Tarr (Oxford World's Classics) (35 page)

T
HE
following is the manner in which Tarr had become acquainted with Kreisler. Upon his first return from his exile in Montmartre he had arrived at Bertha’s place about seven in the evening. He hung about for a little: in ten minutes’ time he had his reward. She came out, followed by Herr Kreisler.

At first Bertha had not seen him. He followed on the other side of the street, some fifteen yards behind. He did this with sleepy gratification. All was well: this was most amusing.

Relations with her were now, it must be clear even to her, substantially at an end: a kind of good sensation of alternating jealousy and regret made him wander along with obedient gratitude. Should she turn round and see him, how uncomfortable the poor creature would be! How naturally alike in their mechanical marching gait she and the German were! He was a distinct third party—at last! Being-a-stranger, with very different appearance, thrilled him agreeably. Now by a little strategic manœuvre of short-cuts he would get in front of them. This he did.

As he debouched from his turning some way ahead Bertha at once recognized him. She stopped dead and appeared to the astonished Otto to be about to take to her heels. It was flattering in a way that his mere presence should produce this effect: Tarr went up to her his
hand stretched out. Her palm a sentimental instrument of weak, aching, heavy tissues, she gave him her hand. Her face was fixed on him in a mask of regret and reproach: fascinated by the intensity of this, he had been staring at her a little too long, perhaps with some reflection of her expression. He turned towards Kreisler: there he met a, to him, conventional meaningless countenance, of teutonic make.

‘Herr Kreisler’ Bertha said with laconic energy, as though she were uttering some fatal name. Her ‘Herr Kreisler’ said hollowly ‘It’s done!’ It tolled ‘My life is finished!’ It also had an inflexion of ‘What shall I do?’

A sick energy saturated her face, the lips were indecently compressed, the eyes wide, dull, with watery rims.

Tarr bowed to Kreisler as Bertha said his name. Kreisler raised his hat. Then, with a curious feeling of already thrusting himself on these two people, he began to walk along beside Bertha.

She moved like an unconvinced party to a bargain, who consents to walk up and down a little, preliminary to a final consideration of the affair. ‘Yes, but walking won’t help matters’ she might have been saying continuing to walk aimlessly on. Kreisler’s indifference was absolute. There was an element of the child’s privilege in Tarr’s making himself of the party (‘Sorbet, tu es
si jeune
’
*
in other words, to quote his late fiancée). There was the claim for indulgence of a spirit not entirely serious because so much at the beginning of life, so immature. The childishness of turning up as though nothing had happened, with such wilful resolve not to recognize the passionate seriousness of Bertha’s drama, the significance of the awful words ‘Herr Kreisler!’ and so on, was not lost upon Tarr, but he did not understand the nature of the forces upon which his immunity reposed. Bertha must know the meaning of his rapid resurrection—she knew him too well not to know that that was as far as his argument got. So they walked on, without conversation. Then Tarr enquired if she were ‘quite well.’

‘Yes Sorbert, quite well’ she replied, with soft tragic banter.

As though by design, he always found just the words or tone that would give an opening for her lachrymose irony.

But the least hint that he had come to reinstate himself must not remain: it must be clearly understood that
Kreisler
was the principal figure now: he, Tarr, was only a privileged friend—that must be emphasized!

With surely unflattering rapidity somebody else had been found: her pretension to heroic attachment was compromised. Should not he put in for the vacant rôle? He would try his hand at it. He found a formula, where Kreisler was concerned: he had the air to a marked extent now of welcoming this newcomer. ‘Make yourself at home, take no notice of me’ his manner said in the plainest way. As to showing him over the premises he was taking possession of—he had made the inspection himself, no doubt that was unnecessary.

‘We have a mutual friend, Lowndes’ Tarr said to Kreisler pleasantly. ‘A week or two ago he was going to introduce me to you, but it was fated—.’

‘Ah yes, Lowndes’ said Kreisler. ‘I know him.’

‘Has he left Paris do you happen to know?’

‘I think not. I thought I saw him yesterday, there, in the Boulevard Steinberg’ Kreisler nodded over his shoulder, indicating precisely the spot on which he had observed Lowndes on the preceding day: his gesture implied that Lowndes might still be found thereabout.

