ROMAIN ROLLAND AND _JEAN-CHRISTOPHE_
In 1916 the prize of 1915 has been awarded:
Rolland, Romain, born 1866: “as homage to the exalted idealism in
his authorship, and also to the sympathy and truth with which he has
drawn different types of people.”[101]
There was no prize money awarded in literature for 1914. The
announcement that the winner for 1915 was Romain Rolland, author of
_Jean-Christophe_, was generally approved. Here was an instance when
a single book had focussed attention of readers and the judges; this
masterpiece, which had appeared in France at intervals from 1904 to
1912, had been translated into many languages and much discussed. It
was a mirror of the conditions of society, especially in France and
Germany at the junction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; it
was an exhaustive, vital life story of a musician with aspirations,
struggles, loves, defeats, revolts, friendships, and tragic, but
triumphant, end. In the biography of Rolland by Stefan Zweig, emphasis
is laid upon the period of nearly fifty years of the author’s life
as a quiet scholar and musician, “an artist working without serious
interruption or serious recognition,” and then a sudden, disturbing
publicity which followed in the wake of this novel.[102]
Clamecy, a little town of the Morvan on the Nivernais canal, was the
birthplace of Romain Rolland, January 29, 1866. His father was a
notary; his mother was daughter of a magistrate; she was musical and
religious, devoted to her son and the younger child, Madelaine. Their
happy home life is reflected in pages of the section, “Antoinette,”
in _Jean-Christophe_. When he was young, Romain Rolland showed taste
for music and his mother taught him and told him stories about great
musicians. When his school days ended at the Communal College in his
native town, his father, with rare self-sacrifice, gave up his law
practice in Clamecy and went to Paris, becoming clerk in a bank that
the boy might be educated in the best schools. After attendance at
the Lycée Louis-le-Grand until he was twenty, he entered the Ecole
Normale Supérieure where he specialized in history. Gabriel Monod was
a teacher of surpassing influence over the minds and characters of his
students. Rolland was enthusiastic about Tolstoy, both as reformer
and writer.[103] For Shakespeare he had ardent admiration, especially
for the historical plays and sonnets.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of Henry Holt & Co._
ROMAIN ROLLAND]
Another friend of these tentative years was Paul Claudel, the author of
books with mystical tendencies upon the history of Catholicism. Already
Rolland had expressed a fugitive, recurrent wish to write a romance,
“the history of a single-hearted artist who bruises himself against
the rocks of life.” Such was the norm of _Jean-Christophe_. He was
surprised, and not wholly pleased, when he was told that he had won a
traveling scholarship from the Normal School and could go to the French
School of Archeology and History at Rome. For two years he stayed in
this city, making contacts with some of the vital influences of his
life, notably the friendship with Fräulein Malwida von Meysenburg;
she was many years his senior but still alert and inspiring. She knew
intimately scores of statesmen, writers, and artists, as references
in her book, _Mémoires d’une idéaliste_, testify. She took a profound
interest in this young Frenchman with his musical gifts and visionary
hopes. In his essay, “To the Undying Antigone,” Rolland speaks of his
gratitude to two women--his mother and Fräulein von Meysenburg. With
the latter he went to visit Wagner at Bayreuth and increased his
musical enthusiasm and knowledge. One day, as he was walking on the
Janiculum, the germ-idea and plan of his epic novel, _Jean-Christophe_,
formed in his mind but its writing was delayed for many years.
Back in Paris as lecturer at the Normal School, and at the Sorbonne,
he determined to attack indifference to the fine arts. His thesis
had a title of arresting words for that time, “The Origins of the
Modern Lyrical Drama.” While in Rome he had written a few plays that
were not made public, _Orsino_, _Caligula_, and _Niobe_. He was eager
to increase interest in music at the Normal School and elsewhere.
