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JEAN-CHRISTOPHE
JOURNEY'S END
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
THE BURNING BUSH
THE NEW DAWN
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Translated by
GILBERT CANNAN
WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
THE BURNING BUSH
THE NEW DAWN
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
I
In spite of the success which was beginning to materialize outside
France, the two friends found their financial position very slow in
mending. Every now and then there recurred moments of penury when they
were obliged to go without food. They made up for it by eating twice as
much as they needed when they had money. But, on the whole, it was a
trying existence.
For the time being they were in the period of the lean kine. Christophe
had stayed up half the night to finish a dull piece of musical
transcription for Hecht: he did not get to bed until dawn, and slept
like a log to make up for lost time. Olivier had gone out early: he had
a lecture to give at the other end of Paris. About eight o'clock the
porter came with the letters, and rang the bell. As a rule he did not
wait for them to come, but just slipped the letters under the door. This
morning he went on knocking. Only half awake, Christophe went to the
door growling: he paid no attention to what the smiling, loquacious
porter was saying about an article in the paper, but just took the
letters without looking at them, pushed the door to without closing it,
went to bed, and was soon fast asleep once more.
An hour later he woke up with a start on hearing some one in his room:
and he was amazed to see a strange face at the foot of his bed, a
complete stranger bowing gravely to him. It was a journalist, who,
finding the door open, had entered without ceremony. Christophe was
furious, and jumped out of bed:
"What the devil are you doing here?" he shouted.
He grabbed his pillow to hurl it at the intruder, who skipped back. He
explained himself. A reporter of the Nation wished to interview M.
Krafft about the article which had appeared in the _Grand Journal_.
"What article?"
"Haven't you read it?"
The reporter began to tell him what it was about.
Christophe went to bed again. If he had not been so sleepy he would have
kicked the fellow out: but it was less trouble to let him talk. He
curled himself up in the bed, closed his eyes, and pretended to be
asleep. And very soon he would really have been off, but the reporter
stuck to his guns, and in a loud voice read the beginning of the
article. At the very first words Christophe pricked up his ears. M.
Krafft was referred to as the greatest musical genius of the age.
Christophe forgot that he was pretending to be asleep, swore in
astonishment, sat up in bed, and said:
"They are mad! Who has been pulling their legs?"
The reporter seized the opportunity, and stopped reading to ply
Christophe with a series of questions, which he answered unthinkingly.
He had picked up the paper, and was gazing in utter amazement at his own
portrait, which was printed as large as life on the front page: but he
had no time to read the article, for another journalist entered the
room. This time Christophe was really angry. He told them to get out:
but they did not comply until they had made hurried notes of the
furniture in the room, and the photographs on the wall, and the features
of the strange being who, between laughter and anger, thrust them out of
the room, and, in his nightgown, took them to the door and bolted it
after them.
But it was ordained that he should not be left in peace that day. He had
not finished dressing when there came another knock at the door, a
prearranged knock which was only known to a few of their friends.
Christophe opened the door, and found himself face to face with yet
another stranger, whom he was just about to dismiss in a summary
fashion, when the man protested that he was the author of the
article.... How are you to get rid of a man who regards you as a genius!
Christophe had grumpily to submit to his admirer's effusions. He was
amazed at the sudden notoriety which had come like a bolt from the blue,
and he wondered if, without knowing it, he had had a masterpiece
produced the evening before. But he had no time to find out. The
journalist had come to drag him, whether he liked it or not, there and
then, to the offices of the paper where the editor, the great Arsène
Gamache himself, wished to see him: the car was waiting downstairs.
Christophe tried to get out of it: but, in spite of himself, he was so
naïvely responsive to the journalist's friendly protestations that in
the end he gave way.
Ten minutes later he was introduced to a potentate in whose presence all
men trembled. He was a sturdy little man, about fifty, short and stout,
with a big round head, gray hair brushed up, a red face, a masterful way
of speaking, a thick, affected accent, and every now and then he would
break out into a choppy sort of volubility. He had forced himself on
Paris by his enormous self-confidence. A business man, with a knowledge
of men, naïve and deep, passionate, full of himself, he identified his
business with the business of France, and even with the affairs of
humanity. His own interests, the prosperity of his paper, and the
_salus publica_, all seemed to him to be of equal importance and to
be narrowly associated. He had no doubt that any man who wronged him,
wronged France also: and to crush an adversary, he would in perfectly
good faith have overthrown the Government. However, he was by no means
incapable of generosity. He was an idealist of the after-dinner order,
and loved to be a sort of God Almighty, and to lift some poor devil or
other out of the mire, by way of demonstrating the greatness of his
power, whereby he could make something out of nothing, make and unmake
Ministers, and, if he had cared to, make and unmake Kings. His sphere
was the universe. He would make men of genius, too, if it so pleased
him.
That day he had just "made" Christophe.
* * * * *
It was Olivier who in all innocence had belled the cat.
