“That is all very well,” said Christophe. “But you will never do anything if you do not work.”
“Oh! I don’t need to. We are rich.”
“The devil! Then it is a very serious state of things. Do you want to be a man who does nothing and is good for nothing?”
“No. I should like to do everything. It is stupid to shut yourself up all your life in a profession.”
“But it is the only means yet discovered of doing any good.”
“So they say!”
“What do you mean? ‘So they say!’ … I say so. I’ve been working at my profession for forty years, and I am just beginning to get a glimmer of it.”
“Forty years, to learn a profession! When can you begin to practise it?”
Christophe began to laugh.
“You little disputatious Frenchman!”
“I want to be a musician,” said Georges.
“Well, it is not too early for you to begin. Shall I teach you?”
“Oh! I should be so glad!”
“Come tomorrow. I’ll see what you are worth. If you are worth nothing, I shall forbid you ever to lay hands on a piano. If you have a real inclination for it, we’ll try and make something of you. … But, I warn you, I shall make you work.”
“I will work,” said Georges delightedly.
They said goodbye until the morrow. As he was going, Georges remembered that he had other engagements on the morrow, and also for the day after. Yes, he was not free until the end of the week. They arranged day and hour.
But when the day and hour came, Christophe waited in vain. He was disappointed. He had been looking forward with childlike glee to seeing Georges again. His unexpected visit had brightened his life. It had made him so happy, and moved him so much that he had not slept the night after it. With tender gratitude he thought of the young friend who had sought him out for his friend’s sake. His natural grace, his malicious and ingenuous frankness had delighted him: he sank back into the mute intoxication, the buzzing of happiness, which had filled his ears and his heart during the first days of his friendship with Olivier. It was allied now with a graver and almost religious feeling which, through the living, saw the smile of the past.—He waited all the next day and the day after. Nobody came. Not even a letter of excuse. Christophe was very mournful, and cast about for excuses for the boy. He did not know where to write to him, and he did not know his address. Had he had it he would not have dared to write. When the heart of an older man is filled with love for a young creature, he feels a certain modesty about letting him see the need he has of him: he knows that the young man has not the same need: they are not evenly matched: and nothing is so much dreaded as to seem to be imposing oneself on a person who cares not a jot.
The silence dragged on. Although Christophe suffered under it, he forced himself to take no step to hunt up the Jeannins. But every day he expected the boy, who never came. He did not go to Switzerland, but stayed through the summer in Paris. He thought himself absurd, but he had no taste for traveling. Only when September came did he decide to spend a few days at Fontainebleau.
About the end of October Georges Jeannin came and knocked at his door. He excused himself calmly, without being in the least put out by his long silence.
“I could not come,” he said. “And then we went away to stay in Brittany.”
“You might have written to me,” said Christophe.
“Yes. I did try. But I never had the time. … Besides,” he said, laughing, “I forgot all about it.”
“When did you come back?”
“At the beginning of October.”
“And it has taken you three weeks to come? … Listen. Tell me frankly: Did your mother prevent you? … Does she dislike your seeing me?”
“No. Not at all. She told me to come today.”
“What?”
“The last time I saw you before the holidays I told her everything when I got home. She told me I had done right, and she asked about you, and pestered me with a great many questions. When we came home from Brittany, three weeks ago, she made me promise to go and see you again. A week ago she reminded me again. This morning, when she found that I had not been, she was angry with me, and wanted me to go directly after breakfast, without more ado.”
“And aren’t you ashamed to tell me that? Must you be forced to come and see me?”
“No. You mustn’t think that. … Oh! I have annoyed you. Forgive me. … I am a muddleheaded idiot. … Scold me, but don’t be angry with me. I love you. If I did not love you I should not have come. I was not forced to come. I can’t be forced to do anything but what I want to do.”
“You rascal!” said Christophe, laughing in spite of himself. “And your musical projects, what about them?”
“Oh! I am still thinking about it.”
“That won’t take you very far.”
“I want to begin now. I couldn’t begin these last few months. I have had so much to do! But now you shall see how I will work, if you still want to have anything to
