The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris. Goodbye to Berlin

CHRISTOPHER

ISHERWOOD

THE BERLIN STORIES

THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS GOODBYE TO BERLIN

WITH A PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR

A New Directions Paperbook

COPYRIGHT 1935 BY CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD. COPYRIGHT 1945, 1954 BY NEW DIRECTIONS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 55-2508. FIRST PUBLISHED AS NEW DIRECTIONS PAPER-BOOK 134 IN 1963. THE COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY DOLORES GUD7.JN. A SCENE FROM THE LIVING THEATRE’S 1960 PRODUCTION OF

bertolt brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities, appears by courtesy

OF THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. NEW DIRECTIONS BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED FOR JAMES LAUGHLIN BY NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING CORPORATION, 333 SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 10014.

SECOND PRINTING

ABOUT THIS BOOK

From 1929 to 1933,1 lived almost continuously in Berlin, with only occasional visits to other parts of Germany and to England. Already, during that time, I had made up my mind that I would one day write about the people I’d met and the experiences I was having. So I kept a detailed diary, which in due course provided raw material for all my Berlin stories.

My first idea, immediately after leaving Berlin in 1933, was to transform this material into one huge tightly constructed melodramatic novel, in the manner of Balzac. I wanted to call it The Lost. This title, or rather its German equivalent, Die Verlorenen, seemed to me wonderfully ominous. I stretched it to mean not only The Astray and Tne Doomed—referring tragically to the political events in Germany and our epoch —but also “The Lost” in quotation marks—referring satirically to those individuals whom respectable society shuns in horror: an Arthur Norris, a von Pregnitz, a Sally Bowles.

Maybe Balzac himself could have devised a plot-structure which would plausibly contain the mob of characters I wanted to introduce to my readers. The task was quite beyond my powers. What I actually produced was an absurd jumble of subplots and coincidences which defeated me whenever I tried to straighten it out on paper. Thank Goodness I never did write The Lost!

Just the same, all of these characters had grown together, like a nest of Siamese twins, in my head, and I could only separate them by the most delicate operations. There was a morning of acute nervous tension throughout which I paced up and down the roof of an hotel in the Canary Islands, shaping the plot of Mr. Norris and discarding everybody and

everything that didn’t belong in it. This was in May, 1934. A few days later, I set to work on the novel, sitting in the garden of a pension at Orotava on Tenerif e. The pension was run by a happy-go-lucky Englishman, who used to laugh at my industry and tell me I ought to go swimming, while I was still young. “After all, old boy, I mean to say, will it matter a hundred years from now if you wrote that yarn or not?” Relentlessly, at four o’clock every afternoon, he would start playing records at full blast through the loudspeaker on the patio, hoping to attract wandering tourists in for a drink. They seldom came, but the jazz tunes always put an end to my day’s work. On August 12,1 noted in my diary: “Finished Mr. Norris. The gramophone keeps repeating a statement about Life with which I do not agree.” I remember how I raced through that last chapter with one eye on my watch, determined to get finished before the racket started.

Mr. Norris was published in 1935. In England, the book bore its correct name: Mr. Norris Changes Trains; but the American publisher, William Morrow, found this obscure— so I changed it to The Last of Mr. Norris, a title which should be followed by a very faint question mark.

Next I wrote the story of Sally Bowles, and it appeared as a small separate volume in 1937. Three other pieces—The Nowaks, The Landauers and Berlin Diary: Autumn 1930— were published in issues of John Lehmann’s New Writing. Finally, the complete Goodbye to Berlin was published in 1939.

Goodbye indeed! During those years that followed, the Berlin I’d known seemed as dead as ancient Carthage. But 1945 came at last, and V-E Day. That summer, New Directions was getting ready to republish Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin in one volume, The Berlin Stones. While I was correcting the proofs, a letter, the first in seven years, reached me from Heinz, my closest “enemy” friend, telling how he had fought in Russia and later been taken prisoner by the Americans. After the fighting was over, the authorities at his POW camp had more or less allowed him, and a number of others,

to run away, and had later forwarded his mail to his home address, marked “Escaped”! As I read and reread this letter, the feeling began to work through me painfully and joyfully, like blood through a numbed leg, that Berlin—or, at any rate, the Berliners—still existed, after all.

Then, in the summer of 1951, John van Druten decided that he could make a play out of Sally Bowles. His adaptation, I Am a Camera, was written with his usual skilled speed, and was ready for production that fall. When I arrived in New York to sit in on rehearsals, I had first to go to a studio and be photographed, for publicity, with our leading lady, Julie Harris. 1 had never met Miss Harris before. I hadn’t even seen her famous performance in The Member of the Wedding.

Now, out of the dressing-room, came a slim sparkling-eyed girl in an absurdly tart-like black satin dress, with a little cap stuck jauntily on her pale flame-colored hair, and a silly naughty giggle. This was Sally Bowles in person. Miss Harris was more essentially Sally Bowles than the Sally of my book, and much more like Sally than the real girl who long ago gave me the idea for my character.

I felt half hypnotized by the strangeness of the situation. “This is terribly sad,” I said to her. “You’ve stayed the same age while I’ve gotten twenty years older.” We exchanged scraps of dialogue from the play, ad-libbed new lines, laughed wildly, hammed and hugged each other, while the photographer’s camera clicked. I couldn’t take my eyes off ner. I was dumbfounded, infatuated. Who was she? What was she? How much was there in her of Miss Harris, how much of van Druten, how much of the girl I used to know in Berlin, how much of myself? It was no longer possible to say. I only knew that she was lovable in a way that no human could ever quite be, since, being a creature of art, she had been created out of pure love.

As I watched those rehearsals, I used to think a good deal —sometimes comically, sometimes sentimentally—about the relation of art to life. In writing Goodbye to Berlin, I de—

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stroyed a certain portion of my real past. I did this deliberately, because I preferred the simplified, more creditable, more exciting fictitious past which I’d created to take its place. Indeed, it had now become hard for me to remember just how things really had happened. I only knew how I would like them to have happened—that is to say, how I had made them happen in my stories. And so, gradually, the real past had disappeared, along with the real Christopher Isherwood of twenty years ago. Only the Christopher Isherwood of the stories remained.

I’d never thought about this situation before, because it had never seemed to have any particular significance. If my past was artificial, at least it had been entirely my own— until now. Now John, Julie and the rest of them had suddenly swooped down on it, and carried bits of it away with them for their artistic use. Watching my past being thus reinterpreted, revised and transformed by all these talented people upon the stage, I said to myself: “I am no longer an individual. I am a collaboration. I am in the public domain.”

After the play had opened successfully on Broadway, I went to England. This was my third visit since the end of the war; and this time, I knew, I must go over to Germany as well. It was a definite obligation—but how I dreaded it! I dreaded meeting the people I’d known and facing the fact that there was practically nothing I could do to help them. I dreaded seeing familiar places in ruins. Though my mind was made up, my unconscious still protested: I developed symptoms of duodenal ulcer, and nearly broke my leg on a staircase. Throughout the flight from London, I expected a crash, and was almost disappointed when we landed safe at Tempelhofer Feld in a mild snowstorm—“a psychosomatic snowstorm, obviously,” one of my friends commented, later.

I had arrived prepared—overprepared—for a shock; and the drive through the streets wasn’t as depressing as I’d anticipated. As it was night, you couldn’t see much, anyhow, and it so happened that the houses along our route were less badly damaged than elsewhere. Indeed, the end of the drive

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brought a shock of a different kind; for I found myself among the new neon-lighted shops and bars of the Kurfuerstendamm, and entered a modernistic hotel where I was surrounded by thick-necked cigar-smoking businessmen who might have stepped right out of the cartoons of Georg Grosz. It was I, not these people, who had changed; for now I could afford to live with them. During my former Berlin existence as a down-at-heel English teacher, I used to know such places only from the outside, peering into them as I passed along the sidewalk with disapproval, moral superiority and envy.

But in those days ( February, 1952 ) the Kurfuerstendamm was one of the still few areas of relatively intact prosperity. At the end of it, the nineteenth-century-Gothic Memorial Church looked more Gothic than ever in its jaggedly pinnacled ruins. The Tauentzienstrasse beyond was like an avenue of shattered monuments. Through wide gaps between formless mounds of rubble, you got views over the great central desert of destruction, and saw the Sieges Saeule rising forlornly from the treeless, snow-covered plain of the Tiergarten, which was dotted with bizarre remnants of statuary: a uniformed general, a naked nymph on a horse. In the background, the skeleton of a railroad station showed up starkly; and against the blue winter sky, a red flag fluttered from the Brandenburger Tor, entrance to the Soviet sector. There was something doubly strange about this landscape. It is strange enough to see a vast city shattered and dead. It is far stranger to see one that is briskly and teemingly inhabited, amidst its ruins. Berlin seemed convinced that it was alive; and, after a few hours there, you began to agree that it certainly was.

The street where I used to live is behind the Nollendorfplatz, about ten minutes’ walk from the hotel where I was staying. I knew that my old landlady, “Frl. Schroeder,” was still there; we had been corresponding, but I hadn’t told her that I was coming to Berlin for fear of a last-minute disappointment. Even before the war, this was a decayed and for-IX

bidding district; but when I saw it again I was really awestruck. The fronts of the buildings were pitted with shrapnel and eaten by rot and weather, so that they had that curiously blurred, sightless look you see on the face of the Sphinx.

Only a very young and frivolous foreigner, I thought, could have lived in such a place and found it amusing. Hadn’t there been something youthfully heartless in my enjoyment of the spectacle of Berlin in the early thirties, with its poverty, its political hatred and its despair? I felt extremely middle-aged, that morning. The house next to ours had been hit: on the third floor, a handsome tiled stove still stood in the corner of a half-room which jutted out over the abyss. With reverent feet, I entered the deep dank courtyard, whose floor the sun never strikes, and climbed the musty stairs, dark even in the daytime, to Frl. Schroeder’s door. The scream she uttered on recognizing me must have been heard all over the building.

She looked wonderful; better, now, in her seventies than in her fifties, and considerably slimmer. (Her only objection to my description of her in my stories was that I’d said she “waddled.” ) Yet she had been through as bad a time as any average Berliner: serious illness, poverty—forcing her to move to this much smaller flat, where she nevertheless had to have one lodger in the only spare bedroom and another sleeping in the kitchen—then the war, and the last awful year of bombing, when she and the other tenants lived almost continuously in the cellar. “There were forty or fifty of us down there. We used to hold each other in our arms and say at least we’d all die together. I can tell you, Herr Issyvoo, we prayed so much we got quite religious.”

And then, with the fall of Berlin, came the Russian soldiers, searching the houses for arms. Frl. Schroeder thought she had nothing to fear until, at the last moment, she discovered to her horror that an Italian lodger, who had run away, had left a sporting rifle in his room. Caught with it, she would certainly have been shot; probably the whole building would have been burned down. So she and a woman friend took the

I

rifle apart, hid the pieces under their clothes and set out for the canal, into which they planned to drop them. This they finally succeeded in doing, but only after a hair-raising encounter with some more Russians, who chased them with erotic intentions.

“Every time I went out on the street, they’d be after me,” said Frl. Schroeder, not without a certain complacency. “So I used to screw up my eyes—like this—and make a hump in my back, and limp. You ought to have seen me, Herr Issyvoo! Even those Russians didn’t want me any more. I looked like a regular old hag!”

By the time she had finished her stories, we were both quite exhausted with laughing and crying, and had drunk a whole bottle of Liebfraumilch.

Frl. Schroeder could only give me news of two of my old friends. Bobby the bartender had come through the war without a scratch, and had gotten married. Otto Nowak, now a black-market operator, had shown up recently at the flat, wanting to buy some carpets.

“He hadn’t changed one bit. He was very well dressed— quite the fine gentleman. There’s a rich woman somewhere in the background, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh, you can rely on him to look after himself! And he’s as fresh as ever. I soon sent him about his business.”

As I listened to all this, I marveled, as one always does, at the individual’s ability to be himself and survive, amidst a huge undifferentiated military mess. This was Frl. Schroeder’s History of World War II—and its only moral was : “Somehow or other, life goes on in spite of everything.”

When we said Goodbye, she gave me the brass dolphin-clock which is referred to on the second page of Goodbye to Berlin, where I ask, prophetically, how it could ever be destroyed. It couldn’t, apparently—for a bomb-blast had hurled it across the room and only slightly scratched its green marble base. It stands now on my writing table in a Californian garden—and I like to think that it will survive me, and anything that may be dropped on this neighborhood, in the near

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or distant future. Meanwhile, I treasure it, as a souvenir of my dear friend and as a symbol of that indestructible something in a place and an environment that resists all outward change.

The indestructible something—that, I soon realized, was what I had had to come back to Berlin to look for. And I seemed to sense it almost at once, in the very air of the city and in the sound of its inhabitants’ voices. Berlin in winter, like New York, has an atmosphere that is immensely exhilarating. Evening after evening, I left the hotel and wandered from bar to bar, overstimulated and sleepless. And all I wanted was to speak and hear German. I felt I could never tire of the rich, confident, well-remembered tones of the Berliner accent; and I was surprised and pleased to discover how little the idiom and the slang had altered. Berliners love to talk—with a blunt directness which is both rude and friendly —and even in their grumbling there is a note of pleasure.

Comparing the two cities—the Berlin I knew in the early thirties and the Berlin I revisited in the early fifties—I have to admit that the latter is, in many respects, a far more exciting setting for a novel or a sequence of stories. Life in the Berlin of 1952 had an intensely dramatic doubleness. Here was a shadow-line cutting a city in half—a frontier between two worlds at war—across which people were actually being kidnapped, to disappear into prisons or graves. And yet this shadow-frontier was being freely crossed in the most humdrum manner every day, on foot, in buses, or in electric trains, by thousands of Berliners commuting back and forth between their work and their homes. Many men and women who lived in West Berlin were on the black list of the East German police; and, if the Russians had suddenly marched in, they couldn’t have hoped to escape. Yet, in this no man’s land between the worlds, you heard the usual talk about business and sport, the new car, the new apartment, the new lover. “My God,” I exclaimed to one of my acquaintances, after he had been holding forth on such topics for an hour or more, “one would think you lived in Minneapolis!” This was

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said, and taken, as a compliment. Berliners, in those days, were justifiably a little proud of their sang-froid. They still have reason to be.

How would Mr. Norris have thrived in these troubled waters? Would he, perhaps, have found the fish rather too large and the current too strong for him? Would Sally Bowles have set her cap at the New Rich of the reconstruction period, or preferred the American, British and French officers? Would Otto Nowak have stuck to the black market, or entered the circles of the neo-Nazis? Could Bernhard Landauer have rebuilt his firm amidst the wreckage—and would he have cared to? All that is not for me to say. The ways of my own life have led me elsewhere. But I hope that some young foreigner has fallen in love with this later city, and is writing what happened or might have happened to him there.

Christopher Isherwood Santa Monica California July, 1954

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THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS

for

W. H. Auden

CHAPTER ONE

My first impression was that the stranger’s eyes were of an unusually light blue. They met mine for several blank seconds, vacant, unmistakably scared. Startled and innocently naughty, they half reminded me of an incident I couldn’t quite place; something which had happened a long time ago, to do with the upper fourth form classroom. They were the eyes of a schoolboy surprised in the act of breaking one of the rules. Not that I had caught him, apparently, at anything except his own thoughts: perhaps he imagined I could read them. At any rate, he seemed not to have heard or seen me cross the compartment from my corner to his own, for he started violently at the sound of my voice; so violently, indeed, that his nervous recoil hit me like a repercussion. Instinctively I took a pace backwards.

It was exactly as though we had collided with each other bodily in the street. We were both confused, both ready to be apologetic. Smiling, anxious to reassure him, I repeated my question:

“I wonder, sir, if you could let me have a match?”

Even now, he didn’t answer at once. He appeared to be engaged in some sort of rapid mental calculation, while his fingers, nervously active, sketched a number of flurried gestures round his waistcoat. For all they conveyed, he might equally have been going to undress, to draw a revolver, or merely to make sure that I hadn’t stolen his money. Then the moment of agitation passed from his gaze like a little cloud, leaving a clear blue sky. At last he had understood what it was that I wanted:

“Yes, yes. Er—certainly. Of course.”

1

As he spoke he touched his left temple delicately with his finger-tips, coughed and suddenly smiled. His smile had great charm.

“Certainly,” he repeated. “With pleasure.”

Delicately, with finger and thumb, he fished in the waistcoat-pocket of his expensive-looking soft grey suit, extracted a gold spirit-lighter. His hands were white, small and beautifully manicured.

I offered him my cigarettes.

“Er—thank you. Thank you.”

“After you, sir.”

“No, no. Please.”

The tiny flame of the lighter flickered between us, as perishable as the atmosphere which our exaggerated politeness had created. The merest breath would have extinguished the one, the least incautious gesture or word would have destroyed the other. The cigarettes were both lighted now. We sat back in our respective places. The stranger was still doubtful of me. He was wondering whether he hadn’t gone too far, delivered himself to a bore or a crook. His timid soul was eager to retire. I, on my side, had nothing to read. I foresaw a journey of utter silence, lasting seven or eight hours. I was determined to talk.

“Do you know what time we arrive at the frontier?”

Looking back on the conversation, this question does not seem to me to have been particularly unusual. It is true that I had no interest in the answer; I wanted merely to ask something which might start us chatting, and which wasn’t, at the same time, either inquisitive or impertinent. Its effect on the stranger was remarkable. I had certainly succeeded in arousing his interest. He gave me a long, odd glance, and his features seemed to stiffen a little. It was the glance of a poker-player who guesses suddenly that his opponent holds a straight flush and that he had better be careful. At length he answered, speaking slowly and with caution:

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you exactly. In about an hour’s time, I believe.”

His glance, now vacant for a moment, was clouded again. An unpleasant thought seemed to tease him like a wasp; he moved his head slightly to avoid it. Then he added, with surprising petulance:

“All these frontiers … such a horrible nuisance.” I wasn’t quite sure how to take this. The thought crossed my mind that he was perhaps some kind of mild internationalist; a member of the League of Nations Union. I ventured encouragingly:

“They ought to be done away with.” “I quite agree with you. They ought, indeed.” There was no mistaking his warmth. He had a large blunt fleshy nose and a chin which seemed to have slipped sideways. It was like a broken concertina. When he spoke, it jerked crooked in the most curious fashion and a deep cleft dimple like a wound surprisingly appeared in the side of it. Above his ripe red cheeks, his forehead was sculpturally white, like marble. A queerly cut fringe of dark grey “hair lay across it, compact, thick and heavy. After a moment’s examination, I realized, with extreme interest, that he was wearing a wig.

“Particularly,” I followed up my success, “all these red-tape formalities; the passport examination, and so forth.”

But no. This wasn’t right. I saw at once from his expression that I’d somehow managed to strike a new, disturbing note. We were speaking similar but distinct languages. This time, however, the stranger’s reaction was not mistrust. He asked, with a puzzling air of frankness and unconcealed curiosity: “Have you ever had trouble here yourself?” It wasn’t so much the question which I found odd, as the tone in which he asked it. I smiled to hide my mystification. “Oh no. Quite the reverse. Often they don’t bother to open anything; and as for your passport, they hardly look at it.” I’m so glad to hear you say that.”

