laughed aloud; he jumped about on his bed. Then he ran to the table and
took pen in hand to reply at once. He could not wait a moment. But he was
not used to writing. He could not express what was swelling in his heart;
he dug into the paper with his pen, and blackened his fingers with ink; he
stamped impatiently. At last, by dint of putting out his tongue and making
five or six drafts, he succeeded in writing in malformed letters, which
flew out in all directions, and with terrific mistakes in spelling:
"MY SOUL,--
"How dare you speak of gratitude, because I love you? Have I not told you
how sad I was and lonely before I knew you? Your friendship is the greatest
of blessings. Yesterday I was happy, happy!--for the first time in my life.
I weep for joy as I read your letter. Yes, my beloved, there is no doubt
that it was Fate brought us together. Fate wishes that we should be friends
to do great things. Friends! The lovely word! Can it be that at last I have
a friend? Oh! you will never leave me? You will be faithful to me? Always!
always!... How beautiful it will be to grow up together, to work together,
to bring together--I my musical whimsies, and all the crazy things that go
chasing through my mind; you your intelligence and amazing learning! How
much you know! I have never met a man so clever as you. There are moments
when I am uneasy. I seem to be unworthy of your friendship. You are so
noble and so accomplished, and I am so grateful to you for loving so coarse
a creature as myself!... But no! I have just said, let there be no talk of
gratitude. In friendship there is no obligation nor benefaction. I would
not accept any benefaction! We are equal, since we love. How impatient
I am to see you! I will not call for you at home, since you do not
wish it--although, to tell the truth, I do not understand all these
precautions--but you are the wiser; you are surely right....
"One word only! No more talk of money. I hate money--the word and the thing
itself. If I am not rich, I am yet rich enough to give to my friend, and it
is my joy to give all I can for him. Would not you do the same? And if I
needed it, would you not be the first to give me all your fortune? But that
shall never be! I have sound fists and a sound head, and I shall always be
able to earn the bread that I eat. Till Sunday! Dear God, a whole week
without seeing you! And for two days I have not seen you! How have I been
able to live so long without you?
"The conductor tried to grumble, but do not bother about it any more than I
do. What are others to me? I care nothing what they think or what they may
ever think of me. Only you matter. Love me well, my soul; love me as I love
you! I cannot tell you how much I love you. I am yours, yours, yours, from
the tips of my fingers to the apple of my eye.
"Yours always,
"JEAN-CHRISTOPHE."
Jean-Christophe was devoured with impatience for the rest of the week. He
would go out of his way, and make long turns to pass by Otto's house. Not
that he counted on seeing him, but the sight of the house was enough to
make him grow pale and red with emotion. On the Thursday he could bear it
no longer, and sent a second letter even more high-flown than the first.
Otto answered it sentimentally.
Sunday came at length, and Otto was punctually at the meeting-place. But
Jean-Christophe had been there for an hour, waiting impatiently for the
walk. He began to imagine dreadfully that Otto would not come. He trembled
lest Otto should be ill, for he did not suppose for a moment that Otto
might break his word. He whispered over and over again, "Dear God, let him
come--let him come!" and he struck at the pebbles in the avenue with his
stick, saying to himself that if he missed three times Otto would not come,
but if he hit them Otto would appear at once. In spite of his care and
the easiness of the test, he had just missed three times when he saw Otto
coming at his easy, deliberate pace; for Otto was above all things correct,
even when he was most moved. Jean-Christophe ran to him, and with his
throat dry wished him "Good-day!" Otto replied, "Good-day!" and they found
that they had nothing more to say to each other, except that the weather
was fine and that it was five or six minutes past ten, or it might be ten
past, because the castle clock was always slow.
They went to the station, and went by rail to a neighboring place which was
a favorite excursion from the town. On the way they exchanged not more than
ten words. They tried to make up for it by eloquent looks, but they were
no more successful. In vain did they try to tell each other what friends
they were; their eyes would say nothing at all. They were just playacting.
