Summary Jean-Christophe
Romain Rolland
Jean-Christophe
In a small German town on the banks of the Rhine, a child is born to the Kraft family of musicians. The first, still unclear perception of the surrounding world, the warmth of the mother’s hands, the tender sound of the voice, the sensation of light, darkness, thousands of different sounds… The ringing of a spring drip, the buzzing of bells, the singing of birds, all delight little Christophe. He hears music everywhere, because for a true musician “everything that exists is music – you just need to hear it”. Unbeknownst to himself, the boy, playing, comes up with his own tunes. Grandfather Christophe records and processes his compositions. And now the note-book “The Joys of Childhood” is ready with a dedication to his highness the duke. So at seven years Christophe becomes a court musician and begins to earn his first money for performances.
Not everything is smooth in Christophe’s life.
The family is on the verge of poverty. The father is drinking the last savings, In despair, Christoph and his mother are forced to ask the duke to give the money earned by the father to his son. However, soon and these funds run low: forever drunk father disgustingly behaves even during concerts, and the duke refuses to give him a place. Christoph writes custom music to the official palace festivities. “The very source of his life and joy is poisoned.” But deep down he hopes for victory, dreams of a great future, of happiness, friendship and love.
So far, his dreams have not come true. Having met Otto Diner, Christophe seems to have finally found a friend. But good manners and caution Otto is alien to the freedom-loving, unbridled Christophe, and they part. The first youthful feeling also brings Christophe disappointment: he falls in love with a girl from a noble family, but he immediately points to the difference in their situation. A new blow – Christophe’s father dies. The family is forced to move to a home more modestly. In a new place, Christophe meets Sabina, the young mistress of a haberdasher’s shop, and love arises between them. Unexpected death of Sabina leaves a deep wound in the boy’s soul. He meets her with seamstress Ada, but she cheats on him with his younger brother. Christoph is left alone again.
He stands at a crossroads. The words of old uncle Gottfried – “The main thing is not to tire of wanting and living” – help Christophers spread his wings and like to throw off “yesterday’s already dead skin, in which he gasped, his former soul.” From now on, he belongs only to himself, “at last he is not the prey of life, but his master!”. In the boy new, unknown forces awake. All his previous compositions are “warm water, caricature-ridiculous nonsense”. He is unhappy not only with himself, he hears fake notes in the works of the pillars of music. Favorite German songs and songs become for him “a flood of vulgar tenderness, vulgar unrest, vulgar sadness, vulgar poetry…”. Christophe does not conceal his emotions, but he declares them publicly. He writes new music, seeks “to express lively passions, Christophe writes articles in a local magazine, where he criticizes everyone and everything, and composers, and musicians. Thus, he makes many enemies: the Duke expels him from service; the family, where he gives lessons, is denied him; the whole city turns away from him. Christophe writes articles in a local magazine, where he criticizes everyone and everything, and composers, and musicians. Thus, he makes many enemies: the Duke expels him from service; the family, where he gives lessons, is denied him; the whole city turns away from him.
Christoph suffocates in the stuffy atmosphere of a provincial burgher town. He meets a young French actress, and her Gallic liveliness, musicality and sense of humor make him think of going to France, to Paris. Christophe can not decide to leave his mother, but the case decides for him. On a village holiday, he quarrels with soldiers, the quarrel ends with a general fight, three soldiers are wounded. Christophe is forced to flee to France: a criminal case is brought against him in Germany.
Paris meets Christophe unfriendly. Dirty, bustling city, so unlike licked, orderly German cities. Friends from Germany turned away from the musician. With difficulty, he manages to find work – private lessons, processing of works by famous composers for the music publishing house. Gradually Christophe observes that the French society is no better than the German one. Everything was rotting through. Politics is the subject of speculation of deft and arrogant adventurers. The leaders of various parties, including the socialist, skilfully cover their low, selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is lying and corrupt. They do not create works of art, but produce goods for the perverted tastes of the jaded bourgeois. The sick, torn from the people, from real life, art slowly dies. As well as at home, in Paris, Jean-Christophe is not just watching. His lively, active nature makes him interfere in everything, openly express his indignation. He sees right through him the falseness and mediocrity surrounding him. Christoph is poor, hungry, seriously ill, but does not give up. Not caring about whether they hear his music or not, he is enthusiastically working, creating a symphonic picture of “David” on the biblical story, but the public is booing her.
After the illness Christophe suddenly feels himself renewed. He begins to understand the unique charm of Paris, has an irresistible need to find a Frenchman “who could fall in love for the sake of his love for France.”
