a life for the idle and the rich." Christophe's poverty, his daily hunt
for bread, his excessive sobriety, and his creative fever left him neither
the time nor the taste for any thought of pleasure. He was more than
indifferent about it: in his reaction against Paris he had plunged into a
sort of moral asceticism. He had a passionate need of purity, a horror of
any sort of dirtiness. It was not that he was rid of his passions. At other
times he had been swept headlong by them. But his passions remained chaste
even when he yielded to them: for he never sought pleasure through them but
the absolute giving of himself and fulness of being. And when he saw that
he had been deceived he flung them furiously from him. Lust was not to
him a sin like any other. It was the great Sin, that which poisons the
very springs of life. All those in whom the old Christian belief has not
been crusted over with strange conceptions, all those who still feel in
themselves the vigor and life of the races, which through the strengthening
of an heroic discipline have built up Western civilization, will have
no difficulty in understanding him. Christophe despised cosmopolitan
society, whose only aim and creed was pleasure.--In truth it is good to
seek pleasure, to desire pleasure for all men, to combat the cramping
pessimistic beliefs, that have come to weigh upon humanity through twenty
centuries of Gothic Christianity. But that can only be upon condition
that it is a generous faith, earnestly desirous of the good of others.
But instead of that, what happens? The most pitiful egoism. A handful of
loose-living men and women trying to give their senses the maximum of
pleasure with the minimum of risk, while they take good care that the rest
shall drudge for it.--Yes, no doubt, they have their parlor Socialism!...
But they know perfectly well that their doctrine of pleasure is only
practicable for "well-fed" people, for a select pampered few, that it is
poison to the poor....
"The life of pleasure is a rich man's life."
* * * * *
Christophe was neither rich nor likely to become so. When he made a little
money he spent it at once on music: he went without food to go to concerts.
He would take cheap seats in the gallery of the _Théâtre du Châtelet_: and
he would steep himself in music: he found both food and love in it. He had
such a hunger for happiness and so great a power of enjoying it that the
imperfections of the orchestra never worried him: he would stay for two or
three hours, drowsy and beatific, and wrong notes or defective taste never
provoked in him more than an indulgent smile: he left his critical faculty
outside: he was there to love, not to judge. Around him the audience sat
motionless, with eyes half closed, letting itself be borne on by the great
torrent of dreams. Christophe fancied them as a mass of people curled up
in the shade, like an enormous cat, weaving fantastic dreams of lust and
carnage. In the deep golden shadows certain faces stood out, and their
strange charm and silent ecstasy drew Christophe's eyes and heart: he loved
them: he listened through them: he became them, body and soul. One woman in
the audience became aware of it, and between her and Christophe during the
concert there was woven one of those obscure sympathies, which touch the
very depths, though never by one word are they translated into the region
of consciousness, while, when the concert is over and the thread that binds
soul to soul is snapped, nothing is left of it. It is a state familiar
to lovers of music, especially when they are young and do most wholly
surrender: the essence of music is so completely love, that the full savor
of it is not won unless it be enjoyed through another, and so it is that,
at a concert, we instinctively seek among the throng for friendly eyes, for
a friend with whom to share a joy too great for ourselves alone.
Among such friends, the friends of one brief hour, whom Christophe marked
out for choice of love, the better to taste the sweetness of the music, he
was attracted by one face which he saw again and again, at every concert.
It was the face of a little grisette who seemed to adore music without
understanding it at all. She had an odd little profile, a short, straight
nose, almost in line with her slightly pouting lips and delicately molded
chin, fine arched eyebrows, and clear eyes: one of those pretty little
faces behind the veil of which one feels joy and laughter concealed by calm
indifference. It is perhaps in such light-hearted girls, little creatures
working for their living, that one finds most the old serenity that is no
more, the serenity of the antique statues and the faces of Raphael. There
is but one moment in their lives, the first awakening of pleasure: all too
soon their lives are sullied. But at least they have lived for one lovely
hour.
It gave Christophe an exquisite pleasure to look at her: a pretty face
would always warm his heart: he could enjoy without desire: he found joy in
it, force, comfort,--almost virtue. It goes without saying that she quickly
became aware that he was watching her: and, unconsciously, there was set up
between them a magnetic current. And as they met at almost every concert,
almost always in the same places, they quickly learned each other's likes
and dislikes. At certain passages they would exchange meaning glances: when
she particularly liked some melody she would just put out her tongue as
though to lick her lips: or, to show that she did not think much of it, she
would disdainfully wrinkle up her pretty nose. In these little tricks of
hers there was a little of that innocent posing of which hardly any one
can be free when he knows that he is being watched. During serious music
she would sometimes try to look grave and serious: and she would turn her
profile towards him, and look absorbed, and smile to herself, and look
out of the corner of her eye to see if he were watching. They had become
very good friends, without exchanging a word, and even without having
attempted--at least Christophe did not--to meet outside.
At last by chance at an evening concert they found themselves sitting
next each other. After a moment of smiling hesitation they began to talk
amicably. She had a charming voice and said many stupid things about music:
for she knew nothing about it and wanted to seem as if she knew: but she
loved it passionately. She loved the worst and the best, Massenet and
Wagner: only the mediocre bored her. Music was a physical pleasure to her:
she drank it in through all the pores of her skin as Danaë did the golden
rain. The prelude of _Tristan_ made her blood run cold: and she loved
feeling herself being carried away, like some warrior's prey, by the
_Symphonia Eroica_. She told Christophe that Beethoven was deaf and dumb,
and that, in spite of it all, if she had known him, she would have loved
him, although he was precious ugly. Christophe protested that Beethoven
was not so very ugly: then they argued about beauty and ugliness: and she
agreed that it was a matter of taste: what was beautiful for one person was
not so for another: "We're not golden louis and can't please every one." He
preferred her when she did not talk: he understood her better. During the
death of Isolde she held out her hand to him: her hand was warm and moist:
he held it in his until the end of the piece: they could feel life coursing
through the veins of their clasped hands.
