falls into emptiness. A furious wind in the desert. Whence came this wind?
From what abyss came these desires that wrenched his body and mind? He was
like a bow stretched to breaking point by a strong hand,--to what end
unknown?--which then springs back like a piece of dead wood. Of what force
was he the prey? He dared not probe for it. He felt that he was beaten,
humiliated, and he would not face his defeat. He was weary and broken in
spirit. He understood now the people whom formerly he had despised: those
who will not seek awkward truth. In the empty hours, when he remembered
that time was passing, his work neglected, the future lost, he was frozen
with terror. But there was no reaction: and his cowardice found excuses in
desperate affirmation of the void in which he lived: he took a bitter
delight in abandoning himself to it like a wreck on the waters. What was
the good of fighting? There was nothing beautiful, nor good; neither God,
nor life, nor being of any sort. In the street as he walked, suddenly the
earth would sink away from him: there was neither ground, nor air, nor
light, nor himself: there was nothing. He would fall, his head would drag
him down, face forwards: he could hardly hold himself up; he was on the
point of collapse. He thought he was going to die, suddenly, struck down.
He thought he was dead....
Christophe was growing a new skin. Christophe was growing a new soul. And
seeing the worn out and rotten soul of his childhood falling away he never
dreamed that he was taking on a new one, young and stronger. As through
life we change our bodies, so also do we change our souls: and the
metamorphosis does not always take place slowly over many days; there are
times of crisis when the whole is suddenly renewed. The adult changes his
soul. The old soul that is cast off dies. In those hours of anguish we
think that all is at an end. And the whole thing begins again. A life dies.
Another life has already come into being.
One night he was alone in his room, with his elbow on his desk under the
light of a candle. His back was turned to the window. He was not working.
He had not been able to work for weeks. Everything was twisting and turning
in his head. He had brought everything under scrutiny at once: religion,
morals, art, the whole of life. And in the general dissolution of his
thoughts was no method, no order: he had plunged into the reading of books
taken haphazard from his grandfather's heterogeneous library or from
Vogel's collection of books: books of theology, science, philosophy, an odd
lot, of which he understood nothing, having everything to learn: he could
not finish any of them, and in the middle of them went off on divagations,
endless whimsies, which left him weary, empty, and in mortal sorrow.
So, that evening, he was sunk in an exhausted torpor. The whole house was
asleep. His window was open. Not a breath came up from the yard. Thick
clouds filled the sky. Christophe mechanically watched the candle burn away
at the bottom of the candlestick. He could not go to bed. He had no thought
of anything. He felt the void growing, growing from moment to moment. He
tried not to see the abyss that drew him to its brink: and in spite of
himself he leaned over and his eyes gazed into the depths of the night. In
the void, chaos was stirring, and faint sounds came from the darkness.
Agony filled him: a shiver ran down his spine: his skin tingled: he
clutched the table so as not to fall. Convulsively he awaited nameless
things, a miracle, a God....
Suddenly, like an opened sluice, in the yard behind him, a deluge of water,
a heavy rain, large drops, down pouring, fell. The still air quivered. The
dry, hard soil rang out like a bell. And the vast scent of the earth,
burning, warm as that of an animal, the smell of the flowers, fruit, and
amorous flesh rose in a spasm of fury and pleasure. Christophe, under
illusion, at fullest stretch, shook. He trembled.... The veil was rent. He
was blinded. By a flash of lightning, he saw, in the depths of the night,
he saw--he was God. God was in himself; He burst the ceiling of the room,
the walls of the house; He cracked the very bounds of existence. He filled
the sky, the universe, space. The world coursed through Him, like a
cataract. In the horror and ecstasy of that cataclysm, Christophe fell too,
swept along by the whirlwind which brushed away and crushed like straws the
laws of nature. He was breathless: he was drunk with the swift hurtling
down into God ... God-abyss! God-gulf! Fire of Being! Hurricane of life!