Jean-Christophe saw that, and was humiliated. He did not understand how
he could not express or even feel all that had filled his heart an hour
before. Otto did not, perhaps, so exactly take stock of their failure,
because he was less sincere, and examined himself with more circumspection,
but he was just as disappointed. The truth is that the boys had, during
their week of separation, blown out their feelings to such a diapason that
it was impossible for them to keep them actually at that pitch, and when
they met again their first impression must of necessity be false. They had
to break away from it, but they could not bring themselves to agree to it.
All day they wandered in the country without ever breaking through the
awkwardness and constraint that were upon them. It was a holiday. The inns
and woods were filled with a rabble of excursionists--little _bourgeois_
families who made a great noise and ate everywhere. That added to their
ill-humor. They attributed to the poor people the impossibility of again
finding the carelessness of their first walk. But they talked, they
took great pains to find subjects of conversation; they were afraid of
finding that they had nothing to say to each other. Otto displayed his
school-learning; Jean-Christophe entered into technical explanations of
musical compositions and violin-playing. They oppressed each other; they
crushed each other by talking; and they never stopped talking, trembling
lest they should, for then there opened before them abysses of silence
which horrified them. Otto came near to weeping, and Jean-Christophe was
near leaving him and running away as hard as he could, he was so bored and
ashamed.
Only an hour before they had to take the train again did they thaw. In the
depths of the woods a dog was barking; he was hunting on his own account.
Jean-Christophe proposed that they should hide by his path to try and see
his quarry. They ran into the midst of the thicket. The dog came near them,
and then went away again. They went to right and left, went forward and
doubled. The barking grew louder: the dog was choking with impatience in
his lust for slaughter. He came near once more. Jean-Christophe and Otto,
lying on the dead leaves in the rut of a path, waited and held their
breath. The barking stopped; the dog had lost the scent. They heard his yap
once again in the distance; then silence came upon the woods. Not a sound,
only the mysterious hum of millions of creatures, insects, and creeping
things, moving unceasingly, destroying the forest--the measured breathing
of death, which never stops. The boys listened, they did not stir. Just
when they got up, disappointed, and said, "It is all over; he will not
come!" a little hare plunged out of the thicket. He came straight upon
them. They saw him at the same moment, and gave a cry of joy. The hare
turned in his tracks and jumped aside. They saw him dash into the brushwood
head over heels. The stirring of the rumpled leaves vanished away like a
ripple on the face of waters. Although they were sorry for having cried
out, the adventure filled them with joy. They rocked with laughter as they
thought of the hare's terrified leap, and Jean-Christophe imitated it
grotesquely. Otto did the same. Then they chased each other. Otto was the
hare, Jean-Christophe the dog. They plunged through woods and meadows,
dashing through hedges and leaping ditches. A peasant shouted at them,
because they had rushed over a field of rye. They did not stop to hear him.
Jean-Christophe imitated the hoarse barking of the dog to such perfection
that Otto laughed until he cried. At last they rolled down a slope,
shouting like mad things. When they could not utter another sound they sat
up and looked at each other, with tears of laughter in their eyes. They
were quite happy and pleased with themselves. They were no longer trying to
play the heroic friend; they were frankly what they were--two boys.
They came back arm-in-arm, singing senseless songs, and yet, when they were
on the point of returning to the town, they thought they had better resume
their pose, and under the last tree of the woods they carved their initials
intertwined. But then good temper had the better of their sentimentality,
and in the train they shouted with laughter whenever they looked at
each other. They parted assuring each other that they had had a "hugely
delightful" (_kolossal entzückend_) day, and that conviction gained with
them when they were alone once more.
* * * * *
They resumed their work of construction more patient and ingenious even
than that of the bees, for of a few mediocre scraps of memory they
fashioned a marvelous image of themselves and their friendship. After
having idealized each other during the week, they met again on the Sunday,
and in spite of the discrepancy between the truth and their illusion, they
got used to not noticing it and to twisting things to fit in with their
desires.
They were proud of being friends. The very contrast of their natures
brought them together. Jean-Christophe knew nothing so beautiful as Otto.
