Inconceivably generous and na?ve faces haunt the Knackfus Quarter.—We are not, however, in a Selim or Vitagraph camp (though “guns” tap rhythmically5 the buttocks).—Art is being studied.—Art is the smell of oil paint, Henri Murger’s Vie de Bohème, corduroy trousers, the operatic Italian model. But the poetry, above all, of linseed oil and turpentine.
The Knackfus Quarter is given up to Art.—Letters and other things are round the corner.—Its rent is half paid by America. Germany occupies a sensible apartment on the second floor. A hundred square yards at its centre is a convenient space, where the Boulevard du Paradis and Boulevard Pfeifer cross with their electric trams.—In the middle is a pavement island, like vestige6 of submerged masonry7.—Italian models festoon it in symmetrical human groups; it is also their club.—The Café Berne, at one side, is the club of the “Grands messieurs Du Berne.” So you have the clap-trap and amorphous8 Campagnia tribe outside, in the café twenty sluggish[2] common-sense Germans, a Vitagraph group or two, drinking and playing billiards9. These are the most permanent tableaux10 of this place, disheartening and admonitory as a Tussaud’s of The Flood.
Hobson and Tarr met in the Boulevard du Paradis.—They met in a gingerly, shuffling11 fashion. They had so many good reasons for not slowing down when they met: crowds of little antecedent meetings all revivifying like the bacilli of a harmless fever at the sight of each other: pointing to why they should crush their hats over their eyes and hurry on, so that it was a defeat and insanitary to have their bodies shuffling and gesticulating there. “Why cannot most people, having talked and annoyed each other once or twice, rebecome strangers simply? Oh, for multitudes of divorces in our m?urs, more than the old vexed12 sex ones! Ah, yes: ah, yes—!” had not Tarr once put forward, and Hobson agreed?
“Have you been back long?” Tarr asked with despondent13 slowness.
“No. I got back yesterday,” said Hobson, with pleasantly twisted scowl14.
(“Heavens: One day here only, and lo! I meet him.”)
“How is London looking, then?”
“Very much as usual.—I wasn’t there the whole time.—I was in Cambridge last week.”
(“I wish you’d go to perdition from time to time, instead of Cambridge, as it always is, you grim, grim dog!” Tarr wished behind the veil.)
They went to the Berne to have a drink.
They sat for some minutes with what appeared a stately discomfort15 of self-consciousness, staring in front of them.—It was really only a dreary16, boiling anger with themselves, with the contradictions of civilized17 life, the immense and intricate camouflage18 over the hatred19 that personal diversities engender20. “Phew, phew!” A tenuous21 howl, like a subterranean22 wind, rose from the borderland of their consciousness. They were there on the point of[3] opening with tired, ashamed fingers, well-worn pages of their souls, soon to be muttering between their teeth the hackneyed pages to each other: resentful in different degrees and disproportionate ways.
And so they sat with this absurd travesty23 of a Quaker’s meeting: shyness appearing to emanate24 masterfully from Tarr. And in another case, with almost any one but Hobson, it might have been shyness. For Tarr had a gauche25, Puritanical26 ritual of self, the result of solitary27 habits. Certain observances were demanded of those approaching, and quite gratuitously28 observed in return. The fetish within—soul-dweller that is strikingly like wood-dweller, and who was not often enough disturbed to have had sylvan29 shyness mitigated—would still cling to these forms. Sometimes Tarr’s cunning idol30, aghast at its nakedness, would manage to borrow or purloin31 some shape of covering from elegantly draped visitor.
But for Hobson’s outfit32 he had the greatest contempt.
This was Alan Hobson’s outfit.—A Cambridge cut disfigured his originally manly33 and melodramatic form. His father was a wealthy merchant somewhere in Egypt. He was very athletic34, and his dark and cavernous features had been constructed by Nature as a lurking-place for villainies and passions. He was untrue to his rascally36, sinuous37 body. He slouched and ambled38 along, neglecting his muscles: and his dastardly face attempted to portray39 delicacies40 of common sense, and gossamer-like backslidings into the Inane41 that would have puzzled a bile-specialist. He would occasionally exploit his blackguardly appearance and blacksmith’s muscles for a short time, however. And his strong, piercing laugh threw A B C waitresses into confusion.
The Art-touch, the Bloomsbury stain, was very observable. Hobson’s Harris tweeds were shabby. A hat suggesting that his ancestors had been Plainsmen or some rough sunny folk, shaded unnecessarily his countenance42, already far from open.
