Romain Rolland Part 7

Rolland thus recognizes that there is another greatness, a profounder greatness, than that of action, the greatness of suffering. Unthinkable would be a Rolland who did not draw fresh faith from all experience, however painful; unthinkable one who failed, in his own suffering, to be mindful of the sufferings of others. As a sufferer, he extends a greeting to all sufferers on earth. Instead of a fellows.h.i.+p of enthusiasm, he now looks for a brotherhood of the lonely ones of the world, as he shows them the meaning and the grandeur of all sorrow. In this new circle, the nethermost of fate, he turns to n.o.ble examples.

"Life is hard. It is a continuous struggle for all those who cannot come to terms with mediocrity. For the most part it is a painful struggle, lacking sublimity, lacking happiness, fought in solitude and silence.

Oppressed by poverty, by domestic cares, by crus.h.i.+ng and gloomy tasks demanding an aimless expenditure of energy, joyless and hopeless, most people work in isolation, without even the comfort of being able to stretch forth a hand to their brothers in misfortune." To build these bridges between man and man, between suffering and suffering, is now Rolland's task. To the nameless sufferers, he wishes to show those in whom personal sorrow was trans.m.u.ted to become gain for millions yet to come. He would, as Carlyle phrased it, "make manifest ... the divine relation ... which at all times unites a Great Man to other men." The million solitaries have a fellows.h.i.+p; it is that of the great martyrs of suffering, those who, though stretched on the rack of destiny, never foreswore their faith in life, those whose very sufferings helped to make life richer for others. "Let them not complain too piteously, the unhappy ones, for the best of men share their lot. It is for us to grow strong with their strength. If we feel our weakness, let us rest on their knees. They will give solace. From their spirits radiate energy and goodness. Even if we did not study their works, even if we did not hearken to their voices, from the light of their countenances, from the fact that they have lived, we should know that life is never greater, never more fruitful--never happier--than in suffering."

It was in this spirit, for his own good, and for the consolation of his unknown brothers in sorrow, that Rolland undertook the composition of the heroic biographies.

CHAPTER II

THE HEROES OF SUFFERING

Like the revolutionary dramas, the new creative cycle was preluded by a manifesto, a new call to greatness. The preface to _Beethoven_ proclaims: "The air is fetid. Old Europe is suffocating in a sultry and unclean atmosphere. Our thoughts are weighed down by a petty materialism.... The world sickens in a cunning and cowardly egoism. We are stifling. Throw the windows wide; let in the free air of heaven. We must breathe the souls of the heroes." What does Rolland mean by a hero?

He does not think of those who lead the ma.s.ses, wage victorious wars, kindle revolutions; he does not refer to men of action, or to those whose thoughts engender action. The nullity of united action has become plain to him. Unconsciously in his dramas he has depicted the tragedy of the idea as something which cannot be divided among men like bread, as something which in each individual's brain and blood undergoes prompt transformation into a new form, often into its very opposite. True greatness is for him to be found only in solitude, in struggle waged by the individual against the unseen. "I do not give the name of heroes to those who have triumphed, whether by ideas or by physical force. By heroes I mean those who were great through the power of the heart. As one of the greatest (Tolstoi) has said, 'I recognize no other sign of superiority than goodness. Where the character is not great, there is neither a great artist nor a great man of action; there is nothing but one of the idols of the crowd; time will shatter them together.... What matters, is to be great, not to seem great.'"

A hero does not fight for the petty achievements of life, for success, for an idea in which all can partic.i.p.ate; he fights for the whole, for life itself. Whoever turns his back on the struggle because he dreads to be alone, is a weakling who shrinks from suffering; he is one who with a mask of artificial beauty would conceal from himself the tragedy of mortal life; he is a liar. True heroism is that which faces realities.

Rolland fiercely exclaims: "I loathe the cowardly idealism of those who refuse to see the tragedies of life and the weaknesses of the soul. To a nation that is p.r.o.ne to the deceitful illusions of resounding words, to such a nation above all, is it necessary to say that the heroic falsehood is a form of cowardice. There is but one heroism on earth--to know life and yet to love it."

