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

profusion, in every corner of the room, photographs of

officers, tenors, conductors, girl-friends, all with inscriptions, almost

all with verse—or at least what is accepted as verse in Germany. In the

center of the room, on a marble pillar, was enthroned a bust of Brahms,

with a beard; and, above the piano, little plush monkeys and cotillion

trophies hung by threads.

 

Minna would arrive late, her eyes still puffy with sleep, sulky; she would

hardly reach out her hand to Jean-Christophe, coldly bid him good-day, and,

without a word, gravely and with dignity sit down at the piano. When she

was alone, it pleased her to play interminable scales, for that allowed her

agreeably to prolong her half-somnolent condition and the dreams which she

was spinning for herself. But Jean-Christophe would compel her to fix her

attention on difficult exercises, and so sometimes she would avenge herself

by playing them as badly as she could. She was a fair musician, but she did

not like music—like many German women. But, like them, she thought she

ought to like it, and she took her lessons conscientiously enough, except

for certain moments of diabolical malice indulged in to enrage her master.

She could enrage him much more by the icy indifference with which she set

herself to her task. But the worst was when she took it into her head that

it was her duty to throw her soul into an expressive passage: then she

would become sentimental and feel nothing.

 

Young Jean-Christophe, sitting by her side, was not very polite. He never

paid her compliments—far from it. She resented that, and never let any

remark pass without answering it. She would argue about everything that he

said, and when she made a mistake she would insist that she was playing

what was written. He would get cross, and they would go on exchanging

ungracious words and impertinences. With her eyes on the keys, she never

ceased to watch Jean-Christophe and enjoy his fury. As a relief from

boredom she would invent stupid little tricks, with no other object than

to interrupt the lesson and to annoy Jean-Christophe. She would pretend

to choke, so as to make herself interesting; she would have a fit of

coughing, or she would have something very important to say to the maid.

Jean-Christophe knew that she was playacting; and Minna knew that

Jean-Christophe knew that she was playacting; and it amused her, for

Jean-Christophe could not tell her what he was thinking.

 

One day, when she was indulging in this amusement and was coughing

languidly, hiding her mouth in her handkerchief, as if she were on the

point of choking, but in reality watching Jean-Christophe’s exasperation

out of the corner of her eye, she conceived the ingenious idea of letting

the handkerchief fall, so as to make Jean-Christophe pick it up, which he

did with the worst grace in the world. She rewarded him with a “Thank you!”

in her grand manner, which nearly made him explode.

 

She thought the game too good not to be repeated. Next day she did it

again. Jean-Christophe did not budge; he was boiling with rage. She waited

a moment, and then said in an injured tone:

 

“Will you please pick up my handkerchief?”

 

Jean-Christophe could not contain himself.

 

“I am not your servant!” he cried roughly. “Pick it up yourself!”

 

Minna choked with rage. She got up suddenly from her stool, which fell

over.

 

“Oh, this is too much!” she said, and angrily thumped the piano; and she

left the room in a fury.

 

Jean-Christophe waited. She did not come back. He was ashamed of what he

had done; he felt that he had behaved like a little cad. And he was at the

end of his tether; she made fun of him too impudently! He was afraid lest

Minna should complain to her mother, and he should be forever banished from

Frau von Kerich’s thoughts. He knew not what to do; for if he was sorry for

his brutality, no power on earth would have made him ask pardon.

 

He came again on the chance the next day, although he thought that

Minna would refuse to take her lesson. But Minna, who was too proud to

complain to anybody—Minna, whose conscience was not shielded against

reproach—appeared again, after making him wait five minutes more than

usual; and she sat down at the piano, stiff, upright, without turning her

head or saying a word, as though Jean-Christophe no longer existed for her.

But she did not fail to take her lesson, and all the subsequent lessons,

because she knew very well that Jean-Christophe was a fine musician, and

that she ought to learn to play the piano properly if she wished to

be—what she wished to be—a well-bred young lady of finished education.

 

But how bored she was! How they bored each other!

 

*

 

One misty morning in March, when little flakes of snow were flying, like

feathers, in the gray air, they were in the studio. It was hardly daylight.

Minna was arguing, as usual, about a false note that she had struck, and

pretending that it “was written so.” Although he knew perfectly well that

she was lying, Jean-Christophe bent over the book to look at the passage in

question closely. Her hand was on the rack, and she did not move it. His

lips were near her hand. He tried to read and could not; he was looking at

something else—a thing soft, transparent, like the petals of a flower.

Suddenly—he did not know what he was thinking of—he pressed his lips as

hard as he could on the little hand.

 

They were both dumfounded by it. He flung backwards; she withdrew her

hand—both blushing. They said no word; they did not look at each other.

