laughter. He had black curly hair, fine, intelligent eyes, a large nose,
which at its end could not make up its mind to go either to right or left,
and rather than go straight on, went to both sides at once, thick lips,
and a clever, mobile face: he was following everything that Christophe
said, hanging on his lips, reflecting every word with a sympathetic and
yet mocking attention, wrinkling up his forehead, his temples, the corners
of his eyes, round his nostrils and cheeks, grimacing with laughter,
and every now and then shaking all over convulsively. He did not join in
the conversation, but he did not miss a word of it. He showed his joy
especially when he saw Christophe, involved in some argument and heckled by
Spitz, flounder about, stammer, and stutter with anger, until he had found
the word he was seeking,--a rock with which to crush his adversary. And his
delight knew no bounds when Christophe, swept along by his passions far
beyond the capacity of his thought, enunciated monstrous paradoxes which
made his hearers snort.
At last they broke up, each of them tired out with feeling and alleging his
own superiority. As Christophe, the last to go, was leaving the room he was
accosted by the young man who had listened to his words with such pleasure.
He had not yet noticed him. The other politely removed his hat, smiled, and
asked permission to introduce himself:
"Franz Mannheim."
He begged pardon for his indiscretion in listening to the argument, and
congratulated Christophe on the _maestria_ with which he had pulverized his
opponents. He was still laughing at the thought of it. Christophe was glad
to hear it, and looked at him a little distrustfully:
"Seriously?" he asked. "You are not laughing at me?"
The other swore by the gods. Christophe's face lit up.
"Then you think I am right? You are of my opinion?"
"Well," said Mannheim, "I am not a musician. I know nothing of music. The
only music I like--(if it is not too flattering to say so)--is yours....
That may show you that my taste is not so bad...."
"Oh!" said Christophe skeptically, though he was flattered all the same,
"that proves nothing."
"You are difficult to please.... Good!... I think as you do: that proves
nothing. And I don't venture to judge what you say of German musicians.
But, anyhow, it is so true of the Germans in general, the old Germans, all
the romantic idiots with their rancid thought, their sloppy emotion, their
senile reiteration which we are asked to admire, '_the eternal Yesterday,
which has always been, and always will be, and will be law to-morrow
because it is law to-day._' ...!"
He recited a few lines of the famous passage in Schiller:
"... _Das ewig Gestrige,
Das immer war imd immer wiederkehrt_...."
"Himself, first of all!" He stopped in the middle of his recitation.
"Who?" asked Christophe.
"The pump-maker who wrote that!"
Christophe did not understand. But Mannheim went on:
"I should like to have a general cleaning up of art and thought every fifty
years--nothing to be left standing."
"A little drastic," said Christophe, smiling.
"No, I assure you. Fifty years is too much: I should say thirty.... And
even less!... It is a hygienic measure. One does not keep one's ancestors
in one's house. One gets rid of them, when they are dead, and sends, them
elsewhere,--there politely to rot, and one places stones on them to be
quite sure that they will not come back. Nice people put flowers on them,
too. I don't mind if they like it. All I ask is to be left in peace. I
leave them alone! Each for his own side, say I: the dead and the living."
"There are some dead who are more alive than the living."
"No, no! It would be more true to say that there are some living who are
more dead than the dead."
"Maybe. In any case, there are old things which are still young."
"Then if they are still young we can find them for ourselves.... But I
don't believe it. What has been good once never is good again. Nothing is
good but change. Before all we have to rid ourselves of the old men and
things. There are too many of them in Germany. Death to them, say I!"
Christophe listened to these squibs attentively and labored to discuss
them: he was in part in sympathy with them, he recognized certain of his
own thoughts in them: and at the same time he felt a little embarrassed at
having them so blown out to the point of caricature. But as he assumed that
everybody else was as serious as himself, he thought that perhaps Mannheim,
who seemed to be more learned than himself and spoke more easily, was
right, and was drawing the logical conclusions from his principles. Vain
Christophe, whom so many people could not forgive for his faith in himself,
was really most naïvely modest often tricked by his modesty when he was
with those who were better educated than himself,--especially, when they
consented not to plume themselves on it to avoid an awkward discussion.