Olivier, who could do nothing to advance his own interests, and had a
horror of notoriety, and avoided journalists like the plague, took quite
another view of these things where his friend was in question. He was
like those loving mothers, the right-living women of the middle-class,
those irreproachable wives, who would sell themselves to procure any
advantage for their rascally young sons.
Writing for the reviews, and finding himself in touch with a number of
critics and dilettanti, Olivier never let slip an opportunity of talking
about Christophe: and for some time past he had been surprised to find
that they listened to him. He could feel a sort of current of curiosity,
a mysterious rumor flying about literary and polite circles. What was
its origin? Were there echoes of newspaper opinion, following on the
recent performances of Christophe's work in England and Germany? It
seemed impossible to trace it to any definite source. It was one of
those frequent phenomena of those men who sniff the air of Paris, and
can tell the day before, more exactly than the meteorological
observatory of the tower of Saint-Jacques, what wind is blowing up for
the morrow, and what it will bring with it. In that great city of
nerves, through which electric vibrations pass, there are invisible
currents of fame, a latent celebrity which precedes the actuality, the
vague gossip of the drawing-rooms, the _nescio quid majus nascitur
Iliade_, which, at a given moment, bursts out in a puffing article,
the blare of the trumpet which drives the name of the new idol into the
thickest heads. Sometimes that trumpet-blast alienates the first and
best friends of the man whose glory it proclaims. And yet they are
responsible for it.
So Olivier had a share in the article in the _Grand Journal_. He
had taken advantage of the interest displayed in Christophe, and had
carefully stoked it up with adroitly worded information. He had been
careful not to bring Christophe directly into touch with the
journalists, for he was afraid of an outburst. But at the request of the
_Grand Journal_ he had slyly introduced Christophe to a reporter in
a café without his having any suspicion. All these precautions only
pricked curiosity, and made Christophe more interesting. Olivier had
never had anything to do with publicity before: he had not stopped to
consider that he was setting in motion a machine which, once it got
going, it was impossible to direct or control.
He was in despair when, on his way to his lecture, he read the article
in the _Grand Journal_. He had not foreseen such a calamity. Above
all, he had not expected it to come so soon. He had reckoned on the
paper waiting to make sure and verify its facts before it published
anything. He was too naïve. If a newspaper takes the trouble to discover
a new celebrity, it is, of course, for its own sake, so that its rivals
may not have the honor of the discovery. It must lose no time, even if
it means knowing nothing whatever about the person in question. But an
author very rarely complains: if he is admired, he has quite as much
understanding as he wants.
The _Grand Journal_, after setting out a few ridiculous stories
about Christophe's struggles, representing him as a victim of German
despotism, an apostle of liberty, forced to fly from Imperial Germany
and take refuge in France, the home and shelter of free men,--(a fine
pretext for a Chauvinesque tirade!)--plunged into lumbering praise of
his genius, of which it knew nothing,--nothing except a few tame
melodies, dating from Christophe's early days in Germany, which
Christophe, who was ashamed of them, would have liked to have seen
destroyed. But if the author of the article knew nothing at all about
Christophe's work, he made up for it in his knowledge of his plans--or
rather such plans as he invented for him. A few words let fall by
Christophe or Olivier, or even by Goujart, who pretended to be
well-informed, had been enough for him to construct a fanciful
Jean-Christophe, "a Republican genius,--the great musician of
democracy." He seized the opportunity to decry various contemporary
French musicians, especially the most original and independent among
them, who set very little store by democracy. He only excepted one or
two composers, whose electoral opinions were excellent in his eyes. It
was annoying that their music was not better. But that was a detail. And
besides, his eulogy of these men, and even his praise of Christophe, was
of not nearly so much account as his criticism of the rest. In Paris,
when you read an article eulogizing a man's work, it is always as well
to ask yourself:
"Whom is he decrying?"
Olivier went hot with shame as he read the paper, and said to himself:
"A fine thing I've done!"
He could hardly get through his lecture. As soon as he had finished he
hurried home. What was his consternation to find that Christophe had
already gone out with the journalists! He delayed lunch for him.
Christophe did not return. Hours passed, and Olivier grew more and more
anxious and thought:
"What a lot of foolish things they will make him say!"
About three o'clock Christophe came home quite lively. He had had lunch
with Arsène Gamache, and his head was a little muzzy with the champagne
he had drunk. He could not understand Olivier's anxiety, who asked him
in fear and trembling what he had said and done.
"What have I been doing? I've had a splendid lunch. I haven't had such a
good feed for a long time."
He began to recount the menu.
"And wine.... I had wine of every color."
Olivier interrupted him to ask who was there.
"Who was there?... I don't know. There was Gamache, a little round man,
true as gold: Clodomir, the writer of the article, a charming fellow:
three or four journalists whom I didn't know, very jolly, all very nice
and charming to me--the cream of good fellows."
Olivier did not seem to be convinced. Christophe was astonished at his
small enthusiasm.
"Haven't you read the article?"
"Yes. I have. Have you read it?"
"Yes.... That is to say, I just glanced at it. I haven't had time."
"Well: read it."
Christophe took it up. At the first words he spluttered.