Another Christophe becomes Olivier Jeanin, a young poet who has long admired the music of Christophe and himself from far away. Friends together rent an apartment. Trembling and painful Olivier “was directly created for Christophe”. “They enriched each other, each contributed – that was the moral treasures of their peoples.” Under the influence of Olivier, Christophe suddenly opens “an indestructible granite block of France.” The house in which friends live, as if in miniature represents different social strata of society. Despite the unifying roof, the tenants are avoiding each other because of moral and religious prejudices. Christophe with his music, unshakable optimism and sincere participation breaks the gap in the wall of alienation, and people so unlike each other come together and begin to help each other.
Olivier’s efforts to Christophe suddenly come with glory. The press praises him, he becomes a fashionable composer, secular society opens his doors before him. Christophe willingly goes to dinner parties, “to replenish the supplies that life gives him – a collection of human views and gestures, shades of the voice, in a word, the material – the shapes, sounds, colors – the artist needs for his palette.” At one of these dinners, his friend Olivier falls in love with the young Jacqueline Aange. Christophe is so concerned about the device of happiness of a friend that he personally intercedes for the lovers before Jacqueline’s father, although he understands that by marrying, Olivier will no longer belong to him.
Indeed, Olivier moves away from Christophe. The newlyweds leave for the province, where Olivier teaches at the college. He is absorbed in family happiness, he is not up to Christophe. Jacqueline gets a large inheritance, and the couple returns to Paris. They have a son, but there is no previous understanding. Jacqueline gradually turns into an empty secular lady, throwing money to the right and left. She has a lover for whom she eventually throws her husband and child. Olivier closes in his grief. He is still friendly with Christophe, but he can not live with him under the same roof as before. Passing the boy to the upbringing of their mutual acquaintance, Olivier rented an apartment near his son and Christophe.
Christop acquainted with workers-revolutionaries. He does not think, “with them he or against them.” He likes to meet and argue with these people. “In the heat of the dispute, it happened that Christoph, seized with passion, turned out to be a far more revolutionary than the others.” He is angered by any injustice, “passions are turning his head.” On May 1, he goes with his new friends to a demonstration and drags Olivier, who has not recovered from illness, with him. The crowd shares friends. Christophe rushes into a fight with the police and, defending himself, pierces one of them with his own saber. Intoxicated by the battle, he “sings a revolutionary song with all his might.” Olivier, trampled by the crowd, perishes.
Christophe is forced to flee to Switzerland. He expects Olivier to come to him, but instead receives a letter with the news of the tragic death of a friend. Shocked, almost insane, “like a wounded beast,” he gets to the town where one of the admirers of his talent lives, Dr. Brown. Christophe locked himself in the room provided to him, wanting only one thing – “to be buried with a friend.” Music becomes unbearable for him.
Gradually, Christophe returns to life: playing the piano, and then begins to write music. Through Brown’s efforts, he finds students and gives lessons. Between him and the wife of Dr. Anna, love breaks out. And Christophe, and Anna, a deeply religious woman, are hard at experiencing their passion and betrayal to a friend and husband. Unable to cut this knot, lovers try to commit suicide. After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Anna is seriously ill, and Christophe fled the city. He hides in the mountains on a secluded farm, where he experiences a grave emotional crisis. He wants to create, but can not, why he feels himself on the verge of insanity. Having come out of this test for ten years old, Christophe feels himself at peace. He “departed from himself and approached God.”
Christophe wins. His work receives recognition. He creates new works, “a tangle of unknown harmonies, a string of dizzying chords.” Only a few are available to the latest audacious creations of Christophe, his fame owes to earlier works. The feeling that no one understands him, strengthens the loneliness of Christophe.
Christophe meets with Grace. Once, being a very young girl, Grace took Christophe music lessons and fell in love with him. Calm, light love of Gracia awakens a reciprocal feeling in Christoph’s soul. They become friends, dream to get married. The son of Gracia is jealous of his mother to the musician and tries with all his might to interfere with their happiness. A spoiled, sickly boy simulates nervous fits and coughing attacks and in the end really seriously ill and dies. After him, and Grace dies, who considers himself guilty of the death of his son.
Having lost his beloved, Christophe feels how the thread that connects him to this life breaks. And yet it is at this time that he creates the deepest of his works, including tragic ballads based on Spanish folk songs, among them “a dark love funeral song similar to the ominous flashes of flame.” Also, Christophe wants to have time to connect the daughter of a departed lover to the son of Olivier, in which for Christophe a dead friend was resurrected. Young people fell in love, and Christophe tries to arrange their wedding. He has long been unwell, but hides it, not wanting to cloud the joyful day for the newlyweds.
Christophe’s powers are waning. The lonely, dying Christophe lies in his room and hears an invisible orchestra performing the hymn of life. He remembers his departed friends, beloved mother, and is preparing to unite with them. “The gates open… Here is the chord I was looking for! .. But is this the end? What expanses ahead… We will continue tomorrow…”
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