J E A N-CHRISTOPHE  by Romain Rolland
 
We were working on the Ostbahn. It was a good work assignment because our
Aufseherin was a girl we knew; we had gone to school with her. She was pretty
then, roundfaced, with curly dark hair. She used to sleep with the clerks in
the district office, and now she slept with the Germans, but she was a good
girl--she only slept with them, that's all. It was a good assignment: planting
embankments wasn't hard work, and we were in the woods, in a beautiful] forest
some five or maybe eight kilometers outside of town, amid the silence of the
trees. Also, this Aufseherin didn't much care what we did or how we worked.
She just sat under a tree, bored. She would have loved to talk to us, but she
was probably afraid of losing her job. She wasn't pretty anymore; she had
grown heavy and her complexion was blotchy.
 
Sometimes, during our dinner break, she would sit near us and say, "This is a
lovely forest, isn't it?"
 
"It is lovely," we would reply.
 
It was obvious that she was sensitive.
 
On the day of the action in town she was tactful enough not to ask why we
weren't working, why our shovels and hoes lay under the tree. She sat at the
edge of the clearing with her back to us. We were lying on the grass, not
saying a word, waiting for the thundering of the train, because then we would
know it was all over--though not, of course, who was on the train, who had
been taken and who had been spared.
 
We lay on the grass, not saying a word, as if our voices could have drowned
out the thundering of the train, which would pass near the edge of the forest,
not far from where we were working. Only one girl was crying. She wasn't the
youngest, and, in fact, she was the only one of us who had no one left in the
town, who was all alone. She cried quietly, moaning every once in a while. No
one tried to comfort her. Another girl was braiding wreaths--large clumps of
bluebells grew everywhere--but every time she finished one she would rip it
apart and begin all over again. She pulled up every bluebell in the clearing.
Another girl was gnawing on some bread; she chewed it slowly, thoughtfully,
and when she had eaten her ration she grabbed someone else's bread and kept
chewing. The oldest girl kept putting her ear to the ground.
 
It was silent in the forest. There were no birds, but the smell of the trees
and flowers was magnificent. We couldn't hear anything. There was nothing to
hear. The silence was horrifying because we knew that there was shooting going
on and people screaming and crying, that it was a slaughterhouse out there.
But here there were bluebells, hazelwood, daisies, and other flowers, very
pretty, very colorful. That was what was so horrifying--just as horrifying as
waiting for the thundering of the train, as horrifying as wondering whom they
had taken.
 
One of us, a thin, dark-haired girl, had moved slightly away from the group
and lay in the shade of the hazel trees. She alone wasn't straining to hear
anything; she just lay on her stomach, reading a book. We could hear the soft,
steady rustle of pages being turned. Not once did she lift her head and look
at us. The book was thick; it was falling apart. When a strong wind blew up in
the afternoon--the train still had not thundered past--several pages were sud-
denly whipped into the air. And as they fluttered over us like doves, she ran
around, crying, "Catch them!" Then she gathered up the pages, put the book
back together, lay down on her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows, and
began to read again.
 
The girl who had been crying was now sobbing louder; all of us were aware that
every passing minute brought the train's thunder nearer, that any moment now
we would hear death riding down the tracks. One girl cried "Mama!" and then
other voices cried "Mama!" because there was an echo in the woods.
 
Our Aufseherin finished hemming a kerchief, tossed her empty cigarette box
into the bushes, stood up, and began pacing. Once she stopped beside the thin,
dark-haired girl, obviously wanting to ask her something; instead, she walked
away, humming softly and repeatedly checking her watch.
 
But the next time she passed near the girl, she couldn't help herself. "What
are you reading?" she asked.
 
With great reluctance, the girl tore herself away from her book and looked up.
 
"Jean-Christophe."
 
"Jean-Christophe?" The Aufseherin was surprised. "The title's just
Jean-Christophe?"
 
"Jean-Christophe," the girl replied.
 
"Is it good?"
 
She nodded.
 
"Is it about love?"
 
The girl thought for a moment. She was very thin, she wore a man's jacket
instead of a blouse, and she looked very ugly. She answered seriously, "Love?
That too."
 
"About love!" The Aufseherin burst out laughing. Maybe she laughed because she
liked love. "Will you lend it to me when you're done?"
 
"Why not?" she answered. "I'll give it to you to keep."
 
"No, not to keep; lend it to me and I'll return it." She thought for a moment.
"It must be good--you've been reading it all day; and especially on a day like
this when they're taking your people away."
 
"I have to hurry," said the girl. "I want to make sure I finish it in time.
There's one more section, and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish it." She
looked carefully at the book to see how many pages she had left. "I'm afraid I
won't have time to finish it," she repeated, to herself now, but the
Aufseherin heard her.
 
"It must be very good. What's it called? I forget . . ."
 
"Jean-Christophe."
 
"Jean-Christophe," she repeated several times, and explained, "If you're not
around to lend it to me, I'll look for it in the library."
Then she felt sorry and added, "But I'm sure you'll finish it. It's not that
long."
 
The girl who had been crying began sobbing still louder. It wasn't weeping
anymore, it was lamentation. The oldest one of us knelt down and placed her
ear to the earth. But the earth was still silent.
 
END