Suffering is not the great man's goal. But it is his ordeal; the needful filter to effect purification; "the swiftest beast of burden bearing us towards perfection," as Meister Eckhart said. "In suffering alone do we rightly understand art; through sorrow alone do we learn those things which outlast the centuries, and are stronger than death." Thus for the great man, the painful experiences of life are trans.m.u.ted into knowledge, and this knowledge is further trans.m.u.ted into the power of love. Suffering does not suffice by itself to produce greatness; we need to have achieved a triumph over suffering. He who is broken by the distresses of life, and still more he who s.h.i.+rks the troubles of life, is stamped with the imprint of defeat, and even his n.o.blest work will bear the marks of this overthrow. None but he who rises from the depths, can bring a message to the heights of the spirit; paradise must be reached by a path that leads through purgatory. Each must discover this path for himself; but the one who strides along it with head erect is a leader, and can lift others into his own world. "Great souls are like mountain peaks. Storms lash them; clouds envelop them; but on the peaks we breathe more freely than elsewhere. In that pure atmosphere, the wounds of the heart are cleansed; and when the cloudbanks part, we gain a view of all mankind."

To such lofty outlooks Rolland wishes to lead the sufferers who are still in the darkness of torment. He desires to show them the heights where suffering grows one with nature and where struggle becomes heroic.

"Sursum corda," he sings, chanting a song of praise as he reveals the sublime pictures of creative sorrow.

CHAPTER III

BEETHOVEN

Beethoven, the master of masters, is the first figure sculptured on the heroic frieze of the invisible temple. From Rolland's earliest years, since his beloved mother had initiated him into the magic world of music, Beethoven had been his teacher, had been at once his monitor and consoler. Though fickle to other childish loves, to this love he had ever remained faithful. "During the crises of doubt and depression which I experienced in youth, one of Beethoven's melodies, one which still runs in my head, would reawaken in me the spark of eternal life." By degrees the admiring pupil came to feel a desire for closer acquaintance with the earthly existence of the object of his veneration. Journeying to Vienna, he saw there the room in the House of the Black Spaniard, since demolished, where the great musician pa.s.sed away during a storm.

At Mainz, in 1901, he attended the Beethoven festival. In Bonn he saw the garret in which the messiah of the language without words was born.

It was a shock to him to find in what narrow straits this universal genius had pa.s.sed his days. He perused letters and other doc.u.ments conveying the cruel history of Beethoven's daily life, the life from which the musician, stricken with deafness, took refuge in the music of the inner, the imperishable universe. Shudderingly Rolland came to realize the greatness of this "tragic Dionysus," cribbed in our somber and unfeeling world.

After the visit to Bonn, Rolland wrote an article for the "_Revue de Paris_," ent.i.tled _Les fetes de Beethoven_. His muse, however, desired to sing without restraint, freed from the trammels imposed by critical contemplation. Rolland wished, not once again to expound the musician to musicians, but to reveal the hero to humanity at large; not to recount the pleasure experienced on hearing Beethoven's music, but to give utterance to the poignancy of his own feelings. He desired to show forth Beethoven the hero, as the man who, after infinite suffering, composed the greatest hymn of mankind, the divine exultation of the Ninth Symphony.

"Beloved Beethoven," thus the enthusiast opens. "Enough ... many have extolled his greatness as an artist, but he is far more than the first of all musicians. He is the heroic energy of modern art, the greatest and best friend of all who suffer and struggle. When we mourn over the sorrows of the world, he comes to our solace. It is as if he seated himself at the piano in the room of a bereaved mother, comforting her with the wordless song of resignation. When we are wearied by the unending and fruitless struggle against mediocrity in vice and in virtue, what an unspeakable delight is it to plunge once more into this ocean of will and faith. He radiates the contagion of courage, the joy of combat, the intoxication of spirit which G.o.d himself feels.... What victory is comparable to this? What conquest of Napoleon's? What sun of Austerlitz can compare in refulgence with this superhuman effort, this triumph of the spirit, achieved by a poor and unhappy man, by a lonely invalid, by one who, though he was sorrow incarnate, though life denied him joy, was able to create joy that he might bestow it on the world. As he himself proudly phrases it, he forges joy out of his own misfortunes.... The device of every heroic soul must be: Out of suffering cometh joy."

Thus does Rolland apostrophize the unknown. Finally he lets the master speak from his own life. He opens the Heiligenstadt "Testament," in which the retiring man confided to posterity the profound grief which he concealed from his contemporaries. He recounts the confession of faith of the sublime pagan. He quotes letters showing the kindliness which the great musician vainly endeavored to hide behind an a.s.sumed acerbity.

Never before had the universal humanity in Beethoven been brought so near to the sight of our generation, never before had the heroism of this lonely life been so magnificently displayed for the encouragement of countless observers, as in this little book, with its appeal to enthusiasm, the greatest and most neglected of human qualities.

The brethren of sorrow to whom the message was addressed, scattered here and there throughout the world, gave ear to the call. The book was not a literary triumph; the newspapers were silent; the critics ignored it.

