Jean-Christophe: Journeys End | Page 9

hidden meanings of passages, which generally contained none. These little women of thirteen, who knew nothing of love, used, in their innocent effrontery, to discuss, half in jest, half in earnest, love and the sweets of love: and, in school, under the fatherly eye of the master--a very polite and mild old gentleman--verses like the following, which he confiscated one day, when they made him gasp:
"Let, oh! let me clasp you in my arms, And in your kisses drink insensate love Drop by drop in one long draught...."
They attended lectures at a fashionable and very prosperous school, the teachers of which were Masters of Art of the University. There they found material for their sentimental aspirations. Almost all the girls were in love with their masters. If they were young and not too ugly, that was quite enough for them to make havoc of their pupils' hearts--who would work like angels to please their sultan. And they would weep when he gave them bad marks in their examinations: though they did not care when anybody else did the same. If he praised them, they would blush and go pale by turns, and gaze at him coquettishly in gratitude. And if he called them aside to give them advice or pay them a compliment, they were in Paradise. There was no need for him to be an eagle to win their favor. When the gymnastic instructor took Jacqueline in his arms to lift her up to the trapeze, she would be in ecstasies. And what furious emulation there was between them! How coaxingly and with what humility they would make eyes at the master to attract his attention from a presumptuous rival! At lectures, when he opened his lips to speak, pens and pencils would be hastily produced to take down what he said. They made no attempt to understand: the chief thing was not to lose a syllable. And while they went on writing and writing without ceasing, with stealthy glances to take in their idol's play of expression and gestures, Jacqueline and Simone would whisper to each other:
"Do you think he would look nice in a tie with blue spots?"
Then they had a chromo-lithographic ideal, based on romantic and fashionable books of verses, and poetic fashion-plates,--they fell in love with actors, virtuosi, authors, dead and alive--Mounet-Sully, Samain, Debussy,--they would exchange glances with young men at concerts, or in a drawing-room, or in the street, and at once begin to weave fanciful and passionate love-affairs,--they could not help always wanting to fall in love, to have their lives filled with a love-affair, to find some excuse for being in love. Jacqueline and Simone used to confide everything to each other: proof positive that they did not feel anything much: it was the best sort of preventive to keep them from ever having any deep feeling. On the other hand, it became a sort of chronic illness with them: they were the first to laugh at it, but they used lovingly to cultivate it. They excited each other. Simone was more romantic and more cautious, and used to invent wilder stories. But Jacqueline, being more sincere and more ardent, came nearer to realizing them. She was twenty times on the brink of the most hopeless folly.--However, she did not commit herself, as is the way with young people. There are times when these poor little crazy creatures--(such as we have all been)--are within an ace, some of suicide, others of flinging themselves into the arms of the first man who comes along. Only, thank God, almost all of them stop short at that. Jacqueline wrote countless rough drafts of passionate letters to men whom she hardly knew by sight: but she never sent any of them, except one enthusiastic letter, unsigned, to an ugly, vulgar, selfish critic, who was as cold-hearted as he was narrow-minded. She fell in love with him over a few lines in which she had discovered a rare wealth of sensibility. She was fired also by a great actor, who lived near her: whenever she passed his door she used to say to herself:
"Shall I go in?" And once she made so bold as to go up to the door of his flat. When she found herself there, she turned and fled. What could she have talked to him about? She had nothing, nothing at all to say to him. She did not love him. And she knew it. In the greater part of her folly she was deceiving herself. And for the rest it was the old, old, delicious, stupid need of being in love. As Jacqueline was naturally intelligent, she knew that quite well, and it kept her from making a fool of herself. A fool who knows his folly is worth two who don't.
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