himself; but what he could not stomach was the lie. Otto was neither liar
nor hypocrite, but it was as difficult for him to tell the truth as for
a stutterer to pronounce words. What he said was never altogether true
nor altogether false. Either from timidity or from uncertainty of his own
feelings he rarely spoke definitely. His answers were equivocal, and, above
all, upon every occasion he made mystery and was secret in a way that set
Jean-Christophe beside himself. When he was caught tripping, or was caught
in what, according to the conventions of their friendship, was a fault,
instead of admitting it he would go on denying it and telling absurd
stories. One day Jean-Christophe, exasperated, struck him. He thought it
must be the end of their friendship and that Otto would never forgive him;
but after sulking for a few hours Otto came back as though nothing had
happened. He had no resentment for Jean-Christophe's violence--perhaps even
it was not unpleasing to him, and had a certain charm for him--and yet
he resented Jean-Christophe letting himself be tricked, gulping down all
his mendacities. He despised him a little, and thought himself superior.
Jean-Christophe, for his part, resented Otto's receiving blows without
revolting.
They no longer saw each other with the eyes of those first days. Their
failings showed up in full light. Otto found Jean-Christophe's independence
less charming. Jean-Christophe was a tiresome companion when they went
walking. He had no sort of concern for correctness. He used to dress as he
liked, take off his coat, open his waistcoat, walk with open collar, roll
up his shirt-sleeves, put his hat on the end of his stick, and fling out
his chest in the air. He used to swing his arms as he walked, whistle, and
sing at the top of his voice. He used to be red in the face, sweaty, and
dusty. He looked like a peasant returning from a fair. The aristocratic
Otto used to be mortified at being seen in his company. When he saw a
carriage coming he used to contrive to lag some ten paces behind, and to
look as though he were walking alone.
Jean-Christophe was no less embarrassing company when he began to talk at
an inn or in a railway-carriage when they were returning home. He used to
talk loudly, and say anything that came into his head, and treat Otto with
a disgusting familiarity. He used to express opinions quite recklessly
concerning people known to everybody, or even about the appearance of
people sitting only a few yards away from him, or he would enter into
intimate details concerning his health and domestic affairs. It was useless
for Otto to roll his eyes and to make signals of alarm. Jean-Christophe
seemed not to notice them, and no more controlled himself than if he had
been alone. Otto would see smiles on the faces of his neighbors, and would
gladly have sunk into the ground. He thought Jean-Christophe coarse, and
could not understand how he could ever have found delight in him.
What was most serious was that Jean-Christophe was just as reckless
and indifferent concerning all the hedges, fences, inclosures, walls,
prohibitions of entry, threats of fines, _Verbot_ of all sorts, and
everything that sought to confine his liberty and protect the sacred rights
of property against it. Otto lived in fear from moment to moment, and all
his protests were useless. Jean-Christophe grew worse out of bravado.
One day, when Jean-Christophe, with Otto at his heels, was walking
perfectly at home across a private wood, in spite of, or because of, the
walls fortified with broken bottles which they had had to clear, they found
themselves suddenly face to face with a gamekeeper, who let fire a volley
of oaths at them, and after keeping them for some time under a threat of
legal proceedings, packed them off in the most ignominious fashion. Otto
did not shine under this ordeal. He thought that he was already in jail,
and wept, stupidly protesting that he had gone in by accident, and that he
had followed Jean-Christophe without knowing whither he was going. When
he saw that he was safe, instead of being glad, he bitterly reproached
Jean-Christophe. He complained that Jean-Christophe had brought him
into trouble. Jean-Christophe quelled him with a look, and called him
"Lily-liver!" There was a quick passage of words. Otto would have left
Jean-Christophe if he had known how to find the way home. He was forced to
follow him, but they affected to pretend that they were not together.
A storm was brewing. In their anger they had not seen it coming. The baking
countryside resounded with the cries of insects. Suddenly all was still.
They only grew aware of the silence after a few minutes. Their ears buzzed.
