men of the world, pleasant, and both well-read: and Lauber's conversation
was always interesting on any other subject than music. He was a bit of a
crank: and Christophe did not dislike cranks: they were a change from the
horrible banality of reasonable people. He did not yet know that there is
nothing more devastating than an irrational man, and that originality is
even more rare among those who are called "originals" than among the rest.
For these "originals" are simply maniacs whose thoughts are reduced to
clockwork.
Josias Kling and Lauber, being desirous of winning Christophe's support,
were at first very keenly interested in him. Kling wrote a eulogistic
article about him and Lauber followed all his directions when he conducted
his compositions at one of the concerts of the Society. Christophe was
touched by it all. Unfortunately all their attentions were spoiled by the
stupidity of those who paid them. He had not the facility of pretending
about people because they admired him. He was exacting. He demanded that no
one should admire him for the opposite of what he was: and he was always
prone to regard as enemies those who were his friends, by mistake. And
so he was not at all pleased with Kling for seeing in him a disciple of
Wagner, and trying to see connections between passages of his _Lieder_
and passages of the _Tetralogy_, which had nothing in common but certain
notes of the scale. And he had no pleasure in hearing one of his
works sandwiched--together with a worthless imitation by a Wagnerian
student--between two enormous blocks of Wagnerian drama.
It was not long before he was stifled in the little chapel. It was just
another Conservatoire, as narrow as the old Conservatoires, and more
intolerant because it was the latest comer in art. Christophe began to lose
his illusions about the absolute value of a form of art or of thought.
Hitherto he had always believed that great ideas bear their own light
within themselves. Now he saw that ideas may change, but that men remain
the same: and, in fine, nothing counted but men: ideas were what they were.
If they were born mediocre and servile, even genius became mediocre in its
passage through their souls, and the shout of freedom of the hero breaking
his bonds became the act of slavery of succeeding generations.--Christophe
could mot refrain from expressing his feelings. He let no opportunity
slip of jeering at fetishism in art. He declared that there was no need
of idols, or classics of any sort, and that he only had the right to call
himself the heir of the spirit of Wagner who was capable of trampling
Wagner underfoot and so walking on and keeping himself in close communion
with life. Kling's stupidity made Christophe aggressive. He set out all
the faults and absurdities he could see in Wagner. The Wagnerians at once
credited him with a grotesque jealousy of their God. Christophe for his
part had no doubt that these same people who exalted Wagner since he was
dead would have been the first to strangle him in his life: and he did
them an injustice. The Klings and the Laubers also had had their hour of
illumination: they had been advanced twenty years ago: and then like most
people they had stopped short at that. Man has so little force that he is
out of breath after the first ascent: very few are long-winded enough to go
on.
Christophe's attitude quickly alienated him from his new friends. Their
sympathy was a bargain: he had to side with them if they were to side with
him: and it was quite evident that Christophe would not yield an inch: he
would not join them. They lost their enthusiasm for him. The eulogies which
he refused to accord to the gods and demi-gods who were approved by the
cult, were withheld from him. They showed less eagerness to welcome his
compositions: and some of the members began to protest against his name
being too often on the programmes. They laughed at him behind his back, and
criticism went on: Kling and Lauber by not protesting seemed to take part
in it. They would have avoided a breach with Christophe if possible: first
because the minds of the Germans of the Rhine like mixed solutions,
solutions which are not solutions, and have the privilege of prolonging
indefinitely an ambiguous situation: and secondly, because they hoped in
spite of everything to be able to make use of him, by wearing him down, if
not by persuasion.
Christophe gave them no time for it. Whenever he thought he felt that at
heart any man disliked him, but would not admit it and tried to cover it up
so as to remain on good terms with him, he would never rest until he had
succeeded in proving to him that he was his enemy. One evening at the
_Wagner-Verein_ when he had come up against a wall of hypocritical
hostility, he could bear it no longer and sent in his resignation to Lauber
without wasting words. Lauber could not understand it: and Mannheim
hastened to Christophe to try and pacify him. At his first words Christophe
burst out:
"No, no, no,--no! Don't talk to me about these people. I will not see them
again.... I cannot. I cannot.... I am disgusted, horribly, with men: I can
hardly bear to look at one."
