neighborhood. He became more and more friendly with him, and sympathized
with his independent temper. He understood so well now Gottfried's delight
in tramping the roads without a tie in the world! Often they used to go out
together in the evening into the country, straight on, aimlessly, and as
Gottfried always forgot the time, they used to come back very late, and
then were scolded. Gottfried knew that it was wrong, but Jean-Christophe
used to implore, and he could not himself resist the pleasure of it. About
midnight he would stand in front of the house and whistle, an agreed
signal. Jean-Christophe would be in his bed fully dressed. He would slip
out with his shoes in his hand, and, holding his breath, creep with all the
artful skill of a savage to the kitchen window, which opened on to the
road. He would climb on to the table; Gottfried would take him on his
shoulders, and then off they would go, happy as truants.
Sometimes they would go and seek out Jeremy the fisherman, a friend of
Gottfried's, and then they would slip out in his boat under the moon. The
water dropping from the oars gave out little arpeggios, then chromatic
scales. A milky vapor hung tremulous over the surface of the waters. The
stars quivered. The cocks called to each other from either bank, and
sometimes in the depths of the sky they heard the trilling of larks
ascending from earth, deceived by the light of the moon. They were silent.
Gottfried hummed a tune. Jeremy told strange tales of the lives of the
beasts--tales that gained in mystery from the curt and enigmatic manner of
their telling. The moon hid herself behind the woods. They skirted the
black mass of the hills. The darkness of the water and the sky mingled.
There was never a ripple on the water. Sounds died down. The boat glided
through the night. Was she gliding? Was she moving? Was she still?... The
reeds parted with a sound like the rustling of silk. The boat grounded
noiselessly. They climbed out on to the bank, and returned on foot. They
would not return until dawn. They followed the river-bank. Clouds of silver
ablets, green as ears of corn, or blue as jewels, teemed in the first light
of day. They swarmed like the serpents of Medusa's head, and flung
themselves greedily at the bread thrown to them; they plunged for it as it
sank, and turned in spirals, and then darted away in a flash, like a ray of
light. The river took on rosy and purple hues of reflection. The birds woke
one after another. The truants hurried back. Just as carefully as when they
had set out, they returned to the room, with its thick atmosphere, and
Jean-Christophe, worn out, fell into bed, and slept at once, with his body
sweet-smelling with the smell of the fields.
All was well, and nothing would have been known, but that one day Ernest,
his younger brother, betrayed Jean-Christophe's midnight sallies. From that
moment they were forbidden, and he was watched. But he contrived to escape,
and he preferred the society of the little peddler and his friends to any
other. His family was scandalized. Melchior said that he had the tastes of
a laborer. Old Jean Michel was jealous of Jean-Christophe's affection for
Gottfried, and used to lecture him about lowering himself so far as to like
such vulgar company when he had the honor of mixing with the best people
and of being the servant of princes. It was considered that Jean-Christophe
was lacking in dignity and self-respect.
In spite of the penury which increased with Melchior's intemperance and
folly, life was tolerable as long as Jean Michel was there. He was the only
creature who had any influence over Melchior, and who could hold him back
to a certain extent from his vice. The esteem in which he was generally
held did serve to pass over the drunkard's freaks, and he used constantly
to come to the aid of the household with money. Besides the modest pension
which he enjoyed as retired _Kapellmeister_, he was still able to earn
small sums by giving lessons and tuning pianos. He gave most of it to his
daughter-in-law, for he perceived her difficulties, though she strove to
hide them from him. Louisa hated the idea that he was denying himself for
them, and it was all the more to the old man's credit in that he had always
been accustomed to a large way of living and had great needs to satisfy.
Sometimes even his ordinary sacrifices were not sufficient, and to meet
some urgent debt Jean Michel would have secretly to sell a piece of
furniture or books, or some relic that he set store by. Melchior knew that
his father made presents to Louisa that were concealed from himself, and
very often he would lay hands on them, in spite of protest. But when this
came to the old man's ears--not from Louisa, who said nothing of her
troubles to him, but from one of his grandchildren--he would fly into a
terrible passion, and there were frightful scenes between the two men. They
were both extraordinarily violent, and they would come to round oaths and
threats--almost it seemed as though they would come to blows. But even in
his most angry passion respect would hold Melchior in check, and, however
drunk he might be, in the end he would bow his head to the torrent of
insults and humiliating reproach which his father poured out upon him. But
for that he did not cease to watch for the first opportunity of breaking
out again, and with his thoughts on the future, Jean Michel would be filled
with melancholy and anxious fears.
