Jean-Christophe

But she had only believed in that endeavor, that faith, while they were gilded by the sun of love: and as the sun died down she saw them as barren, gloomy mountains standing out against the empty sky: and her strength failed her, so that she could go no farther on the road: what was the good of reaching the summit? What was there on the other side? It was a gigantic phantom and a snare!⁠ ⁠… Jacqueline could not understand how Olivier could go on being taken in by such fantastic notions which consumed life: and she began to tell herself that he was not very clever, nor very much alive. She was stifling in his atmosphere, in which she could not breathe, and the instinct of self-preservation drove her on to the attack, in self-defense. She strove to scatter and bring to dust the injurious beliefs of the man she still loved: she used every weapon of irony and seductive pleasure in her armory: she trammeled him with the tendrils of her desires and her petty cares: she longed to make him a reflection of herself,⁠ ⁠… herself who knew neither what she wanted nor what she was! She was humiliated by Olivier’s want of success: and she did not care whether it were just or unjust; for she had come to believe that the only thing which saves a man of talent from failure is success. Olivier was oppressed by his consciousness of her doubts, and his strength was sapped by it. However, he struggled on as best he could, as so many men have struggled, and will struggle, for the most part vainly, in the unequal conflict in which the selfish instinct of the woman upholds itself against the man’s intellectual egoism by playing upon his weakness, his dishonesty, and his common sense, which is the name with which he disguises the wear and tear of life and his own cowardice.⁠—At least, Jacqueline and Olivier were better than the majority of such combatants. For he would never have betrayed his ideal, as thousands of men do who drift with the demands of their laziness, their vanity, and their loves, into renunciation of their immortal souls. And, if he had done so, Jacqueline would have despised him. But, in her blindness, she strove to destroy that force in Olivier, which was hers also, their common safeguard: and by an instinctive strategical movement she undermined the friendship by which that force was upheld.

Since the legacy Christophe had become a stranger in their household. The affectation of snobbishness and a dull practical outlook on life which Jacqueline used wickedly to exaggerate in her conversations with him were more than he could bear. He would lash out sometimes, and say hard things, which were taken in bad part. They could never have brought about a rupture between the two friends: they were too fond of each other. Nothing in the world would have induced Olivier to give up Christophe. But he could not make Jacqueline feel the same about him; and, his love making him weak, he was incapable of hurting her. Christophe, who saw what was happening to him, and how he was suffering, made the choice easy by a voluntary withdrawal. He saw that he could not help Olivier in any way by staying, but rather made things worse. He was the first to give his friend reasons for turning from him: and Olivier, in his weakness, accepted those inadequate reasons, while he guessed what the sacrifice must have cost Christophe, and was bitterly sorry for it.

Christophe bore him no ill-will. He thought that there was much truth in the saying that a man’s wife is his better half. For a man married is but the half of a man.

He tried to reconstruct his life without Olivier. But it was all in vain, and it was idle for him to pretend that the separation would only be for a short time: in spite of his optimism, he had many hours of sadness. He had lost the habit of loneliness. He had been alone, it is true, during Olivier’s sojourn in the provinces: but then he had been able to pretend and tell himself that his friend was away for a time, and would return. Now that his friend had come back he was farther away than ever. His affection for him, which had filled his life for a number of years, was suddenly taken from him: it was as though he had lost his chief reason for working. Since his friendship for Olivier he had grown used to thinking with him and bringing him into everything he did. His work was not enough to supply the gap: for Christophe had grown used to weaving the image of his friend into his work. And now that his friend no longer took any interest in him, Christophe was thrown off his balance: he set out to find another affection to restore it.

Madame Arnaud and Philomela did not fail him. But just then such tranquil friendship as theirs was not enough. However, the two women seemed to divine Christophe’s sorrow, and they secretly sympathized with him. Christophe was much surprised one evening to see Madame Arnaud come into his room. Till then she had never ventured to call on him. She seemed to be somewhat agitated. Christophe paid no heed to it, and set her uneasiness down to her shyness. She sat down, and for some time said nothing. To put her at her ease, Christophe did the honors of his room. They talked of Olivier, with memories of whom the room was filled. Christophe spoke of him gaily and naturally, without giving so much as a hint of what had happened. But Madame Arnaud, knowing it, could not help looking at him pityingly and saying:

“You don’t see each other now?”

He thought she had come to console him, and felt a gust of impatience, for he did not like any meddling with his