They went out together: it was near midnight. They walked back to the Latin
Quarter talking eagerly: she had taken his arm and he took her home: but
when they reached the door, and she seemed to suggest that he should go
up and see her room, he disregarded her smile and the friendliness in her
eyes and left her. At first she was amazed, then furious: then she laughed
aloud at the thought of his stupidity: and then, when she had reached her
room and began to undress, she felt hurt and angry, and finally wept in
silence. When next she met him at a concert she tried to be dignified and
indifferent and crushing. But he was so kind to her that she could not hold
to her resolution. They began to talk once more: only now she was a little
reserved with him. He talked to her warmly but very politely and always
about serious things, and the music to which they were listening and what
it meant to him. She listened attentively and tried to think as he did. The
meaning of his words often escaped her: but she believed him all the same.
She was grateful to Christophe and had a respect for him which she hardly
showed. By tacit agreement they only spoke to each other at concerts.
He met her once surrounded with students. They bowed gravely. She never
talked about him to any one. In the depths of her soul there was a little
sanctuary, a quality of beauty, purity, consolation.
And so Christophe, by his presence, by the mere fact of his existence,
exercised an influence that brought strength and solace. Wherever he passed
he unconsciously left behind the traces of his inward light. He was the
last to have any notion of it. Near him, in the house where he lived, there
were people whom he had never seen, people who, without themselves
suspecting it, gradually came under the spell of his beneficent radiance.
For several weeks Christophe had no money for concerts even by fasting: and
in his attic under the roof, now that winter was coming in, he was numbed
with the cold: he could not sit still at his table. Then he would get
up and walk about Paris, trying to warm himself. He had the faculty of
forgetting the seething town about him, and slipping away into space and
the infinite. It was enough for him to see above the noisy street the
dead, frozen moon, hung there in the abysm of the sky, or the sun, like a
disc, rolling through the white mist; then Paris would sink down into the
boundless void and all the life of it would seem to be no more than the
phantom of a life that had been once, long, long ago ... ages ago ... The
smallest tiny sign, imperceptible to the common lot of men, of the great
wild life of Nature, so sparsely covered with the livery of civilization,
was enough to make it all come rushing mightily up before his gaze. The
grass growing between the stones of the streets, the budding of a tree
strangled by its cast-iron cage, airless, earthless, on some bleak
boulevard: a dog, a passing bird, the last relics of the beasts and
birds that thronged the primeval world, which man has since destroyed: a
whirling cloud of flies: the mysterious epidemic that raged through a whole
district:--these were enough in the thick air of that human hothouse to
bring the breath of the Spirit of the Earth up to slap his cheeks and whip
his energy to action.
During those long walks, when he was often starving, and often had
not spoken to a soul for days together, his wealth of dreams seemed
inexhaustible. Privation and silence had aggravated his morbid heated
condition. At night he slept feverishly, and had exhausting dreams: he saw
once more and never ceased to see the old house and the room in which he
had lived as a child: he was haunted by musical obsessions. By day he
talked and never ceased to talk to the creatures within himself and the
beings whom he loved, the absent and the dead.
One cold afternoon in December, when the grass was covered with frost, and
the roofs of the houses and the great domes were glistening through the
fog, and the trees, with their cold, twisted, naked branches, groping
through the mist that hung about them, looked like great weeds at the
bottom of the sea,--Christophe, who had been shivering all day and could
not get warm again, went into the Louvre, which he hardly knew at all.
Till then painting had never moved him much. He was too much absorbed by
the world within himself to grasp the world of color and form. They only
acted on him through their music and rhythm, which only brought him an
indistinguishable echo of their truth. No doubt his instinct did obscurely
divine the selfsame laws that rule the harmony of visible form, as of the
form of sounds, and the deep waters of the soul, from which spring the two
rivers of color and sound, to flow down the two sides of the mountain of
life. But he only knew one side of the mountain, and he was lost in the
kingdom of the eye, which was not his. And so he missed the secret of the
most exquisite, and perhaps the most natural charm of clear-eyed France,
the queen of the world of light.
Even had he been interested in painting, Christophe was too German to
adapt himself to so widely different a vision of things. He was not one of
those up-to-date Germans who decry the German way of feeling, and persuade
themselves that they admire and love French Impressionism or the artists of
the eighteenth century,--except when they go farther and are convinced that
they understand them better than the French. Christophe was a barbarian,
perhaps: but he was frank about it. The pink flesh of Boucher, the fat
chins of Watteau, the bored shepherds and plump, tight-laced shepherdesses,
the whipped-cream souls, the virtuous oglings of Greuze, the tucked shirts
of Fragonard, all that bare-legged poesy interested him no more than a
fashionable, rather spicy newspaper. He did not see its rich and brilliant
harmony; the voluptuous and sometimes melancholy dreams of that old
civilization, the highest in Europe, were foreign to him. As for the French
school of the seventeenth century, he liked neither its devout ceremony nor
its pompous portraits: the cold reserve of the gravest of the masters, a
certain grayness of soul that clouded the proud works of Nicolas Poussin
and the pale faces of Philippe de Champaigne, repelled Christophe from
old French art. And, once more, he knew nothing about it. If he had known
anything about it he would have misunderstood it. The only modern painter
whose fascination he had felt at all in Germany, Boecklin of Basle, had not
prepared him much for Latin art. Christophe remembered the shock of his
impact with that brutal genius, which smacked of earth and the musty smell
of the heroic beasts that it had summoned forth. His eyes, seared by the
raw light, used to the frantic motley of that drunken savage, could hardly
adapt themselves to the half-tints, the dainty and mellifluous harmonies of
French art.
But no man with impunity can live in a foreign land. Unknown to him it sets
its seal upon him. In vain does he withdraw into himself: upon a day he
must wake up to find that something has changed.
There was a change in Christophe on that evening when he wandered through
the rooms of the Louvre. He was tired, cold, hungry; he was alone. Around
him darkness was descending upon the empty galleries, and sleeping forms
awoke. Christophe was very cold as he walked in silence among Egyptian
sphinxes, Assyrian monsters, bulls of Persepolis, gleaming snakes from
Palissy. He seemed to have passed into a magic world: and in his heart
there was a strange, mysterious emotion. The dream of humanity wrapped him
about,--the strange flowers of the soul....
In the misty gilded light of the picture-galleries, and the gardens of
rich brilliant hues, and painted airless fields, Christophe, in a state
of fever, on the very brink of illness, was visited by a miracle.--He
was walking, numbed by hunger, by the coldness of the galleries, by the
bewildering mass of pictures: his head was whirling. When he reached the
end of the gallery that looks on to the river, he stood before the _Good
Samaritan_ of Rembrandt, and leaned on the rail in front of the pictures to
keep himself from falling: he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened
them on the picture in front of him--he was quite close to it--and he was
held spellbound....
