Without any deliberate effort on his part, Christophe had gained a certain
celebrity in the Parisian circles to which he had been introduced by
Sylvain Kohn and Goujart. He was seen everywhere with one or other of his
friends at first nights, and at concerts, and his extraordinary face, his
ugliness, the absurdity of his figure and costume, his brusque, awkward
manners, the paradoxical opinions to which he gave vent from time to
time, his undeveloped, but large and healthy intellect, and the romantic
stories spread by Sylvain Kohn about his escapades in Germany, and his
complications with the police and flight to France, had marked him out for
the idle, restless curiosity of the great cosmopolitan hotel drawing-room
that Paris has become. As long as he held himself in check, observing,
listening, and trying to understand before expressing any opinion, as
long as nothing was known of his work or what he really thought, he was
tolerated. The French were pleased with him for having been unable to
stay in Germany. And the French musicians especially were delighted with
Christophe's unjust pronouncements on German music, and took them all
as homage to themselves:--(as a matter of fact, they heard only his old
youthful opinions, to many of which he would no longer have subscribed:
a few articles published in a German Review which had been amplified and
circulated by Sylvain Kohn).--Christophe was interesting and did not
interfere with anybody: there was no danger of his supplanting anybody.
He needed only to become the great man of a coterie. He needed only not
to write anything, or as little as possible, and not to have anything
performed, and to supply Goujart and his like with ideas, Goujart and the
whole set of men whose motto is the famous quip--adapted a little:
_"My glass is small: but I drink ... the wine of others."_
A strong personality sheds its rays especially on young people who are more
concerned with feeling than with action. There were plenty of young people
about Christophe. They were for the most part idle, will-less, aimless,
purposeless. Young men, living in dread of work, fearful of being left
alone with themselves, who sought an armchair immortality, wandering from
café to theater, from theater to café, finding all sorts of excuses for not
going home, to avoid coming face to face with themselves. They came and
stayed for hours, dawdling, talking, making aimless conversation, and going
away empty, aching, disgusted, satiated, and yet famishing, forced to go
on with it in spite of loathing. They surrounded Christophe, like Goethe's
water-spaniel, the "lurking specters," that lie in wait and seize upon a
soul and fasten upon its vitality. A vain fool would have found pleasure
in such a circle of parasites. But Christophe had no taste for pedestals.
He was revolted by the idiotic subtlety of his admirers, who read into
anything he did all sorts of absurd meanings, Renanian, Nietzschean,
hermaphroditic. He kicked them out. He was not made for passivity.
Everything in him cried aloud for action. He observed so as to understand:
he wished to understand so as to act. He was free of the constraint of
any school, and of any prejudice, and he inquired into everything, read
everything, and studied all the forms of thought and the resources of the
expression of other countries and other ages in his art. He seized on all
those which seemed to him effective and true. Unlike the French artists
whom he studied, who were ingenious inventors of new forms, and wore
themselves out in the unceasing effort of invention, and gave up the
struggle half-way, he endeavored not so much to invent a new musical
language as to speak the authentic language of music with more energy: his
aim was not to be particular, but to be strong. His, passion for strength
was the very opposite of the French genius of subtlety and moderation. He
scorned style for the sake of style and art for art's sake. The best French
artists seemed to him to be no more than pleasure-mongers. One of the
most perfect poets in Paris had amused himself with drawing up a "list
of the workers in contemporary French poetry, with their talents, their
productions, and their earnings": and he enumerated "the crystals, the
Oriental fabrics, the gold and bronze medals, the lace for dowagers, the
polychromatic sculpture, the painted porcelain," which had been produced in
the workshops of his various colleagues. He pictured himself "in the corner
of a vast factory of letters, mending old tapestry, or polishing up rusty
halberds."--Such a conception of the artist as a good workman, thinking
only of the perfection of his craft, was not without an element of
greatness. But it did not satisfy Christophe: and while he admitted in it
a certain professional dignity, he had a contempt for the poor quality of
life which most often it disguised. He could not understand writing for the
sake of writing, or talking for the sake of talking. He never said words;
he said--or wanted to say--the things themselves.
_"Ei dice cose, e voi dite parole...."_
After a long period of rest, during which he had been entirely occupied
with taking in a new world, Christophe suddenly became conscious of an
imperious need for creation. The antagonism which he felt between himself
and Paris called up all his reserve of force by its challenge of his
personality. All his passions were brimming in him, and imperiously
demanding expression. They were of every kind: and they were all equally
insistent. He tried to create, to fashion music, into which to turn the
love and hatred that were swelling in his heart, and the will and the
renunciation, and all the daimons struggling within him, all of whom
had an equal right to live. Hardly had he assuaged one passion in
music,--(sometimes he hardly had the patience to finish it)--than he hurled
himself at the opposite passion. But the contradiction was only apparent:
if they were always changing, they were in truth always the same. He
beat out roads in music, roads that led to the same goal: his soul was a
mountain: he tried every pathway up it; on some he wound easily, dallying
in the shade: on others he mounted toilsomely with the hot sun beating up
from the dry, sandy track: they all led to God enthroned on the summit.
Love, hatred, evil, renunciation, all the forces of humanity at their
highest pitch, touched eternity, and were a part of it. For every man the
gateway to eternity is in himself: for the believer as for the atheist, for
him who sees life everywhere as for him who everywhere denies it, and for
him who doubts both life and the denial of it,--and for Christophe in whose
soul there met all these opposing views of life. All the opposites become
one in eternal Force. For Christophe the chief thing was to wake that Force
within himself and in others, to fling armfuls of wood upon the fire, to
feed the flames of Eternity, and make them roar and flicker. Through the
voluptuous night of Paris a great flame darted in his heart. He thought
himself free of Faith, and he was a living torch of Faith.
Nothing was more calculated to outrage the French spirit of irony. Faith is
one of the feelings which a too civilized society can least forgive: for
it has lost it and hates others to possess it. In the blind or mocking
hostility of the majority of men towards the dreams of youth there is for
many the bitter thought that they themselves were once even as they, and
had ambitions and never realized them. All those who have denied their
souls, all those who had the seed of work within them, and have not brought
it forth rather to accept the security of an easy, honorable life, think:
"Since I could not do the thing I dreamed, why should they do the things
they dream? I will not have them do it."