"Oh! The idiot!" he said.
He roared with laughter.
"Bah!" he went on. "These critics are all alike. They know nothing at
all about it."
But as he read farther he began to lose his temper: it was too stupid,
it made him look ridiculous. What did they mean by calling him "a
Republican musician"; it did not mean anything.... Well, let the fib
pass.... But when they set his "Republican" art against the "sacristy
art" of the masters who had preceded him,--(he whose soul was nourished
by the souls of those great men),--it was too much....
"The swine! They're trying to make me out an idiot!..."
And then, what was the sense of using him as a cudgel to thwack talented
French musicians, whom he loved more or less,--(though rather less than
more),--though they knew their trade, and honored it? And--worst of
all--with an incredible want of tact he was credited with odious
sentiments about his country!... No, that, that was beyond
endurance....
"I shall write and tell them so," said Christophe.
Olivier intervened.
"No, no," he said, "not now! You are too excited. Tomorrow, when you are
cooler...."
Christophe stuck to it. When he had anything to say he could not wait
until the morrow. He promised Olivier to show him his letter. The
precaution was useful. The letter was duly revised, so as to be confined
practically to the rectification of the opinions about Germany with
which he had been credited, and then Christophe ran and posted it.
"Well," he said, when he returned, "that will save half the harm being
done: the letter will appear to-morrow."
Olivier shook his head doubtfully. He was still thoughtful, and he
looked Christophe straight in the face, and said:
"Christophe, did you say anything imprudent at lunch?"
"Oh no," said Christophe with a laugh.
"Sure?"
"Yes, you coward."
Olivier was somewhat reassured. But Christophe was not. He had just
remembered that he had talked volubly and unguardedly. He had been quite
at his ease at once. It had never for a moment occurred to him to
distrust any of them: they seemed so cordial, so well-disposed towards
him! As, in fact, they were. We are always well-disposed to people when
we have done them a good turn, and Christophe was so frankly delighted
with it all that his joy infected them. His affectionate easy manners,
his jovial sallies, his enormous appetite, and the celerity with which
the various liquors vanished down his throat without making him turn a
hair, were by no means displeasing to Arsène Gamache, who was himself a
sturdy trencherman, coarse, boorish, and sanguine, and very contemptuous
of people who had ill-health, and those who dared not eat and drink, and
all the sickly Parisians. He judged a man by his prowess at table. He
appreciated Christophe. There and then he proposed to produce his
_Gargantua_ as an opera at the Opéra.--(The very summit of art was reached
for these bourgeois French people in the production on the stage
of the _Damnation of Faust_, or the _Nine Symphonies_.)--Christophe, who
burst out laughing at the grotesqueness of the idea, had great difficulty
in preventing him from telephoning his orders to the directors of the
Opéra, or the Minister of Fine Arts.--(If Gamache were to be believed, all
these important people were apparently at his beck and call.)--And, the
proposal reminding him of the strange transmutation which had taken place
in his symphonic poem, _David_, he went so far as to tell the story of the
performance organized by Deputy Roussin to introduce his mistress to the
public. Gamache, who did not like Roussin, was delighted: and Christophe,
spurred on by the generous wines and the sympathy of his hearers, plunged
into other stories, more or less indiscreet, the point of which was not
lost on those present. Christophe was the only one to forget them when the
party broke up. And now, on Olivier's question, they rushed back to his
memory. He felt a little shiver run down his spine. For he did not deceive
himself: he had enough experience to know what would happen: now that he
was sober again he saw it as clearly as though it had actually happened:
his indiscretions would be twisted and distorted, and scattered broadcast
as malicious blabbing, his artistic sallies would be turned into weapons
of war. As for his letter correcting the article, he knew as well as
Olivier how much that would avail him: it is a waste of ink to answer a
journalist, for he always has the last word.
Everything happened exactly to the letter as Christophe had foreseen it
would. His indiscretions were published, his letter was not. Gamache
only went so far as to write to him that he recognized the generosity of
his feelings, and that his scruples were an honor to him: but he kept
his scruples dark: and the falsified opinions attributed to Christophe
went on being circulated, provoking biting criticism in the Parisian
papers, and later in Germany, where much indignation was felt that a
German artist should express himself with so little dignity about his
country.
Christophe thought he would be clever, and take advantage of an
interview by the reporter of another paper to protest his love for the
_Deutsches Reich_, where, he said, people were at least as free as
in the French Republic.--He was speaking to the representative of a
Conservative paper, who at once credited him with anti-Republican views.
"Better and better!" said Christophe. "But what on earth has my music to
do with politics?"
"It is usual with us," said Olivier. "Look at the battles that have
taken place over Beethoven. Some people will have it that he was a
Jacobin, others a mountebank, others still a Père Duchesne, and others a
prince's lackey."
"He'd knock their heads together."
"Well, do the same."
