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

often stealthily to climb

up to his watch-tower, and as he grew taller, his eyes, then his nose, then

his mouth reached up to the top of the wall; now he could put his arms over

it if he stood on tiptoe, and, in spite of the discomfort of that position,

he used to stay so, with his chin on the wall, looking, listening, while

the evening unfolded over the lawns its soft waves of gold, which lit up

with bluish rays the shade of the pines. There he could forget himself

until he heard footsteps approaching in the street. The night scattered its

scents over the garden: lilac in spring, acacia in summer, dead leaves in

the autumn. When Jean-Christophe, was on his way home in the evening from

the Palace, however weary he might be, he used to stand by the door to

drink in the delicious scent, and it was hard for him to go back to the

smells of his room. And often he had played—when he used to play—in

the little square with its tufts of grass between the stones, before the

gateway of the house of the Kerichs. On each side of the gate grew a

chestnut-tree a hundred years old; his grandfather used to come and sit

beneath them, and smoke his pipe, and the children used to use the nuts for

missiles, and toys.

 

One morning, as he went up the alley, he climbed up the post as usual. He

was thinking of other things, and looked absently. He was just going to

climb down when he felt that there was something unusual about it. He

looked towards the house. The windows were open; the sun was shining into

them and, although no one was to be seen, the old place seemed to have been

roused from its fifteen years’ sleep, and to be smiling in its awakening.

Jean-Christophe went home uneasy in his mind.

 

At dinner his father talked of what was the topic of the neighborhood: the

arrival of Frau Kerich and her daughter with an incredible quantity of

luggage. The chestnut square was filled with rascals who had turned up to

help unload the carts. Jean-Christophe was excited by the news, which, in

his limited life, was an important event, and he returned to his work,

trying to imagine the inhabitants of the enchanted house from his father’s

story, as usual hyperbolical. Then he became absorbed in his work, and had

forgotten the whole affair when, just as he was about to go home in the

evening, he remembered it all, and he was impelled by curiosity to climb

his watch-tower to spy out what might be toward within the walls. He saw

nothing but the quiet avenue, in which the motionless trees seemed to be

sleeping in the last rays of the sun. In a few moments he had forgotten why

he was looking, and abandoned himself as he always did to the sweetness of

the silence. That strange place—standing erect, perilously balanced on the

top of a post—was meet for dreams. Coming from the ugly alley, stuffy and

dark, the sunny gardens were of a magical radiance. His spirit wandered

freely through these regions of harmony, and music sang in him; they lulled

him and he forgot time and material things, and was only concerned to miss

none of the whisperings of his heart.

 

So he dreamed open-eyed and open-mouthed, and he could not have told how

long he had been dreaming, for he saw nothing. Suddenly his heart leaped.

In front of him, at a bend in an avenue, were two women’s faces looking at

him. One, a young lady in black, with fine irregular features and fair

hair, tail, elegant, with carelessness and indifference in the poise of her

head, was looking at him with kind, laughing eyes. The other, a girl of

fifteen, also in deep mourning, looked as though she were going to burst

out into a fit of wild laughter; she was standing a little behind her

mother, who, without looking at her, signed to her to be quiet. She covered

her lips with her hands, as if she were hard put to it not to burst out

laughing. She was a little creature with a fresh face, white, pink, and

round-cheeked; she had a plump little nose, a plump little mouth, a plump

little chin, firm eyebrows, bright eyes, and a mass of fair hair plaited

and wound round her head in a crown to show her rounded neck and her smooth

white forehead—a Cranach face.

 

Jean-Christophe was turned to stone by this apparition. He could not go

away, but stayed, glued to his post, with his mouth wide open. It was only

when he saw the young lady coming towards him with her kindly mocking smile

that he wrenched himself away, and jumped—tumbled—down into the alley,

dragging with him pieces of plaster from the wall. He heard a kind voice

calling him, “Little boy!” and a shout of childish laughter, clear and

liquid as the song of a bird. He found himself in the alley on hands and

knees, and, after a moment’s bewilderment, he ran away as hard as he could

go, as though he was afraid of being pursued. He was ashamed, and his shame

kept bursting upon him again when he was alone in his room at home. After

that he dared not go down the alley, fearing oddly that they might be lying

in wait for him. When he had to go by the house, he kept close to the

walls, lowered his head, and almost ran without ever looking back. At the

same time he never ceased to think of the two faces that he had seen; he

used to go up to the attic, taking off his shoes so as not to be heard,

and to look his hardest out through the skylight in the direction of the

Kerichs’ house and park, although he knew perfectly well that it was

impossible to see anything but the tops of the trees and the topmost

chimneys.