Madness of living,--aimless, uncontrolled, beyond reason,--for the fury of
living!
* * * * *
When the crisis was over, he fell into a deep sleep and slept as he had not
done for long enough. Next day when he awoke his head swam: he was as
broken as though he had been drunk. But in his inmost heart he had still a
beam of that somber and great light that had struck him down the night
before. He tried to relight it. In vain. The more he pursued it, the more
it eluded him. From that time on, all his energy was directed towards
recalling the vision of a moment. The endeavor was futile. Ecstasy does not
answer the bidding of the will.
But that mystic exaltation was not the only experience that he had of it:
it recurred several times, but never with the intensity of the first. It
came always at moments when Christophe was least expecting it, for a second
only, a time so short, so sudden,--no longer than a wink of an eye or a
raising of a hand--that the vision was gone before he could discover that
it was: and then he would wonder whether he had not dreamed it. After that
fiery bolt that had set the night aflame, it was a gleaming dust, shedding
fleeting sparks, which the eye could hardly see as they sped by. But they
reappeared more and more often: and in the end they surrounded Christophe
with a halo of perpetual misty dreams, in which his spirit melted.
Everything that distracted him in his state of semi-hallucination was an
irritation to him. It was impossible to work; he gave up thinking about it.
Society was odious to him; and more than any, that of his intimates, even
that of his mother, because they arrogated to themselves more rights over
his soul.
He left the house: he took to spending his days abroad, and never returned
until nightfall. He sought the solitude of the fields, and delivered
himself up to it, drank his fill of it, like a maniac who wishes not to be
disturbed by anything in the obsession of his fixed ideas.--But in the
great sweet air, in contact with the earth, his obsession relaxed, his
ideas ceased to appear like specters. His exaltation was no less: rather it
was heightened, but it was no longer a dangerous delirium of the mind but a
healthy intoxication of his whole being: body; and soul crazy in their
strength.
He rediscovered the world, as though he had never seen it. It was a new
childhood. It was as though a magic word had been uttered. An "Open
Sesame!"--Nature flamed with gladness. The sun boiled. The liquid sky ran
like a clear river. The earth steamed and cried aloud in delight. The
plants, the trees, the insects, all the innumerable creatures were like
dazzling tongues of flame in the fire of life writhing upwards. Everything
sang aloud in joy.
And that joy was his own. That strength was his own. He was no longer cut
off from the rest of the world. Till then, even in the happy days of
childhood, when he saw nature with ardent and delightful curiosity, all
creatures had seemed to him to be little worlds shut up, terrifying and
grotesque, unrelated to himself, and incomprehensible. He was not even sure
that they had feeling and life. They were strange machines. And sometimes
Christophe had even, with the unconscious cruelty of a child, dismembered
wretched insects without dreaming that they might suffer--for the pleasure
of watching their queer contortions. His uncle Gottfried, usually so calm,
had one day indignantly to snatch from his hands an unhappy fly that he was
torturing. The boy had tried to laugh at first: then he had burst into
tears, moved by his uncle's emotion: he began to understand that his victim
did really exist, as well as himself, and that he had committed a crime.
But if thereafter nothing would have induced him to do harm to the beasts,
he never felt any sympathy for them: he used to pass them by without ever
trying to feel what it was that worked their machinery: rather he was
afraid to think of it: it was something like a bad dream.--And now
everything was made plaint These humble, obscure creatures became in their
turn centers of light.
Lying on his belly in the grass where creatures swarmed, in the shade of
the trees that buzzed with insects, Christophe would watch the fevered
movements of the ants, the long-legged spiders, that seemed to dance as
they walked, the bounding grasshoppers, that leap aside, the heavy,
bustling beetles, and the naked worms, pink and glabrous, mottled with
white, or with his hands under his head and his eyes dosed he would listen
to the invisible orchestra, the roundelay of the frenzied insects circling
in a sunbeam about the scented pines, the trumpeting of the mosquitoes, the
organ, notes of the wasps, the brass of the wild bees humming like bells in
the tops of the trees, and the godlike whispering of the swaying trees, the
sweet moaning of the wind in the branches, the soft whispering of the
waving grass, like a breath of wind rippling the limpid surface of a lake,
like the rustling of a light dress and lovers footsteps coming near, and
passing, then lost upon the air.
