Jean-Christophe In Paris — THE HOUSE, II, part 8
* * * * * The panic died down.
Every one hastened to forget, with a hidden fear in their hearts.
No one seemed to remember what had happened.
And yet it was plain that it was still in their thoughts, from the joy with which they resumed their lives, the pleasant life from day to day, which is never truly valued until it is endangered.
As usual when danger is past, they gulped it down with renewed avidity.
Christophe flung himself into creative work with tenfold vigor.
He dragged Olivier after him.
In reaction against their recent gloomy thoughts they had begun to collaborate in a Rabelaisian epic.
It was colored by that broad materialism which follows on periods of moral stress.
To the legendary heroes--Gargantua, Friar John, Panurge--Olivier had added, on Christophe's inspiration, a new character, a peasant, Jacques Patience, simple, cunning, sly, resigned, who was the butt of the others, putting up with it when he was thrashed and robbed,--putting up with it when they made love to his wife, and laid waste his fields,--tirelessly putting his house in order and cultivating his land,--forced to follow the others to war, bearing the burden of the baggage, coming in for all the kicks, and still putting up with it,--waiting, laughing at the exploits of his masters and the thrashings they gave him, and saying, "They can't go on for ever," foreseeing their ultimate downfall, looking out for it out of the corner of his eye, and silently laughing at the thought of it, with his great mouth agape.
One fine day it turned out that Gargantua and Friar John were drowned while they were away on a crusade.
Patience honestly regretted their loss, merrily took heart of grace, saved Panurge, who was drowning also, and said: "I know that you will go on playing your tricks on me: you don't take me in: but I can't do without you: you drive away the spleen, and make me laugh."
Christophe set the poem to music with great symphonic pictures, with soli and chorus, mock-heroic battles, riotous country fairs, vocal buffooneries, madrigals à la Jannequin, with tremendous childlike glee, a storm at sea, the Island of Bells, and, finally, a pastoral symphony, full of the air of the fields, and the blithe serenity of the flutes and oboes, and the clean-souled folk-songs of Old France.
--The friends worked away with boundless delight.
The weakly Olivier, with his pale cheeks, found new health in Christophe's health.
Gusts of wind blew through their garret.
The very intoxication of Joy!
To be working together, heart to heart with one's friend!
The embrace of two lovers is not sweeter or more ardent than such a yoking together of two kindred souls.
They were so near in sympathy that often the same ideas would flash upon them at the same moment.
Or Christophe would write the music for a scene for which Olivier would immediately find words.
Christophe impetuously dragged Olivier along in his wake.
His mind swamped that of his friend, and made it fruitful.
The joy of creation was enhanced by that of success.
Hecht had just made up his mind to publish the _David_: and the score, well launched, had had an instantaneous success abroad.
A great Wagnerian _Kapellmeister_, a friend of Hecht's, who had settled in England, was enthusiastic about it: he had given it at several of his concerts with considerable success, which, with the _Kapellmeister's_ enthusiasm, had carried it over to Germany, where also the _David_ had been played.
The _Kapellmeister_ had entered into correspondence with Christophe, and had asked him for more of his compositions, offered to do anything he could to help him, and was engaged in ardent propaganda in his cause.
In Germany, the _Iphigenia_, which had originally been hissed, was unearthed, and it was hailed as a work of genius.
Certain facts in Christophe's life, being of a romantic nature, contributed not a little to the spurring of public interest.
The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ was the first to publish an enthusiastic article.
Others followed.
Then, in France, a few people began to be aware that they had a great musician in their midst.
One of the Parisian conductors asked Christophe for his Rabelaisian epic before it was finished: and Goujart, perceiving his approaching fame, began to speak mysteriously of a friend of his who was a genius, and had been discovered by himself.
He wrote a laudatory article about the admirable _David_,--entirely forgetting that only the year before he had decried it in a short notice of a few lines.
Nobody else remembered it either or seemed to be in the least astonished at his sudden change.
There are so many people in Paris who are now loud in their praises of Wagner and César Franck, where formerly they roundly abused them, and actually use the fame of these men to crush those new artists whom to-morrow they will be lauding to the skies!
Christophe did not set any great store on his success.
