was often as though he had not heard them. After the mute dialogue of
their eyes, he would shake his head mockingly, and then begin to tell a
story without any apparent bearing on the story he had just been told,
some story about his life, or some one else's life, real or fictitious.
And gradually Georges would see his double (he recognized it at once)
under a new light, grotesquely, ridiculously postured, passing through
vagaries similar to his own. Christophe never added any commentary. The
extraordinary kindliness of the story-teller would produce far more
effect than the story. He would speak of himself just as he spoke of
others, with the same detachment, the same jovial, serene humor. Georges
was impressed by his tranquillity. It was for this that he came. When he
had unburdened himself of his light-hearted confession, he was like a
man stretching out his limbs and lying at full length in the shade of a
great tree on a summer afternoon. The dazzling fever of the scorching
day would fall away from him. Above him he would feel the hovering of
protecting wings. In the presence of this man who so peacefully bore the
heavy burden of his life, he was sheltered from his own inward
restlessness. He found rest only in hearing him speak. He did not always
listen: his mind would wander, but wheresoever it went, it was
surrounded by Christophe's laughter.
However, he did not understand his old friend's ideas. He used to wonder
how Christophe could bear his soul's solitude, and dispense with being
bound to any artistic, political, or religious party, or any group of
men. He used to ask him: "Don't you ever want to take refuge in a camp
of some sort?"
"Take refuge?" Christophe would say with a laugh. "It is much too good
outside. And you, an open-air man, talk of shutting yourself up?"
"Ah!" Georges would reply. "It is not the same thing for body and soul.
The mind needs certainty: it needs to think with others, to adhere to
the principles admitted by all the men of the time. I envy the men of
old days, the men of the classic ages. My friends are right in their
desire to restore the order of the past."
"Milksop!" said Christophe. "What have I to do with such disheartened
creatures?"
"I am not disheartened," protested Georges indignantly. "None of us is
that."
"But you must be," said Christophe, "to be afraid of yourselves. What!
You need order and cannot create it for yourselves? You must always be
clinging to your great-grandmother's skirts! Dear God! You must walk
alone!"
"One must take root," said Georges, proudly echoing one of the pontiffs
of the time.
"But do you think the trees need to be shut up in a box to take root?
The earth is there for all of us. Plunge your roots into it. Find your
own laws. Look to yourself."
"I have no time," said Georges.
"You are afraid," insisted Christophe.
Georges indignantly denied it, but in the end he agreed that he had no
taste for examining his inmost soul: he could not understand what
pleasure there could be in it: there was the danger of falling over if
you looked down into the abyss.
"Give me your hand," said Christophe.
He would amuse himself by opening the trap-door of his realistic, tragic
vision of life. Georges would draw away from it, and Christophe would
shut it down again, laughing:
"How can you live like that?" Georges would ask.
"I am alive, and I am happy," Christophe would reply.
"I should die if I were forced to see things like that always."
Christophe would slap him on the shoulder:
"Fine athlete you are!... Well, don't look, if your head is not strong
enough. There is nothing to make you, after all. Go ahead, my boy. But
do you need a master to brand your shoulder, like a sheep? What is the
word of command you are waiting for? The signal was given long ago. The
signal to saddle has sounded, and the cavalry is on the march. Don't
worry about anything but your horse. Take your place! And gallop!"
"But where to?" asked Georges.
"With your regiment to the conquest of the world. Conquer the air,
master the elements, dig the last entrenchment of Nature, set back
space, drive back death....
"_Expertus vacuum Dadalus aera_...."
"... Do you know that, you champion of Latin? Can you even tell me what
it means?
"_Perrupit Acheronta_...."
"That is your lot, you happy _conquistadores_!"
So clearly did he show the duty of heroic action that had devolved upon
the new generation, that Georges was amazed, and said:
"But if you feel that, why don't you come with us?"