The material for conversation afforded by a short sea[4] voyage, an absence, a panama hat on his companion’s head, had been exhausted43.—Tarr possessed44 no deft45 hand or economy of force. His muscles rose unnecessarily on his arm to lift a wine-glass to his lips. He had no social machinery46, but the cumbrous one of the intellect. He danced about with this, it is true. But it was full of sinister47 piston-rods, organ-like shapes, heavy drills.—When he tried to be amiable48, he usually only succeeded in being ominous49.
It was an effort to talk to Hobson. For this effort a great bulk of nervous force was awoken. It got to work and wove its large anomalous50 patterns. It took the subject that was foremost in his existence and imposed it on their talk.
Tarr turned to Hobson, and seized him, conversationally51, by the hair.
“Well, Walt Whitman, when are you going to get your hair cut?”
“Why do you call me Walt Whitman?”
“Would you prefer Buffalo52 Bill? Or is it Shakespeare?”
“It is not Shakespeare?”
“‘Roi je ne suis: prince je ne daigne.’—That’s Hobson’s choice.—But why so much hair? I don’t wear my hair long. If you had as many reasons for wearing it long as I have, we should see it flowing round your ankles!”
“I might ask you under those circumstances why you wear it short. But I expect you have good reasons for that, too. I can’t see why you should resent my innocent device. However long I wore it I should not damage you by my competition?”
Tarr rattled55 the cement match-stand on the table, and the gar?on sang “Toute suite56, toute suite!”
“Hobson, you were telling me about a studio to let before you left.—I forget the details?”
“Was it one behind the Panthéon?”
“That’s it.—Was there electric light?”
“No, I don’t think there was electric light. But I can find out for you.”
“How did you come to hear of it?”
[5]
“Through a German I know—Salle, Salla, or something.”
“What was the street?”
“The Rue35 Lhomond. I forget the number.”
“I’ll go and have a look at it after lunch.—What on earth possesses you to know so many Germans?” Tarr asked, sighing.
“Don’t you like Germans?—You’ve just been too intimate with one; that’s what it is.”
“Perhaps I have.”
“A female German.”
“The sex weakens the ‘German,’ surely.”
“Does it in Fr?ulein Lunken’s case?”
“Oh, you know her, do you?—Of course, you would know her, as she’s a German.”
Alan Hobson cackled morosely57, like a very sad top-dog trying to imitate a rooster.
Tarr’s unwieldy playfulness, might in the chequered northern shade, in conjunction with nut-brown ale, gazed at by some Rowlandson—he on the ultimate borders of the epoch—have pleased by its à propos. But when the last Rowlandson dies, the life, too, that he saw should vanish. Anything that survives the artist’s death is not life, but play-acting. This homely58, thick-waisted affectation!—Hobson yawned and yawned as though he wished to swallow Tarr and have done with him. Tarr yawned more noisily, rattled his chair, sat up, haggard and stiff, as though he wished to frighten this crow away. “Carrion-Crow” was Tarr’s name for Hobson: “The olde Crow of Cairo,” rather longer.
Why was he talking to this man? However, he shortly began to lay bare the secrets of his soul. Hobson opened:
“It seems to me, Tarr, that you know more Germans than I do. But you’re ashamed of it. Hence your attack. I met a Fr?ulein Fierspitz the other day, a German, who claimed to know you. I am always meeting Germans who know you. She also referred to you as the ‘official fiancé’ of Fr?ulein Lunken.—Are you an ‘official fiancé’? And if so, what is that, may I ask?”
[6]
Tarr was taken aback, it was evident. Hobson laughed stridently. The real man emerging, he came over quickly on another wave.
“You not only get to know Germans, crowds of them, on the sly; you make your bosom59 friend of them, engage yourself to them in marriage and make Heaven knows how many more solemn pacts60, covenants61, and agreements.—It’s bound all to come out some day. What will you do then?”
Tarr was recovering gracefully62 from his relapse into discomfort. If ever taken off his guard, he made a clever use immediately afterwards of his na?veté. He beamed on his slip. He would swallow it tranquilly65, assimilating it, with ostentation66, to himself. When some personal weakness slipped out he would pick it up unabashed, look at it smilingly, and put it back in his pocket.