He knew that he would one day win through: but he had not thought that the day could be so near at hand: and he was distrustful of so rapid a triumph.
He shrugged his shoulders, and said that he wanted to be left alone.
He could have understood people applauding the _David_ the year before, when he wrote it: but now he was so far beyond it; he had climbed higher.
He was inclined to say to the people who came and talked about his old work: "Don't worry me with that stuff.
It disgusts me.
So do you."
And he plunged into his new work again, rather annoyed at having been disturbed.
However, he did feel a certain secret satisfaction.
The first rays of the light of fame are very sweet.
It is good, it is healthy, to conquer.
It is like the open window and the first sweet scents of the spring coming into a house.
--Christophe's contempt for his old work was of no avail, especially with regard to the _Iphigenia_: there was a certain amount of atonement for him in seeing that unhappy production, which had originally brought him only humiliation, belauded by the German critics, and in great request with the theaters, as he learned from a letter from Dresden, in which the directors stated that they would be glad to produce the piece during their next season.
* * * * * The very day when Christophe received the news, which, after years of struggling, at last opened up a calmer horizon, with victory in the distance, he had another letter from Germany.
It was in the afternoon.
He was washing his face and talking gaily to Olivier in the next room, when the housekeeper slipped an envelope under the door.
His mother's writing....
He had been just on the point of writing to her, and was happy at the thought of being able to tell her of his success, which would give her so much pleasure.
He opened the letter.
There were only a few lines.
How shaky the writing was!
_"My dear boy, I am not very well.
If it were possible, I should like to see you again.
Love.
"MOTHER."
_ Christophe gave a groan.
Olivier, who was working in the next room, ran to him in alarm.
Christophe could not speak, and pointed to the letter on the table.
He went on groaning, and did not listen to what Olivier said, who took in the letter at a glance, and tried to comfort him.
He rushed to his bed, where he had laid his coat, dressed hurriedly, and without waiting to fasten his collar,--(his hands were trembling too much)--went out.
Olivier caught him up on the stairs: what was he going to do?
Go by the first train?
There wasn't one until the evening.
It was much better to wait there than at the station.
Had he enough money?
--They rummaged through their pockets, and when they counted all that they possessed between them, it only amounted to thirty francs.
It was September.
Hecht, the Arnauds, all their friends, were out of Paris.
They had no one to turn to.
Christophe was beside himself, and talked of going part of the way on foot.
Olivier begged him to wait for an hour, and promised to procure the money somehow.
Christophe submitted: he was incapable of a single idea himself.
Olivier ran to the pawnshop: it was the first time he had been there: for his own sake, he would much rather have been left with nothing than pledge any of his possessions, which were all associated with some precious memory: but it was for Christophe, and there was no time to lose.
He pawned his watch, for which he was advanced a sum much smaller than he had expected.
He had to go home again and fetch some of his books, and take them to a bookseller.
It was a great grief to him, but at the time he hardly thought of it: his mind could grasp nothing but Christophe's trouble.
He returned, and found Christophe just where he had left him, sitting by his desk, in a state of collapse.
With their thirty francs the sum that Olivier had collected was more than enough.
Christophe was too upset to think of asking his friend how he had come by it, or whether he had kept enough to live on during his absence.
Olivier did not think of it either: he had given Christophe all he possessed.
He had to look after Christophe, just like a child, until it was time for him to go.
He took him to the station, and never left him until the train began to move.
In the darkness into which he was rushing Christophe sat wide-eyed, staring straight in front of him and thinking: "Shall I be in time?"
He knew that his mother must have been unable to wait for her to write to him.
And in his fevered anxiety he was impatient of the jolting speed of the express.
He reproached himself bitterly for having left Louisa.
And at the same time he felt how vain were his reproaches: he had no power to change the course of events.
However, the monotonous rocking of the wheels and springs of the carriage soothed him gradually, and took possession of his mind, like tossing waves of music dammed back by a mighty rhythm.
He lived through all his past life again from the far-distant days of his childhood: loves, hopes, disillusion, sorrows,--and that exultant force, that intoxication of suffering, enjoying, and creating, that delight in blotting out the light of life and its sublime shadows, which was the soul of his soul, the living breath of the God within him.