Day was spent. Day was already far gone; it was already dead. The invisible
sun was sinking down into the night. It was the magic hour when dreams and
visions come mounting from the soul, saddened by the labors of the day,
still, musing drowsily. All is silent, only the beating of the heart is
heard. In the body there is hardly the strength to move, hardly to breathe;
sadness; resignation; only an immense longing to fall into the arms of
a friend, a hunger for some miracle, a feeling that some miracle must
come.... It comes! A flood of golden light flames through the twilight, is
cast upon the walls of the hovel, on the shoulder of the stranger bearing
the dying man, touches with its warmth those humble objects, and those poor
creatures, and the whole takes on a new gentleness, a divine glory. It is
the very God, clasping in his terrible, tender arms the poor wretches,
weak, ugly, poor, unclean, the poor down-at-heel rascal, the miserable
creatures, with twisted haggard faces, thronging outside the window, the
apathetic, silent creatures standing in mortal terror,--all the pitiful
human beings of Rembrandt, the herd of obscure broken creatures who know
nothing, can do nothing, only wait, tremble, weep, and pray.--But the
Master is there. He will come: it is known that He will come. Not He
Himself is seen: only the light that goes before, and the shadow of the
light which He casts upon all men....
Christophe left the Louvre, staggering and tottering. His head ached. He
could not see. In the street it was raining, but he hardly noticed the
puddles between the flags and the water trickling down from his shoes.
Over the Seine the yellowish sky was lit up, as the day waned, by an
inward flame--like the light of a lamp. Still Christophe was spellbound,
hypnotized. It seemed as though nothing existed: not the carriages rattling
over the stones with a pitiless noise: the passers-by were not banging into
him with their wet umbrellas: he was not walking in the street: perhaps he
was sitting at home and dreaming: perhaps he had ceased to exist.... And
suddenly,--(he was so weak!)--he turned giddy and felt himself falling
heavily forward.... It was only for the flash of a second: he clenched his
fists, hurled himself backward, and recovered his balance.
At that very moment when he emerged into consciousness his eyes met the
eyes of a woman standing on the other side of the street, who seemed to
be looking for recognition. He stopped dead, trying to remember when he
had seen her before. It was only after a moment or two that he could place
those sad, soft eyes: it was the little French governess whom, unwittingly,
he had had dismissed in Germany, for whom he had been looking for so long
to beg her to forgive him. She had stopped, too, in the busy throng, and
was looking at him. Suddenly he saw her try to cross through the crowd of
people and step down into the road to come to him. He rushed to meet her:
but they were separated by a block in the traffic: he saw her again for a
moment struggling on the other side of that living wall: he tried to force
his way through, was knocked over by a horse, slipped and fell on the
slippery asphalt, and was all but run over. When he got up, covered with
mud, and succeeded in reaching the other side of the street, she had
disappeared.
He tried to follow her, but he had another attack of giddiness, and he had
to give it up. Illness was close upon him: he felt that, but he would not
submit to it. He set his teeth, and would not go straight home, but went
far out of his way. It was just a useless torment to him: he had to admit
that he was beaten: his legs ached, he dragged along, and only reached home
with frightful difficulty. Half-way up the stairs he choked, and had to sit
down. When he got to his icy room he refused to go to bed: he sat in his
chair, wet through; his head was heavy and he could hardly breathe, and he
drugged himself with music as broken as himself. He heard a few fugitive
bars of the _Unfinished Symphony_ of Schubert. Poor Schubert! He, too, was
alone when he wrote that, feverish, somnolent, in that semitorpid condition
which precedes the last great sleep: he sat dreaming by the fireside: all
round him were heavy drowsy melodies, like stagnant water: he dwelt on
them, like a child half-asleep delighting in some self-told story, and
repeating some passage in it twenty times: so sleep comes, then death....
And Christophe heard fleetingly that other music, with burning hands,
closed eyes, a little weary smile, heart big with sighs, dreaming of the
deliverance of death:--the first chorus in the Cantata of J. S. Bach:
"_Dear God, when shall I die?_"... It was sweet to sink back into the soft
melodies slowly floating by, to hear the distant, muffled clangor of the
bells.... To die, to pass into the peace of earth!... _Und dann selber Erde
werden_.... "And then himself to become earth...."
Christophe shook off these morbid thoughts, the murderous smile of the
siren who lies in wait for the hours of weakness of the soul. He got up,
and tried to walk about his room: but he could not stand. He was shaking
and shivering with fever. He had to go to bed. He felt that it was serious
this time: but he did not lay down his arms: he never was of those who,
when they are ill, yield utterly to their illness: he struggled, he refused
to be ill, and, above all, he was absolutely determined not to die. He had
his poor mother waiting for him in Germany. And he had his work to do: he
would not yield to death. He clenched his chattering teeth, and firmly
grasped his will that was oozing away: he was like a sturdy swimmer
battling with the waves dashing over him. At every moment, down he plunged:
his mind wandered, endless fancies haunted him, memories of Germany and of
Parisian society: he was obsessed by rhythms and scraps of melody which
went round, and round, and round, like horses in a circus: the sudden shock
of the golden light of the _Good Samaritan_: the tense, stricken faces in
the shadow: and then, dark nothingness and night. Then up he would come
once more, wrenching away the grimacing mists, clenching his fists, and
setting his jaw. He clung to all those whom he loved in the present and the
past, to the face of the friend he had just seen in the street, his dear
mother, and to the indestructible life within himself, that he felt was
like a rock, impervious to death. But once more the rock was covered by the
tide: the waves dashed over it, and tore his soul away from its hold upon
it: it was borne headlong and dashed by the foam. And Christophe struggled
in delirium, babbling strangely, conducting and playing an imaginary
orchestra: trombones, horns, cymbals, timbals, bassoons, double-bass,...
he scraped, blew, beat the drum, frantically. The poor wretch was bubbling
over with suppressed music. For weeks he had been unable to hear or play
any music, and he was like a boiler at high pressure, near bursting-point.