He must have seen from my face what I was thinking, for he added hastily: “It may seem absurd of me, but I do so hate being fussed and bothered.”

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“Of course. I quite understand.”

I grinned, for I had just arrived at a satisfactory explanation of his behaviour. The old boy was engaged in a little innocent private smuggling. Probably a piece of silk for his wife or a box of cigars for a friend. And now, of course, he was beginning to feel scared. Certainly he looked prosperous enough to pay any amount of duty. The rich have strange pleasures.

“You haven’t crossed this frontier before, then?” I felt kindly and protective and superior. I would cheer him up, and, if things came to the worst, prompt him with some plausible lie to soften the heart of the customs officer.

“Of recent years, no. I usually travel by Belgium. For a variety of reasons. Yes.” Again he looked vague, paused and solemnly scratched his chin. All at once, something seemed to rouse him to awareness of my presence: “Perhaps, at this stage in the proceedings, I ought to introduce myself. Arthur Norris, Gent. Or shall we say. Of independent means?” He tittered nervously, exclaimed in alarm: “Don’t get up, I beg.”

It was too far to shake hands without moving. We compromised by a polite seated bow from the waist.

“My name’s William Bradshaw,” I said.

“Dear me, you’re not by any chance one of the Suffolk Bradshaws?”

“I suppose I am. Before the War, we used to live near Ipswich.”

“Did you really, now? Did you indeed? I used at one time to go and stay with a Mrs. Hope-Lucas. She had a lovely place near Matlock. She was a Miss Bradshaw before her marriage.”

“Yes, that’s right. She was my great-aunt Agnes. She died about seven years ago.”

“Did she? Dear, dear. I’m very sorry to hear that. … Of course, I knew her when I was quite a young man; and she was a middle-aged lady then. I’m speaking now, mind you, of ‘ninety-eight.”

All this time I was covertly studying his wig. I had never

seen one so cleverly made before. At the back of the skull, where it was brushed in with his own hair, it was wonderfully matched. Only the parting betrayed it at once, and even this would have passed muster at the distance of three or four yards.

“Well, well,” observed Mr. Norris. “Dear me, what a very small place the world is.”

“You never met my mother, I suppose? Or my uncle, the admiral?”

I was quite resigned, now, to playing the relationships game. It was boring but unexacting, and could be continued for hours. Already I saw a whole chain of easy moves ahead of me—uncles, aunts, cousins, their marriages and their properties, death duties, mortgages, sales. Then on to public school and university, comparing notes on food, exchanging anecdotes about masters, famous matches and celebrated rows. I knew the exact tone to adopt.

But, to my surprise, Mr. Norris didn’t seem to want to play this game, after all. He answered hurriedly:

“I’m afraid not. No. Since the War, I’ve rather lost touch with my English friends. My affairs have taken me abroad a good deal.”

The word “abroad” caused both of us naturally to look out of the window. Holland was slipping past our viewpoint with the smoothness of an after-dinner dream: a placid swampy landscape bounded by an electric tram travelling along the wall of a dike.

“Do you know this country well?” I asked. Since I had noticed the wig, I found myself somehow unable to go on calling him sir. And anyhow, if he wore it to make himself look younger, it was both tactless and unkind to insist thus upon the difference between our ages.

“I know Amsterdam pretty well.” Mr. Norris rubbed his chin with a nervous, furtive movement. He had a trick of doing this and of opening his mouth in a kind of snarling grimace, quite without ferocity, like an old lion in a cage. “Pretty well, yes.”

“I should like to go there very much. It must be so quiet and peaceful.”

“On the contrary, I can assure you that it’s one of the most dangerous cities in Europe.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Deeply attached as I am to Amsterdam, I shall always maintain that it has three fatal drawbacks. In the first place, the stairs are so steep in many of the houses that it requires a professional mountaineer to ascend them without risking heart failure or a broken neck. Secondly, there are the cyclists. They positively overrun the town, and appear to make it a point of honour to ride without the faintest consideration for human life. I had an exceedingly narrow escape only this morning. And, thirdly, there are the canals. In summer, you know … most insanitary. Oh, most insanitary. I can’t tell you what I’ve suffered. For weeks on end I was never without a sore throat.”

By the time we had reached Bentheim, Mr. Norris had delivered a lecture on the disadvantages of most of the chief European cities. I was astonished to find how much he had travelled. He had suffered from rheumatics in Stockholm and draughts in Kaunas; in Riga he had been bored, in Warsaw treated with extreme discourtesy, in Belgrade he had been unable to obtain his favourite brand of tooth-paste. In Rome he had been annoyed by insects, in Madrid by beggars, in Marseilles by taxi-horns. In Bucharest he had had an exceedingly unpleasant experience with a water-closet. Constantinople he had found expensive and lacking in taste. The only two cities of which he greatly approved were Paris and Athens. Athens particularly. Athens was his spiritual home.

By now, the train had stopped. Pale stout men in blue uniforms strolled up and down the platform with that faintly sinister air of leisure which invests the movements of officials at frontier stations. They were not unlike prison warders. It was as if we might none of us be allowed to travel any farther.

Far down the corridor of the coach a voice echoed: “Deutsche Pass-Kontrolle.”

“I think,” said Mr. Norris, smiling urbanely at me, “that one of my pleasantest memories is of the mornings I used to spend pottering about those quaint old streets behind the Temple of Theseus.”

He was extremely nervous. His delicate white hand fiddled incessantly with the signet ring on his little finger; his uneasy blue eyes kept squinting rapid glances into the corridor. His voice rang false; high-pitched in archly forced gaiety, it resembled the voice of a character in a pre-war drawing-room comedy. He spoke so loudly that the people in the next compartment must certainly be able to hear him.

“One comes, quite unexpectedly, upon the most fascinating little corners. A single column standing in the middle of a rubbish-heap …”

“Deutsche Pass-Kontrolle. All passports, please.”

An official had appeared in the doorway of our compartment. His voice made Mr. Norris give a slight but visible jump. Anxious to allow him time to pull himself together, I hastily offered my own passport. As I had expected, it was barely glanced at.

“I am travelling to Berlin,” said Mr. Norris, handing over his passport with a charming smile; so charming, indeed, that it seemed a little overdone. The official did not react. He merely grunted, turned over the pages with considerable interest, and then, taking the passport out into the corridor, held it up to the light of the window.

“It’s a remarkable fact,” said Mr. Norris, conversationally, to me, “that nowhere in classical literature will you find any reference to the Lycabettos Hill.”

I was amazed to see what a state he was in; his fingers twitched and his voice was scarcely under control. There were actually beads of sweat on his alabaster forehead. If this was what he called “being fussed,” if these were the agonies he suffered whenever he broke a by-law, it was no wonder that his nerves had turned him prematurely bald. He shot an

instant’s glance of acute misery into the corridor. Another official had arrived. They were examining the passport together, with their backs turned towards us. By what was obviously an heroic effort Mr. Norris managed to maintain his chattily informative tone.

“So far as we know, it appears to have been overrun with wolves.”

The other official had got the passport now. He looked as though he were going to take it away with him. His colleague was referring to a small black shiny notebook. Raising his head he asked abruptly:

“You are at present residing at Courbierestrasse 168?”

For a moment I thought Mr. Norris was going to faint.

“Er—yes … I am… .”

Like a bird with a cobra, his eyes were fastened upon his interrogator in helpless fascination. One might have supposed that he expected to be arrested on the spot. Actually, all that happened was that the official made a note in his book, grunted again, and turning on his heel went on to the next compartment. His colleague handed the passport back to Mr. Norris and said: “Thank you, sir,” saluted politely and followed him.

Mr. Norris sank back against the hard wooden seat with a deep sigh. For a moment he seemed incapable of speech. Taking out a big white silk handkerchief, he began to dab at his forehead, being careful not to disarrange his wig.

“I wonder if you’d be so very kind as to open the window,” he said at length, in a faint voice. “It seems to have got dreadfully stuffy in here all of a sudden.”

I hastened to do so.

“Is there anything I can fetch you?” I asked. “A glass of water?”

He feebly waved the offer aside. “Most good of you … No. I shall be all right in a moment. My heart isn’t quite what it was.” He sighed: “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. All this travelling … very bad for me.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t upset yourself so.” I felt

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more than ever protective towards him at that moment. This affectionate protectiveness, which he so easily and dangerously inspired in me, was to colour all our future dealings. “You let yourself be annoyed by trifles.”

“You call that a trifle!” he exclaimed, in rather pathetic protest.

“Of course. It was bound to have been put right in a few minutes, anyhow. The man simply mistook you for somebody else of the same name.”

“You really think so?” He was childishly eager to be reassured.

“What other possible explanation is there?”

Mr. Norris didn’t seem so certain of this. He said dubiously: “Well—er—none, I suppose.”

“Besides, it often happens, you know. The most innocent people get mistaken for famous jewel thieves. They undress them and search them all over. Fancy if they’d done that to you!”

“Really!” Mr. Norris giggled. “The mere thought brings a blush to my modest cheek.”

We both laughed. I was glad that I had managed to cheer him up so successfully. But what on earth, I wondered, would happen when the customs examiner arrived? For this, if I was right about the smuggled presents, was the real cause of all his nervousness. If the little misunderstanding about the passport had upset him so much, the customs officer would most certainly give him a heart attack. I wondered if I hadn’t better mention this straight out and offer to hide the things in my own suitcase; but he seemed so blissfully unconscious of any approaching trouble that I hadn’t the heart to disturb him.

I was quite wrong. The customs examination, when it came, seemed positively to give Norris pleasure. He showed not the slightest signs of uneasiness; nor was anything dutiable discovered in his luggage. In fluent German he laughed and joked with the official over a large bottle of Coty perfume: “Oh, yes, it’s for my personal use, I can assure you. I wouldn’t

part with it for the world. Do let me give you a drop on your handkerchief. It’s so deliciously refreshing.”

At length it was all over. The train clanked slowly forward into Germany. The dining-car attendant came down the corridor, sounding his little gong.

“And now, my dear boy,” said Mr. Norris, “after these alarms and excursions and your most valuable moral support, for which I’m more grateful than I can tell you, I hope you’ll do me the honour of being my guest at lunch.”

I thanked him and said that I should be delighted.

When we were seated comfortably in the restaurant-car, Mr. Norris ordered a small cognac:

“I have made it a general rule never to drink before meals, but there are times when the occasion seems to demand it.”

The soup was served. He took one spoonful, then called the attendant and addressed him in a tone of mild reproach.

“Surely you’ll agree that there’s too much onion?” he asked anxiously. “Will you do me a personal favour? I should like you to taste it for yourself.”

“Yes, sir,” said the attendant, who was extremely busy, and whisked away the plate with faintly insolent deference. Mr. Norris was pained.

“Did you see that? He wouldn’t taste it. He wouldn’t admit there was anything wrong. Dear me, how very obstinate some people are!”

He forgot this little disappointment in human nature within a few moments, however. He had begun to study the wine list with great care.

“Let me see … Let me see … Would you be prepared to contemplate a hock? You would? It’s a lottery, mind you. On a train one must always be prepared for the worst. I think we’ll risk it, shall we?”

The hock arrived and was a success. Mr. Norris had not tasted such good hock, he told me, since his lunch with the Swedish Ambassador in Vienna last year. And there were kidneys, his favourite dish. “Dear me,” he remarked with pleasure, “I find I’ve got quite an appetite. … If you want

10

to get kidneys perfectly cooked you should go to Budapest. It was a revelation to me. … I must say these are really delicious, don’t you agree? Really quite delicious. At first I thought I tasted that odious red pepper, but it was merely my overwrought imagination.” He called the attendant: “Will you please give the chef my compliments and say that I should like to congratulate him on a most excellent lunch? Thank you. And now bring me a cigar.” Cigars were brought, sniffed at, weighed between the finger and thumb. Mr. Nor-ris finally selected the largest on the tray: “What, my dear boy, you don’t smoke them? Oh, but you should. Well, well, perhaps you have other vices?”

By this time he was in the best of spirits.

“I must say the older I get the more I come to value the little comforts of this life. As a general rule, I make a point of travelling first class. It always pays. One gets treated with so much more consideration. Take to-day, for instance. If I hadn’t been in a third-class compartment, they’d never have dreamed of bothering me. There you have the German official all over. ‘A race of non-commissioned officers,’ didn’t somebody call them? How very good that is! How true… .”

Mr. Norris picked his teeth for a few moments in thoughtful silence.

“My generation was brought up to regard luxury from an œsthetic standpoint. Since the War, people don’t seem to feel that any more. Too often they are merely gross. They take their pleasures coarsely, don’t you find? At times, one feels guilty, oneself, with so much unemployment and distress everywhere. The conditions in Berlin are very bad. Oh, very bad … as no doubt you yourself know. In my small way, I do what I can to help, but it’s such a drop in the ocean.” Mr. Norris sighed and touched his napkin with his lips.

“And here we are, riding in the lap of luxury. The social reformers would condemn us, no doubt. All the same, I suppose if somebody didn’t use this dining-car, we should have all these employees on the dole as well… . Dear me, dear me. Things are so very complex, nowadays.”

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We parted at the Zoo Station. Mr. Norris held my hand for a long time amidst the jostle of arriving passengers.

“Auf Wiedersehen, my dear boy. Auf Wiedersehen. I won’t say goodbye because I hope that we shall be seeing each other in the very near future. Any little discomforts I may have suffered on that odious journey have been amply repaid by the great pleasure of making your acquaintance. And now I wonder if you’d care to have tea with me at my flat one day this week? Shall we make it Saturday? Here’s my card. Do please say you’ll come.”

I promised that I would.

CHAPTER TWO

Mr. Norris had two front doors to his flat. They stood side by side. Both had little round peep-holes in the centre panel and brightly polished knobs and brass nameplates. On the left-hand plate was engraved: Arthur Norris. Private. And on the right-hand : Arthur Norris. Export and Import.

After a moment’s hesitation, I pressed the button of the left-hand bell. The bell was startlingly loud; it must have been clearly audible all over the flat. Nevertheless, nothing happened. No sound came from within. I was just about to ring again when I became aware that an eye was regarding me through the peep-hole in the door. How long it had been there, I didn’t know. I felt embarrassed and uncertain whether to stare the eye out of its hole or merely pretend that I hadn’t seen it. Ostentatiously, I examined the ceiling, the floor, the walls; then ventured a furtive glance to make sure that it had gone. It hadn’t. Vexed, I turned my back on the door altogether. Nearly a minute passed.

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When, finally, I did turn round it was because the other door, the Export and Import door, had opened. A young man stood on the threshold.

“Is Mr. Norris in?” I asked.

The young man eyed me suspiciously. He had watery light yellow eyes and a blotched complexion the colour of porridge. His head was huge and round, set awkwardly on a short plump body. He wore a smart lounge suit and patent-leather shoes. I didn’t like the look of him at all.

“Have you an appointment?”

“Yes.” My tone was extremely curt.

At once, the young man’s face curved into oily smiles. “Oh, it’s Mr. Bradshaw? One moment, if you please.”

And, to my astonishment, he closed the door in my face, only to reappear an instant later at the left-hand door, standing aside for me to enter the flat. This behaviour seemed all the more extraordinary because, as I noticed immediately I was inside, the Private side of the entrance hall was divided from the Export side only by a thick hanging curtain.

“Mr. Norris wishes me to say that he will be with you in one moment,” said the big-headed young man, treading delicately across the thick carpet on the toes of his patent-leather shoes. He spoke very softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. Opening the door of a large sitting-room, he silently motioned me to take a chair, and withdrew.

Left alone, I looked round me, slightly mystified. Everything was in good taste, the furniture, the carpet, the colour scheme. But the room was curiously without character. It was like a room on the stage or in the window of a high-class furnishing store; elegant, expensive, discreet. I had expected Mr. Norris’ background to be altogether more exotic; something Chinese would have suited him, with golden and scarlet dragons.

The young man had left the door ajar. From somewhere just outside I heard him say, presumably into a telephone: “The gentleman is here, sir.” And now, with even greater distinctness, Mr. Norris’ voice was audible as he replied, from

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behind a door in the opposite wall of the sitting-room: “Oh, is he? Thank you.”

I wanted to laugh. This little comedy was so unnecessary as to seem slightly sinister. A moment later Mr. Norris himself came into the room, nervously rubbing his manicured hands together.

“My dear boy, this is indeed an honour! Delighted to welcome you under the shadow of my humble roof-tree.”

He didn’t look well, I thought. His face wasn’t so rosy today, and there were rings under his eyes. He sat down for a moment in an armchair, but rose again immediately, as if he were not in the mood for sitting still. He must have been wearing a different wig, for the joins in this one showed as plain as murder.

“You’d like to see over the flat, I expect?” he asked, nervously touching his temples with the tips of his fingers.

“I should, very much.” I smiled, puzzled because Mr. Norris was obviously in a great hurry about something. With fussy haste, he took me by the elbow, steering me towards the door in the opposite wall, from which he himself had just emerged.

“We’ll go this way first, yes.”

But hardly had we taken a couple of steps when there was a sudden outburst of voices from the entrance hall.

“You can’t. It’s impossible,” came the voice of the young man who had ushered me into the flat. And a strange, loud, angry voice answered: “That’s a dirty lie! I tell you he’s here!”

Mr. Norris stopped as suddenly as if he’d been shot. “Oh dear!” he whispered, hardly audible. “Oh dear!” Stricken with indecision and alarm, he stood still in the middle of the room, as though desperately considering which way to turn. His grip on my arm tightened, either for support or merely to implore me to keep quiet.

“Mr. Norris will not be back until late this evening.” The young man’s voice was no longer apologetic, but firm. “It’s no good your waiting.”

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He seemed to have shifted his position and to be just outside, perhaps barring the way into the sitting-room. And, the next moment, the sitting-room door was quietly shut, with a click of a key being turned. We were locked in.

“He’s in there!” shouted the strange voice, loud and mena’c-ing. There was a scuffling, followed by a heavy thud, as if the young man had been flung violently against the door. The thud roused Mr. Norris to action. With a single, surprisingly agile movement, he dragged me after him into the adjoining room. We stood there together in the doorway, ready, at any moment, for a further retreat. I could hear him panting heavily at my side.

Meanwhile, the stranger was rattling the sitting-room door as if he meant to burst it open: “You damned swindler!” he shouted, in a terrible voice. “You wait till I get my hands on you!”

It was all so very extraordinary that I quite forgot to feel frightened, although it might well be supposed that the person on the other side of the door was either raving drunk or insane. I cast a questioning glance at Mr. Norris, who whispered reassuringly: “He’ll go away in a minute, I think.” The curious thing was that, although scared, he didn’t seem at all surprised by what was taking place. It might have been imagined, from his tone, that he was referring to an unpleasant but frequently recurring natural phenomenon; a violent thunder-storm, for instance. His blue eyes were warily, uneasily alert. His hand rested on the door handle, prepared to slam it shut at an instant’s notice.

But Mr. Norris had been right. The stranger soon got tired of rattling the sitting-room door. With an explosion of Berlin curses, his voice retreated. A moment later, we heard the outside door of the flat close with a tremendous bang.