Now as he looked back on it all was clear.
His tumultuous desires, his uneasy thoughts, his faults, mistakes, and headlong struggles, now seemed to him to be the eddy and swirl borne on by the great current of life towards its eternal goal.
He discovered the profound meaning of those years of trial: each test was a barrier which was burst by the gathering waters of the river, a passage from a narrow to a wider valley, which the river would soon fill: always he came to a wider view and a freer air.
Between the rising ground of France and the German plain the river had carved its way, not without many a struggle, flooding the meadows, eating away the base of the hills, gathering and absorbing all the waters of the two countries.
So it flowed between them, not to divide, but to unite them: in it they were wedded.
And for the first time Christophe became conscious of his destiny, which was to carry through the hostile peoples, like an artery, all the forces of life of the two sides of the river.
--A strange serenity, a sudden calm and clarity, came over him, as sometimes happens in the darkest hours....
Then the vision faded, and he saw nothing but the tender, sorrowful face of his old mother.
It was hardly dawn when he reached the little German town.
He had to take care not to be recognized, for there was still a warrant of arrest out against him.
But nobody at the station took any notice of him: the town was asleep: the houses were shut up and the streets deserted: it was the gray hour when the lights of the night are put out and the light of day is not yet come,--the hour when sleep is sweetest and dreams are lit with the pale light of the east.
A little servant-girl was taking down the shutters of a shop and singing an old German folk-song.
Christophe almost choked with emotion.
O Fatherland!
Beloved!...
He was fain to kiss the earth as he heard the humble song that set his heart aching in his breast; he felt how unhappy he had been away from his country, and how much he loved it....
He walked on, holding his breath.
When he saw his old house he was obliged to stop and put his hand to his lips to keep himself from crying out.
How would he find his mother, his mother whom he had deserted?...
He took a long breath and almost ran to the door.
It was ajar.
He pushed it open.
No one there ...
The old wooden staircase creaked under his footsteps.
He went up to the top floor.
The house seemed to be empty.
The door of his mother's room was shut.
Christophe's heart thumped as he laid his hand on the doorknob.
And he had not the strength to open it....
* * * * * Louisa was alone, in bed, feeling that the end was near.
Of her two other sons, Rodolphe, the business man, had settled in Hamburg, the other, Ernest, had emigrated to America, and no one knew what had become of him.
There was no one to attend to her except a woman in the house, who came twice a day to see if Louisa wanted anything, stayed for a few minutes, and then went about her business: she was not very punctual, and was often late in coming.
To Louisa it seemed quite natural that she should be forgotten, as it seemed to her quite natural to be ill.
She was used to suffering, and was as patient as an angel.
She had heart disease and palpitations, during which she would think she was going to die: she would lie with her eyes wide open, and her hands clutching the bedclothes, and the sweat dripping down her face.
She never complained.
She knew that it must be so.
She was ready: she had already received the sacrament.
She had only one anxiety: lest God should find her unworthy to enter into Paradise.
She endured everything else in patience.
In a dark corner of her little room, near her pillow, on the wall of the recess, she had made a little shrine for her relics and trophies: she had collected the portraits of those who were dear to her: her three children, her husband, for whose memory she had always preserved her love in its first freshness, the old grandfather, and her brother, Gottfried: she was touchingly devoted to all those who had been kind to her, though it were never so little.
On her coverlet, close to her eyes, she had pinned the last photograph of himself that Christophe had sent her: and his last letters were under her pillow.
She had a love of neatness and scrupulous tidiness, and it hurt her to know that everything was not perfectly in order in her room.
She listened for the little noises outside which marked the different moments of the day for her.
It was so long since she had first heard them!
All her life had been spent in that narrow space....
She thought of her dear Christophe.
How she longed for him to be there, near her, just then!
And yet she was resigned even to his absence.
She was sure that she would see him again on high.
She had only to close her eyes to see him.
She spent days and days, half-unconscious, living in the past....
She would see once more the old house on the banks of the Rhine....
A
holiday....
A superb summer day.
The window was open: the white road lay gleaming under the sun.
They could hear the birds singing.