How many Hedda Gablers are there among men! What a relentless struggle
is there to crush out strength in its new freedom, with what skill is it
killed by silence, irony, wear and tear, discouragement,--and, at the
crucial moment, betrayed by some treacherous seductive art!...
The type is of all nations. Christophe knew it, for he had met it in
Germany. Against such people he was armed. His method of defense was
simple: he was the first to attack; pounced on the first move, and declared
war on them: he forced these dangerous friends to become his enemies.
But if such a policy of frankness was an excellent safeguard for his
personality, it was not calculated to advance his career as an artist. Once
more Christophe began his German tactics. It was too strong for him. Only
one thing was altered: his temper: he was in fine fettle.
Lightheartedly, for the benefit of anybody who cared to listen, he
expressed his unmeasured criticism of French artists: and so he made many
enemies. He did not take the precaution, as a wise man would have done,
of surrounding himself with a little coterie. He would have found no
difficulty in gathering about him a number of artists who would gladly
have admired him if he had admired them. There were some who admired him
in advance, investing admiration as it were. They considered any man
they praised as a debtor, of whom, at a given moment, they could demand
repayment. But it was a good investment.--But Christophe was a very bad
investment. He never paid back. Worse than that, he was barefaced enough to
consider poor the works of men who thought his good. Unavowedly they were
rancorous, and engaged themselves on the next opportunity to pay him back
in kind.
Among his other indiscretions Christophe was foolish enough to declare war
on Lucien Lévy-Coeur. He found him in the way, everywhere, and he could not
conceal an extraordinary antipathy for the gentle, polite creature who was
doing no apparent harm, and even seemed to be kinder than himself, and was,
at any rate, far more moderate. He provoked him into argument: and, however
insignificant the subject of it might be, Christophe always brought into
it a sudden heat and bitterness which surprised their hearers. It was as
though Christophe were seizing every opportunity of battering at Lucien
Lévy-Coeur, head down: but he could never reach him. His enemy had an
extraordinary skill, even when he was most obviously in the wrong, in
carrying it off well: he would defend himself with a courtesy which showed
up Christophe's bad manners. Christophe still spoke French very badly,
interlarding it with slang, and often with very coarse expressions which
he had picked up, and, like many foreigners, used wrongly, and he was
incapable of outwitting the tactics of Lucien Lévy-Coeur and he raged
furiously against his gentle irony. Everybody thought him in the wrong,
for they could not see what Christophe vaguely felt: the hypocrisy of that
gentleness, which when it was brought up against a force which it could not
hold in check, tried quietly to stifle it by silence. He was in no hurry,
for, like Christophe, he counted on time, not, as Christophe did, to build,
but to destroy. He had no difficulty in detaching Sylvain Kohn and Goujart
from Christophe, just as he had gradually forced him out of the Stevens'
circle. He was isolating Christophe.
Christophe himself helped him. He pleased nobody, for he would not join any
party, but was rather against all parties. He did not like the Jews: but he
liked the anti-Semites even less. He was revolted by the cowardice of the
masses stirred up against a powerful minority, not because it was bad,
but because it was powerful, and by the appeal to the basest instincts of
jealousy and hatred. The Jews came to regard him as an anti-Semite, and
the anti-Semites looked on him as a Jew. As for the artists, they felt his
hostility. Instinctively Christophe made himself more German than he was,
in art. Revolting against the voluptuous ataraxia of a certain class of
Parisian music, he set up, with violence, a manly, healthy pessimism. When
joy appeared in his music, it was with a want of taste, a vulgar ardor,
which were well calculated to disgust even the aristocratic patrons of
popular art. An erudite, crude form. In his reaction he was not far from
affecting an apparent carelessness in style and a disregard of external
originality, which were bound to be offensive to the French musicians. And
so those of them, to whom he sent some of his work, without any careful
consideration, visited on it the contempt they had for the belated
Wagnerism of the contemporary German school. Christophe did not care: he
laughed inwardly, and repeated the lines of a charming musician of the
French Renaissance--adapted to his own case:
* * * * *
_"Come, come, don't worry about those who will say:
'Christophe has not the counterpoint of A,
And he has not such harmony as Monsieur B.'
I have something else which they never will see."_
But when he tried to have some of his music performed, he found the doors
shut against him. They had quite enough to do to play--or not to play--the
works of young French musicians, and could not bother about those of an
unknown German.
Christophe did not go on trying. He shut himself up in his room and went on
writing. He did not much care whether the people of Paris heard him or not.
He wrote for his own pleasure and not for success. The true artist is not
concerned with the future of his work. He is like those painters of the
Renaissance who joyously painted mural decorations, knowing full well that
in ten years nothing would be left of them. So Christophe worked on in
peace, quite good-humoredly resigned to waiting for better times, when help
would come to him from some unexpected source.
* * * * *
Christophe was then attracted by the dramatic form. He dared not yet
surrender freely to the flood of his own lyrical impulse. He had to run it
into definite channels. And, no doubt, it is a good thing for a young man
of genius, who is not yet master of himself, and does not even know exactly
what he is, to set voluntary bounds upon himself, and to confine therein
the soul of which he has so little hold. They are the dikes and sluices
which allow the course of thought to be directed. Unfortunately Christophe
had not a poet: he had himself to fashion his subjects out of legend and
history.
Among the visions which had been floating before his mind for some months
past were certain figures from the Bible.--That Bible, which his mother had
given him as a companion in his exile, had been a source of dreams to him.
Although he did not read it in any religious spirit, the moral, or, rather,
vital energy of that Hebraic Iliad had been to him a spring in which, in
the evenings, he washed his naked soul of the smoke and mud of Paris. He
was concerned with the sacred meaning of the book: but it was not the
less a sacred book to him, for the breath of savage nature and primitive
individualities that he found in its pages. He drew in its hymns of the
earth, consumed with faith, quivering mountains, exultant skies, and human
lions.
One of the characters in the book for whom he had an especial tenderness
was the young David. He did not give him the ironic smile of the Florentine
boy, or the tragic intensity of the sublime works of Michael Angelo and
Verrochio: he knew them not. His David was a young shepherd-poet, with
a virgin soul, in which heroism slumbered, a Siegfried of the South, of
a finer race, and more beautiful, and of greater harmony in mind and
body.--For his revolt against the Latin spirit was in vain: unconsciously
he had been permeated by that spirit. Not only art influences art, not
only mind and thought, but everything about the artist:--people, things,
gestures, movements, lines, the light of each town. The atmosphere of Paris
is very powerful: it molds even the most rebellious souls. And the soul of
a German is less capable than any other of resisting it: in vain does he
gird himself in his national pride: of all Europeans the German is the most
easily denationalized. Unwittingly the soul of Christophe had already begun
to assimilate from Latin art a clarity, a sobriety, an understanding of the
emotions, and even, up to a point, a plastic beauty, which otherwise it
never would have had. His _David_ was the proof of it.