"Because I have a different task. Go, my boy, do your work. Surpass me,
if you can. But I stay here and watch.... Have you read the Arabian
Night in which a genii, as tall as a mountain, is imprisoned in a bottle
sealed with the seal of Solomon?... The genii is here, in the depths of
our soul, the soul into which you are afraid to look down. I and the men
of my time spent our lives in struggling with him: we did not conquer
him: he conquered us. At present we are both recovering our breath, and,
with no rancor nor fear, we are looking at each other, satisfied with
the struggles in which we have been engaged, waiting for the agreed
armistice to expire. You are profiting by the armistice to gather your
strength and cull the world's beauty. Be happy. Enjoy the lull. But
remember that one day, you or your children, on your return from your
conquests, will have to come back to the place where I stand and resume
the combat, with new forces, against the genii by whose side I watch and
wait. And the combat will endure with intervals of armistice until one
of the two (perhaps both) will be laid low. It is your duty to be
stronger and happier than we!...--Meanwhile, indulge in your sport if
you like: stiffen your muscles and strengthen your heart: and do not be
so foolish as to waste your impatient vigor upon silly trifles: you
belong to an age that, if you are patient, will find a use for it."
* * * * *
Georges did not remember much of what Christophe said to him. He was
open-minded enough to grasp Christophe's ideas, but they escaped him at
once. He forgot everything before he reached the bottom of the stairs.
But all the same, he had a feeling of well-being, which endured when the
memory of the words that had produced it had long been wiped out. He had
a real veneration for Christophe. He believed in nothing that Christophe
believed in (at heart he laughed at everything and had no belief). But
he would have broken the head of any man who took upon himself to speak
ill of his old friend.
Fortunately, no one did speak ill of him in his presence, otherwise he
would have been kept busy.
* * * * *
Christophe had accurately forecast the next change of the wind. The new
ideal of the new French music was very different from his own; but while
that was a reason the more for Christophe to sympathize with it, its
exponents had no sympathy with him. His vogue with the public was not
likely to reconcile the most hungry for recognition of these young men
to him; they were meagerly fed, and their teeth were long, and they bit.
Christophe was not put out by their spite.
"How thoroughly they do it!" he would say. "These boys are cutting their
teeth...."
He was inclined to prefer them to the other puppies who fawned on him
because of his success--those people of whom D'Aubigné writes, who
"_when a mastiff plunges his nose into a butter-pot, come and lick his
whiskers by way of congratulation._"
He had a piece accepted at the Opéra. Almost at once it was put into
rehearsal. Through a newspaper attack Christophe learned that a certain
young composer's piece had been postponed for it. The writer of the
article waxed indignant over such abuse of power, and made Christophe
responsible for it.
Christophe went to see the manager, and said:
"Why didn't you tell me? You must not do it. You must put on the opera
you accepted before mine."
The manager protested, began to laugh, refused, covered Christophe's
character, work, genius, with flattery, and said that the other man's
work was beneath contempt, and assured him that it was worthless and
would not make a sou.
"Why did you accept it then?"
"One can't always do as one likes. Every now and then one has to throw a
sop to public opinion. Formerly these young men could shout as much as
they pleased. And no one listened to them. But now they are able to let
loose on us the nationalist Press, which roars 'Treason' and calls you a
disloyal Frenchman because you happen to have the misfortune to be
unable to go into ecstasies over the younger school. The younger school!
Let's look at it!... Shall I tell you what I think of it? I'm sick of
it! So is the public. They bore us with their _Oremus!_... There's
no blood in their veins; they're like sacristans chanting Mass: their
love duets are like the _De Profundis_.... If I were fool enough to
put on the pieces I am compelled to accept, I should ruin my theater. I
accept them: that is all they can ask.--Let us talk of something
serious. Your work means a full house...."
And he went on with his compliments.
Christophe cut him short, and said angrily:
"I am not taken in. Now that I am old and have 'arrived,' you are using
me to suppress the young men. When I was a young man you would have
suppressed me in just the same way. You must play this boy's piece, or I
shall withdraw my own."
The manager threw up his hands, and said:
"But don't you see that if we did what you want, it would look as if we
were giving in to these newspaper attacks?"
"What do I care?" said Christophe.
"As you please! You will be their first victim."
They put the young musician's piece into rehearsal without interrupting
the preparation of Christophe's. One was in three acts, the other in
two: it was arranged to include them both in one program. Christophe
went to see the young man, for he wanted to be the first to give him the
news. The musician was loud in his promises of eternal gratitude.
