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Authors: Wyndham Lewis
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a friend been there he could have interceded for his ego. *
‘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 isolated and repudiated by the energies of which I am so proud. I am
ashamed
of the number of Germans I know, as you put it. In that rôle I have to cower and slink away even from an old fruit-tin * like you. It is idle to protect that section of my life, it’s no good sticking up for it, it’s not worth it. It is not even up to
your
standards. I have, therefore, to deliver it up to your eyes and the eyes of the likes of you, in the end—if you will deign to use them! I even have to beg you to use your eyes; to hold you by the sleeve and crave a glance for an object belonging to me!’
‘You’ve succeeded in making me sorry I ever mentioned your precious fiancée!’
‘In this compartment of my life
I have not a vestige of passion
. That is the root reason for its meanness and absurdity. The closest friend of my Dr. Jekyll would not recognize my Mr. Hyde, * and vice versa: the rudimentary self I am giving you a glimpse of is more starved and stupid than any other man’s: or to put it more pathetically, I am of that company who are reduced to looking to Socrates for a consoling lead.—But consider all the
collages
* marriages and affairs that you know, in which some frowsy or foolish or some doll-like or loglike bitch accompanies everywhere the form of an otherwise sensible man: a dumbfounding disgusting and septic ghost! Oh Sex! oh Montreal! * How foul and wrong this haunting of women is!—they are everywhere—confusing, blurring, libelling, with their half-baked gushing tawdry presences! It is like a slop and spawn of children and the bawling machinery of the inside of life, always and all over our palaces. The floodgates of their reservoirs of illusion, that is cheap and vast, burst, and sex hurtles in between friendships or stagnates complacently around a softened mind.—I might almost take somecredit to myself for at least having the grace to keep this bear-garden * in the background.’
Hobson had brightened up while this was proceeding. He now cried out:
‘You might almost. Why don’t you? I am astonished at what you tell me: but you appear to take your german foibles too much to heart.’
‘Just at present I am in the midst of a gala of the heart: you may have noticed. I’m an indifferent landlord, I haven’t the knack of handling the various personalities gathered beneath my roof. In the present instance I am really blessed: but you ought to see the sluts that get in sometimes! They all become steadily my fiancée too. Fiancée!—observe how we ape the forms of conventional life in our emancipated Bohemia: * it does not mean anything so one lets it stop. It’s 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 authentic “fiancées”: so it’s of no importance what we choose to call each other: one drifts along side by side with this live stock—friends, fiancées, “colleagues” and what not in our unreal gimcrack artist-society.’
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 to anyone? After all it is chiefly myself I am castigating. But you, as well, must be of the party! Yes: the right to
see
implies the right to be
seen
. As an off set for your prying scurvy way of poking your nose into my affairs you must offer your own guts, such as they are—!’
‘How have I pried into your affairs?’ Hobson asked with a circumspect surprise.
‘Anyone who
stands outside
, who hides himself in a deliquescent aloofness, is a
‘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 isolated and repudiated by the energies of which I am so proud. I am
ashamed
of the number of Germans I know, as you put it. In that rôle I have to cower and slink away even from an old fruit-tin * like you. It is idle to protect that section of my life, it’s no good sticking up for it, it’s not worth it. It is not even up to
your
standards. I have, therefore, to deliver it up to your eyes and the eyes of the likes of you, in the end—if you will deign to use them! I even have to beg you to use your eyes; to hold you by the sleeve and crave a glance for an object belonging to me!’
‘You’ve succeeded in making me sorry I ever mentioned your precious fiancée!’
‘In this compartment of my life
I have not a vestige of passion
. That is the root reason for its meanness and absurdity. The closest friend of my Dr. Jekyll would not recognize my Mr. Hyde, * and vice versa: the rudimentary self I am giving you a glimpse of is more starved and stupid than any other man’s: or to put it more pathetically, I am of that company who are reduced to looking to Socrates for a consoling lead.—But consider all the
collages
* marriages and affairs that you know, in which some frowsy or foolish or some doll-like or loglike bitch accompanies everywhere the form of an otherwise sensible man: a dumbfounding disgusting and septic ghost! Oh Sex! oh Montreal! * How foul and wrong this haunting of women is!—they are everywhere—confusing, blurring, libelling, with their half-baked gushing tawdry presences! It is like a slop and spawn of children and the bawling machinery of the inside of life, always and all over our palaces. The floodgates of their reservoirs of illusion, that is cheap and vast, burst, and sex hurtles in between friendships or stagnates complacently around a softened mind.—I might almost take somecredit to myself for at least having the grace to keep this bear-garden * in the background.’
Hobson had brightened up while this was proceeding. He now cried out:
‘You might almost. Why don’t you? I am astonished at what you tell me: but you appear to take your german foibles too much to heart.’
‘Just at present I am in the midst of a gala of the heart: you may have noticed. I’m an indifferent landlord, I haven’t the knack of handling the various personalities gathered beneath my roof. In the present instance I am really blessed: but you ought to see the sluts that get in sometimes! They all become steadily my fiancée too. Fiancée!—observe how we ape the forms of conventional life in our emancipated Bohemia: * it does not mean anything so one lets it stop. It’s 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 authentic “fiancées”: so it’s of no importance what we choose to call each other: one drifts along side by side with this live stock—friends, fiancées, “colleagues” and what not in our unreal gimcrack artist-society.’
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 to anyone? After all it is chiefly myself I am castigating. But you, as well, must be of the party! Yes: the right to
see
implies the right to be
seen
. As an off set for your prying scurvy way of poking your nose into my affairs you must offer your own guts, such as they are—!’
‘How have I pried into your affairs?’ Hobson asked with a circumspect surprise.
‘Anyone who
stands outside
, who hides himself in a deliquescent aloofness, is a
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