Romain Rolland Part 12

(Colas Breugnon)

"Brugnon, mauvais garcon, tu ris, n'as tu pas honte?"--"Que veux tu, mon ami? Je suis ce que je suis. Rire ne m'empeche pas de souffrir; mais souffrir n'empechera jamais un bon Francais de rire.

Et qu'il rie ou larmoie, il faut d'abord qu'il voie."

COLAS BREUGNON.

CHAPTER I

TAKEN UNAWARES

At length, in this arduous career, came a period of repose. The great ten-volume novel had been finished; the work of European scope had been completed. For the first time Romain Rolland could exist outside his work, free for new words, new configurations, new labors. His disciple Jean Christophe, "the livest man of our acquaintance," as Ellen Key phrased it, had gone out into the world; Christophe was collecting a circle of friends around him, a quiet but continually enlarging community. For Rolland, nevertheless, Jean Christophe's message was already a thing of the past. The author was in search of a new messenger, for a new message.

Romain Rolland returned to Switzerland, a land he loved, lying between the three countries to which his affection had been chiefly given. The Swiss environment had been favorable to so much of his work. _Jean Christophe_ had been begun in Switzerland. A calm and beautiful summer enabled Rolland to recruit his energies. There was a certain relaxation of tension. Almost idly, he turned over various plans. He had already begun to collect materials for a new novel, a dramatic romance belonging to the same intellectual and cultural category as Jean Christophe.

Now of a sudden, as had happened twenty-five years earlier when the vision of _Jean Christophe_ had come to him on the Janiculum, in the course of sleepless nights he was visited by a strange and yet familiar figure, that of a countryman from ancestral days whose expansive personality thrust all other plans aside. Shortly before, Rolland had revisited Clamecy. The old town had awakened memories of his childhood.

Almost unawares, home influences were at work, and his native province had begun to insist that its son, who had described so many distant scenes, should depict the land of his birth. The Frenchman who had so vigorously and pa.s.sionately transformed himself into a European, the man who had borne his testimony as European before the world, was seized with a desire to be, for a creative hour, wholly French, wholly Burgundian, wholly Nivernais. The musician accustomed to unite all voices in his symphonies, to combine in them the deepest expressions of feeling, was now longing to discover a new rhythm, and after prolonged tension to relax into a merry mood. For ten years he had been dominated by a sense of strenuous responsibility; the equipment of Jean Christophe had been, as it were, a burden which his soul had had to bear. Now it would be a pleasure to pen a scherzo, free and light, a work unconcerned with the stresses of politics, ethics, and contemporary history. It should be divinely irresponsible, an escape from the exactions of the time spirit.

During the day following the first night on which the idea came to him, he had exultantly dismissed other plans. The rippling current of his thoughts was effortless in its flow. Thus, to his own astonishment, during the summer months of 1913, Rolland was able to complete his light-hearted novel _Colas Breugnon_, the French intermezzo in the European symphony.

CHAPTER II

THE BURGUNDIAN BROTHER

It seemed at first to Rolland as if a stranger, though one from his native province and of his own blood, had come cranking into his life.

He felt as though, out of the clear French sky, the book had burst like a meteor upon his ken. True, the melody is new; different are the tempo, the key, the epoch. But those who have acquired a clear understanding of the author's inner life cannot fail to realize that this amusing book does not const.i.tute an essential modification of his work. It is but a variation, in an archaic setting, upon Romain Rolland's leit-motif of faith in life. Prince Aert and King Louis were forefathers and brothers of Olivier. In like manner Colas Breugnon, the jovial Burgundian, the l.u.s.ty wood-carver, the practical joker always fond of his gla.s.s, the droll fellow, is, despite his old-world costume, a brother of Jean Christophe looking at us adown the centuries.

As ever, we find the same theme underlying the novel. The author shows us how a creative human being (those who are not creative, hardly count for Rolland) comes to terms with life, and above all with the tragedy of his own life. _Colas Breugnon_, like _Jean Christophe_, is the romance of an artist's life. But the Burgundian is an artist of a vanished type, such as could not without anachronism have been introduced into _Jean Christophe_. Colas Breugnon is an artist only through fidelity, diligence, and fervor. In so far as he is an artist, it is in the faithful performance of his daily task. What raises him to the higher levels of art is not inspiration, but his broad humanity, his earnestness, and his vigorous simplicity. For Rolland, he was typical of the nameless artists who carved the stone figures that adorn French cathedrals, the artist-craftsmen to whom we owe the beautiful gateways, the splendid castles, the glorious wrought ironwork of the middle ages.