Mannheim laughed heartily. He was thinking much less of smoothing
Christophe down than of having the fun of it.
"I know that they are not beautiful," he said; "but that is nothing new:
what new thing has happened?"
"Nothing. I have had enough, that is all.... Yes, laugh, laugh at me:
everybody knows I am mad. Prudent people act in accordance with the laws of
logic and reason and sanity. I am not like that: I am a man who acts only
on his own impulse. When a certain quantity of electricity is accumulated
in me it has to expend itself, at all costs: and so much the worse for the
others if it touches them! And so much the worse for them! I am not made
for living in society. Henceforth I shall belong only to myself."
"You think you can do without everybody else?" said Mannheim. "You cannot
play your music all by yourself. You need singers, an orchestra, a
conductor, an audience, a claque...."
Christophe shouted.
"No! no! no!"
But the last word made him jump.
"A claque! Are you not ashamed?"
"I am not talking of a paid claque--(although, indeed, it is the only
means yet discovered of revealing the merit of a composition to the
audience).--But you must have a claque: the author's coterie is a claque,
properly drilled by him: every author has his claque: that is what friends
are for."
"I don't want any friends!"
"Then you will be hissed."
"I want to be hissed!"
Mannheim was in the seventh heaven.
"You won't have even that pleasure for long. They won't play you."
"So be it, then! Do you think I care about being a famous man?... Yes. I
was making for that with all my might.... Nonsense! Folly! Idiocy!... As if
the satisfaction of the vulgarest sort of pride could compensate for all
the sacrifices--weariness, suffering, infamy, insults, degradation, ignoble
concessions--which are the price of fame! Devil take me if I ever bother my
head about such things again! Never again! Publicity is a vulgar infamy. I
will be a private citizen and live for myself and those whom I love...."
"Good," said Mannheim ironically. "You must choose a profession. Why
shouldn't you make shoes?"
"Ah! if I were a cobbler like the incomparable Sachs!" cried Christophe.
"How happy my life would be! A cobbler all through the week,--and a
musician on Sunday, privately, intimately, for my own pleasure and that of
my friends! What a life that would be!... Am I mad, to waste my time and
trouble for the magnificent pleasure of being a prey to the judgment of
idiots? Is it not much better and finer to be loved and understood by a
few honest men than to be heard, criticised, and toadied by thousands of
fools?... The devil of pride and thirst for fame shall never again take me:
trust me for that!"
"Certainly," said Mannheim. He thought:
"In an hour he will say just the opposite." He remarked quietly:
"Then I am to go and smooth things down with the _Wagner-Verein_?"
Christophe waved his arms.
"What is the good of my shouting myself hoarse with telling you 'No', for
the last hour?... I tell you that I will never set foot inside it again! I
loathe all these _Wagner-Vereine_, all these _Vereine_, all these flocks of
sheep who have to huddle together to be able to baa in unison. Go and tell
those sheep from me that I am a wolf, that I have teeth, and am not made
far the pasture!"
"Good, good, I will tell them," said Mannheim, as he went. He was delighted
with his morning's entertainment. He thought:
"He is mad, mad, mad as a hatter...."
His sister, to whom he reported the interview, at once shrugged her
shoulders and said:
"Mad? He would like us to think so!... He is stupid, and absurdly vain...."
* * * * *
Christophe went on with his fierce campaign in Waldhaus's Review. It was
not that it gave him pleasure: criticism disgusted him, and he was always
wishing it at the bottom of the sea. But he stuck to it because people were
trying to stop him: he did not wish to appear to have given in.
