dress-coat, with a face like a pug-dog, bristling mustaches, and a short,
pointed beard--a little red-faced man, inclined to stoutness, who addressed
him with bantering familiarity, and called him "Mozart _redivivus_!" This
was the Grand Duke. Then, he was presented in turn to the Grand Duchess and
her daughter, and their suite. But as he did not dare raise his eyes, the
only thing he could remember of this brilliant company was a series of
gowns and uniforms from, the waist down to the feet. He sat on the lap of
the young Princess, and dared not move or breathe. She asked him questions,
which Melchior answered in an obsequious voice with formal replies,
respectful and servile; but she did not listen to Melchior, and went on
teasing the child. He grew redder and redder, and, thinking that everybody
must have noticed it, he thought he must explain it away and said with a
long sigh:
"My face is red. I am hot."
That made the girl shout with laughter. But Jean-Christophe did not mind it
in her, as he had in his audience just before, for her laughter was
pleasant, and she kissed him, and he did not dislike that.
Then he saw his grandfather in the passage at the door of the box, beaming
and bashful. The old man was fain to show himself, and also to say a few
words, but he dared not, because no one had spoken to him. He was enjoying
his grandson's glory at a distance. Jean-Christophe became tender, and felt
an irresistible impulse to procure justice also for the old man, so that
they should know his worth. His tongue was loosed, and he reached up to the
ear of his new friend and whispered to her:
"I will tell you a secret."
She laughed, and said:
"What?"
"You know," he went on--"you know the pretty _trio_ in my _minuetto_, the
_minuetto_ I played?... You know it?..." (He hummed it gently.) "... Well,
grandfather wrote it, not I. All the other airs are mine. But that is the
best. Grandfather wrote it. Grandfather did not want me to say anything.
You won't tell anybody?..." (He pointed out the old man.) "That is my
grandfather. I love him; he is very kind to me."
At that the young Princess laughed again, said that he was a darling,
covered him with kisses, and, to the consternation of Jean-Christophe and
his grandfather, told everybody. Everybody laughed then, and the Grand Duke
congratulated the old man, who was covered with confusion, tried in vain to
explain himself, and stammered like a guilty criminal. But Jean-Christophe
said not another word to the girl, and in spite of her wheedling he
remained dumb and stiff. He despised her for having broken her promise. His
idea of princes suffered considerably from this disloyalty. He was so angry
about it that he did not hear anything that was said, or that the Prince
had appointed him laughingly his pianist in ordinary, his _Hof Musicus_.
He went out with his relatives, and found himself surrounded in
the corridors of the theater, and even in the street, with people
congratulating him or kissing him. That displeased him greatly, for he did
not like being kissed, and did not like people meddling with him without
asking his permission.
At last they reached home, and then hardly was the door closed than
Melchior began to call him a "little idiot" because he had said that the
_trio_ was not his own. As the boy was under the impression that he had
done a fine thing, which deserved praise, and not blame, he rebelled, and
was impertinent. Melchior lost his temper, and said that he would box his
ears, although he had played his music well enough, because with his idiocy
he had spoiled the whole effect of the concert. Jean-Christophe had a
profound sense of justice. He went and sulked in a corner; he visited his
contempt upon his father, the Princess, and the whole world. He was hurt
also because the neighbors came and congratulated his parents and laughed
with them, as if it were they who had played, and as if it were their
affair.