Mannheim, who was amusing himself with his own paradoxes, and from one
sally to another had reached extravagant quips and cranks, at which he
was laughing immensely, was not accustomed to being taken seriously: he
was delighted with the trouble that Christophe was taking to discuss his
nonsense, and even to understand it: and while he laughed, he was grateful
for the importance which Christophe gave him: he thought him absurd and
charming.
They parted very good friends: and Christophe was not a little surprised
three hours later at rehearsal to see Mannheim's head poked through the
little door leading to the orchestra, smiling and grimacing, and making
mysterious signs at him. When the rehearsal was over Christophe went to
him. Mannheim took his arm familiarly.
"You can spare a moment?... Listen. I have an idea. Perhaps you will think
it absurd.... Would not you like for once in a way to write what you think
of music and the musicos? Instead of wasting your breath in haranguing four
dirty knaves of your band who are good for nothing but scraping and blowing
into bits of wood, would it not be better to address the general public?"
"Not better? Would I like?... My word! And when do you want me to write? It
is good of you!..."
"I've a proposal for you.... Some friends and I: Adalbert von Waldhaus,
Raphael Goldenring, Adolf Mai, and Lucien Ehrenfeld,--have started a
Review, the only intelligent Review in the town: the _Dionysos_.--(You must
know it....)--We all admire each other and should be glad if you would join
us. Will you take over our musical criticism?"
Christophe was abashed by such an honor: he was longing to accept: he was
only afraid of not being worthy: he could not write.
"Oh! come," said Mannheim, "I am sure you can. And besides, as soon as you
are a critic you can do anything you like. You've no need to be afraid of
the public. The public is incredibly stupid. It is nothing to be an artist:
an artist is only a sort of comedian: an artist can be hissed. But a critic
has the right to say: 'Hiss me that man!' The whole audience lets him do
its thinking. Think whatever you like. Only look as if you were thinking
something. Provided you give the fools their food, it does not much matter
what, they will gulp down anything."
In the end Christophe consented, with effusive thanks. He only made it a
condition that he should be allowed to say what he liked.
"Of course, of course," said Mannheim. "Absolute freedom! We are all free."
He looked him up at the theater once more after the performance to
introduce him to Adalbert von Waldhaus and his friends. They welcomed him
warmly.
With the exception of Waldhaus, who belonged to one of the noble families
of the neighborhood, they were all Jews and all very rich: Mannheim
was the son of a banker: Mai the son of the manager of a metallurgical
establishment: and Ehrenfeld's father was a great jeweler. Their fathers
belonged to the older generation of Jews, industrious and acquisitive,
attached to the spirit of their race, building their fortunes with keen
energy, and enjoying their energy much more than their fortunes. Their sons
seemed to be made to destroy what their fathers had builded: they laughed
at family prejudice and their ant-like mania for economy and delving: they
posed as artists, affected to despise money and to fling it out of window.
But in reality they hardly ever let it slip through their fingers: and in
vain did they do all sorts of foolish things: they never could altogether
lead astray their lucidity of mind and practical sense. For the rest, their
parents kept an eye on them, and reined them in. The most prodigal of them,
Mannheim, would sincerely have given away all that he had: but he never had
anything: and although he was always loudly inveighing against his father's
niggardliness, in his heart he laughed at it and thought that he was right.