Christophe only wished he could. But he was too amiable with people who
were friendly towards him. Olivier never felt happy when he left him
alone. For they were always coming to interview him: and it was no use
Christophe promising to be guarded: he could not help being confidential
and unreserved. He said everything that came into his head. Women
journalists would come and make a fuss of him, and get him to talk about
his sentimental adventures. Others would make use of him to speak ill of
such-an-one, or so-and-so. When Olivier came in he would find Christophe
utterly downcast.
"Another howler?" he would ask.
"Of course," Christophe would reply in despair.
"You are incorrigible!"
"I ought to be locked up.... But I swear that it is the last time."
"Yes, I know. Until the next...."
"No. This really is the last."
Next day Christophe said triumphantly to Olivier:
"Another one came to-day. I shut the door in his face."
"Don't go too far," said Olivier. "Be careful with them. 'This animal is
dangerous.' He will attack you if you defend yourself.... It is so easy
for them to avenge themselves! They can twist the least little thing you
may have said to their uses."
Christophe drew his hand across his forehead:
"Oh! Good Lord!"
"What's the matter?"
"When I shut the door in his face I told...."
"What?"
"The Emperor's joke."
"The Emperor's?"
"Yes. His or one of his people's...."
"How awful! You'll see it to-morrow on the front page!"
Christophe shuddered. But, next day, what he saw was a description of
his room, which the journalist had not seen, and a report of a
conversation which he had not had with him.
The facts were more and more embellished the farther they spread. In the
foreign papers they were garnished out of all recognition. Certain
French articles having told how in his poverty he had transposed music
for the guitar, Christophe learned from an English newspaper that he had
played the guitar in the streets. He did not only read eulogies. Far
from it. It was enough for Christophe to have been taken up by the
_Grand Journal_, for him to be taken to task by the other papers.
They could not as a matter of dignity allow the possibility of a rival's
discovering a genius whom they had ignored. Some of them were rabid
about it. Others commiserated Christophe on his ill-luck. Goujart,
annoyed at having the ground cut away from under his feet, wrote an
article, as he said, to set people right on certain points. He wrote
familiarly of his old friend Christophe, to whom, when he first came to
Paris, he had been guide and comforter: he was certainly a highly gifted
musician, but--(he was at liberty to say so, since they were
friends)--very deficient in many ways, ill-educated, unoriginal, and
inordinately vain; so absurdly to flatter his vanity, as had been done,
was to serve him but ill at a time when he stood in need of a mentor who
should be wise, learned, judicious, benevolent, and severe, etc.--(a
fancy portrait of Goujart).--The musicians made bitter fun of it all.
They affected a lofty contempt for an artist who had the newspapers at
his back: and, pretending to be disgusted with the _vulgum pecus_,
they refused the presents of Artaxerxes, which were not offered them.
Some of them abused Christophe: others overwhelmed him with their
commiseration. Some of them--(his colleagues)--laid the blame on
Olivier.--They were only too glad to pay him out for his intolerance and
his way of holding aloof from them,--rather, if the truth were known,
from a desire for solitude than from scorn of any of them. But men are
least apt to pardon those who show that they can do without them.--Some
of them almost went so far as to hint that he had made money by the
articles in the _Grand Journal_. There were others who took upon
themselves to defend Christophe against him: they appeared to be
broken-hearted at Olivier's callousness in dragging a sensitive artist,
a dreamer, ill-equipped for the battle of life,--Christophe,--into the
turmoil of the market-place, where he could not but be ruined: for they
regarded Christophe as a little boy not strong enough in the head to be
allowed to go out alone. The future of this man, they said, was being
ruined, for, even if he were not a genius, such good intentions and such
tremendous industry deserved a better fate, and he was being intoxicated
with incense of an inferior brand. It was a great pity. Why could they
not leave him in his obscurity to go on working patiently for years?
Olivier might have had the answer pat:
"A man must eat to work. Who will give him his bread?"
But that would not have abashed them. They would have replied with their
magnificent serenity:
"That is a detail. An artist must suffer. And what does a little
suffering matter?"
Of course, they were men of the world, quite well off, who professed
these Stoic theories. As the millionaire once said to the simple person
who came and asked him to help a poverty-stricken artist:
"But, sir, Mozart died of poverty."
They would have thought it very bad taste on Olivier's part if he had
told them that Mozart would have asked nothing better than to go on
living, and that Christophe was determined to do so.
* * * * *
Christophe was getting heartily sick of the vulgar tittle-tattle. He
began to wonder if it were going on forever.--But it was all over in a
fortnight. The newspapers gave up talking about him. However, he had
become known. When his name was mentioned, people said, not:
"The author of _David_ or _Gargantua_," but:
"Oh yes! The _Grand Journal_ man!..."
He was famous.
Olivier knew it by the number of letters that came for Christophe, and
even for himself, in his reflected glory: offers from librettists,
proposals from concert-agents, declarations of friendship from men who
had formerly been his enemies, invitations from women. His opinion was
asked, for newspaper inquiries, about anything and everything: the
depopulation of France, idealist art, women's corsets, the nude on the
stage,--and did he believe that Germany was decadent, or that music had
reached its end, etc., etc. They used to laugh at them all. But, though
he laughed, lo and behold! Christophe, that Huron, steadily accepted the
invitations to dinner! Olivier could not believe his eyes.