At this moment a servant of the Court came with a beautiful gold watch from
the Grand Duke and a box of lovely sweets from the young Princess. Both
presents gave great pleasure to Jean-Christophe, and he did not know which
gave him the more; but he was in such a bad temper that he would not
admit it to himself, and he went on sulking, scowling at the sweets, and
wondering whether he could properly accept a gift from a person who had
betrayed his confidence. As he was on the point of giving in his father
wanted to set him down at once at the table, and make him write at his
dictation a letter of thanks. This was too much. Either from the nervous
strain of the day, or from instinctive shame at beginning the letter,
as Melchior wanted him to, with the words, "The little servant and
musician--_Knecht und Musicus_--of Your Highness ..." he burst into tears,
and was inconsolable. The servant waited and scoffed. Melchior had to
write the letter. That did not make him exactly kindly disposed towards
Jean-Christophe. As, a crowning misfortune, the boy let his watch fall and
broke it, A storm of reproaches broke upon him. Melchior shouted that he
would have to go without dessert. Jean-Christophe said angrily that that
was what he wanted. To punish him, Louisa, said that she would begin by
confiscating his sweets. Jean-Christophe was up in arms at that, and said
that the box was his, and no one else's, and that no one should take it
away from him! He was smacked, and in a fit of anger snatched the box
from his mother's hands, hurled it on the floor, and stamped on it He was
whipped, taken to his room, undressed, and put to bed.
In the evening he heard his parents dining with friends--a magnificent
repast, prepared a week before in honor of the concert. He was like to die
with wrath at such injustice. They laughed loudly, and touched glasses.
They had told the guests that the boy was tired, and no one bothered about
him. Only after dinner, when the party was breaking up, he heard a slow,
shuffling step come into his room, and old Jean Michel bent over his bed
and kissed him, and said: "Dear little Jean-Christophe!..." Then, as if he
were ashamed, he went away without another word. He had slipped into his
hand some sweetmeats which he had hidden in his pocket.
That softened Jean-Christophe; but he was so tired with all the day's
emotions that he had not the strength to think about what his grandfather
had done. He had not even the strength to reach out to the good things the
old man had given him. He was worn out, and went to sleep almost at once.
His sleep was light. He had acute nervous attacks, like electric shocks,
which shook his whole body. In his dreams he was haunted by wild music. He
awoke in the night. The Beethoven overture that he had heard at the concert
was roaring in his ears. It filled the room with its mighty beat. He sat,
up in his bed, rubbed his eyes and ears, and asked himself if he were
asleep. No; he was not asleep. He recognized the sound, he recognized
those roars of anger, those savage cries; he heard the throbbing of that
passionate heart leaping in his bosom, that tumult of the blood; he felt
on his face the frantic heating of the wind; lashing and destroying, then
stopping suddenly, cut off by an Herculean will. That Titanic soul entered
his body, blew out his limbs and his soul, and seemed to give them colossal
proportions. He strode over all the world. He was like a mountain, and
storms raged within him--storms of wrath, storms of sorrow!... Ah, what
sorrow!... But they were nothing! He felt so strong!... To suffer--still to
suffer!... Ah, how good it is to be strong! How good it is to suffer when a
man is strong!...
He laughed. His laughter rang out in the silence of the night. His father
woke up and cried:
"Who is there?"
His mother whispered:
"Ssh! the boy is dreaming!"
All then were silent; round them all was silence. The music died away, and
nothing sounded but the regular breathing of the human creatures asleep in
the room, comrades in misery, thrown together by Fate in the same frail
barque, bound onwards by a wild whirling force through the night.
(Jean-Christophe's letter to the Grand Duke Leopold is inspired by
Beethoven's letter to the Prince Elector of Bonn, written when he was
eleven.)
MORNING
I
THE DEATH OF JEAN MICHEL
Years have passed. Jean-Christophe is nearly eleven. His musical education
is proceeding. He is learning harmony with Florian Holzer, the organist of
St. Martin's, a friend of his grandfather's, a very learned man, who
teaches him that the chords and series of chords that he most loves, and
the harmonica which softly greet his heart and ear, those that he cannot
hear without a little thrill running down his spine, are bad and forbidden.
When he asks why, no reply is forthcoming but that it is so; the rules
forbid them. As he is naturally in revolt against discipline, he loves them
only the more. His delight is to find examples of them in the great and
admired musicians, and to take them to his grandfather or his master. His
grandfather replies that in the great musicians they are admirable, and
that Beethoven and Bach can take any liberty. His master, less
conciliatory, is angry, and says acidly that the masters did better things.