"My poor children," he used to say to Louisa, "what will become, of you
when I am no longer here?... Fortunately," he would add, fondling
Jean-Christophe, "I can go on until this fellow pulls you out of the mire."
But he was out in his reckoning; he was at the end of his road. No one
would have suspected it. He was surprisingly strong. He was past eighty; he
had a full head of hair, a white mane, still gray in patches, and in his
thick beard were still black hairs. He had only about ten teeth left, but
with these he could chew lustily. It was a pleasure to see him at table. He
had a hearty appetite, and though, he reproached Melchior for drinking, he
always emptied his bottle himself. He had a preference for white Moselle.
For the rest--wine, beer, cider--he could do justice to all the good things
that the Lord hath made. He was not so foolish as to lose his reason in his
cups, and he kept to his allowance. It is true that it was a plentiful
allowance, and that a feebler intelligence must have been made drunk by it.
He was strong of foot and eye, and indefatigably active. He got up at six,
and performed his ablutions scrupulously, for he cared for his appearance
and respected his person. He lived alone in his house, of which he was sole
occupant, and never let his daughter-in-law meddle with his affairs. He
cleaned out his room, made his own coffee, sewed on his buttons, nailed,
and glued, and altered; and going to and fro and up and down stairs in his
shirt-sleeves, he never stopped singing in a sounding bass which he loved
to let ring out as he accompanied himself with operatic gestures. And then
he used to go out in all weathers. He went about his business, omitting
none, but he was not often punctual. He was to be seen at every street
corner arguing with some acquaintance or joking with some woman whose face
he had remembered, for he loved pretty women and old friends. And so he was
always late, and never knew the time. But he never let the dinner-hour slip
by. He dined wherever he might be, inviting himself, and he would not go
home until late--after nightfall, after a visit to his grandchildren. Then
he would go to bed, and before he went to sleep read a page of his old
Bible, and during the night--for he never slept for more than an hour or
two together--he would get up to take down one of his old books, bought
second-hand--history, theology, belles-lettres, or science. He used to read
at random a few pages, which interested and bored him, and he did not
rightly understand them, though he did not skip a word, until sleep came to
him again. On Sunday he would go to church, walk with the children, and
play bowls. He had never been ill, except for a little gout in his toes,
which used to make him swear at night while he was reading his Bible. It
seemed as though he might live to be a hundred, and he himself could see no
reason why he should not live longer. When people said that he would die a
centenarian, he used to think, like another illustrious old man, that no
limit can be appointed to the goodness of Providence, The only sign that he
was growing old was that he was more easily brought to tears, and was
becoming every day more irritable. The smallest impatience with him could
throw him into a violent fury. His red face and short neck would grow
redder than ever. He would stutter angrily, and have to stop, choking. The
family doctor, an old friend, had warned him to take care and to moderate
both his anger and his appetite. But with an old man's obstinacy he plunged
into acts of still greater recklessness out of bravado, and he laughed at
medicine and doctors. He pretended to despise death, and did not mince his
language when he declared that he was not afraid of it.
One summer day, when it was very hot, and he had drunk copiously, and
argued in the market-place, he went home and began to work quietly in his
garden. He loved digging. Bareheaded under the sun, still irritated by his
argument, he dug angrily. Jean-Christophe was sitting in the arbor with a
book in his hand, but he was not reading. He was dreaming and listening to
the cheeping of the crickets, and mechanically following his grandfather's
movements. The old man's back was towards him; he was bending and plucking
out weeds. Suddenly Jean-Christophe saw him rise, beat against the air with
his arms, and fall heavily with his face to the ground. For a moment he
wanted to laugh; then he saw that the old man did not stir. He called to
him, ran to him, and shook him with all his strength. Fear seized him. He
knelt, and with his two hands tried to raise the great head from the
ground. It was so heavy and he trembled so that he could hardly move it.
