Objects—kokotten,* newsvendors, waiters—flowed through Kreisler’s brain without trouble or surprise. His heavy eyes were big gates of a self-centred city—this was just a procession. (There was no trade in the town.)
His body had been given the freedom of the city by every other body within sight at once, heroically installed and almost unnaturally solid. So intensely real, so at home, his big guest ended by appearing to Ernst Vokt, as he sat there beside him, almost an apparition, by sheer dint of contradicting what by all rights he should have been—a little strange and not yet part of the scene.
Vokt began looking for himself: he picked up the pieces quietly. This large rusty machine of a man smashed him up like an egg-shell at every meeting; the shell grew quickly again, but never got hard enough.
But it pleased him to see him again (he told himself, expanding his chest), he was downright glad to have him there! Good old Otto, brave old Otto! They were great old friends. This was good. The drink had been much and good—the old days!—but in spite of himself Ernst Vokt was fidgety at the lateness of the hour. The next day Fräulein von Bonsels, who was sitting for him, was due at 9.30. At 9.30—it was now 4. But the first night of seeing his friend again—. He drank to banish this sense of time and became silent, thinking of his westphalian home and his sister who was not very well: she had had a bicycle accident and had received a considerable shock. He might spend the summer with her and his mother at Berck-sur-Mer.* He would have gone home for a week or so now, only an aunt he did not like was staying there.
‘Well let’s get back!’ said Kreisler, rather thoughtful, too, at all the life he had seen.
CHAPTER 3
IN Paris Ernst Vokt, as his studio and its contents betrayed, had found himself: the french capital seemed especially constructed for him—such a wonderful large polite institution. No one looked at him because he was small: for money in Paris represented delicate things, in Germany chiefly gross ones, and his money lent him more stature than anything else could, and in a much more dignified and subtle way than elsewhere. Now for the first time his talent benefited by his money. Heavy temperament, primitive talent, well yes genius, had their big place, but money had at last come into its own, and climbed up into the spiritual sphere. A very sensible and soothing spirit reigned in this seat of intelligence: a very great number of sensible well-dressed figures perambulated all over these suave acres. Large tribes of ‘types’ prosecuted their primitive enthusiasms in certain Cafés, unannoyed by either the populace or the differently-minded élite. The old romantic personal values he was used to in his Fatherland were all deeply modified: money, luck and non-personal power, were the genius of the new world. American clothes were adapted for the finer needs of the Western European; cosmopolitan Paris was what America ought to be.
On the evening following Kreisler’s arrival Ernst had a dinner engagement. The morning after that Kreisler turned up at half-past twelve. Ernst was painting Fräulein von Bonsels, a Berlin débutante, very parisian, very expensively dressed, her lips crepitating with correct clichés. Ernst displayed a disinclination to make Kreisler and his sitter acquainted, but he was a little confused. He was going to lunch with his sitter: they arranged to meet at dinner time.
Kreisler the night before had lavished a good deal of money in the teutonic paradise beyond the river. Vokt understood by a particular insistent blankness about Kreisler’s eye that money was needed. He was familiar with this look—Kreisler owed him three thousand marks. At first Kreisler had made an effort to pay his friend back money borrowed, when his allowance arrived: but in Rome, and earlier for a short time in Munich, Vokt’s money was not of so much value as it was at present: repayment was waived in an eager sentimental way, and the debt grew. The financial void caused by Vokt’s going off to Paris had been felt keenly by Kreisler. The real motive of his following Vokt to Paris had scarcely been formulated by him, he had taken the step almost by instinct. He was now in a position analogous to that of a man who had been separated for some months from his wife: he was in a luxurious hurry once more to see the colour of Vokt’s gold.
Kreisler was very touchy about money, like all of a certain class of borrowers. He sponged with discrimination: but for some time he had not required to sponge at all, as Vokt amply met his needs. He had got rather out of practice in consequence. He found this reopening of his account with little friend Ernst a most delicate business: it was worse than tackling a stranger. He recognized that a change might have come over Vokt’s open-handedness in new surroundings; he therefore determined to ask for a sum in advance of actual needs, and by boldness at once re-establish continuity.
