Jean Christophe: In Paris The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House

y. They had an absurdly disproportionate importance. It was not enough for woman to be the helpmeet of man. It was not even enough for her to be his equal. Her pleasure must be law b

hey unmake what they make. No doubt the Eternal Feminine has been an uplifting influence on the best of men: but for the ordinary men, in ages of weariness and fatigue, t

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ntrol: plump little chins; and the lower part of their faces revealed their utter materialism; they were elegant little creatures who, amid all their preoccupations with love and intrigue, never lost sight of public opinion and their domestic affairs. They were pretty, but they belonged to no race. In all these polite ladies there was the savor of the respectable woman perverted, or wanting to be so, together with all the traditions of her class; prudence, economy, coldness, practical common sense, egoism. A poor sort of life. A desire for pleasure emanating rather from a cerebral curiosity than from a need of the senses. Their will was mediocre in quality, but firm. They were very

gathered round the sumptuous table laden with food, flowers, and wine. They were almost all ugly. But the women, taken as a whole, were quite brilliant, though it did not do to look at them too closely: in most of them there was a want of subtlety in their coloring. But brilliance there was, and a fair show of material life, beautiful shoulders generously exposed to view, and a genius for making their beauty and even their ugliness a lure for the men. An artist would have recognized in some of them the old Roman type, the women of the time of Nero, down to the time of Hadrian. And there were Palmaesque faces, with a sensual expression, heavy chins solidly modeled with the neck, and not without a certain bestial beauty. Some of them h

e, and only of money with any sort of real appreciation. And that was cold and cunning. They talked business in the smoking-room. Christop

is fre

alyptic tone verses of Sully-Prudhomme or Auguste Dorchain. A famous actor solemnly recited a Mystic Ballad to the accompaniment of an American organ. Words and music were so stupid that they turned Christophe sick. But the Roman wome

famous actor-a well-known Comedian-brayed his profound ideas on Nietzsche and Carlyle: he assured Christophe that he could not see a picture of Velasquez-(the idol of the hour)-"without the tears coursing down his cheeks." And he confided-still to Christophe's private ear-that, though he esteemed art very highly, yet he esteemed still more highly the art of living, acting, and that if he were asked to choose what part he would play, it would be that of Bismarck.... Sometimes there would be of the company a professed wit, but the level of the conversation was not appreciably higher for that. Generally they said nothing; they confined themselves to a jerky remark or an enigmatic smile: they lived on their reputations, and were saved further trouble. But there were a few professional talkers, generally from the South. They talked about a

grew not so much out of his music as out of the more or less romantic circumstances of his life which had been popularized by sentimental and virtuous biographies. His rugged face and lion's mane had become a romantic figure. Ladies wept for him: they hinted that if they had known him he should not have been so unhappy: and in their greatness of heart they were the more ready to sacrifice all for him, in that there was no danger of Beethoven taking them at their word: the old fellow was beyond all need of anything. That was why the virtuosi, the conductors, and the impresarii bowed down in pious worship before him: and, as the representatives of Beethoven, they gathered the homage destined for him. There were sumptuous festivals at exorbitant prices, which afforded society people an opportunity of showing their generosity-and incidentally also of discovering Beethoven's symphonies. There were committees of actors, men of the world, Bohemians, and politicians, appointed by the Republic to preside over the destinies of art, and they informed the world of their intention to erect a monument to Beethoven: and on these committees, together with

eer exhaustion. When he reached home and got to bed, he groaned in his sleep.... And then, suddenly, he roared with laughter as he remembered some ridiculous saying. He woke up repeating it, and imitating the features of the speaker. Next day, and for several days after, as he walked about, he would suddenly bellow like a bull.... Why did he visit these people? Why did he go on visiting them? Why force himself to gesticulate and make faces, like the rest, and pretend to be interested in things that did not appeal to him in

y Parisian society, which is only interested in art in so far as it knows the artist. And he had to

affection: wherever he might be, there he would find

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olette Stevens. Her father was a Belgian, a naturalized Frenchman, the son of an Anglo-American settled at Antwerp, and a Dutchwoman