But when he saw the eyes turned up, white and bloody, he was frozen with
horror and, with a shrill cry, let the head fall. He got up in terror, ran
away and out of the place. He cried and wept. A man passing by stopped the
boy. Jean-Christophe could not speak, but he pointed to the house. The man
went in, and Jean-Christophe followed him. Others had heard his cries, and
they came from the neighboring houses. Soon the garden was full of people.
They trampled the flowers, and bent down over the old man. They cried
aloud. Two or three men lifted him up. Jean-Christophe stayed by the gate,
turned to the wall, and hid his face in his hands. He was afraid to look,
but he could not help himself, and when they passed him he saw through his
fingers the old man's huge body, limp and flabby. One arm dragged along the
ground, the head, leaning against the knee of one of the men carrying the
body, bobbed at every step, and the face was scarred, covered with mud,
bleeding. The mouth was open and the eyes were fearful. He howled again,
and took to flight. He ran as though something were after him, and never
stopped until he reached home. He burst into the kitchen with frightful
cries. Louisa was cleaning vegetables. He hurled himself at her, and hugged
her desperately, imploring her help. His face was distorted with his sobs;
he could hardly speak. But at the first word she understood. She went
white, let the things fall from her hands, and without a word rushed from
the house.
Jean-Christophe was left alone, crouching against a cupboard. He went on
weeping. His brothers were playing. He could not make out quite what had
happened. He did not think of his grandfather; he was thinking only of the
dreadful sights he had just seen, and he was in terror lest he should be
made to return to see them again.
And as it turned out in the evening, when the other children, tired of
doing every sort of mischief in the house, were beginning to feel wearied
and hungry, Louisa rushed in again, took them by the hand, and led them to
their grandfather's house. She walked very fast, and Ernest and Rodolphe
tried to complain, as usual; but Louisa bade them be silent in such a tone
of voice that they held their peace. An instinctive fear seized them, and
when they entered the house they began to weep. It was not yet night. The
last hours of the sunset cast strange lights over the inside of the
house--on the door-handle, on the mirror, on the violin hung on the wall in
the chief room, which was half in darkness. But in the old man's room a
candle was alight, and the flickering flame, vying with the livid, dying
day, made the heavy darkness of the room more oppressive. Melchior was
sitting near the window, loudly weeping. The doctor, leaning over the bed,
hid from sight what was lying there. Jean-Christophe's heart beat so that
it was like to break. Louisa made the children kneel at the foot of the
bed. Jean-Christophe stole a glance. He expected something so terrifying
after what he had seen in the afternoon that at the first glimpse he was
almost comforted. His grandfather lay motionless, and seemed to be asleep.
For a moment the child believed that the old man was better, and that all
was at an end. But when he heard his heavy breathing; when, as he looked
closer, he saw the swollen face, on which the wound that he had come by in
the fall had made a broad scar; when he understood that here was a man at
point of death, he began to tremble; and while he repeated Louisa's prayer
for the restoration of his grandfather, in his heart he prayed that if the
old man could not get well he might be already dead. He was terrified at
the prospect of what was going to happen.
The old man had not been conscious since the moment of his fall. He only
returned to consciousness for a moment, enough to learn his condition, and
that was lamentable. The priest was there, and recited the last prayers
over him. They raised the old man on his pillow. He opened his eyes slowly,
and they seemed no longer to obey his will. He breathed noisily, and with
unseeing eyes looked at the faces and the lights, and suddenly he opened
his mouth. A nameless terror showed on his features.
"But then ..." he gasped--"but I am going to die!"
The awful sound of his voice pierced Jean-Christophe's heart. Never, never
was it to fade from his memory. The old man said no more. He moaned like a
little child. The stupor took him once more, but his breathing became more
and more difficult. He groaned, he fidgeted with his hands, he seemed to
struggle against the mortal sleep. In his semi-consciousness he cried once:
"Mother!"
Oh, the biting impression that it made, this mumbling of the old man,
calling in anguish on his mother, as Jean-Christophe would himself have
done--his mother, of whom he was never known to talk in life, to whom he
now turned instinctively, the last futile refuge in the last terror!...
