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Read Ebook: Jean-Christophe Journey's End by Rolland Romain Cannan Gilbert Translator
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Ebook has 1695 lines and 193647 words, and 34 pages
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
THE BURNING BUSH
THE NEW DAWN
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
In spite of the success which was beginning to materialize outside France, the two friends found their financial position very slow in mending. Every now and then there recurred moments of penury when they were obliged to go without food. They made up for it by eating twice as much as they needed when they had money. But, on the whole, it was a trying existence.
For the time being they were in the period of the lean kine. Christophe had stayed up half the night to finish a dull piece of musical transcription for Hecht: he did not get to bed until dawn, and slept like a log to make up for lost time. Olivier had gone out early: he had a lecture to give at the other end of Paris. About eight o'clock the porter came with the letters, and rang the bell. As a rule he did not wait for them to come, but just slipped the letters under the door. This morning he went on knocking. Only half awake, Christophe went to the door growling: he paid no attention to what the smiling, loquacious porter was saying about an article in the paper, but just took the letters without looking at them, pushed the door to without closing it, went to bed, and was soon fast asleep once more.
An hour later he woke up with a start on hearing some one in his room: and he was amazed to see a strange face at the foot of his bed, a complete stranger bowing gravely to him. It was a journalist, who, finding the door open, had entered without ceremony. Christophe was furious, and jumped out of bed:
"What the devil are you doing here?" he shouted.
"What article?"
"Haven't you read it?"
The reporter began to tell him what it was about.
Christophe went to bed again. If he had not been so sleepy he would have kicked the fellow out: but it was less trouble to let him talk. He curled himself up in the bed, closed his eyes, and pretended to be asleep. And very soon he would really have been off, but the reporter stuck to his guns, and in a loud voice read the beginning of the article. At the very first words Christophe pricked up his ears. M. Krafft was referred to as the greatest musical genius of the age. Christophe forgot that he was pretending to be asleep, swore in astonishment, sat up in bed, and said:
"They are mad! Who has been pulling their legs?"
The reporter seized the opportunity, and stopped reading to ply Christophe with a series of questions, which he answered unthinkingly. He had picked up the paper, and was gazing in utter amazement at his own portrait, which was printed as large as life on the front page: but he had no time to read the article, for another journalist entered the room. This time Christophe was really angry. He told them to get out: but they did not comply until they had made hurried notes of the furniture in the room, and the photographs on the wall, and the features of the strange being who, between laughter and anger, thrust them out of the room, and, in his nightgown, took them to the door and bolted it after them.
But it was ordained that he should not be left in peace that day. He had not finished dressing when there came another knock at the door, a prearranged knock which was only known to a few of their friends. Christophe opened the door, and found himself face to face with yet another stranger, whom he was just about to dismiss in a summary fashion, when the man protested that he was the author of the article.... How are you to get rid of a man who regards you as a genius! Christophe had grumpily to submit to his admirer's effusions. He was amazed at the sudden notoriety which had come like a bolt from the blue, and he wondered if, without knowing it, he had had a masterpiece produced the evening before. But he had no time to find out. The journalist had come to drag him, whether he liked it or not, there and then, to the offices of the paper where the editor, the great Ars?ne Gamache himself, wished to see him: the car was waiting downstairs. Christophe tried to get out of it: but, in spite of himself, he was so na?vely responsive to the journalist's friendly protestations that in the end he gave way.
That day he had just "made" Christophe.
It was Olivier who in all innocence had belled the cat.
Olivier, who could do nothing to advance his own interests, and had a horror of notoriety, and avoided journalists like the plague, took quite another view of these things where his friend was in question. He was like those loving mothers, the right-living women of the middle-class, those irreproachable wives, who would sell themselves to procure any advantage for their rascally young sons.
"Whom is he decrying?"
Olivier went hot with shame as he read the paper, and said to himself:
"A fine thing I've done!"
He could hardly get through his lecture. As soon as he had finished he hurried home. What was his consternation to find that Christophe had already gone out with the journalists! He delayed lunch for him. Christophe did not return. Hours passed, and Olivier grew more and more anxious and thought:
"What a lot of foolish things they will make him say!"
About three o'clock Christophe came home quite lively. He had had lunch with Ars?ne Gamache, and his head was a little muzzy with the champagne he had drunk. He could not understand Olivier's anxiety, who asked him in fear and trembling what he had said and done.
"What have I been doing? I've had a splendid lunch. I haven't had such a good feed for a long time."
He began to recount the menu.
"And wine.... I had wine of every color."
Olivier interrupted him to ask who was there.
"Who was there?... I don't know. There was Gamache, a little round man, true as gold: Clodomir, the writer of the article, a charming fellow: three or four journalists whom I didn't know, very jolly, all very nice and charming to me--the cream of good fellows."
Olivier did not seem to be convinced. Christophe was astonished at his small enthusiasm.
"Haven't you read the article?"
"Yes. I have. Have you read it?"
"Yes.... That is to say, I just glanced at it. I haven't had time."
"Well: read it."
Christophe took it up. At the first words he spluttered.
"Oh! The idiot!" he said.
He roared with laughter.
"Bah!" he went on. "These critics are all alike. They know nothing at all about it."
But as he read farther he began to lose his temper: it was too stupid, it made him look ridiculous. What did they mean by calling him "a Republican musician"; it did not mean anything.... Well, let the fib pass.... But when they set his "Republican" art against the "sacristy art" of the masters who had preceded him,--,--it was too much....
"The swine! They're trying to make me out an idiot!..."
And then, what was the sense of using him as a cudgel to thwack talented French musicians, whom he loved more or less,--,--though they knew their trade, and honored it? And--worst of all--with an incredible want of tact he was credited with odious sentiments about his country!... No, that, that was beyond endurance....
"I shall write and tell them so," said Christophe.
Olivier intervened.
"No, no," he said, "not now! You are too excited. Tomorrow, when you are cooler...."
Christophe stuck to it. When he had anything to say he could not wait until the morrow. He promised Olivier to show him his letter. The precaution was useful. The letter was duly revised, so as to be confined practically to the rectification of the opinions about Germany with which he had been credited, and then Christophe ran and posted it.
"Well," he said, when he returned, "that will save half the harm being done: the letter will appear to-morrow."
Olivier shook his head doubtfully. He was still thoughtful, and he looked Christophe straight in the face, and said:
"Christophe, did you say anything imprudent at lunch?"
"Oh no," said Christophe with a laugh.
"Sure?"
"Yes, you coward."
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