Waldhaus was beginning to be uneasy. As long as he was out of reach he had
looked on at the affray with the calmness of an Olympian god. But for some
weeks past the other papers had seemed to be beginning to disregard his
inviolability: they had begun to attack his vanity as a writer with a
rare malevolence in which, had Waldhaus been more subtle, he might have
recognized the hand of a friend. As a matter of fact, the attacks were
cunningly instigated by Ehrenfeld and Goldenring: they could see no other
way of inducing him to stop Christophe's polemics. Their perception was
justified. Waldhaus at once declared that Christophe was beginning to weary
him: and he withdrew his support. All the staff of the Review then tried
hard to silence Christophe! But it were as easy to muzzle a dog who
is about to devour his prey! Everything they said to him only excited
him more. He called them poltroons and declared that he would say
everything--everything that he ought to say. If they wished to get rid of
him, they were free to do so! The whole town would know that they were as
cowardly as the rest: but he would not go of his own accord.
They looked at each other in consternation, bitterly blaming Mannheim for
the trick he had played them in bringing such a madman among them. Mannheim
laughed and tried hard to curb Christophe himself: and he vowed that with
the next article Christophe would water his wine. They were incredulous:
but the event proved that Mannheim had not boasted vainly. Christophe's
next article, though not a model of courtesy, did not contain a single
offensive remark about anybody. Mannheim's method was very simple: they
were all amazed at not having thought of it before: Christophe never read
what he wrote in the Review, and he hardly read the proofs of his articles,
only very quickly and carelessly. Adolf Mai had more than once passed
caustic remarks on the subject: he said that a printer's error was a
disgrace to a Review: and Christophe, who did not regard criticism
altogether as an art, replied that those who were upbraided in it would
understand well enough. Mannheim turned this to account: he said that
Christophe was right and that correcting proofs was printers' work: and he
offered to take it over. Christophe was overwhelmed with gratitude: but
they told him that such an arrangement would be of service to them and a
saving of time for the Review. So Christophe left his proofs to Mannheim
and asked him to correct them carefully. Mannheim did: it was sport for
him. At first he only ventured to tone down certain phrases and to delete
here and there certain ungracious epithets. Emboldened by success, he
went further with his experiments: he began to alter sentences and their
meaning: and he was really skilful in it. The whole art of it consisted in
preserving the general appearance of the sentence and its characteristic
form while making it say exactly the opposite of what Christophe had meant.
Mannheim took far more trouble to disfigure Christophe's articles than he
would have done to write them himself: never had he worked so hard. But he
enjoyed the result: certain musicians whom Christophe had hitherto pursued
with his sarcasms were astounded to see him grow gradually gentle and at
last sing their praises. The staff of the Review were delighted. Mannheim
used to read aloud his lucubrations to them. They roared with laughter.
Ehrenfeld and Goldenring would say to Mannheim occasionally:
"Be careful! You are going too far."
"There's no danger," Mannheim would say. And he would go on with it.
Christophe never noticed anything. He used to go to the office of the
Review, leave his copy, and not bother about it any more. Sometimes he
would take Mannheim aside and say:
"This time I really have done for the swine. Just read...."
Mannheim would read.
"Well, what do you think of it?"
"Terrible, my dear fellow, there's nothing left of them!"
"What do you think they will say?"
"Oh! there will be a fine row."
But there never was a row. On the contrary, everybody beamed at Christophe:
people whom he detested would bow to him in the street. One day he came to
the office uneasy and scowling: and, throwing a visiting card on the table,
he asked:
"What does this mean?"
It was the card of a musician whom he slaughtered.
"_A thousand thanks_."
Mannheim replied with a laugh:
"It is ironical."
Christophe was set at rest.
"Oh!" he said. "I was afraid my article had pleased him."
"He is furious," said Ehrenfeld: "but he does not wish to seem so: he is
posing as the strong man, and is just laughing."
"Laughing?... Swine!" said Christophe, furious once more. "I shall write
another article about him. He laughs best who laughs last."
"No, no," said Waldhaus anxiously. "I don't think he is laughing at you. It
is humility: he is a good Christian. He is holding out the other cheek to
the smiter."
"So much the better!" said Christophe. "Ah! Coward! He has asked for it: he
shall have his flogging."
Waldhaus tried to intervene. But the others laughed.
"Let him be...." said Mannheim.
"After all ..." replied Waldhaus, suddenly reassured, "a little more or
less makes no matter!..."