These artificers did not fashion their own vanity into stone, did not carve their own names upon their work; but they put something into that work which has grown rare to-day, the joy of creation. In _Jean Christophe_, on one occasion, Romain Rolland had indited an ode to the civic life of the old masters who were wholly immersed in the quiet artistry of their daily occupations. He had drawn attention to the life of Sebastian Bach and his congeners. In like manner, he now wished to display anew what he had depicted in so many portraits of the artists, in the studies of Michelangelo, Beethoven, Tolstoi, and Handel. Like these sublime figures, Colas Breugnon took delight in his creative work.

The magnificent inspiration that animated them was lacking to the Burgundian, but Breugnon had a genius for straightforwardness and for sensual harmony. Without aspiring to bring salvation to the world, not attempting to wrestle with the problems of pa.s.sion and the spiritual life, he was content to strive for that supreme simplicity of craftsmanship which has a perfection of its own and thus brings the craftsman into touch with the eternal. The primitive artist-artisan is contrasted with the comparatively artificialized artist of modern days; Hephaistos, the divine smith, is contrasted with the Pythian Apollo and with Dionysos. The simpler artist's sphere is perforce narrower, but it is enough that an artist should be competent to fill the sphere for which he is pre-ordained.

Nevertheless, Colas Breugnon would not have been the typical artist of Rolland's creation, had not struggle been a conspicuous feature of his life, and had we not been shown through him that the real man is always stronger than his destiny. Even the cheerful Colas experiences a full measure of tragedy. His house is burned down, and the work of thirty years perishes in the flames; his wife dies; war devastates the country; envy and malice prevent the success of his last artistic creations; in the end, illness elbows him out of active life. The only defenses left him against his troubles, against age, poverty, and gout, are "the souls he has made," his children, his apprentice, and one friend. Yet this man, sprung from the Burgundian peasantry, has an armor to protect him from the bludgeonings of fate, armor no less effectual than was the invincible German optimism of Jean Christophe or the inviolable faith of Olivier. Breugnon has his imperturbable cheerfulness. "Sorrows never prevent my laughing; and when I laugh, I can always weep at the same time." Epicure, gormandizer, deep drinker, ever ready to leave work for play, he is none the less a stoic when misfortune comes, an uncomplaining hero in adversity. When his house burns, he exclaims: "The less I have, the more I am." The Burgundian craftsman is a man of lesser stature than his brother of the Rhineland, but the Burgundian's feet are no less firmly planted on the beloved earth. Whereas Christophe's daimon breaks forth in storms of rage and frenzy, Colas reacts against the visitations of destiny with the serene mockery of a healthy Gallic temperament. His whimsical humor helps him to face disaster and death.

a.s.suredly this mental quality is one of the most valuable forms of spiritual freedom.

Freedom, however, is the least important among the characteristics of Rolland's heroes. His primary aim is always to show us a typical example of a man armed against his doom and against his G.o.d, a man who will not allow himself to be defeated by the forces of life. In the work we are now considering, it amuses him to present the struggle as a comedy, instead of portraying it in a more serious dramatic vein. But the comedy is always transfigured by a deeper meaning. Despite the lighter touches, as when the forlorn old Colas is unwilling to take refuge in his daughter's house, or as when he boastfully feigns indifference after the destruction of his home (lest his soul should be vexed by having to accept the sympathy of his fellow men), still amid this tragi-comedy he is animated by the unalloyed desire to stand by his own strength.

Before everything, Colas Breugnon is a free man. That he is a Frenchman, that he is a burgher, are secondary considerations. He loves his king, but only so long as the king leaves him his liberty; he loves his wife, but follows his own bent; he is on excellent terms with the priest of a neighboring parish, but never goes to church; he idolizes his children, but his vigorous individuality makes him unwilling to live with them. He is friendly with all, but subject to none; he is freer than the king; he has that sense of humor characteristic of the free spirit to whom the whole world belongs. Among all nations and in all ages, that being alone is truly alive who is stronger than fate, who breaks through the seine of men and things as he swims freely down the great stream of life. We have seen how Christophe, the Rhinelander, exclaimed: "What is life? A tragedy! Hurrah!" From his Burgundian brother comes the response: "Struggle is hard, but struggle is a delight." Across the barriers of epoch and language, the two look on one another with sympathetic understanding. We realize that free men form a spiritual kinship independent of the limitations imposed by race and time.