But unknown strangers won happiness from its pages; they pa.s.sed it from hand to hand; a mystical sense of grat.i.tude for the first time formed a bond of union among persons reverencing the name of Rolland. The unhappy have an ear delicately attuned to the notes of consolation. While they would have been repelled by a superficial optimism, they were receptive to the pa.s.sionate sympathy which they found in the pages of Rolland's _Beethoven_. The book did not bring its author success; but it brought something better, a public which henceforward paid close attention to his work, and accompanied _Jean Christophe_ in the first steps toward celebrity. Simultaneously, there was an improvement in the fortunes of "_Les cahiers de la quinzaine_." The obscure periodical began to circulate more freely. For the first time, a second edition was called for. Charles Peguy describes in moving terms how the reissue of this number solaced the last hours of Bernard Lazare. At length Romain Rolland's idealism was beginning to come into its own.

Rolland is no longer lonely. Unseen brothers touch his hand in the dark, eagerly await the sound of his voice. Only those who suffer, wish to hear of suffering--but sufferers are many. To them he now wishes to make known other figures, the figures of those who suffered no less keenly, and were no less great in their conquest of suffering. From the distance of the centuries, the mighty contemplate him. Reverently he draws near to them and enters into their lives.

CHAPTER IV

MICHELANGELO

Beethoven is for Rolland the most typical of the controllers of sorrow.

Born to enjoy the fullness of life, it seemed to be his mission to reveal its beauties. Then destiny, ruining the senseorgan of music, incarcerated him in the prison of deafness. But his spirit discovered a new language; in the darkness he made a great light, composing the Ode to Joy whose strains he was unable to hear. Bodily affliction, however, is but one of the many forms of suffering which the heroism of the will can conquer. "Suffering is infinite, and displays itself in myriad ways.

Sometimes it arises from the blind things of tyranny, coming as poverty, sickness, the injustice of fate, or the wickedness of men; sometimes its deepest cause lies in the sufferer's own nature. This is no less lamentable, no less disastrous; for we do not choose our own dispositions, we have not asked for life as it is given us, we have not wished to become what we are."

Such was the tragedy of Michelangelo. His trouble was not a sudden stroke of misfortune in the flower of his days. The affliction was inborn. From the first dawning of his consciousness, the worm of discontent was gnawing at his heart, the worm which grew with his growth throughout the eighty years of his life. All his feeling was tinged with melancholy. Never do we hear from him, as we so often hear from Beethoven, the golden call of joy. But his greatness lay in this, that he bore his sorrows like a cross, a second Christ carrying the burden of his destiny to the Golgotha of his daily work, eternally weary of existence, and yet not weary of activity. Or we may compare him with Sisyphus; but whereas Sisyphus for ever rolled the stone, it was Michelangelo's fate, chiseling in rage and bitterness, to fas.h.i.+on the patient stone into works of art. For Rolland, Michelangelo was the genius of a great and vanished age; he was the Christian, unhappy but patient, whereas Beethoven was the pagan, the great G.o.d Pan in the forest of music. Michelangelo shares the blame for his own suffering, the blame that attaches to weakness, the blame of those d.a.m.ned souls in Dante's first circle "who voluntarily gave themselves up to sadness." We must show him compa.s.sion as a man, but as we show compa.s.sion to one mentally diseased, for he is the paradox of "a heroic genius with an unheroic will." Beethoven is the hero as artist, and still more the hero as man; Michelangelo is only the hero as artist. As man, Michelangelo is the vanquished, unloved because he does not give himself up to love, unsatisfied because he has no longing for joy. He is the saturnine man, born under a gloomy star, one who does not struggle against melancholy, but rather cherishes it, toying with his own depression. "La mia allegrezza e la malincolia"--melancholy is my delight. He frankly acknowledges that "a thousand joys are not worth as much as a single sorrow." From the beginning to the end of his life he seems to be hewing his way, cutting an interminable dark gallery leading towards the light.

This way is his greatness, leading us all nearer towards eternity.

Rolland feels that Michelangelo's life embraces a great heroism, but cannot give direct consolation to those who suffer. In this case, the one who lacks is not able to come to terms with destiny by his own strength, for he needs a mediator beyond this life. He needs G.o.d, "the refuge of all those who do not make a success of life here below! Faith which is apt to be nothing other than lack of faith in life, in the future, in oneself; a lack of courage; a lack of joy. We know upon how many defeats this painful victory is upbuilded." Rolland here admires a work, and a sublime melancholy; but he does so with sorrowful compa.s.sion, and not with the intoxicating ardor inspired in him by the triumph of Beethoven. Michelangelo is chosen merely as an example of the amount of pain that may have to be endured in our mortal lot. His example displays greatness, but greatness that conveys a warning. Who conquers pain in producing such work, is in truth a victor. Yet only half a victor; for it does not suffice to endure life. We must, this is the highest heroism, "know life, and yet love it."