Certain insistent phrases bored into his brain like gimlets, pierced his
skull, and made him scream with agony. After these attacks he would fall
back on his pillow, dead tired, wet through, utterly weak, breathless,
choking. He had placed his water-jug by his bedside, and he took great
draughts of it. The various noises of the adjoining rooms, the banging of
the attic doors, made him start. He was filled with a delirious disgust for
the creatures swarming round him. But his will fought on, sounded a warlike
clarion-note, declaring battle on all devils.... "_Und wenn die Welt voll
Teufel wär, und wollten uns verschlingen, so fürchten wir uns nicht so
sehr_...." ("And even though the world were full of devils, all seeking to
devour us, we should not be afraid....").
And over the sea of scalding shadows that dashed over him, there came a
sudden calm, glimpses of light, a gentle murmuring of violins and viols,
the clear triumphant notes of trumpets and horns, while, almost motionless,
like a great wall, there rose from the sick man's soul an indomitable song,
like a choral of J.S. Bach.
* * * * *
While he was fighting against the phantoms of fever and the choking in
his lungs, he was dimly aware that some one had opened the door, and that
a woman entered with a candle in her hand. He thought it was another
hallucination. He tried to speak, but could not, and fell back on his
pillow. When, every now and then, he was brought for a moment back to
consciousness, he felt that his pillow had been raised, that his feet had
been wrapped up, that there was something burning his back, or he would see
the woman, whose face was not altogether unfamiliar, sitting at the foot of
his bed. Then he saw another face, that of a doctor using a stethoscope.
Christophe could not hear what they were saying, but he gathered that they
were talking of sending him to the hospital. He tried to protest, to cry
out that he would not go, that he would die where he was, alone: but he
could only frame incomprehensible sounds. But the woman understood him: for
she took his part, and reassured him. He tried hard to find out who she
was. As soon as he could, with frightful effort, frame a sentence, he asked
her. She replied that she lived in the next attic and had heard him moaning
through the wall, and had taken the liberty of coming in, thinking that
he wanted help. She begged him respectfully not to wear himself out with
talking. He obeyed her. He was worn out with the effort he had made: he lay
still and said nothing: but his brain went on working, painfully gathering
together its scattered memories. Where had he seen her?... At last he
remembered: yes, he had met her on the attic landing: she was a servant,
and her name was Sidonie.
He watched her with half-closed eyes, so that she could not see him. She
was little, and had a grave face, a wide forehead, hair drawn back, so that
her temples were exposed; her cheeks were pale and high-boned; she had a
short nose, pale blue eyes, with a soft, steady look in them, thick lips
tightly pressed together, an anemic complexion, a humble, deliberate, and
rather stiff manner. She looked after Christophe with busy silent devotion,
without a spark of familiarity, and without ever breaking down the reserve
of a servant who never forgets class differences.
However, little by little, when he was better and could talk to her,
Christophe's affectionate cordiality made Sidonie talk to him a little
more freely: but she was always on her guard: there were obviously certain
things which she would not tell. She was a mixture of humility and pride.
Christophe learned that she came from Brittany, where she had left her
father, of whom she spoke very discreetly: but Christophe gathered that he
did nothing but drink, have a good time, and live on his daughter: she put
up with it, without saying anything, from pride: and she never failed to
send him part of her month's wages: but she was not taken in. She had also
a younger sister who was preparing for a teacher's examination, and she was
very proud of her. She was paying almost all the expenses of her education.
She worked frightfully hard, with grim determination.
"Have you a good situation?" asked Christophe.
"Yes. But I am thinking of leaving."
"Why? Aren't they good to you?"
"Oh! no. They're very good to me."
"Don't they pay you enough?"
"Yes...."
He did not quite understand: he tried to understand, and encouraged her to
talk. She had nothing to tell him but the monotony of her life, and the
difficulty of earning a living: she did not lay any stress on it: she was
not afraid of work: it was a necessity to her, almost a pleasure. She never
spoke of the thing that tried her most: boredom. He guessed it. Little by
little, with the intuition of perfect sympathy, he saw that her suffering
was increasing, and it was made more acute for him by the memory of the
trials supported by his own mother in a similar existence. He saw, as
though he had lived it, the drab, unhealthy, unnatural existence--the
ordinary existence imposed on servants by the middle-classes:--employers
who were not so much unkind as indifferent sometimes leaving her for days
together without speaking a word outside her work. The hours and hours
spent in the stuffy kitchen, the one small window, blocked up by a meat
safe, looking out on to a white wall. And her only pleasure was when she
was told carelessly that her sauce was good or the meat well cooked. A
cramped airless life with no prospect, with no ray of desire or hope,
without interest of any kind.--The worst time of all for her was when her
employers went away to the country. They economized by not taking her with
them: they paid her wages for the month, but not enough to take her home:
they gave her permission to go at her own expense. She would not, she could
not do that. And so she was left alone in the deserted house. She had no
desire to go out, and did not even talk to other servants, whose coarseness
and immorality she despised. She never went out in search of amusement: she
was naturally serious, economical, and afraid of misadventure. She sat in
her kitchen, or in her room, from whence across the chimneys she could see
the top of a tree in the garden of a hospital. She did not read, but tried
to work listlessly: she would sit there dreaming, bored, bored to tears:
she had a singular and infinite capacity for weeping: it was her only
pleasure. But when her boredom weighed too heavily on her she could not
even weep: she was frozen, sick at heart, and dead. Then she would pull
herself together: or life would return of its own accord. She would think
of her sister, listen to a barrel-organ in the distance, and dream, and
slowly count the days until she had gained such and such a sum of money:
she would be out in her reckoning, and begin to count all over again: she
would fall asleep. So the days passed....
The fits of depression alternated with outbursts of childish chatter and
laughter. She would make fun of herself and other people. She watched and
judged her employers, and their anxieties fed by their want of occupation,
and her mistress's moods and melancholy, and the so-called interests of
these so-called people of culture, how they patronized a picture, or a
piece of music, or a book of verse. With her rude common sense, as far
removed from the snobbishness of the very Parisian servants as from the
crass stupidity of the very provincial girls, who only admire what they do
not understand, she had a respectful contempt for their dabbling in music,
their pointless chatter, and all those perfectly useless and tiresome
intellectual smatterings which play so large a part in such hypocritical
existences. She could not help silently comparing the real life, with which
she grappled, with the imaginary pains and pleasures of that cushioned
life, in which everything seems to be the product of boredom. She was
not in revolt against it. Things were so: things were so. She accepted
everything, knaves and fools alike. She said:
"It takes all sorts to make a world."
Christophe imagined that she was borne up by her religion: but one day she
said, speaking of others who were richer and more happy:
"But in the end we shall all be equal."
