Jean-Christophe, vol 1 - Romain Rolland (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📗
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words coming pat would show that she had heard and understood everything.
She coldly examined her brother’s judgment of Christophe: she knew Franz’s
crazes: her irony had had fine sport when she saw Christophe appear, whose
looks and distinction had been vaunted by her brother—(it seemed to her
that Franz had a special gift for seeing facts as they are not: or perhaps
he only thought it a paradoxical joke).—But when she looked at Christophe
more closely she recognized that what Franz had said was not altogether
false: and as she went on with her scrutiny she discovered in Christophe a
vague, unbalanced, though robust and bold power: that gave her pleasure,
for she knew, better than any, the rarity of power. She was able to
make Christophe talk about whatever she liked, and reveal his thoughts,
and display the limitations and defects of his mind: she made him play
the piano: she did not love music but she understood it: and she saw
Christophe’s musical originality, although his music had roused no sort of
emotion in her. Without the least change in the coldness of her manner,
with a few short, apt, and certainly not flattering, remarks she showed her
growing interest in Christophe.
Christophe saw it: and he was proud of it: for he felt the worth of such
judgment and the rarity of her approbation. He made no secret of his desire
to win it: and he set about it so naïvely as to make the three of them
smile: he talked only to Judith and for Judith: he was as unconcerned with
the others as though they did not exist.
Franz watched him as he talked: he followed his every word, with his lips
and eyes, with a mixture of admiration and amusement: and he laughed aloud
as he glanced at his father and his sister, who listened impassively and
pretended not to notice him.
Lothair Mannheim,—a tall old man, heavily built, stooping a little,
red-faced, with gray hair standing straight up on end, very black mustache
and eyebrows, a heavy though energetic and jovial face, which gave the
impression of great vitality—had also studied Christophe during the first
part of the dinner, slyly but good-naturedly: and he too had recognized
at once that there was “something” in the boy. But he was not interested
in music or musicians: it was not in his line: he knew nothing about it
and made no secret of his ignorance: he even boasted of it—(when a man
of that sort confesses his ignorance of anything he does so to feed his
vanity).—As Christophe had clearly shown at once, with a rudeness in which
there was no shade of malice, that, he could without regret dispense with
the society of the banker, and that the society of Fräulein Judith Mannheim
would serve perfectly to fill his evening, old Lothair in some amusement
had taken his seat by the fire: he read his paper, listening vaguely and
ironically to Christophe’s crotchets and his queer music, which sometimes
made him laugh inwardly at the idea that there could be people who
understood it and found pleasure in it. He did not trouble to follow the
conversation: he relied on his daughter’s cleverness to tell him exactly
what the newcomer was worth. She discharged her duty conscientiously.
When Christophe had gone Lothair asked Judith:
“Well, you probed him enough: what do you think of the artist?”
She laughed, thought for a moment, reckoned up, and said:
“He is a little cracked: but he is not stupid.”
“Good,” said Lothair. “I thought so too. He will succeed, then?”
“Yes, I think so. He has power,”
“Very good,” said Lothair with the magnificent logic of the strong who are
only interested in the strong, “we must help him.”
*
Christophe went away filled with admiration for Judith Mannheim. He was not
in love with her as Judith thought. They were both—she with her subtlety,
he with his instinct which took the place of mind in him,—mistaken
about each other. Christophe was fascinated by the enigma and the
intense activity of her mind: but he did not love her. His eyes and his
intelligence were ensnared: his heart escaped.—Why?—It were difficult to
tell. Because he had caught a glimpse of some doubtful, disturbing quality
in her?—In other circumstances that would have been a reason the more
for loving: love is never stronger than when it goes out to one who will
make it suffer.—If Christophe did not love Judith it was not the fault of
either of them. The real reason, humiliating enough for both, was that he
was still too near his last love. Experience had not made him wiser. But he
had loved Ada so much, he had consumed so much faith, force, and illusion
in that passion that there was not enough left for a new passion. Before
another flame could be kindled he would have to build a new pyre in his
heart: short of that there could only be a few flickerings, remnants of the
conflagration that had escaped by chance, which asked only to be allowed to
burn, cast a brief and brilliant light and then died down for want of food.