They raised their eyes; the sky was black; huge, heavy, livid clouds
overcast it. They came up from every side like a cavalry-charge. They
seemed all to be hastening towards an invisible point, drawn by a gap in
the sky. Otto, in terror, dare not tell his fears, and Jean-Christophe took
a malignant pleasure in pretending not to notice anything. But without
saying a word they drew nearer together. They were alone in the wide
country. Silence. Not a wind stirred,--hardly a fevered tremor that made
the little leaves of the trees shiver now and then. Suddenly a whirling
wind raised the dust, twisted the trees and lashed them furiously. And the
silence came again, more terrible than before. Otto, in a trembling voice,
spoke at last.
"It is a storm. We must go home."
Jean-Christophe said:
"Let us go home."
But it was too late. A blinding, savage light flashed, the heavens roared,
the vault of clouds rumbled. In a moment they were wrapped about by the
hurricane, maddened by the lightning, deafened by the thunder, drenched
from head to foot. They were in deserted country, half an hour from the
nearest house. In the lashing rain, in the dim light, came the great red
flashes of the storm. They tried to run but, their wet clothes clinging,
they could hardly walk. Their shoes slipped on their feet, the water
trickled down their bodies. It was difficult to breathe. Otto's teeth
were chattering, and he was mad with rage. He said biting things to
Jean-Christophe. He wanted to stop; he declared that it was dangerous to
walk; he threatened to sit down on the road, to sleep on the soil in the
middle of the plowed fields. Jean-Christophe made no reply. He went on
walking, blinded by the wind, the rain, and the lightning; deafened by the
noise; a little uneasy, but unwilling to admit it.
And suddenly it was all over. The storm had passed, as it had come. But
they were both in a pitiful condition. In truth, Jean-Christophe was, as
usual, so disheveled that a little more disorder made hardly any difference
to him. But Otto, so neat, so careful of his appearance, cut a sorry
figure. It was as though he had just taken a bath in his clothes, and
Jean-Christophe, turning and seeing him, could not help roaring with
laughter. Otto was so exhausted that he could not even be angry.
Jean-Christophe took pity and talked gaily to him. Otto replied with a look
of fury. Jean-Christophe made him stop at a farm. They dried themselves
before a great fire, and drank hot wine. Jean-Christophe thought the
adventure funny, and tried to laugh at it; but that was not at all to
Otto's taste, and he was morose and silent for the rest of their walk. They
came back sulking and did not shake hands when they parted.
As a result of this prank they did not see each other for more than a week.
They were severe in their judgment of each other. But after inflicting
punishment on themselves by depriving themselves of one of their Sunday
walks, they got so bored that their rancor died away. Jean-Christophe made
the first advances as usual. Otto condescended to meet them, and they made
peace.
In spite of their disagreement it was impossible for them to do without
each other. They had many faults; they were both egoists. But their egoism
was naïve; it knew not the self-seeking of maturity which makes it so
repulsive; it knew not itself even; it was almost lovable, and did not
prevent them from sincerely loving each other! Young Otto used to weep on
his pillow as he told himself stories of romantic devotion of which he was
the hero; lie used to invent pathetic adventures, in which he was strong,
valiant, intrepid, and protected Jean-Christophe, whom he used to imagine
that he adored. Jean-Christophe never saw or heard anything beautiful or
strange without thinking: "If only Otto were here!" He carried the image
of his friend into his whole life, and that image used to be transfigured,
and become so gentle that, in spite of all that he knew about Otto, it used
to intoxicate him. Certain words of Otto's which he used to remember long
after they were spoken, and to embellish by the way, used to make him
tremble with emotion. They imitated each other. Otto aped Jean-Christophe's
manners, gestures, and writing. Jean-Christophe was sometimes irritated
by the shadow which repeated every word that he said and dished up his
thoughts as though they were its own. But he did not see that he himself
was imitating Otto, and copying his way of dressing, walking, and
pronouncing certain words. They were under a fascination. They were infused
one in the other; their hearts were overflowing with tenderness. They
trickled over with it on every side like a fountain. Each imagined that his
friend was the cause of it. They did not know that it was the waking of
their adolescence.
* * * * *
Jean-Christophe, who never distrusted any one, used to leave his papers
lying about. But an instinctive modesty made him keep together the drafts
of the letters which he scrawled to Otto, and the replies. But he did not
lock them up; he just placed them between the leaves of one of his
music-books, where he felt certain that no one would look for them. He
reckoned without his brothers' malice.