ather long and fantastic nose, which wrinkled up and moved at the tip as she talked, with little fractious pouts and shrugs; rebellious hai

her silly manners: her pose was that of a little girl, and she would sit rocking her

in their ears, making ingenuous and naughty remarks, doing it most brilliantly, in a soft, twittering voice; and in the lightest possible way she would say improper things, without seeming to do more than hint at them, and was even more skilful in provoking them from others; she had

p his life and ideas from death. He had no interest in these drawing-room parakeets beyond the gaining of a livelihood. In return for their money, he gave them lessons, conscientiously concentrating all his energies on the task, to keep the boredom of it from mastering him, and his at

so deliberately. It was a natural instinct with her. She was a woman. She was like water, formless. The soul of every man she met was a vessel, whose form she took immediat

nce: she had never tried to pour herself into a vessel of such a rugged form. And, finally, he attracted her, because, being naturally and by inheritance expert in the valuation at the f

ong mechanically. Sometimes she would play well, very well, with taste and soul-(it was almost as though she had a soul: but, as a matter of fact, she only borrowed one). Before she knew Christophe, she was capable of liking Massenet, Grieg, Thomé. But after she met Christophe she ceased to like them. Then she played Bach and Beetho

de, like a flower dying for want of water, with a die-away expression in her eyes, and her body draped in impossible curves, by way of expressing the rare quality of her millionaire soul-in the great drawing-room, with

say as he entered, "the

d laugh.... (And she would ho

n. Isn't i

he would say

ening!... Will y

It's the same thing

usician," she wou

re music or an

.. What is it, the

won't tell you, because

reason why you

u!... Well, do you know what you are doing w

dee

dear piano, say pretty things to me; k

lette, half vexed, half laughing. "Y

the l

en, even if it were so, isn't t

n't mix music

ic! A beautiful

told yo

Why do you shrug your s

e it an

h the b

sn't your fault. It's the fault of the world you live in. The stale society in which you

talk a lit

m here to teach you the p

rather vexed-but at heart deli

t he had a sort of amused sympathy for her. Colette, on her part, seized every excuse for going on with the conversation, which interested her much more than her lesson. It was no good Christophe drawing back on the excuse that he could not say what he thought without hurting her feelings: she a

and there would never have been the smallest intimacy between them, had not Colette

Christophe came for her lesson, she was worn out, drawn-looking, gray-faced, and haggard. She hardly spoke: she seemed utterly

forgive me.... Pleas

.. She was out of sorts.... She had bouts of

come again another day: but

be all right presently....

elf: but he did not question her: an

en so brilliant last night. You

a little

the same of you

lau

e you said a wo

a w

e interesting

boneless Frenchmen who understand everything, and explain everything, and excuse everything-and

be interested in a

about these thin

not do them?" sai

replied w

others. Everybody i

for l

for l

What is le

ekeep

turned to the piano and began again, made

all. I believe you are rig

able to say so," sai

pishly, like a little girl wh

be so

hard about good women,"

dise on earth. Only,

one has ev

o reason why it should not exist. I'm determined to find it, if it does exi

her men and wom

t is only they who

for

they don'

rd," repeat

st of the others!... If there weren't a few pebbles here

you think we never dream of anything else, and you despise us. Ah! if you could see all that goes on in the minds of the girls of from fifteen to eighteen as they go out into society, and have the sort of success that comes to their youth and freshness-when they have danced, and talked sma

tophe, altogether amazed. "W

er eyes. She tried to smile and held out h

elves and do what you like. But we are bound for ever and ever within the

yourselves, finding some work you like, an

despise me because I tell you frankly what everybody thinks in secret I'm no sillier than the rest. But what use are philosophy, history, and science to me? As for art,-you see,-I strum and daub and make messy little water-color sketches;-but is that enough to fill a woman's life? There is only one end to our life: marriage. But do you think there is much fun in marrying this or that young man whom I know as well as you do? I see them as they are. I am not fortunate enough to be like your German Gretchens, who can always create an illusion for themselves.... That is terrible, isn't it? To look around and see girls who have married and their husbands, and to think that one will have to do as they have done, be cramped in body and mind, and become dull like them!... One needs to be st

ence of life all over again. If you are brave, it will be all right. L

rt, certain refinements of luxury and comfort, which, no doubt, money alone cannot provide, though it is an indispensable factor. That sounds pretty poor, I know. But I know myself: I am weak.... Please, please

