Jean-Christophe Journey's End

Romain Rolland

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• Publié par: rubog
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 22
• Langue: English

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End, by Romain Rolland
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Title: Jean-Christophe Journey's EndAuthor: Romain Rolland
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7967] [Yes, we
are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on June 7, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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EBOOK JEAN-CHRISTOPHE JOURNEY'S END
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Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon,
Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.JEAN-CHRISTOPHE
JOURNEY'S END
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP THE BURNING BUSH
THE NEW DAWN
BY ROMAIN ROLLAND
Translated by
GILBERT CANNAN
WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHORCONTENTS
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
THE BURNING BUSH
THE NEW DAWNLOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
I
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 hearingsome 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.
He grabbed his pillow to hurl it at the intruder, who
skipped back. He explained himself. A reporter of
the Nation wished to interview M. Krafft about the
article which had appeared in the Grand Journal.
"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 Arsène 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 naïvely responsive to the journalist's friendly
protestations that in the end he gave way.
Ten minutes later he was introduced to a potentate
in whose presence all men trembled. He was a
sturdy little man, about fifty, short and stout, with a
big round head, gray hair brushed up, a red face, a
masterful way of speaking, a thick, affected
accent, and every now and then he would break
out into a choppy sort of volubility. He had forced
himself on Paris by his enormous self-confidence.
A business man, with a knowledge of men, naïve
and deep, passionate, full of himself, he identified
his business with the business of France, and even
with the affairs of humanity. His own interests, the
prosperity of his paper, and the salus publica, all
seemed to him to be of equal importance and to be
narrowly associated. He had no doubt that any
man who wronged him, wronged France also: and
to crush an adversary, he would in perfectly good
faith have overthrown the Government. However,
he was by no means incapable of generosity. He
was an idealist of the after-dinner order, and loved
to be a sort of God Almighty, and to lift some poor
devil or other out of the mire, by way of
demonstrating the greatness of his power, whereby
he could make something out of nothing, make and
unmake Ministers, and, if he had cared to, make
and unmake Kings. His sphere was the universe.
He would make men of genius, too, if it so pleased
him.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.
Writing for the reviews, and finding himself in touch
with a number of critics and dilettanti, Olivier never
let slip an opportunity of talking about Christophe:
and for some time past he had been surprised to
find that they listened to him. He could feel a sort
of current of curiosity, a mysterious rumor flying
about literary and polite circles. What was its
origin? Were there echoes of newspaper opinion,
following on the recent performances of
Christophe's work in England and Germany? It
seemed impossible to trace it to any definite
source. It was one of those frequent phenomena of
those men who sniff the air of Paris, and can tell
the day before, more exactly than the
meteorological observatory of the tower of Saint-
Jacques, what wind is blowing up for the morrow,
and what it will bring with it. In that great city of