In the neighbourhood of the Place Clichy, in an old convent, he found a room big enough for four people. There, on the day of the second of the letters, he arrived in a state of characteristic misgiving1. It was the habitual2 indigestion of Reality. He was very fond of reality. But he was like a man very fond of what did not agree with him. It usually ended, however, by his assimilating it.
The insouciant3, adventurous4, those needing no preparation to live, he did not admire, but felt he should imitate.—A new room was a thing that had to be fitted into as painfully as a foot into some new[194] and too elegant boot. The things deposited on the floor, the door finally closed on this new area to be devoted6 exclusively to himself, the blankest discomfort7 descended8 on him. To undo9 and let loose upon the room his portmanteau’s squashed and dishevelled contents—like a flock of birds, brushes, photographs and books flying to their respective places on dressing-table, mantelpiece, shelf or bibliothèque; boxes and parcels creeping dog-like under beds and into corners, taxed his character to the breaking-point. The unwearied optimism of these inanimate objects, the way they occupied stolidly10 and quickly room after room, was appalling11. Then they were packed up things, with the staleness of a former room about them, and the souvenir of a depressing time of tearing up, inspecting, and interring12.
This preliminary discomfort was less than ever spared him here. He had cut his way to this decision (to go and live in Montmartre), through a bristling13 host of incertitudes. A place would have had to be particularly spacious14 to convince him. This large studio-room was worse than any desert. It had been built for something else, and would never be right.—A large square whitewashed15 box was what he wanted to pack himself into. This was an elaborate carved chest of a former age. He would no doubt pack it eventually with consoling memories of work. He started work at once, in fact. This was his sovereign cure for new rooms.
Half an hour after his taking possession, it being already time for the apéritif, he issued forth16 into the new quarter. There were a few clusters of men. The Spanish men dancers were coloured earth-objects, full of basking17 and frisking instincts; the atmosphere of the harlot’s life went with them, and Spanish reasonableness and civility. He chose a café on the Place Clichy. The hideous18 ennui19 of large gimcrack shops and dusty public offices pervaded20 other groups of pink, mostly dark-haired Frenchmen drinking appetizers21. They responded with their personalities22 on the café terraces to the emptiness of the boulevard.
[195]
He had not any friends in Montmartre. But he had not been at the café above a few minutes, when he saw a familiar face approaching. It was a model (Berthe, by name, though bringing no reminder23 with her of the other “Berthe” he knew) with an English painter he saw for the first time, but whom he had just heard about in connexion with this girl. Berthe knew Tarr very slightly. But she chose a table near him, with a nod, and shortly opened conversation. She meant to talk to him evidently. She asked about one or two people Tarr knew.
“Do you wish me to present you?” she said, looking towards her protector. “This is Mr. Tarr, Dick.”
So it was done.
“Why don’t you come and sit here?” That too was done, partly from inquisitiveness24.
The young Englishman annoyed Tarr by pretending to be alarmed every time he was addressed. He had a wide-open, wondering eye, fixed25 on the world in timid serenity26. It did not appear at first to understand what you said, and rolled a little alarmedly, even so only to be filled the next moment with some unexpected light of whimsical intelligence. It had understood all the time! It was only its art to surprise you, and its English affectation of unreadiness and childishness.
He was a great big child, wandering through life! The young Latin wishes to impress you with his ability to look after himself. General idiocy27 of demeanour, on the other hand, is the fashionable English style. This young man was six feet one, with a handsome beak28 in front of his face, meant for a super-Emersonian mildness. His “wide awake” was large, larger than Hobson’s. Innumerable minor29 Tennysons had planted it on his head, or bequeathed a desire for it to this ultimate Dick of long literary line. His family was allied30 to much Victorian talent. But, alas31, thought Tarr, how much worse it is when the mind gets thin than when the blood loses its body, in merely aristocratic refinement32. Intellectual aristocracy[196] in the fifth generation!—but Tarr gazed at the conclusive33 figure in front of him, words failing. Words failed, too, for maintaining conversation with it. He soon got up, and left, his first apéritif at Montmartre unsatisfactory.
He did not take possession of his new life with very much conviction. After dinner he went to a neighbouring music hall, precariously34 amused, soothed35 by the din5. But he eventually left with a headache. The strangeness of the streets, cafés, and places of entertainment depressed36 him deeply. Had it been an absolutely novel scene, he would have found stimulus37 in it. But it was like a friend grown indifferent, or something perfectly38 familiar with the richness of habit taken out of it. Tarr was gregarious39 in the sense that usually he liked his room and some familiar streets with their traces of familiar men. And where more energetic spirit suggested some truer solitude40 to him, he would never have sought it where a vestige41 of inanimate friendship remained.
Here, where he had chosen to live, he appeared as though fallen in some intermediate negative existence. Unusually for him, he felt alone. To be alone was essentially42 a nondescript, lowered, and unreal state for him.
The following morning Tarr woke, his legs rather cramped43 and tired, and not thoroughly44 rested. But as soon as he was up, work came quite easily.
