Jean-Christophe in Paris: The Market-Place, Antoinette, the House. Romain Rolland
Krafft. … Never heard the name."
To Christophe it was as though he had been struck, full in the chest. The blood rushed to his cheeks. He replied angrily:
"You'll hear it later on."
Hecht took no notice, and went on imperturbably, as though Christophe did not exist:
"Krafft … no, never heard it."
He was one of those people for whom not to be known to them is a mark against a man.
He went on in German:
"And you come from the Rhine-land? … It's wonderful how many people there are there who dabble in music! But I don't think there is a man among them who has any claim to be a musician."
He meant it as a joke, not as an insult: but Christophe did not take it so.
He would have replied in kind if Kohn had not anticipated him.
"Oh, come, come!" he said to Hecht. "You must do me the justice to admit that I know nothing at all about it."
"That's to your credit," replied Hecht.
"If I am to be no musician in order to please you," said Christophe dryly,
"I am sorry, but I'm not that."
Hecht, still looking aside, went on, as indifferently as ever.
"You have written music? What have you written? Lieder, I suppose?"
"Lieder, two symphonies, symphonic poems, quartets, piano suites, theater music," said Christophe, boiling.
"People write a great deal in Germany," said Hecht, with scornful politeness.
It made him all the more suspicious of the newcomer to think that he had written so many works, and that he, Daniel Hecht, had not heard of them.
"Well," he said, "I might perhaps find work for you as you are recommended by my friend Hamilton. At present we are making a collection, a 'Library for Young People,' in which we are publishing some easy pianoforte pieces. Could you 'simplify' the Carnival of Schumann, and arrange it for six and eight hands?"
Christophe was staggered.
"And you offer that to me, to me—me … ?"
His naïve "Me" delighted Kohn: but Hecht was offended.
"I don't see that there is anything surprising in that," he said. "It is not such easy work as all that! If you think it too easy, so much the better. We'll see about that later on. You tell me you are a good musician. I must believe you. But I've never heard of you."
He thought to himself:
"If one were to believe all these young sparks, they would knock the stuffing out of Johannes Brahms himself."
Christophe made no reply—(for he had vowed to hold himself in check)—clapped his hat on his head, and turned towards the door. Kohn stopped him, laughing:
"Wait, wait!" he said. And he turned to Hecht: "He has brought some of his work to give you an idea."
"Ah!" said Hecht warily. "Very well, then: let us see them."
Without a word Christophe held out his manuscripts. Hecht cast his eyes over them carelessly.
"What's this? A suite for piano … (reading): A Day. … Ah! Always program music! … "
In spite of his apparent indifference he was reading carefully. He was an excellent musician, and knew his job: he knew nothing outside it: with the first bar or two he gauged his man. He was silent as he turned over the pages with a scornful air: he was struck by the talent revealed in them: but his natural reserve and his vanity, piqued by Christophe's manner, kept him from showing anything. He went on to the end in silence, not missing a note.
"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.