He attended musical festivals at Bonn and Strasburg and began that
series of biographies published later as _Musicians of Former Days_,
_Musicians of Today_, _Beethoven_, _Handel_, and other volumes. He
married the daughter of Michael Bréal, the philologist, at whose home
he met noted men of letters, science, and art. His wife was cultured
and sympathetic with his aspirations to extend knowledge of music and
art among the people. He rebelled against educational restrictions,
as well as political reactions; in such moods he wrote plays such as
_Danton_, _Fourteenth of July_, _Triumph of Reason_, and _Saint Louis_,
a heroic legend. He urged popularizing of the theatre and lamented the
dominance of “the aristocratic theatre.” Some of the articles which he
wrote at different times on this theme have been translated by Barrett
H. Clark as _The People’s Theatre_ (New York, 1918). He looked to the
theatre as beneficial to the people in three ways: “(1) as a source of
joy; (2) as a source of energy; (3) as a source of guiding light to the
intelligence.”
Before Rolland had really “found himself” in literature, the Dreyfus
case racked his sensitive soul. In almost all his later writings there
are references, direct or implied, to this “welter of feeling” which
divided families and shattered friendships. At the time of the trial
he wrote, “He who can see injustice without trying to combat it,
is neither entirely an artist nor entirely a man.”[104] He wrote a
dramatic parable, _Les Loups_ (_Wolves_) under the pseudonym of “Saint
Just,” in which he lifted “the problem from the realm of time into
that of the eternal.” As the political strife became more personal
and bitter, Rolland retired from public attention and devoted himself
to writing lives of artists like _Michael Angelo_ and _Millet_ and
musicians. He contributed the first chapters of _Jean-Christophe_ to
the literary magazine, _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, known to students
_only_ for many years. In two small rooms on the fifth floor of a
Parisian house, above the boulevard Montparnasse, Rolland wrote and
read, seeing a few friends, taking walks, and playing the piano for
recreation. Outwardly, he was serene; inwardly, he was seething with
indignation at the falsities and hypocrisy of life, at the disdain
shown for spiritual values, at “the world dying of asphyxia in its
prudent and vile egoism,” as he expressed it in _Jean-Christophe_.
Slowly, without any aids of publicity, the real value of
_Jean-Christophe_ became apparent to critics and discriminating
readers, as the last volumes appeared in the magazine. German
journalists called attention to its unique merits. Paul Seippel,
the Swiss writer, related the life and earlier work of Rolland. In
June, 1913, Rolland was given the Grand Prix of the French Academy.
Translation of _Jean-Christophe_ was made into English by Gilbert
Cannan and critics awakened. The same year Rolland republished some of
the plays written in his student days, under the title, _Les tragedies
de la foi_; by examples of such heroes as “Saint Louis” and “Aërt,” he
would inspire the people of the twentieth century to a new idealism.
His play, _Wolves_, has been staged in Yiddish in New York, has been
translated into English by Barrett H. Clark, and has been performed at
the University of Minnesota.
In his epic story of a musician and his associates, Rolland was a
preacher of aspiration and harmony to the whole world, in spite of
localized atmosphere. He recalled the words of Goethe, “National
literature now means very little; the epoch of world literature is
at hand”; and he urged, “Let us make Goethe’s prophecy a living
reality.”[105] His hero was to have a long, circuitous journey in his
search for expression of his aspirations; he was to meet many kinds
of people and races; he was to have some of the tragic experiences
of musicians of real life, Beethoven, Wagner, and Hugo Wolf; he was
to keep aloft the banner of idealism, of faith in humanity. Like the
author, he was to be victimized by the hard realities of life and
disillusionments. The book was to have many themes and varied notes but
was to be blended, at the last, into a perfect symphony. The preludes
were written in 1895-1897; the last chords were played in October,
1912. Parts were written in France and Italy; others, in Switzerland
and England.
No work of fiction of such prodigious length, totaling more than 1550
pages, in the three-volume edition translated by Gilbert Cannan, could
be written without many lapses, many passages of uneven merit. Some
of the characters are vital and haunting to the memory, like Olivier,
Grazia, Antoinette, Sabine, Jacqueline, Emmanuel, Dr. Braun, besides
the hero; others flit across the pages and are forgotten. Condensation
of some chapters would add to their effectiveness but the author’s
discursive, intuitive comments make a valuable asset of the book. It
may be reread in parts with enjoyment, just as a musical program, for
an evening, has selected movements in a fugue or a symphony. When it
was suggested to Rolland that he seemed to show enmity towards Germany,
by some of the reproaches of her false standards, his reply was, “I
am not in the least an enemy of Germany”; in proof, he cited that he
had rated soundly as many faults in France, in Volume V, as he had in
Germany in Volume IV. He contended that Germany had creative energy and
moral vigor but that she was “sick” in this twentieth century, just
as France was diseased and needed to be purged to restore her noble
qualities. Heroic souls are found in both countries but the people, as
a whole, fail to interpret each other aright. Unless such understanding
can be established in _friendship_, war will sunder the nations--such
was the prophetic message of _Jean-Christophe_ which was fulfilled two
years later. His book was intended as a “common heritage for all” of
Europe.
