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

him to his bed, and sat by him and remained with him until he

was calmer. But he did not yield one inch. He forgave her nothing, and

pretended to be asleep to get rid of her. His mother seemed to him bad

and cowardly. He had no suspicion of all the suffering that she had to go

through in order to live and give a living to her family, and of what she

had borne in taking sides against him.

 

After he had exhausted to the last drop the incredible store of tears that

is in the eyes of a child, he felt somewhat comforted. He was tired and

worn out, but his nerves were too much on stretch for him to sleep. The

visions that had been with him floated before him again in his semi-torpor.

Especially he saw again the little girl with her bright eyes and her

turned-up, disdainful little nose, her hair hanging down to her shoulders,

her bare legs and her childish, affected way of talking. He trembled, as it

seemed to him that he could hear her voice. He remembered how stupid he had

been with her, and he conceived a savage hatred for her. He did not pardon

her for having brought him low, and was consumed with the desire to

humiliate her and to make her weep. He sought means of doing this, but

found none. There was no sign of her ever caring about him. But by way of

consoling himself he supposed that everything was as he wished it to be. He

supposed that he had become very powerful and famous, and decided that she

was in love with him. Then he began to tell himself one of those absurd

stories which in the end he would regard as more real than reality.

 

She was dying of love, but he spurned her. When he passed before her house

she watched him pass, hiding behind the curtains, and he knew that she

watched him, but he pretended to take no notice, and talked gaily. Even he

left the country, and journeyed far to add to her anguish. He did great

things. Here he introduced into his narrative fragments chosen from his

grandfather’s heroic tales, and all this time she was falling ill of grief.

Her mother, that proud dame, came to beg of him: “My poor child is dying.

I beg you to come!” He went. She was in her bed. Her face was pale and

sunken. She held out her arms to him. She could not speak, but she took his

hands and kissed them as she wept. Then he looked at her with marvelous

kindness and tenderness. He bade her recover, and consented to let her love

him. At this point of the story, when he amused himself by drawing out the

coming together by repeating their gestures and words several times, sleep

overcame him, and he slept and was consoled.

 

But when he opened his eyes it was day, and it no longer shone so lightly

or so carelessly as its predecessor. There was a great change in the world.

Jean-Christophe now knew the meaning of injustice.

 

*

 

There were now times of extremely straitened circumstances at home. They

became more and more frequent. They lived meagerly then. No one was more

sensible of it than Jean-Christophe. His father saw nothing. He was served

first, and there was always enough for him. He talked noisily, and roared

with laughter at his own jokes, and he never noticed his wife’s glances

as she gave a forced laugh, while she watched him helping himself.

When he passed the dish it was more than half empty. Louisa helped the

children—two potatoes each. When it came to Jean-Christophe’s turn there

were sometimes only three left, and his mother was not helped. He knew that

beforehand; he had counted them before they came to him. Then he summoned

up courage, and said carelessly:

 

“Only one, mother.”

 

She was a little put out.

 

“Two, like the others.”

 

“No, please; only one.”

 

“Aren’t you hungry?”

 

“No, I’m not very hungry.”

 

But she, too, only took one, and they peeled them carefully, cut them up

in little pieces, and tried to eat them as slowly as possible. His mother

watched him. When he had finished:

 

“Come, take it!”

 

“No, mother.”

 

“But you are ill?”

 

“I am not ill, but I have eaten enough.”

 

Then his father would reproach him with being obstinate, and take the last

potato for himself. But Jean-Christophe learned that trick, and he used to

keep it on his plate for Ernest, his little brother, who was always hungry,

and watched him out of the corner of his eyes from the beginning of dinner,

and ended by asking:

 

“Aren’t you going to eat it? Give it me, then, Jean-Christophe.”

 

Oh, how Jean-Christophe detested his father, how he hated him for not

thinking of them, or for not even dreaming that he was eating their share!

He was so hungry that he hated him, and would gladly have told him so; but

he thought in his pride that he had no right, since he could not earn his

own living. His father had earned the bread that he took. He himself was

good for nothing; he was a burden on everybody; he had no right to talk.

Later on he would talk—if there were any later on. Oh, he would die of

hunger first!…

 

He suffered more than another child would have done from these cruel fasts.

His robust stomach was in agony. Sometimes he trembled because of it; his

head ached. There was a hole in his chest—a hole which turned and widened,

as if a gimlet were being twisted in it. But he did not complain. He felt

his mother’s eyes upon him, and assumed an expression of indifference.