"When?" asked Christophe. "After the social revolution?"
"The revolution?" said she. "Oh, there'll be much water flowing under
bridges before that. I don't believe that stuff. Things will always be the
same."
"When shall we all be equal, then?"
"When we're dead, of course! That's the end of everybody."
He was surprised by her calm materialism. He dared not say to her:
"Isn't it a frightful thing, in that case, if there is only one life, that
it should be the like of yours, while there are so many others who are
happy?"
But she seemed to have guessed his thought: she went on phlegmatically,
resignedly, and a little ironically:
"One has to put up with it. Everybody cannot draw a prize. I've drawn a
blank: so much the worse!"
She never even thought of looking for a more profitable place outside
France. (She had once been offered a situation in America.) The idea of
leaving the country never entered her head. She said:
"Stones are hard everywhere."
There was in her a profound, skeptical, and mocking fatalism. She was
of the stock that has little or no faith, few considered reasons for
living, and yet a tremendous vitality--the stock of the French peasantry,
industrious and apathetic, riotous and submissive, who have no great love
of life, but cling to it, and have no need of artificial stimulants to keep
up their courage.
Christophe, who had not yet come across them, was astonished to find in the
girl an absence of all faith: he marveled at her tenacious hold on life,
without pleasure or purpose, and most of all he admired her sturdy moral
sense that had no need of prop or support. Till then he had only seen
the French people through naturalistic novels, and the theories of the
mannikins of contemporary literature, who, reacting from the art of the
century of pastoral scenes and the Revolution, loved to present natural man
as a vicious brute, in order to sanctify their own vices.... He was amazed
when he discovered Sidonie's uncompromising honesty. It was not a matter of
morality but of instinct and pride. She had her aristocratic pride. For it
is foolish to imagine that everybody belonging to the people is "popular."
The people have their aristocrats just as the upper classes have their
vulgarians. The aristocrats are those creatures whose instincts, and
perhaps whose blood, are purer than those of the others: those who know and
are conscious of what they are, and must be true to themselves. They are in
the minority: but, even when they are forced to live apart, the others know
that they are the salt of the earth: and the fact of their existence is a
check upon the others, who are forced to model themselves upon them, or
to pretend to do so. Every province, every village, every congregation of
men, is, to a certain degree, what its aristocrats are: and public opinion
varies accordingly, and is, in one place, severe, in another, lax. The
present anarchy and upheaval of the majority will not change the unvoiced
power of the minority. It is more dangerous for them to be uprooted from
their native soil and scattered far and wide in the great cities. But
even so, lost amid strange surroundings, living in isolation, yet the
individualities of the good stock persist and never mix with those about
them.--Sidonie knew nothing, wished to know nothing, of all that Christophe
had seen in Paris. She was no more interested in the sentimental and
unclean literature of the newspapers than in the political news. She did
not even know that there were Popular Universities: and, if she had known,
it is probable that she would have put herself out as little to go to them
as she did to hear a sermon. She did her work, and thought for herself: she
was not concerned with what other people thought. Christophe congratulated
her.
"Why is that surprising?" she asked. "I am like everybody else. You haven't
met any French people."
"I've been living among them for a year," said Christophe, "and I haven't
met a single one who thought of anything but amusing himself or of aping
those who amuse him."
"That's true," said Sidonie. "You have only seen rich people. The rich are
the same everywhere. You've seen nothing at all."
"That's true," said Christophe. "I'm beginning."
For the first time he caught a glimpse of the people of France, men and
women who seem to be built for eternity, who are one with the earth, who,
like the earth, have seen so many conquering races, so many masters of a
day, pass away, while they themselves endure and do not pass.
* * * * *
When he was getting better and was allowed to get up for a little, the
first thing he thought of was to pay Sidonie back for the expenses she
had incurred during his illness. It was impossible for him to go about
Paris looking for work, and he had to bring himself to write to Hecht:
he asked him for an advance on account of future work. With his amazing
combination of indifference and kindliness Hecht made him wait a fortnight
for a reply--a fortnight during which Christophe tormented himself and
practically refused to touch any of the food Sidonie brought him, and would
only accept a little bread and milk, which she forced him to take, and then
he grumbled and was angry with himself because he had not earned it: then,
without a word, Hecht sent him the sum he asked: and not once during the
months of Christophe's illness did Hecht make any inquiry after him. He had
a genius for making himself disliked even when he was doing a kindness.
Even in his kindness Hecht could not be generous.
Sidonie came every day in the afternoon and again in the evening. She
cooked Christophe's dinner for him. She made no noise, but went quietly
about her business: and when she saw the dilapidated condition of his
clothes she took them away to mend them. Insensibly there had crept an
element of affection into their relation. Christophe talked at length about
his mother: and that touched Sidonie: she would put herself in Louisa's
place, alone in Germany: and she had a maternal feeling for Christophe, and
when he talked to her he tried to trick his need of mothering and love,
from which a man suffers most when he is weak and ill. He felt nearer
Louisa with Sidonie than with anybody else. Sometimes he would confide his
artistic troubles to her. She would pity him gently, though she seemed to
regard such sorrows of the intellect ironically. That, too, reminded him of
his mother and comforted him.
He tried to get her to confide in him: but she was much less open than he.
He asked her jokingly why she did not get married. And she would reply in
her usual tone of mocking resignation that "it was not allowed for servants
to marry: it complicates things too much. Besides, she was sure to make a
bad choice, and that is not pleasant. Men are sordid creatures. They come
courting when a woman has money, squeeze it out of her, and then leave her
in the lurch. She had seen too many cases of that and was not inclined to
do the same."--She did not tell him of her own unfortunate experience:
her future husband had left her when he found that she was giving all
her earnings to her family.--Christophe used to see her in the courtyard
mothering the children of a family living in the house. When she met
them alone on the stairs she would sometimes embrace them passionately.
Christophe would fancy her occupying the place of a lady of his
acquaintance: she was not a fool, and she was no plainer than many another
woman: he declared that in the lady's place she would have been the better
woman of the two. There are so many splendid lives hidden in the world,
unknown and unsuspected! And, on the other hand, the hosts of the living
dead, who encumber the earth, and take up the room and the happiness of
others in the light of the sun!...
Christophe had no ulterior thought. He was fond, too fond of her: he let
her coddle him like a child.
