Tarr (Oxford World's Classics) (17 page)

‘Yours
‘O
TTO
K
REISLER
.’

He had despatched this note, before leaving, to a Herr Ernst Vokt. For some time he stood on the Paris platform, ulster thrown back, smoking a lean cigar with a straw stuck in it. He was glad to be in Paris. How busy the women, intent on travel, were! Groups of town-folk, not travellers, stood like people at a show. Each traveller was met by a phalanx of uninterested faces beyond the gangway.

His standing on the platform was a little ceremonious and military. He was taking his bearings. Body and belongings, with him, were always moved about with certain strategy. At last with racial menace he had his things swept together, saying heavily:

‘Un Viagre!’
*

Vokt was not in, but had left word he would be there after dinner. It was in a Pension: he rented a studio as well in the garden behind. The house was rather like a provincial Public Baths, two storied, of an unclean purple colour. Kreisler looked up at it. Looking big and idle in their rooms, catching the eye of the stranger on the pavement, he remarked several pensionnaires and was remarked by them. He was led to the studio in rear of the house, and asked to wait.

Several long canvases stood face against the wall. He turned them round and to his astonishment discovered dashing ladies in large hats before him.

‘Ha! Ha! Well I’m damned! Bravo Ernst!’ he exploded in his dull solitude, extremely amused.

Vokt had not done this in Rome. Even there he had given indications of latent virtuosity but had been curbed by classic presences. Since arriving in Paris he had blossomed shamelessly; he dealt out a blatant vitality by the peck to each sitter, and they forgave him for making them comparatively ‘ugly.’ He flung a man or woman on to nine feet of canvas and pummelled them on it for a couple of hours, until they promised to remain there or were incapable of moving, so to speak. He had never been able to treat people like this in any other walk of life and was grateful to painting for the experience. He always appeared to feel he would be expected to apologize for his brutal behaviour as an artist and was determined not to do so.

A half-hour later, upon his return, he was informed by the servant that somebody was waiting in the studio. With face exhibiting the collected look of a man of business arriving at his office, he walked out quickly across the garden.

When he saw Kreisler the bustling business look disappeared. Nothing of his private self remained for the moment: he was engulfed in his friend’s personality.

‘But Ernst! What beautiful pictures! What pleasant company you left me to wait amongst! How are you? I am glad to see you again!’

‘Had a good journey? Your letter amused me! So Rome became too hot?’

‘A little! My dear chap, it
was
a business! In this last scuffle I lost literally half the clothes off my back. But chiefly Italian clothes, fortunately.’

‘Why didn’t you write?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t serious enough to call for help’ he dismissed this at once. ‘This is a nice place you’ve got.’ Kreisler looked round as though measuring it. He noticed Vokt’s discomfort: he terminated his examination. Vokt coughed a stilted ‘ahem!’ like a stereotyped remark,

‘Have you dined? I waited until eight. Have you …?’

‘I should like something to eat. Can we get anything here?’

‘I’m afraid not. It’s rather late for this neighbourhood. Let’s take these things to your room—on the way—and go to the Big Boulevards.’
*

They stayed till the small hours of the morning, in the midst of the ‘Paris by Night’
*
of the german bourgeois imagination, drinking champagne and toasting the creditors left behind in Rome.

Kreisler, measured by chairs or doors, was of immoderate physical humanity: he was of that select and strapping minority that bend their heads to enter our dwellings. His long almost perfectly round thighs stuck out like poles: this giant body lounged and poised beside Vokt in massive control and over-reaching of civilized matter. It was in Rome or in Paris—it moved about a great deal: everywhere it sat down or stood up with an air of certain proprietorship. Vokt was stranger in Paris than his companion, who had only just arrived: even he felt a little raw and uncomfortable, almost a tourist. He was being shown ‘Paris by Night’—almost literally, for his inclinations had not taken him much to that side of the town.
*

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.

I
N
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.’