Jean-Christophe, vol 1 | Page 4

ought to have come back," said the old man, not satisfied. He
stopped for a moment, and then asked, in a rather lower voice and with
some shame:
"Has he been ... again?"
"No, father--no, father," said Louisa hurriedly.
The old man looked at her; she avoided his eyes.
"It's not true. You're lying."
She wept in silence.
"Dear God!" said the old man, kicking at the fire with his foot. The
poker fell with a clatter. The mother and the child trembled.
"Father, please--please!" said Louisa. "You will make him cry."
The child hesitated for a second or two whether to cry or to go on with
his meal; but not being able to do both at once, he went on with the
meal.
Jean Michel continued in a lower tone, though with outbursts of anger:
"What have I done to the good God to have this drunkard for my son?
What is the use of my having lived as I have lived, and of having
denied myself everything all my life! But you--you--can't you do

anything to stop it? Heavens! That's what you ought to do.... You
should keep him at home!..."
Louisa wept still more.
"Don't scold me!... I am unhappy enough as it is! I have done
everything I could. If you knew how terrified I am when I am alone!
Always I seem to hear his step on the stairs. Then I wait for the door to
open, or I ask myself: 'O God! what will he look like?' ... It makes me
ill to think of it!"
She was shaken by her sobs. The old man grew anxious. He went to her
and laid the disheveled bedclothes about her trembling shoulders and
caressed her head with his hands.
"Come, come, don't be afraid. I am here."
She calmed herself for the child's sake, and tried to smile.
"I was wrong to tell you that."
The old man shook his head as he looked at her.
"My poor child, it was not much of a present that I gave you."
"It's my own fault," she said. "He ought not to have married me. He is
sorry for what he did."
"What, do you mean that he regrets?..."
"You know. You were angry yourself because I became his wife."
"We won't talk about that. It is true I was vexed. A young man like
that--I can say so without hurting you--a young man whom I had
carefully brought up, a distinguished musician, a real artist--might have
looked higher than you, who had nothing and were of a lower class, and
not even of the same trade. For more than a hundred years no Krafft has
ever married a woman who was not a musician! But, you know, I bear
you no grudge, and am fond of you, and have been ever since I learned

to know you. Besides, there's no going back on a choice once it's made;
there's nothing left but to do one's duty honestly."
He went and sat down again, thought for a little, and then said, with the
solemnity in which he invested all his aphorisms:
"The first thing in life is to do one's duty."
He waited for contradiction, and spat on the fire. Then, as neither
mother nor child raised any objection, he was for going on, but relapsed
into silence.
* * * * *
They said no more. Both Jean Michel, sitting by the fireside, and
Louisa, in her bed, dreamed sadly. The old man, in spite of what he had
said, had bitter thoughts about his son's marriage, and Louisa was
thinking of it also, and blaming herself, although she had nothing
wherewith to reproach herself.
She had been a servant when, to everybody's surprise, and her own
especially, she married Melchior Krafft, Jean Michel's son. The Kraffts
were without fortune, but were considerable people in the little Rhine
town in which the old man had settled down more than fifty years
before. Both father and son were musicians, and known to all the
musicians of the country from Cologne to Mannheim. Melchior played
the violin at the Hof-Theater, and Jean Michel had formerly been
director of the grand-ducal concerts. The old man had been profoundly
humiliated by his son's marriage, for he had built great hopes upon
Melchior; he had wished to make him the distinguished man which he
had failed to become himself. This mad freak destroyed all his
ambitions. He had stormed at first, and showered curses upon Melchior
and Louisa. But, being a good-hearted creature, he forgave his
daughter-in-law when he learned to know her better; and he even came
by a paternal affection for her, which showed itself for the most part in
snubs.
No one ever understood what it was that drove Melchior