“Your real task,” said Christophe, “is to force great works of art on the world.”
“We should exhaust ourselves in a vain endeavor. It isn’t worth it. As soon as a great work of art is brought into the theater it loses its great poetic quality. It becomes a hollow sham. The breath of the public sullies it. The public consists of people living in stifling towns and they have lost all knowledge of the open air, and Nature, and healthy poetry: they must have their poetry theatrical, glittering, painted, reeking.—Ah! And besides … besides, even suppose one did succeed … no, that would not fill one’s life, it would not fill my life. …”
“You are still thinking of him.”
“Who?”
“You know. That man.”
“Yes.”
“Even if you could have him and he loved you, confess that you would not be happy even then: you would still find some means of tormenting yourself.”
“True. … Ah! What is the matter with me? … I think I have had too hard a fight. I have fretted too much: I can’t ever be calm again: there is always an uneasiness in me, a sort of fever. …”
“It must have been in you even before your struggles.”
“Possibly. Yes. It was in me when I was a little girl, as far back as I can remember. … It was devouring me then.”
“What do you want?”
“How do I know? More than I can have.”
“I know that,” said Christophe. “I was like that when I was a boy.”
“Yes, but you have become a man. I shall never be grown-up as long as I live. I am an incomplete creature.”
“No one is complete. Happiness lies in knowing one’s limitations and loving them.”
“I can’t do that. I’ve lost it. Life has cheated me, tricked me, crippled me. And yet I fancy that I could never have been a normal and healthy and beautiful woman without being like the rest of the gang.”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be all these things. I can see you being like that!”
“Tell me how you can see me.”
He described her, in conditions under which she might have developed naturally and harmoniously, and been happy, loved, and loving. And it did her good to hear it. But when he had done, she said:
“No. It is impossible now.”
“Well,” he said, “in that case you must say to yourself, like dear old Handel when he went blind:
He went to the piano and sang it for her. She kissed him and called him her dear, crazy optimist. He did her good. But she did him harm: or at least, she was afraid of him. She had violent fits of despair, and could not conceal them from him: her love made her weak. At night she would try to choke down her agony, he would guess, and beg the beloved creature who was so near and yet so far, to share with him the burden which lay so heavy on her: then she could not hold out any longer, and she would turn weeping to his arms; and he would spend hours in comforting her, kindly, without a spark of anger: but in the long-run her perpetual restlessness was bound to tell on him. Françoise trembled lest the fever that was in her should infect him. She loved him too much to be able to bear the idea that he should suffer because of her. She was offered an engagement in America, and she accepted it, so as to tear herself away from him. She left him a little humiliated. She was as humiliated as he, in the knowledge that they could not make each other happy!
“My poor dear,” she said to him, smiling sadly and tenderly. “Aren’t we stupid? We shall never have such a friendship again, never such a glorious opportunity. But it can’t be helped, it can’t be helped. We are too stupid!”
They looked at each other mournfully and shamefacedly. They laughed to keep themselves from weeping, kissed, and parted with tears in their eyes. Never had they loved so well as when they parted.
And after she was gone he returned to art, his old companion. … Oh, the peace of the starry sky!
It was not long before Christophe received a letter from Jacqueline. It was only the third time she had written to him, and her tone was very different from that to which she had accustomed him. She told him how sorry she was not to have seen him for so long, and very nicely invited him to come and see her, unless he wished to hurt two friends who loved him. Christophe was delighted, but not greatly surprised. He had been inclined to think that Jacqueline’s unjust disposition towards him would not last. He was fond of quoting a jest of his old grandfather’s:
“Sooner or later women have their good moments: one only needs the patience to wait for them.”
He went to see Olivier, and was welcomed with delight. Jacqueline was most attentive to him: she avoided the ironical manner