He had endeavored to recreate certain episodes of the youth of David: the
meeting with Saul, the fight with Goliath: and he had written the first
scene. He had conceived it as a symphonic picture with two characters.
On a deserted plateau, on a moor covered with heather in bloom, the young
shepherd lay dreaming in the sun. The serene light, the hum and buzz of
tiny creatures, the sweet whispering of the waving grass, the silvery
tinkling of the grazing sheep, the mighty beat and rhythm of the earth sang
through the dreaming boy unconscious of his divine destiny. Drowsing, his
voice and the notes of his flute joined the harmonious silence: and his
song was so calmly, so limpidly joyous, that, hearing it, there could be no
thought of joy or sorrow, only the feeling that it must be so and could not
be otherwise.--Suddenly over the moor reached great shadows: the air was
still: life seemed to withdraw into the veins of the earth. Only the music
of the flute went on calmly. Saul, with his crazy thoughts, passed. The mad
King, racked by his fancy, burned like a flame, devouring itself, flung
this way and that by the wind. He breathed prayers and violent abuse,
hurling defiance at the void about him, the void within himself. And when
he could speak no more and fell breathless to the ground, there rang
through the silence the smiling peace of the song of the young shepherd,
who had never ceased. Then, with a furious beating in his heart, came Saul
in silence up to where the boy lay in the heather: in silence he gazed at
him: he sat down by his side and placed his fevered hand on the cool brows
of the shepherd. Untroubled, David turned, and smiled, and looked at the
King. He laid his hand on Saul's knees, and went on singing and playing his
flute. Evening came: David went to sleep in the middle of his song, and
Saul wept. And through the starry night there rose once more the serene
joyous hymn of nature refreshed, the song of thanksgiving of the soul
relieved of its burden.
When he wrote the scene, Christophe had thought of nothing but his own joy:
he had never given a thought to the manner of its performance: and it had
certainly never occurred to him that it might be produced on the stage. He
meant it to be sung at a concert at such time as the concert-halls should
be open to him.
One evening he spoke of it to Achille Roussin, and when, by request, he had
tried to give him an idea of it on the piano, he was amazed to see Roussin
burst into enthusiasm, and declare that it must at all costs be produced at
one of the theaters, and that he would see to it. He was even more amazed
when, a few days later, he saw that Roussin was perfectly serious: and his
amazement grew to stupefaction when he heard that Sylvain Kohn, Goujart,
and Lucien Lévy-Coeur were taking it up. He had to admit that their
personal animosity had yielded to their love of art: and he was much
surprised. The only man who was not eager to see his work produced was
himself. It was not suited to the theater: it was nonsense, and almost
hurtful to stage it. But Roussin was so insistent, Sylvain Kohn so
persuasive, and Goujart so positive, that Christophe yielded to the
temptation. He was weak. He was so longing to hear his music!
It was quite easy for Roussin. Manager and artist rushed to please him.
It happened that a newspaper was organizing a benefit matinee for some
charity. It was arranged that the _David_ should be produced. A good
orchestra was got together. As for the singers, Roussin claimed that he had
found the ideal representative of David.
The rehearsals were begun. The orchestra came through the first reading
fairly well, although, as usual in France, there was not much discipline
about it. Saul had a good, though rather tired, voice: and he knew his
business. The David was a handsome, tall, plump, solid lady with a
sentimental vulgar voice which she used heavily, with a melodramatic
tremolo and all the café-concert tricks. Christophe scowled. As soon as
she began to sing it was obvious that she could not be allowed to play the
part. After the first pause in the rehearsal he went to the impresario, who
had charge of the business side of the undertaking, and was present, with
Sylvain Kohn, at the rehearsal. The impresario beamed and said:
"Well, are you satisfied?"
"Yes," said Christophe. "I think it can be made all right There's only one
thing that won't do: the singer. She must be changed. Tell her as gently
as you can: you're used to it.... It will be quite easy for you to find me
another."
The impresario looked disgruntled: he looked at Christophe as though he
could not believe that he was serious; and he said:
"But that's impossible!"
"Why is it impossible?" asked Christophe.
The impresario looked cunningly at Sylvain Kohn, and replied:
"But she has so much talent!"
"Not a spark," said Christophe.
"What!... She has a fine voice!"
"Not a bit of it."
"And she is beautiful."
"I don't care a damn."
"That won't hurt the part," said Sylvain Kohn, laughing.
"I want a David, a David who can sing: I don't want Helen of Troy," said
Christophe.
The impresario rubbed his nose uneasily.
"It's a pity, a great pity ..." he said. "She is an excellent artist.... I
give you my word for it! Perhaps she is not at her best to-day. You must
give her another trial."
"All right," said Christophe. "But it is a waste of time."
He went on with the rehearsal. It was worse than ever. He found it hard to
go on to the end: it got on his nerves: his remarks to the singer, from
cold and polite, became dry and cutting, in spite of the obvious pains she
was taking to satisfy him, and the way she ogled him by way of winning his
favor. The impresario prudently stopped the rehearsal just when it seemed
to be hopeless. By way of softening the bad effect of Christophe's remarks,
he bustled up to the singer and paid her heavy compliments. Christophe,
who was standing by, made no attempt to conceal his impatience, called the
impresario, and said:
"There's no room for argument. I won't have the woman. It's unpleasant, I
know: but I did not choose her. Do what you can to arrange the matter."
The impresario bowed frigidly, and said coldly:
"I can't do anything. You must see M. Roussin."
"What has it got to do with M. Roussin? I don't want to bother him with
this business," said Christophe.
"That won't bother him," said Sylvain Kohn ironically.
And he pointed to Roussin, who had just come in.
Christophe went up to him. Roussin was in high good humor, and cried:
"What! Finished already? I was hoping to hear a bit of it. Well, maestro,
what do you say? Are you satisfied?"
"It's going quite well," said Christophe. "I don't know how to thank
you...."
"Not at all! Not at all!"
"There is only one thing wrong."
"What is it? We'll put it right. I am determined to satisfy you."