Some days Sidonie would be queer and depressed: but he attributed that to
her work. Once when they were talking she got up suddenly and left him,
making some excuse about her work. Finally, after a day when Christophe had
been more confidential than usual, she broke off her visits for a time: and
when she came back she would only talk to him constrainedly. He wondered
what he could have done to offend her. He asked her. She replied quickly
that he had not offended her: but she stayed away again. A few days later
she told him that she was going away: she had given up her situation and
was leaving the house. Coldly and reservedly she thanked him for all
his kindness, told him she hoped he would soon recover, and that his
mother would remain in good health, and then she said good-by. He was so
astonished at her abrupt departure that he did not know what to say: he
tried to discover her reasons: she replied evasively. He asked her where
she was going: she did not reply, and, to cut short his questions, she got
up to go. As she reached the door he held out his hand: she grasped it
warmly: but her face did not betray her, and to the end she maintained her
stiff, cold manner. She went away.
He never understood why.
* * * * *
He dragged through the winter--a wet, misty, muddy winter. Weeks on end
without sun. Although Christophe was better he was by no means recovered.
He still had a little pain in his lungs, a lesion which healed slowly, and
fits of coughing which kept him from sleeping at night. The doctor had
forbidden him to go out. He might just as well have ordered him to go to
the Riviera or the Canary Islands. He had to go out! If he did not go out
to look for his dinner, his dinner would certainly not come to look for
him.--And he was ordered medicines which he could not afford. And so he
gave up consulting doctors: it was a waste of money: and besides he was
always ill at ease with them: they could not understand each other: they
lived in separate worlds. They had an ironical and rather contemptuous pity
for the poor devil of an artist who claimed to be a world to himself, and
was swept along like a straw by the river of life. He was humiliated by
being examined, and prodded, and handled by these men. He was ashamed of
his sick body, and thought:
"How glad I shall be when _it_ is dead!"
In spite of loneliness, illness, poverty, and so many other causes of
suffering, Christophe bore his lot patiently. He had never been so patient.
He was surprised at himself. Illness is often a blessing. By ravaging the
body it frees the soul and purifies it: during the nights and days of
forced inaction thoughts arise which are fearful of the raw light of day,
and are scorched by the sun of health. No man who has never been ill can
have a thorough knowledge of himself.
His illness had, in a queer way, soothed Christophe. It had purged him of
the coarser elements of his nature. Through his most subtle nerves he felt
the world of mysterious forces which dwell in each of us, though the tumult
of life prevents our hearing them. Since his visit to the Louvre, in his
hours of fever, the smallest memories of which were graven upon his mind,
he had lived in an atmosphere like that of the Rembrandt picture, warm,
soft, profound. He too felt in his heart the magic beams of an invisible
sun. And although he did not believe, he knew that he was not alone: a God
was holding him by the hand, and leading him to the predestined goal of his
endeavors. He trusted in Him like a little child.
For the first time for years he felt that he must rest. The lassitude of
his convalescence was in itself a rest for him after the extraordinary
tension of mind that had gone before his illness and had left him still
exhausted. Christophe, who for many months had been continually on the
alert and strained upon his guard, felt the fixity of his gaze slowly
relax. He was not less strong for it: he was more human. The great though
rather monstrous quality of life of the man of genius had passed into the
background: he found himself a man like the rest, purged of the fanaticism
of his mind, and all the hardness and mercilessness of his actions. He
hated nothing: he gave no thought to things that exasperated him, or, if
he did, he shrugged them off: he thought less of his own troubles and more
of the troubles of others. Since Sidonie had reminded him of the silent
suffering of the lowly, fighting on without complaint, all over the world,
he forgot himself in them. He who was not usually sentimental now had
periods of that mystic tenderness which is the flower of weakness and
sickness. In the evening, as he sat with his elbows on the window-sill,
gazing down into the courtyard and listening to all the mysterious noises
of the night,... a voice singing in a house near by, made moving by the
distance, or a little girl artlessly strumming Mozart,... he thought:
"All you whom I love though I know you not! You whom life has not sullied;
you, who dream of great things, that you know to be impossible, while you
fight for them against the envious world,--may you be happy--it is so good
to be happy!... Oh, my friends, I know that you are there, and I hold
my arms out to you.... There is a wall between us. Stone by stone I am
breaking it down, but I am myself broken in the labor of it. Shall we ever
be together? Shall I reach you before another wall is raised up between us:
the wall of death?... No matter! Though all my life I am alone, so only I
may work for you, do you good, and you may love me a little, later on, when
I am dead!..."
* * * * *
So the convalescent Christophe was nursed by those two good foster-mothers
"_Liebe und Noth_" (Love and Poverty).
* * * * *
While his will was thus in abeyance Christophe felt a longing to be with
people. And, although he was still very weak, and it was a very foolish
thing to do, he used to go out early in the morning when the stream of
people poured out of the residential streets on their way to their work,
or in the evening, when they were returning. His desire was to plunge into
the refreshing bath of human sympathy. Not that he spoke to a soul. He did
not even try to do so. It was enough for him to watch the people pass, and
guess what they were, and love them. With fond pity he used to watch the
workers hurrying along, all, as it were, already worn out by the business
of the day,--young men and girls, with pale faces, worn expressions, and
strange smiles,--thin, eager faces beneath which there passed desires and
anxieties, all with a changing irony,--all so intelligent, too intelligent,
a little morbid, the dwellers in a great city. They all hurried along, the
men reading the papers, the women nibbling and munching. Christophe would
have given a month of his life to let one poor girl, whose eyes were
swollen with sleep, who passed near him with a little nervous, mincing
walk, sleep on for a few hours more. Oh! how she would have jumped at it,
if she had been offered the chance! He would have loved to pluck all the
idle rich people out of their rooms, hermetically sealed at that hour,
where they were so ungratefully lying at their ease, and replace them in
their beds, in their comfortable existence, with all these eager, weary
bodies, these fresh souls, not abounding with life, but alive and greedy
of life. In that hour he was full of kindness towards them: and he smiled
at their alert, thin little faces, in which there were cunning and
ingenuousness, a bold and simple desire for pleasure, and, behind all,
honest little souls, true and industrious. And he was not hurt when some
of the girls laughed in his face, or nudged each other to point out the
strange young man staring at them so hard.
