Bertha’s friends looked for her elsewhere, nowadays, than at her rooms.
Tarr was always likely to be found there in impolite possession. She made
them come as often as she could; her coquetry as regards her carefully
arranged rooms needed satisfaction. She suffered in the midst of her
lonely tastefulness. But Tarr had certainly made these rooms a rather
deserted place. Since the dance none of her women friends had come. She
had spent an hour or two with them at the restaurant.
At the dance she had kept rather apart. Dazed, after a shock, and needing
self-collection, was the line sketched. Her account of things could not,
of course, be blurted out anyhow. It had to grow out of circumstances.
It, of course, must be given. She had not yet given it. But haste must
be avoided. For its particular type, as long a time as possible must be
allowed to elapse before she spoke of what had happened. It must almost
seem as though she were going to say nothing; sudden, perfect, and very
impressive silence on her part. To accustom their minds to her silence
would make speech all the more imposing, when it came. At a café after
the dance her account of the thing flowered grudgingly, drawn forth by
the ambient heat of the discussion.
They were as yet at the stage of exclamations, no _malveillant_ theory
yet having been definitely formed about Kreisler.
“He came there on purpose to create a disturbance. Whatever for, I
wonder!”
“I expect it was the case of Fräulein Fogs over again.” (Kreisler had, on
a former occasion, paid his court to a lady of this name, with resounding
unsuccess.)
“If I’d have known what was going on, I’d have dealt with him!” said one
of the men.
“Didn’t you say he told a pack of lies, Renée⸺?”
Fräulein Lipmann had been sitting, her eyes fixed on a tram drawn up
near by, watching the people evacuating the central platform, and others
restocking it. The discussion and exclamations of her friends did not, it
would appear, interest her. It would have been, no doubt, scandalously
unnatural if Kreisler had not been execrated. But anything they could say
was negligible and inadequate to cope with the “Gemeine alte Sau.” The
tameness of their reflections on and indignation against Kreisler when
compared with the terrific corroding of this epithet (known only to her)
made her sulky and impatient.
Applied to in this way directly about the lies, she turned to the
others and said, as it were interposing herself regally at last in their
discussion:
“Ecoutez—listen,” she began, leaning towards the greater number of
them, seeming to say, “It’s really simple enough, as simple as it is
disagreeable: I am going to settle the question for you. Let us then
discuss it no more.” It would seem a great effort to do this, too, her
lips a little white with fatigue, her eyes heavy with disgust at it all:
fighting these things, she was coming to their assistance.
“Listen: we none of us know anything about that man”; this was an
unfortunate beginning for Bertha, as thoughts, if not eyes, would spring
in her direction no doubt, and Fräulein Lipmann even paused as though
about to qualify this: “we none of us, I think, want to know anything
about him. Therefore why this idiot—the last sort of beer-drinking
brute—treated us to his bestial and—and—wretched foolery⸺”
Fräulein Lipmann shrugged her shoulders with blank, contemptuous
indifference. “I assure you it doesn’t interest me the least little bit
in the world to know _why_ such brutes behave like that at certain times.
I don’t see any mystery. It seems odd to you that HERR KREISLER should be
an offensive brute?” She eyed them a moment. “To me NOT!”
“We do him too much honour by discussing him, that’s certain,” said one
of them. This was in the spirit of Fräulein Lipmann’s words, but was not
accepted by her just then as she had something further to say.
“When one is attacked, one does not spend one’s time in considering _why_
one is attacked, but in defending oneself. I am just fresh from the
_souillures de ce brute_. If you knew the words he had addressed to me.”
Ekhart was getting very red, his eyes were shining, and he was moving
rhythmically in his chair something like a steadily rising sea.
“Where does he live, Fräulein Lipmann?” he asked.
“Nein, Ekhart. One could not allow anybody to embroil themselves with
that useless brute.” The “Nein, Ekhart” had been drawled fondly at once,
as though that contingency had been weighed, and could be brushed aside
lightly in advance. It implied as well an “of course” for his red and
dutiful face. “I myself, if I meet him anywhere, shall deal with him
better than you could. This is one of the occasions for a woman⸺”
So Bertha’s story had come uncomfortably and difficultly to flower.
She wished she had not waited so long. But it was impossible now, the
matter put in the light that Fräulein Lipmann’s intervention had caused,
to delay any longer. She was, there was no doubt about it, vaguely
responsible for Kreisler. It was obviously her duty _to explain_ him.
And now Fräulein Lipmann had just put an embargo on explanations. There
were to be no more explanations. In Kreisleriana her _apport_ was very
important: much more definite than the indignation or hypothesis of
any of the rest. She had been _nearer to him_, anyway. She had waited
too long, until the sea had risen too high, or rather in a direction
extremely unfavourable for launching her contribution. It must be in some
way, too, a defence of Kreisler. This would be a very delicate matter to
handle.
Yet could she sit on there, say nothing, and let the others in the course
of time drop the subject? They had not turned to her in any way for
further information or as to one peculiarly susceptible of furnishing
interesting data. Maintaining this silence was a solution. But it
would be even _bolder_ than her first plan. This would be a still more
vigorous, more insolent development of her plan of confessing—_in her
way_. But it rather daunted her. They might easily mistake, if they
pleased, her silence for the silence of acknowledged, very eccentric,
guilt. The subject was drawing perilously near the point where it would
be dropped. Fräulein Lipmann was summing up, and doing the final offices
of the law over the condemned and already unspeakable Kreisler. No time
was to be lost. The breaking in now involved inevitable conflict of a
sort with Fräulein Lipmann. She was going to “say a word for Kreisler”
_after_ Fräulein Lipmann’s words. (How much better it would have been
before!)
