"Before I was born, before my father was born, and before his father, and before his father's father.... It has always been." "How strange! No one has ever told me about it." He thought for a moment. "Uncle, do you know any other?" "Yes." "Sing another, please." "Why should I sing another? One is enough. One sings when one wants to sing, when one has to sing. One must not sing for the fun of it." "But what about when one makes music?" "That is not music." The boy was lost in thought. He did not quite understand. But he asked for no explanation. It was true, it was not music, not like all the rest. He went on: "Uncle, have you ever made them?" "Made what?" "Songs!" "Songs? Oh! How should I make them? They can't be made." With his usual logic the boy insisted: "But, uncle, it must have been made once...." Gottfried shook his head obstinately. "It has always been." The boy returned to the attack: "But, uncle, isn't it possible to make other songs, new songs?" "Why make them? There are enough for everything. There are songs for when you are sad, and for when you are gay; for when you are weary, and for when you are thinking of home; for when you despise yourself, because you have been a vile sinner, a worm upon the earth; for when you want to weep, because people have not been kind to you; and for when your heart is glad because the world is beautiful, and you see God's heaven, which, like Him, is always kind, and seems to laugh at you.... There are songs for everything, everything. Why should I make them?" "To be a great man!" said the boy, full of his grandfather's teaching and his simple dreams. Gottfried laughed softly. Jean-Christophe, a little hurt, asked him: "Why are you laughing?" Gottfried said: "Oh! I?... I am nobody." He kissed the boy's head, and said: "You want to be a great man?" "Yes," said Jean-Christophe proudly. He thought Gottfried would admire him. But Gottfried replied: "What for?" Jean-Christophe was taken aback. He thought for a moment, and said: "To make beautiful songs!" Gottfried laughed again, and said: "You want to make beautiful songs, so as to be a great man; and you want to be a great man, so as to make beautiful songs. You are like a dog chasing its own tail." Jean-Christophe was dashed. At any other time he would not have borne his uncle laughing at him, he at whom he was used to laughing. And, at the same time, he would never have thought Gottfried clever enough to stump him with an argument. He cast about for some answer or some impertinence to throw at him, but could find none. Gottfried went on: "When you are as great as from here to Coblentz, you will never make a single song." Jean-Christophe revolted on that. "And if I will!..." "The more you want to, the less you can. To make songs, you have to be like those creatures. Listen...."