neighbors on the West, the great winds of collective passion, of public
turbulence and tribulation, swept periodically over art. And, high above
the plain, like their Eiffel Tower above Paris, shone afar off the
never-dying light of a classic tradition, handed down from generation to
generation, which, while it never enslaved nor constrained the mind,
showed it the road followed by past ages, and established the communion
of a whole nation in its light. Many a German spirit--like birds strayed
in the night--came winging towards the distant beacon. But who is there
in France can dream of the power of the sympathy which drives so many
generous hearts from the neighboring nation towards France! So many
hands stretched out: hands that are not responsible for the aims of the
politicians!... And you see no more of us, our brothers in Germany,
though we say to you: "Here are our hands. In spite of lies and hatred,
we will not be parted. We have need of you, you have need of us, to
build the greatness of our spirits and our people. We are the two wings
of the West. If one be broken, there is an end of flight! Let the war
come! It will not break the clasp of our hands or the flight of our
genius in brotherhood."
So thought Christophe. He felt the mutual completion which the two races
could give each other, and how lame and halting were the spirit, the
art, the action of each without the help of the other. For his own part,
born in the Rhine-lands where the two civilizations mingle in one
stream, from his childhood he had instinctively felt their inevitable
union; all through his life the unconscious effort of his genius had
been to maintain the balance and equilibrium of the two mighty wings.
The greater was his wealth of Germanic dreams, the more he needed the
Latin clarity of mind and order. It was for this reason that France was
so dear to him. In France he had the joy of better knowledge and mastery
of himself. Only in France was he wholly himself.
He turned to account all the elements that were or might be noxious to
him. He assimilated foreign energy in his own. A vigorous healthy mind
absorbs every kind of force, even that which is hostile to it, and makes
it bone and flesh of its bone and flesh. There even comes a time when a
man is most attracted by what least resembles him, for therein he finds
his most plentiful nourishment.
Christophe did in fact find more pleasure in the work of artists who
were set up as his rivals than in the work of his imitators:--for he had
imitators who called themselves his disciples, to his great despair.
They were honest, laborious, estimable, and altogether virtuous people
who were full of respect and veneration for him. Christophe would have
given much if he could have liked their music; but--(it was just his
luck!)--he could not do it: he found it meaningless. He was a thousand
times more pleased with the talent of musicians who were personally
antipathetic to him, and in art represented tendencies hostile to his
own.... Well! What did it matter? These men were at least alive! Life
is, in itself, such a virtue, that, if a man be deprived of it, though
he possess all the other virtues, he will never be a really good man,
for he cannot really be a man. Christophe used jokingly to say that the
only disciples he recognized were the men who attacked him. And when a
young artist came and talked to him about his musical vocation, and
tried to win his sympathy by flattering him, Christophe would say:
"So. My music satisfies you? That is how you would express your love, or
your hatred?"
"Yes, master."
"Well. Don't. You have nothing to say."
His horror of the submissive temper of mind, of men born to obey, his
need of absorbing other ideas than his own, attracted him to circles
whose ideas were diametrically opposed to his own. He had friends among
men to whom his art, his idealistic faith, his moral conceptions, were a
dead letter: they had absolutely different ways of envisaging life,
love, marriage, the family, every social relationship:--but they were
good fellows, though they seemed to belong to another stage of moral
evolution: the anguish and the scruples that had consumed a part of
Christophe's life were incomprehensible to them. No doubt that was all
the better for them! Christophe had no desire to make them understand.
He did not ask others to confirm his ideas by thinking as he did: he was
sure of his own thoughts. He asked them to let him know their thoughts,
and to love their souls. He asked always to know and to love more, to
see and to learn how to see. He had reached the point not only of
admitting in others tendencies of mind that he had once combated, but
also of rejoicing in them, for they seemed to him to contribute to
the fecundity of the universe. He loved Georges the more because he did not
take life tragically, as he did. Humanity would be too poor and too gray
in color if it were to be uniformly clad in the moral seriousness, and
the heroic restraint with which Christophe was armed. Humanity needed
joy, carelessness, irreverent audacity in face of its idols, all its
idols, even the most holy. Long live "the Gallic salt which revives the
world"! Skepticism and faith are no less necessary. Skepticism, riddling
the faith of yesterday, prepares the way for the faith of to-morrow....