Naturally Christophe could not make the manager not devote all his
attention to his piece. The interpretation and the scenery of the other
were rather scamped. Christophe knew nothing about it. He asked to be
allowed to be present at a few rehearsals of the young man's opera: he
thought it very mediocre, as he had been told: he ventured to give a
little advice which was ill-received: he gave it up then, and did not
interfere again. On the other hand, the manager had made the young man
admit the necessity for a little cutting to have his piece produced in
time. Though the sacrifice was easily consented to at first, it was not
long before the author regretted it.
On the evening of the performance the beginner's piece had no success,
and Christophe's caused a sensation. Some of the papers attacked
Christophe: they spoke of a trick, a plot to suppress a great young
French artist: they said that his work had been mutilated to please the
German master, whom they represented to be basely jealous of the coming
fame of all the new men. Christophe shrugged his shoulders and thought:
"He will reply."
"He" did not reply. Christophe sent him one of the paragraphs with these
words:
"Have you read this?"
The other replied:
"How sorry I am! The writer of it has always been so well disposed
towards me! Really, I am very sorry. The best thing is to pay no
attention to it."
Christophe laughed and thought: "He is right! The little sneak."
And he decided to forget all about it.
But chance would have it that Georges, who seldom read the papers, and
that hastily, except for the sporting articles, should light on the most
violent attacks on Christophe. He knew the writer. He went to the café
where he knew he would meet him, found him, struck him, fought a duel
with him, and gave him a nasty scratch on the shoulder with his rapier.
Next day, at breakfast, Christophe had a letter from a friend telling
him of the affair. He was overcome. He left his breakfast and hurried to
see Georges. Georges himself opened the door. Christophe rushed in like
a whirlwind, seized him by the arms, and shook him angrily, and began to
overwhelm him with a storm of furious reproaches.
"You little wretch!" he cried. "You have fought a duel for me! Who gave
you leave! A boy, a fly-by-night, to meddle in my affairs! Do you think
I can't look after myself? What good have you done? You have done this
rascal the honor of fighting him. He asked no more. You have made him a
hero. Idiot! And if it had chanced ... (I am sure you rushed at it like
a madman as usual) ... if you had been wounded, killed perhaps!... You
wretch! I should never have forgiven you as long as you lived!..."
Georges laughed uproariously at this last threat, and was so overcome
with merriment, that he cried:
"My dear old friend, how funny you are! Ah! You're unique! Here are you
insulting me for having defended you! Next time I shall attack you.
Perhaps you'll embrace me then."
Christophe stopped and hugged Georges, and kissed him on both cheeks,
and then once more he said:
"My boy!... Forgive me. I am an old idiot.... But my blood boiled when I
heard the news. What made you think of fighting? You don't fight with
such people. Promise me at once that you will never do it again."
"I'll promise nothing of the kind," said Georges. "I shall do as I
like."
"I forbid it. Do you hear? If you do it again, I'll never see you again.
I shall publicly disown you in the newspapers I shall...."
"You will disinherit me, you mean."
"Come, Georges. Please. What's the good of it?"
"My dear old friend, you are a thousand times a better man than I am,
and you know infinitely more: but I know these people better than you
do. Make yourself easy. It will do some good. They will think a little
now before they let loose their poisonous insults upon you."
"But what can these idiots do to me? I laugh at anything they may say."
"But I don't. And you must mind your own business."
Thereafter Christophe lived on tenterhooks lest some fresh article might
rouse Georges's susceptibilities. It was quite comic to see him during
the next few days going to a café and devouring the newspapers, which he
never read as a rule, ready to go to all lengths (even to trickery) if
he found an insulting article, to prevent it reaching Georges. After a
week he recovered his equanimity. The boy was right. His action had
given the yelping curs food for a moment's reflection.--And, though
Christophe went on grumbling at the young lunatic who had made him waste
eight working days, he said to himself that, after all, he had no right
to lecture him. He remembered a certain day, not so very long ago, when
he himself had fought a duel for Olivier's sake. And he thought he heard
Olivier's voice saying:
"Let be, Christophe. I am giving you back what you lent me!"