Mr. Norris drew a long breath of relief. “I knew it couldn’t last long,” he remarked with satisfaction. Abstractedly pulling an envelope out of his pocket, he began fanning himself with it. “So upsetting,” he murmured. “Some people seem to be utterly lacking in consideration … My dear boy, I really

15

must apologize for this disturbance. Quite unforeseen, I assure you.”

I laughed. “That’s all right. It was rather exciting.”

Mr. Norris seemed pleased. “I’m very glad you take it so lightly. It’s so rare to find anyone of your age who’s free from these ridiculous bourgeois prejudices. I feel that we have a great deal in common.”

“Yes, I think we have,” I said, without, however, being quite clear as to which particular prejudices he found ridiculous or how they applied to the angry visitor.

“In the course of my long and not uneventful life, I can truthfully say that for sheer stupidity and obstructiveness, I have never met anyone to equal the small Berlin tradesman. I’m not speaking, now, mind you, of the larger firms. They’re always reasonable: more or less …”

He was evidently in a confidential mood and might have imparted a good deal of interesting information, had not the sitting-room door now been unlocked and the young man with the large head reappeared on the threshold. The sight of him seemed to disconnect instantly the thread of Mr. Norris’ ideas. His manner became at once apologetic, apprehensive and vague, as though he and I had been caught doing something socially ridiculous which could only be passed off by an elaborate display of etiquette.

“Allow me to introduce: Herr Schmidt—Mr. Bradshaw. Herr Schmidt is my secretary and my right hand. Only, in this case,” Mr. Norris tittered nervously, “I can assure you that the right hand knows perfectly well what the left hand doeth.”

With several small nervous coughs he attempted to translate this joke into German. Herr Schmidt, who clearly didn’t understand it, did not even bother to pretend to be amused. He gave me a private smile, however, which invited me to join him in tolerant contemptuous patronage of his employer’s attempts at humour. I didn’t respond. I had taken a dislike to Schmidt already. He saw this, and, at the moment, I was pleased that he saw it.

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“Can I speak to you alone a moment?” he said to Mr. Norris, in a tone which was obviously intended to insult me. His tie, collar and lounge suit were as neat as ever. I could see no sign whatever of the violent handling he had apparently just received.

“Yes. Er—yes. Certainly. Of course.” Mr. Norris’ tone was petulant but meek. “You’ll excuse me, my dear boy, a moment? I hate to keep my guests waiting, but this litttle matter is rather urgent.”

He hurried across the sitting-room and disappeared through a third door, followed by Schmidt. Schmidt was going to tell him the details of the row, of course. I considered the possibility of eaves-dropping, but decided that it would be too risky. Anyhow, I should be able to get it out of Mr. Norris one day, when I knew him better. Mr. Norris did not give one the impression of being a discreet man.

I looked round me and found that the room in which I had all this time been standing was a bedroom. It was not very large, and the available space was almost entirely occupied* by a double bed, a bulky wardrobe and an elaborate dressing-table with a winged mirror, on which were ranged bottles of perfume, lotions, antiseptics, pots of face cream, skin food, powder and ointment enough to stock a chemist’s shop. I furtively opened a drawer in the table. I found nothing in it but two lipsticks and an eyebrow pencil. Before I could investigate further, I heard the door into the sitting-room open.

Mr. Norris re-entered fussily. “And now, after this most regrettable interlude, let us continue our personally conducted tour of the royal apartments. Before you, you behold my chaste couch; I had it specially made for me in London. German beds are so ridiculously small, I always think. It’s fitted with the best spiral springs. As you observe, I’m conservative enough to keep to my English sheets and blankets. The German feather-bags give me the most horrible nightmares.”

He talked rapidly with a great show of animation, but I

17

saw at once that the conversation with his secretary had depressed him. It seemed more tactful not to refer again to the stranger’s visit. Mr. Norris evidently wanted the subject to be dropped. Fishing a key out of his waistcoat pocket, he unlocked and threw open the door of the wardrobe.

“I’ve always made it a rule to have a suit for every day of the week. Perhaps you’ll tell me I’m vain, but you’d be surprised if you know what it has meant to me, at critical moments of my life, to be dressed exactly in accordance with my mood. It gives one such confidence, I think.”

Beyond the bedroom was a dining-room.

“Please admire the chairs,” said Mr. Norris, and added— rather strangely as I thought at the time: “I may tell you that this suite has been valued at four thousand marks.”

From the dining-room, a passage led to the kitchen, where I was introduced to a dour-faced young man who was busy preparing the tea.

“This is Hermann, my major-domo. He shares the distinction, with a Chinese boy I had years ago in Shanghai, of being the best cook I have ever employed.”

“What were you doing in Shanghai?”

Mr. Norris looked vague. “Ah. What is one ever doing anywhere? Fishing in troubled waters, I suppose one might call it. Yes … I’m speaking now, mind you, of nineteen hundred and three. Things are very different nowadays, I’m told.”

We returned to the sitting-room, followed by Hermann with the tray.

“Well, well,” observed Mr. Norris, taking his cup, “we live in stirring times; tea-stirring times.”

I grinned awkwardly. It was only later, when I knew him better, that I realized that these aged jokes ( he had a whole repertoire of them ) were not even intended to be laughed at. They belonged merely to certain occasions in the routine of his day. Not to have made one of them would have been like omitting to say a grace.

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Having thus performed his ritual, Mr. Norris relapsed into silence. He must be worrying about the noisy caller again. As usual, when left to my own devices, I began studying his wig. I must have been staring very rudely, for he looked up suddenly and saw the direction of my gaze. He startled me by asking simply:

“Is it crooked?”

I blushed scarlet. I felt terribly embarrassed.

“Just a tiny bit, perhaps.”

Then I laughed outright. We both laughed. At that moment I could have embraced him. We had referred to the thing at last, and our relief was so great that we were like two people who have just made a mutual declaration of love.

“It wants to go a shade more to the left,” I said, reaching out a helpful hand. “May I …”

But this was going too far. “My God, no!” cried Mr. Norris, drawing back with involuntary dismay. An instant later he was himself again, and smiled ruefully.

“I’m afraid that this is one of those—er—mysteries of the toilet which are best performed in the privacy of the boudoir. I must ask you to excuse me.”

“I’m afraid this one doesn’t fit very well,” he continued, returning from his bedroom some minutes later. “I’ve never been fond of it. It’s only my second best.”

“How many have you got, then?”

“Three altogether.” Mr. Norris examined his finger-nails with a modestly proprietary air.

“And how long do they last?”

“A very short time, I’m sorry to say. I’m obliged to get a new one every eighteen months or so, and they’re exceedingly expensive.”

“How much, roughly?”

“Between three and four hundred marks.” He was seriously informative. “The man who makes them for me lives in Köln and I’m obliged to go there myself to get them fitted.”

“How tiresome for you.”

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“It is, indeed.”

“Tell me just one more thing. However do you manage to make it stay on?”

“There’s a small patch with glue on it.” Mr. Norris lowered his voice a little, as though this were the greatest secret of all: “Just here.”

“And you find that’s sufficient?”

“For the ordinary wear and tear of daily life, yes. All the same, I’m bound to admit that there have been various occasions in my chequered career, occasions which I blush to think of, when all has been lost.”

After tea, Mr. Norris showed me his study, which lay behind the door on the other side of the sitting-room.

“I’ve got some very valuable books here,” he told me. “Some very amusing books.” His tone coyly underlined the words. I stooped to read the titles: The Girl with the Golden Whip. Miss Smith’s Torture-Chamber. Imprisoned at a Girls’ School, or The Private Dairy of Montague Dawson, Flagellant. This was my first glimpse of Mr. Norris’ sexual tastes.

“One day I’ll show you some of the other treasures of my collection,” he added archly, “when I feel I know you well enough.”

He led the way through into a little office. This, I realized, was where the unwelcome visitor must have been waiting at the time of my own arrival. It was strangely bare. There was a chair, a table, a filing cabinet, and, on the wall, a large map of Germany. Schmidt was nowhere to be seen.

“My secretary has gone out,” Mr. Norris explained, his uneasy eyes wandering over the walls with a certain distaste, as if this room had unpleasant associations for him. “He took the typewriter to be cleaned. This was what he wanted to see me about, just now.”

This lie seemed so entirely pointless that I felt rather offended. I didn’t expect him to confide in me, yet; but he needn’t treat me like an imbecile. I felt absolved from any lingering scruples about asking pointed questions, and said, with frank inquisitiveness:

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“What is it, exactly, that you export and import?”

He took it quite calmly. His smile was disingenuous and bland.

“My dear boy, what, in my time, have I not exported? I think I may claim to have exported everything which is—er —exportable.”

He pulled out one of the drawers of the filing cabinet with the gesture of a house agent. “The latest model, you see.”

The drawer was quite empty. “Tell me one of the things you export,” I insisted, smiling.

Mr. Norris appeared to consider.

“Clocks,” he said at length.

“And where do you export them to?”

He rubbed his chin with a nervous, furtive movement. This time, my teasing had succeeded in its object. He was flustered and mildly vexed.

“Really, my dear boy, if you want to go into a lot of technical explanations, you must ask my secretary. I haven’t the time to attend to them. I leave all the more—er—sordid details entirely in his hands. Yes …”

CHAPTER THREE

A few days after Christmas I rang up Arthur ( we called each other by our Christian names now) and suggested that we should spend Silvesterabend together.

“My dear William, I shall be delighted, of course. Most delighted … I can imagine no more charming or auspicious company in which to celebrate the birth of this peculiarly ill-omened New Year. I’d ask you to have dinner with me, but

21

unfortunately I have a previous engagement. Now where do you suggest we shall meet?”

“What about the Troika?”

“Very well, my dear boy. I put myself in your hands entirely. I fear I shall feel rather out of place amidst so many young faces. A greybeard with one foot in the tomb… . Somebody say ‘No, no!’ Nobody does. How cruel Youth is. Never mind. Such is life… .”

When once Arthur had started telephoning it was difficult to stop him. I used often to lay the receiver on the table for a few minutes knowing that when I picked it up again he would still be talking away as fast as ever. To-day, however, I had a pupil waiting for an English lesson and had to cut him short.

“Very well. In the Troika. At eleven.”

“That will suit me admirably. In the meantime, I shall be careful what I eat, go to bed early and generally prepare myself to enjoy an evening of Wein, Weib, und Gesang. More particularly Wein. Yes. God bless you, dear boy. Goodbye.”

On New Year’s Eve I had supper at home with my landlady and the other lodgers. I must have been already drunk when I arrived at the Troika, because I remember getting a shock when I looked into the cloakroom mirror and found that I was wearing a false nose. The place was crammed. It was difficult to say who was dancing and who was merely standing up. After hunting about for some time, I came upon Arthur in a corner. He was sitting at a table with another, rather younger gentleman who wore an eyeglass and had sleek dark hair.

“Ah, here you are, William. We were beginning to fear that you’d deserted us. May I introduce two of my most valued friends to each other? Mr. Bradshaw—Baron von Pregnitz.”

The Baron, who was fishy and suave, inclined his head. Leaning towards me, like a cod swimming up through water, he asked:

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“Excuse me. Do you know Naples?”

“No. I’ve never been there.”

“Forgive me. I’m sorry. I had the feeling that we’d met each other before.”

“Perhaps so,” I said politely, wondering how he could smile without dropping his eyeglass. It was rimless and ribbonless and looked as though it had been screwed into his pink well-shaved face by means of some horrible surgical operation.

“Perhaps you were at Juan-les-Pins last year?”

“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t.”

“Yes, I see.” He smiled in polite regret. “In that case I must beg your pardon.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. We both laughed very heartily. Arthur, evidently pleased that I was making a good impression on the Baron, laughed too. I drank a glass of champagne off at a gulp. A three-man band was playing: Gruss’ mir mein Hawai, ich bleib’ Dir treu, ich hob’ Dich gerne. The dancers, locked frigidly together, swayed in partial-paralytic rhythms under a huge sunshade suspended from the ceiling and oscillating gently through cigarette smoke and hot rising air.

“Don’t you find it a trifle stuffy in here?” Arthur asked anxiously.

In the windows were bottles filled with coloured liquids brilliantly illuminated from beneath, magenta, emerald, vermilion. They seemed to be lighting up the whole room. The cigarette smoke made my eyes smart until the tears ran down my face. The music kept dying away, then surging up fearfully loud. I passed my hand down the shiny black oil-cloth curtains in the alcove behind my chair. Oddly enough, they were quite cold. The lamps were like alpine cowbells. And there was a fluffy white monkey perched above the bar. In another moment, when I had drunk exactly the right amount of champagne, I should have a vision. I took a sip. And now, with extreme clarity, without passion or malice, I saw what Life really is. It had something, I remember, to do with the revolving sunshade. Yes, I murmured to myself, let them dance. They are dancing. I am glad.

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“You know, I like this place. Extraordinarily/’ I told the Baron with enthusiasm. He did not seem surprised.

Arthur was solemnly stifling a belch.

“Dear Arthur, don’t look so sad. Are you tired?”

“No, not tired, William. Only a little contemplative, perhaps. Such an occasion as this is not without its solemn aspect. You young people are quite right to enjoy yourselves. I don’t blame you for a moment. One has one’s memories.”

“Memories are the most precious things we have,” said the Baron with approval. As intoxication proceeded, his face seemed slowly to disintegrate. A rigid area of paralysis formed round the monocle. The monocle was holding his face together. He gripped it desperately with his facial muscles, cocking his disengaged eyebrow, his mouth sagging slightly at the corners, minute beads of perspiration appearing along the parting of his thin, satin-smooth dark hair. Catching my eye, he swam up towards me, to the surface of the element which seemed to separate us.

“Excuse me, please. May I ask you something?”

“By all means.”

“Have you read Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne?”

‘Tes, I have.”

“And tell me, please, how did you like it?”

“Very much indeed.”

“Then I am very glad. Yes, so did I. Very much.”

And now we were all standing up. What had happened? It was midnight. Our glasses touched.

“Cheerio,” said the Baron, with the air of one who makes a particularly felicitous quotation.

“Allow me,” said Arthur, “to wish you both every success and happiness in nineteen thirty-one. Every success …” His voice trailed off uneasily into silence. Nervously he fingered his heavy fringe of hair. A tremendous crash exploded from the band. Like a car which has slowly, laboriously reached the summit of the mountain railway, we plunged headlong downwards into the New Year.

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The events of the next two hours were somewhat confused. We were in a small bar, where I remember only the ruffled plumes of a paper streamer, crimson, very beautiful, stirring like seaweed in the draught from an electric fan. We wandered through streets crowded with girls who popped teasers in our faces. We ate ham and eggs in the first-class restaurant of the Friedrichstrasse Station. Arthur had disappeared. The Baron was rather mysterious and sly about this; though I couldn’t understand why. He had asked me to call him Kuno, and explained how much he admired the character of the English upper class. We were driving in a taxi, alone. The Baron told me about a friend of his, a young Etonian. The Etonian had been in India for two years. On the morning after his return, he had met his oldest school-friend in Bond Street. Although they hadn’t seen each other for so long, the school-friend had merely said: “Hullo. I’m afraid I can’t talk to you now. I have to go shopping with my mother.” “And I find this so very nice,” the Baron concluded. “It is your English self-control, you see.” The taxi crossed several bridges and passed a gas-works. The Baron pressed my hand and made me a long speech about how wonderful it is to be young. He had become rather indistinct and his English was rapidly deteriorating. “You see, excuse me, I’ve been watching your reactions the whole evening. I hope you are not offended?” I found my false nose in my pocket and put it on. It had got a bit crumpled. The Baron seemed impressed. “This is all so very interesting for me, you see.” Soon after this, I had to stop the taxi under a lamp-post in order to be sick. ‘

We were driving along a street bounded by a high dark wall. Over the top of the wall I suddenly caught sight of an ornamental cross. “Good God,” I said. “Are you taking me to the cemetery?”

The Baron merely smiled. We had stopped; having arrived, it seemed, at the blackest corner of the night. I stumbled over something, and the Baron obligingly took my arm. He

25

seemed to have been here before. We passed through an archway and into a courtyard. There was light here from several windows, and snatches of gramophone music and laughter. A silhouetted head and shoulders leant out of one of the windows, shouted: “Prosit Neujahr!” and spat vigorously. The spittle landed with a soft splash on the paving-stone just beside my foot. Other heads emerged from other windows. “Is that you, Paul, you sow?” someone shouted. “Red Front!” yelled a voice, and a louder splash followed. This time, I think, a beer-mug had been emptied.

Here one of the anassthetic periods of my evening supervened. How the Baron got me upstairs, I don’t know. It was quite painless. We were in a room full of people dancing, shouting, singing, drinking, shaking our hands and thumping us on the back. There was an immense ornamental gasolier, converted to hold electric bulbs and enmeshed in paper festoons. My glance reeled about the room, picking out large or minute objects, a bowl of claret-cup in which floated an empty match-box, a broken bead from a necklace, a bust of Bismarck on the top of a Gothic dresser—holding them for an instant, then losing them again in general coloured chaos. In this manner, I caught a sudden startling glimpse of Arthur’s head, its mouth open, the wig jammed down over its left eye. I stumbled about looking for the body and collapsed comfortably on to a sofa, holding the upper half of a girl. My face was buried in dusty-smelling lace cushions. The noise of the party burst over me in thundering waves, like the sea. It was strangely soothing. “Don’t go to sleep, darling,” said the girl I was holding. “No, of course I won’t,” I replied, and sat up, tidying my hair. I felt suddenly, quite sober.

Opposite me, in a big armchair, sat Arthur, with a thin, dark, sulky-looking girl on his lap. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat and looked most domestic. He wore gaudily striped braces. His shirtsleeves were looped up with elastic bands. Except for a little hair round the base of the skull, he was perfectly bald.

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“What on earth have you done with it?” I exclaimed. “You’ll catch cold.”

“The idea was not mine, William. Rather a graceful tribute, don’t you think, to the Iron Chancellor?”

He seemed in much better spirits, now, than earlier in the evening, and, strangely enough, not at all drunk. He had a remarkably strong head. Looking up, I saw the wig perched rakishly on Bismarck’s helmet. It was much too big for him.

Turning, I found the Baron sitting beside me on the sofa.

“Hullo, Kuno,” I said. “How did you get here?”

He didn’t answer, but smiled his bright rigid smile and desperately cocked an eyebrow. He seemed on the very point of collapse. In another moment, his monocle would fall out.

The gramophone burst into loud braying music. Most of the people in the room began to dance. They were nearly all young. The boys were in shirtsleeves; the girls had unhooked their dresses. The atmosphere of the room was heavy with dust and perspiration and cheap scent. An enormous woman elbowed her way through the crowd, carrying a glass of wine in each hand. She wore a pink silk blouse and a very short pleated white skirt; her feet were jammed into absurdly small high-heeled shoes, out of which bulged pads of silk-stockinged flesh. Her cheeks were waxy pink and her hair dyed tinsel-golden, so that it matched the glitter of the half-dozen bracelets on her powdered arms. She was as curious and sinister as a life-size doll. Like a doll, she had staring china-blue eyes which did not laugh, although her lips were parted in a smile revealing several gold teeth.

“This is Olga, our hostess,” Arthur explained.