How clear everything becomes to the man who stands away from life, and,
as in a fine picture, sees the contrasting colors merge into a magical
harmony, where, when they were closely seen, they clashed.
Christophe's eyes had been opened to the infinite variety of the
material, as of the moral, world. It had been one of his greatest
conquests since his first visit to Italy. In Paris he especially sought
the company of painters and sculptors; it seemed to him that the best of
the French genius was in them. The triumphant audacity with which they
pursued and captured movement, vibrant color, and tore away the veils
that cover life, made his heart leap with delight. The inexhaustible
riches that he who has eyes to see can find in a drop of light, a second
of life! Against such sovereign delights of the mind what matters the
vain tumult of dispute and war?... But dispute and war also are a part
of the marvelous spectacle. We must embrace everything, and, valiantly,
joyously, fling into the crucible of our burning hearts both the forces
of denial and the forces of affirmation, enemies and friends, the whole
metal of life. The end of it all is the statue which takes shape in us,
the divine fruit of our minds; and all is good that helps to make it
more beautiful even at the cost of the sacrifice of ourselves. What does
the creator matter? Only that which is created is real.... You cannot
hurt us, ye enemies who seek to reach us with your hostility. We are
beyond the reach of your attacks.... You are rending the empty cloak. I
have been gone this many a day.
His music had found a more serene form. No longer did it show the storms
of spring, which gathered, burst, and disappeared in the old days, but,
instead, the white clouds of summer, mountains of snow and gold, great
birds of light, slowly soaring, and filling the sky.... Creation.
Ripening crops in the calm August sunlight....
At first a vague, mighty torpor, the obscure joy of the full grape, the
swollen ear of corn, the pregnant woman brooding over her ripe fruit. A
buzzing like the sound of an organ; the hive all alive with the hum of
the bees.... Such somber, golden music, like an autumn honeycomb, slowly
gives forth the rhythm which shall mark its path: the round of the
planets is made plain: it begins to spin....
Then the will appears. It leaps onto the back of the whinnying dream as
it passes, and grips it with its knees. The mind recognizes the laws of
the rhythm which guides it: it tames the disordered forces and fixes the
path they shall take, the goal towards which they shall move. The
symphony of reason and instinct is organized. The darkness grows bright.
On the long ribbon of the winding road, at intervals, there are
brilliant fires, which in their turn shall be in the work of creation
the nucleus of little planetary worlds linked up in the girdle of their
solar system....
The main lines of the picture are henceforth fixed. Now it looms through
the uncertain light of dawn. Everything is becoming definite: the
harmony of the colors, the outline of the figures. To bring the work to
its close all the resources of his being are brought into requisition.
The scent-box of memory is opened and exhales its perfumes. The mind
unchains the senses: it lets them wax delirious and is silent: but,
crouching there, it watches them and chooses its prey....
All is ready: the team of workmen carries out, with the materials
snatched from the senses, the work planned by the mind. A great
architect must have good journeymen who know their trade and will not
spare themselves.--The cathedral is finished.
"And God looked down on his work. And He saw that _it was not yet
good._"
The Master's eyes take in the whole of His creation, and His hand
perfects its harmony....
* * * * *
The dream is ended. _Te Deum_....
The white clouds of summer, like great birds of light, slowly soar and
hover; and the heavens are filled with their widespread wings.
And yet his life was very far from being one with his art. A man of his
kind cannot do without love, not merely that equable love which the
spirit of an artist sheds on all things in the world, but a love that
knows _preference_: he must always be giving himself to the
creatures of his choice. They are the roots of the tree. Through them
his heart's blood is renewed.
Christophe's heart's blood was nothing like dried up. He was steeped in
a love which was the best part of his joy, a twofold love, for Grazia's
daughter and Olivier's son. He united them in thought, and was to unite
them in reality.