* * * * *
Though Christophe took the attacks on himself lightly, there was one
other man who was very far from such disinterestedness. This was
Emmanuel.
The evolution of European thought was progressing swiftly. It was as
though it had been accelerated by mechanical inventions and the new
motors. The stock of prejudices and hopes which in old days were enough
to feed humanity for twenty years was now exhausted in five years. The
generations of the mind were galloping ahead, one behind the other,
often one trampling the other down, with Time sounding the
charge.--Emmanuel had been left behind.
The singer of French energy had never denied the idealism of his master,
Olivier. Passionate as was his national feeling, he identified himself
with his worship of moral greatness. If in his poetry he loudly
proclaimed the triumph of France, it was because in her, by an act of
faith, he adored the loftiest ideas of modern Europe, the Athena Nike,
the victorious Law which takes its revenge on Force.--And now Force had
awakened in the very heart of Law, and it was springing up in all its
savage nakedness. The new generation, robust and disciplined, was
longing for combat, and, before its victory was won, had the attitude of
mind of the conqueror. This generation was proud of its strength, its
thews, its mighty chest, its vigorous senses so thirsting for delight,
its wings like the wings of a bird of prey hovering over the plains,
waiting to swoop down and try its talons. The prowess of the race, the
mad flights over the Alps and the sea, the new crusades, not much less
mystic, not much less interested than those of Philip Augustus and
Villehardouin, had turned the nation's head. The children of the nation
who had never seen war except in books had no difficulty in endowing it
with beauty. They became aggressive. Weary of peace and ideas, they
hymned the anvil of battle, on which, with bloody fists, action would
one day new-forge the power of France. In reaction against the
disgusting abuse of systems of ideas, they raised contempt of the idea
to the level of a profession of faith. Blusteringly they exalted narrow
common sense, violent realism, immodest national egoism, trampling
underfoot the rights of others and other nations, when it served the
turn of their country's greatness. They were xenophobes, anti-democrats,
and--even the most skeptical of them--set up the return to Catholicism,
in the practical necessity for "digging channels for the absolute," and
shutting up the infinite under the surveillance of order and authority.
They were not content to despise--they regarded the gentle dotards of
the preceding generation, the visionary idealists, the humanitarian
thinkers of the preceding generation, as public malefactors. Emmanuel
was among them in the eyes of the young men. He suffered cruelly and was
very angry.
The knowledge that Christophe was, like himself,--more than himself--the
victim of their injustice, made him sympathetic. His ungraciousness had
discouraged Christophe's visits. He was too proud to show his regret by
seeking him out. But he contrived to meet him, as if by chance, and
forced Christophe to make the first advances. Thereafter his umbrageous
susceptibilities were at rest, and he did not conceal the pleasure he
had in Christophe's company. Thereafter they often met in each other's
rooms.
Emmanuel confided his bitterness to Christophe. He was exasperated by
certain criticisms, and, thinking that Christophe was not sufficiently
moved by them, he made him read some of the newspaper appreciations of
himself. Christophe was accused of not knowing the grammar of his work,
of being ignorant of harmony, of having stolen from other musicians,
and, generally, of dishonoring music. He was called: "This old
toss-brain...." They said: "We have had enough of these convulsionaries.
We are order, reason, classic balance...."
Christophe was vastly entertained.
"It is the law," he said. "The young bury the old.... In my day, it is
true, we waited until a man was sixty before we called him an old man.
They are going faster, nowadays.... Wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes....
A generation is more quickly exploded.... Poor devils! They won't last
long! Let them despise us and strut about in the sun!"
But Emmanuel had not his sanity. Though he was fearless in thought, he
was a prey to his diseased nerves; with his ardent soul in his rickety
body, he was driven on to the fight and was unfitted for it. The
animosity of certain opinions of his work drew blood.
"Ah!" he would say. "If the critics knew the harm they do artists by the
unjust words they throw out so recklessly, they would be ashamed of
their trade."
"But they do know, my friend. That is the justification of their
existence. Everybody must live."