He got his paints out, and without beginning on his principal canvas, took up a new and smaller one by way of diversion. Squaring up a drawing of three naked youths sniffing45 the air, with rather worried Greek faces and heavy nether46 limbs, he stuck it on the wall with pins and drew his camp easel up alongside it. He squared up his canvas on the floor with a walking-stick, and fixed it on the easel. To get a threadlike edge a pencil had to be sharpened several times.
By the end of the afternoon he had got a witty47 pastiche48 on the way. Two colours principally had been used, mixed in piles on two palettes: a smoky,[197] bilious49 saffron, and a pale transparent50 lead. The significance of the thing depended first on the psychology51 of the pulpy52 limbs, strained dancers’ attitudes and empty faces; secondly53, the two colours and the simple yet contorted curves.
Work over, his depression again grasped him, like an immensely gloomy companion who had been idling impatiently while he worked. He promenaded54 this companion in “Montmartre by Night,” without improving his character. Nausea55 glared at him from every object met. Sex surged up and martyrized him, but he held it down rather than satisfy himself with its elementary servants.
The next day, même jeu. He sat for hours in the fatiguing56 evening among a score of relief ships or pleasure boats, hesitating, but finally rejecting relief or pleasure. And the next day it was the same thing.
Meantime his work progressed. But to escape these persecutions he worked excessively. His eyes began to prick57, and on the sixth day he woke up with a headache. He was sick and unable to work.
Tarr decided58 he had been mistaken in remaining in Paris. The fascination59 of the omnibuses bound for the Rive gauche60 was almost irresistible61. Destiny had granted him the necessary resolution to break. He could have gone away—anywhere, even. His will had then offered him a free ticket, as it were, to any end of the earth. Or simply, and most sensibly, to London. And yet he had decided to go no farther than Montmartre, in the unwisdom of his sense of energy and freedom of that moment. Now the “free ticket” was not any more available. His Will had changed. It offered all sorts of different bus tickets, merely, which would conduct him, avec and sans correspondence, in the direction of the Quartier du Paradis.
Why not go back again, simply, in fact? The mandates62 of the governing elements in our nature, resolves, etc., were childish enough things. His resentment63 against Bertha, and resolve to quit, would[198] always be there. There was room in life for the satisfaction of this impulse, and the equally strong one to see her again. The road back to the Quartier du Paradis would probably have been taken quite soon, only it needed in a way as much of an effort in the contrary direction to get back as it had to get away. He did not know what might await him either. She might really have given him up and changed her life. He had not the necessary experience to dismiss that possibility.
But at last one evening he did go. He went deliberately64 up to an omnibus “Clichy—St. Germain,” and took his seat under its roof. He was resolved to glut65 himself, without any atom of self-respect or traces of “resolve” remaining, in what he had been wanting to do for a week. He would go to Bertha’s rooms, even find out what had been happening in his absence. He might even, perhaps, hang about a little outside, and try to surprise her in some manner. Then he would behave en ma?tre, there would be no further question of his having given her up and renounced66 his rights. He would behave just as though he had never gone away or the letters been sent. He would claim her again with all the appeals he knew to her love for him. He would conduct himself without a scrap67 of dignity or honesty. Once the “resolution” and pride of his retiring had been broken down, it was thenceforth immaterial to what length he went. In fact, better be frankly68 weak and unprincipled in his actions and manner, go the whole length of his defeat and confusion. In such completeness there remains69 a grain of superiority and energy.
But once started in his bus, a wave of excitement and anxiety surged in him with hot gushes70.—What awaited him? He fancied all sorts of strange developments.—Perhaps, after all, his journey would not satisfy his weaker movement, but confirm and establish definitely his more sensible resolves. Perhaps weaknesses would find at last the door closed against them.
He smiled at the city as they passed through it, with the glee of a boy on a holiday excursion.
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1
misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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insouciant
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| adj.不在意的 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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interring
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| v.埋，葬( inter的现在分词 ) | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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15
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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appetizers
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| n.开胃品( appetizer的名词复数 )；促进食欲的活动；刺激欲望的东西；吊胃口的东西 | |
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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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23
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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24
inquisitiveness
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| 好奇，求知欲 | |
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25
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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26
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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30
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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31
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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32
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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precariously
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| adv.不安全地；危险地；碰机会地；不稳定地 | |
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35
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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36
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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39
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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40
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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41
vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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42
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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43
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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44
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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45
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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46
nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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47
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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48
pastiche
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| n.模仿 ； 混成 | |
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49
bilious
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| adj.胆汁过多的；易怒的 | |
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50
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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51
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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52
pulpy
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| 果肉状的，多汁的，柔软的； 烂糊； 稀烂 | |
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53
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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54
promenaded
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| v.兜风( promenade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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56
fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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57
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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58
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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59
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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60
gauche
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| adj.笨拙的，粗鲁的 | |
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61
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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62
mandates
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| 托管（mandate的第三人称单数形式） | |
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63
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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64
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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65
glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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66
renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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67
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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68
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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69
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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70
gushes
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| n.涌出，迸发( gush的名词复数 )v.喷，涌( gush的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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