"Well ... the singer. Between ourselves she is detestable."
The beaming smile on Roussin's face froze suddenly. He said, with some
asperity:
"You surprise me, my dear fellow."
"She is useless, absolutely useless," Christophe went on. "She has no
voice, no taste, no knowledge of her work, no talent. You're lucky not to
have heard her!..."
Roussin grew more and more acid. He cut Christophe short, and said
cuttingly:
"I know Mlle. de Sainte-Ygraine. She is a very talented artiste. I have
the greatest admiration for her. Every man of taste in Paris shares my
opinion."
And he turned his back on Christophe, who saw him offer his arm to the
actress and go out with her. He was dumfounded, and Sylvain Kohn, who had
watched the scene delightedly, took his arm and laughed, and said as they
went down the stairs of the theater:--
"Didn't you know that she was his mistress?"
Christophe understood. So it was for her sake and not for his own that his
piece was to be produced! That explained Roussin's enthusiasm, the money
he had laid out, and the eagerness of his sycophants. He listened while
Sylvain Kohn told him the story of the Sainte-Ygraine: a music-hall singer,
who, after various successes in the little vaudeville theaters, had, like
so many of her kind, been fired with the ambition to be heard on a stage
more worthy of her talent. She counted on Roussin to procure her an
engagement at the Opéra or the Opéra-Comique: and Roussin, who asked
nothing better, had seen in the performance of _David_ an opportunity of
revealing to the Parisian public at no very great risk the lyrical gifts
of the new tragedienne, in a part which called for no particular dramatic
acting, and gave her an excellent opportunity of displaying the elegance of
her figure.
Christophe heard the story through to the end: then he shook off Sylvain
Kohn and burst out laughing. He laughed and laughed. When he had done, he
said:
"You disgust me. You all disgust me. Art is nothing to you. It's always
women, nothing but women. An opera is put on for a dancer, or a singer, for
the mistress of M. So-and-So, or Madame Thingummy. You think of nothing but
your dirty little intrigues. Bless you, I'm not angry with you: you are
like that: very well then, be so and wallow in your mire. But we must part
company: we weren't made to live together. Good-night."
He left him, and when he reached home, wrote to Roussin, saying that he
withdrew the piece, and did not disguise his reasons for doing so.
It meant a breach with Roussin and all his gang. The consequences were
felt at once. The newspapers had made a certain amount of talk about the
forthcoming piece, and the story of the quarrel between the composer and
the singer appeared in due course. A certain conductor was adventurous
enough to play the piece at a Sunday afternoon concert. His good fortune
was disastrous for Christophe. The _David_ was played--and hissed. All
the singer's friends had passed the word to teach the insolent musician a
lesson: and the outside public, who had been bored by the symphonic poem,
added their voices to the verdict of the critics. To crown his misfortunes,
Christophe was ill-advised enough to accept the invitation to display his
talents as a pianist at the same concert by giving a _Fantasia_ for piano
and orchestra. The unkindly disposition of the audience, which had been to
a certain extent restrained during the performance of the _David_, out of
consideration for the interpreters, broke loose, when they found themselves
face to face with the composer,--whose playing was not all that it might
have been. Christophe was unnerved by the noise in the hall, and stopped
suddenly half-way through a movement: and he looked jeeringly at the
audience, who were startled into silence, and played _Malbrouck s'en
va-t-en guerre_!--and said insolently:
"That is all you are fit for."
Then he got up and went away.
There was a terrific row. The audience shouted that he had insulted them,
and that he must come and apologize. Next day the papers unanimously
slaughtered the grotesque German to whom justice had been meted out by the
good taste of Paris.
And then once more he was left in absolute isolation. Once more Christophe
found himself alone, more solitary than ever, in that great, hostile,
stranger city. He did not worry about it. He began to think that he was
fated to be so, and would be so all his life.
He did not know that a great soul is never alone, that, however Fortune may
cheat him of friendship, in the end a great soul creates friends by the
radiance of the love with which it is filled, and that even in that hour,
when he thought himself for ever isolated, he was more rich in love than
the happiest men and women in the world.
* * * * *
Living with the Stevens was a little girl of thirteen or fourteen, to whom
Christophe had given lessons at the same time as Colette. She was a distant
cousin of Colette's, and her name was Grazia Buontempi. She was a little
girl with a golden-brown complexion, with cheeks delicately tinged with
red: healthy-looking: she had a little aquiline nose, a large well-shaped
mouth, always half-open, a round chin, very white, calm clear eyes, softly
smiling, a round forehead framed in masses of long, silky hair, which fell
in long, waving locks loosely down to her shoulders. She was like a little
Virgin of Andrea del Sarto, with her wide face and serenely gazing eyes.
She was Italian. Her parents lived almost all the year round in the country
on an estate in the North of Italy: plains, fields, little canals. From the
loggia on the housetop they looked down on golden vines, from which here
and there the black spikes of the cypress-trees emerged. Beyond them were
fields, and again fields. Silence. The lowing of the oxen returning from
the fields, and the shrill cries of the peasants at the plow were to be
heard:
_"Ihi!... Fat innanz'!..."_
Grasshoppers chirruped in the trees, frogs croaked by the waterside. And at
night there was infinite silence under the silver beams of the moon. In the
distance, from time to time, the watchers by the crops, sleeping in huts of
branches, fired their guns by way of warning thieves that they were awake.
To those who heard them drowsily, these noises meant no more than the
chiming of a dull clock in the distance, marking the hours of the night.
And silence closed again, like a soft cloak, about the soul.
Round little Grazia life seemed asleep. Her people did not give her much
attention. In the calmness and beauty that was all about her she grew up
peacefully without haste, without fever. She was lazy, and loved to dawdle
and to sleep. For hours together she would lie in the garden. She would let
herself be borne onward by the silence like a fly on a summer stream. And
sometimes, suddenly, for no reason, she would begin to run. She would run
like a little animal, head and shoulders a little leaning to the right,
moving easily and supply. She was like a kid climbing and slithering among
the stones for the sheer joy of leaping about. She would talk to the dogs,
the frogs, the grass, the trees, the peasants, and the beasts in the
farmyard. She adored all the creatures about her, great and small: but she
was less at her ease with the great. She saw very few people. The estate
was isolated and far from any town. Very rarely there came along the dusty
road some trudging, solemn peasant, or lovely country woman, with bright
eyes and sunburnt face, walking with a slow rhythm, head high and chest
well out. For days together Grazia lived alone in the silence of the
garden: she saw no one: she was never bored: she was afraid of nothing.