Then he seemed to be comforted for a moment. He had once more a flicker of
consciousness. His heavy eyes, the pupils of which seemed to move
aimlessly, met those of the boy frozen in his fear. They lit up. The old
man tried to smile and speak. Louisa took Jean-Christophe and led him to
the bedside. Jean Michel moved his lips, and tried to caress his head with
his hand, but then he fell back into his torpor. It was the end.
They sent the children into the next room, but they had too much to do to
worry about them, and Jean-Christophe, under the attraction of the horror
of it, peeped through the half-open door at the tragic face on the pillow;
the man strangled by the firm, clutch that had him by the neck; the face
which grew ever more hollow as he watched; the sinking of the creature into
the void, which seemed to suck it down like a pump; and the horrible
death-rattle, the mechanical breathing, like a bubble of air bursting on
the surface of waters; the last efforts of the body, which strives to live
when the soul is no longer. Then the head fell on one side on the pillow.
All, all was silence.
A few moments later, in the midst of the sobs and prayers and the confusion
caused by the death, Louisa saw the child, pale, wide-eyed, with gaping
mouth, clutching convulsively at the handle of the door. She ran to him. He
had a seizure in her arms. She carried him away. He lost consciousness. He
woke up to find himself in his bed. He howled in terror, because he had
been left alone for a moment, had another seizure, and fainted again. For
the rest of the night and the next day he was in a fever. Finally, he grew
calm, and on the next night fell into a deep sleep, which lasted until the
middle of the following day. He felt that some one was walking in his room,
that his mother was leaning over his bed and kissing him. He thought he
heard the sweet distant sound of bells. But he would not stir; he was in a
dream.
When he opened his eyes again his Uncle Gottfried was sitting at the foot
of his bed. Jean-Christophe was worn out, and could remember nothing. Then
his memory returned, and: he began to weep. Gottfried got up and kissed
him.
"Well, my boy--well?" he said gently.
"Oh, uncle, uncle!" sobbed the boy, clinging to him.
"Cry, then ..." said Gottfried. "Cry!"
He also was weeping.
When he was a little comforted Jean-Christophe dried his eyes and looked at
Gottfried. Gottfried understood that he wanted to ask something.
"No," he said, putting a finger to his lips, "you must not talk. It is good
to cry, bad to talk."
The boy insisted.
"It is no good."
"Only one thing--only one!..."
"What?"
Jean-Christophe hesitated.
"Oh, uncle!" he asked, "where is he now?"
Gottfried answered:
"He is with the Lord, my boy."
But that was not what Jean-Christophe had asked.
"No; you do not understand. Where is he--he _himself_?" (He meant the
body.)
He went on in a trembling voice:
"Is _he_ still in the house?"
"They buried the good man this morning," said Gottfried. "Did you not hear
the bells?"
Jean-Christophe was comforted. Then, when he thought that he would never
see his beloved grandfather again, he wept once more bitterly.
"Poor little beast!" said Gottfried, looking pityingly at the child.
Jean-Christophe expected Gottfried to console him, but Gottfried made no
attempt to do so, knowing that it was useless.
"Uncle Gottfried," asked the boy, "are not you afraid of it, too?"
(Much did he wish that Gottfried should not have been afraid, and would
tell him the secret of it!)
"'Ssh!" he said, in a troubled voice....
"And how is one not to be afraid?" he said, after a moment. "But what can
one do? It is so. One must put up with it."
Jean-Christophe shook his head in protest.
"One has to put up with it, my boy," said Gottfried. "_He_ ordered it up
yonder. One has to love what _He_ has ordered."
"I hate Him!" said Jean-Christophe, angrily shaking his fist at the sky.
Gottfried fearfully bade him be silent. Jean-Christophe himself was afraid
of what he had just said, and he began to pray with Gottfried. But blood
boiled, and as he repeated the words of servile humility and resignation
there was in his inmost heart a feeling of passionate revolt and horror of
the abominable thing and the monstrous Being who had been able to create
it.
