Preface to the Last Volume of Jean-Christophe

I have written the tragedy of a generation which is nearing its end. I have sought to conceal neither its vices nor its virtues, its profound sadness, its chaotic pride, its heroic efforts, its despondency beneath the overwhelming burden of a superhuman task, the burden of the whole world, the reconstruction of the world’s morality, its esthetic principles, its faith, the forging of a new humanity.⁠—Such we have been.

You young men, you men of today, march over us, trample us under your feet, and press onward. Be ye greater and happier than we. For myself, I bid the soul that was mine farewell. I cast it from me like an empty shell. Life is a succession of deaths and resurrections. We must die, Christophe, to be born again.