Jean-Christophe has a free pass for the concerts and the theater. He has
learned to play every instrument a little. He is already quite skilful with
the violin, and his father procured him a seat in the orchestra. He
acquitted himself so well there that after a few months' probation he was
officially appointed second violin in the _Hof Musik Verein_. He has begun
to earn his living. Not too soon either, for affairs at home have gone from
bad to worse. Melchior's intemperance has swamped him, and his grandfather
is growing old.
Jean-Christophe has taken in the melancholy situation. He is already as
grave and anxious as a man. He fulfils his task valiantly, though it does
not interest him, and he is apt to fall asleep in the orchestra in the
evenings, because it is late and he is tired. The theater no longer rouses
in him the emotion it used to do when he was little. When he was
little--four years ago--his greatest ambition had been to occupy the place
that he now holds. But now he dislikes most of the music he is made to
play. He dare not yet pronounce judgment upon it, but he does find it
foolish; and if by chance they do play lovely things, he is displeased by
the carelessness with which they are rendered, and his best-beloved works
are made to appear like his neighbors and colleagues in the orchestra, who,
as soon as the curtain has fallen, when they have done with blowing and
scraping, mop their brows and smile and chatter quietly, as though they had
just finished an hour's gymnastics. And he has been close to his former
flame, the fair barefooted singer. He meets her quite often during the
_entr'acte_ in the saloon. She knows that he was once in love with her, and
she kisses him often. That gives him no pleasure. He is disgusted by her
paint and scent and her fat arms and her greediness. He hates her now.
The Grand Duke did not forget his pianist in ordinary. Not that the small
pension, which was granted to him with this title was regularly paid--it
had to be asked for--but from time to time Jean-Christophe used to receive
orders to go to the Palace when there were distinguished guests, or simply
when Their Highnesses took it into their heads that they wanted to hear
him. It was almost always in the evening, at the time when Jean-Christophe
wanted to be alone. He had to leave everything and hurry off. Sometimes he
was made to wait in the anteroom, because dinner was not finished. The
servants, accustomed to see him, used to address him familiarly. Then he
would be led into a great room full of mirrors and lights, in which
well-fed men and women used to stare at him with horrid curiosity. He had
to cross the waxed floor to kiss Their Highnesses' hands, and the more he
grew the more awkward he became, for he felt that he was in a ridiculous
position, and his pride used to suffer.
When it was all done he used to sit at the piano and have to play for these
idiots. He thought them idiots. There were moments when their indifference
so oppressed him as he played that he was often on the point of stopping in
the middle of a piece. There was no air about him; he was near suffocation,
seemed losing his senses. When he finished he was overwhelmed with
congratulations and laden with compliments; he was introduced all round. He
thought they looked at him like some strange animal in the Prince's
menagerie, and that the words of praise were addressed rather to his master
than to himself. He thought himself brought low, and he developed a morbid
sensibility from which he suffered the more as he dared not show it. He saw
offense in the most simple actions. If any one laughed in a corner of the
room, he imagined himself to be the cause of it, and he knew not whether it
were his manners, or his clothes, or his person, or his hands, or his feet,
that caused the laughter. He was humiliated by everything. He was
humiliated if people did not talk to him, humiliated if they did,
humiliated if they gave him sweets like a child, humiliated especially when
the Grand Duke, as sometimes happened, in princely fashion dismissed him by
pressing a piece of money into his hand. He was wretched at being poor and
at being treated as a poor boy. One evening, as he was going home, the
money that he had received weighed so heavily upon him that he threw it
through a cellar window, and then immediately he would have done anything
to get it back, for at home there was a month's old account with the
butcher to pay.
His relatives never suspected these injuries to his pride. They were
delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of
nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid
society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his
boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He
pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but
he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social distinction,
and he took unbounded pride in seeing his grandson, moving among those who
had these things. He delighted in them as though such glory was a
reflection upon himself, and in spite of all his efforts to appear calm and
indifferent, his face used to glow. On the evenings when Jean-Christophe
went to the Palace, old Jean Michel used always to contrive to stay about
the house on some pretext or another. He used to await his grandson's
return with childish impatience, and when Jean-Christophe came in he would
begin at once with a careless air to ply him with seeming idle questions,
such as:
"Well, did things go well to-night?"