Christophe went away. His colleagues rocked and roared with laughter. When
they had had their fill of it Waldhaus said to Mannheim:
"All the same, it was a narrow squeak.... Please be careful. We shall be
caught yet."
"Bah!" said Mannheim. "We have plenty of time.... And besides, I am making
friends for him."
II
ENGULFED
Christophe had got so far with his clumsy efforts towards the reform of
German art when there happened to pass through the town a troupe of French
actors. It would be more exact to say, a band; for, as usual, they were
a collection of poor devils, picked up goodness knows where, and young
unknown players too happy to learn their art, provided they were allowed to
act. They were all harnessed to the chariot of a famous and elderly actress
who was making tour of Germany, and passing through the little princely
town, gave their performances there.
Waldhaus' review made a great fuss over them. Mannheim and his friends knew
or pretended to know about the literary and social life of Paris: they used
to repeat gossip picked up in the boulevard newspapers and more or less
understood; they represented the French spirit in Germany. That robbed
Christophe of any desire to know more about it. Mannheim used to overwhelm
him with praises of Paris. He had been there several times; certain members
of his family were there. He had relations in every country in Europe, and
they had everywhere assumed the nationality and aspect of the country:
this tribe of the seed of Abraham included an English baronet, a Belgian
senator, a French minister, a deputy in the _Reichstag_, and a Papal Count;
and all of them, although they were united and filled with respect for the
stock from which they sprang, were sincerely English, Belgian, French,
German, or Papal, for their pride never allowed of doubt that the country
of their adoption was the greatest of all. Mannheim was paradoxically the
only one of them who was pleased to prefer all the countries to which he
did not belong. He used often to talk of Paris enthusiastically, but as he
was always extravagant in his talk, and, by way of praising the Parisians,
used to represent them as a species of scatterbrains, lewd and rowdy,
who spent their time in love-making and revolutions without ever taking
themselves seriously, Christophe was not greatly attracted by the
"Byzantine and decadent republic beyond the Vosges." He used rather to
imagine Paris as it was presented in a naïve engraving which he had seen
as a frontispiece to a book that had recently appeared in a German art
publication; the Devil of Notre Dame appeared huddled up above the roofs
of the town with the legend:
"_Eternal luxury like an insatiable Vampire devours its prey above the
great city._"
Like a good German he despised the debauched Volcae and their literature,
of which he only knew lively buffooneries like _L'Aiglon, Madame Sans
Gêne_, and a few café songs. The snobbishness of the little town, where
those people who were most notoriously incapable of being interested in
art flocked noisily to take places at the box office, brought him to an
affectation of scornful indifference towards the great actress. He vowed
that he would not go one yard to hear her. It was the easier for him to
keep his promise as seats had reached an exorbitant price which he could
not afford.
The repertory which the French actors had brought included a few classical
pieces; but for the most part it was composed of those idiotic pieces which
are expressly manufactured in Paris for exportation, for nothing is more
international than mediocrity. Christophe knew _La Tosca_, which was to be
the first production of the touring actors; he had seen it in translation
adorned with all those easy graces which the company of a little Rhenish
theater can give to a French play: and he laughed scornfully and declared
that he was very glad, when he saw his friends go off to the theater, not
to have to see it again. But next day he listened none the less eagerly,
without seeming to listen, to the enthusiastic tales of the delightful
evening they had had: he was angry at having lost the right to contradict
them by having refused to see what everybody was talking about.
The second production announced was a French translation of _Hamlet_.
Christophe had never missed an opportunity of seeing a play of
Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was to him of the same order as Beethoven, an
inexhaustible spring of life. _Hamlet_ had been specially dear to him
during the period of stress and tumultuous doubts through which he had just
passed. In spite of his fear of seeing himself reflected in that magic
mirror he was fascinated by it: and he prowled about the theater notices,
though he did not admit that he was longing to book a seat. But he was so
obstinate that after what he had said to his friends he would not eat his
words: and he would have stayed at home that evening if chance had not
brought him in contact with Mannheim just as he was sadly going home.