Bertha shrank in clumsy pantomime from their affability. From the glances she pawed her german friend with, he deserved nothing, it was more than plain, but horrified avoidance. Sorbert’s astute and mischievous way of saddling her with Kreisler, accepting their being together as the most natural thing in life, brought out her fighting spirit. Tarr honoured him, clearly out of politeness to her: very well: all she could do for the moment was to be noticeably distant with Kreisler. She must display towards him the disgust and reprobation that Tarr ought to feel, and which he refused to exhibit in order to vex her.

During the last few days Kreisler had persisted in seeing her: he had displayed some cleverness in his choice of means. As a result of overtures and manœuvres, Bertha had now consented to see him. Her demoralization was complete. She could not stand up any longer against the result, personified by Kreisler, of her romantic actions. At present she had transferred her hatred from herself to Kreisler.

Tarr’s former relations with Bertha were known to Otto; he resented the Englishman’s air of proprietorship, the sort of pleasant ‘handing-over’ that was going on; it probably had for object, he thought, to cheapen his little success, and he did not like it. Bertha was of course responsible.

‘I don’t think Herr Kreisler I’ll come to dinner after all.’ She stood still and rolled her eyes wildly in several directions, and stuck one of her hands stiffly out from her side.

‘Very well Fräulein’ he replied evenly. The dismissal annoyed him: his eyes took in Tarr compendiously in passing. Was this a resuscitation of old love at his expense? Tarr had perhaps come to claim his property: this was not the way that is usually done.

‘Adieu Herr Kreisler’ sounded like his dismissal. A ‘never let me see you again, understand that here things end!’ was written blackly in her eyes. With some irony he bid good-day to Tarr.

‘I hope we shall meet again.’ Tarr shook him warmly by the hand.

‘It is likely’ Kreisler replied at once.

Kreisler as yet was undisturbed. He had no intention of relinquishing his acquaintance with Bertha Lunken: if the Englishman’s amiability were a polite way of reclaiming property left ownerless and therefore susceptible of new rights being created in it, then in time those
later
rights would be vindicated.

Kreisler’s first impression of Tarr was not flattering. But no doubt they would meet again, as he had said.

B
ERTHA
held out her hand brutally, in a sort of spasm of will: said, in the voice of ‘finality,’

‘Good-bye Sorbert. Good-bye!’

He did not take it. She left it there a moment, saying again ‘Good-bye!’

‘Good-bye if you like’ he said at length. ‘But I see no reason why we should part in this florid manner: if Kreisler wouldn’t mind’—he looked after him—‘we might go for a little walk: or will you come and have a drink—?’

‘No Sorbert, I’d rather not. Let us say good-bye at once, will you?’

‘My good Bertha don’t be so stupid! You are you know the world’s goose!’ He took her arm and dragged her towards a Café, the first one on the Boulevard they were approaching.

She hung back, prolonging the personal contact, yet pretending to be resisting it
with wonder
—her eyes rolled.

‘I can’t Sorbert. Je ne peux pas!’ purring her lips out and rolling her eyes furiously. In the end she allowed herself to be dragged and pushed into the Café. For some time conversation hung back.

‘How is Fräulein Liepmann getting on?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.’

‘Ah!’

Tarr felt he had five pieces to play. He had played one. The other four he toyed with in a lazy way.

‘Van Bencke?’

‘I have not seen her.’

That left three.

‘How is Isolde?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Seen the Kinderbachs?’

‘One of them.’

‘How is Clare?’

‘Clare? She is quite well I think.’

The solder for the pieces of this dialogue was a dreary grey material supplied by Bertha. Their talk was an unnecessary column on the top of which she perched herself with glassy quietude.

She turned to him abruptly as though he had been hiding behind her and tickling her neck with a wisp of straw, in bucolic horseplay.

‘Why did you leave me Sorbert!
Why
did you leave me?’

He filled his pipe, and then said, feeling an untalented Pro on a provincial first-night: ‘I went away at that particular moment, as you are aware, because I had heard that Herr Kreisler—.’