 

About a month later, at one of the weekly concerts of the _Hof Musik

Verein_, he was playing a concerto for piano and orchestra of his own

composition. He had reached the last movement when he chanced to see in

the box facing him Frau and Fräulein Kerich looking at him. He so little

expected to see them that he was astounded, and almost missed out his

reply to the orchestra. He went on playing mechanically to the end of

the piece. When it was finished he saw, although he was not looking in

their direction, that Frau and Fräulein Kerich were applauding a little

exaggeratedly, as though they wished him to see that they were applauding.

He hurried away from the stage. As he was leaving the theater he saw Frau

Kerich in the lobby, separated from him by several rows of people, and she

seemed to be waiting for him to pass. It was impossible for him not to see

her, but he pretended not to do so, and, brushing his way through, he left

hurriedly by the stage-door of the theater. Then he was angry with himself,

for he knew quite well that Frau Kerich meant no harm. But he knew that in

the same situation he would do the same again. He was in terror of meeting

her in the street. Whenever he saw at a distance a figure that resembled

her, he used to turn aside and take another road.

 

*

 

It was she who came to him. She sought him out at home.

 

One morning when he came back to dinner Louisa proudly told him that a

lackey in breeches and livery had left a letter for him, and she gave him

a large black-edged envelope, on the back of which was engraved the Kerich

arms. Jean-Christophe opened it, and trembled as he read these words:

 

“Frau Josepha von Kerich requests the pleasure of Hof Musicus

Jean-Christophe Krafft’s company at tea to-day at half-past five.”

 

“I shall not go,” declared Jean-Christophe.

 

“What!” cried Louisa. “I said that you would go.”

 

Jean-Christophe made a scene, and reproached his mother with meddling in

affairs that were no concern of hers.

 

“The servant waited for a reply. I said that you were free to-day. You have

nothing to do then.”

 

In vain did Jean-Christophe lose his temper, and swear that he would not

go; he could not get out of it now. When the appointed time came, he got

ready fuming; in his heart of hearts he was not sorry that chance had so

done violence to his whims.

 

Frau von Kerich had had no difficulty in recognizing in the pianist at the

concert the little savage whose shaggy head had appeared over her garden

wall on the day of her arrival. She had made inquiries about him of her

neighbors, and what she learned about Jean-Christophe’s family and the

boy’s brave and difficult life had roused interest in him, and a desire to

talk to him.

 

Jean-Christophe, trussed up in an absurd coat, which made him look like a

country parson, arrived at the house quite ill with shyness. He tried to

persuade himself that Frau and Fräulein Kerich had had no time to remark

his features on the day when they had first seen him. A servant led him

down a long corridor, thickly carpeted, so that his footsteps made no

sound, to a room with a glass-paneled door which opened on to the garden.

It was raining a little, and cold; a good fire was burning in the

fireplace. Near the window, through which he had a peep of the wet trees

in the mist, the two ladies were sitting. Frau Kerich was working and her

daughter was reading a book when Jean-Christophe entered. When they saw him

they exchanged a sly look.

 

“They know me again,” thought Jean-Christophe, abashed.

 

He bobbed awkwardly, and went on bobbing.

 

Frau von Kerich smiled cheerfully, and held out her hand.

 

“Good-day, my dear neighbor,” she said. “I am glad to see you. Since I

heard you at the concert I have been wanting to tell you how much pleasure

you gave me. And as the only way of telling you was to invite you here, I

hope you will forgive me for having done so.”

 

In the kindly, conventional words of welcome there was so much cordiality,

in spite of a hidden sting of irony, that Jean-Christophe grew more at his

ease.

 

“They do not know me again,” he thought, comforted.

 

Frau von Kerich presented her daughter, who had closed her book and was

looking interestedly at Jean-Christophe.

 

“My daughter Minna,” she said, “She wanted so much to see you.”

 

“But, mamma,” said Minna, “it is not the first time that we have seen each

other.”

 

And she laughed aloud.

 

“They do know me again,” thought Jean-Christophe, crestfallen.

 

“True,” said Frau von Kerich, laughing too, “you paid us a visit the day we

came.”

 

At these words the girl laughed again, and Jean-Christophe looked so

pitiful that when Minna looked at him she laughed more than ever. She could

not control herself, and she laughed until she cried. Frau von Kerich tried

to stop her, but she, too, could not help laughing, and Jean-Christophe,

in spite of his constraint, fell victim to the contagiousness of it. Their

merriment was irresistible; it was impossible to take offense at it. But

Jean-Christophe lost countenance altogether when Minna caught her breath

again, and asked him whatever he could be doing on the wall. She was

tickled by his uneasiness. He murmured, altogether at a loss. Frau von

Kerich came to his aid, and turned