“Hullo, Baby!” Olga handed me a glass. She pinched Arthur’s cheek: “Well, my little turtle-dove?”

The gesture was so perfunctory that it reminded me of a vet. with a horse. Arthur giggled: “Hardly what one would call a strikingly well-chosen epithet, is it? A turtle-dove. What do you say to that, Anni?” He addressed the dark girl on his knee. “You’re very silent, you know. You don’t sparkle

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this evening. Or does the presence of the extremely handsome young man opposite distract your thoughts? William, I believe you’ve made a conquest. I do indeed.”

Anni smiled at this, a slight self-possessed whore’s smile. Then she scratched her thigh, and yawned. She wore a smartly cut little black jacket and a black skirt. On her legs were a pair of long black boots, laced up to the knee. They had a curious design in gold running round the tops. They gave to her whole costume the effect of a kind of uniform.

“Ah, you’re admiring Anni’s boots,” said Arthur, with satisfaction. “But you ought to see her other pair. Scarlet leather with black heels. I had them made for her myself. Anni won’t wear them in the street; she says they make her look too conspicuous. But sometimes, if she’s feeling particularly energetic, she puts them on when she comes to see me.”

Meanwhile, several of the girls and boys had stopped dancing. They stood round us, their arms interlaced, their eyes fixed on Arthur’s mouth with the naive interest of savages, as though they expected to see the words jump visibly out of his throat. One of the boys began to laugh. “Oh yes,” he mimicked. “I spik you Englisch, no?”

Arthur’s hand was straying abstractedly over Anni’s thigh. She raised herself and smacked it sharply, with the impersonal viciousness of a cat.

“Oh dear, I’m afraid you’re in a very cruel mood, this evening! I see I shall be corrected for this. Anni is an exceedingly severe young lady.” Arthur sniggered loudly; continued conversationally in English: “Don’t you think it’s an exquisitely beautiful face? Quite perfect, in its way. Like a Raphael Madonna. The other day I made an epigram. I said, Anni’s beauty is only sin-deep. I hope that’s original? Is it? Please laugh.”

“I think it’s very good indeed.”

“Only sin-deep. I’m glad you like it. My first thought was, I must tell that to William. You positively inspire me, you know. You make me sparkle. I always say that I only wish

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to have three sorts of people as my friends, those who are very rich, those who are very witty, and those who are very beautiful. You. my dear William, belong to the second category.”

I could guess to which category Baron von Pregnitz belonged, and looked round to see whether he had been listening. But the Baron was otherwise engaged. He reclined upon the farther end of the sofa in the embrace of a powerful youth in a boxer’s sweater, who was gradually forcing a mugful of beer down his throat. The Baron protested feebly; the beer was spilling all over him.

I became aware that I had my arm round a girl. Perhaps she had been there all the time. She snuggled against me, while from the other side a boy was amateurishly trying to pick my pocket. I opened my mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Why make a scene at the end of such an enjoyable evening? He was welcome to my money. I only had three marks left at the most. The Baron would pay for everything, anyhow. At that moment, I saw his face with almost microscopic distinctness. He had, as I noticed now for the first time, been taking artificial sunlight treatment. The skin round his nose was just beginning to peel. How nice he was! I raised my glass to him. His fish-eye gleamed faintly over the boxer’s arm and he made a slight movement of his head. He was beyond speech. When I turned round, Arthur and Anni had disappeared.

With the vague intention of going to look for them, I staggered to my feet, only to become involved in the dancing, which had broken out again with renewed vigour. I was seized round the waist, round the neck, kissed, hugged, tickled, half undressed; I danced with girls, with boys, with two or three people at the same time. It may have been five or ten minutes before I reached the door at the farther end of the room. Beyond the door was a pitch-dark passage with a crack of light at the end of it. The passage was crammed so full of furniture that one could only edge one’s way along

29

it sideways. I had wriggled and shuffled about half the distance, when an agonized cry came from the lighted room ahead of me.

“Nein, nein. Mercy! oh dear! Hilfe! Hilfe!”

There was no mistaking the voice. They had got Arthur in there, and were robbing him and knocking him about. I might have known it. We were fools ever to have poked our noses into a place like this. We had only ourselves to thank. Drink made me brave. Struggling forward to the door, I pushed it open.

The first person I saw was Anni. She was standing in the middle of the room. Arthur cringed on the floor at her feet. He had removed several more of his garments, and was now dressed, lightly but with perfect decency, in a suit of mauve silk underwear, a rubber abdominal belt and a pair of socks. In one hand he held a brush and in the other a yellow shoe-rag. Olga towered behind him, brandishing a heavy leather whip.

“You call that clean, you swine!” she cried, in a terrible voice. “Do them again this minute! And if I find a speck of dirt on them I’ll thrash you till you can’t sit down for a week.”

As she spoke she gave Arthur a smart cut across the buttocks. He uttered a squeal of pain and pleasure, and began to brush and polish Anni’s boots with feverish haste.

“Mercy! Mercy!” Arthur’s voice was shrill and gleeful, like a child’s when it is shamming. “Stop! You’re killing me.”

“Killing’s too good for you,” retorted Olga, administering another cut. “Ill skin you alive!”

“Oh! Oh! Stop! Mercy! Oh!”

They were making such a noise that they hadn’t heard me bang open the door. Now they saw me, however. My presence did not seem to disconcert any of them in the least. Indeed, it appeared to add spice to Arthur’s enjoyment.

“Oh dear! William, save me! You won’t? You’re as cruel as the rest of them. Anni, my love! Olga! Just look how she treats me. Goodness knows what they won’t be making me do in a minute!”

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“Come in, Baby,” cried Olga, with tigerish jocularity. “Just you wait! It’s your turn next. Ill make you cry for Mummy!”

She made a playful slash at me with the whip which sent me in headlong retreat down the passage, pursued by Arthur’s delighted and anguished cries.

Several hours later I woke to find myself lying curled up on the floor, with my face pressed against the leg of the sofa. I had a head like a furnace, and pains in every bone. The party was over. Half a dozen people lay insensible about the dismantled room, sprawling in various attitudes of extreme discomfort. Daylight gleamed through the slats of the ve-netian blinds.

After making sure that neither Arthur nor the Baron were among the fallen, I picked my way over their bodies, out of the flat, downstairs, across the courtyard and into the street. The whole building seemed to be full of dead drunks. I met nobody.

I found myself in one of the back streets near the canal, not far from the Möckernbrücke Station, about half an hour from my lodgings. I had no money for the electric train. And, anyhow, a walk would do me good. I limped home, along dreary streets where paper streamers hung from the sills of damp blank houses, or were entangled in the clammy twigs of the trees. When I arrived, my landlady greeted me with the news that Arthur had rung up already three times to know how I was.

“Such a nice-spoken gentleman, I always think. And so considerate.”

I agreed with her, and went to bed.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Frl. Schroeder, my landlady, was very fond of Arthur. Over the telephone, she always addressed him as Herr Doktor, her highest mark of esteem.

“Ah, is that you, Herr Doktor? But of course I recognize your voice; I should know it in a million. You sound very tired this morning. Another of your late nights? Na, na, you can’t expect an old woman like me to believe that; I know what gentlemen are when they go out on the spree… . What’s that you say? Stuff and nonsense! You flatterer! Well, well, you men are all alike; from seventeen to seventy . . , Pfui! I’m surprised at you… . No, I most certainly shall not! Ha, ha! You want to speak to Herr Bradshaw? Why, of course, I’d forgotten. I’ll call him at once.”

When Arthur came to tea with me, Frl. Schroeder would put on her black velvet dress, which was cut low at the neck, and her string of Woolworth pearls. With her cheeks rouged and her eyelids darkened, she would open the door to him, looking like a caricature of Mary Queen of Scots. I remarked on this to Arthur, who was delighted.

“Really, William, you’re most unkind. You say such sharp things. I’m beginning to be afraid of your tongue, I am indeed.”

After this he usually referred to Frl. Schroeder as Her Majesty. La Divine Schroeder was another favourite epithet.

No matter how much of a hurry he was in, he always found time for a few minutes’ flirtation with her, brought her flowers, sweets, cigarettes, and sympathized with every fluctuation in the delicate health of Hanns, her canary. When Hanns finally died and Frl. Schroeder shed tears, I thought Arthur

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was going to cry too. He was genuinely upset. “Dear, dear,” he kept repeating. “Nature is really very cruel.”

My other friends were less enthusiastic about Arthur. I introduced him to Helen Pratt, but the meeting was not a success. At that time Helen was Berlin correspondent to one of the London political weeklies, and supplemented her income by making translations and giving English lessons. We sometimes passed on pupils to each other. She was a pretty, fair-haired, fragile-looking girl, hard as nails, who had been educated at the University of London and took Sex seriously. She was accustomed to spending her days and nights in male society and had little use for the company of other girls. She could drink most of the English journalists under the table, and sometimes did so, but more as a matter of principle than because she enjoyed it. The first time she met you, she called you by your Christian name and informed you that her parents kept a tobacco and sweet shop in Shepherd’s Bush. This was her method of “testing” character; your reaction to the news damned or saved you finally in her estimation. Above all else, Helen loathed being reminded that she was a woman; except in bed.

Arthur, as I saw too late, had no technique whatsoever for dealing with her sort. From the first moment he was frankly scared of her. She brushed aside all the little polished politenesses which shielded his timid soul. “Hullo, you two,” she said, casually reaching out a hand over the newspaper she was reading. ( We had met by appointment in a small restaurant behind the Memorial Church. )

• Arthur gingerly took the hand she offered. He lingered uneasily beside the table, fidgeted, awaiting the ritual to which he was accustomed. Nothing happened. He cleared his throat, coughed:

“Will you allow me to take a seat?”

Helen, who was about to read something aloud from the newspaper, glanced up at him as though she’d forgotten his existence and was surprised to find him still there.

“What’s the matter?” she said. “Aren’t there enough chairs?”

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We got talking, somehow, about Berlin night life. Arthur giggled and became arch. Helen, who dealt in statistics and psycho-analytical terms, regarded him in puzzled disapproval. At length Arthur made a sly reference to “the speciality of the Kaufhaus des Westens.”

“Oh, you mean those whores on the corner there,” said Helen, in the bright matter-of-fact tone of a schoolmistress giving a biology lesson, “who dress up to excite the boot-fetishists?”

“Well, upon my soul, ha ha, I must say,” Arthur sniggered, coughed and rapidly fingered his wig, “seldom have I met such an extremely, if you’ll allow me to say so, er—advanced, or shall I say, er—modern young lady …”

“My God!” Helen threw back her head and laughed unpleasantly. “I haven’t been called a young lady since the days when I used to help mother with the shop on Saturday afternoons.”

“Have you—er—been in this city long?” asked Arthur hastily. Vaguely aware that he had made a mistake, he imagined that he ought to change the subject. I saw the look Helen gave him and knew that all was over.

“If you take my advice, Bill,” she said to me, the next time we met, “you won’t trust that man an inch.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“Oh, I know you. You’re soft, like most men. You make up romances about people instead of seeing them as they are. Have you ever noticed his mouth?”

“Frequently.”

“Ugh, it’s disgusting. I could hardly bear to look at it. Beastly and flabby like a toad’s.”

“Well,” I said, laughing, “I suppose I’ve got a weakness for toads.”

Not daunted by this failure, I tried Arthur on Fritz Wendel. Fritz was a German-American, a young man about town, who spent his leisure time dancing and playing bridge. He had a curious passion for the society of painters and writers, and had acquired a status with them by working at a fashionable art dealer’s. The art dealer didn’t pay him anything, but

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Fritz could afford this hobby, being rich. He had an aptitude for gossip which amounted to talent, and might have made a first-class private detective.

We had tea together in Fritz’s flat. He and Arthur talked New York, impressionist painting, and the unpublished works of the Wilde group. Arthur was witty and astonishingly informative. Fritz’s b)ack eyes sparkled as he registered the epigrams for future use, and I smiled, feeling pleased and proud. I felt myself personally responsible for the success of the interview. I was childishly anxious that Arthur should be approved of; perhaps because I, too, wanted to be finally, completely convinced.

We said goodbye with mutual promises of an early future meeting. A day or two later, I happened to see Fritz in the street. From the pleasure with which he greeted me, I knew at once that he had something extra spiteful to tell me. For a quarter of an hour he chatted gaily about bridge, night clubs, and his latest flame, a well-known sculptress; his malicious smile broadening all the while at the thought of the tit-bit which he had in reserve. At length he produced it.

“Been seeing any more of your friend Norris?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Nothing,” drawled Fritz, his naughty eyes on my face. “Eventually I’d watch your step, that’s all.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve been hearing some queer things about him.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“Maybe they aren’t true. You know how people talk.”

“And I know how you listen, Fritz.”

He grinned; not in the least offended: “There’s a story going round that eventually Norris is some kind of cheap crook.”

“I must say, I should have thought that ‘cheap’ was hardly a word one could apply to him.”

Fritz smiled a superior, indulgent smile.

“I dare say it would surprise you to know that he’s been in prison?”

“What you mean is, it’d surprise me to know that your

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friends say he’s been in prison. Well, it doesn’t in the least. Your friends would say anything.”

Fritz didn’t reply. He merely continued to smile.

“What’s he supposed to have been in prison for?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear,” Fritz drawled. “But maybe I can guess.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“Look, Bill, exuse me a moment.” He had changed his tone now. He was serious. He laid his hand on my shoulder. “What I mean to say, the thing is this. Eventually, we two, we don’t give a damn, hell, for goodness’ sake. But we’ve got other people to consider besides ourselves, haven’t we? Suppose Norris gets hold of some kid and plucks him of his last cent?”

“How dreadful that would be.”

Fritz gave me up. His final shot was: “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, that’s all.”

“No, Fritz. I most certainly won’t.”

We parted pleasantly.

Perhaps Helen Pratt had been right about me. Stage by stage I was building up a romantic background for Arthur, and was jealous lest it should be upset. Certainly, I rather enjoyed playing with the idea that he was, in fact, a dangerous criminal; but I am sure that I never seriously believed in it for a moment. Nearly every member of my generation is a crime-snob. I was fond of Arthur with an affection strengthened by obstinacy. If my friends didn’t like him because of his mouth or his past, the loss was theirs; I was, I flattered myself, more profound, more humane, an altogether subtler connoisseur of human nature than they. And if, in my letters to England, I sometimes referred to him as “a most amazing old crook,” I only meant by this that I wanted to imagine him as a glorified being; audacious and self-reliant, reckless and calm. All of which, in reality, he only too painfully and obviously wasn’t.

Poor Arthur! I have seldom known anybody with such weak nerves. At times, I began to believe he must be suffering

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from a mild form of persecution mania. I can see him now as he used to sit waiting for me in the most secluded corner of our favourite restaurant, bored, abstracted, uneasy; his hands folded with studied nonchalance in his lap, his head held at an awkward, listening angle, as though he expected, at any moment, to be startled by a very loud bang. I can hear him at the telephone, speaking cautiously, as close as possible to the mouthpiece and barely raising his voice above a whisper.

“Hullo. Yes, it’s me. So you’ve seen that party? Good. Now when can we meet? Let’s say at the usual time, at the house of the person who is interested. And please ask that other one to be there, too. No, no. Herr D. It’s particularly important. Goodbye.”

I laughed. “One would think, to hear you, that you were an arch-conspirator.”

“A very arch conspirator,” Arthur giggled. “No, I assure .you, my dear William, that I was discussing nothing more desperate than the sale of some old furniture in which I happen to be—er—financially interested.”

“Then why on earth all this secrecy?”

“One never knows who may be listening.”

“But, surely, in any case, it wouldn’t interest them very much?”

“You can’t be too careful nowadays,” said Arthur vaguely.

By this time, I had borrowed and read nearly all his “amusing” books. Most of them were extremely disappointing. Their authors adopted a curiously prudish, snobby, lower-middle-class tone, and, despite their sincere efforts to be pornographic, became irritatingly vague in the most important passages. Arthur had a signed set of volumes of My Life and Loves. I asked him if he had known Frank Harris.

“Slightly, yes. It’s some years ago now. The news of his death came as a great shock to me. He was a genius in his own way. So witty. I remember his saying to me, once, in the Louvre: ‘Ah, my dear Norris, you and I are the last of the gentleman adventurers.’ He could be very caustic, you know. People never forgot the things he said about them.

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“And that reminds me,” continued Arthur meditatively, “of a question once put to me by the late Lord Disley. ‘Mr. Norris,’ he asked me, ‘are you an adventurer?’ “

“What an extraordinary question. I don’t call that witty. It was damned rude of him.”

“I replied: ‘We are all adventurers. Life is an adventure.’ Rather neat, don’t you think?”

“Just the sort of answer he deserved.”

Arthur modestly regarded his finger-nails.

“I’m generally at my best in the witness-box.”

“Do you mean that this was during a trial?”

“Not a trial, William. An action. I was suing the Evening Post for libel.”

“Why, what had they said about you?”

“They had made certain insinuations about the conduct of a public fund with which I had been entrusted.”

“You won, of course?”

Arthur carefully stroked his chin. “They were unable to make good their accusations. I was awarded five hundred pounds damages.”

“Have you often brought libel actions?”

“Five times,” Arthur modestly admitted. “And on three other occasions the matter was settled out of court.”

“And you’ve always got damages?”

“Something. A mere bagatelle. Honour was satisfied.”

“It must be quite a source of income.”

Arthur made a deprecatory gesture. “I should hardly go so far as to say that.”

This, at last, seemed the moment for my question.

“Tell me, Arthur. Have you ever been in prison?”

He rubbed his chin slowly. Into his vacant blue eyes came a curious expression. Relief, perhaps. Or even, I fancied, a certain gratified vanity.

“So you heard of the case?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“It was very widely reported at the time.” Arthur modestly arranged his hands upon the crook of his umbrella. “Did you, 38

you, by any chance, read a full account of the evidence?”

“No. Unfortunately not.”

“That’s a pity. I should have had great pleasure in lending you the Press cuttings, but unfortunately they were lost in the course of one of my many moves. I should have liked to hear your impartial opinion. … I consider that the jury was unfairly prejudiced against me from the start. Had I had the experience which I have now I should have undoubtedly been acquitted. My counsel advised me quite wrongly. I should have pleaded justification, but he assured me that it would be quite impossible to obtain the necessary evidence. The judge was very hard on me. He even went so far as to insinuate that I had been engaged in a form of blackmail.”

“I say! That was going a bit far, wasn’t it?”

“It was indeed.” Arthur shook his head sadly. “The English legal mind is sometimes unfortunately unsubtle. It is unable to distinguish between the finer shades of conduct.”

“And how much … how long did you get?”

“Eighteen months in the second division. At Wormwood Scrubbs.”

“I hope they treated you properly?”

“They treated me in accordance with the regulations. I can’t complain… . Nevertheless, since my release, I have felt a lively interest in penal reform. I make a point of subscribing to the various societies which exist for that purpose.”

There was a pause, during which Arthur evidently indulged in painful memories. “I think,” he continued at length, “I may safely claim that in the course of my whole career I have very seldom, if ever, done anything which I knew to be contrary to the law… . On the other hand, I do and always shall maintain that it is the privilege of the richer but less mentally endowed members of the community to contribute to the upkeep of people like myself. I hope you’re with me there?”