Days passed and nights of rain over the freshly-turned earth under which
lay the remains of poor old Jean Michel. At the moment Melchior wept and
cried and sobbed much, but the week was not out before Jean-Christophe
heard him laughing heartily. When the name of the dead man was pronounced
in his presence, his face grew longer and a lugubrious expression came into
it, but in a moment he would begin to talk and gesticulate excitedly. He
was sincerely afflicted, but it was impossible for him to remain sad for
long.
Louisa, passive and resigned, accepted the misfortune as she accepted
everything. She added a prayer to her daily prayers; she went regularly to
the cemetery, and cared for the grass as if it were part of her household.
Gottfried paid touching attention to the little patch of ground where the
old man slept. When he came to the neighborhood, he brought a little
souvenir--a cross that he had made, or flowers that Jean Michel had loved.
He never missed, even if he were only in the town for a few hours, and he
did it by stealth.
Sometimes Louisa took Jean-Christophe with her on her visits to the
cemetery. Jean-Christophe revolted in disgust against the fat patch of
earth clad in its sinister adornment of flowers and trees, and against the
heavy scent which mounts to the sun, mingling with the breath of the
sonorous cypress. But he dared not confess his disgust, because he
condemned it in himself as cowardly and impious. He was very unhappy. His
grandfather's death haunted him incessantly, and yet he had long known what
death was, and had thought about it and been afraid of it. But he had never
before seen it, and he who sees it for the first time learns that he knew
nothing, neither of death nor of life. One moment brings everything
tottering. Reason is of no avail. You thought you were alive, you thought
you had some experience of life; you see then that you knew nothing, that
you have been living in a veil of illusions spun by your own mind to hide
from your eyes the awful countenance of reality. There is no connection
between the idea of suffering and the creature who bleeds and suffers.
There is no connection between the idea of death and the convulsions of
body and soul in combat and in death. Human language, human wisdom, are
only a puppet-show of stiff mechanical dolls by the side of the grim charm
of reality and the creatures of mind and blood, whose desperate and vain
efforts are strained to the fixing of a life which crumbles away with every
day.
Jean-Christophe thought of death day and night. Memories of the last agony
pursued him. He heard that horrible breathing; every night, whatever he
might be doing, he saw his grandfather again. All Nature was changed; it
seemed as though there were an icy vapor drawn over her. Round him,
everywhere, whichever way he turned, he felt upon his face the fatal
breathing of the blind, all-powerful Beast; he felt himself in the grip of
that fearful destructive Form, and he felt that there was nothing to be
done. But, far from crushing him, the thought of it set him aflame with
hate and indignation. He was never resigned to it. He butted head down
against the impossible; it mattered nothing that he broke his head, and was
forced to realize that he was not the stronger. He never ceased to revolt
against suffering. From that time on his life was an unceasing struggle
against the savagery of a Fate which he could not admit.
The very misery of his life afforded him relief from the obsession of his
thoughts. The ruin of his family, which only Jean Michel had withheld,
proceeded apace when he was removed. With him the Kraffts had lost their
chief means of support, and misery entered the house.
Melchior increased it. Far from working more, he abandoned himself utterly
to his vice when he was free of the only force that had held him in check.
Almost every night he returned home drunk, and he never brought back his
earnings. Besides, he had lost almost all his lessons. One day he had
appeared at the house of one of his pupils in a state of complete
intoxication, and, as a consequence of this scandal, all doors were closed
to him. He was only tolerated in the orchestra out of regard for the memory
of his father, but Louisa trembled lest he should he dismissed any day
after a scene. He had already been threatened with it on several evenings
when he had turned up in his place about the end of the performance.
Twice or thrice he had forgotten altogether to put in an appearance. And of
what was he not capable in those moments of stupid excitement when he was
taken with the itch to do and say idiotic things! Had he not taken it into
his head one evening to try and play his great violin concerto in the
middle of an act of the _Valkyrie_? They were hard put to it to stop him.
Sometimes, too, he would shout with laughter in the middle of a performance
at the amusing pictures that were presented on the stage or whirling in his
own brain. He was a joy to his colleagues, and they passed over many things
because he was so funny. But such indulgence was worse than severity, and
Jean-Christophe could have died for shame.