His fine hands, his lovely hair, his fresh complexion, his shy speech,
the politeness of his manners, and his scrupulous care of his appearance
delighted him. Otto was subjugated by Jean-Christophe's brimming strength
and independence. Accustomed by age-old inheritance to religious respect
for all authority, he took a fearful joy in the company of a comrade in
whose nature was so little reverence for the established order of things.
He had a little voluptuous thrill of terror whenever he heard him decry
every reputation in the town, and even mimic the Grand Duke himself.
Jean-Christophe knew the fascination that he exercised over his friend,
and used to exaggerate his aggressive temper. Like some old revolutionary,
he hewed away at social conventions and the laws of the State. Otto would
listen, scandalized and delighted. He used timidly to try and join in, but
he was always careful to look round to see if any one could hear.
Jean-Christophe never failed, when they walked together, to leap the fences
of a field whenever he saw a board forbidding it, or he would pick fruit
over the walls of private grounds. Otto was in terror lest they should be
discovered. But such feelings had for him an exquisite savor, and in the
evening, when he had returned, he would think himself a hero. He admired
Jean-Christophe fearfully. His instinct of obedience found a satisfying
quality in a friendship in which he had only to acquiesce in the will of
his friend. Jean-Christophe never put him to the trouble of coming to a
decision. He decided everything, decreed the doings of the day, decreed
even the ordering of life, making plans, which admitted of no discussion,
for Otto's future, just as he did for his own family. Otto fell in
with them, though he was a little put aback by hearing Jean-Christophe
dispose of his fortune for the building later on of a theater of his own
contriving. But, intimidated by his friend's imperious tones, he did not
protest, being convinced also by his friend's conviction that the money
amassed by _Commerzienrath_ Oscar Diener could be put to no nobler use.
Jean-Christophe never for a moment had any idea that he might be violating
Otto's will. He was instinctively a despot, and never imagined that his
friend's wishes might be different from his own. Had Otto expressed a
desire different from his own, he would not have hesitated to sacrifice his
own personal preference. He would have sacrificed even more for him. He was
consumed by the desire to run some risk for him. He wished passionately
that there might appear some opportunity of putting his friendship to the
test. When they were out walking he used to hope that they might meet some
danger, so that he might fling himself forward to face it. He would have
loved to die for Otto. Meanwhile, he watched over him with a restless
solicitude, gave him his hand in awkward places, as though he were a girl.
He was afraid that he might be tired, afraid that he might be hot, afraid
that he might be cold. When they sat down under a tree he took off his coat
to put it about his friend's shoulders; when they walked he carried his
cloak. He would have carried Otto himself. He used to devour him with his
eyes like a lover, and, to tell the truth, he was in love.
He did not know it, not knowing yet what love was. But sometimes, when they
were together, he was overtaken by a strange unease--the same that had
choked him on that first day of their friendship in the pine-woods--and the
blood would rush to his face and set his cheeks aflame. He was afraid. By
an instinctive unanimity the two boys used furtively to separate and run
away from each other, and one would lag behind on the road. They would
pretend to be busy looking for blackberries in the hedges, and they did not
know what it was that so perturbed them.
But it was in their letters especially that their feelings flew high. They
were not then in any danger of being contradicted by facts, and nothing
could check their illusions or intimidate them. They wrote to each other
two or three times a week in a passionately lyric style. They hardly ever
spoke of real happenings or common things; they raised great problems in an
apocalyptic manner, which passed imperceptibly from enthusiasm to despair.
They called each other, "My blessing, my hope, my beloved, my Self." They
made a fearful hash of the word "Soul." They painted in tragic colors the
sadness of their lot, and were desolate at having brought into the
existence of their friend the sorrows of their existence.
"I am sorry, my love," wrote Jean-Christophe, "for the pain which I bring
you. I cannot bear that you should suffer. It must not be. _I will not have
it_." (He underlined the words with a stroke of the pen that dug into the
paper.) "If you suffer, where shall I find strength to live? I have no
happiness but in you. Oh, be happy! I will gladly take all the burden of
sorrow upon myself! Think of me! Love me! I have such great need of being
loved. From your love there comes to me a warmth which gives me life. If
you knew how I shiver! There is winter and a biting wind in my heart. I
embrace your soul."