And he would lounge about the riverside, lost in dreams. That was his
favorite walk. It did a little satisfy his longing for the great river that
had sung the lullaby of his childhood. Ah! it was not _Vater Rhein_! It had
none of his all-puissant might: none of the wide horizons, vast plains over
which the mind soars and is lost. A river with gray eyes, gowned in pale
green, with finely drawn, correct features, a graceful river, with supple
movements, wearing with sparkling nonchalance the sumptuous and sober garb
of her city, the bracelets of its bridges, the necklets of its monuments,
and smiling at her own prettiness, like a lovely woman strolling through
the town.... The delicious light of Paris! That was the first thing that
Christophe had loved in the city: it filled his being sweetly, sweetly: and
imperceptibly, slowly, it changed his heart. It was to him the most lovely
music, the only music in Paris. He would spend hours in the evening walking
by the river, or in the gardens of old France, tasting the harmonies
of the light of day touching the tall trees bathed in purple mist, the
gray statues and ruins, the worn stones of the royal monuments which had
absorbed the light of centuries,--that smooth atmosphere, made of pale
sunshine and milky vapor, in which, on a cloud of silvery dust, there
floats the laughing spirit of the race.
One evening he was leaning over the parapet near the Saint-Michel Bridge,
and looking at the water and absently turning over the books in one of the
little boxes. He chanced upon a battered old volume of Michelet and opened
it at random. He had already read a certain amount of that historian, and
had been put off by his Gallic boasting, his trick of making himself drunk
with words, and his halting style. But that evening he was held from the
very first words: he had lighted on the trial of Joan of Arc. He knew the
Maid of Orleans through Schiller: but hitherto she had only been a romantic
heroine who had been endowed with an imaginary life by a great poet.
Suddenly the reality was presented to him and gripped his attention. He
read on and on, his heart aching for the tragic horror of the glorious
story: and when he came to the moment when Joan learns that she is to die
that evening and faints from fear, his hands began to tremble, tears came
into his eyes, and he had to stop. He was weak from his illness: he had
become absurdly sensitive, and was himself exasperated by it.--When he
turned once more to the book it was late and the bookseller was shutting up
his boxes. He decided to buy the book and hunted through his pockets: he
had exactly six sous. Such scantiness was not rare and did not bother him:
he had paid for his dinner, and counted on getting some money out of Hecht
next day for some copying he had done. But it was hard to have to wait a
day! Why had he spent all he had on his dinner? Ah! if only he could offer
the bookseller the bread and sausages that were in his pockets, in payment!
Next morning, very early, he went to Hecht's to get his money: but as
he was passing the bridge which bears the name of the archangel of
battle--"the brother in Paradise" of Joan of Arc--he could not help
stopping. He found the precious book once more in the bookseller's box, and
read it right through: he stayed reading it for nearly two hours and missed
his appointment with Hecht: and he wasted the whole day waiting to see him.
At last he managed to get his new commission and the money for the old. At
once he rushed back to buy the book, although he had read it. He was afraid
it might have been sold to another purchaser. No doubt that would not have
mattered much: it was quite easy to get another copy: but Christophe did
not know whether the book was rare or not: and besides, he wanted that
particular book and no other. Those who love books easily become fetish
worshipers. The pages from which the well of dreams springs forth are
sacred to them, even when they are dirty and spotted.
In the silence of the night, in his room, Christophe read once more the
Gospel of the Passion of Joan of Arc: and now there was nothing to make
him restrain his emotion. He was filled with tenderness, pity, infinite
sorrow for the poor little shepherdess in her coarse peasant clothes,
tall, shy, soft-voiced, dreaming to the sound of bells--(she loved them as
he did)--with her lovely smile, full of understanding and kindness, and
her tears, that flowed so readily--tears of love, tears of pity, tears of
weakness: for she was at once so manlike and so much a woman, the pure and
valiant girl, who tamed the savage lusts of an army of bandits, and calmly,
with her intrepid sound good sense, her woman's subtlety, and her gentle
persistency, alone, betrayed on all hands, for months together foiled the
threats and hypocritical tricks of a gang of churchmen and lawyers,--wolves
and foxes with bloody eyes and fangs--who closed a ring about her.
What touched Christophe most nearly was her kindness, her tenderness of
heart,--weeping after her victories, weeping over her dead enemies, over
those who had insulted her, giving them consolation when they were wounded,
aiding them in death, knowing no bitterness against those who sold her,
and even at the stake, when the flames roared about her, thinking not of
herself, thinking only of the monk who exorcised her, and compelling him
to depart. She was "gentle in the most bitter fight, good even amongst
the most evil, peaceful even in war. Into war, the triumph of Satan, she
brought the very Spirit of God."
And Christophe, thinking of himself, said:
"And into my fight I have not brought enough of the Spirit of God."
He read the fine words of the evangelist of Joan of Arc:
"Be kind, and seek always to be kinder, amid all the injustice of men and
the hardships of Fate.... Be gentle and of a good countenance even in
bitter quarrels, win through experience, and never let it harm that inward
treasure...."
And he said within himself:
"I have sinned. I have not been kind. I have not shown good-will towards
men. I have been too hard.--Forgive me. Do not think me your enemy, you
against whom I wage war! For you too I seek to do good.... But you must be
kept from doing evil...."
And, as he was no saint, the thought of them was enough to kindle his anger
again. What he could least forgive them was that when he saw them, and saw
France, through them, he found it impossible to conceive such a flower of
purity and poetic heroism ever springing from such a soil. And yet it was
so. Who could say that such a flower would not spring from it a second
time? The France of to-day could not be worse than that of Charles VII, the
debauched and prostituted nation from which the Maid sprang. The temple was
empty, fouled, half in ruins. No matter! God had spoken in it.
Christophe was seeking a Frenchman whom he could love for the love of
France.
It was about the end of March. For months Christophe had not spoken to a
soul nor had a single letter, except every now and then a few lines from
his mother, who did not know that he was ill and did not tell him that she
herself was ill. His relation with the outside world was confined to his
journeys to the music shop to take or bring away his work. He arranged to
go there at times when he knew that Hecht would be out--to avoid having
to talk to him. The precaution was superfluous, for the only time he met
Hecht, he hardly did more than ask him a few indifferent questions about
his health.
