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"Here you are!" said Mannheim triumphantly, thrusting the ticket into his hand. "You are mad," said Christophe. "What about your father's orders?" Mannheim laughed: "He will be furious!" he said. He dried his eyes and went on: "I shall tap him to-morrow morning as soon as he is up before he knows anything." "I cannot accept," said Christophe, "knowing that he would not like it."
Gone for ever are the days when the young and tumultuous energies of the European nations needed, for their clarification, to be surrounded by partition walls. Let me quote a few words uttered by Jean Christophe in his riper age: "I neither admire nor dread the nationalism of the present time. It will pass away with the present time; it is passing, it has already passed.
Christophe discovered the explanation of the feeling of repugnance with which certain French plays had filled him. It was not their immorality that shocked him. Morality, immorality, amorality, all these words mean nothing.
One thinks one must, and it is so tiresome!" "Ah!" said Christophe with conviction, "if only everybody thought the same." They both laughed. They were thinking of Frau Vogel. "Poor woman!" said Sabine; "how exhausting she is!" "She is never exhausted," replied Christophe gloomily. She was tickled by his manner and his jest. "You think it amusing?" he asked. "That is easy for you.
They kissed and renewed their promises to write and meet again. He took the last train home. At a station the train coming from the opposite direction was waiting. In the carriage opposite his a third-class compartment Christophe saw the young Frenchwoman who had been with him to the performance of Hamlet. She saw Christophe and recognized him. They were both astonished.
Christophe was shy in this select company, and said nothing: but he was all ears. He could not grasp he had great difficulty in following the volubility of the French what great artistic interests were in dispute.
"This day?" said Leclerc, in a tone of some constraint. "Will you not spend this day with us?" "I cannot," replied Toussaint. "I must be gone to my home." As soon as it was believed that he was fairly out of hearing, the acts of the morning were proclaimed throughout Cap Francais as the pardon of Generals Toussaint and Christophe.
"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." Olivier was somewhat reassured.
He pretended not to notice Amalia's insolence: who, while she affected contemptuously to avoid him, did all that she could to make him fall in with her so that she might tell him all that was rankling in her. Christophe was only touched by Rosa's attitude. The girl condemned him more harshly even than his family. But she had made an idol of Christophe: and that idol had crumbled away.
My gain is twofold: for only what is most true of me, the real truth of myself will remain. Let Christophe perish!..." But very soon he felt that he was becoming as much a stranger to his work as to himself. How childish was the illusion of believing that his art would endure! He saw clearly not only how little he had done, but how surely all modern music was doomed to destruction.
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