"They are butchers. One is drenched with the blood of life, worn out by
the struggle we have to wage with art. Instead of holding out their
hands to us, and compassionately telling us of our faults, and brotherly
helping us to mend them, they stand there with their hands in their
pockets and watch you dragging your burden up the slope, and say: 'You
can't do it!' And when you reach the top, some of them say: 'Yes, but
that is not the way to climb up.' While the others go on blandly saying:
'You couldn't do it!...' You're lucky if they don't send great stones
rolling down on you to send you flying!"
"Bah! There are plenty of good men among them, and think of the good
they can do! There are bad men everywhere. They're not peculiar to
criticism. Do you know anything worse than an ungenerous, vain, and
embittered artist, to whom the world is only loot, that he is furious
because he cannot grab? You must don patience for your protection. There
is no evil but it may be of good service. The worst of the critics is
useful to us; he is a trainer: he does not let us loiter by the way.
Whenever we think we have reached the goal, the pack hound us on. Get
on! Onward! Upward! They are more likely to weary of running after me
than I am of marching ahead of them. Remember the Arabian proverb:
_'It is no use flogging sterile trees. Only those are stoned whose
front is crowned with golden fruit....'_ Let us pity the artists who
are spared. They will stay half-way, lazily sitting down. When they try
to get up their legs will be so stiff that they will be unable to walk.
Long live my friend the enemy! They do me more good in my life than the
enemy, my friend!"
Emmanuel could not help smiling. Then he said:
"All the same, don't you think it hard for a veteran like you to be
taken to task by recruits who are just approaching their first battle?"
"They amuse me," said Christophe. "Such arrogance is the mark of young,
hot blood tingling to be up and doing. I was like that once. They are
like the showers of March falling on the new-born soil.... Let them take
us to task! They are right, after all. Old people must learn from the
young! They have profited by us, and are ungrateful: that is in the
order of things. But, being enriched by our efforts, they will go
farther than we, and will realize what we attempted. If we still have
some youth left, let us learn in our turn, and try to rejuvenate
ourselves. If we cannot, if we are too old, let us rejoice in them. It
is fine to see the perpetual new-flowering of the human soul that
seemed, exhausted, the vigorous optimism of these young men, their
delight in action and adventures, the races springing to new life for
the conquest of the world."
"What would they be without us? Their joy is the fruit of our tears.
Their proud force is the flower of the sufferings of a whole generation.
_Sic vos non nobis_...."
"The old saying is wrong. It is for ourselves that we worked, and our
reward lies in the creation of a race of men who shall surpass us. We
amassed their treasury, we hoarded it in a wretched hovel open to all
the winds of Heaven: we had to strain every nerve to keep the doors
closed against death. Our arms carved out the triumphal way along which
our sons shall march. Our sufferings have saved the future. We have
borne the Ark to the threshold of the Promised Land. It will reach that
Land with them, and through us."
"Will they ever remember those who crossed the wilderness, bearing the
sacred fire, the gods of our race, and them, those children, who now are
men? For our share we have had tribulation and ingratitude."
"Do you regret it?"
"No. There is a sort of intoxication in the tragic grandeur of the
sacrifice of a mighty epoch like ours to the epoch that it has brought
into being. The men of to-day would not be more capable of tasting the
sovereign joy of renunciation."
"We have been the happier. We have scaled Mount Nebo, at whose feet lie
stretched the countries that we shall never enter. But we enjoy them
more than those who will enter them. When you descend to the plain, you
lose sight of the plain's immensity and the far horizon."
* * * * *
The soothing influence that Christophe exercised over Georges and
Emmanuel had the source of its power in Grazia's love. It was through
this love that he felt himself so near to all young things, and had an
inexhaustible fund of sympathy for every new form of life. Whatever the
forces might be that rekindled the earth, he was always with them, even
when they were against him: he had no fear for the immediate future of
the democracies, that future which caused such an outcry against the
egoism of a handful of privileged men: he did not cling desperately to
the paternosters of an old art: he felt quite sure that from the
fabulous visions, the realized dreams of science and action, a new art,
more puissant than the old, would spring forth: he hailed the new dawn
of the world, even though the beauty of the old world were to die with
it.