consciousness of her power lifted her out of herself. Through her
letters she exercised a controlling power over her friend. She was not
so absurdly pretentious as to try to control his art: she had too much
tact, and knew her limitations. But her true, pure voice was the
diapason to which he attuned his soul. Christophe had only to hear her
voice echoing his thought to think nothing that was not just, pure, and
worthy of repetition. The sound of a beautiful instrument is to a
musician like a beautiful body in which his dream at once becomes
incarnate. Mysterious is the fusion of two loving spirits: each takes
the best from the other, but only to give it back again enriched with
love. Grazia was not afraid to tell Christophe that she loved him.
Distance gave her more freedom of speech, and also, the certain
knowledge that she would never be his. Her love, the religious fervor of
which was communicated to Christophe, was a fountain of force and peace
to him.
Grazia gave to others more of such force and peace than she had herself.
Her health was shattered, her moral balance seriously affected. Her
son's condition did not improve. For the last two years she had lived in
a perpetual state of anxiety, aggravated by Lionello's fatal skill in
playing on it. He had acquired a consummate mastery of the art of
keeping those who loved him on tenterhooks: his idle mind was most
fertile in inventing ways of rousing interest in himself and tormenting
others: it had become a mania with him. And the tragedy of it was, that,
while he aped the ravages of disease, the disease did make real inroads
upon him, and death peeped forth. Then the expected happened: Grazia,
having been tortured by her son for years with his imaginary illness,
ceased to believe in it when the illness really came. The heart has its
limitations. She had exhausted her store of pity over his lies. She
thought Lionello was still a comedian when he spoke the truth. And when
the truth was revealed to her, the rest of her life was poisoned by
remorse.
Lionello's malice had not laid aside its weapons. Having no love for any
one in the world, he could not bear any of those near him to feel love
for any one else: jealousy was his only passion. It was not enough for
him to have separated his mother and Christophe: he tried to force her
to break off the intimacy which subsisted between them. Already he had
employed his usual weapon--his illness--to make Grazia swear that she
would not marry again. He was not satisfied with her promise. He tried
to force his mother to give up writing to Christophe. On this she
rebelled; and, being delivered by such an attempted abuse of power, she
spoke harshly and severely to Lionello about his habit of lying, and,
later on, regarded herself as a criminal for having done so: for her
words flung Lionello into a fit of fury which made him really ill. His
illness grew worse as he saw that his mother did not believe in it.
Then, in his fury, he longed to die so as to avenge himself. He never
thought that his wish would be granted.
When the doctor told Grazia that there was no hope for her son, she was
dumfounded. But she had to disguise her despair in order to deceive the
boy who had so often deceived her. He had a suspicion that this time it
was serious, but he refused to believe it; and his eyes watched his
mother's eyes for the reproachful expression that had infuriated him
when he was lying. There came a time when there was no room for doubt.
Then it was terrible, both for him and his mother and sister: he did not
wish to die....
When at last Grazia saw him sinking to sleep, she gave no cry and made
no moan: she astonished those about her by her silence: she had no
strength left for suffering: she had only one desire, to sleep also.
However, she went about the business of her life with the same apparent
calm. After a few weeks her smile returned to her lips, but she was more
silent still. No one suspected her inward distress, Christophe least of
all. She had only written to tell him the news, without a word of
herself. She did not answer Christophe's anxiously affectionate letters.
He wanted to come to her: she begged him not to. At the end of two or
three months, she resumed her old grave, serene tone with him. She would
have thought it criminal to put upon him the burden of her weakness. She
knew how the echo of all her feelings reverberated in him, and how great
was his need to lean on her. She did not impose upon herself the
restraint of sorrow. This discipline was her salvation. In her weariness
of life only two things gave her life: Christophe's love, and the
fatalism, which, in sorrow as in joy, lay at the heart of her Italian
nature. There was nothing intellectual in her fatalism: it was the
animal instinct, which makes a hunted beast go on, with no consciousness
of fatigue, in a staring wide-eyed dream, forgetting the stones of the
road, forgetting its own body, until it falls. Her fatalism sustained
her body. Love sustained her heart. Now that her own life was worn out,
she lived in Christophe. And yet she was more scrupulous than ever never
in her letters to tell him of the love she had for him: no doubt because
her love was greater: but also because she was conscious of the
_veto_ of the dead boy, who had made her affection a crime. Then
she would relapse into silence, and refrain from writing for a time.
