Jean-Christophe, vol 1 | Page 9

He does not understand this noise; he
does not know the meaning of it; it is dazzling, bewildering, and he can
hear nothing clearly. But it is good. It is as though he were no longer
sitting there on an uncomfortable chair in a tiresome old house. He is
suspended in mid-air, like a bird; and when the flood of sound rushes
from one end of the church to the other, filling the arches, reverberating
from wall to wall, he is carried with it, flying and skimming hither and
thither, with nothing to do but to abandon himself to it. He is free; he is
happy. The sun shines.... He falls asleep.
His grandfather is displeased with him. He behaves ill at Mass.
* * * * *
He is at home, sitting on the ground, with his feet in his hands. He has
just decided that the door-mat is a boat, and the tiled floor a river. He
all but drowned in stepping off the carpet. He is surprised and a little
put out that the others pay no attention to the matter as he does when he
goes into the room. He seizes his mother by the skirts. "You see it is
water! You must go across by the bridge." (The bridge is a series of
holes between the red tiles.) His mother crosses without even listening
to him. He is vexed, as a dramatic author is vexed when he sees his
audience talking during his great work.
Next moment he thinks no more of it. The tiled floor is no longer the
sea. He is lying down on it, stretched full-length, with his chin on the
tiles, humming music of his own composition, and gravely sucking his
thumb and dribbling. He is lost in contemplation of a crack between the
tiles. The lines of the tiles grimace like faces. The imperceptible hole
grows larger, and becomes a valley; there are mountains about it. A
centipede moves: it is as large as an elephant. Thunder might crash, the
child would not hear it.

No one bothers about him, and he has no need of any one. He can even
do without door-mat boats, and caverns in the tiled floor, with their
fantastic fauna. His body is enough. What a source of entertainment!
He spends hours in looking at his nails and shouting with laughter.
They have all different faces, and are like people that he knows. And
the rest of his body!... He goes on with the inspection of all that he has.
How many surprising things! There are so many marvels. He is
absorbed in looking at them.
But he was very roughly picked up when they caught him at it.
* * * * *
Sometimes he takes advantage of his mother's back being turned, to
escape from the house. At first they used to run after him and bring him
back. Then they got used to letting him go alone, only so he did not go
too far away. The house is at the end of the town; the country begins
almost at once. As long as he is within sight of the windows he goes
without stopping, very deliberately, and now and then hopping on one
foot. But as soon as he has passed the corner of the road, and the
brushwood hides him from view, he changes abruptly. He stops there,
with his finger in his mouth, to find out what story he shall tell himself
that day; for he is full of stories. True, they are all very much like each
other, and every one of them could be told in a few lines. He chooses.
Generally he takes up the same story, sometimes from the point where
it left off, sometimes from the beginning, with variations. But any
trifle--a word heard by chance--is enough to set his mind off on another
direction.
Chance was fruitful of resources. It is impossible to imagine what can
be made of a simple piece of wood, a broken bough found alongside a
hedge. (You break them off when you do not find them.) It was a magic
wand. If it were long and thin, it became a lance, or perhaps a sword; to
brandish it aloft was enough to cause armies to spring from the earth.
Jean-Christophe was their general, marching in front of them, setting
them an example, and leading them to the assault of a hillock. If the
branch were flexible, it changed into a whip. Jean-Christophe mounted
on horseback and leaped precipices. Sometimes his mount would slip,

and the horseman would find himself at the bottom of the ditch, sorrily
looking at his dirty hands and barked knees. If the wand were lithe,
then Jean-Christophe would make himself the conductor of an orchestra:
he