“As you know,” he soon replied, “‘engagement’ is an euphemism67. And, as a matter of fact, my girl publicly announced the breaking off of our engagement yesterday.”
He looked a complete child, head thrown up as though proclaiming something he had reason to be particularly proud of.—Hobson laughed convulsively, cracking his yellow fingers.
“Yes, it is funny, if you look at it in that way.—I let her announce our engagement or the reverse just as she likes. That has been our arrangement from the start. I never know at any given time whether I am engaged or not. I leave all that sort of thing entirely68 in her hands. After a severe quarrel I am pretty certain that I am temporarily unattached, the link publicly severed69 somewhere or other.”
“Possibly that is what is meant by ‘official fiancé’?”
“Very likely.”
He had been hustled—through his vanity, the Cairo Cantabian thought—somewhere where the time could be passed. He did not hesitate to handle Tarr’s curiosities.—It is a graceful63 compliment to offer the nectar of some ulcer70 to your neighbour. The[7] modern man understands his udders and taps.—With an obscene heroism71 Tarr displayed his. His companion wrenched72 at it with malice73. Tarr pulled a wry74 face once or twice at the other’s sans gêne. But he was proud of what he could stand. He had a hazy75 image of a shrewd old countryman in contact with the sharpness of the town. He would not shrink. He would roughly outstrip76 his visitor.—“Ay, I have this the matter with me—a funny complaint?—and that, and that, too.—What then?—Do you want me to race you to that hill?”
He obtruded77 complacently78 all he had most to be ashamed of, conscious of the power of an obsessing79 weakness.
“Will you go so far in this clandestine80 life of yours as to marry anybody?” Hobson proceeded.
“No.”
Hobson stared with bright meditative81 sweetness down the boulevard.
“I think there must be a great difference between your way of approaching Germans and mine,” he said.
“Ay: it is different things that takes us respectively amongst them.”
“You like the national flavour, all the same.”
“I like the national flavour!”—Tarr had a way of beginning a reply with a parrot-like echo of the words of the other party to the dialogue; also of repeating sotto voce one of his own sentences, a mechanical rattle54 following on without stop. “Sex is nationalized more than any other essential of life. In this it is just the opposite to art.—There is much pork and philosophy in German sex.—But then if it is the sex you are after, it does not say you want to identify your being with your appetite. Quite the opposite. The condition of continued enjoyment82 is to resist assimilation.—A man is the opposite of his appetite.”
“Surely, a man is his appetite.”
“No, a man is always his last appetite, or his appetite before last; and that is no longer an appetite.—But[8] nobody is anything, or life would be intolerable, the human race collapse83.—You are me, I am you.—The Present is the furthest projection84 of our steady appetite. Imagination, like a general, keeps behind. Imagination is the man.”
“What is the Present?” Hobson asked politely, with much aspirating, sitting up a little and slightly offering his ear.
But Tarr only repeated things arbitrarily. He proceeded:
“Sex is a monstrosity. It is the arch abortion85 of this filthy86 universe.—How ‘old-fashioned!’—eh, my fashionable friend?—We are all optimists87 to-day, aren’t we? God’s in his Heaven, all’s well with the world! I am a pessimist88, Hobson. But I’m a new sort of pessimist.—I think I am the sort that will please!—I am the Panurgic-Pessimist, drunken with the laughing-gas of the Abyss. I gaze on squalor and idiocy89, and the more I see it, the more I like it.—Flaubert built up his Bouvard et Pécuchet with maniacal90 and tireless hands. It took him ten years. That was a long draught91 of stodgy92 laughter from the gases that rise from the dung-heap? He had an appetite like an elephant for this form of mirth. But he grumbled93 and sighed over his food.—I take it in my arms and bury my face in it!”
As Tarr’s temperament94 spread its wings, whirling him menacingly and mockingly above Hobson’s head, the Cantab philosopher did not think it necessary to reply.—He was not winged himself.—He watched Tarr looping the loop above him. He was a drole bird! He wondered, as he watched him, if he was a sound bird, or homme-oiseau. People believed in him. His Exhibition flights attracted attention. What sort of prizes could he expect to win by his professional talents? Would this notable ambitieux be satisfied?
The childish sport proceeded, with serious intervals95.
