Jean-Christophe

She used to tear out the pages which had pleased her. When she took the books back, she used carefully to slip them under the bed or the furniture, so as to make the owners of them believe that they had never left the room. She used to glue her ears to the door to listen to the actors going over their parts. And when she was alone, sweeping the corridor, she would mimic their intonations in a whisper and gesticulate. When she was caught doing so she was laughed at and jeered at. She would say nothing, and boil with rage.⁠—That sort of education might have gone on for a long time had she not on one occasion been imprudent enough to steal the script of a part from the room of an actor. The actor stamped and swore. No one had been to his room except the servant: he accused her. She denied it boldly: he threatened to have her searched: she threw herself at his feet and confessed everything, even to her other pilferings and the pages she had torn out of the books: the whole boiling. He cursed and swore frightfully: but he was not so angry as he seemed. He asked why she had done it. When she told him that she wanted to become an actress he roared with laughter. He questioned her, and she recited whole pages which she had learned by heart: he was struck by it, and said:

“Look here, would you like me to give you lessons?”

She was in the highest heaven of delight, and kissed his hands.

“Ah!” she said to Christophe, “how I should have loved him!”

But at once he added:

“Only, my dear, you know you can’t have anything for nothing.⁠ ⁠…”

She was chaste, and had always been scared and modest with those who had pursued her with their overtures. Her absolute chastity, her ardent need of purity, her disgust with things unclean and ignoble loveless sensuality, had been with her always from her childhood on, as a result of the despair and nausea of the sad sights which she saw about her on all sides at home:⁠—and they were with her still.⁠ ⁠… Ah! unhappy creature! She had borne much punishment!⁠ ⁠… What a mockery of Fate!⁠ ⁠…

“Then,” asked Christophe, “you consented?”

“Ah!” she said, “I would have gone through fire to get out of it. He threatened to have me arrested as a thief. I had no choice.⁠—That was how I was initiated into art⁠—and life.”

“The blackguard!” said Christophe.

“Yes, I hated him. But I have met so many men since that he does not seem to me to be one of the worst. He did at least keep his word. He taught me what he knew⁠—(not much!)⁠—of the actor’s trade. He got me into his company. At first I was everybody’s servant, I played little scraps of parts. Then one night, when the soubrette was ill, they risked giving me her part. I went on from that. They thought me impossible, grotesque, uncouth. I was ugly then. I remained ugly until I was decreed⁠—if not ‘divine’ like the other Woman⁠—the highest, the ideal type of woman,⁠ ⁠… ‘Woman.’⁠ ⁠… Idiots! As for my acting, it was thought extravagant and incorrect. The public did not like me. The other players used to make fun of me. I was kept on because I was useful in spite of everything, and was not expensive. Not only was I not expensive, but I paid! Ah! I paid for every step, every advance, rung by rung, with my suffering, with my body. Fellow-actors, the manager, the impresario, the impresario’s friends.⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped: her face was very pale, her lips were pressed together, there was a hard stare in her eyes: no tears came, but it was plain to see that her soul was shedding tears of blood. In a flash she was living through the shameful past, and the consuming desire to conquer which had upheld her⁠—a desire that burned the more with every fresh stain and degradation that she had had to endure. She would sometimes have been glad to die: but it would have been too abominable to succumb in the midst of humiliation and to go no farther. Better to take her life before⁠—if so it must be⁠—or after victory. But not when she had degraded herself and not enjoyed the price of it.⁠ ⁠…

She said no more. Christophe was pacing up and down the room in anger: he was in a mood to slay these men who had made this woman suffer and besmirched her. Then he looked at her with the eyes of pity: and he stood near her and took her face in his hands and pressed it fondly, and said:

“Poor little woman!”

She made to thrust him away. He said:

“You must not be afraid of me. I love you.”

Then the tears trickled down her pale cheeks. He knelt down by her and kissed⁠—

“La lunga man d’ogni bellezza piena.⁠ ⁠…”

—the long delicate hands on which two tears had fallen.

He sat down again, and she recovered herself and calmly went on with her story:

An author had at last launched her. He had discovered in the strange little creature a daimon, a genius⁠—and, even better for his purpose, “a dramatic type, a new woman, representative of an epoch.” Of course, he made her his mistress after so many others had done the same. And she let him take her, as she had suffered the others, without love, and even with the opposite of love. But he had made her famous: and she had done the same for him.

“And now,” said Christophe, “the others cannot do anything to you: you can do what you like with them.”

“You think so?” she said bitterly.

Then she told him of Fate’s other mockery⁠—her passion for a knave whom she despised: a literary man who had exploited her, had plucked out the most sorrowful secrets of her soul, and turned them into literature, and then had left her.

“I despise him,” she said, “as