One day a tramp came, stealing fowls. He stopped dead when he saw the
little girl lying on the grass, eating a piece of bread and butter and
humming to herself. She looked up at him calmly, and asked him what he
waited. He said:
"Give me something, or I'll hurt you."
She held out her piece of bread and butter and smiled, and said:
"You must not do harm."
Then he went away.
Her mother died. Her father, a kind, weak man, was an old Italian of a good
family, robust, jovial, affectionate, but rather childish, and he was quite
incapable of bringing up his child. Old Buontempi's sister, Madame Stevens,
came to the funeral, and was struck by the loneliness of the child, and
decided to take her back to Paris for a while, to distract her from her
grief. Grazia and her father wept: but when Madame Stevens had made up her
mind to anything, there was nothing for it but to give in: nobody could
stand out against her. She had the brains of the family: and, in her house
in Paris, she directed everything, dominated everybody: her husband,
her daughter, her lovers:--for she had not denied herself in the matter
of love: she went straight at her duties, and her pleasures: she was a
practical woman and a passionate--very worldly and very restless.
Transplanted to Paris, Grazia adored her pretty cousin Colette, whom she
amused. The pretty little savage was taken out into society and to the
theater. They treated her as a child, and she regarded herself as a child,
although she was a child no longer. She had feelings which she hid away,
for she was fearful of them: accesses of tenderness for some person or
thing. She was secretly in love with Colette, and would steal a ribbon
or a handkerchief that belonged to her: often in her presence, she could
not speak a word: and when she expected her, when she knew that she was
going to see her, she would tremble with impatience and happiness. At the
theater when she saw her pretty cousin, in evening dress, come into the
box and attract general attention, she would smile humbly, affectionately,
lovingly: and her heart would leap when Colette spoke to her. Dressed in
white, with her beautiful black hair loose and hanging over her shoulders,
biting the fingers of her long white cotton gloves, and idly poking her
fingers through the holes,--every other minute during the play she would
turn towards Colette in the hope of meeting a friendly look, to share the
pleasure she was feeling, and to say with her clear brown eyes:
"I love you."
When they were out together in the Bois, outside Paris, she would walk in
Colette's shadow, sit at her feet; run in front of her, break off branches
that might be in her way, place stones in the mud for her to walk on. And
one evening in the garden, when Colette shivered and asked for her shawl,
she gave a little cry of delight--she was at once ashamed of it--to think
that her beloved would be wrapped in something of hers, and would give it
back to her presently filled with the scent of her body.
There were books, certain passages in the poets, which she read in
secret--(for she was still given children's books)--which gave her
delicious thrills. And there were more even in certain passages in music,
although she was told that she could not understand them: and she persuaded
herself that she did not understand them:--but she would turn pale and cold
with emotion. No one knew what was happening within her at such moments.
Outside that she was just a docile little girl, dreamy, lazy, greedy,
blushing on the slightest provocation, now silent for hours together, now
talking volubly, easily touched to tears and laughter, breaking suddenly
into fits of sobbing or childish laughter. She loved to laugh, and silly
little things would amuse her. She never tried to be grown up. She remained
a child. She was, above all, kind and could not bear to hurt anybody, and
she was hurt by the least angry word addressed to herself. She was very
modest and retiring, ready to love and admire anything that seemed good and
beautiful to her, and so she attributed to others qualities which they did
not possess.
She was being educated, for she was very backward. And that was how she
came to be taught music by Christophe.
She saw him for the first time at a crowded party in her aunt's house.
Christophe, who was incapable of adapting himself to his audience, played
an interminable _adagio_ which made everybody yawn: when it seemed to be
over he began again: and everybody wondered if it was ever going to end.
Madame Stevens was boiling with impatience: Colette was highly amused: she
was enjoying the absurdity of it, and rather pleased with Christophe for
being so insensible of it: she felt that he was a force, and she liked
that: but it was comic too: and she would have been the last person to
defend him. Grazia alone was moved to tears by the music. She hid herself
away in a corner of the room. When it was over she went away, so that no
one should see her emotion, and also because she could not bear to see
people making fun of Christophe.
A few days later, at dinner, Madame Stevens in her presence spoke of her
having music-lessons from Christophe. Grazia was so upset that she let her
spoon drop into her soup-plate, and splashed herself and her neighbor.
Colette said she ought first to have lessons in table-manners. Madame
Stevens added that Christophe was not the person to go to for that. Grazia
was glad to be scolded in Christophe's company.
Christophe began to teach her. She was stiff and frozen, and held her arms
close to her sides, and could not stir: and when Christophe placed his
hand on hers, to correct the position of her fingers, and stretched them
over the keys, she nearly fainted. She was fearful of playing badly for
him; but in vain did she practise until she nearly made herself ill, and
evoked impatient protests from her cousin: she always played vilely when
Christophe was present: she was breathless, and her fingers were as stiff
as pieces of wood, or as flabby as cotton: she struck the wrong notes and
gave the emphasis all wrong: Christophe would lose his temper, scold her,
and go away: then she would long to die.
He paid no attention to her, and thought only of Colette. Grazia was
envious of her cousin's intimacy with Christophe: but, although it hurt
her, in her heart she was glad both for Colette and for Christophe. She
thought Colette so superior to herself that it seemed natural to her that
she should monopolize attention.--It was only when she had to choose
between her cousin and Christophe that she felt her heart turn against
Colette. With her girlish intuition she saw that Christophe was made to
suffer by Colette's coquetry, and the persistent courtship of her by Lucien
Lévy-Coeur. Instinctively she disliked Lévy-Coeur, and she detested him as
soon as she knew that Christophe detested him. She could not understand
how Colette could admit him as a rival to Christophe. She began secretly
to judge him harshly. She discovered certain of his small hypocrisies, and
suddenly changed her manner towards him. Colette saw it, but did not guess
the cause: she pretended to ascribe it to a little girl's caprice. But it
was very certain that she had lost her power over Grazia: as was shown by
a trifling incident. One evening, when they were walking together in the
garden, a gentle rain came on, and Colette, tenderly, though coquettishly,
offered Grazia the shelter of her cloak: Grazia, for whom, a few weeks
before, it would have been happiness ineffable to be held close to her
beloved cousin, moved away coldly, and walked on in silence at a distance
of some yards. And when Colette said that she thought a piece of music that
Grazia was playing was ugly, Grazia was not kept from playing and loving
it.