"My thought kisses yours," replied Otto.
"I take your face in my hands," was Jean-Christophe's answer, "and what I
have not done and will not do with my lips I do with all my being. I kiss
you as I love you, Prudence!",
Otto pretended to doubt him.
"Do you love me as much as I love you?"
"O God," wrote Jean-Christophe, "not as much, but ten a hundred, a thousand
times more! What! Do you not feel it? What would you have me do to stir
your heart?"
"What a lovely friendship is ours!" sighed Otto. "Was, there ever its like
in history? It is sweet and fresh as a dream. If only it does not pass
away! If you were to cease to love me!"
"How stupid you are, my beloved!" replied Jean-Christophe. "Forgive me, but
your weakling fear enrages me. How can you ask whether I shall cease to
love you! For me to live is to love you. Death is powerless against my
love. You yourself could do nothing if you wished to destroy it. Even if
you betrayed me, even if you rent my heart, I should die with a blessing
upon you for the love with which you fill me. Once for all, then, do not be
uneasy, and vex me no more with these cowardly doubts!"
But a week later it was he who wrote:
"It is three days now since I heard a word fall from your lips. I tremble.
Would you forget me? My blood freezes at the thought.... Yes, doubtless....
The other day only I saw your coldness towards me. You love me no longer!
You are thinking of leaving me!... Listen! If you forget me, if you ever
betray me, I will kill you like a dog!"
"You do me wrong, my dear heart," groaned Otto. "You draw tears from me. I
do not deserve this. But you can do as you will. You have such rights over
me that, if you were to break my soul, there would always be a spark left
to live and love you always!"
"Heavenly powers!" cried Jean-Christophe. "I have made my friend weep!...
Heap insults on me, beat me, trample me underfoot! I am a wretch! I do not
deserve your love!"
They had special ways of writing the address on their letters, of placing
the stamp--upside down, askew, at bottom in a corner of the envelope--to
distinguish their letters from those which they wrote to persons who did
not matter. These childish secrets had the charm of the sweet mysteries of
love.
* * * * *
One day, as he was returning from a lesson, Jean-Christophe saw Otto
in the street with a boy of his own age. They were laughing and talking
familiarly. Jean-Christophe went pale, and followed them with his eyes
until they had disappeared round the corner of the street. They had not
seen him. He went home. It was as though a cloud had passed over the sun;
all was dark.
When they met on the following Sunday, Jean-Christophe said nothing at
first; but after they had been walking for half an hour he said in a
choking voice:
"I saw you on Wednesday in the _Königgasse_."
"Ah!" said Otto.
And he blushed.
Jean-Christophe went on:
"You were not alone."
"No," said Otto; "I was with some one."
Jean-Christophe swallowed down his spittle and asked in a voice which he
strove to make careless:
"Who was it?"
"My cousin Franz."
"Ah!" said Jean-Christophe; and after a moment: "You have never said
anything about him to me."
"He lives at Rheinbach."
"Do you see him often?"
"He comes here sometimes."
"And you, do you go and stay with him?"
"Sometimes."
"Ah!" said Jean-Christophe again.
Otto, who was not sorry to turn the conversation, pointed out a bird who
was pecking at a tree. They talked of other things. Ten minutes later
Jean-Christophe broke out again:
"Are you friends with him?"
"With whom?" asked Otto.
(He knew perfectly who was meant.)
"With your cousin."
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh, nothing!"
Otto did not like his cousin much, for he used to bother him with bad
jokes; but a strange malign instinct made him add a few moments later:
"He is very nice."
"Who?" asked Jean-Christophe.
(He knew quite well who was meant.)
"Franz."
Otto waited for Jean-Christophe to say something, but he seemed not to have
heard. He was cutting a switch from a hazel-tree. Otto went on:
"He is amusing. He has all sorts of stories."
Jean-Christophe whistled carelessly.
Otto renewed the attack:
"And he is so clever ... and distinguished!..."