"You?" he said.
"I! Certainly," replied Christophe jeeringly. "You thought you were the
only man who could go and see the beautiful ladies? Not at all, my boy!
It's my turn now. I want to amuse myself!"
"You? Amuse yourself? My dear old man!"
The truth was that Christophe had for so long lived shut up in his own
room that he felt a sudden longing to get away from it. Besides, he took
a naïve delight in tasting his new fame. He was terribly bored at
parties, and thought the people idiotic. But when he came home he used
to take a malicious pleasure in telling Olivier how much he had enjoyed
himself. He would go to people's houses once, but never again: he would
invent the wildest excuses, with a frightful want of tact, to get out of
their renewed invitations. Olivier would be scandalized, and Christophe
would shout with laughter. He did not go to their houses to spread his
fame, but to replenish his store of life, his collection of expressions
and tones of voice--all the material of form, and sound, and color, with
which an artist has periodically to enrich his palette. A musician does
not feed only on music. An inflection of the human voice, the rhythm of
a gesture, the harmony of a smile, contain more suggestion of music for
him that another man's symphony. But it must be said that the music of
faces and human souls is as stale and lacking in variety in polite
society as the music of polite musicians. Each has a manner and becomes
set in it. The smile of a pretty woman is as stereotyped in its studied
grace as a Parisian melody. The men are even more insipid than the
women. Under the debilitating influence of society, their energy is
blunted, their original characters rot away and finally disappear with a
frightful rapidity. Christophe was struck by the number of dead and
dying men he met among the artists: there was one young musician, full
of life and genius, whom success had dulled, stupefied, and wiped out of
existence: he thought of nothing but swallowing down the flattery in
which he was smothered, enjoying himself, and sleeping. What he would be
like twenty years later was shown in another corner of the room, in the
person of an old pomaded _maestro_, who was rich, famous, a member
of all the Academies, at the very height of his career, and, though
apparently he had nothing to fear and no more wires to pull, groveled
before everything and everybody, and was fearful of opinion, power, and
the Press, dared not say what he thought, and thought nothing at all--a
man who had ceased to exist, showing himself off, an ass saddled with
the relics of his own past life.
Behind all these artists and men of intellect who had been great, or
might have been great, there was certain to be some woman preying upon
them. They were all dangerous, both the fools and those who were by no
means fools: both those who loved and those who loved themselves: the
best of them were the worst: for they were all the more certain to snuff
out the artist with their immoderate affection, which made them in all
good faith try to domesticate genius, turn it to their own uses, drag it
down, prune it, pare it down, scent it, until they had brought it into
line with their sensibility, their petty vanity, their mediocrity, and
the mediocrity of the world they lived in.
Although Christophe only passed through that section of society, he saw
enough of it to feel its danger. More than one woman, of course, tried
to take possession of him for her circle, to press him into her service:
and, of course, Christophe nibbled at the hook baited with friendly
words and alluring smiles. But for his sturdy common sense and the
disquieting spectacle of the transformations already effected in the men
about them by these modern Circes, he would not have escaped
uncontaminated. But he had no mind to swell the herd of these lovely
goose-girls. The danger would have been greater for him if there had not
been so many of them angling for him. Now that everybody, men and women,
were properly convinced that they had a genius in their midst, as usual,
they set to work to stifle him. Such people, when they see a flower,
have only one idea: to put it in a pot,--a bird: to put it in a cage,--
a free man: to turn him into a smooth lackey.
Christophe was shaken for a moment, pulled himself together, and sent
them all packing.
Fate is ironical. Those who do not care slip through the meshes of the
net: but those who are suspicious, those who are prudent, and
forewarned, are never suffered to escape. It was not Christophe who was
caught in the net of Paris, but Olivier.
He had benefited by his friend's success: Christophe's fame had given
him a reflected glory. He was better known now, for having been
mentioned in a few papers as the man who had discovered Christophe, than
for anything he had written during the last six years. He was included
in many of the invitations that came for Christophe: and he went with
him, meaning carefully and discreetly to look after him. No doubt he was
too much absorbed in doing so to look after himself. Love passed by and
caught him.
She was a little fair girl, charmingly slender, with soft hair waving in
little ripples about her pure narrow forehead: she had fine eyebrows and
rather heavy eyelids, eyes of a periwinkle blue, a delicately carved
nose with sensitive nostrils; her temples were slightly hollowed: she
had a capricious chin, and a mobile, witty, and rather sensual mouth,
turning up at the corners, and the _Parmigianninesque_ smile of a
pure faun. She had a long, delicate throat, a pretty waist, a slender,
elegant figure, and a happy, pensive expression in her girlish face, in
every line of which there was the disturbing poetic mystery of the
waking spring,--_Frühlingserwachen_. Her name was Jacqueline Langeais.