She was only concerned with Christophe. She had the insight of her
tenderness, and saw that he was suffering, without his saying a word. She
exaggerated it in her childish, uneasy regard for him. She thought that
Christophe was in love with Colette, when he had really no more than an
exacting friendship. She thought he was unhappy, and she was unhappy for
him, and she had little reward for her anxiety. She paid for it when
Colette had infuriated Christophe: then he was surly and avenged himself on
his pupil, waxing wrathful with her mistakes. One morning when Colette had
exasperated him more than usual, he sat down by the piano so savagely that
Grazia lost the little nerve she had: she floundered: he angrily scolded
her for her mistakes: then she lost her head altogether: he fumed, wrung
his hands, declared that she would never do anything properly, and that she
had better occupy herself with cooking, sewing, anything she liked, only,
in Heaven's name, she must not go on with her music! It was not worth the
trouble of torturing people with her mistakes. With that he left her in the
middle of her lesson. He was furious. And poor Grazia wept, not so much for
the humiliation of anything he had said to her, as for despair at not being
able to please Christophe, when she longed to do so, and could only succeed
in adding to his sufferings. The greatest grief was when Christophe ceased
to go to the Stevens' house. Then she longed to go home. The poor child, so
healthy, even in her dreams, in whom there was much of the sweet peace of
the country, felt ill at ease in the town, among the neurasthenic, restless
women of Paris. She never dared say anything, but she had come to a fairly
accurate estimation of the people about her. But she was shy, and, like her
father, weak, from kindness, modesty, distrust of herself. She submitted
to the authority of her domineering aunt and her cousin, who was used to
tyrannizing over everybody. She dared not write to her father, to whom she
wrote regularly long, affectionate letters:
"Please, please, take me home!"
And her father dared not take her home, in spite of his own longing: for
Madame Stevens had answered his timid advances by saying that Grazia was
very well off where she was, much better off than she would be with him,
and that she must stay for the sake of her education.
But there came a time when her exile was too hard for the little southern
creature, a time when she had to fly back towards the light.--That was
after Christophe's concert. She went to it with the Stevens: and she
was tortured by the hideous sight of the rabble amusing themselves with
insulting an artist.... An artist? The man who, in Grazia's eyes, was the
very type of art, the personification of all that was divine in life! She
was on the point of tears; she longed to get away. She had to listen to
all the caterwauling, the hisses, the howls, and, when they reached home,
to the laughter of Colette as she exchanged pitying remarks with Lucien
Lévy-Coeur. She escaped to her room, and through part of the night she
sobbed: she spoke to Christophe, and consoled him: she would gladly have
given her life for him, and she despaired of ever being able to do anything
to make him happy. It was impossible for her to stay in Paris any longer.
She begged her father to take her away, saying:
"I cannot live here any longer; I cannot: I shall die if you leave me here
any longer."
Her father came at once, and though it was very painful to them both to
stand up to her terrible aunt, they screwed up their courage for it by a
desperate effort of will.
Grazia returned to the sleepy old estate. She was glad to get back to
Nature and the creatures that she loved. Every day she gathered comfort
for her sorrow, but in her heart there remained a little of the melancholy
of the North, like a veil of mist, that very slowly melted away before
the sun. Sometimes she thought of Christophe's wretchedness. Lying on the
grass, listening to the familiar frogs and grasshoppers, or sitting at her
piano, which now she played more often than before, she would dream of the
friend her heart had chosen: she would talk to him, in whispers, for hours
together, and it seemed not impossible to her that one day he would open
the door and come in to her. She wrote to him, and, after long hesitation,
she sent the letter, unsigned, which, one day, with beating heart, she went
secretly and dropped into the box in the village two miles away, beyond the
long plowed fields,--a kind, good, touching letter, in which she told him
that he was not alone, that he must not be discouraged, that there was
one who thought of him, and loved him, and prayed to God for him,--a poor
little letter, which was lost in the post, so that he never received it.
Then the serene, monotonous days succeeded each other in the life of his
distant friend. And the Italian peace, the genius of tranquillity, calm
happiness, silent contemplation, once more took possession of that chaste
and silent heart, in whose depths there still burned, like a little
constant flame, the memory of Christophe.
* * * * *
But Christophe never knew of the simple love that watched over him from
afar, and was later to fill so great a room in his life. Nor did he know
that at that same concert, where he had been insulted, there sat the woman
who was to be the beloved, the dear companion, destined to walk by his
side, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand.
He was alone. He thought himself alone. But he did not suffer overmuch. He
did not feel that bitter anguish that had given him such great agony in
Germany. He was stronger, riper: he knew that it must be so. His illusions
about Paris were destroyed: men were everywhere the same: he must be a law
unto himself, and not waste strength in a childish struggle with the world:
he must be himself, calmly, tranquilly. As Beethoven had said, "If we
surrender the forces of our lives to life, what, then, will be left for the
noblest and highest?" He had firmly grasped a knowledge of his nature and
the temper of his race, which formerly he had so harshly judged. The more
he was oppressed by the atmosphere of Paris, the more keenly did he feel
the need of taking refuge in his own country, in the arms of the poets and
musicians, in whom the best of Germany is garnered and preserved. As soon
as he opened their books his room was filled with the sound of the sunlit
Rhine and lit by the loving smiles of old friends new found.
How ungrateful he had been to them! How was it he had failed to feel the
treasure of their goodness and honesty? He remembered with shame all the
unjust, outrageous things he had said of them when he was in Germany. Then
he saw only their defects, their awkward ceremonious manners, their tearful
idealism, their little mental hypocrisies, their cowardice. Ah! How small
were all these things compared with their great virtues! How could he have
been so hard upon their weaknesses, which now made them even more moving in
his eyes: for they were more human for them! In his reaction he was the
more attracted to those of them to whom he had been most unjust. What
things he had said about Schubert and Bach! And now he felt so near to
them. Now it was as though these noble souls, whose foibles he had so
scorned, leaned over him, now that he was in exile and far from his own
people, and smiled kindly and said:
"Brother, we are here! Courage! We too have had more than our share of
misery ... Bah! one wins through it...."