In fine, there was only Waldhaus really who was in control of his fortune,
and went into it wholeheartedly and reckless of cost, and bore that of the
Review. He was a poet. He wrote "_Polymètres_" in the manner of Arno Holz
and Walt Whitman, with lines alternately very long and very short, in which
stops, double and triple stops, dashes, silences, commas, italics and
italics, played a great part. And so did alliteration and repetition--of
a word--of a line--of a whole phrase. He interpolated words of every
language. He wanted--(no one has ever known why)--to render the _Cézanne_
into verse. In truth, he was poetic enough and had a distinguished taste
for stale things. He was sentimental and dry, naïve and foppish: his
labored verses affected a cavalier carelessness. He would have been a
good poet for men of the world. But there are too many of the kind in the
Reviews and artistic circles: and he wished to be alone. He had taken it
into his head to play the great gentleman who is above the prejudices of
his caste. He had more prejudices than anybody. He did not admit their
existence. He took a delight in surrounding himself with Jews in the Review
which he edited, to rouse the indignation of his family, who were very
anti-Semite, and to prove his own freedom of mind to himself. With his
colleagues, he assumed a tone of courteous equality. But in his heart he
had a calm and boundless contempt for them. He was not unaware that they
were very glad to make use of his name and money: and he let them do so
because it pleased him to despise them.
And they despised him for letting them do so: for they knew very well that
it served his turn. A fair exchange, Waldhaus lent them his name and
fortune: and they brought him their talents, their eye for business and
subscribers. They were much more intelligent than he. Not that they had
more personality. They had perhaps even less. But in the little town they
were, as the Jews are everywhere and always,--by the mere fact of their
difference of race which for centuries has isolated them and sharpened
their faculty for making observation--they were the most advanced in mind,
the most sensible of the absurdity of its moldy institutions and decrepit
thought. Only, as their character was less free than their intelligence,
it did not help them, while they mocked, from trying rather to turn those
institutions and ideas to account than to reform them. In spite of their
independent professions of faith, they were like the noble Adalbert, little
provincial snobs, rich, idle young men of family, who dabbled and flirted
with letters for the fun of it. They were very glad to swagger about as
giant-killers: but they were kindly enough and never slew anybody but a few
inoffensive people or those whom they thought could never harm them. They
cared nothing for setting by the ears a society to which they knew very
well they would one day return and embrace all the prejudices which they
had combated. And when they did venture to make a stir on a little scandal,
or loudly to declare war on some idol of the day,--who was beginning to
totter,--they took care never to burn their boats: in case of danger they
re-embarked. Whatever then might be the issue of the campaign,--when it
was finished it was a long time before war would break out again: the
Philistines could sleep in peace. All that these new _Davidsbündler_ wanted
to do was to make it appear that they could have been terrible if they had
so desired: but they did not desire. They preferred to be on friendly terms
with artists and to give suppers to actresses.
Christophe was not happy in such a set. They were always talking of women
and horses: and their talk was not refined. They were stiff and formal.
Adalbert spoke in a mincing, slow voice, with exaggerated, bored, and
boring politeness. Adolf Mai, the secretary of the Review, a heavy,
thick-set, bull-necked, brutal-looking young man, always pretended to be
in the right: he laid down the law, never listened to what anybody said,
seemed to despise the opinion of the person he was talking to, and also
that person. Goldenring, the art critic, who had a twitch, and eyes
perpetually winking behind his large spectacles,--no doubt in imitation
of the painters whose society he cultivated, wore long hair, smoked in
silence, mumbled scraps of sentences which he never finished, and made
vague gestures in the air with his thumb. Ehrenfeld was little, bald, and
smiling, had a fair beard and a sensitive, weary-looking face, a hooked
nose, and he wrote the fashions and the society notes in the Review. In a
silky voice he used to talk obscurely: he had a wit, though of a malignant
and often ignoble kind.--All these young millionaires were anarchists, of
course: when a man possesses everything it is the supreme luxury for him to
deny society: for in that way he can evade his responsibilities. So might a
robber, who has just fleeced a traveler, say to him: "What are you staying
for? Get along! I have no more use for you."
Of the whole bunch Christophe was only in sympathy with Mannheim: he was
certainly the most lively of the five: he was amused by everything that
he said and everything that was said to him: stuttering, stammering,
blundering, sniggering, talking nonsense, he was incapable of following an
argument, or of knowing exactly what he thought himself: but he was quite
kindly, bearing no malice, having not a spark of ambition. In truth, he was
not very frank: he was always playing a part: but quite innocently, and he
never did anybody any harm.
