Chapter XV: The Picture of Italy

Jean Christophe is growing old and weary when he comes to know the third country that will form part of the future European synthesis. He had never felt drawn towards Italy. As had happened many years earlier in the case of France, so likewise in the case of Italy, his sympathies had been chilled by his acceptance of the disastrous and prejudiced formulas by which the nations impose barriers between themselves while each extols its own peculiarities as peculiarly right and phenomenally strong. Yet hardly has he been an hour in Italy when these prejudices are shaken off and are replaced by enthusiastic admiration. He is fired by the unfamiliar light of the Italian landscape. He becomes aware of a new rhythm of life. He does not see fierce energy, as in Germany, or nervous mobility as in France; but the sweetness of these "centuries of ancient culture and civilization" makes a strong appeal to the northern barbarian. Hitherto his gaze has always been turned towards the future, but now he becomes aware of the charms of the past. Whereas the Germans are still in search of the best form of self-expression; and whereas the French refresh and renew themselves through incessant change; here he finds a nation with a clear sequence of tradition, a nation which need merely be true to its own past and to its own landscape, in order to fulfill the most perfect blossoming of its nature, in order to realize beauty.

It is true that Christophe misses the element which to him is the breath of life; he misses struggle. A gentle drowsiness seems universally prevalent, a pleasant fatigue which is debilitating and dangerous. "Rome is too full of tombs, and the city exhales death." The fire kindled by Mazzini and Garibaldi, the flame in which United Italy was forged, still glows in isolated Italian souls. Here, too, there is idealism. But it differs from the German and from the French idealism; it is not yet directed towards the citizenship of the world, but remains purely national; "Italian idealism is concerned solely with itself, with Italian desires, with the Italian race, with Italian renown." In the calm southern atmosphere, this flame does not burn so fiercely as to radiate a light through Europe; but it burns brightly and beautifully in these young souls, which are apt for all passions, though the moment has not yet come for the intensest ardors.

But as soon as Jean Christophe begins to love Italy, he grows afraid of this love. He realizes that Italy is also essential to him, in order that in his music and in his life the impetuosity of the senses shall be clarified to a perfect harmony. He understands how necessary the southern world is to the northern, and is now aware that only in the trio of Germany, France, and Italy does the full meaning of each voice become clear. In Italy, there is less illusion and more reality; but the land is too beautiful, tempting to enjoyment and killing the impulse towards action. Just as Germany finds a danger in her own idealism, because that idealism is too widely disseminated and becomes spurious in the average man; just as to France her liberty proves disastrous because it encourages in the individual an idea of absolute independence which estranges him from the community; so for Italy is her beauty a danger, since it makes her indolent, pliable, and self-satisfied. To every nation, as to every individual, the most personal of characteristics, the very things that commend the nation or the individual to others, are dangerous. It would seem, therefore, that nations and individuals must seek salvation by combining as far as possible with their own opposites. Thus will they draw nearer to the highest ideal, that of European unity, that of universal humanity. In Italy, as aforetime in France and in Germany, Jean Christophe redreams the dream which Rolland at two-and-twenty had first dreamed on the Janiculum. He foresees the European symphony, which hitherto poets alone have created in works transcending nationality, but which the nations as yet have failed to realize for themselves.