Tarr’s idea of leisure recognized no departure from the tragic theme of existence. Pleasure could take no form that did not include Death and corruption—at present Bertha and humour. Only he wished to play a little longer. It was the last chance he might have. Work was in front of him with Bertha.

He was giving up play. But the giving up of play, even, had to take the form of play. He had seen in terms of sport so long that he had no other[30] machinery to work with. Sport might perhaps, for the fun of the thing, be induced to cast out sport.

As Lowndes crept towards the door, Tarr said to himself, with ironic self-restraint, “Bloody fool, bloody fool!”

Lowndes was a brother artist, who was not very active, but had just enough money to be a Cubist. He was extremely proud of being interrupted in his work. His “work” was a serious matter. He found “great difficulty” in working. He always implied that you did not. He had a form of persecution mania as regards his “mornings.” From his discourse you gathered that he was, first of all, very much sought after. People, seemingly, were always attempting to get into his room. You imagined an immense queue of unwelcome visitors (how or why he had gathered or originally, it was to be supposed, encouraged, such, you did not inquire). You never saw this queue. The only person you definitely knew had been guilty of interrupting his “work” was Thornton. This man, because of his admiration for Lowndes’ intelligence and moth-like attraction for his Cubism, and respect for his small income, had to suffer much humiliation. He was to be found (even in the morning, strange to say) in Lowndes’ studio, rapidly sucking a pipe, blinking, flushing, stammering with second-rate Public School mannerisms, retailing scandal and sensational news, which he had acquired from a woman who had sat next him at the invariable dinner-party of the night before.

When you entered, he looked timidly and quickly at the inexorable Lowndes, and began gathering up his hat and books. Lowndes’ manner became withering. You felt that before your arrival, his master had been less severe; that life might have been almost bearable for Thornton. When he at last had taken himself off, Lowndes would hasten to exculpate himself. “Thornton was a fool, but he could not always keep Thornton out,” etc. Lowndes, with his Thornton, displayed the characteristics of the self-made man. He had risen ambitiously in the sphere[31] of the Intelligence. Thornton sat like an inhabitant of the nether world of gossip, pettiness, and squalor from which his friend had lately issued. He entertained an immense respect for that friend. This one of his own kind in a position of respect and security was what he could best understand, and would have most desired to be.

“Oh! Come in, Tarr,” Lowndes said, looking at the floor of the passage, “I didn’t know who it was.” The atmosphere became thick with ghostlike intruders. The wretched Thornton seemed to hover timidly in the background.

“Am I interrupting you?” Tarr asked politely.

“No-o-o!” a long, reassuring, musical negative.

His face was very dark and slick, bald on top, pettily bearded, rather unnecessarily handsome. Tarr always felt a tinge of indecency in his good looks. His Celtic head was allied to a stocky commercial figure. Behind his spectacles his black eyes had a way of scouring and scurrying over the floor. They were often dreamy and burning. He waddled slightly, or rather confided himself first to one muscular little calf, then to the other.

Tarr had come to talk to him about Bertha.

“I’m afraid I must have interrupted your work?” Tarr said with mock ceremony.

“No, it’s all right. I was just going to have a rest. I’m rather off colour.”

Tarr misunderstood him.

“Off colour? What is the matter with colour now?”

“No, I mean I’m seedy.”

“Oh, ah. Yes.”

His eyes still fixed on the ground, Lowndes pottered about, like a dog.

As with most educated people who “do” anything, and foresee analysis and fame, he was biographically minded. A poor man, he did his Boswelling himself. His self-characterization, proceeding whenever he was not alone, was as follows: “A fussy and exacting man, slightly avuncular, strangely,[32] despite the fineness and amplitude of his character, minute, precious, and tidy.” (In this way he made a virtue of his fuss.) To show how the general illusion worked in a particular case: “He had been disturbed in his ‘work’ by Tarr, or had just emerged from that state of wonderful concentration he called ‘work.’ He could not at once bend himself to more general things. His nerves drove him from object to object. But he would soon be quiet.”

Tarr looked on with an ugly patience.

“Lowndes, I have come to ask you for a little piece of advice.”

Lowndes was flattered and relished the mystery.

“Ye-es,” he said, smiling, in a slow, ‘sober,’ professional sing-song.

“Or rather, for an opinion. What is your opinion of German women?”

Lowndes had spent two years in Berlin and Münich. Many of his friends were Austrian.

“German women? But I must know first why you ask me that question. You see, it’s a wide subject.”

