Romain Rolland: The Man and His Work

by Stefan Zweig

PART FIVE
INTERMEZZO SCHERZOSO

(Colas Breugnon)

"Brugnon, mauvais garçon, tu ris, n'as tu pas honte?"—"Que veux tu, mon ami? Je suis ce que je suis. Rire ne m'empêche pas de souffrir; mais souffrir n'empêchera jamais un bon Français 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.