He heard all these sounds and cries within himself. Through all these
creatures from the smallest to the greatest flowed the same river of life:
and in it he too swam. So, he was one of them, he was of their blood, and,
brotherly, he heard the echo of their sorrows and their joys: their
strength was merged is his like a river fed with thousands of streams. He
sank into them. His lungs were like to burst with the wind, too freely
blowing, too strong, that burst the windows and forced its way, into the
closed house of his suffocating heart. The change was too abrupt: after
finding everywhere a void, when he had been buried only in his own
existence, and had felt it slipping from him and dissolving like rain, now
everywhere he found infinite and unmeasured Being, now that he longed to
forget himself, to find rebirth in the universe. He seemed to have issued
from the grave. He swam voluptuously in life flowing free and full: and
borne on by its current he thought that he was free. He did not know that
he was less free than ever, that no creature is ever free, that even the
law that governs the universe is not free, that only death--perhaps--can
bring deliverance.
But the chrysalis issuing from its stifling sheath, joyously, stretched its
limbs in its new shape, and had no time as yet to mark the bounds of its
new prison.
* * * * *
There began a new cycle of days. Days of gold and fever, mysterious,
enchanted, like those of his childhood, when by one he discovered things
for the first time. From dawn to set of sun he lived in one long mirage. He
deserted all his business. The conscientious boy, who for years had never
missed a lesson, or an orchestra rehearsal, even when he was ill, was
forever finding paltry excuses for neglecting his work. He was not afraid
to lie. He had no remorse about it. The stoic principles of life, to which
he had hitherto delighted to bend his will, morality, duty, now seemed to
him to have no truth, nor reason. Their jealous despotism was smashed
against Nature. Human nature, healthy, strong, free, that alone was virtue:
to hell with all the rest! It provoked pitying laughter to see the little
peddling rules of prudence and policy which the world adorns with the name
of morality, while it pretends to inclose all life within them. A
preposterous mole-hill, an ant-like people! Life sees to it that they are
brought to reason. Life does but pass, and all is swept away....
Bursting with energy Christophe had moments when he was consumed with a
desire to destroy, to burn, to smash, to glut with actions blind and
uncontrolled the force which choked him. These outbursts usually ended in a
sharp reaction: he would weep, and fling himself down on the ground, and
kiss the earth, and try to dig into it with his teeth and hands, to feed
himself with it, to merge into it: he trembled then with fever and desire.
One evening he was walking in the outskirts of a wood. His eyes were
swimming with the light, his head was whirling: he was in that state of
exaltation when all creatures and things were transfigured. To that was
added the magic of the soft warm light of evening. Bays of purple and gold
hovered in the trees. From the meadows seemed to come a phosphorescent
glimmer. In a field near by a girl was making hay. In her blouse and short
skirt, with her arms and neck bare, she was raking the hay and heaping it
up. She had a short nose, wide cheeks, a round face, a handkerchief thrown
over her hair. The setting sun touched with red her sunburned skin, which,
like a piece of pottery, seemed to absorb the last beams of the day.
She fascinated Christophe. Leaning against a beech-tree he watched her come
towards the verge of the woods, eagerly, passionately. Everything else had
disappeared. She took no notice of him. For a moment she looked at him
cautiously: he saw her eyes blue and hard in her brown face. She passed so
near to him that, when she leaned down to gather up the hay, through her
open blouse he saw a soft down on her shoulders and back. Suddenly the
vague desire which was in him leaped forth. He hurled himself at her from
behind, seized her neck and waist, threw back her head and fastened his
lips upon hers. He kissed her dry, cracked lips until he came against her
teeth that bit him angrily. His hands ran over her rough arms, over her
blouse wet with her sweat. She struggled. He held her tighter, he wished to
strangle her. She broke loose, cried out, spat, wiped her lips with her
hand, and hurled insults at him. He let her go and fled across the fields.
