Jean-Christophe, vol 1 - Romain Rolland (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📗

by a gap in

the sky. Otto, in terror, dare not tell his fears, and Jean-Christophe took

a malignant pleasure in pretending not to notice anything. But without

saying a word they drew nearer together. They were alone in the wide

country. Silence. Not a wind stirred,—hardly a fevered tremor that made

the little leaves of the trees shiver now and then. Suddenly a whirling

wind raised the dust, twisted the trees and lashed them furiously. And the

silence came again, more terrible than before. Otto, in a trembling voice,

spoke at last.

 

“It is a storm. We must go home.”

 

Jean-Christophe said:

 

“Let us go home.”

 

But it was too late. A blinding, savage light flashed, the heavens roared,

the vault of clouds rumbled. In a moment they were wrapped about by the

hurricane, maddened by the lightning, deafened by the thunder, drenched

from head to foot. They were in deserted country, half an hour from the

nearest house. In the lashing rain, in the dim light, came the great red

flashes of the storm. They tried to run but, their wet clothes clinging,

they could hardly walk. Their shoes slipped on their feet, the water

trickled down their bodies. It was difficult to breathe. Otto’s teeth

were chattering, and he was mad with rage. He said biting things to

Jean-Christophe. He wanted to stop; he declared that it was dangerous to

walk; he threatened to sit down on the road, to sleep on the soil in the

middle of the plowed fields. Jean-Christophe made no reply. He went on

walking, blinded by the wind, the rain, and the lightning; deafened by the

noise; a little uneasy, but unwilling to admit it.

 

And suddenly it was all over. The storm had passed, as it had come. But

they were both in a pitiful condition. In truth, Jean-Christophe was, as

usual, so disheveled that a little more disorder made hardly any difference

to him. But Otto, so neat, so careful of his appearance, cut a sorry

figure. It was as though he had just taken a bath in his clothes, and

Jean-Christophe, turning and seeing him, could not help roaring with

laughter. Otto was so exhausted that he could not even be angry.

Jean-Christophe took pity and talked gaily to him. Otto replied with a look

of fury. Jean-Christophe made him stop at a farm. They dried themselves

before a great fire, and drank hot wine. Jean-Christophe thought the

adventure funny, and tried to laugh at it; but that was not at all to

Otto’s taste, and he was morose and silent for the rest of their walk. They

came back sulking and did not shake hands when they parted.

 

As a result of this prank they did not see each other for more than a week.

They were severe in their judgment of each other. But after inflicting

punishment on themselves by depriving themselves of one of their Sunday

walks, they got so bored that their rancor died away. Jean-Christophe made

the first advances as usual. Otto condescended to meet them, and they made

peace.

 

In spite of their disagreement it was impossible for them to do without

each other. They had many faults; they were both egoists. But their egoism

was naïve; it knew not the self-seeking of maturity which makes it so

repulsive; it knew not itself even; it was almost lovable, and did not

prevent them from sincerely loving each other! Young Otto used to weep on

his pillow as he told himself stories of romantic devotion of which he was

the hero; lie used to invent pathetic adventures, in which he was strong,

valiant, intrepid, and protected Jean-Christophe, whom he used to imagine

that he adored. Jean-Christophe never saw or heard anything beautiful or

strange without thinking: “If only Otto were here!” He carried the image

of his friend into his whole life, and that image used to be transfigured,

and become so gentle that, in spite of all that he knew about Otto, it used

to intoxicate him. Certain words of Otto’s which he used to remember long

after they were spoken, and to embellish by the way, used to make him

tremble with emotion. They imitated each other. Otto aped Jean-Christophe’s

manners, gestures, and writing. Jean-Christophe was sometimes irritated

by the shadow which repeated every word that he said and dished up his

thoughts as though they were its own. But he did not see that he himself

was imitating Otto, and copying his way of dressing, walking, and

pronouncing certain words. They were under a fascination. They were infused

one in the other; their hearts were overflowing with tenderness. They

trickled over with it on every side like a fountain. Each imagined that his

friend was the cause of it. They did not know that it was the waking of

their adolescence.

 

*

 

Jean-Christophe, who never distrusted any one, used to leave his papers

lying about. But an instinctive modesty made him keep together the drafts

of the letters which he scrawled to Otto, and the replies. But he did not

lock them up; he just placed them between the leaves of one of his

music-books, where he felt certain that no one would look for them. He

reckoned without his brothers’ malice.

 

He had seen them for some time laughing and whispering and looking at

him; they were declaiming to each other fragments of speech which threw

them into wild laughter. Jean-Christophe could not catch the words, and,

following his usual tactics with them, he feigned utter indifference to

everything they might do or say. A few words roused his attention; he

thought he recognized them. Soon he was left without doubt that they had

read his letters. But when he challenged Ernest and Rodolphe, who were

calling each other “My dear soul,” with pretended earnestness, he could

get nothing from them. The little wretches pretended not to understand,

and said that they had the right to call each other whatever they liked.