After dinner he said:
‘You remember Ricci?—where I got my paints to start with. I had some trouble with that devil before I left. He came round and made a great scandal on the staircase. He shouted “Bandit!” Ha! ha!—Sagraletto!*—how do you say it?—Sporco Tedesco. Then he called the neighbours to witness. He kept repeating he was “not afraid of me.” I took him by the ear and kicked him out!’ he ended with florid truculence.
Vokt laughed obsequiously, but with discomfort. Kreisler solicited his sympathetic mirth with a too masterful eye: he laughed, himself, unnecessarily heartily. A scene of violence in which a small man was hustled (which Vokt would have to applaud) was a clever prelude. Ernst felt instinctively it was a prelude, too: he grew very fidgety. Then the violence was toned down.
‘I’m sorry for the little devil. I shall have the money soon: I shall send it him. The first! He shall not suffer.—Antonio, too. I don’t owe much. I had to settle most before I left. Himmel! My landlord!’ He choked mirthfully over his coffee a little, almost upsetting it, then mincingly adjusted the cup to his lips.
If he had to settle up before he left, he could not have much now, evidently! There was a disagreeable pause.
Vokt stirred his coffee. Then he showed his hand; he looked up and with transparent innocence enquired:
‘By the way Otto, you remember Fabritz at Munich—?’
‘You mean the little Jew from whom everybody used to borrow money?’ Kreisler fixed him severely and significantly with his eye and spoke with a very heavy deliberation indeed.
‘Did people borrow money from him?—I had forgotten. Yes that’s the man; he has turned up here; who do you think with? With Irma, the bohemian girl; they are living together—round the corner there.’
‘Hum! Are they? She was a pretty nice girl. Do you remember the night von Thöny was found stripped and tied to his door handle? He assured me Irma had done it and pawned his clothes.’
Was Vokt thinking that the famous and admitted function of Fabritz should be resorted to as an alternative by Kreisler—he Vokt failing?
‘Vokt, I can speak to you plainly; isn’t that so? You are my friend. What’s more, already we have—’ he laughed strongly and easily. ‘My journey has cost the devil of a lot. I shall be getting my allowance in a week or so. Could you lend me a small sum of money? When my money comes—.’
‘Of course. But I am hard up. How much—.’ These were three very jerky efforts.
‘Oh, two hundred marks or if you can spare it—.’
Vokt’s jaw dropped.
‘I am afraid, my dear Kreisler, I can’t—just now—manage that. My journey, too, cost me a lot. I’m most awfully sorry. Let me see. I have my rent next week—I don’t see how I can manage—.’
Vokt had a clean-shaven depressed and earnest face: he made use of all its most uninviting attributes for this occasion.
Kreisler looked sulkily at the table-cloth, and knocked the ash sharply off his cigarette into his cup.
He said nothing. Vokt became nervous.
‘Will a hundred marks be of any use?’
‘Yes’ Kreisler drew his hand over his chin as though stroking a beard down and then pulled his moustaches up, fixing the waitress with an indifferent eye. ‘Can you spare that?’
‘Yes—I can’t really. But if you are in such a position that�
��.’
These were the circumstances under which he had lost Vokt. He felt that hundred marks, given him as a favour, was the last serious bite he would get. It was only gradually that he realized of how much more value Vokt’s money now was, and what before was an unorganized mass of specie, in which the professional borrower could wallow, was now a sound and suitably conducted business. That night he was presented to the new manager.
After dinner Ernst took him round to the Berne. He did not realize what awaited him. There he at once found himself in the headquarters of many personalities of his own nation. Politeness reigned. Kreisler was pleased to find this club where german was the principal language; his roots mixed sluggishly with Ernst’s in this living lump of the soil of the Fatherland deposited at the head of the Boulevard Kreutzberg.
The Germans he met here spoke a language and expressed opinions he could not agree with, but with which Vokt evidently did. They argued genially over glasses of beer and champagne. He found his level at once: he was the ‘vieille barbe’ of the party.