After a moment of confused silence she began to play again; she was very

uneasy: her bosom rose and fell as though she were under some weight; she

struck wrong note after wrong note. He did not notice it; he was more

uneasy than she. His temples throbbed; he heard nothing; he knew not what

she was playing; and, to break the silence, he made a few random remarks in

a choking voice. He thought that he was forever lost in Minna’s opinion.

He was confounded by what he had done, thought it stupid and rude. The

lesson-hour over, he left Minna without looking at her, and even forgot

to say good-bye. She did not mind. She had no thought now of deeming

Jean-Christophe ill-mannered; and if she made so many mistakes in playing,

it was because all the time she was watching him out of the corner of her

eye with astonishment and curiosity, and—for the first time—sympathy.

 

When she was left alone, instead of going to look for her mother as usual,

she shut herself up in her room and examined this extraordinary event. She

sat with her face in her hands in front of the mirror. Her eyes seemed to

her soft and gleaming. She bit gently at her lip in the effort of thinking.

And as she looked complacently at her pretty face, she visualized the

scene, and blushed and smiled. At dinner she was animated and merry. She

refused to go out at once, and stayed in the drawing-room for part of the

afternoon; she had some work in her hand, and did not make ten stitches

without a mistake, but what did that matter! In a corner of the room, with

her back turned to her mother, she smiled; or, under a sudden impulse to

let herself go, she pranced about the room and sang at the top of her

voice. Frau von Kerich started and called her mad. Minna flung her arms

round her neck, shaking with laughter, and hugged and kissed her.

 

In the evening, when she went to her room, it was a long time before

she went to bed. She went on looking at herself in the mirror, trying

to remember, and having thought all through the day of the same

thing—thinking of nothing. She undressed slowly; she stopped every moment,

sitting on the bed, trying to remember what Jean-Christophe was like. It

was a Jean-Christophe of fantasy who appeared, and now he did not seem

nearly so uncouth to her. She went to bed and put out the light. Ten

minutes later the scene of the morning rushed back into her mind, and she

burst out laughing. Her mother got up softly and opened the door, thinking

that, against orders, she was reading in bed. She found Minna lying quietly

in her bed, with her eyes wide open in the dim candlelight.

 

“What is it?” she asked. “What is amusing you?”

 

“Nothing,” said Minna gravely. “I was thinking.”

 

“You are very lucky to find your own company so amusing. But go to sleep.”

 

“Yes, mamma,” replied Minna meekly. Inside herself she was grumbling; “Go

away! Do go away!” until the door was closed, and she could go on enjoying

her dreams. She fell into a sweet drowsiness. When she was nearly asleep,

she leaped for joy:

 

“He loves me…. What happiness! How good of him to love me!… How I love

him!”

 

She kissed her pillow and went fast asleep.

 

*

 

When next they were together Jean-Christophe was surprised at Minna’s

amiability. She gave him “Good-day,” and asked him how he was in a very

soft voice; she sat at the piano, looking wise and modest; she was an angel

of docility. There were none of her naughty schoolgirl’s tricks, but she

listened religiously to Jean-Christophe’s remarks, acknowledged that they

were right, gave little timid cries herself when she made a mistake and set

herself to be more accurate. Jean-Christophe could not understand it. In a

very short time she made astounding progress. Not only did she play better,

but with musical feeling. Little as he was given to flattery, he had to pay

her a compliment. She blushed with pleasure, and thanked him for it with a

look tearful with gratitude. She took pains with her toilet for him; she

wore ribbons of an exquisite shade; she gave Jean-Christophe little smiles

and soft glances, which he disliked, for they irritated him, and moved him

to the depths of his soul. And now it was she who made conversation, but

there was nothing childish in what she said; she talked gravely, and quoted

the poets in a pedantic and pretentious way. He hardly ever replied; he was

ill at ease. This new Minna that he did not know astonished and disquieted

him.

 

Always she watched him. She was waiting…. For what?… Did she know

herself?… She was waiting for him to do it again. He took good care not

to; for he was convinced that he had behaved like a clod; he seemed never

to give a thought to it. She grew restless, and one day when he was sitting

quietly at a respectful distance from her dangerous little paws, she was

seized with impatience: with a movement so quick that she had no time to

think of it, she herself thrust her little hand against his lips. He was

staggered by it, then furious and ashamed. But none the less he kissed it

very passionately. Her naïve effrontery enraged him; he was on the point of

leaving her there and then.

 

But he could not. He was entrapped. Whirling thoughts rushed in his mind;

he could make nothing of them. Like mists ascending from a valley they rose

from the depths of his heart. He wandered hither and thither at random

through this mist of love, and whatever he did, he did but turn round and

round an obscure