‘Don’t speak to me about Kreisler—don’t mention his name, I
beg
you. I hate that man.
Pfui!
’

Her violence made Tarr have a look at her. Of course she would say that: she was using too much hatred though, not to be rather flush of it for the moment.

‘But I don’t see—.’

‘Don’t, don’t!’ She sat up suddenly in her chair and shook her finger in his face. ‘If you mention Kreisler again Sorbert I shall
hate you too!
I especially
pray
you not to mention him! It is unfair to me and—I cannot bear it!’

She collapsed, mouth drawn down at corners.

‘As you like.’ In insisting farther he would appear to be demanding an explanation: hints of exceptional claims upon her confidence must be avoided, there must be no explanations.

‘Why
did you leave me? You don’t know, I have been mad ever since but
completely
off my head. One is as helpless as possible! I have felt just as though I had got out of a sick-bed. I have had no strength at all, I still don’t know where I am nor why I am here. Sorbert!’ He looked up with feigned astonishment.

‘Very well!’ She relapsed with a sigh at his side in a relaxed and even careless attitude.

From the Café they went to Flobert’s. It was after nine o’clock and the place was empty. She bought a wing of chicken, at a dairy a salad and eggs, two rolls at the baker’s, the material for two suppers. It was more than she would need for herself: Sorbert did not offer to share the expense. At the gate leading to her house he left her.

Immediately afterwards, walking towards the terminus of the Montmartre omnibus, he realized that he was well in the path that led away, as he had not done while still with her. He was glad and sorry, doing homage to her and the future together. As a moribund Bertha she possessed a novel fascination: the immobile short sunset of their friendship should be enjoyed. A rich throwing-up and congesting of souvenirs on this threshold were all the better for the weak and silly sun: ah what a delightful imperturbable clockwork orb!

On the next day at a rather earlier hour Tarr again made his way across Paris. He invited himself to tea with her. They talked to each other as though posing for their late personalities.

Deliberately he took up one or two controversial points. In a spirit of superfluous courtesy he went back to the subject of several of their old typical disputes, and proceeded to argue, with a sober eloquence, against himself. He seemed concerned to show her how very wrong he had been.

All their difficulties seemed swept away in a relaxed humid atmosphere, most painful and disagreeable to her. He agreed entirely with her, now agreeing no longer meant anything! But the key was elsewhere: enjoyment of and acquiescence in everything Berthaesque and Teutonic was where it was to be found. Just as now he went to see Bertha’s very german friends, and said ‘How delightful’ to himself at every moment so he appeared to be resolved to come back for a week or two and to admire and patronize everything that formerly he had
found most irritating in Bertha herself. Before retiring for good like a man who hears that the rind of the fruit he has just been eating is good and comes back to his plate to devour the part he has discarded, Tarr returned to have a last leisurely tankard of german beer. Or still nearer the figure, his claim in the unexceptionable part of her now lapsed, he had returned demanding to be allowed to live
just a little while longer
on the absurd and disagreeable section.

On her side Bertha suffered more than in all the rest of the time she had spent with him put together. To tell the whole Kreisler story might lead to a fight. Her beloved Sorbert might be shot by that brute. She had a vivid picture of her Young Werther breathing his last almost
im blauen Frack mit gelber Veste
, the assembly beside themselves with sorrow, ‘hanging upon his lips,’ as she and he in the golden summer of their early friendship had read, beside a goethean brook, the ending of those imaginary Sorrows.
*
Nothing would ever induce her, she thought in terror, to expose him to those dangers. It was too late now. She could not, in honour, seek to re-entangle Tarr.

Nor could she disown Kreisler. She had been found with Kreisler; she had no means of keeping him away for good. An attempt at suppressing him might produce any result—the most fearful vile things might happen. Should she have been able, or had she desired, to resume her relations with Tarr, Kreisler would not have left him uninformed of all the things that had happened, shown in the most uncongenial light, she could see Kreisler describing his actions to Tarr, watching him like a cat with a mouse. If left alone, and not driven away with ignominy, he might gradually quiet down and disappear.—Sorbert would be gone, too, by that time!