“Not being one of the richer members,” I said, “yes.”

“I’m so glad. You know, William, I feel that we might come, in time, to see eye to eye upon many things… . It’s quite

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extraordinary what a lot of good money is lying about, waiting to be picked up. Yes, positively picked up. Even nowadays. Only one must have the eyes to see it. And capital. A certain amount of capital is absolutely essential. One day I think I really must tell you about my dealings with an American who believed himself to be a direct descendant of Peter the Great. It’s a most instructive story.”

Sometimes Arthur talked about his childhood. As a boy he was delicate and had never been sent to school. An only son, he lived alone with his widowed mother, whom he adored. Together they studied literature and art; together they visited Paris, Baden-Baden, Rome, moving always in the best society, from Schloss to château, from château to palace, gentle, charming, appreciative; in a state of perpetual tender anxiety about each other’s health. Lying ill in rooms with a connecting door, they would ask for their beds to be moved so that they could talk without raising their voices. Telling stories, making gay little jokes, they kept up each other’s spirits through weary sleepless nights. Convalescent, they were propelled, side by side, in bath-chairs, through the gardens of Lucerne.

This invalid idyll was doomed, by its very nature, soon to end. Arthur had to grow up; to go to Oxford. His mother had to die. Sheltering him with her love to the very last, she refused to allow the servants to telegraph to him as long as she remained conscious. When at length they disobeyed her, it was too late. Her delicate son was spared, as she had intended, the strain of a death-bed farewell.

After her death, his health improved greatly, for he had to stand on his own feet. This novel and painful atttitude was considerably eased by the small fortune he had inherited. He had money enough to last him, according to the standards of social London in the ‘nineties, for at least ten years. He spent it in rather less than two. “It was at that time,” said Arthur, “that I first learnt the meaning of the word ‘luxury.’ Since then, I am sorry to say, I have been forced to add others to my vocabulary; horrid ugly ones, some of them.” “I wish,” he re-40

marked simply, on another occasion, “I had that money now. I should know what to do with it.” In those days he was only twenty-two and didn’t know. It disappeared with magic speed into the mouths of horses and the stockings of ballet girls. The palms of servants closed on it with an oily iron grip. It was transformed into wonderful suits of clothes which he presented after a week or two, in disgust, to his valet; into oriental knickknacks which somehow, when he got them back to his flat, turned out to be rusty old iron pots; into landscapes of the latest impressionist genius which by daylight next morning were childish daubs. Well groomed and witty, with money to burn, he must have been one of the most eligible young bachelors of his large circle; but it was the money lenders, not the ladies, who got him in the end.

A stern uncle, appealed to, grudgingly rescued him, but imposed conditions. Arthur was to settle down to read for the Bar. “And I can honestly say that I did try. I can’t tell you the agonies I suffered. After a month or two I was compelled to take steps.” When I asked what the steps were, he became uncommunicative. I gathered that he had found some way of putting his social connections to good use. “It seemed very sordid at the time,” he added cryptically. “I was such a very sensitive young man, you know. It makes one smile to think of it now.

“From that moment I date the beginning of my career; and, unlike Lot’s wife, I have never looked back. There have been ups and downs … ups and downs. The ups are a matter of European history. The downs I prefer not to remember. Well, well. As the proverbial Irishman said, I have put my hand to the plough and now I must lie on it.”

During that spring and early summer, Arthur’s ups and downs were, I gathered, pretty frequent. He was never very willing to discuss them; but his spirits always sufficiently indicated the state of his finances. The sale of the “old furniture” ( or whatever it really was ) seemed to provide a temporary respite. And, in May, he returned from a short trip to

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Paris very cheerful, having, as he guardedly said, “several little irons in the fire.”

Behind all these transactions moved the sinister, pumpkin-headed figure of Schmidt. Arthur was quite frankly afraid of his secretary, and no wonder. Schmidt was altogether too useful; he had made his master’s interests identical with his own. He was one of those people who have not only a capacity, but a positive appetite for doing their employer’s dirty work. From chance remarks made by Arthur in less discreet moments, I was gradually able to form a fair idea of the secretary’s duties and talents. “It is very painful for anyone of our own class to say certain things to certain individuals. It offends our delicate sensibilities. One has to be so very crude.” Schmidt, it seemed, experienced no pain. He was quite prepared to say anything to anybody. He confronted creditors with the courage and technique of a bullfighter. He followed up the results of Arthur’s wildest shots, and returned with money like a retriever bringing home a duck.

Schmidt controlled and doled out Arthur’s pocket-money. Arthur wouldn’t, for a long time, admit this; but it was obvious. There were days when he hadn’t enough to pay his bus fare; others when he would say: “Just a moment, William. I shall have to run up to my flat to fetch something I’d forgotten. You won’t mind waiting down here a minute, will you?” On such occasions, he would rejoin me, after a quarter of an hour or so, in the street; sometimes deeply depressed, sometimes radiant, like a schoolboy who has received an unexpectedly large tip.

Another phrase to which I became accustomed was: “I’m afraid I can’t ask you to come up just now. The flat’s so untidy.” I soon discovered this to mean that Schmidt was at home. Arthur, who dreaded scenes, was always at pains to prevent our meeting; for, since my first visit, our mutual dislike had considerably increased. Schmidt, I think, not only disliked me, but definitely disapproved of me as a hostile and unsettling influence on his employer. He was never exactly offensive. He merely smiled his insulting smile and amused

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himself by coming suddenly into the room on his noiseless shoes. He would stand there a few seconds, unnoticed, and then speak, startling Arthur into a jump and a little scream. When he had done this two or three times in succession, Arthur’s nerves would be in such a state that he could no longer talk coherently about anything and we had to retire to the nearest café to continue our conversation. Schmidt would help his master on with his overcoat and bow us out of the flat with ironic ceremony, slyly content that his object had been achieved.

In June, we went to spend a long week-end with Baron von Pregnitz; he had invited us to his country villa, which stood on the shore of a lake in Mecklenburg. The largest room in the villa was a gymnasium fitted with the most modern apparatus, for the Baron made a hobby of his figure. He tortured himself daily on an electric horse, a rowing-machine and a rotating massage belt. It was very hot and we all bathed, even Arthur. He wore a rubber swimming-cap, carefully adjusted in the privacy of his bedroom. The house was full of handsome young men with superbly developed brown bodies which they smeared in oil and baked for hours in the sun. They ate like wolves and had table manners which pained Arthur deeply; most of them spoke with the broadest Berlin accents. They wrestled and boxed on the beach and did somersault dives from the spring-board into the lake. The Baron joined in everything and often got severely handled. With good-humoured brutality the boys played practical jokes on him which smashed his spare monocles and might easily have broken his neck. He bore it all with his heroic frozen smile.

On the second evening of our visit, he escaped from them and took a walk with me in the woods, alone. That morning they had tossed him in a blanket and he had landed on the asphalt pavement; he was still a bit shaky. His hand rested heavily on my arm. “When you get to my age,” he told me sadly, “I think you will find that the most beautiful things in

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life belong to the Spirit. The Flesh alone cannot give us happiness.” He sighed and gave my arm a faint squeeze.

“Our friend Kuno is a most remarkable man,” observed Arthur, as we sat together in the train on our way back to Berlin. “Some people believe that he has a great career ahead of him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he were to be offered an important post under the next Government.”

“You don’t say so?”

“I think,” Arthur gave me a discreet, sideways glance, “that he’s taken a great fancy to you.”

“Do you?”

“I sometimes feel, William, that with your talents, it’s a pity you’re not more ambitious. A young man should make use of his opportunities. Kuno is in a position to help you in all sorts of ways.”

I laughed. “To help both of us, you mean?”

“Well, if you put it in that way, yes. I quite admit that I foresee certain advantages to myself from the arrangement. Whatever my faults, I hope I’m not a hypocrite. For instance, he might make you his secretary.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” I said, “but I’m afraid I should find my duties too heavy.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Towards the end of August, Arthur left Berlin. An air of mystery surrounded his departure; he hadn’t even told me that he was thinking of going. I rang up the flat twice, at times when I was pretty sure Schmidt would not be there. Hermann, the cook, knew only that his master was away for an

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indefinite period. On the second occasion, I asked where he had gone, and was told London. I began to be afraid that Arthur had left Germany for good. No doubt he had the best of reasons for doing so.

One day, however, during the second week in September, the telephone rang. Arthur himself was on the line.

“Is that you, dear boy? Here I am, back at last! I’ve got such a lot to tell you. Please don’t say you’re engaged this evening. You aren’t? Then will you come round here about half-past six? I think I may add that I’ve got a little surprise in store for you. No, I shan’t tell you anything more. You must come and see for yourself. Au revoir.”

I arrived at the flat to find Aurther in the best of spirits.

“My dear William, what a pleasure to see you again! How have you been getting on? Getting on and getting off?”

Arthur tittered, scratched his chin and glanced rapidly and uneasily round the room as though he were not yet quite convinced that all the furniture was still in its proper place.

“What was it like in London?” I asked. In spite of what he had said over the telephone, he didn’t seem in a particularly communicative mood.

“In London?” Arthur looked blank. “Ah, yes. London… . To be perfectly frank with you, William, I was not in London. I was in Paris. Just at present, it is desirable that a slight uncertainty as to my whereabouts should exist in the minds of certain persons here.” He paused, added impressively: “I suppose I may tell you, as a very dear and intimate friend, that my visit was not unconnected with the Communist Party.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve become a communist?”

“In all but name, William, yes. In all but name.”

He paused for a moment, enjoying my astonishment. “What is more, I asked you here this evening to witness what I may call my Conf essio Fidei. In an hour’s time, I am due to speak at a meeting held to protest against the exploitation of the Chinese peasantry. I hope you’ll do me the honour of coming.”

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“Need you ask?”

The meeting was to be held in Neukölln. Arthur insisted on taking a taxi all the way. He was in an extravagant mood.

“I feel,” he remarked, “that I shall look back on this evening as one of the turning-points of my career.”

He was visibly nervous and kept fingering his bunch of papers. Occasionally he cast an unhappy glance out of the taxi window, as though he would have liked to ask the driver to stop.

“I should think your career has had a good many turning-points,” I said, to distract his thoughts.

Arthur brightened at once at the implied flattery.

“It has, William. It has, indeed. If my life were going to end tonight ( which I sincerely hope it won’t ) I could truthfully say: ‘At any rate, I have lived… .’ I wish you had known me in the old days, in Paris, just before the War. I had my own car and an apartment on the Bois. It was one of the show places of its kind. The bedroom I designed myself, all in crimson and black. My collection of whips was probably unique.” Arthur sighed. “Mine is a sensitive nature. I react immediately to my surroundings. When the sun shines on me, I expand. To see me at my best, you must see me in my proper setting. A good table. A good cellar. Art. Music. Beautiful things. Charming and witty society. Then I begin to sparkle. I am transformed.”

The taxi stopped. Arthur fussily paid the driver, and we passed through a large beer-garden, now dark and empty, into a deserted restaurant, where an elderly waiter informed us that the meeting was being held upstairs. “Not the first door,” he added. “That’s the Skittles Club.”

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Arthur. “I’m afraid we must be very late.”

He was right. The meeting had already begun. As we climbed the broad rickety staircase, we could hear the voice of a speaker echoing down the long shabby corridor. Two powerfully built youths wearing hammer-and-sickle armlets kept guard at the double doors. Arthur whispered a hurried

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explanation, and they let us pass. He pressed my hand nervously. “I’ll see you later, then.” I sat down on the nearest available chair.

The hall was large and cold. Decorated in tawdry baroque, it might have been built about thirty years ago and not repainted since. On the ceiling, an immense pink, blue and gold design of cherubim, roses and clouds was peeled and patched with damp. Round the walls were draped scarlet banners with white lettering: “Arbeiterfront gegen Fascismus und Krieg.” “Wir fordern Arbeit und Brot.” “Arbeiter aller Länder, vereinigt euch.”

The speaker sat at a long table on the stage facing the audience. Behind them, a tattered backcloth represented a forest glade. There were two Chinese, a girl who was taking shorthand notes, a gaunt man with fuzzy hair who propped his head in his hands, as if listening to music. In front of them, dangerously near the edge of the platform, stood a short, broad-shouldered, red-haired man, waving a piece of paper at us like a flag.

“Those are the figures, comrades. You’ve heard them. They speak for themselves, don’t they? I needn’t say any more. Tomorrow you’ll see them in print in the Welt am Abend. It’s no good looking for them in the capitalist Press, because they won’t be there. The bosses will keep them out of their newspapers, because, if they were published, they might upset the stock exchanges. Wouldn’t that be a pity? Never mind. The workers will read them. The workers will know what to think of them. Let’s send a message to our comrades in China: The workers of the German Communist Party protest against the outrages of the Japanese murderers. The workers demand assistance for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese peasants now rendered homeless. Comrades, the Chinese section of the I.A.H. appeals to us for funds to fight Japanese imperialism and European exploitation. It’s our duty to help them. We’re going to help them.”

The red-haired man smiled as he spoke, a militant, triumphant smile; his white, even teeth gleamed in the lamplight.

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His gestures were slight but astonishingly forceful. At moments it seemed as if the giant energy stored up in his short, stocky frame would have flung him bodily from the platform, like an over-powerful motor-bicycle. I had seen his photograph two or three times in the newspaper, but couldn’t remember who he was. From where I sat, it was difficult to hear everything he said. His voice drowned itself, filling the large, damp hall with thundering echoes.

Arthur now appeared upon the stage, shaking hands hastily with the Chinese, apologizing, fussing to his chair. A burst of applause which followed the red-haired man’s last sentence visibly startled him. He sat down abruptly.

During the clapping, I moved up several rows in order to hear better, squeezing into a place I had seen was empty in front of me. As I sat down, I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was Anni, the girl with the boots. Beside her, I recognised the boy who had poured the beer down Kuno’s throat at Olga’s on New Year’s Eve. They both seemed pleased to see me. The boy shook hands with a grip which nearly made me yell out loud.

The hall was very full. The audience sat there in their soiled everyday clothes. Most of the men wore breeches with coarse woollen stockings, sweaters and peaked caps. Their eyes followed the speaker with hungry curiosity. I had never been to a communist meeting before, and what struck me most was the fixed attention of the upturned rows of faces; faces of the Berlin working class, pale and prematurely lined, often haggard and ascetic, like the heads of scholars, with thin, fair hair brushed back from their broad foreheads. They had not come here to see each other or to be seen, or even to fulfil a social duty. They were attentive but not passive. They were not spectators. They participated, with a curious, restrained passion, in the speech made by the red-haired man. He spoke for them, he made their thoughts articulate. They were listening to their own collective voice. At intervals they applauded it, with sudden, spontaneous violence. Their passion, their strength of purpose elated me. I stood outside it.

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One day, perhaps, I should be with it, but never of it. At present I just sat there, a half-hearted renegade from my own class, my feelings muddled by anarchism talked at Cambridge, by slogans from the confirmation service, by the tunes the band played when my father’s regiment marched to the railway station, seventeen years ago. And the little man finished his speech and went back to bis place at the table amidst thunders of clapping.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Why, don’t you know?” exclaimed Anni’s friend in surprise. “That’s Ludwig Bayer. One of the best men we’ve got.”

The boy’s name was Otto. Anni introduced us and I got another crushing hand-squeeze. Otto changed places with her so that he could talk to me.

“Were you at the Sport Palace the other night? Man, you ought to have heard him! He spoke for two hours and a half without so much as a drink of water.”

A Chinese delegate now stood up and was introduced. He spoke careful, academic German. In sentences which were like the faint, plaintive twanging of an Asiatic musical instrument, he told us of the famine, of the great floods, of the Japanese air-raids on helpless towns. “German comrades, I bring you a sad message from my unhappy country.”

“My word!” whispered Otto, impressed. “It must be worse there than at my aunt’s in the Simeonstrasse.”

It was already a quarter past nine. The Chinese was followed by the man with fuzzy hair. Arthur was becoming impatient. He kept glancing at his watch and furtively touching his’ wig. Then came the second Chinese. His German was inferior to that of his colleague, but the audience followed the speeches as eagerly as ever. Arthur, I could see, was nearly frantic. At length, he got up and went round to the back of Bayer’s chair. Bending over, he began speaking in an agitated whisper. Bayer smiled and made a friendly, soothing gesture. He seemed amused. Arthur returned dubiously to his place, where he soon began to fidget again.

The Chinese finished at last. Bayer at once stood up, took

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Arthur encouragingly by the arm, as though he were a mere boy, and led him to the front of the stage.

“This is the Comrade Arthur Norris, who has come to speak to us about the crimes of British Imperialism in the Far East.”

It seemed so absurd to me to see him standing there that I could hardly keep a straight face. Indeed, it was difficult for me to understand why everybody in the hall didn’t burst out laughing. But no, the audience evidently didn’t find Arthur in the least funny. Even Anni, who had more reason than anyone present to regard him from a comic angle, was perfectly grave.

Arthur coughed, shuffled his papers. Then he began to speak in his fluent, elaborate German, a little too fast:

“Since that day on which the leaders of the allied governments saw fit, in their infinite wisdom, to draw up that, no doubt, divinely inspired document known as the Treaty of Versailles; since that day, I repeat …”

A slight stir, as if of uneasiness, passed over the rows of listeners. But the pale, serious, upturned faces were not ironic. They accepted without question this urbane bourgeois gentleman, accepted his stylish clothes, his graceful rentier wit. He had come to help them. Bayer had spoken for him. He was their friend.

“British Imperialism has been engaged, during the last two hundred years, in conferring upon its victims the dubious benefits of the Bible, the Bottle and the Bomb. And of these three, I might perhaps venture to add, the Bomb has been infinitely the least noxious.”

There was applause at this; delayed, hesitant clapping, as if Arthur’s hearers approved his matter, but were still doubtful of his manner. Evidently encouraged, he continued:

“I am reminded of the story of the Englishman, the German and the Frenchman who had a wager as to which of them could cut down the most trees in one day. The Frenchman was the first to try …”

At the end of this story there was laughter and loud ap—

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plause. Otto thumped me violently on the back in his delight. “Mensch! Der spricht prima, wahr?” Then he bent forward again to listen, his eyes intent upon the platform, his arm round Anni’s shoulder. Arthur exchanging his graceful bantering tone for an oratorical seriousness, was approaching his climax:

“The cries of the starving Chinese peasantry are ringing in our ears as we sit in this hall tonight. They have come to us across the breadth of the world. Soon, we hope, they will sound yet more loudly, drowning the futile chatter of diplomatists and the strains of dance bands in luxurious hotels, where the wives of armament manufacturers finger the pearls which have been bought with the price of the blood of innocent children. Yes, we must see to it that those cries are clearly heard by every thinking man and woman in Europe and in America. For then, and only then, will a term be set to this inhuman exploitation, this traffic in living souls… .”

Arthur concluded his speech with an energetic flourish. His face was quite flushed. Salvo upon salvo of clapping rattled over the hall. Many of the audience cheered. While the applause was still at its height, Arthur came down from the platform and joined me at the door?. Heads were turned to watch us go out. Otto and Anni had left the meeting with us. Otto wrung Arthur’s hand and dealt him terrific blows on the shoulder with his heavy palm: “Arthur, you old horse! That was fine!”