CHAPTER III

GAULOISERIES

Romain Rolland had looked upon _Colas Breugnon_ as an intermezzo, as an easy occupation, which should, for a change, enable him to enjoy the delights of irresponsible creation. But there is no irresponsibility in art. A thing arduously conceived is often heavy in execution, whereas that which is lightly undertaken may prove exceptionally beautiful.

From the artistic point of view, _Colas Breugnon_ may perhaps be regarded as Rolland's most successful work. This is because it is woven in one piece, because it flows with a continuous rhythm, because its progress is never arrested by the discussion of th.o.r.n.y problems. _Jean Christophe_ was a book of responsibility and balance. It was to discuss all the phenomena of the day; to show how they looked from every side, in action and reaction. Each country in turn made its demand for full consideration. The encyclopedic picture of the world, the deliberate comprehensiveness of the design, necessitated the forcible introduction of many elements which transcended the powers of harmonious composition.

But _Colas Breugnon_ is written throughout in the same key. The first sentence gives the note like a tuning fork, and thence the entire book takes its pitch. Throughout, the same lively melody is sustained. The writer employs a peculiarly happy form. His style is poetic without being actually versified; it has a melodious measure without being strictly metrical. The book, printed as prose, is written in a sort of free verse, with an occasional rhymed series of lines. It is possible that Rolland adopted the fundamental tone from Paul Fort; but that which in the _Ballades francaises_ with their recurrent burdens leads to the formation of canzones, is here punctuated throughout an entire book, while the phrasing is most ingeniously infused with archaic French locutions after the manner of Rabelas.

Here, Rolland wishes to be a Frenchman. He goes to the very heart of the French spirit, has recourse to "gauloiseries," and makes the most successful use of the new medium, which is unique, and which cannot be compared with any familiar literary form. For the first time we encounter an entire novel which, while written in old-fashioned French like that of Balzac's _Contes drolatiques_, succeeds in making its intricate diction musical throughout. "The Old Woman's Death" and "The Burned House" are as vividly picturesque as ballads. Their characteristic and spiritualized rhythmical quality contrasts with the serenity of the other pictures, although they are not essentially different from these. The moods pa.s.s lightly, like clouds drifting across the sky; and even beneath the darkest of these clouds, the horizon of the age smiles with a fruitful clearness. Never was Rolland able to give such exquisite expression to his poetic bent as in this book wherein he is wholly the Frenchman. What he presents to us as whimsical sport and caprice, displays more plainly than anything else the living wellspring of his power: his French soul immersed in its favorite element of music.

CHAPTER IV

A FRUSTRATE MESSAGE

_Jean Christophe_ was the deliberate divergence from a generation.

_Colas Breugnon_ is another divergence, unconsciously effected; a divergence from the traditional France, heedlessly cheerful. This "bourguinon sale" wished to show his fellow countrymen of a later day how life can be salted with mockery and yet be full of enjoyment.

Rolland here displayed all the riches of his beloved homeland, displaying above all the most beautiful of these goods, the joy of life.

A heedless world, our world of to-day, was to be awakened by the poet singing of an earlier world which had been likewise impoverished, had likewise wasted its energies in futile hostility. A call to joy from a Frenchman, echoing down the ages, was to answer the voice of the German, Jean Christophe. Their two voices were to mingle harmoniously as the voices mingle in the Ode to Joy of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. During the tranquil summer the pages were stacked like golden sheaves. The book was in the press, to appear during the next summer, that of 1914.

But the summer of 1914 reaped a b.l.o.o.d.y harvest. The roar of the cannon, drowning Jean Christophe's warning cry, deafened the ears of those who might otherwise have hearkened also to the call to joy. For five years, the five most terrible years in the world's history, the luminous figure stood unheeded in the darkness. There was no conjuncture between _Colas Breugnon_ and "la douce France"; for this book, with its description of the cheerful France of old, was not to appear until that Old France had vanished for ever.

PART SIX

THE CONSCIENCE OF EUROPE

One who is aware of values which he regards as a hundredfold more precious than the wellbeing of the "fatherland," of society, of the kinships of blood and race, values which stand above fatherlands and races, international values, such a man would prove himself hypocrite should he try to play the patriot. It is a degradation of mankind to encourage national hatred, to admire it, or to extol it.

NIETZSCHE, _Vorreden Material im Nachla.s.s_.

La vocation ne peut etre connue et prouvee que par le sacrifice que fait le savant et l'artiste de son repos et son bien-etre pour suivre sa vocation.

LETTER DE TOLSTOI A ROMAIN ROLLAND.

4, Octobre, 1887.

CHAPTER I