He had seen them for some time laughing and whispering and looking at
him; they were declaiming to each other fragments of speech which threw
them into wild laughter. Jean-Christophe could not catch the words, and,
following his usual tactics with them, he feigned utter indifference to
everything they might do or say. A few words roused his attention; he
thought he recognized them. Soon he was left without doubt that they had
read his letters. But when he challenged Ernest and Rodolphe, who were
calling each other "My dear soul," with pretended earnestness, he could
get nothing from them. The little wretches pretended not to understand,
and said that they had the right to call each other whatever they liked.
Jean-Christophe, who had found all the letters in their places, did not
insist farther.
Shortly afterwards he caught Ernest in the act of thieving; the little
beast was rummaging in the drawer of the chest in which Louisa kept her
money. Jean-Christophe shook him, and took advantage of the opportunity to
tell him everything that he had stored up against him. He enumerated, in
terms of scant courtesy, the misdeeds of Ernest, and it was not a short
catalogue. Ernest took the lecture in bad part; he replied impudently
that Jean-Christophe had nothing to reproach him with, and he hinted at
unmentionable things in his brother's friendship with Otto. Jean-Christophe
did not understand; but when he grasped that Otto was being dragged into
the quarrel he demanded an explanation of Ernest. The boy tittered; then,
when he saw Jean-Christophe white with anger, he refused to say any more.
Jean-Christophe saw that he would obtain nothing in that way; he sat down,
shrugged his shoulders, and affected a profound contempt for Ernest.
Ernest, piqued by this, was impudent again; he set himself to hurt his
brother, and set forth a litany of things each more cruel and more vile
than the last. Jean-Christophe kept a tight hand on himself. When at last
he did understand, he saw red; he leaped from his chair. Ernest had no time
to cry out. Jean-Christophe had hurled himself on him, and rolled with him
into the middle of the room, and beat his head against the tiles. On the
frightful cries of the victim, Louisa, Melchior, everybody, came running.
They rescued Ernest in a parlous state. Jean-Christophe would not loose his
prey; they had to beat and beat him. They called him a savage beast, and he
looked it. His eyes were bursting from his head, he was grinding his teeth,
and his only thought was to hurl himself again on Ernest. When they asked
him what had happened, his fury increased, and he cried out that he would
kill him. Ernest also refused to tell.
Jean-Christophe could not eat nor sleep. He was shaking with fever,
and wept in his bed. It was not only for Otto that he was suffering. A
revolution was taking place in him. Ernest had no idea of the hurt that
he had been able to do his brother. Jean-Christophe was at heart of a
puritanical intolerance, which could not admit the dark ways of life, and
was discovering them one by one with horror. At fifteen, with his free life
and strong instincts, he remained strangely simple. His natural purity and
ceaseless toil had protected him. His brother's words had opened up abyss
on abyss before him. Never would he have conceived such infamies, and now
that the idea of it had come to him, all his joy in loving and being loved
was spoiled. Not only his friendship with Otto, but friendship itself was
poisoned.
It was much worse when certain sarcastic allusions made him think, perhaps
wrongly, that he was the object of the unwholesome curiosity of the
town, and especially, when, some time afterwards, Melchior made a remark
about his walks with Otto. Probably there was no malice in Melchior, but
Jean-Christophe, on the watch, read hidden meanings into every word, and
almost he thought himself guilty. At the same time Otto was passing through
a similar crisis.
They tried still to see each other in secret. But it was impossible for
them to regain the carelessness of their old relation. Their frankness was
spoiled. The two boys who loved each other with a tenderness so fearful
that they had never dared exchange a fraternal kiss, and had imagined that
there could be no greater happiness than in seeing each other, and in being
friends, and sharing each other's dreams, now felt that they were stained
and spotted by the suspicion of evil minds. They came to see evil even in
the most innocent acts: a look, a hand-clasp--they blushed, they had evil
thoughts. Their relation became intolerable.