Time will fix the exact status of this epic novel and its lasting
influence upon international thought. It may be classified as allegory,
romance, psychological study, or idealistic vision; it has sincerity,
inspiration, and imaginative intensity. The author’s statement that
he always thought of the life of his hero as analogous to a river, is
significant; he sustains the imagery from the first Dawn, Morning,
Youth, and Revolt in Germany to the very end of the journey “across the
border,” to the final act where “Saint Christopher” hears the roar of
the torrent but also, the “tranquil voice of the Child” as the Angelus
sounds forth The New Day. Gilbert Cannan has compared the phases of
life, explored by _Jean-Christophe_, to the tortuous channel of an
uncharted river. His judgment that this novel is “the first great book
of the twentieth century,” is more stable than the prophecy of other
critics that would leave out the word “first.” It has many passages
of artistic perfection, like “Antoinette,” “The House,” and “The New
Dawn.” With emotional fervor the author, in the closing volume, speaks
his message to the future, apostrophizing the young men; “You men of
today, march over us, trample us under your feet, and press onward. Be
ye greater and happier than we.... Life is a succession of deaths and
resurrections. We must die, Christophe, to be born again.”[106]
And since the award, what has Romain Rolland written? _Colas
Breugnon_, the tale of a Burgundian artist, translated in 1919 by
Katherine Miller, is less intense, much more free and diverting than
his long novel. It was a work of relaxation for the author during
the summer months in Switzerland, 1913. He had recently visited his
birth town and modeled the hero, in part, from a resident, a wood
carver there, “an artist of the vanished type.” He has his struggles
and defeats but he never loses his optimism. The next year the
war began, with its devastating, soul-searing effects upon Romain
Rolland. He had seen its black shadow and had forewarned the people
in _Jean-Christophe_ but the actual conflict overwhelmed his spirit.
Like Olivier, in his story (whom he resembles in many ways), he had
feared such a war from boyhood; it had been “a nightmare to him; it
had poisoned his childhood days.” He was at Vevey, on Lake Geneva,
when the war broke out and he decided to stay there; he longed for
France but he could not fight without blighting his soul. He would
suffer as a pacifist, loving his country, rather than yield to hate.
He did secretarial work for the Red Cross and assisted in welfare
measures of many kinds. When the Nobel prize money came, he gave it “to
the mitigation of the miseries of Europe.”[107] He wrote some of the
papers that were collected in _Above the Battle_; his friendly letter
to Hauptmann, appealing for amity, and the German’s reply, are given
here. In spite of the aggressive tone of the German’s note, Rolland
refused to believe that the ideals of human brotherhood had been
destroyed; they were suffering eclipse temporarily but would relive
in “The New Dawn.” To Woodrow Wilson, in the later months of the war,
Rolland made an appeal to “be the arbiter of the free peoples.” On
the day of the armistice he issued a manifesto, _L’Humanité_, a call
to “brain workers,” comrades all through the world, to reconstruct
a fraternal union. The play, _The Montespan_, translated by Helena
van Brugh de Kay, is called a “sequel to _Above the Battle_.” He had
written, during these days of seclusion and thought, his study and
appreciation of _Mahatma Gandhi: the Man Who Became One with the
Universal Being_ (translated by Catherine D. Groth), which has been
quoted in the previous chapter upon Rabindranath Tagore.