Christophe did not understand her silence. Sometimes in the composed and
tranquil tone of one of her letters he would be conscious of an
unexpected note that seemed to be quivering with passionate moaning.
That would prostrate him: but he dared not say anything: he hardly dared
to notice it: he was like a man holding his breath, afraid to breathe,
for fear of destroying an illusion. He knew almost infallibly that in
the next letter such notes as these would be atoned for by a deliberate
coldness. Then, once more, tranquillity ... _Meeresstille_....
* * * * *
Georges and Emmanuel met at Christophe's one afternoon. Both were
preoccupied with their own troubles: Emmanuel with his literary
disappointments, and Georges with some athletic failure. Christophe
listened to them good-humoredly and teased them affectionately. There
was a ring at the door. Georges went to open it. A servant had come with
a letter from Colette. Christophe stood by the window to read it. His
friends went on with their discussion, and did not see Christophe, whose
back was turned to them. He left the room without their noticing it. And
when they realized that he had done so, they were not surprised. But as
time passed and he did not return, Georges went and knocked at the door
of the next room. There was no reply. Georges did not persist, for he
knew his old friend's queer ways. A few minutes later Christophe
returned without a word. He seemed very calm, very kind, very gentle. He
begged their pardon for leaving them, took up the conversation where he
had left it, and spoke kindly about their troubles, and said many
helpful things. The tone of his voice moved them, though they knew not
why.
They left him. Georges went straight to Colette's, and found her in
tears. As soon as she saw him she came swiftly to him and asked:
"How did our poor friend take the blow? It is terrible."
Georges did not understand. And Colette told him that she had just sent
Christophe the news of Grazia's death.
She was gone, without having had time to say farewell to anybody. For
several months past the roots of her life had been almost torn out of
the earth: a puff of wind was enough to lay it low. On the evening
before the relapse of influenza which carried her off she received a
long, kind letter from Christophe. It had filled her with tenderness,
and she longed to bid him come to her: she felt that everything else,
everything that kept them apart, was absurd and culpable. She was very
weary, and put off writing to him until the next day. On the day after
she had to stay in bed. She began a letter which she did not finish: she
had an attack of giddiness, and her head swam: besides, she was
reluctant to speak of her illness, and was afraid of troubling
Christophe. He was busy at the time with rehearsals of a choral symphony
set to a poem of Emmanuel's: the subject had roused them both to
enthusiasm, for it was something symbolical of their own destiny: _The
Promised Land_. Christophe had often mentioned it to Grazia. The
first performance was to take place the following week.... She must not
upset him. In her letter Grazia just spoke of a slight cold. Then that
seemed too much to her. She tore up the letter, and had no strength left
to begin another. She told herself that she would write in the evening.
When the evening came it was too late--too late to bid him come, too
late even to write.... How swiftly everything passes! A few hours are
enough to destroy the labor of ages.... Grazia hardly had time to give
her daughter a ring she wore and beg her to send it to her friend. Till
then she had not been very intimate with Aurora. Now that her life was
ebbing away, she gazed passionately at the face of the girl: she clung
to the hand that would pass on the pressure of her own, and, joyfully,
she thought:
"Not all of me will pass away."
_"Quid? hic, inquam, quis est qui complet aures meas tantus et tam
dulcis sonus?..."--(The Dream of Scipio.)_
When he left Colette, on an impulse of sympathy Georges went back to
Christophe's. For a long time, through Colette's indiscretions, he had
known the place that Grazia filled in his old friend's heart: he had
even--(for youth is not respectful)--made fun of it. But now generously
and keenly he felt the sorrow that Christophe must be feeling at such a
loss; and he felt that he must go to him, embrace him, pity him. Knowing
the violence of his passions,--the tranquillity that Christophe had
shown made him anxious. He rang the bell. No answer. He rang once more
and knocked, giving the signal agreed between Christophe and himself. He
heard the moving of a chair and a slow, heavy tread. Christophe opened
the door. His face was so calm that Georges stopped still, just as he
was about to fling himself into his arms: he knew not what to say.