“A wide subject—wide. Yes, very good! Ha ha!—Well, it is like this. I think that they are superior to Englishwomen. That is a very dangerous opinion to hold, as there are so many German women knocking about just now.—I want to rid myself of it.—Can you help me?”

Lowndes mused on the ground. Then he looked up brightly.

“No, I can’t. Because I share it!”

“Lowndes, I’m surprised at you. I never thought you were that sort of man!”

“How do you mean?”

“Perhaps you can help me nevertheless. Our ideas on females may not be the same.”

Tarr always embarrassed him. Lowndes huddled himself tensely together, worked at his pipe, and met Tarr’s jokes painfully. He hesitated to sally forth and drive the joke away.

“What are your ideas on females?” he asked in a moment.

[33]

“Oh, I think they ought to be convex if you are concave—stupid if you are intelligent, hot if you are cold, frigid if you are volcanic. Always white all over, clothes, underclothes, skin and all.—My ideas do not extend much beyond that.”

Lowndes organized Tarr’s statement, with a view to an adequate and light reply. He gnawed at his pipe.

“Well, German women are usually convex. There are also concave ones. There are cold ones and hot ones.” He looked up. “It all seems to depend what you are like!”

“I am cold; inclined to be fat; forte tête; and swarthy, as you see.”

“In that case, if you took plenty of exercise,” Lowndes undulated himself as though for the passage of the large bubbles of chuckle, “I should think that German women would suit you very well!”

Tarr rose.

“I wish I hadn’t come to see you, Lowndes. Your answer is disappointing.”

Lowndes got up, disturbed at Tarr’s sign of departure.

“I’m sorry. But I’m not an authority.” He leant against the fireplace to arrest Tarr’s withdrawal for a minute or two. “Are you doing much work?”

“I? No.”

“Are you ever in in the afternoons? I should like to come round some day?”

“I’m just moving into a new studio.”

Lowndes looked suddenly at his watch, with calculated, ape-like impulsiveness.

“Where are you having lunch? I thought of going down to Lejeune’s to see if I could come across a beggar of the name of Kreisler. He could tell you much more about German women than I can. He’s a German. Come along, won’t you? Are you doing anything?”

“No, I know quite enough Germans. Besides, I must go somewhere—I can’t have lunch just yet. Good-bye. Thank you for your opinion.”

[34]

“Don’t mention it,” Lowndes said softly, his head turned obliquely to his shoulder, as though he had a stiff neck, and balancing on his calves.

He was rather wounded, or brusque, by the brevity of Tarr’s visit. His “morning” had not received enough respect. It had been treated, in fact, cavalierly. His “work” had not been directly mentioned.

When Tarr got outside, he stood on the narrow pavement, looking into a shop window. It was a florist’s and contained a great variety of flowers. He was surprised to find that he did not know a single flower by name. He hung on in front of this shop before pushing off, as a swimmer does to a rock, waving his legs. Then he got back into the street from which his visit to Lowndes had deflected him. He let himself drift down it. He still had some way to go before he need decide between the Rue Martine (where Bertha lived) and the Rue Lhomond.

He had not found resolution in his talks. That already existed, the fruit of various other conversations on his matrimonial position—held with the victim, Fr?ulein Lunken, herself.

Not to go near Bertha was the negative programme for that particular day. To keep away was seldom easy. But ever since his conversation at the Berne he had been conscious of the absurd easiness of doing so, if he wished. He had not the least inclination to go to the Rue Martine!—This sensation was so grateful that its object shared in its effect. He determined to go and see her. He wanted to enjoy his present feeling of indifference. Where best to enjoy it was no doubt where she was.

As to the studio, he hesitated. A new situation was created by this new feeling of indifference. Its duration could not be gauged.—He wished to stay in Paris just then to finish some paintings begun some months before. He substituted for the Impressionist’s necessity to remain in front of the object being represented, a sensation of the desirability of finishing a canvas in the place where it was begun. He had an Impressionist’s horror of change.
 
So Tarr had evolved a plan. At first sight it was wicked. It was no blacker than most of his ingenuities. Bertha, as he had suggested to Butcher, he had in some lymphatic way, dans la peau. It appeared a matter of physical discomfort to leave her altogether. It must be done gradually. So he had thought that, instead of going away to England, where the separation might cause him restlessness, he had perhaps better settle down in her neighbourhood. Through a series of specially tended ennuis, he would soon find himself in a position to depart. So the extreme nearness of the studio to Bertha’s flat was only another inducement for him to take it. “If it were next door, so much the better!” he thought.

Now for this famous feeling of indifference. Was there anything in it?—The studio for the moment should be put aside. He would go to see Bertha. Let this visit solve this question.