She was not twenty. She came of a rich Catholic family, of great
distinction and broad-mindedness. Her father was a clever engineer, a
man of some invention, clear-headed and open to new ideas, who had made
a fortune, thanks to his own hard work, his political connections, and
his marriage. He had married both for love and money--(the proper
marriage for love for such people)--a pretty woman, very Parisian, who
was bred in the world of finance. The money had stayed: but love had
gone. However, he had managed to preserve a few sparks of it, for it had
been very ardent on both sides: but they did not stickle for any
exaggerated notion of fidelity. They went their ways and had their
pleasures: and they got on very well together, as friends, selfishly,
unscrupulously, warily.
Their daughter was a bond between them, though she was the object of an
unspoken rivalry between them: for they both loved her jealously. They
both saw themselves in her with their pet faults idealized by the grace
of childhood: and each strove cunningly to steal her from the other. And
the child had in due course become conscious of it, with the artful
candor of such little creatures, who are only too ready to believe that
the universe gravitates round themselves: and she turned it to good
account. She had them perpetually outbidding each other for her
affection. She never had a whim but she was sure that one of them would
indulge it if the other refused: and the other would be so vexed at
being outdone that she would at once be offered an even greater
indulgence than the first. She had been dreadfully spoiled: and it was
very fortunate for her that there was no evil in her nature,--outside
the egoism common to almost all children, though in children who are too
rich and too much pampered it assumes various morbid shapes, due to the
absence of difficulties and the want of any goal to aim at.
Though they adored her, neither M. nor Madame Langeais ever thought of
sacrificing their own personal convenience to her. They used to leave
the child alone, for the greater part of the day, to gratify her
thousand and one fancies. She had plenty of time for dreaming, and she
wasted none of it. She was precocious and quick to grasp at incautious
remarks let fall in her presence--(for her parents were never very
guarded in what they said),--and when she was six years old she used to
tell her dolls love-stories, the characters in which were husband, wife,
and lover. It goes without saying that she saw no harm in it. Directly
she began to perceive a shade of feeling underlying the words it was all
over for the dolls: she kept her stories to herself. There was in her a
strain of innocent sensuality, which rang out in the distance like the
sound of invisible bells, over there, over there, on the other side of
the horizon. She did not know what it was. Sometimes it would come
wafted on the wind: it came she did not know from whence, and wrapped
her round and made the blood mount to her cheeks, and she would lose her
breath in the fear and pleasure of it. She could not understand it. And
then it would disappear as strangely as it had come. There was never
another sound. Hardly more than a faint buzzing, an imperceptible
resonance, fainter and fainter, in the blue air. Only she knew that it
was yonder, on the other side of the mountain, and thither she must go,
go as soon as possible: for there lay happiness. Ah! If only she could
reach it!...
In the meanwhile, until she should reach that land of happiness, she
wove strange dreams of what she would find there. For the chief
occupation of the child's mind was guessing at its nature. She had a
friend of her own age, Simone Adam, with whom she used often to discuss
these great subjects. Each brought to bear on them the light of her
twelve years' experience, conversations overheard and stolen reading. On
tip-toe, clinging to the crannies in the stones, the two little girls
strained to peer over the old wall which hid the future from them. But
it was all in vain, and it was idle for them to pretend that they could
see through the chinks: they could see nothing at all. They were both a
mixture of innocence, poetic salaciousness, and Parisian irony. They
used to say the most outrageous things without knowing it, and they were
always making mountains out of molehills. Jacqueline, who was always
prying, without anybody to find fault with her, used to burrow in all
her father's books. Fortunately, she was protected from coming to any
harm by her very innocence and her own young, healthy instincts: an
unduly described scene or a coarse word disgusted her at once: she would
drop the book at once, and she passed through the most infamous company,
like a frightened cat through puddles of dirty water,--without so much
as a splash.
As a rule, novels did not attract her: they were too precise, too dry.
But books of poetry used to make her heart flutter with emotion and hope
of finding the key to the riddle,--love-poems, of course. They coincided
to a certain extent with her childish outlook on things. The poets did
not see things as they were, they imagined them through the prism of
desire or regret: they seemed, like herself, to be peering through the
chinks of the old wall. But they knew much more, they knew all the
things which she was longing to know, and clothed them with sweet,
mysterious words, which she had to unravel with infinite care to find
... to find ... Ah! She could find nothing, but she was always sure that
she was on the very brink of finding it....
Their curiosity was indomitable. They would thrill as they whispered
verses of Alfred de Musset and Sully Prudhomme, into which they read
abyss on abyss of perversity: they used to copy them out, and ask each
other about the hidden meanings of passages, which generally contained
none. These little women of thirteen, who knew nothing of love, used, in
their innocent effrontery, to discuss, half in jest, half in earnest,
love and the sweets of love: and, in school, under the fatherly eye of
the master--a very polite and mild old gentleman--verses like the
following, which he confiscated one day, when they made him gasp:
"Let, oh! let me clasp you in my arms,
And in your kisses drink insensate love
Drop by drop in one long draught...."