She threw stones at him and went on discharging after him a litany of
filthy epithets. He blushed, less for anything that she might say or think,
but for what he was thinking himself. The sudden unconscious act filled him
with terror. What had he done? What should he do? What he was able to
understand of it all only filled him with disgust. And he was tempted by
his disgust. He fought against himself and knew not on which side was the
real Christophe. A blind force beset him: in vain did he fly from it: it
was only to fly from himself. What would she do about him? What should he
do to-morrow ... in an hour ... the time it took to cross the plowed field
to reach the road?... Would he ever reach it? Should he not stop, and go
back, and run back to the girl? And then?... He remembered that delirious
moment when he had held her by the throat. Everything was possible. All
things were worth while. A crime even.... Yes, even a crime.... The turmoil
in his heart made him breathless. When he reached the road he stopped to
breathe. Over there the girl was talking to another girl who had been
attracted by her cries: and with arms akimbo, they were looking at each
other and shouting with laughter.
II
SABINE
He went home. He shut himself up in his room and never stirred for several
days. He only went out even into the town, when he was compelled. He was
fearful of ever going out beyond the gates and venturing forth into the
fields: he was afraid of once more falling in with the soft, maddening
breath that had blown upon him like a rushing wind during a calm in a
storm. He thought that the walls of the town might preserve him from it. He
never dreamed that for the enemy to slip within there needed be only the
smallest crack in the closed shutters, no more than is needed for a peep
out.
In a wing of the house, on the other side of the yard, there lodged on the
ground floor a young woman of twenty, some months a widow, with a little
girl. Frau Sabine Froehlich was also a tenant of old Euler's. She occupied
the shop which opened on to the street, and she had as well two rooms
looking on to the yard, together with a little patch of garden, marked off
from the Eulers' by a wire fence up which ivy climbed. They did not often
see her: the child used to play down in the garden from morning to night
making mud pies: and the garden was left to itself, to the great distress
of old Justus, who loved tidy paths and neatness in the beds. He had tried
to bring the matter to the attention of his tenant: but that was probably
why she did not appear: and the garden was not improved by it.
Frau Froehlich kept a little draper's shop which might have had customers
enough, thanks to its position in a street of shops in the center of the
town: but she did not bother about it any more than about her garden.
Instead of doing her housework herself, as, according to Frau Vogel, every
self-respecting woman ought to do--especially when she is in circumstances
which do not permit much less excuse idleness--she had hired a little
servant, a girl of fifteen, who came in for a few hours in the morning to
clean the rooms and look after the shop, while the young woman lay in bed
or dawdled over her toilet.
Christophe used to see her sometimes, through his windows, walking about
her room, with bare feet, in her long nightgown, or sitting for hours
together before her mirror: for she was so careless that she used to forget
to draw her curtains: and when she saw him, she was so lazy that she could
not take the trouble, to go and lower them. Christophe, more modest than
she, would leave the window so as not to incommode her: but the temptation
was great. He would blush a little and steal a glance at her bare arms,
which were rather thin, as she drew them languidly around her flowing hair,
and with her hands, clasped behind her head, lost herself in a dream, until
they were numbed, and then she would let them fall. Christophe would
pretend that he only saw these pleasant sights inadvertently as he happened
to pass the window, and that they did not disturb him in his musical
thoughts; but he liked it, and in the end he wasted as much time in
watching Frau Sabine, as she did over her toilet. Not that she was a
coquette: she was rather careless, generally, and did not take anything
like the meticulous care with her appearance that Amalia or Rosa did. If
she dawdled in front of her dressing table it was from pure laziness; every
time she put in a pin she had to rest from the effort of it, while she made
little piteous faces at herself in the mirrors. She was never quite
properly dressed at the end of the day.
