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

All the wives of the teachers had culinary recipes

which they set out with pedantic exuberance and insistence. The men were no

less interested in these matters and hardly less competent. They were as

proud of the domestic talents of their wives as they of their husbands’

learning. Christophe stood by a window leaning against the wall, not

knowing how to look, now trying to smile stupidly, now gloomy with a fixed

stare and unmoved features, and he was bored to death. A little away from

him, sitting in the recess of the window, was a young woman to whom nobody

was talking and she was as bored as he. They both looked at the room and

not at each other. It was only after some time that they noticed each

other just as they both turned away to yawn, both being at the limit of

endurance. Just at that moment their eyes met. They exchanged a look of

friendly understanding. He moved towards her. She said in a low voice:

 

“Are you amused?”

 

He turned his back on the room, and, looking out of the window, put out his

tongue. She burst out laughing, and suddenly waking up she signed to him

to sit down by her side. They introduced themselves; she was the wife of

Professor Reinhart, who lectured on natural history at the school, and was

newly come to the town, where they knew nobody. She was not beautiful; she

had a large nose, ugly teeth, and she lacked freshness; but she had keen,

clever eyes and a kindly smile. She chattered like a magpie; he answered

her solemnly; she had an amusing frankness and a droll wit; they laughingly

exchanged impressions out loud without bothering about the people round

them. Their neighbors, who had not deigned to notice their existence when

it would have been charitable to help them out of their loneliness, now

threw angry looks at them; it was in bad taste to be so much amused. But

they did not care what the others might think of them; they were taking

their revenge in their chatter.

 

In the end Frau Reinhart introduced her husband to Christophe. He was

extremely ugly; he had a pale, greasy, pockmarked, rather sinister face,

but he looked very kind. He spoke low down in his throat and pronounced his

words sententiously, stammeringly, pausing between each syllable.

 

They had been married a few months only and these two plain people were

in love with each other; they had an affectionate way of looking at each

other, talking to each other, taking each other’s hands in the presence of

everybody—which was comic and touching. If one wanted anything the other

would want it too. And so they invited Christophe to go and sup with them

after the reception. Christophe began jokingly to beg to be excused; he

said that the best thing to do that evening would be to go to bed; he was

quite worn out with boredom, as tired as though he had walked ten miles.

But Frau Reinhart said that he could not be left in that condition; it

would be dangerous to spend the night with such gloomy thoughts. Christophe

let them drag him off. In his loneliness he was glad to have met these good

people, who were not very distinguished in their manners but were simple

and gemütlich.

 

*

 

The Reinharts’ little house was gemütlich like themselves. It was a

rather chattering Gemüt, a Gemüt with inscriptions. The furniture, the

utensils, the china all talked, and went on repeating their joy in seeing

their “charming guest,” asked after his health, and gave him pleasant and

virtuous advice. On the sofas—which was very hard—was a little cushion

which murmured amiably:

 

“Only a quarter of an hour!” (_Nur ein Viertelstündchen_.)

 

The cup of coffee which was handed to Christophe insisted on his taking

more:

 

“Just a drop!” (_Noch ein Schlückchen_.)

 

The plates seasoned the cooking with morality and otherwise the cooking was

quite excellent. One plate said:

 

“Think of everything: otherwise no good will come to you!”

 

Another:

 

“Affection and gratitude please everybody. Ingratitude pleases nobody.”

 

Although Christophe did not smoke, the ash-tray on the mantelpiece insisted

on introducing itself to him:

 

“A little resting place for burning cigars.” (_Ruheplätzchen für brennende

Cigarren._)

 

He wanted to wash his hands. The soap on the washstand said:

 

“For our charming guest.” (_Für unseren lieben Gast._)

 

And the sententious towel, like a person who has nothing to say, but thinks

he must say something all the same, gave him this reflection, full of good

sense but not very apposite, that “to enjoy the morning you must rise

early.”

 

“Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund.”

 

At length Christophe dared not even turn in his chair for fear of hearing

himself addressed by other voices coming from every part of the room. He

wanted to say:

 

“Be silent, you little monsters! We don’t understand each other.”

 

And he burst out laughing crazily and then tried to explain to his host

and hostess that he was thinking of the gathering at the school. He would

not have hurt them for the world, And he was not very sensible of the

ridiculous. Very soon he grew accustomed to the loquacious cordiality of

these people and their belongings. He could have tolerated anything in

them! They were so kind! They were not tiresome either; if they had no

taste they were not lacking in intelligence.