They attended lectures at a fashionable and very prosperous school, the
teachers of which were Masters of Art of the University. There they
found material for their sentimental aspirations. Almost all the girls
were in love with their masters. If they were young and not too ugly,
that was quite enough for them to make havoc of their pupils'
hearts--who would work like angels to please their sultan. And they
would weep when he gave them bad marks in their examinations: though
they did not care when anybody else did the same. If he praised them,
they would blush and go pale by turns, and gaze at him coquettishly in
gratitude. And if he called them aside to give them advice or pay them a
compliment, they were in Paradise. There was no need for him to be an
eagle to win their favor. When the gymnastic instructor took Jacqueline
in his arms to lift her up to the trapeze, she would be in ecstasies.
And what furious emulation there was between them! How coaxingly and
with what humility they would make eyes at the master to attract his
attention from a presumptuous rival! At lectures, when he opened his
lips to speak, pens and pencils would be hastily produced to take down
what he said. They made no attempt to understand: the chief thing was
not to lose a syllable. And while they went on writing and writing
without ceasing, with stealthy glances to take in their idol's play of
expression and gestures, Jacqueline and Simone would whisper to each
other:
"Do you think he would look nice in a tie with blue spots?"
Then they had a chromo-lithographic ideal, based on romantic and
fashionable books of verses, and poetic fashion-plates,--they fell in
love with actors, virtuosi, authors, dead and alive--Mounet-Sully,
Samain, Debussy,--they would exchange glances with young men at concerts,
or in a drawing-room, or in the street, and at once begin to weave
fanciful and passionate love-affairs,--they could not help always
wanting to fall in love, to have their lives filled with a love-affair,
to find some excuse for being in love. Jacqueline and Simone used to
confide everything to each other: proof positive that they did not feel
anything much: it was the best sort of preventive to keep them from ever
having any deep feeling. On the other hand, it became a sort of chronic
illness with them: they were the first to laugh at it, but they used
lovingly to cultivate it. They excited each other. Simone was more
romantic and more cautious, and used to invent wilder stories. But
Jacqueline, being more sincere and more ardent, came nearer to realizing
them. She was twenty times on the brink of the most hopeless
folly.--However, she did not commit herself, as is the way with young
people. There are times when these poor little crazy creatures--(such as
we have all been)--are within an ace, some of suicide, others of
flinging themselves into the arms of the first man who comes along.
Only, thank God, almost all of them stop short at that. Jacqueline wrote
countless rough drafts of passionate letters to men whom she hardly knew
by sight: but she never sent any of them, except one enthusiastic
letter, unsigned, to an ugly, vulgar, selfish critic, who was as
cold-hearted as he was narrow-minded. She fell in love with him over a
few lines in which she had discovered a rare wealth of sensibility. She
was fired also by a great actor, who lived near her: whenever she passed
his door she used to say to herself:
"Shall I go in?"
And once she made so bold as to go up to the door of his flat. When she
found herself there, she turned and fled. What could she have talked to
him about? She had nothing, nothing at all to say to him. She did not
love him. And she knew it. In the greater part of her folly she was
deceiving herself. And for the rest it was the old, old, delicious,
stupid need of being in love. As Jacqueline was naturally intelligent,
she knew that quite well, and it kept her from making a fool of herself.
A fool who knows his folly is worth two who don't.
She went out a good deal. There were many young men who felt her charm,
and more than one of them was in love with her. She did not care what
harm she did. A pretty girl makes a cruel game of love. It seems to her
quite natural that she should be loved, and never considers that she
owes anything to those who love her: she is apt to believe that her
lover is happy enough in loving her. It must be said, by way of excuse,
that she has no idea of what love is, although she thinks of nothing
else all day long. One is inclined to think that a young girl in
society, brought up in the hot-house atmosphere of a great town, would
be more precocious than a country girl: but the opposite is the case.
Her reading and conversation have made her obsessed by love, so obsessed
that in her idle life it often borders on mania: and sometimes it
happens that she has read the play beforehand, and knows it word for
word by heart. But she never feels it. In love, as in art, it is useless
to read what others have said: we can but say what we feel: and those
who make haste to speak before they have anything to say are as likely
as not to say nothing.
Jacqueline, like most young people, lived in an atmosphere clouded by
the dust of the feelings of others, which, while it kept her in a
perpetual fever, with her hands burning, and her throat dry, and her
eyes sore, prevented her seeing anything. She thought she knew
everything. It was not that she lacked the wish to know. She read and
listened. She had picked up a deal of information, here and there, in
scraps, from conversation and books. She even tried to read what was
written in herself. She was much better than the world in which she
lived, for she was more sincere.
There was one woman who had a good influence--only too brief--over her.
This was a sister of her father's, a woman of between forty and fifty,
who had never married. Tall, with regular features, though sad and
lacking in beauty, Marthe Langeais was always dressed in black: she had
a sort of stiff distinction of feature and movement: she spoke very
little, and she had a deep voice, almost like a man's. But for the clear
light in her intelligent gray eyes and the kind smile on her sad lips
she would have passed unnoticed.
She only appeared at the Langeais' on certain days, when they were
alone. Langeais had a great respect for her, though she bored him.