Christophe. "Bu

f: 'What is the good of fighting? What's the good of tormenting myself? One way or the other, what does it matter? N

looked at Christophe with abject, imploring eyes. He promised

she was laughing an

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ed to his advice, or, if necessary, to his remonstrances, gravely, attentively, like a good little girl: it was a distraction, an interest, even a sup

worn them really, for they had the souls and the conversation of girls. Christophe had his hour as her confessor. At once Colette would become serious and intense. She was like the young Frenchwoman, of whom Bodley speaks, who, at the confessional, "developed a calmly prepared essay, a model of clarity and order, in which everything that was to be said was properly arranged in distinct categories."-And after that she flung herself once more into the business of amusement. As the day went on she grew younger. In the evening she went to the theater: and there was the eternal pleasure of recognizing the same eternal faces in the audience:-her pleasure lay not in the play that was performed, but in the actors whom she knew, whose familiar mannerisms she remarked once more. And she exchanged spiteful remarks with the people who came to see her in

olette herself could not have told him. Like most girls who are idle and circumscribed in their desires, she was in darkness. She did not know what she was, because she did not know what she wanted, because she could not know what she wanted without having tried i

people whom he did not admire, even people whom he despised: but he would not suffer her to put him o

be convinced of the importance of their work, staggering under the weight of it. At first Christophe was a little embarrassed by the fact that he had never heard of them or their works. He tried bashfully to ask about them: he was especially anxious to know what one of them had written, a young man who was declared by the others to be a master of the theater. He was surprised to hear that this great dramatist had written a one-act play taken from a novel, which had been pieced together from a number of short stories, or, rather, sketches, which he had published in one of the Reviews during the past ten years. The baggage of the others wa

eir bag of tricks: even for a passer-by from whom they can expect only a glance of amazement. Christophe often came across these young strutting peacocks: budding painters, and musicians, art-students who modeled their appearance on some famous portrait: Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Beethoven; or fitted it to the parts they wish to play: painter, musician, workman, the profound thinker, the jolly fellow, the Danubian peasant, the natural man.... They were always on the lookout to see if they were attracting attention. When Christophe met them in the street he took a malicious pleasure in looking the other way and ignoring t

o have nothing else to do: in default of love, they "make love": above all, they explain it. Their notes took up far more room than their text, which, as a matter of fact, was very short. Sociology gave a relish to the most scabrous thoughts: everything was sheltered beneath the

ean regularized, universal, virtuous, decent, domestic, and, above all, social prostitution.-There had just appeared a book on the question, full of talent, which apparently said all there was to be said: through four hundred pages of playful pedantry, "strictly in accordance with the rules of the Baconian method," it dealt with the "best method of controlling the relations of the sexes." It was a lecture on free love, full of talk about manners, propriety, good taste, nobility, beauty, truth, modesty, morality,-a regular Berquin for young girls who wanted to go wrong.-It was, for the moment, the Gospel in which Colette's little court rejoiced, while they paraphrased it. It goes without saying, that, like all disciples, they discarded all the justice, observation, and even

lared that such teachi

e Diderots in miniature are, in ordinary life, like the genial Panurge of the encyclopedia, honest citizens, not really a whit less timorous than the rest. It is p

was not a Fre

*

s one whom she seemed to prefer, and, of course,

es, set wide apart, an aquiline nose, a fair Van Dyck beard clipped to a point: he was prematurely bald, which did not become him: and he had a silky voice, elegant manners, and fine soft h

n enough to rouse a dislike which he could not explain, and he was not to discover the reason for it until much later. There are sudden outbursts of love; and so there are of hat