“Thank you, my dear boy. Thank you.” Arthur winced. He was feeling very pleased with himself. “How did they take it, William? Well, I think? I hope I made my points quite clearly? Please say I did.”

“Honestly, Arthur, I was astounded.”

“How charming of you: praise from such a severe critic as yourself is indeed music to my ears.”

“I’d no idea you were such an old hand at it.”

“In my time,” admitted Arthur modestly, “I’ve had occasion to do a good deal of public speaking, though hardly quite of this kind.”

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We had cold supper at the flat. Schmidt and Hermann were both out: Otto and Anni made tea and laid the table. They seemed quite at home in the kitchen and knew where everything was kept.

“Otto is Anni’s chosen protector,” Arthur explained, while they were out of the room. “In another walk of life, one would call him her impresario. I believe he takes a certain percentage of her earnings. I prefer not to inquire too closely. He’s a nice boy, but excessively jealous. Luckily, not of Anni’s customers. I should be very sorry indeed to get into his bad books. I understand that he’s the middle-weight champion of his boxing club.”

At length the meal was ready. He fussed round, giving directions.

“Will the Comradess Anni bring us some glasses? How nice of her. I should like to celebrate this evening. Perhaps, if Comrade Otto would be so kind, we might even have a little brandy. I don’t know whether Comrade Bradshaw drinks brandy. You’d better ask him.”

“At such an historic moment, Comrade Norris, I drink anything.”

Otto came back to report that there was no more brandy.

“Never mind,” said Arthur, “brandy is not a proletarian drink. We’ll drink beer.” He filled our glasses. “To the world revolution.”

“To the world revolution.”

Our glasses touched. Anni sipped daintily, holding the glass-stem between finger and thumb, her little finger mincingly crooked. Otto drained his at a gulp, banging down the tumbler heartily on to the table. Arthur’s beer went the wrong way and choked him. He coughed, spluttered, dived for his napkin.

“I’m afraid that’s an evil omen,” I said jokingly. He seemed quite upset.

“Please don’t say that, William. I don’t like people to say things of that kind, even in jest.”

This was the first time I had ever known Arthur to be

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superstitious. I was amused and rather impressed. He appeared to have got it badly. Could he really have undergone a sort of religious conversion? It was difficult to believe.

“Have you been a communist long, Arthur?” I asked, in English, as we began to eat.

He cleared his throat slightly, shot an uneasy glance in the direction of the door.

“At heart, William, yes. I think I may say that I have always felt that, in the deepest sense, we are all brothers. Class distinctions have never meant anything to me; and hatred of tyranny is in my blood. Even as a small child, I could never bear injustice of any kind. It offends my sense of the beautiful. It is so stupid and unaesthetic. I remember my feelings when I was first unjustly punished by my nurse. It wasn’t the punishment itself which I resented; it was the clumsiness, the lack of imagination behind it. That, I remember, pained me very deeply.”

“Then why didn’t you join the Party long ago?”

Arthur looked suddenly vague; stroked his temples with his finger-tips:

“The time was not ripe. No.”

“And what does Schmidt say to all this?” I asked mischievously.

Arthur gave the door a second hurried glance. As I had suspected, he was in a state of suspense lest his secretary should suddenly walk in upon us.

“I’m afraid Schmidt and I don’t quite see eye to eye on the subject just at present.”

I grinned. “No doubt you’ll convert him in time.”

“Shut up talking English, you two,” cried Otto, giving me a vigorous jog in the ribs. “Anni and I want to hear the joke.”

During supper we drank a good deal of beer. I must have been rather unsteady on my feet, because, when I stood up at the end of the meal, I knocked over my chair. On the underside of the seat was pasted a ticket with the printed number 69.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

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“Oh, that?” said Arthur hastily; he seemed very much disconcerted. “That’s merely the catalogue number from the sale where I originally bought it. It must have been there all this time… . Anni, my love, do you think you and Otto would be so very kind as to carry some of the things into the kitchen and put them in the sink? I don’t like to leave Hermann too much to do in the morning. It makes him cross with me for the rest of the day.”

“What is that ticket for?” I repeated gently, as soon as they were outside. “I want to know.”

Arthur sadly shook his head.

“Ah, my dear William, nothings escapes your eye. Yet another of our domestic secrets is laid bare.”

“I’m afraid I’m very dense. What secret?”

“I rejoice to see that your young life has never been sullied by such sordid experiences. At your age, I regret to say, I had already made the acquaintance of the gentleman whose sign-manual you will find upon every piece of furniture in this room.”

“Good God, do you mean the bailiff?”

“I prefer the word Gerichtsvollzieher. It sounds so much

nicer.”

“But, Arthur, when is he coming?”

“He comes, I’m sorry to say, almost every morning. Sometimes in the afternoon as well. He seldom finds me at home, however. I prefer to let Schmidt receive him. From what I have seen of him, he seems a person of little or no culture. I doubt if we should have anything in common.”

“Won’t he soon be taking everything away?”

Arthur seemed to enjoy my dismay. He puffed at his cigarette with exaggerated nonchalance.

“On Monday next, I believe.”

“How frightful! Can’t anything be done about it?”

“Oh, undoubtedly something can be done about it. Something will be done about it. I shall be compelled to pay another visit to my Scotch friend, Mr. Isaacs. Mr. Isaacs assures me that he comes of an old Scotch family, the Inverness

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Isaacs. The first time I had the pleasure of meeting him, he nearly embraced me: ‘Ah, my dear Mr. Norris,’ he said, ‘you are a countryman of mine.’ “

“But, Arthur, if you go to a moneylender, you’ll only get into worse trouble still. Has this been going on for long? I always imagined that you were quite rich.”

Arthur laughed:

“I am rich, I hope, in the things of the Spirit … My dear boy, please don’t alarm yourself on my account. I’ve been living on my wits for nearly thirty years now, and I propose to continue doing so until such time as I am called into the, I’m afraid, not altogether approving company of my fathers.”

Before I could ask any more questions, Anni and Otto returned from the kitchen. Arthur greeted them gaily and soon Anni was sitting on his knee, resisting his advances with slaps and bites, while Otto, having taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, was absorbed in trying to repair the gramophone. There seemed no place for myself in this domestic tableau and I soon said that I must be going.

Otto came downstairs with a key to let me out of the house door. In parting, he gravely raised his clenched fist in salute:

“Red Front.”

“Red Front,” I answered.

CHAPTER SIX

One morning, not long after this, Frl. Schroeder came shuffling into my room in great haste, to tell me that Arthur was on the telephone. “It must be something very serious. Herr Norris didn’t even

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say good morning to me.” She was impressed and rather hurt.

“Hullo, Arthur. What’s the matter?”

“For Heaven’s sake, my dear boy, don’t ask me any questions now.” His tone was nervously irritable and he spoke so rapidly that I could barely understand him. “It’s more than I can bear. All I want to know is, can you come here at once?”

“Well … I’ve got a pupil coming at ten o’clock.”

“Can’t you put him off?”

“Is it as important as all that?”

Arthur uttered a little cry of peevish exasperation: “Is it important? My dear William, do please endeavour to exercise your imagination. Should I be ringing you up at this unearthly hour if it wasn’t important? All I beg of you is a plain answer: Yes or No. If it’s a question of money, I shall be only too glad to pay you your usual fee. How much do you charge?”

“Shut up, Arthur, and don’t be absurd. If it’s urgent, of course I’ll come. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

I found all the doors of the flat standing open, and walked in unannounced. Arthur, it appeared, had been rushing wildly from room to room like a flustered hen. At the moment, he was in the sitting-room, dressed ready to go out, and nervously pulling on his gloves. Hermann, on his knees, rummaged sulkily in a cupboard in the hall. Schmidt lounged in the doorway of the study, a cigarette between his lips. He did not make the least effort to help and was evidently enjoying his employer’s distress.

“Ah, here you are, William, at last!” cried Arthur, on seeing me. “I thought you were never coming. Oh dear, oh dear! Is it as late as that already? Never mind about my grey hat. Come along, William, come along. I’ll explain everything to ydu on the way.”

Schmidt gave us an unpleasant, sarcastic smile as we went out.

When we were comfortably settled on the top of a bus, Arthur became calmer and more coherent.

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“First of all,” he fumbled rapidly in all his pockets and produced a folded piece of paper: “Please read that.”

I looked at it. It was a Vorladung from the Political Police. Herr Arthur Norris was requested to present himself at the Alexanderplatz that morning before one o’clock. What would happen should he fail to do so was not stated. The wording was official and coldly polite.

“Good God, Arthur,” I said, “whatever does this mean? What have you been up to now?”

In spite of his nervous alarm, Arthur displayed a certain modest pride.

“I flatter myself that my association with,” he lowered his voice and glanced quickly at our fellow passengers, “the representatives of the Third International has not been entirely unfruitful. I am told that my efforts have even excited favourable comment in certain quarters in Moscow. … I told you, didn’t I, that I’d been in Paris? Yes, yes, of course… . Well, I had a little mission there to fulfil. I spoke to certain highly placed individuals and brought back certain instructions… . Never mind that now. At all events, it appears that the authorities here are better informed than we’d supposed. That is what I have to find out. The whole question is extremely delicate. I must be careful not to give anything away.”

“Perhaps they’ll put you through the third degree.”

“Oh, William, how can you say anything so dreadful? You make me feel quite faint.”

“But, Arthur, surely that would be … I mean, wouldn’t you rather enjoy it?”

Arthur giggled: “Ha, ha. Ha, ha. I must say this, William, that even in the darkest hour your humour never fails to restore me… . Well, well, perhaps if the examination were to be conducted by Frl. Anni, or some equally charming young lady, I might undergo it with—er—very mixed feelings. Yes.” Uneasily he scratched his chin. “I shall need your moral support. You must come and hold my hand. And if

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this,” he glanced nervously over his shoulder, “interview should terminate unpleasantly, I shall ask you to go to Bayer and tell him exactly what has happened.”

“Yes, I will. Of course.”

When we had got out of the bus on the Alexanderplatz, poor Arthur was so shaky that I suggested going into a restaurant and drinking a glass of cognac. Seated at a little table we regarded the immense drab mass of the Praesidium buildings from the opposite side of the roadway.

“The enemy fortress,” said Arthur, “into which poor little I have got to venture, all alone.”

“Remember David and Goliath.”

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid the Psalmist and I have very little in common this morning. I feel more like a beetle about to be squashed by a steam-roller… . It’s a curious fact that, since my earliest years, I have had an instinctive dislike of the police. The very cut of their uniforms offends me, and the German helmets are not only hideous but somehow rather sinister. Merely to see one of them filling in an official form in that inhuman copy-book handwriting gives me a sinking feeling in the stomach.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

Arthur brightened a little.

“I’m very glad I’ve got you with me, William. You have such a sympathetic manner. I could wish for no better companion on the morning of my execution. The very opposite of that odious Schmidt, who simply gloats over my misfortune. Nothing makes him happier than to be in a position to say— ‘I told you so.’ “

“After all, there’s nothing very much they can do to you in there. They only knock workmen about. Remember, you belong to the same class as their masters. You must make them feel that.”

“I’ll try,” said Arthur doubtfully.

“Have another cognac?”

“Perhaps I will, yes.”

The second cognae worked wonders. We emerged from the

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restaurant into the still, clammy autumn morning, laughing, arm in arm.

“Be brave, Comrade Norris. Think of Lenin.”

“I’m afraid, ha, ha, I find some inspiration in the Marquis de Sade.”

But the atmosphere of the police headquarters sobered him considerably. Increasingly apprehensive and depressed, we wandered along vistas of stone passages with numbered doors, were misdirected up and down flights of stairs, collided with hurrying officials who carried bulging dossiers of crimes. At length we came out into a courtyard, overlooked by windows with heavy iron bars.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” moaned Arthur. “We’ve put our heads into the trap this time, I’m afraid.”

At this moment a piercing whistle sounded from above.

“Hullo, Arthur!”

Looking down from one of the barred windows high above was Otto.

“What did they get you for?” he shouted, jocularly. Before either of us could answer, a figure in uniform appeared beside him at the window and hustled him away. The apparition was as brief as it was disconcerting.

“They seem to have rounded up the whole gang,” I said, grinning.

“It’s certainly very extraordinary,” said Arthur, much perturbed. “I wonder if …”

We passed under an archway, up more stairs, into a honeycomb of little rooms and dark passages. On each floor were wash-basins, painted a sanitary green. Arthur consulted his Vorladung and found the number of the room in which he was to present himself. We parted in hurried whispers.

“Goodbye, Arthur. Good luck. I’ll wait for you here.”

“Thank you, dear boy… . And supposing the worst comes to the worst, and I emerge from this room in custody, don’t speak to me or make any sign that you know me unless I speak to you. It may be advisable not to involve you… . Here’s Bayer’s address; in case you have to go there alone.”

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“I’m certain I shan’t.”

“There’s one more thing I wanted to say to you.” Arthur had the manner of one who mounts the steps of the scaffold. “I’m sorry if I was a little hasty over the telephone this mom-ing. I was very much upset. … If this ware to be our last meeting for some time, I shouldn’t like you to remember it against me.”

“What rubbish, Arthur. Of course I shan’t. Now run along, and let’s get this over.”

He pressed my hand, knocked timidly at the door and went in.

I sat down to wait for him, under a blood-red poster advertising the reward for betraying a murderer. My bench was shared by a fat Jewish slum-lawyer and his client, a tearful little prostitute.

“All you’ve got to remember,” he kept telling her, “is that you never saw him again after (he night of the sixth.”

“But they’ll get it out of me somehow,” she sobbed. “I know they will. It’s the way they look at you. And then they ask you a question so suddenly. You’ve no time to think.”

It was nearly an hour before Arthur reappeared. I could see at once from his face that the interview hadn’t been so bad as he’d anticipated. He was in a great hurry.

“Come along, William. Come along. I don’t care to stay here any longer than I need.”

Outside in the street, he hailed a taxi and told the chauffeur to drive to the Hotel Kaiserhof, adding, as he nearly always did:

“There’s no need to drive too fast.”

“The Kaiserhof!” I exclaimed. “Are we going to pay a call on Hitler?”

“No, William. We are not … although, I admit, I derive a certain pleasure from dallying in the camp of the enemy. Do you know, I have lately made a point of being manicured there? They have a very good man. To-day, however, I have a quite different object. Bayer’s office is also in the Wilhelm—

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strasse. It didn’t seem altogether discreet to drive directly from here to there.”

Accordingly, we performed the comedy of entering the hotel, drinking a cup of coffee in the lounge and glancing through the morning papers. To my disappointment, we didn’t see Hitler or any of the other Nazi leaders. Ten minutes later, we came out again into the street. I found myself squinting rapidly to right and left, in search of possible detectives. Arthur’s police-obsession was exceedingly catching.

Bayer inhabited a large untidy flat on the top floor of one of the shabbier houses beyond the Zimmerstrasse. It was certainly a striking enough contrast to what Arthur called “the camp of the enemy,” the padded, sombre, luxurious hotel we had just left. The door of the flat stood permanently ajar. Inside, the walls were hung with posters in German and Russian, notices of mass meetings and demonstrations, anti-war cartoons, maps of industrial areas and graphs to illustrate the dimensions and progress of strikes. There were no carpets on the bare unpainted floorboards. The rooms echoed to the rattle of typewriters. Men and women of all ages wandered in and out or sat chatting on upturned sugar-boxes waiting for interviews; patient, good-humoured, quite at home. Everybody seemed to know everybody; a newcomer was greeted almost invariably by his or her Christian name. Even strangers were addressed as Thou. Cigarette smoking was general. The floors were littered with crushed-out stubs.

In the midst of this informal, cheerful activity, we found Bayer himself, in a tiny shabby room, dictating a letter to the girl whom I had seen on the platform at the meeting in Neukölln. He seemed pleased but not especially surprised to see Arthur.

“Ah, my dear Norris. And what can I do for you?”

He spoke English with great emphasis and a strong foreign accent. I thought I had never seen anybody with such beautiful teeth.

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“You have been already to see them?” he added.

“Yes,” said Arthur. “We’ve just come from there.”

The girl secretary got up and went out, closing the door behind her. Arthur, his elegantly gloved hands resting demurely in his lap, began to describe his interview with the officials at the Polizeipraesidium. Bayer sat back in his chair and listened. He had extraordinarily vivid animal eyes of a dark reddish brown. His glance was direct, challenging, brilliant as if with laughter, but his lips did not even smile. Listening to Arthur, his face and body became quite still. He did not once nod, or shift his position, or fidget with his hands. His mere repose suggested a force of concentration which was hypnotic in its intensity. Arthur, I could see, felt this also; he squirmed uneasily on his seat and carefully avoided looking Bayer in the eyes.

Arthur began by assuring us that the officials had treated him most politely. One of them had helped him off with his coat and hat, the other had offered him a chair and a cigar. Arthur had taken the chair, the cigar he had refused; he made a considerable point of this, as though it were a proof of his singular strong-mindedness and integrity. Thereupon, the official, still courteous, had asked permission to smoke. This Arthur had granted.

There had followed a discussion, crossexamination disguised as chat, about Arthur’s business activities in Berlin. Arthur was careful not to go into details here. “It wouldn’t interest you,” he told Bayer. I gathered, however, that the officials had politely succeeded in frightening him a goqd deal. They were far too well informed.

These preliminaries over, the real questioning began. “We understand, Mr. Norris, that you have recently made a journey to Paris. Was this visit in connection with your private business?”

Arthur had been ready for this, of course. Perhaps too ready. His explanations had been copious. The official had punctured them with a single affable inquiry. He had named

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a name and an address which Mr. Norris had twice visited, on the evening of his arrival and on the morning of his departure. Was this, also, a private business interview? Arthur didn’t deny that he had had a nasty shock. Nevertheless, he had been, he claimed, exceedingly discreet. “I wasn’t so silly as to deny anything, of course. I made light of the whole matter. I think I impressed them favourably. They were shaken, I could see that, distinctly shaken.”

Arthur paused, added modestly: “I flatter myself that I know how to handle that particular kind of situation pretty well. Yes.”

His tone appealed for a word of encouragement, of confirmation, here. But Bayer didn’t encourage, didn’t condemn, didn’t speak or move at all. His dark brown eyes continued to regard Arthur with the same brilliant attention, smiling and alert. Arthur uttered a short nervous cough.

Anxious to interest that impersonal, hypnotic silence, he made a great deal of his narrative. He must have talked for nearly half an hour. Actually, there wasn’t much to tell. The police, having displayed the extent of their knowledge, had hastened to assure Mr. Norris that his activities did not interest them in the least, provided that these activities were confined to foreign countries. As for Germany itself, that, of course, was a different matter. The German Republic welcomes all foreign guests, but requires them to remember that certain laws of hospitality govern guest as well as host. In short, it would be a great pity if the German Republic were ever to be deprived of the pleasure of Mr. Norris’ society. The official felt sure that Mr. Norris, as a man of the world, would appreciate his point of view.

Finally, just as Arthur was making for the door, having been helped on with his overcoat and presented with his hat, came a last question asked in a tone which suggested that it hadn’t the remotest connection with anything which had previously been said:

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“You have recently become a member of the Communist Party?”