Or he would make little hints like:
"Here's our Jean-Christophe; he can tell us some news."
Or he would produce some ingenious compliment by way of flattery:
"Here's our young nobleman!"
But Jean-Christophe, out of sorts and out of temper, would reply with a
curt "Good-evening!" and go and sulk in a corner. But the old man would
persist, and ply him with more direct questions, to which the boy replied
only "Yes," or "No." Then the others would join in and ask for details.
Jean-Christophe would look more and more thunderous. They had to drag the
words from his lips until Jean Michel would lose his temper and hurl
insults at him. Then Jean-Christophe would reply with scant respect, and
the end would be a rumpus. The old man would go out and slam the door. So
Jean-Christophe spoiled the joy of these poor people, who had no inkling of
the cause of his bad temper. It was not their fault if they had the souls
of servants, and never dreamed that it is possible to be otherwise.
Jean-Christophe was turned into himself, and though he never judged his
family, yet he felt a gulf between himself and them. No doubt he
exaggerated what lay between them, and in spite of their different ways of
thought it is quite probable that they could have understood each other if
he had been able to talk intimately to them. But it is known that nothing
is more difficult than absolute intimacy between children and parents, even
when there is much love between them, for on the one side respect
discourages confidence, and on the other the idea, often erroneous, of the
superiority of age and experience prevents them taking seriously enough the
child's feelings, which are often just as interesting as those of grown-up
persons, and almost always more sincere.
But the people that Jean-Christophe saw at home and the conversation that
he heard there widened the distance between himself and his family.
Melchior's friends used to frequent the house--mostly musicians of the
orchestra, single men and hard drinkers. They were not bad fellows, but
vulgar. They made the house shake with their footsteps and their laughter.
They loved music, but they spoke of it with a stupidity that was revolting.
The coarse indiscretion of their enthusiasm wounded the boy's modesty of
feeling. When they praised a work that he loved it was as though they were
insulting him personally. He would stiffen himself and grow pale, frozen,
and pretend not to take any interest in music. He would have hated it had
that been possible. Melchior used to say:
"The fellow has no heart. He feels nothing. I don't know where he gets it
from."
Sometimes they used to sing German four-part songs--four-footed as
well--and these were all exactly like themselves--slow-moving, solemn and
broad, fashioned of dull melodies. Then Jean-Christophe used to fly to the
most distant room and hurl insults at the wall.
His grandfather also had friends: the organist, the furniture-dealer, the
watch-maker, the contra-bass--garrulous old men, who used always to pass
round the same jokes and plunge into interminable discussions on art,
politics, or the family trees of the countryside, much less interested in
the subjects of which they talked than happy to talk and to find an
audience.
As for Louisa, she used only to see some of her neighbors who brought her
the gossip of the place, and at rare intervals a "kind lady," who, under
pretext of taking an interest in her, used to come and engage her services
for a dinner-party, and pretend to watch over the religious education of
the children.
But of all who came to the house, none was more repugnant to
Jean-Christophe than his Uncle Theodore, a stepson of his grandfather's, a
son by a former marriage of his grandmother Clara, Jean Michel's first
wife. He was a partner in a great commercial house which did business in
Africa and the Far East. He was the exact type of one of those Germans of
the new style, whose affectation it is scoffingly to repudiate the old
idealism of the race, and, intoxicated by conquest, to maintain a cult of
strength and success which shows that they are not accustomed to seeing
them on their side. But as it is difficult at once to change the age-old
nature of a people, the despised idealism sprang up again in him at every
turn in language, manners, and moral habits and the quotations from Goethe
to fit the smallest incidents of domestic life, for he was a singular
compound of conscience and self-interest. There was in him a curious effort
to reconcile the honest principles of the old German _bourgeoisie_ with the
cynicism of these new commercial _condottieri_--a compound which forever
gave out a repulsive flavor of hypocrisy, forever striving to make of
German strength, avarice, and self-interest the symbols of all right,
justice, and truth.