els and plays in which, with much talent, he described the private life of his relations, and their most intimate adventures, and those of his friends, his own, his liaisons, among others one with the wife of his best friend: the portraits were well-drawn: everybody praised them, the public, the wife, and his friend. It was impossible for him to gain the confidence or the favors of a woman without putting them into a book.-One would have thought that his indiscretions would have produced strained relations with his "friends." But there Was nothing of the kind; they were hardly more than a little embarrassed: they protested as a matter of form: but at heart they were delighted at being held up to the public gaze, en déshabille: so long as their faces were masked, their modesty was undisturbed. But there was nev

ved servant, only more free and confidential, who gave them instruction and roused their envy. They had hardly any constrain

al with a man weaker than herself. She finds food in it at once for her lower and higher instincts: her maternal instinct is touched by it. Lucien Lévy-Coeur knew that perfectly: one of the surest means of touching a woman's heart is to sound that mysterious chord. But in addition, Colette felt that she was weak, and cowardly, and possessed of instincts of which she was not proud, though she was not inclined to deny them. It pleased her to allow herself to be persuade

uls, there are, as it were, two conversational strata, one above the other: one-which everybody can hear-between mind and mind: the other-of which very few are conscious, though it is the greater of the two-between instinct and instinct, the beast in man and woman. Often these two strata of conversation are contr

ike of Lucien Lévy-Coeur, At first that gentleman maintained towards Christophe an irreproachable and ironical politeness. He, too, scented the enemy: but he thought he had nothing to fear from him: he made fun of him without seeming to do so. If only he could have had Christophe's admiration he would hav

hip: she was not ready to sacrifice anything for anybody: she just wanted everything to go smoothly and pleasantly, And so she concealed from Christophe the fact that she went on receiving Lucien Lévy-Coeur: she lied with the easy charm of the young women of her class who, from their childhood, are expert in the practice which is so necessary for those who wish to keep their friends and please everybody. She excused herself by pretending that she wished to avoid hurting Christophe: but in reality it was because she knew that he was right and wanted to go on doing as she liked without quarreling with him. Sometimes Christophe

question: and, finally, she vindicated her right to have whatever friends she liked. She was perfectly right: and Christophe admitted that he had been absurd: but he knew also tha

want us not to be

repl

e sorry if you ceas

ifice the smallest thi

ways be sacrificing one thing for another? It's just a stupi

other. I allow nothing between good and e

"That is why I love you.

e the other

a soft look in her eyes an

ta

e same tender note in her voice. Christophe sat for some time in silence watching Colette at her tricks: then he went away, having ma

ed with his books, and idly

y and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking

crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and

tion of Paris for the Bible to have become a humorous work to him. But he did not stop saying over and over again the judgment of the great judiciary humorist: and he tried to im

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ons. It was no use her being sorry about it or offended, and trying all sorts of tricks: he stuck to his guns: they were rude to each oth

dered how people could live in such a stagnant atmosphere of art for art's sake and pleasure for pleasure's sake. And yet the French did live in it: they had beep, a great nation, and they sti

ors of a church with axes, and there were men attacking them with chairs. He saw that the French did still believe in something-though he could not understand in what. He was told that the State and the Church were separated after a century of living together, and that as the Church had refused to go wi

of gendarmes, peasants were armed with scythes, and put their kettles on to boil to defend the churches, which the Free Thinkers were demolishing in the name of liberty: there were popular redeemers who climbed trees to address the provinces of Wine, that had risen against the provinces of Alcohol. Everywhere there were millions of men shaking hands, all red in the face from shouting, and in the end all going for each other. The Republic flattered the people: and then turned arms against them. The people on their side broke the heads of a few

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ad spoken to him before, he had no idea what sort of man he was: till then they had only talked about mu

man he was talking to, or gripping him by the arm:-he was a great eater, a heavy drinker, a high liver with a gift of laughter, and the appetite of a man of the people pushing his way into power: he was adaptable, quick to alter his manners to sort with his surroundings and the person he was talking to, full of ideas, and reas

was kindly and amiable. She came of a rich shopkeeping family, broad-minded and virtuous, and she was devoted to the countless duties of society, as to a religion, not to mention the duties, social and artistic, which she imposed on herself: she had her salon, dabbled in University Extension movements, and was busy with philanthropic undertakings and researches into the psychology of childhood,-all without any enthusiasm or profound interest,-from a mixture of natural kindness, snobbishness, and the harmless pedantry of a young woman of educatio