“I saw the trap at once, of course,” Arthur told us. “It was simply a trap. But I had to think quickly; any hesitation in answering would have been fatal. They’re so accustomed to notice these details. … I am not a member of the Communist Party, I said to them, nor of any other Left Wing organization. I merely sympathize with the attitude of the K.P.D. to certain non-political problems. … I think that was the right answer? I think so. Yes.”

At last Bayer both smiled and spoke. “You have acted quite right, my dear Norris.” He seemed subtly amused.

Arthur was as pleased as a stroked cat.

“Comrade Bradshaw was of great assistance to me.”

“Oh yes?”

Bayer didn’t ask how.

“You have interest for our movement?”

His eyes measured me for the first time. No, he was not impressed. Equally, he did not condemn. A young bourgeois intellectual, he thought. Enthusiastic, within certain limits. Educated, within certain limits. Capable of response if appealed to in terms of his own class-language. Of some small use: everybody can do something. I felt myself blushing deeply.

“I’d like to help you if I could,” I said.

“You speak German?”

“He speaks excellent German,” put in Arthur, like a mother recommending her son to the notice of the headmaster. SmiU ingly, Bayer considered me once more.

“So?”

He turned over the papers on his desk.

“Here is some translation which you could be so kind as to do for us. Will you please translate this in English? As you will see, it is a report of our work during the past year. From it you will learn a little about our aims. It should interest you, I think.”

He handed me a thick wad of manuscript, and rose to his

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feet. He was even smaller and broader than he had seemed on the platform. He laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“This is most interesting, what you have told me.” He shook hands with both of us, gave a brilliant parting smile: “And you will please,” he added comically to Arthur, “avoid to entangle this young Mr. Bradshaw in your distress.”

“Indeed, I assure you I shouldn’t dream of such a thing. His safety is almost, if not quite, as dear to me as my own… . Well, ha ha, I won’t waste any more of your valuable time. Goodbye.”

The interview with Bayer had quite restored Arthur’s spirits.

“You made a good impression on him, William. Oh yes, you did. I could see that at once. And he’s a very shrewd judge of character. I think he was pleased with what I said to them at the Alexanderplatz, wasn’t he?”

“I’m sure he was.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“I know very little about him, myself, William. I’ve heard that he began life as a research chemist. I don’t think his parents were working people. He doesn’t give one that impression, does he? In any case, Bayer isn’t his real name.”

After this meeting, I felt anxious to see Bayer again. I did the translation as quickly as I could, in the intervals of giving lessons. It took me two days. The manuscript was a report on the aims and progress of various strikes, and the measures taken to supply food and clothing to the families of the strikers. My chief difficulty was with the numerous and ever-recurring groups of initial letters which represented the names of the different organizations involved. As I did not know what most of these organizations were called in English, I didn’t know what letters to substitute for those in the manuscript.

“It is not so important,” replied Bayer, when I asked him about this. “We will attend to this matter ourselves.”

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Something in his tone made me feel humiliated. The manuscript he had given me to translate was simply not important. It would probably never be sent to England at all. Bayer had given it me, like a toy, to play with, hoping, no doubt, to be rid of my tiresome, useless enthusiasm for a week at least.

“You find this work interesting?” he continued. “I am glad. It is necessary for every man and woman in our days to have knowledge of this problem. You have read something from Marx?”

I said that I had once tried to read Das Kapital.

“Ah, that is too difficult, for a beginning. You should try the Communist Manifesto. And some of Lenin’s pamphlets. Wait, I will give you …”

He was amiability itself. He seemed in no hurry to get rid of me. Could it really be that he had no more important way of spending the afternoon? He asked about the living conditions in the East End of London and I tried to eke out the little knowledge I had collected in the course of a few days’ slumming, three years before. His mere attention was flattery of the most stimulating kind. I found myself doing nearly all the talking. Half an hour later, with books and more papers to translate under my arm, I was about to say goodbye when Bayer asked:

“You have known Norris a long time?”

“More than a year, now,” I replied, automatically, my mind registering no reaction to the question.

“Indeed? And where did you meet?”

This time I did not miss the tone in his voice. I looked hard at him. But his extraordinary eyes were neither suspicious, nor threatening, nor sly. Smiling pleasantly, he simply waited in silence for my answer.

“We got to know each other in the train, on the way to Berlin.”

Bayer’s glance became faintly amused. With disarming, bland directness, he asked:

“You are good friends? You go to see him often?”

“Oh yes. Very often.”

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“You have not many English friends in Berlin, I think?”

“No.”

Bayer nodded seriously. Then he rose from his chair and shook my hand. “I have to go now and work. If there is anything you wish to say to me, please do not hesitate to come and see me at any time.”

“Thank you very much.”

So that was it, I thought, on my way down the shabby staircase. None of them trusted Arthur. Bayer didn’t trust him but he was prepared to make use of him, with all due precautions. And to make use of me, too, as a convenient spy on Arthur’s movements. It wasn’t necessary to let me into the secret. I could so easily be pumped. I felt angry, and at the same time rather amused.

After all, one couldn’t blame them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Otto turned up at Arthur’s about a week later, unshaved and badly in need of a meal. They had let him out of prison the day before. When I went round to the flat that evening, I found him with Arthur in the dining-room, having just finished a substantial supper.

“And what did they use to give you on Sundays?” he was asking as I came in. “We got pea-soup with a sausage in it. Not so bad,”

“Let me see now,” Arthur reflected. “I’m afraid I really can’t remember. In any case, I never had much appetite… . Ah, my dear William, here you are! Please take a chair.

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That is, if you don’t disdain the company of two old gaolbirds. Otto and I were just comparing notes.”

The day before Arthur and I visited the Alexanderplatz, Otto and Anni had had a quarrel. Otto had wanted to give fifteen pfennigs to a man who came round collecting for a strike fund of the I.A.H. Anni had refused to agree to this, “on principle.” “Why should the dirty communists have my money?” she had said. “I have to work hard enough to earn it.” The possessive pronoun challenged Otto’s accepted status and rights; he generously disregarded it. But the adjective had really shocked him. He had slapped her face, “not hard,” he assured us, but violently enough to make her turn a somersault over the bed and land with her head against the wall; the bump had dislodged a framed photograph of Stalin, which had fallen to the ground and smashed its glass. Anni had begun to curse him and cry. “That’ll teach you not to talk about things you don’t understand,” Otto had told her, not unkindly. Communism had always been a delicate subject between them. “I’m sick of you,” cried Anni, “and all your bloody Reds. Get out of here!” She had thrown the photograph-frame at him and missed.

Thinking all this over carefully, in the neighbouring Lokal, Otto had come to the conclusion that he was the injured party. Pained and angry, he began drinking Korn. He drank a good deal. He was still drinking at nine o’clock in the evening, when a boy named Erich, whom he knew, came in, selling biscuits. Erich, with his basket, went the rounds of tKe cafés and restaurants in the whole district, carrying messages and picking up gossip. He told Otto that he had just seen Anni in a Nazi Lokal on the Kreuzberg, with Werner Baldow.

Werner was an old enemy of Otto’s, both political and private. A year ago, he had left the communist cell to which Otto belonged and joined the local Nazi storm-troop. He had always been sweet on Anni. Otto, who was pretty drunk by this time, did what even he would never have dared when sober; he jumped up and set off for the Nazi Lokal alone. Two policemen who happened to pass the place a minute or two after he entered it probably saved him from getting

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broken bones. He had just been flung out for the second time and wanted to go in again. The policemen removed him with difficulty; he bit and kicked on the way to the station. The Nazis, of course, were virtuously indignant. The incident featured in their newspapers next day as “an unprovoked and cowardly attack on a National-Socialist Lokal by ten armed communists, nine of whom made a successful escape.” Otto had the cutting in his pocket-book and showed it to us with pride. He had been unable to get at Werner himself. Werner had retreated with Anni into a room at the back of the Lokal as soon as he had come in.

“And he can keep her, the dirty bitch,” added Otto violently. “I wouldn’t have her again if she came to me on her knees.”

“Well, well,” Arthur began to murmur automatically, “we live in stirring times …

He pulled himself up abruptly. Something was wrong. His eyes wandered uneasily over the array of plates and dishes, like an actor deprived of his cue. There was no tea-pot on the table.

Not many days after this, Arthur telephoned to tell me that Otto and Anni had made it up.

“I felt sure you’d be glad to hear. I may say that I myself was to some extent instrumental in the good work. Yes… . Blessed are the peacemakers. … As a matter of fact, I was particularly interested in effecting a reconciliation just now, in view of a little anniversary which falls due next Wednesday… . You didn’t know? Yes, I shall be fifty-three. Thank you, dear boy. Thank you. I must confess I find it difficult to become accustomed to the thought that the yellow leaf is upon me… . And now, may I invite you to a trifling banquet? The fair sex will be represented. Besides the reunited pair, there will be Madame Olga and two other of my more doubtful and charming acquaintances. I shall have the sitting-room carpet taken up, so that the younger members of the party can dance. Is that nice?”

“Very nice indeed.”

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On Wednesday evening I had to give an unexpected lesson and arrived at Arthur’s flat later than I intended. I found Hermann waiting downstairs at the house door to let me in.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I hope you haven’t been standing here long?”

“It’s all right,” Hermann answered briefly. He unlocked the door and led the way upstairs. What a dreary creature he is, I thought. He can’t even brighten up for a birthday party.

I discovered Arthur in the sitting-room. He was reclining on the sofa in his shirtsleeves, his hands folded in his lap.

“Here you are, William.”

“Arthur, I’m most terribly sorry. I hurried as much as I could. I thought I should never get away. That old girl I told you about arrived unexpectedly and insisted on having a two-hour lesson. She merely wanted to tell me about the way her daughter had been behaving. I thought she’d never stop… . Why, what’s the matter? You don’t look well.”

Arthur sadly scratched his chin.

“I’m very depressed, dear boy.”

“But why? What about? … I say, where are your other guests? Haven’t they come yet?”

“They came. I was obliged to send them away.”

“Then you are ill?”

“No, William. Not ill. I fear I’m getting old. I have always hated scenes and now I find them altogether too much for me.”

“Who’s been making a scene?” ,

Arthur raised himself slowly from his chair. I had a sudden glimpse of him as he would be in twenty years’ time; shaky and rather pathetic.

“It’s a long story, William. Shall we have something to eat first? I’m afraid I can only offer you scrambled eggs and beer; if indeed there is any beer.”

“It doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I’ve brought you a little present.”

I produced a bottle of cognac which I had been holding behind my back.

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“My dear boy, you overwhelm me. You shouldn’t, you know. You really shouldn’t. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“Oh yes, easily. I’m saving quite a lot of money nowadays.”

“I always,” Arthur shook his head sadly, “look upon the capacity to save money as little short of miraculous.”

Our footsteps echoed loudly through the flat as we crossed the bare boards where the carpet had been.

“All was prepared for the festivities, when the spectre appeared to forbid the feast,” Arthur chuckled nervously and rubbed his hands together.

“Ah, but the Apparition, the dumb sign, The beckoning finger bidding me forgo The fellowship, the converse and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!

“Rather apt here, I think. I hope you know your William Watson? I have always regarded him as the greatest of the moderns.”

The dining-room was draped with paper festoons in preparation for the party; Chinese lanterns were suspended above the table. On seeing them, Arthur shook his head.

“Shall we have these things taken down, William? Will they depress you too much, do you think?”

“I don’t see why they should,” I said. “On the contrary, they ought to cheer us up. After all, whatever has happened, it’s still your birthday.”

“Well, well. You may be right. You’re always so philosophical. The blows of fate are indeed cruel.”

Hermann gloomily brought in the eggs. He reported, with rather bitter satisfaction, that there was no butter.

“No butter,” Arthur repeated. “No butter. My humiliation as a host is complete… . Who would think, to see me now, that I have entertained more than one member of a royal family under my own roof? This evening, I had intended to set a sumptuous repast before you. I won’t make your mouth water by reciting the menu.”

“I think the eggs are very nice. I’m only sorry that you had to send your guests away.”

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“So am I, William. So am I. Unfortunately, it was impossible to ask them to stay. I shouldn’t have dared face Anni’s displeasure. She was naturally expecting to find a groaning board… . And, in any case, Hermann told me there weren’t enough eggs in the house.”

“Arthur, do tell me now what has happened.”

He smiled at my impatience, enjoying a mystery, as always. Thoughtfully, he squeezed his collapsed chin between finger and thumb.

“Well, William, the somewhat sordid story which I am about to relate to you centres on the sitting-room carpet.”

“Which you had taken up for the dancing?”

Arthur shook his head.

“It was not, I regret to say, taken up for the dancing. That was merely a façon de parler. I didn’t wish to distress one of your sympathetic nature unnecessarily.”

“You mean, you’ve sold it?”

“Not sold, William. You should know me better. I never sell if I can pawn.”

“I’m sorry. It was a nice carpet.”

“It was, indeed… . And worth very much more than the two hundred marks I got for it. But one mustn’t expect too much these days. … At all events, it would have covered the expenses of the little celebration I had planned. Unfortunately,” here Arthur glanced towards the door, “the eagle, or, shall I say, the vulture eye of Schmidt lighted upon the vacant space left by the carpet, and his uncanny acumen rejected almost immediately the very plausible explanation which I gave for its disappearance. He was very cruel to me. Very firm… . To cut a long story short, I was left, at the end of our most unpleasant interview, with the sum of four marks, seventy-five pfennigs. The last twenty-five pfennigs were an unfortunate afterthought. He wanted them for his bus-fare home.”

“He actually took away your money?”

“Yes, it was my money, wasn’t it?” said Arthur, eagerly, seizing this little crumb of encouragement. “That’s just what

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I told him. But he only shouted at me in the most dreadful

way.

“T

I never heard anything like it. I wonder you don’t sack him.”

“Well, William, I’ll tell you. The reason is very simple. I owe him nine months’ wages.”

“Yes, I supposed there was something like that. All the same, it’s no reason why you should allow yourself to be shouted at. I wouldn’t have put up with it.”

“Ah, my dear boy, you’re always so firm. I only wish I’d had you there to protect me. I feel sure you would have been able to deal with him. Although I must say,” Arthur added doubtfully, “Schmidt can be terribly firm when he likes.”

“But, Arthur, do you seriously mean to tell me that you intended spending two hundred marks on a dinner for seven people? I never heard anything so fantastic.”

“There were to have been little presents,” said Arthur meekly. “Something for each of you.”

“It would have been lovely, of course… . But such extravagance… . You’re so hard up that you can only eat eggs, and yet, when you do get some cash, you propose to blow it immediately.”

“Don’t you start lecturing me, too, William, or I shall cry. I can’t help my little weaknesses. Life would be drab indeed if we didn’t sometimes allow ourselves a treat.”

“All right,” I said, laughing. “I won’t lecture you. In your place, I’d probably have done just the same.”

After supper, when we had returned with the cognac into the denuded sitting-room, I asked Arthur if he had seen Bayer lately. The change which came over his face at the mention of the name surprised me. His soft mouth pursed peevishly. Avoiding my glance, he frowned and abruptly shook his head.

“I don’t go there more than I can help.”

“Why?”

I had seldom seen him like this. He seemed, indeed, an—

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noyed with me for having asked the question. For a moment he was silent. Then he broke out, with childish petulance:

“I don’t go there because I don’t like to go. Because it upsets me to go. The disorder in that office is terrible. It depresses me. It offends a person of my sensibilities to see such entire lack of method… . Do you know, the other day Bayer lost a most important document, and where do you think it was found? In the waste-paper basket. Actually … to think that these people’s wages are paid out of the hard-earned savings of the workers. It makes one’s blood boil… . And, of course, the whole place is infested with spies. Bayer even knows their names… . And what does he do about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t seem to care. That’s what so infuriates me; that happy-go-lucky way of doing things. Why, in Russia, they’d simply be put against the wall and shot.”

I grinned. Arthur as the militant revolutionary was a little too good to be true.

“You used to admire him so much.”

“Oh, he’s an able enough man in his way. No doubt about that.” Arthur furtively rubbed his chin. His teeth were bared in a snarl of an old lion. “I’ve been very much disappointed in Bayer,” he added.

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” Some last vestiges of caution visibly held him back. But no. The temptation was too exquisite: “William, if I tell you something, you must promise on all you hold sacred that it will go no farther.”

“I promise.”

“Very well. When I threw in my lot with the Party, or, rather, promised it my help (and though I say it who shouldn’t, I am in a position to help them in many quarters to which they have not hitherto had access)—”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I stipulated, very naturally I think, for a (how shall I put it? )—let us say—a quid pro quo.” Arthur paused and glanced

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at me anxiously. “I hope, William, that that doesn’t shock you?”

“Not in the least.”

“I’m very glad. I might have known that you’d look at the thing in a sensible light… . After all, one’s a man of the world. Flags and banners and catchwords are all very well for the rank and file, but the leaders know that a political campaign can’t be carried on without money. I talked this over with Bayer at the time when I was considering taking the plunge, and, I must say, he was very reasonable about it. He quite saw that, crippled as I am with five thousand pounds’ worth of debts… .”

“My God, is it as much as that?”

“It is, I’m sorry to say. Of course, not all my engagements are equally pressing… . Where was I? Yes. Crippled as I am with debts I am hardly in a position to be of much service to the Cause. As you know yourself, I am subject to all sorts of vulgar embarrassments.”

“And Bayer agreed to pay some of them?”

“You put things with your usual directness, William. Well, yes, I may say that he hinted, most distinctly hinted, that Moscow would not be ungrateful if I fulfilled my first mission successfully. I did so. Bayer would be the first to admit that. And what has happened? Nothing. Of course, I know it’s not altogether his fault. His own salary and that of the typists and clerks in his office is often months overdue. But it’s none the less annoying for that. And I can’t help feeling that he doesn’t press my claim as much as he might. He even seems to regard it as rather funny when I come to him and complain that I’ve barely enough money for my next meal… . Do you know, I’m still owed for my trip to Paris? I had to pay the fare out of my own pocket; and imagining, naturally enough, that the expenses, at least, would be defrayed, I travelled first class.”

“Poor Arthur!” I had some trouble to avoid laughing. “And what shall you do now? Is there any prospect of this money coming after all?”

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“I should think none,” said Arthur gloomily.

“Look here, let me lend you some. I’ve got ten marks.”

“No, thank you, William. I appreciate the thought, but I couldn’t borrow from you. I feel that it would spoil our beautiful friendship. No, I shall wait two days more; then I shall take certain steps. And, if these are not successful, I shall know what to do.”

“You’re very mysterious.” For an instant, the thought even passed through my mind that Arthur was perhaps meditating suicide. But the very idea of his attempting to kill himself was so absurd that it made me begin to smile. “I hope everything will go off all right,” I added, as we said goodbye.

“So do I, my dear William. So do I.” Arthur glanced cautiously down the staircase. “Please give my regards to the divine Schroeder.”

“You really must come and visit us some day soon. It’s such a long time since you’ve been. She’s pining away without you.”