He heard the soul of Johann Sebastian Bach roaring like the sea:
hurricanes, winds howling, the clouds of life scudding,--men and women
drunk with joy, sorrow, fury, and the Christ, all meekness, the Prince of
Peace, hovering above them,--towns awakened by the cries of the watchmen,
running with glad shouts, to meet the divine Bridegroom, whose footsteps
shake the earth,--the vast store of thoughts, passions, musical forms,
heroic life, Shakespearean hallucinations, Savonarolaesque prophecies,
pastoral, epic, apocalyptic visions, all contained in the stunted body of
the little Thuringian _cantor_, with his double chin, and little shining
eyes under the wrinkled lids and the raised eyebrows ...--he could see him
so clearly! somber, jovial, a little absurd, with his head stuffed full of
allegories and symbols, Gothic and rococo, choleric, obstinate, serene,
with a passion for life, and a great longing for death ...--he saw him
in his school, a genial pedant, surrounded by his pupils, dirty, coarse,
vagabond, ragged, with hoarse voices, the ragamuffins with whom he
squabbled, and sometimes fought like a navvy, one of whom once gave him
a mighty thrashing ...--he saw him with his family, surrounded by his
twenty-one children, of whom thirteen died before him, and one was an
idiot, and the rest were good musicians who gave little concerts....
Sickness, burial, bitter disputes, want, his genius misunderstood:--and
through and above it all, his music, his faith, deliverance and light, joy
half seen, felt, desired, grasped,--God, the breath of God kindling his
bones, thrilling through his flesh, thundering from his lips.... O Force!
Force! Thrice joyful thunder of Force!...
Christophe took great draughts of that force. He felt the blessing of that
power of music which issues from the depths of the German soul. Often
mediocre, and even coarse, what does it matter? The great thing is that
it is so, and that it flows plenteously. In France music is gathered
carefully, drop by drop, and passed through Pasteur filters into bottles,
and then corked. And the drinkers of stale water are disgusted by the
rivers of German music! They examine minutely the defects of the German men
of genius!
"Poor little things!"--thought Christophe, forgetting that he himself had
once been just as absurd--"they find fault with Wagner and Beethoven! They
must have faultless men of genius!... As though, when the tempest rages, it
would take care not to upset the existing order of things!..."
He strode about Paris rejoicing in his strength. If he were misunderstood,
so much the better! He would be all the freer. To create, as genius must, a
whole world, organically constituted according to his own inward laws, the
artist must live in it altogether. An artist can never be too much alone.
What is terrible is to see his ideas reflected in a mirror which deforms
and stunts them. He must say nothing to others of what he is doing until he
has done it: otherwise he would never have the courage to go on to the end:
for it would no longer be his idea, but the miserable idea of others that
would live in him.
Now that there was nothing to disturb his dreams, they bubbled forth like
springs from all the corners of his soul, and from every stone of the roads
by which he walked. He was living in a visionary state. Everything he saw
and heard called forth in him creatures and things different from those he
saw and heard. He had only to live to find everywhere about him the life
of his heroes. Their sensations came to him of their own accord. The eyes
of the passers-by, the sound of a voice borne by the wind, the light on
a lawn, the birds singing in the trees of the Luxembourg, a convent-bell
ringing so far away, the pale sky, the little patch of sky seen from his
room, the sounds and shades of sound of the different hours of the day, all
these were not in himself, but in the creatures of his dreams.--Christophe
was happy.
But his material position was worse than ever. He had lost his few pupils,
his only resource. It was September, and rich people were out of town, and
it was difficult to find new pupils. The only one he had was an engineer, a
crazy, clever fellow, who had taken it into his head, at forty, to become a
great violinist. Christophe did not play the violin very well: but he knew
more about it than his pupil: and for some time he gave him three hours a
week at two francs an hour. But at the end of six weeks the engineer got
tired of it, and suddenly discovered that painting was his vocation.--When
he imparted his discovery to Christophe, Christophe laughed heartily: but,
when he had done laughing, he reckoned up his finances, and found that he
had in hand the twelve francs which his pupil had just paid him for his
last lessons. That did not worry him: he only said to himself that he must
certainly set about finding some other means of living, and start once more
going from publisher to publisher. That was not very pleasant.... Pff!...
It was useless to torment himself in advance. It was a jolly day. He went
to Meudon.
He had a sudden longing for a walk. As he walked there rose in him scraps
of music. He was as full of it as a hive of honey: and he laughed aloud at
the golden buzzing of his bees. For the most part it was changing music.
And lively leaping rhythms, insistent, haunting.... Much good it is to
create and fashion music buried within four walls! There you can only make
combinations of subtle, hard, unyielding harmonies, like the Parisians!
When he was weary he lay down in the woods. The trees were half in leaf,
the sky was periwinkle blue. Christophe dozed off dreamily, and in his
dreams there was the color of the sweet light falling from October clouds.
His blood throbbed. He listened to the rushing flood of his ideas. They
came from all corners of the earth: worlds, young and old, at war, rags and
tatters of dead souls, guests and parasites that once had dwelled within
him, as in a city. The words that Gottfried had spoken by the grave of
Melchior returned to him: he was a living tomb, filled with the dead,
striving in him,--all his unknown forefathers. He listened to those
countless lives, it delighted him to set the organ roaring, the roaring of
that age-old forest, full of monsters, like the forest of Dante. He was
no longer fearful of them as he had been in his youth. For the master was
there: his will. It was a great joy to him to crack his whip and make the
beasts howl, and feel the wealth of living creatures in himself. He was
not alone. There was no danger of his ever being alone. He was a host in
himself. Ages of Kraffts, healthy and rejoicing in their health. Against
hostile Paris, against a hostile people, he could set a whole people: the
fight was equal.
* * * * *
He had left the modest room--it was too expensive--which he occupied and
taken an attic in the Montrouge district. It was well aired, though it
had no other advantage. There was a continual draught. But he wanted to
breathe. From his window he had a wide view over the chimneys of Paris to
Montmartre in the background. It had not taken him long to move: a handcart
was enough: Christophe pushed it himself. Of all his possessions the most
precious to him, after his old bag, was one of those casts, which have
lately become so popular, of the death-mask of Beethoven. He packed it with
as much care as though it were a priceless work of art. He never let it out
of his sight. It was an oasis in the midst of the desert of Paris. And also
it served him as a moral thermometer. The death-mask indicated more clearly
than his own conscience the temperature of his soul, the character of his
most secret thoughts: now a cloudy sky, now the gusty wind of the passions,
now fine calm weather.