Jean-Christophe shrugged his shoulders as though to say:
"What interest can this person have for me?"
And as Otto, piqued, began to go on, he brutally cut him short, and pointed
out a spot to which to run.
They did not touch on the subject again the whole afternoon, but they were
frigid, affecting an exaggerated politeness which was unusual for them,
especially for Jean-Christophe. The words stuck in his throat. At last he
could contain himself no longer, and in the middle of the road he turned to
Otto, who was lagging five yards behind. He took him fiercely by the hands,
and let loose upon him:
"Listen, Otto! I will not--I will not let you be so friendly with Franz,
because ... because you are my friend, and I will not let you love any one
more than me! I will not! You see, you are everything to me! You cannot ...
you must not!... If I lost you, there would be nothing left but death. I do
not know what I should do. I should kill myself; I should kill you! No,
forgive me!..."
Tears fell from his eyes.
Otto, moved and frightened by the sincerity of such grief, growling out
threats, made haste to swear that he did not and never would love anybody
so much as Jean-Christophe, that Franz was nothing to him, and that he
would not see him again if Jean-Christophe wished it. Jean-Christophe drank
in his words, and his heart took new life. He laughed and breathed heavily;
he thanked Otto effusively. He was ashamed of having made such a scene, but
he was relieved of a great weight. They stood face to face and looked at
each other, not moving, and holding hands. They were very happy and very
much embarrassed. They became silent; then they began to talk again, and
found their old gaiety. They felt more at one than ever.
But it was not the last scene of the kind. Now that Otto felt his power
over Jean-Christophe, he was tempted to abuse it. He knew his sore spot,
and was irresistibly tempted to place his finger on it. Not that he had
any pleasure in Jean-Christophe's anger; on the contrary, it made him
unhappy--but he felt his power by making Jean-Christophe suffer. He was not
bad; he had the soul of a girl.
In spite of his promises, he continued to appear arm in arm with Franz or
some other comrade. They made a great noise between them, and he used to
laugh in an affected way. When Jean-Christophe reproached him with it,
he used to titter and pretend not to take him seriously, until, seeing
Jean-Christophe's eyes change and his lips tremble with anger, he would
change his tone, and fearfully promise not to do it again, and the next day
he would do it. Jean-Christophe would write him furious letters, in which
he called him:
"Scoundrel! Let me never hear of you again! I do not know you! May the
devil take you and all dogs of your kidney!"
But a tearful word from Otto, or, as he ever did, the sending of a flower
as a token of his eternal constancy, was enough for Jean-Christophe to be
plunged in remorse, and to write:
"My angel, I am mad! Forget my idiocy. You are the best of men. Your little
finger alone is worth more than all stupid Jean-Christophe. You have the
treasures of an ingenuous and delicate tenderness. I kiss your flower with
tears in my eyes. It is there on my heart. I thrust it into my skin with
blows of my fist. I would that it could make me bleed, so that I might the
more feel your exquisite goodness and my own infamous folly!..."
But they began to weary of each other. It is false to pretend that little
quarrels feed friendship. Jean-Christophe was sore against Otto for the
injustice that Otto made him be guilty of. He tried to argue with himself;
he laid the blame upon his own despotic temper. His loyal and eager nature,
brought for the first time to the test of love, gave itself utterly, and
demanded a gift as utter without the reservation of one particle of the
heart. He admitted no sharing in friendship. Being ready to sacrifice all
for his friend, he thought it right and even necessary that his friend
should wholly sacrifice himself and everything for him. But he was
beginning to feel that the world was not built on the model of his own
inflexible character, and that he was asking things which others could not
give. Then he tried to submit. He blamed himself, he regarded himself as an
egoist, who had no right to encroach upon the liberty of his friend, and
to monopolize his affection. He did sincerely endeavor to leave him free,
whatever it might cost himself. In a spirit of humiliation he did set
himself to pledge Otto not to neglect Franz; he tried to persuade himself
that he was glad to see him finding pleasure in society other than his own.
But when Otto, who was not deceived, maliciously obeyed him, he could not
help lowering at him, and then he broke out again.