“I bury my face in it!”—(He buried his face in it!!)—“I laugh hoarsely96 through its thickness,[9] choking and spitting; coughing, sneezing, blowing.—People will begin to think I am an alligator97 if they see me always swimming in their daily ooze98. As far as sex is concerned, I am that. Sex, Hobson, is a German study. A German study.” He shook his head in a dejected, drunken way, protruding99 his lips. He seemed to find analogies for his repeating habits, with the digestion100.—“All the same, you must take my word for much in that connexion.—The choice of a wife is not practical in the way that the securing of a good bicycle, hygiene101, or advertisement is. You must think more of the dishes of the table. Rembrandt paints decrepit102 old Jews, the most decayed specimens103 of the lowest race on earth, that is. Shakespeare deals in human tubs of grease—Falstaff; Christ in sinners. Now as to sex; Socrates married a shrew; most of the wisest men marry fools, picture post cards, cows, or strumpets.”
“I don’t think that is quite true.” Hobson resurrected himself dutifully. “The more sensible people I can think of off-hand have more sensible, and on the whole prettier, wives than other people.”
“Prettier wives?—You are describing a meaningless average.—The most suspicious fact about a distinguished105 man is the possession of a distinguished wife. But you might just as well say in answer to my Art statement that Sir Edward Leighton did not paint the decayed meat of humanity.”
Hobson surged up a little in his chair and collapsed106.—He had to appeal to his body to sustain the argument.
“Neither did Raphael—I don’t see why you should drag Rembrandt in—Rembrandt?”
“You’re going to sniff107 at Rembrandt!—You accuse me of following the fashions in my liking108 for Cubism. You are much more fashionable yourself. Would you mind my ‘dragging in’ cheese, high game??”
Hobson allowed cheeses with a rather drawn109 expression. But he did not see what that had to do with it, either.
“It is not purely110 a question of appetite,” he said.
[10]
“Sex, sir, is purely a question of appetite!” Tarr replied.
Hobson inclined himself mincingly111, with a sweet chuckle112.
“If it is pure sex, that is,” Tarr added.
“Oh, if it is pure sex—that, naturally?” Hobson convulsed himself and crowed thrice.
“Listen, Hobson!—You mustn’t make that noise. It’s very clever of you to be able to. But you will not succeed in rattling113 me by making me feel I am addressing a rooster?”
Hobson let himself go in whoops114 and caws, as though Tarr had been pressing him to perform.
When he had finished, Tarr said:
“Are you willing to consider sex seriously, or not?”
“Yes, I don’t mind.”—Hobson settled down, his face flushed from his late display.—“But I shall begin to believe before very long that your intentions are honourable115 as regards the fair Fr?ulein.—What exactly is your discourse116 intended to prove?”
“Not the desirability of the marriage tie, any more than a propaganda for representation and anecdote117 in art. But if a man marries, or a great painter represents (and the claims and seductions of life are very urgent), he will not be governed in his choice by the same laws that regulate the life of an efficient citizen, a successful merchant, or the ideals of a health expert.”
“I should have said that the considerations that precede a proposition of marriage had many analogies with the health expert’s outlook, the good citizen’s?”
“Was Napoleon successful in life, or did he ruin himself and end his days in miserable118 captivity119?—Passion precludes120 the idea of success. Failure is its condition.—Art and Sex when they are deep enough make tragedies, and not advertisements for Health experts, or happy endings for the Public, or social panaceas121.”
“Alas, that is true.”
“Well, then, well, then, Alan Hobson, you scarecrow[11] of an advanced fool-farm, deplorable pedant122 of a sophistic voice-culture?”
“I? My voice—? But that’s absurd!—If my speech?”
Hobson was up in arms about his voice: although it was not his.
Tarr needed a grimacing123, tumultuous mask for the face he had to cover.—The clown was the only r?le that was ample enough. He had compared his clowning with Hobson’s Pierrotesque and French variety.
But Hobson, he considered, was a crowd.—You could not say he was an individual.—He was a set. He sat there, a cultivated audience.—He had the aplomb124 and absence of self-consciousness of numbers, of the herd—of those who know they are not alone.—Tarr was shy and the reverse by turns. He was alone. The individual is rustic125.
For distinguishing feature Hobson possessed a distinguished absence of personality.
Tarr gazed on this impersonality126, of crowd origin, with autocratic scorn.
Alan Hobson was a humble127 investor128.