He was immured in a prison of silence when, one morning, he received an
invitation from Madame Roussin to a musical _soirée_: a famous quartet was
to play. The letter was very friendly in tone, and Roussin had added a few
cordial lines. He was not very proud of his quarrel with Christophe: the
less so as he had since quarreled with the singer and now condemned her in
no sparing terms. He was a good fellow: he never bore those whom he had
wronged any grudge. And he would have thought it preposterous for any of
his victims to be more thin-skinned than himself. And so, when he had the
pleasure of seeing them again, he never hesitated about holding out his
hand.
Christophe's first impulse was to shrug his shoulders and vow that he
would not go. But he wavered as the day of the concert came nearer. He was
stifling from never hearing a human voice or a note of music. But he vowed
again that he would never set foot inside the Roussins' house. But when the
day came he went, raging against his own cowardice.
He was ill rewarded. Hardly did he find himself once more in the gathering
of politicians and snobs than he was filled with an aversion for them more
violent than ever: for during his months of solitude he had lost the trick
of such people. It was impossible to hear the music: it was a profanation;
Christophe made up his mind to go as soon as the first piece was over.
He glanced round among the faces of those people who were even physically
so antipathetic to him. At the other end of the room he saw a face, the
face of a young man, looking at him, and then he turned away at once.
There was in the face a strange quality of candor which among such bored,
indifferent people was most striking. The eyes were timid, but dear and
direct. French eyes, which, once they marked a man, went on looking at
him with absolute truth, hiding nothing of the soul behind them, missing
nothing of the soul of the man at whom they gazed. They were familiar to
Christophe. And yet he did not know the face. It was that of a young man
between twenty and twenty-five, short, slightly stooping, delicate-looking,
beardless, and melancholy, with chestnut hair, irregular features, though
fine, a certain crookedness which gave it an expression not so much of
uneasiness as of bashfulness, which was not without charm, and seemed to
contradict the tranquillity of the eyes. He was standing in an open door:
and nobody was paying any attention to him. Once more Christophe looked
at him: and once more he met his eyes, which turned away timidly with a
delightful awkwardness: once more he "recognized" them: it seemed to him
that he had seen them in another face.
Christophe, as usual, was incapable of concealing what he felt, and moved
towards the young man: but as he made his way he wondered what he should
say to him: and he hesitated and stood still looking to right and left, as
though he were moving without any fixed object. But the young man was not
taken in, and saw that Christophe was moving towards himself: he was so
nervous at the thought of speaking to him that he tried to slip into the
next room: but he was glued to his place by his very bashfulness. So they
came face to face. It was some moments before they could find anything to
say. And as they went on standing like that each thought the other must
think him absurd. At last Christophe looked straight at the young man, and
said with a smile, in a gruff voice:
"You're not a Parisian?"
In spite of his embarrassment the young man smiled at this unexpected
question, and replied in the negative. His light voice, with its hint of a
musical quality, was like some delicate instrument.
"I thought not," said Christophe. And, as he saw that he was a little
confused by the singular remark, he added:
"It is no reproach."
But the young man's embarrassment was only increased.
There was another silence. The young man made an effort to speak: his lips
trembled: it seemed that he had a sentence on the tip of his tongue, but he
could not bring himself to speak it. Christophe eagerly studied his mobile
face, the muscles of which he could see twitching under the clear skin:
he did not seem to be of the same clay as the people all about him in the
room, with their heavy, coarse faces, which were only a continuation of
their necks, part and parcel of their bodies. In the young man's face the
soul shone forth: in every part of it there was a spiritual life.
He could not bring himself to speak. Christophe went on genially:
"What are you doing among all these people?"
He spoke out loud with that strange freedom of manner which made him hated.
His friend blushed and could not help looking round to see if he had been
heard: and Christophe disliked the movement. Then, instead of answering, he
asked with a shy, sweet smile:
"And you?"
Christophe began to laugh as usual, rather loudly.
"Yes. And I," he said delightedly.
The young man at last summoned up his courage.
"I love your music so much!" he said, in a choking voice.
Then he stopped and tried once more, vainly, to get the better of his
shyness. He was blushing, and knew it: and he blushed the more, up to his
temples and round to his ears. Christophe looked at him with a smile, and
longed to take him in his arms. The young man looked at him timidly.
"No," he said. "Of course, I can't ... I can't talk about that ... not
here...."
Christophe took his hand with a grin. He felt the stranger's thin fingers
tremble in his great paw and press it with an involuntary tenderness: and
the young man felt Christophe's paw affectionately crush his hand. They
ceased to hear the chatter of the people round them. They were alone
together and they knew that they were friends.
It was only for a second, for then Madame Roussin touched Christophe on the
arm with her fan and said:
"I see that you have introduced yourselves and don't need me to do so. The
boy came on purpose to meet you this evening."
Then, rather awkwardly, they parted.
Christophe asked Madame Roussin:
"Who is he?"
"What?" said she. "You don't know him? He is a young poet and writes very
prettily. One of your admirers. He is a good musician and plays the piano
quite nicely. It is no good discussing you in his presence: he is mad
about you. The other day he all but came to blows about you with Lucien
Lévy-Coeur."
"Oh! Bless him for that!" said Christophe.
"Yes, I know you are unjust to poor Lucien. And yet he too loves your
work."
"Ah! don't tell me that! I should hate myself."
"It is so, I assure you."
"Never! never! I will not have it. I forbid him to do so."
"Just what your admirer said. You are both mad. Lucien was just explaining
one of your compositions to us. The shy boy you met just now got up,
trembling with anger, and forbade him to mention your name. Think of it!...
Fortunately I was there. I laughed it off: Lucien did the same: and the
boy was utterly confused and relapsed into silence: and in the end he
apologized."
"Poor boy!" said Christophe.
He was touched by it.
"Where did he go?" he asked, without listening to Madame Roussin, who had
already begun to talk about something else.
He went to look for him. But his unknown friend had disappeared. Christophe
returned to Madame Roussin:
"Tell me, what is his name?"
"Who?" she asked.
"The boy you were talking about just now."
"Your young poet?" she said. "His name is Olivier Jeannin."
The name rang in Christophe's ears like some familiar melody. The shadowy
figure of a girl floated for a moment before his eyes. But the new image,
the image of his friend blotted it out at once.
* * * * *
Christophe went home. He strode through the streets of Paris mingling with
the throng. He saw nothing, heard nothing; he was insensible to everything
about him. He was like a lake cut off from the rest of the world by a ring
of mountains. Not a breath stirred, not a sound was heard, all was still.
Peace. He said to himself over and over again:
"I have a friend."