y and asked no more of her: and she asked no more of him. He loved her and deceived her. She put up with that, provided she had her share of

old attentiveness with which she followed her husband's political career, and the latest fashions in dress and art. And it

a fish to the deeper meaning of music: to her it was only a succession of notes, rhythms, and degrees of sound, to which she listened or reproduced carefully: she never looked for the soul in it, having no use for it herself. This amiable, intelligent, simple woman, who was always ready to do any one a kindness, gave Christophe the graceful welcome which she

lgarian such as he was himself. And he found it absorbing to study an original of his stamp-(he was unwearying in his observation of humanity)-and to discover his impressions of Paris. The frankness and rudeness of Christophe's remarks amused him. He was skeptic enough to admit their truth. He was not put out by the fact that Christophe was a German. On the

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illiant talkers, mostly men from the South, and they were amazingly dilettante: individually they were almost as much so as the men of letters. Of course, they were very ignorant about art, and especially about foreign art: but they all pretended more or less to some knowledge of it: and often they really loved it. There were Councils which were very like the coterie of some little Review. One of them would be a playwright: another would scrape on the violin; anothe

to power became like Oriental despots: they had a mania for ordering everything, and let nothing alone: they were skeptical in mind and tyrannical in temper. The temptation to use the machinery of administrative cent

them the perfect machinery of political despotism. They were trying not so much to destroy the Church as to supplant it: and, in fact, they created a Church of Free Thought which had its catechisms, and ceremonies, its baptisms, its confirmations, its marriages, its regional councils, if not its ecumenicals at Rome. It was most pitifully comic to see these thousands of poor wretches having to band themselves together in order to be able to "think freely." True, their freedom of thought consisted in setting a ban on the thought of others in the name of Reason: for they believed in Reason as the Catholics believed in the Blessed Virgin without ever dreaming for a moment that Reason, like the Virgin, was in itself nothing, or that the real thing lay behind it. And, just as the Catholic Church had its a

war on the French of the old Church, had just given utterance to an anti-clerical speech in honor of Vercingetorix: he proclaimed the ancient Gaul, to whom Free Thought had erected a statue, to be a son of the people, and the first champion against (the Church of) Rome. The Ministers of the Marine, by way of purifying the fleet and showing their horror of war, called their cruisers Descartes and Ernest Renan. Other Free Thinkers had set themselves

tophe in exasperati

barracks, you teach him how to use a gun and then how to shoot. And so it is with a young composer: his head is buzzing with ideas: but he has not yet learned to put them in order." And, being a little scared by his own courage, he protested with every sentence: "I am an old Free Thinker.... I am an old Republican..." and he declared audaciously that "he did not care much whether the compositions

orcery, and the aberrations of literary fashions.-The religion of Reason was such a craze. It was common to the most ignorant and the most cultured, to the "sub-veterinaries" of the Chamber, and certain of the keenest intellects of the University. It was even more dangerous in the latter than in the former: for with the latter it was mixed up with a credulous and stupid optimism, which sapped its energy: while with the others it was fortified and given a keener edge by a fanatical pessimism which was under no illusion as to the fundamental antagonism of Nature and Reason, and they w

e, tolerant, liberty-loving people. And he found them lunatics with their abstract ideas, their diseased logic, ready to sacrifice themselves and everybody else for one of their syllogisms. They were always talking of liberty,

heir own people, they called everybody who did not agree with them foreigners, or renegades, or traitors. There were anti-protestants who persuaded themselves that all Protestants were English or Germans, and would have them all expelled from France. There were men of the West who denied the existence of anything east of the Rhine: men of the North who denied the existence of everything south of the Loire: men of the South who called all those who lived north of the Loire Barbarians: and there were men who boasted of being of Gallic descent: and, cra

it was lucky that such p

little despots did at le

ad become Emperor or Kin

of

ue left to work the salvation of peopl

nte Socialists, mere opportunists, who held back from taking any part in the fight until it was won, though they followed in the wake of the army of Free Thought, and, after every battle won, they swooped down on the spoils. These champions of Reason did not labor in the cause of Reason