Jean-Christophe's loyalty was deeply injured by all this. He could not tell
whether his uncle were right or no, but he hated him, and marked him down
for an enemy. His grandfather had no great love for him either, and was in
revolt against his theories; but he was easily crushed in argument by
Theodore's fluency, which was never hard put to it to turn into ridicule
the old man's simple generosity. In the end Jean Michel came to be ashamed
of his own good-heartedness, and by way of showing that he was not so much
behind the times as they thought, he used to try to talk like Theodore; but
the words came hollow from his lips, and he was ill at ease with them.
Whatever he may have thought of him, Theodore did impress him. He felt
respect for such practical skill, which he admired the more for knowing
himself to be absolutely incapable of it. He used to dream of putting one
of his grandsons to similar work. That was Melchior's idea also. He
intended to make Rodolphe follow in his uncle's footsteps. And so the whole
family set itself to flatter this rich relation of whom they expected help.
He, seeing that he was necessary to them, took advantage of it to cut a
fine masterful figure, He meddled in everything, gave advice upon
everything, and made no attempt to conceal his contempt for art and
artists. Rather, he blazoned it abroad for the mere pleasure of humiliating
his musicianly relations, and he used to indulge in stupid jokes at their
expense, and the cowards used to laugh.
Jean-Christophe, especially, was singled out as a butt for his uncle's
jests. He was not patient under them. He would say nothing, but he used to
grind his teeth angrily, and his uncle used to laugh at his speechless
rage. But one day, when Theodore went too far in his teasing,
Jean-Christophe, losing control of himself, spat in his face. It was a
fearful affair. The insult was so monstrous that his uncle was at first
paralyzed by it; then words came back to him, and he broke out into a flood
of abuse. Jean-Christophe sat petrified by the enormity of the thing that
he had done, and did not even feel the blows that rained down upon him; but
when they tried to force him down on his knees before his uncle, he broke
away, jostled his mother aside, and ran out of the house. He did not stop
until he could breathe no more, and then he was right out in the country.
He heard voices calling him, and he debated within himself whether he had
not better throw himself into the river, since he could not do so with his
enemy. He spent the night in the fields. At dawn he went and knocked at his
grandfather's door. The old man had been so upset by Jean-Christophe's
disappearance--he had not slept for it--that he had not the heart to scold
him. He took him home, and then nothing was said to him, because it was
apparent that he was still in an excited condition, and they had to smooth
him down, for he had to play at the Palace that evening. But for several
weeks Melchior continued to overwhelm him with his complaints, addressed to
nobody in particular, about the trouble that a man takes to give an example
of an irreproachable life and good manners to unworthy creatures who
dishonor him. And when his Uncle Theodore met him in the street, he turned
his head and held his nose by way of showing his extreme disgust.
Finding so little sympathy at home, Jean-Christophe spent as little time
there as possible. He chafed against the continual restraint which they
strove to set upon him. There were too many things, too many people, that
he had to respect, and he was never allowed to ask why, and Jean-Christophe
did not possess the bump of respect. The more they tried to discipline him
and to turn him into an honest little German _bourgeois_, the more he felt
the need of breaking free from it all. It would have been his pleasure
after the dull, tedious, formal performances which he had to attend in the
orchestra or at the Palace to roll in the grass like a fowl, and to slide
down the grassy slope on the seat of his new trousers, or to have a
stone-fight with the urchins of the neighborhood. It was not because he was
afraid of scoldings and thwackings that he did not do these things more
often, but because he had no playmates. He could not get on with other
children. Even the little guttersnipes did not like playing with him,
because he took every game too seriously, and struck too lustily. He had
grown used to being driven in on himself, and to living apart from children
of his own age. He was ashamed of not being clever at games, and dared not
take part in their sport. And he used to pretend to take no interest in it,
although he was consumed by the desire to be asked to play with them. But
they never said anything to him, and then he would go away hurt, but
assuming indifference.