Louisa, with a clutching at her heart, understood vaguely that her little

boy was denying himself so that the others might have more. She rejected

the idea, but always returned to it. She dared not investigate it or ask

Jean-Christophe if it were true, for, if it were true, what could she

do? She had been used to privation since her childhood. What is the use

of complaining when there is nothing to be done? She never suspected,

indeed—she, with her frail health and small needs—that the boy might

suffer more than herself. She did not say anything, but once or twice,

when the others were gone, the children to the street, Melchior about his

business, she asked her eldest son to stay to do her some small service.

Jean-Christophe would hold her skein while she unwound it. Suddenly she

would throw everything away, and draw him passionately to her. She would

take him on her knees, although he was quite heavy, and would hug and hug

him. He would fling his arms round her neck, and the two of them would weep

desperately, embracing each other.

 

“My poor little boy!…”

 

“Mother, mother!…”

 

They said no more, but they understood each other.

 

*

 

It was some time before Jean-Christophe realized that his father drank.

Melchior’s intemperance did not—at least, in the beginning—exceed

tolerable limits. It was not brutish. It showed itself rather by wild

outbursts of happiness. He used to make foolish remarks, and sing loudly

for hours together as he drummed on the table, and sometimes he insisted on

dancing with Louisa and the children. Jean-Christophe saw that his mother

looked sad. She would shrink back and bend her face over her work; she

avoided the drunkard’s eyes, and used to try gently to quiet him when

he said coarse things that made her blush. But Jean-Christophe did not

understand, and he was in such need of gaiety that these noisy homecomings

of his father were almost a festival to him. The house was melancholy, and

these follies were a relaxation for him. He used to laugh heartily at

Melchior’s crazy antics and stupid jokes; he sang and danced with him; and

he was put out when his mother in an angry voice ordered him to cease. How

could it be wrong, since his father did it? Although his ever keen

observation, which never forgot anything it had seen, told him that there

were in his father’s behavior several things which did not accord with his

childish and imperious sense of justice, yet he continued to admire him.

A child has so much need of an object of admiration! Doubtless it is one

of the eternal forms of self-love. When a man is, or knows himself to be,

too weak to accomplish his desires and satisfy his pride, as a child he

transfers them to his parents, or, as a man who has failed, he transfers

them to his children. They are, or shall be, all that he dreamed of

being—his champions, his avengers—and in this proud abdication in their

favor, love and egoism are mingled so forcefully and yet so gently as to

bring him keen delight. Jean-Christophe forgot all his grudges against his

father, and cast about to find reasons for admiring him. He admired his

figure, his strong arms, his voice, his laugh, his gaiety, and he shone

with pride when he heard praise of his father’s talents as a virtuoso, or

when Melchior himself recited with some amplification the eulogies he had

received. He believed in his father’s boasts, and looked upon him as a

genius, as one of his grandfather’s heroes.

 

One evening about seven o’clock he was alone in the house. His little

brothers had gone out with Jean Michel. Louisa was washing the linen in

the river. The door opened, and Melchior plunged in. He was hatless and

disheveled. He cut a sort of caper to cross the threshold, and then plumped

down in a chair by the table. Jean-Christophe began to laugh, thinking it

was a part of one of the usual buffooneries, and he approached him. But

as soon as he looked more closely at him the desire to laugh left him.

Melchior sat there with his arms hanging, and looking straight in front

of him, seeing nothing, with his eyes blinking. His face was crimson, his

mouth was open, and from it there gurgled every now and then a silly laugh.

Jean-Christophe stood stock-still. He thought at first that his father was

joking, but when he saw that he did not budge he was panic-stricken.

 

“Papa, papa!” he cried.

 

Melchior went on gobbling like a fowl. Jean-Christophe took him by the arm

in despair, and shook him with all his strength.

 

“Papa, dear papa, answer me, please, please!”

 

Melchior’s body shook like a boneless thing, and all but fell. His head

flopped towards Jean-Christophe; he looked at him and babbled incoherently

and irritably. When Jean-Christophe’s eyes met those clouded eyes he was

seized with panic terror. He ran away to the other end of the room, and

threw himself on his knees by the bed, and buried his face in the clothes.

He remained so for some time. Melchior swung heavily on the chair,

sniggering. Jean-Christophe stopped his ears, so as not to hear him,

and trembled. What was happening within him was inexpressible. It was a

terrible upheaval—terror, sorrow, as though for some one dead, some one

dear and honored.

 

No one came; they were left alone. Night fell, and Jean-Christophe’s fear

grew as the minutes passed. He could not help listening, and his blood

froze as he heard the voice that he did not recognize. The silence made

it all the more terrifying; the limping clock beat time for the senseless

babbling. He could bear it no longer; he wished to fly. But he had, to