Often her servant used to go before Sabine was ready: and a customer would
ring the shop-bell. She would let him ring and call once or twice before
she could make up her mind to get up from her chair. She would go down,
smiling, and never hurrying,--never hurrying would look for the article
required,--and if she could not find it after looking for some time, or
even (as happened sometimes) if she had to take too much trouble to reach
it, as for instance, taking the ladder from one end of the shop to the
other,--she would say calmly that she did not have it in stock: and as she
never bothered to put her stock in order, or to order more of the articles
of which she had run out, her customers used to lose patience and go
elsewhere. But she never minded. How could you be angry with such a
pleasant creature who spoke so sweetly, and was never excited about
anything! She did not mind what anybody said to her: and she made this so
plain that those who began to complain never had the courage to go on: they
used to go, answering her charming smile with a smile: but they never came
back. She never bothered about it. She went on smiling.
She was like a little Florentine figure. Her well marked eyebrows were
arched: her gray eyes were half open behind the curtain of her lashes. The
lower eyelid was a little swollen, with a little crease below it. Her
little, finely drawn nose turned up slightly at the end. Another little
curve lay between it and her upper lip, which curled up above her half-open
mouth, pouting in a weary smile. Her lower lip was a little thick: the
lower part of her face was rounded, and had the serious expression of the
little virgins of Filippo Lippi. Her complexion was a little muddy, her
hair was light brown, always untidy, and done up in a slovenly chignon. She
was slight of figure, small-boned. And her movements were lazy. Dressed
carelessly--a gaping bodice, buttons missing, ugly, worn shoes, always
looking a little slovenly--she charmed by her grace and youth, her
gentleness, her instinctively coaxing ways. When she appeared to take the
air at the door of her shop, the young men who passed used to look at her
with pleasure: and although she did not bother about them, she noticed it
none the less. Always then she wore that grateful and glad expression which
is in the eyes of all women when they know that they have been seen with
sympathetic eyes. It seemed to say:
"Thank you!... Again! Look at me again!" But though it gave her pleasure to
please, her indifference would never let her make the smallest effort to
please.
She was an object of scandal to the Euler-Vogels. Everything about her
offended them: her indolence, the untidiness of her house, the carelessness
of her dress, her polite indifference to their remarks, her perpetual
smile, the impertinent serenity with which she had accepted her husband's
death, her child's illnesses, her straitened circumstances, the great and
annoyances of her daily life, while nothing could change one jot of her
favorite habits, or her eternal longing,--everything about her offended
them: and the worst of all was that, as she was, she did give pleasure.
Frau Vogel could not forgive her that. It was almost as though Sabine did
it on purpose, on purpose, ironically, to set at naught by her conduct the
great traditions, the true principles, the savorless duty, the pleasureless
labor, the restlessness, the noise, the quarrels, the mooning ways, the
healthy pessimism which was the motive power of the Euler family, as it is
that of all respectable persons, and made their life a foretaste of
purgatory. That a woman who did nothing but dawdle about all the blessed
day should take upon herself to defy them with her calm insolence, while
they bore their suffering in silence like galley-slaves,--and that people
should approve of her into the bargain--that was beyond the limit, that was
enough to turn you against respectability!... Fortunately, thank God, there
were still a few sensible people left in the world. Frau Vogel consoled
herself with them. They exchanged remarks about the little widow, and spied
on her through her shutters. Such gossip was the joy of the family when
they met at supper. Christophe would listen absently. He was so used to
hearing the Vogels set themselves up as censors of their neighbors that he
never took any notice of it. Besides he knew nothing of Frau Sabine except
her bare neck and arms, and though they were pleasing enough, they did not
justify his coming to a definite opinion about her. However, he was
conscious; of a kindly feeling towards her: and in a contradictory spirit
he was especially grateful to her for displeasing Frau Vogel.
* * * * *