* * * * *
Georges and Aurora had met at Colette's: Aurora lived in her cousin's
house. She spent part of the year in Rome and the rest in Paris. She
was eighteen: Georges five years older. She was tall, erect, elegant,
with a small head, and an open countenance, fair hair, a dark
complexion, a slight down on her lips, bright eyes with a laughing
expression behind which lay busy thoughts, a rather plump chin, brown
hands, beautiful round strong arms, and a fine bust; and she always
looked gay, proud, and worldly. She was not at all intellectual, hardly
at all sentimental, and she had inherited her mother's careless
indolence. She would sleep eleven hours on end. The rest of the time she
spent in lounging and laughing, only half awake. Christophe called her
_Dornröschen_--the Sleeping Beauty. She reminded him of his old
love, Sabine. She used to sing as she went to bed, and when she got up,
and laugh for no reason at all, with merry childish laughter, and then
gulp it down with a sort of hiccough. It were impossible to tell how she
spent the time. All Colette's efforts to equip her with the brilliant
artificiality which is so easily imposed on the mind of a young girl,
like a kind of lacquered varnish, had been wasted: the varnish would not
hold. She learned nothing: she would take months to read a book, and
would like it immensely, though in a week she would forget both its
title and its subject: without the least embarrassment she would make
mistakes in spelling, and when she spoke of learned matters she would
fall into the most comical blunders. She was refreshing in her youth,
her gaiety, her lack of intellectuality, even in her faults, her
thoughtlessness which sometimes amounted to indifference, and her naïve
egoism. She was always so spontaneous. Young as she was, and simple and
indolent, she could when she pleased play the coquette, though in all
innocence: then she would spread her net for young men and go sketching,
or play the nocturnes of Chopin, or carry books of poetry which she had
not read, and indulge in conversations and hats that were about equally
idealistic.
Christophe would watch her and laugh gently to himself. He had a
fatherly tenderness, indulgent and teasing, for Aurora. And he had also
a secret feeling of worship for the woman he had loved who had come
again with new youth for another love than his. No one knew the depth of
his affection. Only Aurora ever suspected it. From her childhood she had
almost always been used to having Christophe near her, and she used to
regard him as one of her family. In her old sorrow at being less loved
than her brother she had instinctively drawn near to Christophe. She
divined that he had a similar sorrow; he saw her grief: and though they
never exchanged confidences, they shared each other's feelings. Later,
when she discovered the feeling that united her mother and Christophe,
it seemed to her that she was in the secret, though they had never told
her. She knew the meaning of the message with which Grazia had charged
her as she lay dying, and of the ring which was now on Christophe's
hand. So there existed hidden ties between her and Christophe, ties
which she did not need to understand, to feel them in their complexity.
She was sincerely attached to her old friend, although she could never
have made the effort necessary to play or to read his work. Though she
was a fairly good musician, she had never even had the curiosity to cut
the pages of a score he had dedicated to her. She loved to come and have
an intimate talk with him.--She came more often when she found out that
she might meet Georges Jeannin in his rooms.
And Georges, too, found an extraordinary interest in Christophe's
company.
However, the two young people were slow to realize their real feelings.
They had at first looked at each other mockingly. They were hardly at
all alike. He was quicksilver, she was still water. But it was not long
before quicksilver tried to appear more at rest, and sleeping water
awoke. Georges would criticise Aurora's clothes, and her Italian
taste--a slight want of feeling for modulation and a certain preference
for crude colors. Aurora used to delight in teasing Georges, and
imitating his rather hurried and precious way of speaking. And while
they laughed at each other, they both took pleasure ... in laughing, or
in entertaining each other? They used to entertain Christophe too, and,
far from gainsaying them, he would maliciously transpose these little
poisoned darts from one to the other. They pretended not to care: but
they soon discovered that they cared only too much; and both, especially
Georges, being incapable of concealing their annoyance, as soon as they
met they would begin sparring. Their wounds were slight: they were
afraid of hurting each other: and the hand which dealt the blow was so
dear to the recipient of it that they both found more pleasure in the
hurts they received than in those they gave. They used to watch each
other curiously, and their eyes, seeking defects, would find only
attractions. But they would not admit it. Each, to Christophe, would
declare that the other was unbearable, but, for all that, they were not
slow to seize every opportunity of meeting that Christophe gave them.