As relaxation, he wrote _Liluli_, a comedy with the “goddess of
illusion” as its heroine. There are some lines of satire and some
of burlesque, as the combatants wrestle. It was symbolic of France
during the war years, as _he_ viewed his country, scorning Truth and
heaping up ruins of past greatness. This has been illustrated with
thirty-two wood engravings by Frans Masereel (New York, 1920). While
Rolland was exercising his ironical wit upon this picture of war, he
was writing _Clerambault: the Story of an Independent Spirit during
the War_, a sad portrayal of a pacifist. This has been translated by
Katherine Miller (New York, 1921). It is a dissertation more than
a story, a presentation of the author’s own sentiments, with much
philosophy about life and conflicts. The man, Clerambault, passes
through strange spiritual experiences. The early scenes of his rural
home life, peaceful and happy, are contrasted with his fanaticism when
he reaches Paris and urges his son, Maxime, to enter the army; then
come reactions, after the death of the son and his own probings of
conscience. The author interprets the tale as a tragedy for the man
and his wife, but a triumph of freedom for his soul. There are many
autobiographical touches in this psychological story.
In 1922 there appeared in Paris, from the pen of Rolland, the first
volumes of _L’âme enchantée_ which is now appearing in English
version, by Ben Ray Redman, as _Annette and Sylvie: The Prelude_ and
a second volume, _Summer_, translated by Eleanor Stimson and Van Wyck
Brooks. In his Foreword the author tells his readers that they are
starting with him upon a new journey which will not be so long as
that of _Jean-Christophe_ but will include more than one stage. He
asks suspension of judgment until the tale is finished, quoting the
old adage, “La fin loue la vie, et le soir le jour.” He expresses the
domination that his characters gain over him--Jean, Colas, Annette--so
that he becomes no more “than the secretary of their thoughts.” No
thesis nor theory is in this story but it is another life history,
struggling to find Truth, to reach harmony of spirit amid many kinds
of buffetings and joys. Two girls, half sisters, Annette and Sylvie,
afford him scope for sharp antitheses in character-drawing. Annette
is a girl of fine health and brain, educated at the Sorbonne. She had
adored her father but, because of some letters which she found after
his death, she realizes his infidelities to her mother and understands
his secretive smiles. She locates her half sister who never bore his
name--Sylvie, pretty, uneducated, capricious, gay, unmoral. The deep
passions of Annette, her reserves and independence, her repugnance to
any “possessiveness” on the part of her lover, Roger Brissot, and his
family, lead to a scene of erotic realism. This is followed by words of
the author’s own creed, his Search for Truth: “I am not one of those
who fear the fatigues of the road.... I am seeking.... I am convinced
that it is possible to love one’s child, loyally perform one’s domestic
task, and still keep enough of oneself, as one ought to--for the most
essential thing ... one’s soul.”[108] The second volume reveals the
material and spiritual conflicts of Annette, as a mother and teacher,
and Sylvie’s experiences in marriage and business.
In his latest book, as in his earlier plays and fiction, M. Rolland
has revealed that idealism which, in his philosophy, means harmony and
freedom, of both aspiration and action. His form is often careless
and sometimes crude; but it has high lights of great beauty and
true art. In his own life he has waged many battles that have left
scars upon his sensitive temperament and fine soul. They have never
shattered his spiritual creed, his faith in humanity. He has written
ardently in behalf of international friendship and intellectual unity.
In the future he may be ranked as a prophet as well as a scholar,
a seer as well as a writer. Amid the turmoil of his generation he
has been a force, making for peace; he has held high the banner of
world-fellowship and sounded the challenge against racial jealousies.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1915.
[102] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig,
translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1921. By permission of
Thomas Seltzer.
[103] See his _Tolstoy_, translated by Bernard Miall, London and New
York, 1911.
[104] _Century Magazine_, August, 1913, article on Rolland by Alvan V.
Sanborn.
[105] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig,
translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1915. By permission of
Thomas Seltzer.
[106] _Jean-Christophe_ by Romain Rolland, translated by Gilbert
Cannan, Vol. III, p. 348, New York and London, 1913. By permission of
Henry Holt & Co.
[107] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig, New York,
1921, p. 270.
[108] _Annette and Sylvie: Being Volume One of the Soul Enchanted_ by
Romain Rolland, translated from the French by Ben Ray Redman, New York,
1925. By permission of Henry Holt & Co.