Without saying anything they saw each other less often. They tried writing
to each other, but they set a watch upon their expressions. Their letters
became cold and insipid. They grew disheartened. Jean-Christophe excused
himself on the ground of his work, Otto on the ground of being too busy,
and their correspondence ceased. Soon afterwards Otto left for the
University, and the friendship which had lightened a few months of their
lives died down and out.
And also, a new love, of which this had been only the forerunner, took
possession of Jean-Christophe's heart, and made every other light seem pale
by its side.
III
MINNA
Four or five months before these events Frau Josephs von Kerich, widow of
Councilor Stephan von Kerich, had left Berlin, where her husband's duties
had hitherto detained them, and settled down with her daughter in the
little Rhine town, in her native country. She had an old house with a
large garden, almost a park, which sloped down to the river, not far from
Jean-Christophe's home. From his attic Jean-Christophe could see the heavy
branches of the trees hanging over the walls, and the high peak of the red
roof with its mossy tiles. A little sloping alley, with hardly room to
pass, ran alongside the park to the right; from there, by climbing a post,
you could look over the wall. Jean-Christophe did not fail to make use of
it. He could then see the grassy avenues, the lawns like open meadows, the
trees interlacing and growing wild, and the white front of the house with
its shutters obstinately closed. Once or twice a year a gardener made the
rounds, and aired the house. But soon Nature resumed her sway over the
garden, and silence reigned over all.
That silence impressed Jean-Christophe. He used often stealthily to climb
up to his watch-tower, and as he grew taller, his eyes, then his nose, then
his mouth reached up to the top of the wall; now he could put his arms over
it if he stood on tiptoe, and, in spite of the discomfort of that position,
he used to stay so, with his chin on the wall, looking, listening, while
the evening unfolded over the lawns its soft waves of gold, which lit up
with bluish rays the shade of the pines. There he could forget himself
until he heard footsteps approaching in the street. The night scattered its
scents over the garden: lilac in spring, acacia in summer, dead leaves in
the autumn. When Jean-Christophe, was on his way home in the evening from
the Palace, however weary he might be, he used to stand by the door to
drink in the delicious scent, and it was hard for him to go back to the
smells of his room. And often he had played--when he used to play--in
the little square with its tufts of grass between the stones, before the
gateway of the house of the Kerichs. On each side of the gate grew a
chestnut-tree a hundred years old; his grandfather used to come and sit
beneath them, and smoke his pipe, and the children used to use the nuts for
missiles, and toys.
One morning, as he went up the alley, he climbed up the post as usual. He
was thinking of other things, and looked absently. He was just going to
climb down when he felt that there was something unusual about it. He
looked towards the house. The windows were open; the sun was shining into
them and, although no one was to be seen, the old place seemed to have been
roused from its fifteen years' sleep, and to be smiling in its awakening.
Jean-Christophe went home uneasy in his mind.
At dinner his father talked of what was the topic of the neighborhood: the
arrival of Frau Kerich and her daughter with an incredible quantity of
luggage. The chestnut square was filled with rascals who had turned up to
help unload the carts. Jean-Christophe was excited by the news, which, in
his limited life, was an important event, and he returned to his work,
trying to imagine the inhabitants of the enchanted house from his father's
story, as usual hyperbolical. Then he became absorbed in his work, and had
forgotten the whole affair when, just as he was about to go home in the
evening, he remembered it all, and he was impelled by curiosity to climb
his watch-tower to spy out what might be toward within the walls. He saw
nothing but the quiet avenue, in which the motionless trees seemed to be
sleeping in the last rays of the sun. In a few moments he had forgotten why
he was looking, and abandoned himself as he always did to the sweetness of
the silence. That strange place--standing erect, perilously balanced on the
top of a post--was meet for dreams. Coming from the ugly alley, stuffy and
dark, the sunny gardens were of a magical radiance. His spirit wandered
freely through these regions of harmony, and music sang in him; they lulled
him and he forgot time and material things, and was only concerned to miss
none of the whisperings of his heart.
So he dreamed open-eyed and open-mouthed, and he could not have told how
long he had been dreaming, for he saw nothing. Suddenly his heart leaped.