Six months later, perhaps, he might have loved Judith blindly. Now he saw
in her only a friend,—a rather disturbing friend in truth—but he tried to
drive his uneasiness back: it reminded him of Ada: there was no attraction
in that memory: he preferred not to think of it. What attracted him in
Judith was everything in her which was different from other women, not that
which she had in common with them. She was the first intelligent woman
he had met. She was intelligent from head to foot. Even her beauty—her
gestures, her movements, her features, the fold of her lips, her eyes, her
hands, her slender elegance—was the reflection of her intelligence: her
body was molded by her intelligence: without her intelligence she would
have passed unnoticed: and no doubt she would even have been thought plain
by most people. Her intelligence delighted Christophe. He thought it larger
and more free than it was: he could not yet know how deceptive it was. He
longed ardently to confide in her and to impart his ideas to her. He had
never found anybody to take an interest in his dreams: he was turned in
upon, himself: what joy then to find a woman to be his friend! That he had
not a sister had been one of the sorrows of his childhood: it seemed to
him that a sister would have understood him more than a brother could have
done. And when he met Judith he felt that childish and illusory hope of
having a brotherly love spring up in him. Not being in love, love seemed to
him a poor thing compared with friendship.
Judith felt this little shade of feeling and was hurt by it. She was not in
love with Christophe, and as she had excited other passions in other young
men of the town, rich young men of better position, she could not feel
any great satisfaction in knowing Christophe to be in love with her. But
it piqued her to know that he was not in love. No doubt she was pleased
with him for confiding his plans: she was not surprised by it: but it
was a little mortifying for her to know that she could only exercise an
intellectual influence over him—(an unreasoning influence is much more
precious to a woman).—She did not even exercise her influence: Christophe
only courted her mind. Judith’s intellect was imperious. She was used to
molding to her will the soft thoughts of the young men of her acquaintance.
As she knew their mediocrity she found no pleasure in holding sway over
them. With Christophe the pursuit was more interesting because more
difficult. She was not interested in his projects: but she would have liked
to direct his originality of thought, his ill-grown power, and to make them
good,—in her own way, of course, and not in Christophe’s, which she did
not take the trouble to understand. She saw at once that she could not
succeed without a struggle: she had marked down in Christophe all sorts of
notions and ideas which she thought childish and extravagant: they were
weeds to her: she tried hard to eradicate them. She did not get rid of
a single one. She did not gain the least satisfaction for her vanity.
Christophe was intractable. Not being in love he had no reason for
surrendering his ideas to her.
She grew keen on the game and instinctively tried for some time to overcome
him. Christophe was very nearly taken in again in spite of his lucidity of
mind at that time. Men are easily taken in by any flattery of their vanity
or their desires: and an artist is twice as easy to trick as any other man
because he has more imagination. Judith had only to draw Christophe into a
dangerous flirtation to bowl him over once more more thoroughly than ever.
But as usual she soon wearied of the game: she found that such a conquest
was hardly worth while: Christophe was already boring her: she did not
understand him.
She did not understand him beyond a certain point. Up to that she
understood everything. Her admirable intelligence could not take her beyond
it: she needed a heart, or in default of that the thing which could give
the illusion of one for a time: love. She understood Christophe’s criticism
of people and things: it amused her and seemed to her true enough: she
had thought much the same herself. But what she did not understand was
that such ideas might have an influence on practical life when it might
be dangerous or awkward to apply them. The attitude of revolt against
everybody and everything which Christophe had taken up led to nothing: he
could not imagine that he was going to reform the world…. And then?… It
was waste of time to knock one’s head against a wall. A clever man judges
men, laughs at them in secret, despises them a little: but he does as they
do—only a little better: it is the only way of mastering them. Thought is
one world: action is another. What boots it for a man to be the victim of
his thoughts? Since men are so stupid as not to be able to bear the truth,
why force it on them? To accept their weakness, to seem to bow to it, and
to feel free to despise them in his heart, is there not a secret joy in
that? The joy of a clever slave? Certainly. But all the world is a slave:
there is no getting away from that: it is useless to protest against it:
better to be a slave deliberately of one’s own free will and to avoid
ridiculous and futile conflict. Besides, the worst slavery of all is to be
the slave of one’s own thoughts and to sacrifice everything to them. There
is no need to deceive one’s self.—She saw clearly that if Christophe
went on, as he seemed determined to do, with his aggressive refusal to
compromise with the prejudices of German art and German mind, he would turn
everybody against him, even his patrons: he was courting inevitable ruin.
She did not understand why he so obstinately held out against himself, and
so took pleasure in digging his own ruin.
To have understood him she would have had to be able to understand that
his aim was not success but his own faith. He believed in art: he believed
in his art: he believed in
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