The Burning Bush by Romain Rolland (1911)

This is one of the more intense novels in the Jean Christophe sequence, published as John Christopher in Gilbert Cannan's translation. It covers the period I think, though dates are never mentioned, of the 1848 French revolt, whose upset forms its backdrop (though there seems something later about the milieu). Christopher is almost blithely unaware of the growing tension, putting it down to unserious rumbling by incompetents, while Olivier tunes in and realises the danger much earlier. There are the usual fabulous set-pieces of poetic evocation scattered throughout it, and a very few of Rolland's slightly superficial philosophic musings. The sustained rolling flow of this long series of novels is a gigantic achievement even with these flaws considered. The contrast of reputation between this and, say, Proust, is phenomenally undeserved. Olivier's death knocks Christopher sideways, and then comes a strange coda. He escapes to the mountains and hides away in the house of an old colleague, Braun. Braun's seared and icy wife, Anna, and Christopher do not seem to inhabit the same spiritual space - they are blank to one another. But bit by bit it comes to pass that they fascinate one another. We see Anna from Christopher's point of view as she slowly and torturedly thaws, and then the pain starts.......