In front of him, at a bend in an avenue, were two women's faces looking at
him. One, a young lady in black, with fine irregular features and fair
hair, tail, elegant, with carelessness and indifference in the poise of her
head, was looking at him with kind, laughing eyes. The other, a girl of
fifteen, also in deep mourning, looked as though she were going to burst
out into a fit of wild laughter; she was standing a little behind her
mother, who, without looking at her, signed to her to be quiet. She covered
her lips with her hands, as if she were hard put to it not to burst out
laughing. She was a little creature with a fresh face, white, pink, and
round-cheeked; she had a plump little nose, a plump little mouth, a plump
little chin, firm eyebrows, bright eyes, and a mass of fair hair plaited
and wound round her head in a crown to show her rounded neck and her smooth
white forehead--a Cranach face.
Jean-Christophe was turned to stone by this apparition. He could not go
away, but stayed, glued to his post, with his mouth wide open. It was only
when he saw the young lady coming towards him with her kindly mocking smile
that he wrenched himself away, and jumped--tumbled--down into the alley,
dragging with him pieces of plaster from the wall. He heard a kind voice
calling him, "Little boy!" and a shout of childish laughter, clear and
liquid as the song of a bird. He found himself in the alley on hands and
knees, and, after a moment's bewilderment, he ran away as hard as he could
go, as though he was afraid of being pursued. He was ashamed, and his shame
kept bursting upon him again when he was alone in his room at home. After
that he dared not go down the alley, fearing oddly that they might be lying
in wait for him. When he had to go by the house, he kept close to the
walls, lowered his head, and almost ran without ever looking back. At the
same time he never ceased to think of the two faces that he had seen; he
used to go up to the attic, taking off his shoes so as not to be heard,
and to look his hardest out through the skylight in the direction of the
Kerichs' house and park, although he knew perfectly well that it was
impossible to see anything but the tops of the trees and the topmost
chimneys.
About a month later, at one of the weekly concerts of the _Hof Musik
Verein_, he was playing a concerto for piano and orchestra of his own
composition. He had reached the last movement when he chanced to see in
the box facing him Frau and Fräulein Kerich looking at him. He so little
expected to see them that he was astounded, and almost missed out his
reply to the orchestra. He went on playing mechanically to the end of
the piece. When it was finished he saw, although he was not looking in
their direction, that Frau and Fräulein Kerich were applauding a little
exaggeratedly, as though they wished him to see that they were applauding.
He hurried away from the stage. As he was leaving the theater he saw Frau
Kerich in the lobby, separated from him by several rows of people, and she
seemed to be waiting for him to pass. It was impossible for him not to see
her, but he pretended not to do so, and, brushing his way through, he left
hurriedly by the stage-door of the theater. Then he was angry with himself,
for he knew quite well that Frau Kerich meant no harm. But he knew that in
the same situation he would do the same again. He was in terror of meeting
her in the street. Whenever he saw at a distance a figure that resembled
her, he used to turn aside and take another road.
* * * * *
It was she who came to him. She sought him out at home.
One morning when he came back to dinner Louisa proudly told him that a
lackey in breeches and livery had left a letter for him, and she gave him
a large black-edged envelope, on the back of which was engraved the Kerich
arms. Jean-Christophe opened it, and trembled as he read these words:
"Frau Josepha von Kerich requests the pleasure of _Hof Musicus_
Jean-Christophe Krafft's company at tea to-day at half-past five."
"I shall not go," declared Jean-Christophe.
"What!" cried Louisa. "I said that you would go."
Jean-Christophe made a scene, and reproached his mother with meddling in
affairs that were no concern of hers.
"The servant waited for a reply. I said that you were free to-day. You have
nothing to do then."
In vain did Jean-Christophe lose his temper, and swear that he would not
go; he could not get out of it now. When the appointed time came, he got
ready fuming; in his heart of hearts he was not sorry that chance had so
done violence to his whims.
Frau von Kerich had had no difficulty in recognizing in the pianist at the
concert the little savage whose shaggy head had appeared over her garden
wall on the day of her arrival. She had made inquiries about him of her
neighbors, and what she learned about Jean-Christophe's family and the
boy's brave and difficult life had roused interest in him, and a desire to
talk to him.