One day when Aurora was with her old friend to tell him that she would
come and see him on the following Sunday in the morning, Georges rushed
in, like a whirlwind as usual, to tell Christophe that he was coming on
Sunday afternoon. On Sunday morning Christophe waited in vain for
Aurora. At the hour mentioned by Georges she appeared, and asked him to
forgive her because it had been impossible for her to come in the
morning: she embroidered her excuses with a circumstantial story.
Christophe was amused by her innocent roguery, and said:
"It is a pity. You would have seen Georges: he came and lunched with me;
but he would not stay this afternoon."
Aurora was discomfited, and did not listen to anything Christophe said.
He went on talking good-humoredly. She replied absently, and was not far
from being cross with him. Came a ring at the bell. It was Georges.
Aurora was amazed. Christophe looked at her and laughed. She saw that he
had been making fun of her, and laughed and blushed. He shook his finger
at her waggishly. Suddenly she ran and kissed him warmly. He whispered
to her:
_"Biricchina, ladroncella, furbetta...."_
And she laid her hand on his lips to silence him.
Georges could make nothing of their kissing and laughter. His expression
of astonishment, almost of vexation, added to their joy.
So Christophe labored to bring the two young people together. And when
he had succeeded he was almost sorry. He loved them equally; but he
judged Georges more hardly: he knew his weakness: he idolized Aurora,
and thought himself responsible for her happiness even more than for
Georges's; for it seemed to him that Georges was as a son to him, a part
of himself, and he wondered whether it was not wrong to give Aurora in
her innocence a companion who was very far from sharing it.
But one day as he passed by an arbor where the two young people were
sitting--(a short time after their betrothal)--his heart sank as he
heard Aurora laughingly questioning Georges about one of his past
adventures, and Georges telling her, nothing loth. Other scraps of
conversation, which they made no attempt to disguise, showed him that
Aurora was far more at home than himself with Georges's moral ideas.
Though they were very much in love with each other it was clear that
they did not regard themselves as bound forever; into their discussions
of questions relating to love and marriage, they brought a spirit of
liberty, which might have a beauty of its own, though it was singularly
at variance with the old ideal of mutual devotion _usque ad mortem._ And
Christophe would look at them a little sadly.... How far they were from
him already! How swiftly does the ship that bears our children speed
on!... Patience! A day will come when we shall all meet in harbor.
Meanwhile the ship paid no heed to the way marked out for it: it trimmed
its sails to every wind.--It would have seemed natural for the spirit of
liberty, which was then tending to modify morality, to take up its stand
also in the other domains of thought and action. But it did nothing of
the kind: human nature cares little for contradiction. While morality
was becoming more free, the mind was becoming less so; it was demanding
that religion should restore its yoke. And this twofold movement in
opposite directions was, with a magnificent defiance of logic, taking
place in the same souls. Georges and Aurora had been caught up by the
new current of Catholicism which was conquering many people of fashion
and many intellectuals. Nothing could be more curious than the way in
which Georges, who was naturally critical and perfectly irreligious,
skepticism being to him as easy as breathing, Georges, who had never
cared for God or devil--a true Frenchman, laughing at
everything--suddenly declared that there lay the truth. He needed truth
of some sort, and this sorted well with his need of action, his
atavistic French bourgeois characteristics, and his weariness of
liberty. The young fool had wandered long enough, and he returned of his
own accord to be harnessed to the plow of his race. The example of a
number of his friends was enough for him. Georges was hypersensitive to
the least atmospheric pressure of the ideas that surrounded him, and he
was one of the first to be caught. And Aurora followed him, as she would
have followed him anywhere. At once they felt sure of themselves, and
despised everybody who did not think as they did. The irony of it! These
two frivolous children were sincerely devout, while the moral purity,
the serious and ardent efforts of Grazia and Olivier had never helped
them to be so, in spite of their desire.
Christophe watched their spiritual evolution with sympathetic curiosity.