“But we’re talking at cross purposes, Hobson.—You think I am contending that affection for a dolt129, like my fiancée, is in some way a merit. I do not mean that. Also, I do not mean that sex is my tragedy, but art.—I will explain why I am associated sexually with this pumpkin130. First, I am an artist.—With most people, not describable as artists, all the finer part of their vitality131 goes into sex. They become third-rate poets during their courtship. All their instincts of drama come out freshly with their wives. The artist is he in whom this emotionality normally absorbed by sex is so strong that it claims a newer and more exclusive field of deployment132.—Its first creation is the Artist himself, a new sort of person; the creative man. But for the first-rate poet, nothing short of a Queen or a Chimera133 is adequate for the powers of his praise.—And so on all through the bunch of his gifts. One by one his powers and moyens[12] are turned away from the usual object of a man’s poetry, and turned away from the immediate64 world. One solitary thing is left facing a woman.—That is his sex, a lonely phallus.—Things are not quite so simple in actual fact as this. Some artists are less complete than others. More or less remains134 to the man.—Then the character of the artist’s creation comes in. What tendency has my work as an artist, a ready instance? You may have noticed that it has that of an invariable severity. Apart from its being good or bad, its character is ascetic135 rather than sensuous136, and divorced from immediate life. There is no slop of sex in that. But there is no severity left over for the work of the cruder senses either. Very often with an artist whose work is very sensuous or human, his sex instinct, if it is active, will be more discriminating137 than with a man more fastidious and discriminating than he in his work. To sum up this part of my disclosure.—No one could have a coarser, more foolish, slovenly138 taste than I have in women. It is not even sluttish and abject139, of the J. W. M. Turner type, with his washerwoman at Gravesend.—It is bourgeois140, banal141, pretty-pretty, a cross between the Musical Comedy stage and the ideal of the Eighteenth-Century gallant142. All the delicate psychology143 another man naturally seeks in a woman, the curiosity of form, windows on other lives, love and passion, I seek in my work and not elsewhere.—Form would perhaps be thickened by child-bearing; it would perhaps be damaged by harlotry.—Why should sex still be active? That is a matter of heredity that has nothing to do with the general energies of the mind. I see I am boring you.—The matter is too remote!—But you have trespassed144 here, and you must listen.—I cannot let you off before you have heard, and shown that you understand.—If you do not sit and listen, I will write it all to you. You will be made to hear it!—And after I have told you this, I will tell you why I am talking to a fool like you!”
“You ask me to be polite?”
[13]
“I don’t mind how impolite you are so long as you listen.”
“Well, I am listening—with interest.”
Tarr was tearing, as he saw it, at the blankets that swaddled this spirit in its inner snobberies.—A bitter feast was steaming hot, and a mouth must be found to eat it. This beggar’s had to serve. It was, above all, an ear, all the nerves complete. He must get his words into it. They must not be swallowed at a gulp145. They must taste, sting, and benefit by the meaning of an appetite.—He had something to say. It must be said while it was living. Once it was said, it could look after itself.—Hobson had shocked something that was ready to burst out. He must help it out. Hobson must pay as well for the intimacy146. He must pay Bertha Lunken afterwards.
He felt like insisting that he should come round and apologize to her.
“A man only goes and confesses his faults to the world when his self will not acknowledge or listen to them. The function of a friend is to be a substitute for this defective147 self, to be the World and the Real without the disastrous148 consequences of reality.—Yet punishment is one of his chief offices.—The friend enlarges also substantially the boundaries of our solitude149.”
This was written in Tarr’s diary. He was now chastising150 this self he wrote of for not listening, by telling the first stranger met.—Had a friend been there he could have interceded151 for his ego152.
“You have followed so far?” Tarr looked with slow disdainful suspicion at Hobson’s face staring at the ground. “You have understood the nature of my secret?—Half of myself I have to hide. I am bitterly ashamed of a slovenly, common portion of my life that has been isolated153 and repudiated154 by the energies I am so proud of. ‘I am ashamed of the number of Germans I know,’ as you put it.—I have[14] in that r?le to cower155 and slink away even from an old fruit-tin like you. It is useless heroically to protect that section of my life. It’s no good sticking up for it. It is not worth protecting. It is not even up to your standards. I have, therefore, to deliver it over to your eyes, and eyes of the likes of you, in the end—if you will deign156 to use them!—I even have to beg you to use your eyes; to hold you by the sleeve and crave157 a glance for an object belonging to me!