Christophe asked him gently:
"You, my boy. Have you forgotten something?"
Georges muttered uneasily:
"Yes."
"Come in."
Christophe went and sat in the chair he had left on Georges's arrival,
near the window, with his head thrown back, looking at the roofs
opposite and the reddening evening sky. He paid no attention to Georges.
The young man pretended to look about on the table, while he stole
glances at Christophe. His face was set: the beams of the setting sun
lit up his cheek-bones and his forehead. Mechanically Georges went into
the next room--the bedroom--as though he were still looking for
something. It was in this room that Christophe had shut himself up with
the letter. It was still there on the bed, which bore the imprint of a
body. On the floor lay a book that had slipped down. It had been left
open with a page crumpled. Georges picked it up, and read the story of
the meeting of the Magdalene and the Gardener in the Gospel.
He came back into the living-room, and moved a few things here and there
to gain countenance, and once more he looked at Christophe, who had not
budged. He longed to tell him how he pitied him. But Christophe was so
radiant with light that Georges felt that it was out of place to speak.
It was rather himself who stood in need of consolation. He said timidly:
"I am going."
Without turning his head, Christophe said:
"Good-by, my boy."
Georges went away and closed the door without a sound.
For a long time Christophe sat there. Night came. He was not suffering:
he was not thinking: he saw no definite image. He was like a tired man
listening to some vague music without making any attempt to understand
it. The night was far gone when he got up, cramped and stiff. He flung
himself on his bed and slept heavily. The symphony went on buzzing all
around him....
And now he saw _her_, the well-beloved.... She held out her hands
to him, and said, smiling:
"Now you have passed through the zone of fire."
Then his heart melted. An indescribable peace filled the starry spaces,
where the music of the spheres flung out its great, still, profound
sheets of water....
When he awoke (it was day), his strange happiness still endured, with
the distant gleam of words falling upon his ears. He got up. He was
exalted with a silent, holy enthusiasm.
"... _Or vedi, figlio,
tra Beatrice e te è questo muro...."_
Between Beatrice and himself, the wall was broken down. For a long time
now more than half his soul had dwelt upon the other side. The more a
man lives, the more a man creates, the more a man loves and loses those
whom he loves, the more does he escape from death. With every new blow
that we have to bear, with every new work that we round and finish, we
escape from ourselves, we escape into the work we have created, the soul
we have loved, the soul that has left us. When all is told, Rome is not
in Rome: the best of a man lies outside himself. Only Grazia had
withheld him on this side of the wall. And now in her turn.... Now the
door was shut upon the world of sorrow.
He lived through a period of secret exaltation. He felt the weight of no
fetters. He expected nothing of the things of this world. He was
dependent upon nothing. He was set free. The struggle was at an end.
Issuing from the zone of combat and the circle where reigned the God of
heroic conflict, _Dominus Deus Sabaoth_, he looked down, and in the
night saw the torch of the Burning Bush put out. How far away it was!
When it had lit up his path he had thought himself almost at the summit.
And since then, how far he had had to go! And yet the topmost pinnacle
seemed no nearer. He would never reach it (he saw that now), though he
were to march on to eternity. But when a man enters the circle of light
and knows that he has not left those he loves behind him, eternity is
not too long a space to be journeying on with them.
He closed his doors. No one knocked. Georges had expended all his
compassion and sympathy in the one impulse; he was reassured by the time
he reached home, and forgot all about it by the next day. Colette had
gone to Rome. Emmanuel knew nothing, and hypersensitive as usual, he
maintained an affronted silence because Christophe had not returned his
visit. Christophe was not disturbed in his long colloquy with the woman
whom he now bore in his soul, as a pregnant woman bears her precious
burden. It was a moving intercourse, impossible to translate into words.