Melchior and the old grandfather were sitting by the front-door smoking, and chatting and laughing uproariously.
Louisa could not see them: but she was glad that her husband was at home that day, and that grandfather was in such a good temper.
She was in the basement, cooking the dinner: an excellent dinner: she watched over it as the apple of her eye: there was a surprise: a chestnut cake: already she could hear the boy's shout of delight....
The boy, where was he?
Upstairs: she could hear him practising at the piano.
She could not make out what he was playing, but she was glad to hear the familiar tinkling sounds, and to know that he was sitting there with his grave face....
What a lovely day!
The merry jingling bells of a carriage went by on the road....
Oh!
good heavens!
The joint!
Perhaps it had been burned while she was looking out of the window!
She trembled lest grandfather, of whom she was so fond, though she was afraid of him, should be dissatisfied, and scold her....
Thank Heaven!
there was no harm done.
There, everything was ready, and the table was laid.
She called Melchior and grandfather.
They replied eagerly.
And the boy?...
He had stopped playing.
His music had ceased a moment ago without her noticing it....
--"Christophe!"
What was he doing?
There was not a sound to be heard.
He was always forgetting to come down to dinner: father was going to scold him.
She ran upstairs....
--"Christophe!"
He made no sound.
She opened the door of the room where he was practising.
No one there.
The room was empty, and the piano was closed....
Louisa was seized with a sudden panic.
What had become of him?
The window was open.
Oh, Heaven!
Perhaps he had fallen out!
Louisa's heart stops.
She leans out and looks down....
--"Christophe!"
He is nowhere to be found.
She rushes all over the house.
Downstairs grandfather shouts to her: "Come along; don't worry;
he'll come back."
She will not go down: she knows that he is there: that he is hiding for fun, to tease her.
Oh, naughty, naughty boy!...
Yes, she is sure of it now: she heard the floor creak: he is behind the door.
She tries to open the door.
But the key is gone.
The key!
She rummages through a drawer, looking for it in a heap of keys.
This one, that....
No, not that....
Ah, that's it!...
She cannot fit it into the lock, her hand is trembling so.
She is in such haste: she must be quick.
Why?
She does not know, but she knows that she must be quick, and that if she doesn't hurry she will be too late.
She hears Christophe breathing on the other side of the door....
Oh, bother the key!...
At last!
The door is opened.
A cry of joy.
It is he.
He flings his arms round her neck....
Oh, naughty, naughty, good, darling boy!...
She has opened her eyes.
He is there, standing by her.
For some time he had been standing looking at her; so changed she was, with her face both drawn and swollen, and her mute suffering made her smile of recognition so infinitely touching: and the silence, and her utter loneliness....
It rent his heart....
She saw him.
She was not surprised.
She smiled all that she could not say, a smile of boundless tenderness.
She could not hold out her arms to him, nor utter a single word.
He flung his arms round her neck and kissed her, and she kissed him: great tears were trickling down her cheeks.
She said in a whisper: "Wait...."
He saw that she could not breathe.
Neither stirred.
She stroked his head with her hands, and her tears went on trickling down her cheeks.
He kissed her hands and sobbed, with his face hidden in the coverlet.
When her attack had passed she tried to speak.
But she could not find words: she floundered, and he could hardly understand her.
But what did it matter?
They loved each other, and were together, and could touch each other: that was the main thing.
--He asked indignantly why she was left alone.
She made excuses for her nurse: "She cannot always be here: she has her work to do...."
In a faint, broken voice,--she could hardly pronounce her words,--she made a little hurried request about her burial.
She told Christophe to give her love to her two other sons who had forgotten her.
And she seat a message to Olivier, knowing his love for Christophe.
She begged Christophe to tell him that she sent him her blessing--(and then, timidly, she recollected herself, and made use of a more humble expression),--"her affectionate respects...."
Once more she choked.
He helped her to sit up in her bed.
The sweat dripped down her face.
She forced herself to smile.
She told herself that she had nothing more to wish for in the world, now that she had her son's hand clasped in hers.
And suddenly Christophe felt her hand stiffen in his.
Louisa opened her lips.
She looked at her son with infinite tenderness:--so the end came.