“In this compartment158 of my life I have not a vestige of passion.—That is the root reason for its meanness and absurdity159.—The best friend of my Dr. Jekyll would not know my Mr. Hyde, and vice53 versa. This rudimentary self is more starved and stupid than any other man’s. Or to put it less or more humbly160, I am of that company who are reduced to looking to Socrates for a consoling lead.
“Think of all the collages161, marriages, and liaisons162 that you know, in which some frowsy or foolish or doll-like or log-like bitch accompanies the form of an otherwise sensible man: a dumbfounding, disgusting, and septic ghost!
“How foul163 and wrong this haunting of women is!—They are everywhere!—Confusing, blurring164, libelling, with their half-baked, gushing165, tawdry presences! It is like a slop of children and the bawling166 machinery of the inside of life, always and all over our palaces. Their silly food of cheap illusion comes in between friendships, stagnates167 complacently around a softened168 mind.
“I might almost take some credit to myself for at least having the grace to keep this bear-garden in the background.”
Hobson had brightened up while this was proceeding169.—He now said:
“You might almost.—Why don’t you? I admire what you tell me. But you appear to take your German foibles too much to heart.”
“Just at present I am engaged in a gala of the heart. You may have noticed that.—I am not a[15] strict landlord with the various personalities170 gathered beneath my roof.—In the present case I am really blessed. But you should see the sluts that get in sometimes! They all become steadily171 my fiancée too.—Fiancée! Observe how one apes the forms of conventional life. It does not mean anything, so one lets it stop. Its the same with the café fools I have for friends—there’s a Greek fool, a German fool, a Russian fool,—an English fool!—There are no ‘friends’ in this life any more than there are ‘fiancées.’ So it doesn’t matter. You drift on side by side with this live stock—friends, fiancées, ‘colleagues,’ and what not.”
Hobson sat staring with a bemused seriousness at the ground.
“Why should I not speak plainly and cruelly of my poor, ridiculous fiancée to you or any one?—After all, it is chiefly myself I am castigating172.—But you, too, must be of the party! The right to see implies the right to be seen. As an offset173 for your prying174, scurvy175 way of peeping into my affairs you must offer your own guts176, such as they are?!”
“How have I pried177 into your affairs?” Hobson asked with a circumspect178 surprise.
“Any one who stands outside, who hides himself in a deliquescent aloofness179, is a sneak180 and a spy?”
“That seems to me to be a case of smut calling the kettle black. I should not have said that you were conspicuous181?”
“No.—You know you have joined yourself to those who hush their voices to hear what other people are saying!—Every one who does not fight openly and bear his share of the common burden of ignominy in life, is a sneak, unless it is for a solid motive182.—The quiet you claim is not to work in.—What have you exchanged your temper, your freedom, and your fine voice against? You have exchanged them for an old hat that does not belong to you, and a shabbiness you have not merited by suffering neediness183.—Your pseudo-neediness is a sentimental184 indulgence.—Every man should be forced to dress[16] up to his income, and make a smart, fresh appearance.—Patching the seat of your trousers, instead?!”
“Wait a minute,” Hobson said, with a laugh. “You accuse me of sentimentality in my choice of costume. I wonder if you are as free from sentimentality.”
“I don’t care a tinker’s blue curse about that.—I am talking about you.—Let me proceed.—With your training, you are decked in the plumes185 of very fine birds indeed. But your plumes are not meant to fly with, but merely to slouch and skip along the surface of the earth.—You wear the livery of a ridiculous set, you are a cunning and sleek186 domestic. No thought can come out of your head before it has slipped on its uniform. All your instincts are drugged with a malicious187 languor188, an arm, a respectability, invented by a set of old women and mean, cadaverous little boys.”
Hobson opened his mouth, had a movement of the body to speak. But he relapsed.
“You reply, ‘What is all this fuss about? I have done the best for myself.—I was not suited for any heroic station, like yours. I live sensibly and quietly, cultivating my vegetable ideas, and also my roses and Victorian lilies.—I do no harm to anybody.’”