Madame Langeais made no attempt to disguise from her husband how little
pleasure his sister's visits gave her. However, they faced their duty,
and had her to dinner once a week, and they did not let it appear too
glaringly that they regarded it as a duty. Langeais used to talk about
himself, which she always found interesting. Madame Langeais would think
of something else, and, as a matter of habit, smile affably when she was
spoken to. The dinner always went off very well, and she was invariably
polite. Sometimes, even, she would be effusively affectionate when her
tactful sister-in-law went away earlier than she had hoped: and Madame
Langeais's charming smile would be most radiant when she had any
particularly pleasant memories to think of. Marthe saw through it all:
very little escaped her eyes: and she saw many things in her brother's
house which shocked and distressed her. But she never let it appear:
what was the good? She loved her brother, and had been proud of his
cleverness and success, like the rest of the family, who had not thought
the triumph of the eldest son too dear a price to pay for their poverty.
She, at least, had preserved her independence of opinion. She was as
clever as he was, and of a finer moral fiber, more virile--(as the women
of France so often are; they are much superior to the men),--and she knew
him through and through: and when he asked her advice she used to give
it frankly. But for a long time he had not asked it of her! He found it
more prudent not to know, or--(for he knew the truth as much as she
did),--to shut his eyes. She was proud, and drew aside. Nobody ever
troubled to look into her inward life, and it suited the others to
ignore her. She lived alone, went out very little, and had only a few
not very intimate friends. It would have been very easy to her to turn
her brother's influence and her own talents to account: but she did not
do so. She had written a few articles for the leading reviews in Paris,
historical and literary portraits, which had attracted some attention by
their sober, just, and striking style. But she had gone no farther. She
might have formed interesting friendships with certain distinguished men
and women, who had shown a desire to know her, whom also she would,
perhaps, have been glad to know. She did not respond to their advances.
Though she had a reserved seat for a theater when the program contained
music that she loved, she did not go: and though she had the opportunity
of traveling to a place where she knew that she would find much
pleasure, she preferred to stay at home. Her nature was a curious
compound of stoicism and neurasthenia, which, however, in no wise
impaired the integrity of her ideas. Her life was impaired, but not her
mind. An old sorrow, known only to herself, had left its mark on her
heart. And even more profound, even less suspected--unknown to herself,
was the secret illness which had begun to prey upon her. However, the
Langeais saw only the clear expression of her eyes, which sometimes made
them feel embarrassed.
Jacqueline used to take hardly any notice of her aunt in the days when
she was careless and gay--which was her usual condition when she was a
child. But when she reached the age at which there occurs a mysterious
change and growth in body and soul, which bring agony, disgust, terror,
and fearful moments of depression in their train, and moments of absurd,
horrible dizziness, which, happily, do not last, though they make their
victim feel at the point of death,--the child, sinking and not daring to
cry for help, found only her Aunt Marthe standing by her side and
holding out her hand. Ah! the others were so far away! Her father and
mother were as strangers to her, with their selfish affection, too
satisfied with themselves to think of the small troubles of a doll of
fourteen! But her aunt guessed them, and comforted her. She did not say
anything. She only smiled: across the table she exchanged a kindly
glance with Jacqueline, who felt that her aunt understood her, and she
took refuge by her side. Marthe stroked Jacqueline's head and kissed
her, and spoke no word.
The little girl trusted her. When her heart was heavy she would go and
see her friend, who would know and understand as soon as she arrived;
she would be met always with the same indulgent eyes, which would infect
her with a little of their own tranquillity. She told her aunt hardly
anything about her imaginary love-affairs: she was ashamed of them, and
felt that there was no truth in them. But she confessed all the vague,
profound uneasiness that was in her, and was more real, her only real
trouble.
"Aunt," she would sigh sometimes, "I do so long to be happy!"
"Poor child!" Marthe would say, with a smile.
Jacqueline would lay her head in her aunt's lap, and kiss her hands as
they caressed her face:
"Do you think I shall be happy? Aunt, tell me; do you think I shall be
happy?"
"I don't know, my dear. It rather depends on yourself.... People can
always be happy if they want to be."
Jacqueline was incredulous.
"Are you happy?"
Marthe smiled sadly: "Yes."
"No? Really? Are you happy?"
"Don't you believe it?"
"Yes. But...."
Jacqueline stopped short.
"What is it?"
"I want to be happy, but not like you."
"Poor child! I hope so, too!" said Marthe.
"No." Jacqueline went on shaking her head decisively. "But I couldn't
be."
"I should not have thought it possible, either. Life teaches one to be
able to do many things."
"Oh! But I don't want to learn," protested Jacqueline anxiously. "I want
to be happy in the way I want."
"You would find it very hard to say how!"
"I know quite well what I want."
She wanted many things. But when it came to saying what they were, she
could only mention one, which recurred again and again, like a refrain:
"First of all, I want some one to love me."
Marthe went on sewing without a word. After a moment she said:
"What good will it be to you if you do not love?"
Jacqueline was taken aback, and exclaimed: