Jean-Christophe in Paris: The Market-Place, Antoinette, the House. Romain Rolland

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      "Yes," he said, in a patronizing tone of voice, "they're well enough."

      Violent criticism would have hurt Christophe less.

      "I don't need to be told that," he said irritably.

      "I fancy," said Hecht, "that you showed me them for me to say what I thought."

      "Not at all."

      "Then," said Hecht coldly, "I fail to see what you have come for."

      "I came to ask for work, and nothing else."

      "I have nothing to offer you for the time being, except what I told you.

       And I'm not sure of that. I said it was possible, that's all."

      "And you have no other work to offer a musician like myself?"

      "A musician like you?" said Hecht ironically and cuttingly. "Other musicians at least as good as yourself have not thought the work beneath their dignity. There are men whose names I could give you, men who are now very well known in Paris, have been very grateful to me for it."

      "Then they must have been—swine!" bellowed Christophe.—(He had already learned certain of the most useful words in the French language)—"You are wrong if you think you have to do with a man of that kidney. Do you think you can take me in with looking anywhere but at me, and clipping your words? You didn't even deign to acknowledge my bow when I came in. … But what the hell are you to treat me like that? Are you even a musician? Have you ever written anything? … And you pretend to teach me how to write—me, to whom writing is life! … And you can find nothing better to offer me, when you have read my music, than a hashing up of great musicians, a filthy scrabbling over their works to turn them into parlor tricks for little girls! … You go to your Parisians who are rotten enough to be taught their work by you! I'd rather die first!"

      It was impossible to stem the torrent of his words.

      Hecht said icily:

      "Take it or leave it."

      Christophe went out and slammed the doors. Hecht shrugged, and said to

       Sylvain Kohn, who was laughing:

      "He will come to it like the rest."

      At heart he valued Christophe. He was clever enough to feel not only the worth of a piece of work, but also the worth of a man. Behind Christophe's outburst he had marked a force. And he knew its rarity—in the world of art more than anywhere else. But his vanity was ruffled by it: nothing would ever induce him to admit himself in the wrong. He desired loyally to be just to Christophe, but he could not do it unless Christophe came and groveled to him. He expected Christophe to return: his melancholy skepticism and his experience of men had told him how inevitably the will is weakened and worn down by poverty.

      * * * * *

      Christophe went home. Anger had given place to despair. He felt that he was lost. The frail prop on which he had counted had failed him. He had no doubt but that he had made a deadly enemy, not only of Hecht, but of Kohn, who had introduced him. He was in absolute solitude in a hostile city. Outside Diener and Kohn he knew no one. His friend Corinne, the beautiful actress whom he had met in Germany, was not in Paris: she was still touring abroad, in America, this time on her own account: the papers published clamatory descriptions of her travels. As for the little French governess whom he had unwittingly robbed of her situation—the thought of her had long filled him with remorse—how often had he vowed that he would find her when he reached Paris. [Footnote: See Jean-Christophe—I: "Revolt."] But now that he was in Paris he found that he had forgotten one important thing: her name. He could not remember it. He could only recollect her Christian name: Antoinette. And then, even if he remembered, how was he to find a poor little governess in that ant-heap of human beings?

      He had to set to work as soon as possible to find a livelihood. He had five francs left. In spite of his dislike of him, he forced himself to ask the innkeeper if he did not know of anybody in the neighborhood to whom he could give music-lessons. The innkeeper, who had no great opinion of a lodger who only ate once a day and spoke German, lost what respect he had for him when he heard that he was only a musician. He was a Frenchman of the old school, and music was to him an idler's job. He scoffed:

      "The piano! … I don't know. You strum the piano! Congratulations! … But 'tis a queer thing to take to that trade as a matter of taste! When I hear music, it's just for all the world like listening to the rain. … But perhaps you might teach me. What do you say, you fellows?" he cried, turning to some fellows who were drinking.

      They laughed loudly.

      "It's a fine trade," said one of them. "Not dirty work. And the ladies like it."

      Christophe did not rightly understand the French or the jest: he floundered for his words: he did not know whether to be angry or not. The innkeeper's wife took pity on him:

      "Come, come, Philippe, you're not serious," she said to her husband. "All the same," she went on, turning to Christophe, "there is some one who might do for you."

      "Who?" asked her husband.

      "The Grasset girl. You know, they've bought a piano."

      "Ah! Those stuck-up folk! So they have."

      They told Christophe that the girl in question was the daughter of a butcher: her parents were trying to make a lady of her; they would perhaps like her to have lessons, if only for the sake of making people talk. The innkeeper's wife promised to see to it.

      Next day she told Christophe that the butcher's wife would like to see him. He went to her house, and found her in the shop, surrounded with great pieces of meat. She was a pretty, rather florid woman, and she smiled sweetly, but stood on her dignity when she heard why he had come. Quite abruptly she came to the question of payment, and said quickly that she did not wish to give much, because the piano is quite an agreeable thing, but not necessary: she offered him fifty centimes an hour. In any case, she would not pay more than four francs a week. After that she asked Christophe a little doubtfully if he knew much about music. She was reassured, and became more amiable when he told her that not only did he know about music, but wrote it into the bargain: that flattered her vanity: it would be a good thing to spread about the neighborhood that her daughter was taking lessons with a composer.

      Next day, when Christophe found himself sitting by the piano—a horrible instrument, bought second-hand, which sounded like a guitar—with the butcher's little daughter, whose short, stubby fingers fumbled with the keys; who was unable to tell one note from another; who was bored to tears; who began at once to yawn in his face; and he had to submit to the mother's superintendence, and to her conversation, and to her ideas on music and the teaching of music—then he felt so miserable, so wretchedly humiliated, that he had not even the strength to be angry about it. He relapsed into a state of despair: there were evenings when he could not eat. If in a few weeks he had fallen so low, where would he end? What good was it to have rebelled against Hecht's offer? The thing to which he had submitted was even more degrading.

      One evening, as he sat in his room, he could not restrain his tears: he flung himself on his knees by his bed and prayed. … To whom did he pray? To whom could he pray? He did not believe in God; he believed that there was no God. … But he had to pray—he had to pray within his soul. Only the mean of spirit never need to pray. They never know the need that comes to the strong in spirit of taking refuge СКАЧАТЬ