Even music could hardly express it. When his heart was full, almost
overflowing, Christophe would lie still with eyes closed, and listen to
its song. Or, for hours together, he would sit at his piano and let his
fingers speak. During this period he improvised more than he had done in
the whole of his life. He did not set down his thoughts. What was the
good?
When, after several weeks, he took to going out again and seeing other
men, while none of his friends, except Georges, had any suspicion of
what had happened, the daimon of improvisation pursued him still. It
would take possession of Christophe just when he was least expecting it.
One evening, at Colette's, Christophe sat down at the piano and played
for nearly an hour, absolutely surrendering himself, and forgetting that
the room was full of strangers. They had no desire to laugh. His
terrible improvisations enslaved and overwhelmed them. Even those who
did not understand their meaning were thrilled and moved: and tears came
to Colette's eyes.... When Christophe had finished he turned away
abruptly: he saw how everybody was moved, and shrugged his shoulders,
and--laughed.
He had reached the point at which sorrow also becomes a force--a
dominant force. His sorrow possessed him no more: he possessed his
sorrow: in vain it fluttered and beat upon its bars: he kept it caged.
From that period date his most poignant and his happiest works: a scene
from the Gospel which Georges recognized--
"_Mulier, quid ploras?"--"Quia tulerunt Dominium meum, et nescio ubi
posuerunt eum."
Et cum haec dixisset, conversa est retrorsum, et vidit Jesum stantem: et
non sciebat quia Jesus est_.
--a series of tragic _lieder_ set to verses of popular Spanish
_cantares_, among others a gloomy sad love-song, like a black
flame--
"_Quisiera ser el sepulcro
Donde á ti te han de enterrar,
Para tenerte en mis brazos
Por toda la eternidad_."
("Would I were the grave, where thou art to be buried, that I might hold
thee in my arms through all eternity.")
--and two symphonies, called _The Island of Tranquillity_ and
_The Dream of Scipio_, in which, more intimately than in any other
of the works of Jean-Christophe Krafft, is realized the union of the
most beautiful of the forces of the music of his time: the affectionate
and wise thought of Germany with all its shadowy windings, the clear
passionate melody of Italy, and the quick mind of France, rich in subtle
rhythms and variegated harmonies.
This "enthusiasm begotten of despair at the time of a great loss" lasted
for a few months. Thereafter Christophe fell back into his place in life
with a stout heart and a sure foot. The wind of death had blown away the
last mists of pessimism, the gray of the Stoic soul, and the
phantasmagoria of the mystic chiaroscura. The rainbow had shone upon the
vanishing clouds. The gaze of heaven, purer, as though it had been laved
with tears, smiled through them. There was the peace of evening on the
mountains.
IV
The fire smoldering in the forest of Europe was beginning to burst into
flames. In vain did they try to put it out in one place: it only broke
out in another: with gusts of smoke and a shower of sparks it swept from
one point to another, burning the dry brushwood. Already in the East
there were skirmishes as the prelude to the great war of the nations.
All Europe, Europe that only yesterday was skeptical and apathetic, like
a dead wood, was swept by the flames. All men were possessed by the
desire for battle. War was ever on the point of breaking out. It was
stamped out, but it sprang to life again. The world felt that it was the
mercy of an accident that might let loose the dogs of war. The world lay
in wait. The feeling of inevitability weighed heavily even upon the most
pacifically minded. And ideologues, sheltered beneath the massive shadow
of the cyclops, Proudhon, hymned in war man's fairest title of
nobility....
This, then, was to be the end of the physical and moral resurrection of
the races of the West! To such butchery they were to be borne along by
the currents of action and passionate faith! Only a Napoleonic genius
could have marked out a chosen, deliberate aim for this blind, onward
rush. But nowhere in Europe was there any genius for action. It was as
though the world had chosen the most mediocre to be its governors. The
force of the human mind was in other things.--So there was nothing to be
done but to trust to the declivity down which they were moving. This
both governors and governed were doing. Europe looked like a vast armed
vigil.