“That is not quite the case. That is a little inexact. Your proceedings189 possess a herdesque astuteness190; in the scale against the individual weighing less than the Yellow Press, yet being a closer and meaner attack. Also you are essentially191 spies, in a scurvy, safe and well-paid service, as I told you before. You are disguised to look like the thing it is your function to betray—What is your position?—You have bought for eight hundred pounds at an aristocratic educational establishment a complete mental outfit, a programme of manners. For four years you trained with other recruits. You are now a perfectly192 disciplined social unit, with a profound esprit de corps193. The Cambridge set that you represent is as observed in an average specimen104, a cross between a Quaker, a Pederast, and a Chelsea artist.—Your Oxford194 brothers, dating from the Wilde[17] decade, are a stronger body. The Chelsea artists are much less flimsy. The Quakers are powerful rascals195. You represent, my Hobson, the dregs of Anglo-Saxon civilization!—There is nothing softer on earth.—Your flabby potion is a mixture of the lees of Liberalism, the poor froth blown off the decadent196 nineties, the wardrobe—leavings of a vulgar Bohemianism with its head-quarters in Chelsea!
“You are concentrated, systematic197 slop.—There is nothing in the universe to be said for you.—Any efficient State would confiscate198 your property, burn your wardrobe, that old hat, and the rest, as infecte and insanitary, and prohibit you from propagating.”
Tarr’s white collar shone dazzlingly in the sun.—His bowler199 hat bobbed and out clean lines as he spoke200.
“A breed of mild pervasive201 cabbages has set up a wide and creeping rot in the West of Europe.—They make it indirectly202 a peril203 and tribulation204 for live things to remain in the neighbourhood. You are systematizing and vulgarizing the individual.—You are not an individual. You have, I repeat, no right to that hair and that hat. You are trying to have the apple and eat it too.—You should be in uniform, and at work, not uniformly out of uniform, and libelling the Artist by your idleness. Are you idle?”
Tarr had drawn up short, turned squarely on Hobson; in an abrupt205 and disconnected voice he asked his question.
Hobson stirred resentfully in his chair. He yawned a little. He replied:
“Am I idle, did you say? Yes, I suppose I am not particularly industrious206. But how does that affect you? You know you don’t mean all that nonsense. Vous vous moquez de moi! Where are you coming to?”
“I have explained already where I come in. It is stupid to be idle. You go to seed.—The only justification207 for your slovenly appearance, it is true, is that it is ideally emblematic208.”
“My dear Tarr, you’re a strange fellow. I can’t[18] see why these things should occupy you.—You have just told me a lot of things that may be true or may not. But at the end of them all—? Et alors?—alors?—quoi? one asks. You contradict yourself. You know you don’t think what you talk. You deafen209 me with your upside-downness.”
He gesticulated, got the French guttural r with satisfaction, and said the quoi rather briskly.
“In any case my hat is my business!” he concluded quickly, after a moment, getting up with a curling, luscious210 laugh.
The gar?on hurried up and they paid.
“No, I am responsible for you.—I am one of the only people who see. That is a responsibility.”—Tarr walked down the boulevard with him, speaking in his ear almost, and treading on his toes.
“You know Baudelaire’s fable211 of the obsequious212 vagabond, cringing213 for alms? For all reply, the poet seizes a heavy stick and belabours the beggar with it. The beggar then, when he is almost beaten to a pulp214, suddenly straightens out beneath the blows; expands, stretches; his eyes dart215 fire! He rises up and falls on the poet tooth and nail. In a few seconds he has laid him out flat, and is just going to finish him off, when an agent arrives.—The poet is enchanted216. He has accomplished217 something!
“Would it be possible to achieve a work of that description with you? No. You are meaner-spirited than the most abject tramp. I would seize you by the throat at once if I thought you would black my eye. But I feel it my duty at least to do this for your hat. Your hat, at least, will have had its little drama to-day.”
Tarr knocked his hat off into the road.—Without troubling to wait for the results of this action, he hurried away down the Boulevard du Paradis.