He did not try to fight against it, as Emmanuel would have done, for
Emmanuel's free idealism was up in arms against this return of the
ancient foe. It is vain to fight against the passing wind. One can only
wait for it to go. The reason of humanity was exhausted. It had just
made a gigantic effort. It was overcome with sleep, and, like a child
worn out by a long day, before going to sleep, it was saying its
prayers. The gate of dreams had reopened; in the train of religion came
little puffs of theosophy, mysticism, esoteric faiths, occultism to
visit the chambers of the Western mind. Even philosophy was wavering.
Their gods of thought, Bergson and William James, were tottering. Even
science was attainted, even science was showing the signs of the fatigue
of reason. We have a moment's respite. Let us breathe. To-morrow the
mind will awake again, more alert, more free.... Sleep is good when a
man has worked hard. Christophe, who had had little time for it, was
happy that these children of his should enjoy it in his stead, and
should have rest for the soul, security of faith, absolute, unshakable
confidence in their dreams. He would not nor could he have exchanged his
lot for theirs. But he thought that Grazia's melancholy and Olivier's
distress of mind had found solace in their children, and that it was
well.
"All that we have suffered, I, my friends, and so many others whom I
never knew, others who lived before us, all has been, that these two
might attain joy.... The joy, Antoinette, for which thou wast made, the
joy that was refused thee!... Ah! If only the unhappy could have a
foretaste of the happiness that will one day spring forth from the
sacrifice of their lives!"
What purpose could be served by his trying to dispute their happiness?
We must not try to make others happy in our way, but in their own. At
most he only asked Georges and Aurora not to be too contemptuous of
those who, like himself, did not share their faith.
They did not even take the trouble to argue with him. They seemed to say
to each other:
"He cannot understand...."
In their eyes he belonged to the past. And, to be frank, they did not
attach much importance to the past. When they were alone they used often
to talk innocently of the things they would do when Christophe "was no
longer with them."...--However, they loved him well.... How terrible
are the children who grow up over us like creepers! How terrible is the
force of Nature, hurrying, hurrying, driving us out....
"Go! Go! Remove thyself! It is my turn now!..."
Christophe, overhearing their thoughts, longed to say to them:
"Don't be in such a hurry! I am quite happy here. Please regard me still
as a living being."
He was amused by their naive impertinence.
"You may as well say straight out," he observed one day when they had
crushed him with their disdainful manner. "You may as well say that I am
a stupid old man."
"No, no, my dear old friend," said Aurora, laughing heartily. "You are
the best of men, but there are some things that you do not know."
"And that you do know, my girl? You are very wise!"
"Don't laugh at me. I know nothing much. But Georges knows."
Christophe smiled:
"Yes. You are right, my dear. The man you love always knows."
It was much more difficult for him to tolerate their music than to put
up with their intellectual superiority. They used to try his patience
severely. The piano was given no rest when they were in his rooms. It
seemed that love had roused them to song, like the birds. But they were
by a long way not so skilled in singing. Aurora had no illusions as to
her talent, but she was quite otherwise about her fiancé: she could see
no difference between Georges's playing and Christophe's. Perhaps she
preferred Georges's style, and Georges, in spite of his ironic subtlety,
was never far from being convinced by his sweetheart's belief in him.
Christophe never contradicted them: maliciously he would concur in the
girl's opinion (except when, as sometimes happened, he could bear it no
longer, and would rush away, banging the doors). With an affectionate,
pitying smile he would listen to Georges playing _Tristan_ on the
piano. The unhappy young man would conscientiously apply himself to the
transcription of the formidable pages with all the amiable sweetness of
a young girl, and a young girl's tender feeling. Christophe used to
laugh to himself. He would never tell the boy why he laughed. He would
kiss him. He loved him as he was. Perhaps he loved him the more for
it.... Poor boy!... Oh! the vanity of art!...
He used often to talk about "his children"--(for so he called them)--to
Emmanuel. Emmanuel, who was fond of Georges, used jokingly to say that
Christophe ought to hand him aver to him. He had Aurora, and it was not
fair. He was grabbing everything.