“I frightened you,” he said. “Forgive me. … You see, I loved him.”
The boy was still frightened, and said nothing.
“How like you are to him!” said Christophe. … “And yet I should not have recognized you. What is it that has changed? …”
He asked:
“What is your name?”
“Georges.”
“Oh! yes. I remember. Christophe Olivier Georges. … How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen! Is it so long ago? … It is as though it were yesterday—or far back in the darkness of time. … How like you are to him! The same features. It is the same, and yet another. The same colored eyes, but not the same eyes. The same smile, the same lips, but not the same voice. You are stronger. You hold yourself more erect: your face is fuller, but you blush just as he used to do. Come, sit down, let us talk. Who sent you to me?”
“No one.”
“You came of your own accord? How do you know about me?”
“People have talked to me about you.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
“Ah!” said Christophe. “Does she know that you came to see me?”
“No.”
Christophe said nothing for a moment; then he asked:
“Where do you live?”
“Near the Parc Monçeau.”
“You walked here? Yes? It is a long way. You must be tired.”
“I am never tired.”
“Good! Show me your arms.”
(He felt them.)
“You are a strong boy. … What put it into your head to come and see me?”
“My father loved you more than anyone.”
“Did she tell you so?”
(He corrected himself.)
“Did your mother tell you so?”
“Yes.”
Christophe smiled pensively. He thought: “She too! … How they all loved him! Why did they not let him see it? …”
He went on:
“Why did you wait so long before you came?”
“I wanted to come sooner. But I thought you would not want to see me.”
“I!”
“I saw you several weeks ago at the Chevillard concerts: I was with my mother, sitting a little away from you: I bowed to you: you looked through me, and frowned, and took no notice.”
“I looked at you? … My poor boy, how could you think that? … I did not see you. My eyes are tired. That is why I frown. … You don’t think me so cruel as that?”
“I think you could be cruel too, if you wanted to be.”
“Really?” said Christophe. “In that case, if you thought I did not want to see you, how did you dare to come?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
“And if I had refused to see you?”
“I shouldn’t have let you do that.” He said this with a little decided air, at once shy and provoking.
Christophe burst out laughing, and Georges laughed too.
“You would have sent me packing! Think of that! You rogue! … No, decidedly, you are not like your father.”
A shadow passed over the boy’s mobile face.
“You think I am not like him? But you said, just now … ? You don’t think he would have loved me? You don’t love me?”
“What difference does it make to you whether I love you or not?”
“A great deal of difference.”
“Because … ?”
“Because I love you.”
In a moment his eyes, his lips, all his features, took on a dozen different expressions, like the shadows of the clouds on an April day chasing over the fields before the spring winds. Christophe had the most lovely joy in gazing at him and listening to him; it seemed to him that all the cares of the past were washed away; his sorrowful experiences, his trials, his sufferings and Olivier’s sufferings, all were wiped out: he was born again in this young shoot of Olivier’s life.
They talked on. Georges knew nothing of Christophe’s music until the last few months, but since Christophe had been in Paris, he had never missed a concert at which his work was played. He spoke of it with an eager expression, his eyes shining and laughing, with the tears not far behind: he was like a lover. He told Christophe that he adored music, and that he wanted to be a composer. But after a question or two, Christophe saw that the boy knew not even the elements of music. He asked about his work. Young Jeannin was at the lycée; he said cheerfully that he was not a good scholar.
“What are you best at? Literature or science?”
“Very much the same.”
“What? What? Are you a dunce?”
The boy laughed frankly and said:
“I think so.”
Then he added confidentially:
“But I know that I am not, all the same.”
Christophe could not help laughing.
“Then why don’t you work? Aren’t you interested in anything?”
“No. I’m interested in everything.”
“Well, then, why?”
“Everything is so interesting that there is no time. …”
“No time? What the devil do you do?”
He made a vague gesture:
“Many things. I play music, and games, and I go to exhibitions. I read. …”
“You would do better to read your schoolbooks.”
“We never read anything interesting in school. … Besides, we travel. Last month I went to England to see the Oxford and Cambridge match.”
“That must help your work a great deal!”
“Bah! You learn much more that way than by staying at the lycée.”
“And what does your mother say to that?”
“Mother is very reasonable. She does whatever I want.”
“You bad boy! … You can thank your stars I am not your father. …”
“You wouldn’t have had a chance. …”
It was impossible to resist his banter.
“Tell me, you traveler,” said Christophe. “Do you know my country?”
“Yes.”
“I bet you don’t know a word of German.”
“Yes, I do. I know it quite well.”
“Let us see.”
They began to talk German. The boy jabbered on quite ungrammatically with the most droll coolness; he was very intelligent and wide awake, and guessed more than he understood: often he guessed wrong; but he