Christophe remembered a similar vigil, when he had had Olivier's anxious
face by his side. But then the menace of war had been only a passing
cloud. Now all Europe lay under its shadow. And Christophe's heart also
had changed. He could not share in the hatred of the nations. His state
of mind was like that of Goethe in 1813. How could a man fight without
hatred? And how could he hate without youth? He had passed through the
zone of hatred. Which of the great rival nations was the dearest to him?
He had learned to know all their merits, and what the world owed to
them. When a man has reached a certain stage in the development of the
soul _"he knows no nation, he feels the happiness or unhappiness of
the neighboring peoples as his own."_ The storm-clouds are at his
feet. Around him is nothing but the sky--_"the whole Heavens, the
kingdom of the eagle."_
And yet Christophe was sometimes embarrassed by this ambient hostility.
In Paris he was made to feel too clearly that he was of the hostile
race: even his friend Georges could not resist the pleasure of giving
vent, in his presence, to feelings about Germany which made him sad.
Then he rushed away, on the excuse that he wanted to see Grazia's
daughter: and he went and stayed for a time in Rome. But there the
atmosphere was no more serene. The great plague of national pride had
spread there, and had transformed the Italian character. The Italians,
whom Christophe had known to be indifferent and indolent, were now
thinking of nothing but military glory, battle, conquests, Roman eagles
flying over the sands of Libya: they believed they had returned to the
time of the Emperors. The wonderful thing was that this madness was
shared, with the best faith in the world, by the opposition parties,
socialists and clericals, as well as by the monarchists, and they had
not the least idea that they were being unfaithful to their cause. So
little do politics and human reason count when the great epidemic
passions sweep over the nations. Such passions do not even trouble to
suppress individual passions; they use them; and everything converges on
the one goal. In the great periods of action it was ever thus. The
armies of Henri IV., the Councils of Louis XIV., which forged the
greatness of France, numbered as many men of faith and reason as men of
vanity, interest, and enjoyment. Jansenists and libertines, Puritans and
gallants, served the same destiny in serving their instincts. In the
forthcoming wars no doubt internationalists and pacificists will kindle
the blaze, in the conviction, like that of their ancestors of the
Convention, that they are doing it for the good of the nations and the
triumph of peace.
With a somewhat ironical smile, Christophe, from the terrace of the
Janiculum, looked down on the disparate and harmonious city, the symbol
of the universe which it dominated; crumbling ruins, "baroque" façades,
modern buildings, cypress and roses intertwined--every age, every style,
merged into a powerful and coherent unity beneath the clear light. So
the mind should shed over the struggling universe the order and light
that are in it.
Christophe did not stay long in Rome. The impression made on him by the
city was too strong: he was afraid of it. Truly to profit by its harmony
he needed to hear it at a distance: he felt that if he stayed he would
be in danger of being absorbed by it, like so many other men of his
race.--Every now and then he went and stayed in Germany. But, when all
was told, and in spite of the imminence of a Franco-German war, Paris
still had the greatest attraction for him. No doubt this was because his
adopted son, Georges, lived there. But he was not only swayed by reasons
of affection. There were other reasons of an intellectual order that
were no less powerful. For an artist accustomed to the full life of the
mind, who generously shares in all the sufferings, all the hopes, and
all the passions of the great human family, it was difficult to grow
accustomed to life in Germany. There was no lack of artists there. But
the artists lacked air. They were isolated from the rest of the nation,
which took no interest in them: other preoccupations, social or
practical, absorbed the attention of the public. The poets shut
themselves up in disdainful irritation in their disdained art; it became
a point of honor with them to sever the last ties which bound them to
the life of the people: they wrote only for a few, a little aristocracy
full of talent, refined and sterile, being itself divided into rival
groups of jaded initiates, and they were stifled in the narrow room in
which they were huddled together: they were incapable of expanding it,
and set themselves to dig down; they turned the soil over until it was
exhausted. Then they drifted away into their archaic dreams, and never
even troubled to bring their dreams into the common stock. Each man
fought for his place in the mist. They had no light in common. Each man
had to look for light within himself.