Jean Christophe: In Paris | Page 9

orders, and said that M. Hamilton had left Paris on
business. It was a blow to Christophe. He gasped and asked when M.
Hamilton would return. The boy replied at random:
"In ten days."
Christophe went back utterly downcast, and buried himself in his room
during the following days. He found it impossible to work. His heart
sank as he saw that his small supply of money--the little sum that his
mother had sent him, carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief at the
bottom of his bag--was rapidly decreasing. He imposed a severe régime
on himself. He only went down in the evening to dinner in the little
pot-house, where he quickly became known to the frequenters of it as
the "Prussian" or "Sauerkraut." With frightful effort, he wrote two or
three letters to French musicians whose names he knew hazily. One of
them had been dead for ten years. He asked them to be so kind as to
give him a hearing. His spelling was wild, and his style was
complicated by those long inversions and ceremonious formulæ which
are the custom in Germany. He addressed his letters: "To the Palace of
the Academy of France." The only man to read his gave it to his friends
as a joke.
After a week Christophe went once more to the publisher's office. This
time he was in luck. He met Sylvain Kohn going out, on the doorstep.
Kohn made a face as he saw that he was caught: but Christophe was so
happy that he did not see that. He took his hands in his usual uncouth
way, and asked gaily:
"You've been away? Did you have a good time?"

Kohn said that he had had a very good time, but he did not unbend.
Christophe went on:
"I came, you know.... They told you, I suppose?... Well, any news? You
mentioned my name? What did they say?"
Kohn looked blank. Christophe was amazed at his frigid manner: he
was not the same man.
"I mentioned you," said Kohn: "but I haven't heard yet. I haven't had
time. I have been very busy since I saw you--up to my ears in business.
I don't know how I can get through. It is appalling. I shall be ill with it
all."
"Aren't you well?" asked Christophe anxiously and solicitously.
Kohn looked at him slyly, and replied:
"Not at all well. I don't know what is the matter, the last few days. I'm
very unwell."
"I'm so sorry," said Christophe, taking his arm. "Do be careful. You
must rest. I'm so sorry to have been a bother to you. You should have
told me. What is the matter with you, really?"
He took Kohn's sham excuses so seriously that the little Jew was hard
put to it to hide his amusement, and disarmed by his funny simplicity.
Irony is so dear a pleasure to the Jews--(and a number of Christians in
Paris are Jewish in this respect)--that they are indulgent with bores, and
even with their enemies, if they give them the opportunity of tasting it
at their expense. Besides, Kohn was touched by Christophe's interest in
himself. He felt inclined to help him.
"I've got an idea," he said. "While you are waiting for lessons, would
you care to do some work for a music publisher?"
Christophe accepted eagerly.
"I've got the very thing," said Kohn. "I know one of the partners in a

big firm of music publishers--Daniel Hecht. I'll introduce you. You'll
see what there is to do. I don't know anything about it, you know. But
Hecht is a real musician. You'll get on with him all right."
They parted until the following day. Kohn was not sorry to be rid of
Christophe by doing him this service.
* * * * *
Next day Christophe fetched Kohn at his office. On his advice, he had
brought several of his compositions to show to Hecht. They found him
in his music-shop near the Opéra. Hecht did not put himself out when
they went in: he coldly held out two fingers to take Kohn's hand, did
not reply to Christophe's ceremonious bow, and at Kohn's request he
took them into the next room. He did not ask them to sit down. He
stood with his back to the empty chimney-place, and stared at the wall.
Daniel Hecht was a man of forty, tall, cold, correctly dressed, a marked
Phenician type; he looked clever and disagreeable: there was a scowl
on his face: he had black hair and a beard like that of an Assyrian King,
long and square-cut. He hardly ever looked straight forward, and he had
an icy brutal way of talking which sounded insulting even when he
only said "Good-day." His insolence was more apparent than real. No
doubt