 

They were a little lost in the place to which they had come. The

intolerable susceptibilities of the little provincial town did not allow

people to enter it as though it were a mill, without having properly asked

for the honor of becoming part of it. The Reinharts had not sufficiently

attended to the provincial code which regulated the duties of new arrivals

in the town towards those who had settled in it before them. Reinhart would

have submitted to it mechanically. But his wife, to whom such drudgery was

oppressive—she disliked being put out—postponed her duties from day to

day. She had selected those calls which bored her least, to be paid first,

or she had put the others off indefinitely. The distinguished persons who

were comprised in the last category choked with indignation at such a

want of respect. Angelica Reinhart—(her husband called her Lili)—was a

little free in her manners; she could not take on the official tone. She

would address her superiors in the hierarchy familiarly and make than go

red in the face with indignation; and if need be she was not afraid of

contradicting them. She had a quick tongue and always had to say whatever

was in her head; sometimes she made extraordinarily foolish remarks at

which people laughed behind her back; and also she could be malicious

wholeheartedly, and that made her mortal enemies. She would bite her

tongue as she was saying rash things and wish she had not said them, but it

was too late. Her husband, the gentlest and most respectful of men, would

chide her timidly about it. She would kiss him and say that she was a fool

and that he was right. But the next moment she would break out again; and

she would always say things at the least suitable moment; she would have

burst if she had not said them. She was exactly the sort of woman to get on

with Christophe.

 

Among the many ridiculous things which she ought not to have said, and

consequently was always saying, was her trick of perpetually comparing the

way things were done in Germany and the way they were done in France. She

was a German—(nobody more so)—but she had been brought up in Alsace among

French Alsatians, and she had felt the attraction of Latin civilization

which so many Germans in the annexed countries, even those who seem the

least likely to feel it, cannot resist. Perhaps, to tell the truth, the

attraction had become stronger out of a spirit of contradiction since

Angelica had married a North German and lived with him in purely German

society.

 

She opened up her usual subject of discussion on her first evening with

Christophe. She loved the pleasant freedom of conversation in France,

Christophe echoed her. France to him was Corinne; bright blue eyes, smiling

lips, frank free manners, a musical voice; he loved to know more about it.

 

Lili Reinhart clapped her hands on finding herself so thoroughly agreeing

with Christophe.

 

“It is a pity,” she said, “that my little French friend has gone, but she

could not stand it; she has gone.”

 

The image of Corinne was at once blotted out. As a match going out suddenly

makes the gentle glimmer of the stars shine out from the dark sky, another

image and other eyes appeared.

 

“Who?” asked Christophe with a start, “the little governess?”

 

“What?” said Frau Reinhart, “you knew her too?”

 

He described her; the two portraits were identical.

 

“You knew her?” repeated Christophe. “Oh! Tell me everything you know about

her!…”

 

Frau Reinhart began by declaring that they were bosom friends and had no

secrets from each other. But when she had to go into detail her knowledge

was reduced to very little. They had met out calling. Frau Reinhart had

made advances to the girl; and with her usual cordiality had invited her to

come and see her. The girl had come two or three times and they had talked.

But the curious Lili had not so easily succeeded in finding out anything

about the life of the little Frenchwoman; the girl was very reserved; she

had had to worm her story out of her, bit by bit. Frau Reinhart knew that

she was called Antoinette Jeannin; she had no fortune, and no friends,

except a younger brother who lived in Paris and to whom she was devoted.

She used always to talk of him; he was the only subject about which she

could talk freely; and Lili Reinhart had gained her confidence by showing

sympathy and pity for the boy living alone in Paris without relations,

without friends, at a boarding school. It was partly to pay for his

education that Antoinette had accepted a post abroad. But the two children

could not live without each other; they wanted to be with each other every

day, and the least delay in the delivery of their letters used to make them

quite ill with anxiety. Antoinette was always worrying about her brother,

the poor child could not always manage to hide his sadness and loneliness

from her; every one of his complaints used to sound through Antoinette’s

heart and seemed like to break it; the thought that he was suffering used

to torture her and she used often to imagine that he was ill and would not

say so. Frau Reinhart in her kindness had often had to rebuke her for her

groundless fears, and she used to succeed in restoring her confidence for

a moment. She had not been able to find out anything about Antoinette’s

family or position or her inner self. The girl was wildly shy and used

to draw into herself at the first question. The little she said showed

that she was cultured and intelligent; she seemed to have a precocious

knowledge of life; she seemed to be at once naïve and undeceived, pious and

disillusioned. She had not been happy in the town in a tactless and unkind

family. She used not to complain, but it was easy to see that she used to

suffer—Frau Reinhart did not exactly know why she had gone. It had been

said that she had behaved badly. Angelica did not believe it; she was ready

to