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1
facet
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| n.(问题等的)一个方面；(多面体的)面 | |
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2
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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3
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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4
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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5
rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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6
vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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7
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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8
amorphous
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| adj.无定形的 | |
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9
billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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10
tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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11
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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12
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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13
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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14
scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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15
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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16
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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17
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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18
camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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19
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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20
engender
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| v.产生，引起 | |
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21
tenuous
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| adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的 | |
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22
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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23
travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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24
emanate
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| v.发自，来自，出自 | |
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25
gauche
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| adj.笨拙的，粗鲁的 | |
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26
puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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27
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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28
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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29
sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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30
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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31
purloin
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| v.偷窃 | |
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32
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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33
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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34
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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35
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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36
rascally
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| adj. 无赖的，恶棍的 adv. 无赖地，卑鄙地 | |
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37
sinuous
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| adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的 | |
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38
ambled
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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39
portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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40
delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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41
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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42
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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43
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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44
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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45
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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46
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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47
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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48
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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49
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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50
anomalous
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| adj.反常的；不规则的 | |
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51
conversationally
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| adv.会话地 | |
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52
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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53
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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54
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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55
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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56
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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57
morosely
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| adv.愁眉苦脸地，忧郁地 | |
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58
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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59
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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60
pacts
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| 条约( pact的名词复数 )； 协定； 公约 | |
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61
covenants
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| n.（有法律约束的）协议( covenant的名词复数 )；盟约；公约；（向慈善事业、信托基金会等定期捐款的）契约书 | |
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62
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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63
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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64
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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65
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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66
ostentation
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| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
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67
euphemism
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| n.婉言，委婉的说法 | |
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68
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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69
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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70
ulcer
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| n.溃疡，腐坏物 | |
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71
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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72
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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73
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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74
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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75
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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76
outstrip
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| v.超过，跑过 | |
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77
obtruded
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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79
obsessing
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| v.时刻困扰( obsess的现在分词 )；缠住；使痴迷；使迷恋 | |
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80
clandestine
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| adj.秘密的，暗中从事的 | |
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81
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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82
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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83
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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84
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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85
abortion
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| n.流产，堕胎 | |
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86
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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87
optimists
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| n.乐观主义者( optimist的名词复数 ) | |
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88
pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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89
idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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90
maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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91
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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92
stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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93
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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94
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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95
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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96
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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97
alligator
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| n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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98
ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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99
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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100
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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101
hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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102
decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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103
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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104
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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105
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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106
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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107
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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108
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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109
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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110
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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111
mincingly
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112
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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113
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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114
whoops
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| int.呼喊声 | |
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115
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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116
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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117
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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118
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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119
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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120
precludes
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| v.阻止( preclude的第三人称单数 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
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121
panaceas
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| n.治百病的药，万灵药( panacea的名词复数 ) | |
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122
pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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123
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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124
aplomb
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| n.沉着，镇静 | |
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125
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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126
impersonality
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| n.无人情味 | |
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127
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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128
investor
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| n.投资者，投资人 | |
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129
dolt
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| n.傻瓜 | |
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130
pumpkin
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| n.南瓜 | |
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131
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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132
deployment
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| n. 部署,展开 | |
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133
chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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134
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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135
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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136
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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137
discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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138
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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139
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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140
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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141
banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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142
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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143
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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144
trespassed
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| （trespass的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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145
gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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146
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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147
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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148
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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149
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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150
chastising
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| v.严惩（某人）（尤指责打）( chastise的现在分词 ) | |
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151
interceded
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| v.斡旋，调解( intercede的过去式和过去分词 )；说情 | |
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152
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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153
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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154
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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155
cower
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| v.畏缩，退缩，抖缩 | |
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156
deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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157
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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158
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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159
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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160
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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161
collages
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| n.拼贴画( collage的名词复数 )；杂烩 | |
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162
liaisons
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| n.联络( liaison的名词复数 )；联络人；（尤指一方或双方已婚的）私通；组织单位间的交流与合作 | |
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163
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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164
blurring
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| n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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165
gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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166
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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167
stagnates
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| v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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168
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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169
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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170
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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171
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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172
castigating
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| v.严厉责骂、批评或惩罚（某人）( castigate的现在分词 ) | |
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173
offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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174
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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175
scurvy
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| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
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176
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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177
pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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178
circumspect
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| adj.慎重的，谨慎的 | |
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179
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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180
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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181
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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182
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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183
neediness
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| n.穷困，贫穷 | |
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184
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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185
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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186
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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187
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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188
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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189
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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190
astuteness
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| n.敏锐；精明；机敏 | |
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191
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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192
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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193
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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194
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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195
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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196
decadent
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| adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的 | |
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197
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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198
confiscate
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| v.没收(私人财产)，把…充公 | |
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199
bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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200
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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201
pervasive
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| adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的 | |
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202
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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203
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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204
tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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205
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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206
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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207
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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208
emblematic
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| adj.象征的，可当标志的；象征性 | |
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209
deafen
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| vt.震耳欲聋；使听不清楚 | |
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210
luscious
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| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
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211
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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212
obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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213
cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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214
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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215
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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216
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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217
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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