Jean-Christophe, who had found all the letters in their places, did not

insist farther.

 

Shortly afterwards he caught Ernest in the act of thieving; the little

beast was rummaging in the drawer of the chest in which Louisa kept her

money. Jean-Christophe shook him, and took advantage of the opportunity to

tell him everything that he had stored up against him. He enumerated, in

terms of scant courtesy, the misdeeds of Ernest, and it was not a short

catalogue. Ernest took the lecture in bad part; he replied impudently

that Jean-Christophe had nothing to reproach him with, and he hinted at

unmentionable things in his brother’s friendship with Otto. Jean-Christophe

did not understand; but when he grasped that Otto was being dragged into

the quarrel he demanded an explanation of Ernest. The boy tittered; then,

when he saw Jean-Christophe white with anger, he refused to say any more.

Jean-Christophe saw that he would obtain nothing in that way; he sat down,

shrugged his shoulders, and affected a profound contempt for Ernest.

Ernest, piqued by this, was impudent again; he set himself to hurt his

brother, and set forth a litany of things each more cruel and more vile

than the last. Jean-Christophe kept a tight hand on himself. When at last

he did understand, he saw red; he leaped from his chair. Ernest had no time

to cry out. Jean-Christophe had hurled himself on him, and rolled with him

into the middle of the room, and beat his head against the tiles. On the

frightful cries of the victim, Louisa, Melchior, everybody, came running.

They rescued Ernest in a parlous state. Jean-Christophe would not loose his

prey; they had to beat and beat him. They called him a savage beast, and he

looked it. His eyes were bursting from his head, he was grinding his teeth,

and his only thought was to hurl himself again on Ernest. When they asked

him what had happened, his fury increased, and he cried out that he would

kill him. Ernest also refused to tell.

 

Jean-Christophe could not eat nor sleep. He was shaking with fever,

and wept in his bed. It was not only for Otto that he was suffering. A

revolution was taking place in him. Ernest had no idea of the hurt that

he had been able to do his brother. Jean-Christophe was at heart of a

puritanical intolerance, which could not admit the dark ways of life, and

was discovering them one by one with horror. At fifteen, with his free life

and strong instincts, he remained strangely simple. His natural purity and

ceaseless toil had protected him. His brother’s words had opened up abyss

on abyss before him. Never would he have conceived such infamies, and now

that the idea of it had come to him, all his joy in loving and being loved

was spoiled. Not only his friendship with Otto, but friendship itself was

poisoned.

 

It was much worse when certain sarcastic allusions made him think, perhaps

wrongly, that he was the object of the unwholesome curiosity of the

town, and especially, when, some time afterwards, Melchior made a remark

about his walks with Otto. Probably there was no malice in Melchior, but

Jean-Christophe, on the watch, read hidden meanings into every word, and

almost he thought himself guilty. At the same time Otto was passing through

a similar crisis.

 

They tried still to see each other in secret. But it was impossible for

them to regain the carelessness of their old relation. Their frankness was

spoiled. The two boys who loved each other with a tenderness so fearful

that they had never dared exchange a fraternal kiss, and had imagined that

there could be no greater happiness than in seeing each other, and in being

friends, and sharing each other’s dreams, now felt that they were stained

and spotted by the suspicion of evil minds. They came to see evil even in

the most innocent acts: a look, a hand-clasp—they blushed, they had evil

thoughts. Their relation became intolerable.

 

Without saying anything they saw each other less often. They tried writing

to each other, but they set a watch upon their expressions. Their letters

became cold and insipid. They grew disheartened. Jean-Christophe excused

himself on the ground of his work, Otto on the ground of being too busy,

and their correspondence ceased. Soon afterwards Otto left for the

University, and the friendship which had lightened a few months of their

lives died down and out.

 

And also, a new love, of which this had been only the forerunner, took

possession of Jean-Christophe’s heart, and made every other light seem pale

by its side.

III MINNA

Four or five months before these events Frau Josephs von Kerich, widow of

Councilor Stephan von Kerich, had left Berlin, where her husband’s duties

had hitherto detained them, and settled down with her daughter in the

little Rhine town, in her native country. She had an old house with a

large garden, almost a park, which sloped down to the river, not far from

Jean-Christophe’s home. From his attic Jean-Christophe could see the heavy

branches of the trees hanging over the walls, and the high peak of the red

roof with its mossy tiles. A little sloping alley, with hardly room to

pass, ran alongside the park to the right; from there, by climbing a post,

you could look over the wall. Jean-Christophe did not fail to make use of

it. He could then see the grassy avenues, the lawns like open meadows, the

trees interlacing and growing wild, and the white front of the house with

its shutters obstinately closed. Once or twice a year a gardener made the

rounds, and aired the house. But soon Nature resumed her sway over the

garden, and silence reigned over all.

 

That silence impressed Jean-Christophe. He used