‘Yes, I’ve seen Gauguins. But why go so far as the South Sea Islands* unless you are going to make people more beautiful? Why go out of Europe, why not save the money for the voyage?’ he would bluster.
‘More beautiful? What do you understand by the word “beautiful,” my dear sir?’ would answer a voice in the service of new movements.
‘What do I call beautiful? How would you like your face to be as flat as a pancake, your nostrils like a squashed strawberry, one of your eyes cocked up by the side of your ear? Would not you be very unhappy to look like that? Then how can you expect anyone but a technique-maniac to care a straw for a picture of that sort; call it Cubist or Fauve* or whatever you like? It’s all spoof. It puts money in some-body’s pocket, no doubt.’
‘It’s not a question unhappily of how we should like our faces to be: it is how they are. But I do not consider the actual position of my eyes to be any more “beautiful” than any other position they might have assumed. The almond eye was long held in contempt by the hatchet eye—.’
Kreisler peered up at him, and laughed. ‘You’re a modest fellow. You’re not as ugly as you think! Na! I like to find—.’
‘But you haven’t told us, Otto, what you call beautiful.’
‘I call this young lady here’—and he turned gallantly to a blushing cocotte* at his side—‘beautiful, very beautiful.’ He kissed her amid gesticulation and applause.
‘That’s just what I supposed’ his opponent said with appreciation.
With Soltyk he could not get on at all. Louis Soltyk was a young Russian Pole, who occasionally sat amongst the Germans at the Berne; and of him Vokt saw more than of anybody: in fact it was he who had superseded Kreisler in the position of influence as regards Vokt’s purse. But Soltyk did not borrow a hundred marks: his system was far more up to date. Ernst had experienced an unpleasant shock in coming into contact with Kreisler’s clumsy and slovenly money habits again.
Physically Soltyk even bore, distantly and with polish, a resemblance to Kreisler. It was as though he had been compelled to imitate Kreisler all his life, but the material at his disposal being of an unsuitable texture, something rather different had resulted. His handsome face and elegance belied the suggestion. Still Kreisler and he disliked each other for obscure physiological reasons perhaps: in some ways Soltyk was his efficient and more accomplished counterpart.
‘Also wo steckt er eigentlich, unser wahrhaftlicher echter Germane? Ist wohl nicht hier gewesen?’* Soltyk would ask.
‘He’s in good company somewhere!’—Vokt revealed Kreisler as a lady’s man. This satisfied the hilarious purposes of Soltyk: the Russian Pole now made it his business to keep an eye on Vokt’s pocket while Kreisler was about; he had not been long in noting the signs of the professional borrower, the most contemptible and slatternly member of the crook family.
Louis Soltyk dealt in paintings and art-objects. In the first days of Kreisler’s arrival Ernst asked his new friend if he could not dispose of a painting by Kreisler.
‘What. Does he paint?’
‘Why yes.’
‘What’s it like? I should like to see that! I should like to see the sort of paintings your friend Kreisler does!’
‘Well, come round some day—.’
But Soltyk took Vokt by the lapel of the coat.
‘Non! Sois pas bête! Here’ he pulled out a handful of money and chose a dollar piece. ‘Here—give him this. You buy a picture—if it’s a picture you want to buy—you buy a picture by Picasso, or—or—. Kreisler has nothing but Kreisler to offer. C’est peu!’
Ernst introduced Kreisler next to another sort of Paris compatriot: this time it was a large female contingent. He took him round to Fräulein Liepmann’s on her evening at home, when these ladies played the piano and met.
Kreisler felt that he was a victim of strategy: he puffed and swore outside, he complained of their music, the coffee, their way of dressing.
The Liepmann circle could have stood as a model for Tarr’s bourgeois-bohemians, stood for a group. For chief characteristic this particular bourgeois-bohemian circle had in the first plan the inseparability of its members. Should a man, joining them, wish to flirt with one particularly, he must flirt with all—flatter all, take all to the theatre, carry the umbrellas and the paint boxes, of all. Eventually, should he come to that, it is doubtful if a proposition of marriage could be made otherwise than before the assembled band. And marriage alone could wrench the woman chosen away from the clinging bunch, if it did succeed in doing that.