He had to be sparing with his food. He only ate once a day, at one in the
afternoon. He bought a large sausage, and hung it up in his window: a thick
slice of it, a hunk of bread, and a cup of coffee that he made himself were
a feast for the gods. He would have preferred two such feasts. He was angry
with himself for having such a good appetite. He called himself to task,
and thought himself a glutton, thinking only of his stomach. He lost flesh:
he was leaner than a famished dog. But he was solidly built, he had an iron
constitution, and his head was clear.
He did not worry about the morrow, though he had good reason for doing so.
As long as he had in hand money enough for the day he never bothered about
it. When he came to the end of his money he made up his mind to go the
round of the publishers once more. He found no work. He was on his way
home, empty, when, happening to pass the music-shop where he had been
introduced to Daniel Hecht by Sylvain Kohn, he went in without remembering
that he had already been there under not very pleasant circumstances. The
first person he saw was Hecht. He was on the point of turning tail: but he
was too late: Hecht had seen him. Christophe did not wish to seem to be
avoiding him: he went up to Hecht, not knowing what to say to him, and
fully prepared to stand up to him as arrogantly as need be: for he was
convinced that Hecht would be unsparingly insolent. But he was nothing
of the kind. Hecht coldly held out his hand, muttered some conventional
inquiry after his health, and, without waiting for any request from
Christophe, he pointed to the door of his office, and stepped aside to let
him pass. He was secretly glad of the visit, which he had foreseen, though
he had given up expecting it. Without seeming to do so, he had carefully
followed Christophe's doings: he had missed no opportunity of hearing his
music: he had been at the famous performance of the _David_: and, despising
the public, he had not been greatly surprised at its hostile reception,
since he himself had felt the beauty of the work. There were probably not
two people in Paris more capable than Hecht of appreciating Christophe's
artistic originality. But he took care not to say anything about it, not
only because his vanity was hurt by Christophe's attitude towards himself,
but because it was impossible for him to be amiable: it was the peculiarly
ungracious quality of his nature. He was sincerely desirous of helping
Christophe: but he would not have stirred a finger to do so: he was waiting
for Christophe to come and ask it of him. And now that Christophe had
come,--instead of generously seizing the opportunity of wiping out the
memory of their previous misunderstanding by sparing his visitor any
humiliation, he gave himself the satisfaction of hearing him make his
request at length: and he even went so far as to offer Christophe, at least
for the time being, the work which he had formerly refused. He gave him
fifty pages of music to transpose for mandoline and guitar by the next
day. After which, being satisfied that he had made him truckle down, he
found him less distasteful work, but always so ungraciously that it was
impossible to be grateful to him for it: Christophe had to be ground
down by necessity before he would ever go to Hecht again. In any case he
preferred to earn his money by such work, however irritating it might
be, than accept it as a gift from Hecht, as it was once more offered to
him:--and, indeed, Hecht meant it kindly: but Christophe had been conscious
of Hecht's original intention to humiliate him: he was forced to accept
his conditions, but nothing would induce him to accept any favor from
him: he was willing to work for him:--by giving and giving he squared the
account:--but he would not be under any obligation to him. Unlike Wagner,
that impudent mendicant where his art was concerned, he did not place his
art above himself: the bread that he had not earned himself would have
choked him.--One day, when he brought some work that he had sat up all
night to finish, he found Hecht at table. Hecht, remarking his pallor and
the hungry glances that involuntarily he cast at the dishes, felt sure that
he had not eaten that day, and invited him to lunch. He meant kindly, but
he made it so apparent that he had noticed Christophe's straits that his
invitation looked like charity: Christophe would have died of hunger rather
than accept. He could not refuse to sit down at the table--(Hecht said he
wanted to talk to him):--but he did not touch a morsel: he pretended that
he had just had lunch. His stomach was aching with hunger.
Christophe would gladly have done without Hecht: but the other publishers
were even worse.--There were also wealthy amateurs who had conceived some
scrap of a musical idea, and could not even write it down. They would send
for Christophe, hum over their lucubrations, and say:
"Isn't it fine?"
Then they would give them to him for elaboration,--(to be written):--and
then they would appear under their own names through some great publishing
house. They were quite convinced that they had composed them themselves.
Christophe knew such a one, a distinguished nobleman, a strange, restless
creature, who would suddenly call him "Dear friend," grasp him by the
arm, and burst into a torrent of enthusiastic demonstrations, talking and
giggling, babbling and telling funny stories, interlarded with cries of
ecstatic laughter: Beethoven, Verlaine, Fauré, Yvette Guilbert.... He made
him work, and failed to pay. He worked it out in invitations to lunch and
handshakes. Finally he sent Christophe twenty francs, which Christophe gave
himself the foolish luxury of returning. That day he had not twenty sous
in the world: and he had to buy a twenty-five centimes stamp for a letter
to his mother. It was Louisa's birthday, and Christophe would not for the
world have failed her: the poor old creature counted on her son's letter,
and could not have endured disappointment. For some weeks past she had been
writing to him more frequently, in spite of the pain it caused her. She
was suffering from her loneliness. But she could not bring herself to
join Christophe in Paris: she was too timid, too much attached to her own
little town, to her church, her house, and she was afraid of traveling. And
besides, if she had wanted to come, Christophe had not enough money: he had
not always enough for himself.
He had been given a great deal of pleasure once by receiving a letter from
Lorchen, the peasant girl for whose sake he had plunged into the brawl with
the Prussian soldiers:[Footnote: See _Jean-Christophe_--I, "Revolt."] she
wrote to tell him that she was going to be married: she gave him news of
his mother, and sent him a basket of apples and a piece of cake to eat in
her honor. They came in the nick of time. That evening with Christophe was
a fast, Ember Days, Lent: only the butt end of the sausage hanging by the
window was left. Christophe compared himself to the anchorite saints fed by
a crow among the rocks. But no doubt the crow was hard put to it to feed
all the anchorites, for he never came again.
In spite of all his difficulties Christophe kept his end up. He washed his
linen in his basin, and cleaned his boots, whistling like a blackbird. He
consoled himself with the saying of Berlioz: "Let us raise our heads above
the miseries of life, and let us blithely sing the familiar gay refrain,
_Dies iræ_...."--He used to sing it sometimes, to the dismay of his
neighbors, who were amazed and shocked to hear him break off in the middle
and shout with laughter.