Mannheim took his arm and told him angrily, though he never ceased his
banter, that an old beast of a relation, his father's sister, had just come
down upon them with all her retinue and that they had all to stay at home
to welcome her. He had time to get out of it: but his father would brook no
trifling with questions of family etiquette and the respect due to elderly
relatives: and as he had to handle his father carefully because he wanted
presently to get money out of him, he had had to give in and not go to the
play.
"You had tickets?" asked Christophe.
"An excellent box: and I have to go and give it--(I am just going now)--to
that old pig, Grünebaum, papa's partner, so that he can swagger there with
the she Grünebaum and their turkey hen of a daughter. Jolly!... I want to
find something very disagreeable to say to them. They won't mind so long as
I give them the tickets--although they would much rather they were
banknotes."
He stopped short with his month open and looked at Christophe:
"Oh! but--but just the man I want!" He chuckled:
"Christophe, are you going to the theater?"
"No."
"Good. You shall go. I ask it as a favor. Yon cannot refuse."
Christophe did not understand.
"But I have no seat."
"Here you are!" said Mannheim triumphantly, thrusting the ticket into his
hand.
"You are mad," said Christophe. "What about your father's orders?"
Mannheim laughed:
"He will be furious!" he said.
He dried his eyes and went on:
"I shall tap him to-morrow morning as soon as he is up before he knows
anything."
"I cannot accept," said Christophe, "knowing that he would not like it."
"It does not concern you: you know nothing about it."
Christophe had unfolded the ticket:
"And what would I do with a box for four?"
"Whatever you like. You can sleep in it, dance if you like. Take some
women. You must know some? If need be we can lend you some."
Christophe held out the ticket to Mannheim:
"Certainly not. Take it back."
"Not I," said Mannheim, stepping back a pace. "I can't force you to go if
it bores you, but I shan't take it back. You can throw it in the fire or
even take it virtuously to the Grünebaums. I don't care. Good-night!"
He left Christophe in the middle of the street, ticket in hand, and went
away.
Christophe was unhappy about it. He said to himself that he ought to take
it to the Grünebaums: but he was not keen about the idea. He went home
still pondering, and when later he looked at the clock he saw that he had
only just time enough to dress for the theater. It would be too silly to
waste the ticket. He asked his mother to go with him. But Louisa declared
that she would rather go to bed. He went. At heart he was filled with
childish glee at the thought of his evening. Only one thing worried him:
the thought of having to be alone in such a pleasure. He had no remorse
about Mannheim's father or the Grünebaums, whose box he was taking: but he
was remorseful about those whom he might have taken with him. He thought of
the joy it could give to other young people like himself: and it hurt him
not to be able to give it them. He cast about but could find nobody to whom
he could offer his ticket. Besides, it was late and he must hurry.
As he entered the theater he passed by the closed window on which a poster
announced that there was not a single seat left in the office. Among the
people who were turning away from it disappointedly he noticed a girl who
could not make up her mind to leave and was enviously watching the people
going in. She was dressed very simply in black; she was not very tall; her
face was thin and she looked delicate; and at the moment he did not notice
whether she were pretty or plain. He passed her: then he stopped, turned,
and without stopping to think:
"You can't get a seat, Fräulein?" he asked point-blank.
She blushed and said with a foreign accent:
"No, sir."
"I have a box which I don't know what to do with. Will you make use of it
with me?"
She blushed again and thanked him and said she could not accept. Christophe
was embarrassed by her refusal, begged her pardon and tried to insist, but
he could not persuade her, although it was obvious that she was dying to
accept. He was very perplexed. He made up his mind suddenly.
"There is a way out of the difficulty," he said. "You take the ticket. I
don't want it. I have seen the play." (He was boasting). "It will give you
more pleasure than me. Take it, please."
The girl was so touched by his proposal and the cordial manner in which it
was made that tears all but came to her eyes. She murmured gratefully that
she could not think of depriving him of it.
"Then, come," he said, smiling.
He looked so kind and honest that she was ashamed of having refused, and
she said in some confusion:
"Thank you. I will come."
* * * * *