Kreisler, despite his snorting, went again with Vokt: the feminine spell had taken effect. This gregarious female personality had shown such frank invitation to Vokt upon his arrival in Paris that, had any separate woman exhibited half as hospitable a front, he would have been very alarmed. As it was, it had at first just fulfilled certain bourgeois requirements of his lonely german soul.
Kreisler went a few weeks running to the Liepmann soirée: never finding Vokt there, he left off going as well. He felt he had been tricked and slighted. The ladies divined what had happened: Fräulein Liepmann, the leader, put a spiteful little mark down to each of their names.
CHAPTER 4
KREISLER pocketed Ernst’s hundred-mark note and made no further attempts upon the formerly hospitable income of his friend, for he was a proud sponger: but debts began accumulating. Thereupon he made a disquieting discovery: he found he had suddenly grown timid with his creditors. The concierge literally frightened him: he conciliated the garçon at the Café, to whom he owed money: he even paid several debts that it was quite unnecessary to pay, in a moment of panic and discouragement. On one occasion this novel open-handedness caused him to spend a very disagreeable week until the next allowance arrived. This rapid deterioration of his will extended to his relations with his Café acquaintances: at the Berne he had lost his nerve in some way; on some evenings he would clown obsequiously, and depressed and slack the next, perhaps, resenting his companions’ encores, would grow boorish.
The next thing was that he gradually developed the habit of sitting alone: more often than not he would enter the Café and proceed to a table at the opposite side of the room to that at which his german acquaintances were sitting.
Ridicule is focussed at about ten yards: the spectator is then without the sphere of average animal magnetism. For once it does not matter: but if persisted in it results without fail in a malicious growth of criticism at the expense of the solitary. This process is perfectly automatic: those who keep to themselves awaken mirth as a cartwheel running along the road by itself would. With regard to the ‘lonely’ man people have the sensation that he is going about with some eccentric companion, namely himself. Why did he choose this deaf and dumb companion? What do they find to say to each other? He is ludicrous as two men would be, who, perpetually in each other’s company, were never seen to exchange a word—who dined together, went to theatre or Café in each other’s company, w
ithout ever looking at each other or speaking.
So Kreisler became a lonely figure. It was a strange feeling: he must be quiet and not attract attention: in some way he was marked as though he had committed a theft. Perhaps it was merely the worry of perpetual ‘tick’* beginning to tell. For the moment he would just put himself aside, and see what happened, he seemed to have decided. He was afraid of himself too: always up till then immersed in that self, now for the first time he stood partly outside it. This slight divorce made him less sure in his touch in everything. A little less careful of his appearance, he went sluggishly about, smoking, reading the paper a great deal, working at the art school fairly often, playing billiards with an austrian cook whom he had picked up in a Café and who disappeared owing him seven francs.
The inertia and phlegm, outward sign of depressing everyday Kreisler, had found someone, when he had found Vokt, for whom they were a charm and something to be envied. Kreisler’s imagination woke shortly after Vokt’s. It was as though the peasant, always regarding his life as the dullest affair, should be suddenly transformed by participating in some townsman’s romantic notions of the romance of rural man. Kreisler’s moody wastefulness and futility had found a raison d’être and meaning, almost.
Vokt had been a compendious phenomenon in his life, although his cheery gold had attracted him to the more complete discovery. Vokt had ousted women, too, from Kreisler’s daily needs: he had become a superstition for his tall friend.
On the other hand it was Kreisler’s deadness, his absolute lack of any reason to be confident and yet perfect aplomb, that mastered his companion.
Ernst Vokt had remained for three desultory and dreamy years becalmed on this empty sea. Kreisler basked around him, never having to lift his waves and clash them together as formerly he had been forced sometimes to do. There had been no appeals to life, all that was asked of him was to be his own static essence, the deader the better: Vokt had been the guarantor of his peace. And now the defection of Vokt was the omen of the sinking ship, the disappearance of the rat.
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