerned with

the others as though they did not exist.

 

Franz watched him as he talked: he followed his every word, with his lips

and eyes, with a mixture of admiration and amusement: and he laughed aloud

as he glanced at his father and his sister, who listened impassively and

pretended not to notice him.

 

Lothair Mannheim,—a tall old man, heavily built, stooping a little,

red-faced, with gray hair standing straight up on end, very black mustache

and eyebrows, a heavy though energetic and jovial face, which gave the

impression of great vitality—had also studied Christophe during the first

part of the dinner, slyly but good-naturedly: and he too had recognized

at once that there was “something” in the boy. But he was not interested

in music or musicians: it was not in his line: he knew nothing about it

and made no secret of his ignorance: he even boasted of it—(when a man

of that sort confesses his ignorance of anything he does so to feed his

vanity).—As Christophe had clearly shown at once, with a rudeness in which

there was no shade of malice, that, he could without regret dispense with

the society of the banker, and that the society of Fräulein Judith Mannheim

would serve perfectly to fill his evening, old Lothair in some amusement

had taken his seat by the fire: he read his paper, listening vaguely and

ironically to Christophe’s crotchets and his queer music, which sometimes

made him laugh inwardly at the idea that there could be people who

understood it and found pleasure in it. He did not trouble to follow the

conversation: he relied on his daughter’s cleverness to tell him exactly

what the newcomer was worth. She discharged her duty conscientiously.

 

When Christophe had gone Lothair asked Judith:

 

“Well, you probed him enough: what do you think of the artist?”

 

She laughed, thought for a moment, reckoned up, and said:

 

“He is a little cracked: but he is not stupid.”

 

“Good,” said Lothair. “I thought so too. He will succeed, then?”

 

“Yes, I think so. He has power,”

 

“Very good,” said Lothair with the magnificent logic of the strong who are

only interested in the strong, “we must help him.”

 

*

 

Christophe went away filled with admiration for Judith Mannheim. He was not

in love with her as Judith thought. They were both—she with her subtlety,

he with his instinct which took the place of mind in him,—mistaken

about each other. Christophe was fascinated by the enigma and the

intense activity of her mind: but he did not love her. His eyes and his

intelligence were ensnared: his heart escaped.—Why?—It were difficult to

tell. Because he had caught a glimpse of some doubtful, disturbing quality

in her?—In other circumstances that would have been a reason the more

for loving: love is never stronger than when it goes out to one who will

make it suffer.—If Christophe did not love Judith it was not the fault of

either of them. The real reason, humiliating enough for both, was that he

was still too near his last love. Experience had not made him wiser. But he

had loved Ada so much, he had consumed so much faith, force, and illusion

in that passion that there was not enough left for a new passion. Before

another flame could be kindled he would have to build a new pyre in his

heart: short of that there could only be a few flickerings, remnants of the

conflagration that had escaped by chance, which asked only to be allowed to

burn, cast a brief and brilliant light and then died down for want of food.

Six months later, perhaps, he might have loved Judith blindly. Now he saw

in her only a friend,—a rather disturbing friend in truth—but he tried to

drive his uneasiness back: it reminded him of Ada: there was no attraction

in that memory: he preferred not to think of it. What attracted him in

Judith was everything in her which was different from other women, not that

which she had in common with them. She was the first intelligent woman

he had met. She was intelligent from head to foot. Even her beauty—her

gestures, her movements, her features, the fold of her lips, her eyes, her

hands, her slender elegance—was the reflection of her intelligence: her

body was molded by her intelligence: without her intelligence she would

have passed unnoticed: and no doubt she would even have been thought plain

by most people. Her intelligence delighted Christophe. He thought it larger

and more free than it was: he could not yet know how deceptive it was. He

longed ardently to confide in her and to impart his ideas to her. He had

never found anybody to take an interest in his dreams: he was turned in

upon, himself: what joy then to find a woman to be his friend! That he had

not a sister had been one of the sorrows of his childhood: it seemed to

him that a sister would have understood him more than a brother could have

done. And when he met Judith he felt that childish and illusory hope of

having a brotherly love spring up in him. Not being in love, love seemed to

him a poor thing compared with friendship.

 

Judith felt this little shade of feeling and was hurt by it. She was not in

love with Christophe, and as she had excited other passions in other young

men of the town, rich young men of better position, she could not feel

any great satisfaction in knowing Christophe to be in love with her. But

it piqued her to know that he was not in love. No doubt she was pleased

with him for confiding his plans: she was not surprised by it: but it

was a little mortifying for her to know that she could only exercise an

intellectual influence over him—(an unreasoning influence is much more

precious to a woman).—She did not even exercise her influence: Christophe

only courted her mind. Judith’s intellect was imperious. She was used to

molding to her will the soft thoughts of the young men of her acquaintance.

As she knew their mediocrity she found no pleasure in holding sway over

them. With Christophe the pursuit was more interesting because more

difficult. She was not interested in his projects: but she would have liked

to direct his originality of thought, his ill-grown power, and to make them

good,—in her own way, of course, and not in Christophe’s, which she did

not take the trouble to understand. She saw at once that she could not

succeed without a struggle: she had marked down in Christophe all sorts of

notions and ideas which she thought childish and extravagant: they were

weeds to her: she tried hard to eradicate them. She did not get rid of

a single one. She did not gain the least satisfaction for her vanity.

Christophe was intractable. Not being in love he had no reason for

surrendering his ideas to her.

 

She grew keen on the game and instinctively tried for some time to overcome

him. Christophe was very nearly taken in again in spite of his lucidity of

mind at that time. Men are easily taken in by any flattery of their vanity

or their desires: and an artist is twice as easy to trick as any other man

because he has more imagination. Judith had only to draw Christophe into a

dangerous flirtation to bowl him over once more more thoroughly than ever.

But as usual she soon wearied of the game: she found that such a conquest

was hardly worth while: Christophe was already boring her: she did not

understand him.

 

She did not understand him beyond a certain point. Up to that she

understood everything. Her admirable intelligence could not take her beyond

it: she needed a heart, or in default of that the thing which could give

the illusion of one for a time: love. She understood Christophe’s criticism

of people and things: it amused her and seemed to her true enough: she

had thought much the same herself. But what she did not understand was

that such ideas might have an influence on practical life when it might

be dangerous or awkward to apply them. The attitude of revolt against

everybody and everything which Christophe had taken up led to nothing: he

could not imagine that he was going to reform the world…. And then?… It

was waste of time to knock one’s head against a wall. A clever man judges

men, laughs at them in secret, despises them a little: but he does as they

do—only a little better: it is the only way of mastering them. Thought is

one world: action is another. What boots it for a man to be the victim of

his thoughts? Since men are so stupid as not to be able to bear the truth,

why force it on them? To accept their weakness, to seem to bow to it, and

to feel free to despise them in his heart, is there not a secret joy in

that? The joy of a clever slave? Certainly. But all the world is a slave:

there is no getting away from that: it is useless to protest against it:

better to be a slave deliberately of one’s own free will and to avoid

ridiculous and futile conflict. Besides, the worst slavery of all is to be

the slave of one’s own thoughts and to sacrifice everything to them. There

is no need to deceive one’s self.—She saw clearly that if Christophe

went on, as he seemed determined to do, with his aggressive refusal to

compromise with the prejudices of German art and German mind, he would turn

everybody against him, even his patrons: he was courting inevitable ruin.

She did not understand why he so obstinately held out against himself, and

so took pleasure in digging his own ruin.

 

To have understood him she would have had to be able to understand that

his aim was not success but his own faith. He believed in art: he believed

in his art: he believed in