CHAPTER V

TOLSTOI

The biographies of Beethoven and Michelangelo were fas.h.i.+oned out of the superabundance of life. They were calls to heroism, odes to energy. The biography of Tolstoi, written some years later, is a requiem, a dirge.

Rolland had been near to death from the accident in the Champs Elysees.

On his recovery, the news of his beloved master's end came to him with profound significance and as a sublime exhortation.

Tolstoi typifies for Rolland a third form of heroic suffering.

Beethoven's infirmity came as a stroke of fate in mid career.

Michelangelo's sad destiny was inborn. Tolstoi deliberately chose his own lot. All the externals of happiness promised enjoyment. He was in good health, rich, independent, famous; he had home, wife, and children.

But the heroism of the man without cares lies in this, that he makes cares for himself, through doubt as to the best way to live. What plagued Tolstoi was his conscience, his inexorable demand for truth. He thrust aside the freedom from care, the low aims, the petty joys, of insincere beings. Like a fakir, he pierced his own breast with the thorns of doubt. Amid the torment, he blessed doubt, saying: "We must thank G.o.d if we be discontented with ourselves. A cleavage between life and the form in which it has to be lived, is the genuine sign of a true life, the precondition of all that is good. The only bad thing is to be contented with oneself."

For Rolland, this apparent cleavage is the true Tolstoi, just as for Rolland the man who struggles is the only man truly alive. Whilst Michelangelo believes himself to see a divine life above this human life, Tolstoi sees a genuine life behind the casual life of everyday, and to attain to the former he destroys the latter. The most celebrated artist in Europe throws away his art, like a knight throwing away his sword, to walk bare-headed along the penitent's path; he breaks family ties; he undermines his days and his nights with fanatical questions.

Down to the last hour of his life he is at war with himself, as he seeks to make peace with his conscience; he is a fighter for the invisible, that invisible which means so much more than happiness, joy, and G.o.d; a fighter for the ultimate truth which he can share with no one.

This heroic struggle is waged, like that of Beethoven and Michelangelo, in terrible isolation, is waged like theirs in airless s.p.a.ces. His wife, his children, his friends, his enemies, all fail to understand him. They consider him a Don Quixote, for they cannot see the opponent with whom he wrestles, the opponent who is himself. None can bring him solace; none can help him. Merely that he may die at peace, he has to flee from his comfortable home on a bitter night in winter, to perish like a beggar by the wayside. Always at this supreme alt.i.tude to which mankind looks yearningly up, the atmosphere is ice-bound and lonely. Those who create for all must do so in solitude, each one of them a savior nailed to the cross, each suffering for a different faith; and yet suffering every one of them for all mankind.

CHAPTER VI

THE UNWRITTEN BIOGRAPHIES

On the cover of the _Beethoven_, the first of Rolland's biographies, was an announcement of the lives of a number of heroic personalities. There was to be a life of Mazzini. With the aid of Malwida von Meysenbug, who had known the great revolutionist, Rolland had been collecting relevant doc.u.ments for years. Among other biographies, there was to be one of General Hoche; and one of the great utopist, Thomas Paine. The original scheme embraced lives of many other spiritual heroes. Not a few of the biographies had already been outlined in the author's mind. Above all, in his riper years, Rolland designed at one time to give a picture of the restful world in which Goethe moved; to pay a tribute of thanks to Shakespeare; and to discharge the debt of friends.h.i.+p to one little known to the world, Malwida von Meysenbug.

These "vies des hommes ill.u.s.tres" have remained unwritten. The only biographical studies produced by Rolland during the ensuing years were those of a more scientific character, dealing with Handel and Millet, and the minor biographies of Hugo Wolf and Berlioz. Thus the third grandly conceived creative cycle likewise remained a fragment. But on this occasion the discontinuance of the work was not due to the disfavor of circ.u.mstances or to the indifference of readers. The abandonment of the scheme was the outcome of the author's own moral conviction. The historian in him had come to recognize that his most intimate energy, truth, was not reconcilable with the desire to create enthusiasm. In the single instance of Beethoven it had been possible to preserve historical accuracy and still to bring solace, for here the soul had been lifted towards joy by the very spirit of music. In Michelangelo's case a certain strain had been felt in the attempt to present as a conqueror of the world this man who was a prey to inborn melancholy, who, working in stone, was himself petrified to marble. Even Tolstoi was a herald rather of true life, than of rich and enthralling life, life worth living.