must be fairly on the road to success to have enrolled Lucien Lévy-Coeur. But he did not know that Lucien Lévy-Coeur had also contrived to figure in the opposi

u put up wi

in re

is working for us; he is

e what is going to be left for you to build up again. Do you think there'll be timber enough left

lettante decadence and their struggle for life. They were not content with being jobbed into positions: they wanted fame. Never had there been a time when there were so many premature Statues, or so many speeches delivered at the unveiling of them. But queerest of all were the banquets that were periodically offered to one or other of the great men of the fr

ity and their knavery better than any one: but that did not keep him from supporting them in order to retain their support. And if in private he never hesitated to speak of the people in terms of contempt, on the platf

nt part)-he had arranged his life and conduct in accordance with it, because it suited him best. It was not only his practical interest that was served by it, but also his vital interests, the foundations of his being and all his actions. His Socialistic Faith was to him a sort of State religion.-Most people live like that. Their liv

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ffort. They wanted to arrange their own lives and the life of the nation with the least possible amount of trouble and sacrifice. All down the scale the point was to get the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of effort. That was their morality, immoral enough, but it was the only guide in the political muddle, in which the leaders set the example of anarchy, and the disordered pack of politicians were chasing ten hares at once, and letting them all escape one after the other, and an aggressive Foreign Office was yoked with a pacific War Office, and Ministers of War were cutting down the army in order to purify it, Naval Ministers were inciting the workmen in the arsenals, military instructors were preaching the horrors of war, and all the officials, judges, revolutionaries, and patriots were dilettante. The political demoralization was universal. Every man was expecting the State to provide him w

uman being to be happy. There was a morbid humanitarianism which broke down the distinction between Good and Evil, and developed a sentimental pity for the "sa

ophe t

and screamed, she will fall down dead-drunk. And w

*

rized was too scandalous. It was as though there were in them two contradictory things: an inconsistent character, believing in nothing, and discursive Reason, intent on truncating, mowing down, and crushing life, without regard for anything. Christophe wondered why the peaceful m

and, by way of showing how up to date they are, they play the degraded parts allotted to them in fashionable plays, and support those who have degraded them. They're an apathetic and surly middle-class: they read nothing, understand nothing, don't want to understand anything; they only know how to vilify, vilify, vagu

baseness of the oppressed was any excuse for that of the oppressor. Only too frequentl

oloro, Che visser senza

eir will and every vestige of personality, and obeyed blindly. A loose, vulgar way of living, a Republic without Republicans: Socialist papers and Socialist leaders groveling before Royalties when they visited Paris: the souls of servants ga

in its jealousy, there was no difficulty about squaring that. The decadent Republic treated it as decadent Rome treated the barbarian hordes, that she no longer had the power to drive from her frontiers; she assimilated them, and they quickly became her best watch-dogs. The Ministers of the middle-cla

*

of knowledge of every period and every country. As one syllabus declared, they set out to teach "every branch of physical, biological, and sociological science: astronom

was stronger than fatigue and hunger. But how the poor fellows had been tricked! There were a few real apostles, intelligent human beings, a few upright warm-hearted men, with more good intentions than skill to accomplish them; but, as against them, there were hundreds of fools, idiots, schemers, unsuccessful authors, orators, professors, parsons, s

them with all the fads and cranks of the middle-class. They gulped them down greedily, not because they liked them, but because they were middle-class. Christophe, who was taken to one of these Popular Universities by Madame Roussin, heard her play Debussy

unders

elf up like an an

uldn't I understand

derstood it he encored a fugue,

the living wells of the nation: the People had ceased to be-"People yourselves!" as a working-man said

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tle. The carved golden spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, the flowering Holy Thorn, flashed out of the labyrinth of houses. On the other side of the water stretched the royal front of the Louvre, and its windows were like weary eyes lit up with the last living rays of the setting sun. At the

ce, long since extinct, that in its life had made the whole earth ring with the tramp of its armies,-the race whose helmet was the dome of the Invalides, whose girdle was the Louvre, the t