So at this point, looking up from the table, Bertha (listened to with
uncomfortable unanimity and promptness) began. She was smiling with an
affectedly hesitating, timid face, smiling in a flat strained way, the
neighbourhood of her eyes suffused slightly with blood, her lips purring
the words a little:
“Renée, I feel that I ought to say something—” Her smile was that made
with a screwing up of the eyes and slow flowering of the lips, noticed on
some people’s faces when some snobbery they cannot help has to be allowed
egress from their mouth.
Renée Lipmann turned towards her composedly. This interruption would
require argument; consciousness of the peculiar nature of Bertha’s
qualifications was not displayed.
“I had not meant to say anything—about what happened to me, that is. I,
as a matter of fact, have something particularly to complain of. But
I had nothing to say about it. Only, since you are all discussing it,
I thought you might not quite understand if I didn’t—I don’t think,
Renée, that Herr Kreisler was quite in his right mind this evening. He
doesn’t strike me as _méchant_. I don’t think he was really in any way
accountable for his actions. I don’t, of course, know any more about him
than you do. This evening was the first time I’ve ever exchanged more
than a dozen words with him in my life.”
This was said in the sing-song of quick parentheses, eyebrows lifted, and
with little gestures of the hand.
“He caught hold of me—like this.” She made a quick snatching gesture
at Fräulein Lipmann, who did not like this attempt at intimidation
or velvety defiance. “He was kissing me when you came up,” turning
to one or two of the others. This was said with dramatic suddenness
and “determination,” as it were: the “kissing” said with a sort of
deliberate sententious brutality, and luscious disparting of the lips.
“We couldn’t make out _whatever_ was happening⸺” one of them began.
“When you came up I felt quite dazed. I didn’t feel that it was a man
kissing me. He was mad. I’m sure he was. It was like being mauled by
a brute.” She shuddered, with rather rolling eyes. “He _was_ a brute
to-night—not a man at all. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
They were all silent, answerless at this unexpected view of the case. It
only differed from theirs in supposing that he was not _always_ a brute.
She had spoken quickly and drew up short. Their silence became conscious
and septic. They appeared as though they had not expected her to stop
speaking, and were like people surprised naked, with no time to cover
themselves.
“I think he’s in great difficulties—money or something. But all I know
for certain is that he was _really_ in need of somebody⸺”
“But what makes you think, Bertha⸺” one of the girls said, hesitating.
“I let him in at Renée’s. He looked strange to me: didn’t you notice? I
noticed him first there.”
Anastasya Vasek was still with them. She had not joined in the talk
about Kreisler. She listened to it with attention, like a person newly
arrived in some community, participating for the first time at one of
their discussions on a local and stock subject. Kreisler would, from her
expression, have seemed to be some topic peculiar to this gathering of
people—they engaged in a characteristic occupation. Bertha she watched as
one would watch a very eloquent chief airing his views at a clan-meeting.
“I felt he was _really_ in need of some hand to help him. He seemed just
like a child. He was ill, too. He can’t have eaten anything for some
time. I am sure he hasn’t. He was walking slower and slower—that’s how
it was we were so far behind. It was my fault, too—what happened. At
least⸺”
The hungry touch was an invention of the moment. “You make him quite a
romantic character. I’m afraid he has been working on your feelings,
my dear girl. I didn’t see any signs of an empty stomach myself,” said
Fräulein van Bencke.
“He refreshed himself extensively at the dance, in any case. You can put
your mind at rest as to his present emptiness,” Renée Lipmann said.
Things languished. The Lipmann had taken her stand on boredom. She was
committed to the theory of the unworthiness of this discussion. The
others not feeling quite safe, Bertha’s speeches raised no more comment.
It was all as though she had been putting in her little bit of abuse of
the common enemy. Bertha might have interrupted with a “Yes. He outraged
me too!”—and this have been met with a dreary, acquiescing silence!
She was exculpating herself, then (heavily), at his expense. The air of
ungenerosity this had was displeasing to her.
The certain lowering of the vitality of the party when she came on the
scene with her story offended her. There should have been noise. It was
not quite the lifelessness of scepticism. But there was an uncomfortable
family likeness to the manner of people listening to discourses they do
not believe. She persevered. She met with the same objectionable flaccid
and indifferent opposition. Her intervention had killed the topic, and
they seemed waiting till she had ended her war-dance on its corpse.
The red-headed member of the party had met Tarr by chance. Hearing he had
not seen Bertha since the night of the ball, she had said with roguish
pleasantness: “He’d better look after her better; why hadn’t he come to
the ball?” Tarr did not understand.
“Bertha had had an adventure. All of them, for that matter, had had an
adventure, but especially Bertha. Oh, Bertha would tell him all about
it.” But, on Tarr insisting, Bertha’s story, in substance, had been told.
So with Bertha, the _fact_ was still there. Retrospectively, her friends
insisted upon passing by the two remarkably unanimous-looking forms on
the boulevard in stony silence. She shouted to them and kissed Kreisler
loudly. But they refused to take any notice. She sulked. They had been
guilty of catching her. She kept to herself day after day. She would make
a change in her life. She might go to Germany; she might go to another
_quartier_. To go on with her life just as though nothing had happened,
_that was out of the question_. Demonstration of some sort must follow,
and change compatible with grief.
Her burly little clock struck four. Hurrying on reform-clothes, she
went out to buy lunch. The dairy lay nearly next door to Lejeune’s
restaurant. Crossing the road towards it, she caught sight of Kreisler’s
steadily marching figure approaching. First she side-stepped and half
turned. But the shop would be reached before they met, so she went on,
merely quickening her pace. Her eye, covertly fixed on him, calculating
distances and speeds, saw him hesitate—evidently having just caught sight
of _her_—and then turn down a side street nearly beside the dairy she was
making for. Unwise pique beset her at this.