He espoused all sorts of strange Utopias--most often generous. He was too
subtle and too skeptical to keep his head even in his enthusiasms, and he
never compromised himself by applying his theories. But he had to have
some hobby: it was a game to him, and he was always changing from one to
another. For the time being his craze was for kindness. It was not enough
for him to be kind naturally: he wished to be thought kind: he professed
kindness, and acted it. Out of reaction against the hard, dry activity of
his kinsfolk, and against German austerity, militarism, and Philistinism,
he was a Tolstoyan, a Nirvanian, an evangelist, a Buddhist,--he was not
quite sure what,--an apostle of a new morality that was soft, boneless,
indulgent, placid, easy-living, effusively forgiving every sin, especially
the sins of the flesh, a morality which did not conceal its predilection
for those sins and much less readily forgave the virtues--a morality
which was only a compact of pleasure, a libertine association of mutual
accommodations, which amused itself by donning the halo of sanctity. There
was in it a spice of hypocrisy which was a little offensive to delicate
palates, and would have even been frankly nauseating if it had taken itself
seriously. But it made no pretensions towards that: it merely amused
itself. His blackguardly Christianity was only meant to serve until some
other hobby came along to take its place--no matter what: brute force,
imperialism, "laughing lions."--Mannheim was always playing a part, playing
with his whole heart: he was trying on all the feelings that he did not
possess before becoming a good Jew like the rest and with all the spirit
of his race. He was very sympathetic, and extremely irritating. For some
time Christophe was one of his hobbies. Mannheim swore by him. He blew his
trumpet everywhere. He dinned his praises into the ears of his family.
According to him Christophe was a genius, an extraordinary man, who made
strange music and talked about it in an astonishing fashion, a witty
man--and a handsome: fine lips, magnificent teeth. He added that Christophe
admired him.--One evening he took him home to dinner. Christophe found
himself talking to his new friend's father, Lothair Mannheim, the banker,
and Franz's sister, Judith.
It was the first time that he had been in a Jew's house. Although there
were many Jews in the little town, and although they played an important
part in its life by reason of their wealth, cohesion, and intelligence,
they lived a little apart. There were always rooted prejudices in the minds
of the people and a secret hostility that was credulous and injurious
against them. Christophe's family shared these prejudices. His grandfather
did not love Jews: but the irony of fate had decreed that his two best
pupils should be of the race--(one had become a composer, the other a
famous _virtuoso_): for there had been moments when he was fain to embrace
these two good musicians: and then he would remember sadly that they
had crucified the Lord: and he did not know how to reconcile his two
incompatible currents of feeling. But in the end he did embrace them. He
was inclined to think that the Lord would forgive them because of their
love for music.--Christophe's father, Melchior, who pretended to be
broad-minded, had had fewer scruples about taking money from the Jews: and
he even thought it good to do so: but he ridiculed them, and despised
them.--As for his mother, she was not sure that she was not committing a
sin when she went to cook for them. Those whom she had had to do with were
disdainful enough with her: but she had no grudge against them, she bore
nobody any ill-will: she was filled with pity for these unhappy people whom
God had damned: sometimes she would be filled with compassion when she saw
the daughter of one of them go by or heard the merry laughter of their
children.
"So pretty she is!... Such pretty children!... How dreadful!..." she would
think.
She dared not say anything to Christophe, when he told her that he was
going to dine with the Mannheims: but her heart sank. She thought that
it was unnecessary to believe everything bad that was said about the
Jews--(people speak ill of everybody)--and that there are honest people
everywhere, but that it was better and more proper to keep themselves to
themselves, the Jews on their side, the Christians on theirs.
Christophe shared none of these prejudices. In his perpetual reaction
against his surroundings he was rather attracted towards the different
race. But he hardly knew them. He had only come in contact with the more
vulgar of the Jews: little shopkeepers, the populace swarming in certain
streets between the Rhine and the cathedral, forming, with the gregarious
instinct of all human beings, a sort of little ghetto. He had often
strolled through the neighborhood, catching sight of and feeling a sort of
sympathy with certain types of women with hollow cheeks, and full lips,
and wide cheek-bones, a da Vinci smile, rather depraved, while the coarse
language and shrill laughter destroyed this harmony that was in their faces
when in repose. Even in the dregs of the people, in those large-headed,
beady-eyed creatures with their bestial faces, their thick-set, squat
bodies, those degenerate descendants of the most noble of all peoples, even
in that thick, fetid muddiness there were strange phosphorescent gleams,
like will-o'-the-wisps dancing over a swamp: marvelous glances, minds
subtle and brilliant, a subtle electricity emanating from the ooze which
fascinated and disturbed Christophe. He thought that hidden deep were fine
souls struggling, great hearts striving to break free from the dung: and he
would have liked to meet them, and to aid them: without knowing them, he
loved them, while he was a little fearful of them. And he had never had any
opportunity of meeting the best of the Jews.
His dinner at the Mannheims' had for him the attraction of novelty and
something of that of forbidden fruit. The Eve who gave him the fruit
sweetened its flavor. From the first moment Christophe had eyes only for
Judith Mannheim. She was utterly different from all the women he had known.
Tall and slender, rather thin, though solidly built, with her face framed
in her black hair, not long, but thick and curled low on her head, covering
her temples and her broad, golden brow; rather short-sighted, with large
pupils, and slightly prominent eyes: with a largish nose and wide nostrils,
thin cheeks, a heavy chin, strong coloring, she had a fine profile showing
much energy and alertness: full face, her expression was more changing,
uncertain, complex: her eyes and her cheeks were irregular. She seemed to
give revelation of a strong race, and in the mold of that race, roughly
thrown together, were manifold incongruous elements, of doubtful and
unequal quality, beautiful and vulgar at the same time. Her beauty lay
especially in her silent lips, and in her eyes, in which there seemed to be
greater depth by reason of their short-sightedness, and darker by reason of
the bluish markings round them.
It needed to be more used than Christophe was to those eyes, which are
more those of a race than of an individual, to be able to read through the
limpidity that unveiled them with such vivid quality, the real soul of the
woman whom he thus encountered. It was the soul of the people of Israel
that he saw in her sad and burning eyes, the soul that, unknown to them,
shone forth from them. He lost himself as he gazed into them. It was only
after some time that he was able, after losing his way again and again, to
strike the track again on that oriental sea.
She looked at him: and nothing could disturb the clearness of her gaze:
nothing in his Christian soul seemed to escape her. He felt that. Under the
seduction of the woman's eyes upon him he was conscious of a virile desire,
clear and cold, Which stirred in him brutally, indiscreetly. There was
no evil in the brutality of it. She took possession of him: not like a
coquette, whose desire is to seduce without caring whom she seduces. Had
she been a coquette she would have gone to greatest lengths: but she knew
her power, and she left it to her natural instinct to make use of it in
its own way,--especially when she had so easy a prey as Christophe.--What
interested her more was to know her adversary--(any man, any stranger, was
an adversary for her,--an adversary with whom later on, if occasion served,
she could sign a compact of alliance).--She wished to know his quality.
Life being a game, in which the cleverest wins, it was a matter of reading
her opponent's cards and of not showing her own. When she succeeded she
tasted the sweets of victory. It mattered little whether she could turn
it to any account. It was purely for her pleasure. She had a passion for
intelligence: not abstract intelligence, although she had brains enough,
if she had liked, to have succeeded in any, branch of knowledge and would
have made a much better successor to Lothair Mannheim, the banker, than
her brother. But she preferred intelligence in the quick, the sort of
intelligence which studies men. She loved to pierce through to the soul and
to weigh its value--(she gave as scrupulous an attention to it as the
Jewess of Matsys to the weighing of her gold)--with marvelous divination
she could find the weak spot in the armor, the imperfections and foibles
which are the key to the soul,--she could lay her hands on its secrets: it
was her way of feeling her sway over it. But she never dallied with her
victory: she never did anything with her prize. Once her curiosity and
her vanity were satisfied she lost her interest and passed on to another
specimen. All her power was sterile. There was something of death in her
living soul. She had the genius of curiosity and boredom.
* * * * *