“With the greatest pleasure, when all these troubles are over. If they ever are.” Arthur sighed deeply. “Good night, dear boy. God bless you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day, Thursday, I was busy with lessons. On Friday, I tried three times to ring up Arthur’s flat, but the number was always engaged. On Saturday, I went away for the week-end to see some friends in Hamburg. I didn’t get back to Berlin until late on Monday afternoon. That evening I dialled Arthur’s number, wanting to tell him about my visit;

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again there was no reply. I rang four times, at intervals of half an hour, and then complained to the operator. She told me, in official language, that “the subscriber’s instrument” was “no longer in use.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised. In the present state of Arthur’s finances, it was hardly to be expected that he would have settled his telephone bill. All the same, I thought, he might have come to see me or sent a note. But no doubt he was busy, too.

Three more days went by. It was seldom that we had ever let a whole week pass without a meeting or, at any rate, a telephone conversation. Perhaps Arthur was ill. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the surer I felt that this must be the explanation of his silence. He had probably worried himself into a nervous breakdown over his debts. And, all this while, I had been neglecting him. I felt suddenly very guilty. I would go round and see him, I decided, that same afternoon.

Some premonition or pang of conscience made me hurry. I reached the Courbierestrasse in record time, ran quickly upstairs, and, still panting, rang the bell. After all, Arthur was no longer young. The life he had been leading was enough to break anybody down; and he had a weak heart. I must be prepared to hear serious news. Supposing… hullo, what was this? In my haste, I must have miscounted the number of floors. I was standing in front of a door without a nameplate: the door of a strange flat. It was one of those silly embarrassing things which always happen when one lets oneself get flustered. My first impulse was to run away, up or down stairs, I wasn’t quite sure which. But, after all, I had rung these people’s bell. The best tiling would be to wait until somebody answered it, and then explain my mistake.

I waited; one minute, two, three. The door didn’t open. There was nobody at home, it seemed. I had been saved from making a fool of myself, after all.

But now I noticed something else. On both the doors which faced me were little squares of paint which were darker

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than the rest of the woodwork. There was no doubt about it; they were the marks left by recently removed nameplates. I could even see the tiny holes where the screws had been.

A kind of panic seized me. Within half a minute, I had run up the stairs to the top of the house, then down again to the bottom; very quickly and lightly, as one sometimes runs in a nightmare. Arthur’s two nameplates were nowhere to be found. But wait: perhaps I was in the wrong house altogether. I had done stupider things before now. I went out into the street and looked at the number over the entrance. No, there was no mistake there.

I don’t know what I mightn’t have done, at that moment, if the portress herself hadn’t appeared. She knew me by sight and nodded ungraciously. She plainly hadn’t much use for Arthur’s callers. No doubt the visits of the bailiff had got the house a bad name.

“If you’re looking for your friend,” she maliciously emphasized the word, “you’re too late. He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes. Two days ago. The flat’s to let. Didn’t you know?”

I suppose my face was a comic picture of dismay, for she added unpleasantly: “You aren’t the only one he didn’t tell. There’ve been a dozen round here already. Owed you some money, did he?”

“Where’s he gone to?” I asked dully.

“I’m sure I don’t know, or care. That cook of his comes round here and collects the letters. You’d better ask him.”

“I can’t. I don’t know where he lives.”

“Then I can’t help you,” said the portress with a certain vicious satisfaction. Arthur must have neglected to tip her. “Why don’t you try the police?”

With this parting shot she went into her lodge and slammed the door. I walked slowly away down the street, feeling rather dazed.

My question was soon answered, however. The next morning I got a letter, dated from a hotel in Prague:

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My dear William,

Do forgive me. I was compelled to leave Berlin at very short notice and under conditions of secrecy which made it impossible for me to communicate with you. The little operation about which I spoke to you was, alas, the reverse of successful, and the doctor ordered an immediate change of air. So unhealthy, indeed, had the atmosphere of Berlin become for one of my peculiar constitution, that, had I remained another week, dangerous complications would almost certainly have arisen.

My lares and pénates have all been sold and the proceeds largely swallowed up by the demands of my various satellites. I don’t complain of that. They have, with one exception, served me faithfully, and the labourer is worthy of his hire. As for that one, I shall not permit his odious name to pass my lips again. Suffice it to say that he was and is a scoundrel of the deepest dye and has behaved as such.

I find life here very pleasant. The cooking is good, not so good as in my beloved and incomparable Paris, whither I hope, next Wednesday, to wend my weary steps, but still far better than anything which barbarous Berlin could provide. Nor are the consolations of the fair and cruel sex absent. Already, under the grateful influence of civilized comfort, I put forth my leaves, I expand. To such an extent, indeed, have I already expanded that I fear I shall arrive in Paris almost devoid of means. Never mind. The Mammon of Unrighteousness will, no doubt, be ready to receive me into habitations which, if not everlasting, will at least give me time to look round.

Please convey to our mutual friend my most fraternal greetings and tell him that I shall not fail, on arriving, to execute his various commissions.

Do write soon and regale me with your inimitable wit.

As always, your affectionate

Arthur.

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My first reaction was to feel, perhaps unreasonably, angry. I had to admit to myself that my feeling for Arthur had been largely possessive. He was my discovery, my property. I was as hurt as a spinster who has been deserted by her cat. And yet, after all, how silly of me. Arthur was his own master; he wasn’t accountable to me for his actions. I began to look round for excuses for his conduct, and, like an indulgent parent, easily found them. Hadn’t he, indeed, behaved with considerable nobility? Threatened from every side, he had faced his troubles alone. He had carefully avoided involving me in possible future unpleasantness with the authorities. After all, he had said to himself, I am leaving this country, but William has to stay here and earn his living; I have no right to indulge my personal feelings at his expense. I pictured Arthur taking a last hurried stroll down our street, glancing up with furtive sadness at the window of my room, hesitating, walking sorrowfully away. The end of it was that I sat down and wrote him a chatty, affectionate letter, asking no questions and, indeed, avoiding any remark which might compromise either him or myself. Frl. Schroeder, who was much upset at the news of Arthur’s departure, added a long postscript. He was never to forget, she wrote, that there was one house in Berlin where he would always be welcome.

My curiosity was far from being satisfied. The obvious thing was to question Otto, but where was I to find him? I decided to try Olga’s for a start. Anni, I knew, rented a bedroom there.

I hadn’t seen Olga since that party in the small hours of the New Year; but Arthur, who sometimes visited her in the way of business, had told me a good deal about her from time to time. Like most people who still contrived to earn a living in those bankrupt days, she was a woman of numerous occupations. “Not to put too fine a point upon it,” as Arthur was fond of saying, she was a procuress, a cocaine-seller and a receiver of stolen goods; she also let lodgings, took in washing and, when in the mood, did exquisite fancy needlework.

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Arthur once showed me a table-centre she had given him for Christmas which was quite a work of art.

I found the house without difficulty and passed under the archway into the court. The courtyard was narrow and deep, like a coffin standing on end. The head of the coffin rested on the earth, for the house-fronts inclined slightly inwards. They were held apart by huge timber baulks, spanning the gap, high up, against the grey square of sky. Down here, at the bottom, where the rays of the sun could never penetrate, there was a deep twilight, like the light in a mountain gorge. On three sides of the court were windows; on the fourth, an immense blank wall, about eighty feet high, whose plaster surface had swollen into blisters and burst, leaving raw, sooty scars. At the foot of this ghastly precipice stood a queer little hut, probably an outdoor lavatory. Beside it was a broken hand-cart with only one wheel, and a printed notice, now almost illegible, stating the hours at which the inhabitants of the tenement were allowed to beat their carpets.

The staircase, even at this hour of the afternoon, was very dark. I stumbled up it, counting the landings, and knocked at a door which I hoped was the right one. There was a shuffle of slippers, a clink of keys, and the door opened a little way, on the chain.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked.

“William,” I said.

The name made no impression. The door began, doubtfully, to shut.

“A friend of Arthur’s,” I added hastily, trying to make my voice sound reassuring. I couldn’t see what sort of person I was talking to; inside the flat it was pitch black. It was like speaking to a priest in a confessional.

“Wait a minute,” said the voice.

The door shut and the slippers shuffled away. Other footsteps returned. The door reopened and the electric light was switched on in the narrow hall. On the threshold stood Olga herself. Her mighty form was enveloped in a kimono of garish colours which she wore with the majesty of a

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priestess in her ceremonial robes. I hadn’t remembered her as being quite so enormous.

“Well?” she said. “What do you want?”

She hadn’t recognized me. For all she knew I might be a detective. Her tone was aggressive and harsh; it showed not the least trace of hesitation or fear. She was ready for all her enemies. Her hard blue eyes, ceaselessly watchful as the eyes of a tigress, moved away over my shoulder into the gloomy well of the staircase. She was wondering whether I had come alone.

“May I speak to Frl. Anni?” I said politely.

“You can’t. She’s busy.”

My English accent had reassured her, however; for she added briefly: “Come inside,” and turned, leading the way into the sitting-room. She left me with entire indifference to shut the outer door. I did so meekly and followed.

Standing on the sitting-room table was Otto, in his shirtsleeves, tinkering with the converted gasolier.

“Why, it’s Willi!” he cried, jumping down and dealing me a staggering clap on the shoulder.

We shook hands. Olga lowered herself into a chair facing mine with the deliberation and sinister dignity of a fortuneteller. The bracelets jangled harshly on her swollen wrists. I wondered how old she was; perhaps not more than thirty-five, for there were no wrinkles on her puffy, waxen face. I didn’t much like her hearing what I had to say to Otto, but she had plainly no intention of moving as long as I was in the flat. Her blue doll’s eyes held mine in a brutal, unwinking regard.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“You’ve seen me in this room,” I said, “drunk.”

“So.” Olga’s bosom shook silently. She had laughed.

“Did you see Arthur before he left?” I asked Otto, at the end of a long pause.

Yes, Anni and Otto had both seen him, though quite by chance, as it appeared. Happening to look in on the Sunday afternoon, they had discovered Arthur in the midst of his

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packing. There had been a great deal of telephoning and running hither and thither. And then Schmidt had appeared. He and Arthur had retired into the bedroom for a conference, and soon Otto and Anni had heard loud, angry voices. Schmidt had come out of the bedroom, with Arthur following him in a state of ineffectual rage. Otto hadn’t been able to understand very clearly what it was all about, but the Baron had had something to do with it, and money. Arthur was angry because of something Schmidt had said to the Baron; Schmidt was insulting and contemptuous by turns. Arthur had cried: “You’ve shown not only the blackest ingratitude, but downright treachery!” Otto was quite positive about this. The phrase seemed to have made a special impression on him; perhaps because the word “treachery” had a definitely political flavour in his mind. Indeed, he quite took it for granted that Schmidt had somehow betrayed the Communist Party. “The very first time I saw him, I said to Anni, 1 shouldn’t wonder if he’s been sent to spy on Arthur. He looks like a Nazi, with that great big swollen head of his.’ “

What followed had confirmed Otto in his opinion. Schmidt had been just about to leave the flat when he turned and said to Arthur:

“Well,. I’m off. I’ll leave you to the tender mercies of your precious communist friends. And when they’ve swindled you out of your last pfennig …”

He hadn’t got any farther. For Otto, puzzled by all this talk and relieved at last to hear something which he could understand and resent, had taken Schmidt out of the flat by the back of the collar and sent him flying downstairs with a hearty kick on the bottom. Otto, in his narrative, dwelt on the kick with special pride and pleasure. It had been one of le kicks of his life, an inspired kick, beautifully judged and timed. He was anxious that I should understand just how and where it had landed. He made me stand up, and touched me lightly on the buttock with his toe. I was a little uneasy, knowing what an effort of self-control it cost him not to let By.

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“My word, Willi, you should have heard him land! Bing! Bong! Crash! For a minute he didn’t seem to know where he was or what had happened to him. And then he began to blubber, just like a baby. I was so weak with laughing at him you could have pushed me downstairs with one finger.”

And Otto began to laugh now, as he said it. He laughed heartily, without the least malice or savagery. He bore the discomfited Schmidt no grudge.

I asked whether anything more had been heard of him. Otto didn’t know. Schmidt had picked himself up, slowly and painfully, sobbed out some inarticulate threat, and limped away downstairs. And Arthur, who had been present in the background, had shaken his head doubtfully and protested.

“You shouldn’t have done that, you know.”

“Arthur’s much too kind-hearted,” added Otto, coming to the end of his story. “He trusts everybody. And what thanks does he get for it? None. He’s always being swindled and betrayed.”

No comment on this last remark seemed adequate. I said that I must be going.

Something about me seemed to amuse Olga. Her bosom silently quivered. Without warning, as we reached the door, she gave my cheek a rough, deliberate pinch, as though she were plucking a plum from a tree.

“You’re a nice boy,” she chuckled harshly. “You must come round here one evening. I’ll teach you something you didn’t know before.”

“You ought to try it once with Olga, Willi,” Otto seriously advised. “It’s well worth the money.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said politely, and hurried downstairs.

A few days later, I had a rendezvous with Fritz Wendel at the Troika. Arriving rather too early, I sat down at the bar and found the Baron on the stool next to my own.

“Hullo, Kuno!”

“Good evening.”

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He inclined his sleek head stiffly. To my surprise, he didn’t seem at all pleased to see me. Indeed, quite the reverse. His monocle gleamed polite hostility; his naked eye was evasive and shifty.

“I haven’t seen you for ages,” I said brightly, trying to appear serenely unconscious of his manner.

His eye travelled round the room; he was positively searching for help, but nobody answered his appeal. The place was still nearly empty. The barman edged over towards us.

“What’ll you have to drink?” I asked. His dislike of my society was beginning to intrigue me.

“Er—nothing, thank you. You see, I have to be going.”

“What, you’re leaving us so soon, Herr Baron?” put in the barman affably; unconsciously adding to his discomfort: “Why, you’ve hardly been here five minutes, you know.”

“Have you heard from Arthur Norris?” With deliberate malice I disregarded his attempts to dismount from his stool. He couldn’t do so until I had pushed mine back a little.

The name made Kuno visibly wince.

“No.” His tone was icy. “I have not.”

“He’s in Paris, you know.”

“Indeed?”

“Well,” I said heartily, “I mustn’t keep you any longer.” I held out my hand. He barely touched it.

“Goodbye.”

Released at last, he made like an arrow for the door. One might have thought that he was escaping from a plague hospital. The barman, discreetly smiling, picked up the coins and shovelled them into the till. He had seen spongers snubbed before.

I was left with another mystery to solve.

Like a long train which stops at every dingy little station, le winter dragged slowly past. Each week there were new emergency decrees. Briining’s weary episcopal voice issued commands to the shopkeepers, and was not obeyed. “It’s “Fascism,” complained the Social Democrats. “He’s weak,”

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said Helen Pratt. “What these swine need is a man with hair on his chest.” The Hessen Document was discovered; but nobody really cared. There had been one scandal too many. The exhausted public had been fed with surprises to the point of indigestion. People said that the Nazis would be in power by Christmas; but Christmas came and they were not. Arthur sent me the compliments of the season on a postcard of the Eiffel Tower.

Berlin was in a state of civil war. Hate exploded suddenly, without warning, out of nowhere; at street corners, in restaurants, cinemas, dance halls, swimming-baths; at midnight, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon. Knives were whipped out, blows were dealt with spiked rings, beer-mugs, chair-legs or leaded clubs; bullets slashed the advertisements on the poster-columns, rebounded from the iron roofs of latrines. In the middle of a crowded street a young man would be attacked, stripped, thrashed and left bleeding on the pavement; in fifteen seconds it was all over and the assailants had disappeared. Otto got a gash over the eye with a razor in a battle on a fairground near the Cöpernicker-strasse. The doctor put in three stitches and he was in hospital for a week. The newspapers were full of death-bed photographs of rival martyrs, Nazi, Reichsbanner and Communist. My pupils looked at them and shook their heads, apologizing to me for the state of Germany. “Dear, dear!” they said, “it’s terrible. It can’t go on.”

The murder reporters and the jazz-writers had inflated the German language beyond recall. The vocabulary of newspaper invective (traitor, Versailles-lackey, murder-swine, Marx-crook, Hitler-swamp, Red-pest) had come to resemble, through excessive use, the formal phraseology of politeness employed by the Chinese. The word Liebe, soaring from the Goethe standard, was no longer worth a whore’s kiss. Spring, moonlight, youth, roses, girl, darling, heart, May: such was the miserably devaluated currency dealt in by the authors of all those tangoes, waltzes and fox-trots which advocated the private escape. Find a dear little sweetheart, they advised,

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and forget the slump, ignore the unemployed. Fly, they urged us, to Hawaii, to Naples, to the Never-Never-Vienna. Hugenberg, behind the Ufa, was serving up nationalism to suit all tastes. He produced battlefield epics, farces of barrack-room life, operettas in which the jinks of a pre-war military aristocracy were reclothed in the fashions of 1932. His brilliant directors and camera-men had to concentrate their talents on cynically beautiful shots of the bubbles in champagne and the sheen of lamplight on silk.

And morning after morning, all over the immense, damp, dreary town and the packing-case colonies of huts in the suburb allotments, young men were waking up to another workless empty day to be spent as they could best contrive; selling bootlaces, begging, playing draughts in the hall of the Labour Exchange, hanging about urinals, opening the doors of cars, helping with crates in the markets, gossiping, lounging, stealing, overhearing racing tips, sharing stumps of cigarette-ends picked up in the gutter, singing folk-songs for groschen in courtyards and between stations in the carriages of the Underground Railway. After the New Year, the snow fell, but did not lie; there was no money to be earned by sweeping it away. The shopkeepers rang all coins on the counter for fear of the counterfeiters. Frl. Schroeder’s astrologer foretold the end of the world. “Listen,” said Fritz Wendel, between sips of a cocktail in the bar of the Eden Hotel, “I give a damn if this country goes communist. What I mean, we’d have to alter our ideas a bit. Hell, who cares?”

At the beginning of March, the posters for the Presidential Election began to appear. Hindenburg’s portrait, with an inscription in gothic lettering beneath it, struck a frankly religious note: “He hath kept faith with you; be ye faithful unto Him.” The Nazis managed to evolve a formula which dealt cleverly with this venerable icon and avoided the offence of blasphemy: “Honour Hindenburg; Vote for Hitler.” Otto and his comrades set out every night, with paint-pots and brushes, on dangerous expeditions. They climbed high walls, scrambled along roofs, squirmed under hoard-87

ings; avoiding the police and the S.A. patrols. And next morning, passers-by would see Thälmann’s name boldly inscribed in some prominent and inaccessible position. Otto gave me a bunch of little gum-backed labels: Vote for Thäl-mann, the Workers’ Candidate. I carried these about in my pocket and stuck them on shop-windows and doors when nobody was looking.

Briining spoke in the Sport Palace. We must vote for Hindenburg, he told us, and save Germany. His gestures were sharp and admonitory; his spectacles gleamed emotion in the limelight. His voice quivered with dry academic passion. “Inflation,” he threatened, and the audience shuddered. “Tannenberg,” he reverently reminded: there was prolonged applause.

Bayer spoke in the Lustgarten, during a snowstorm, from the roof of a van; a tiny, hatless figure gesticulating above the vast heaving sea of faces and banners. Behind him was the cold façade of the Schloss; and, lining its stone balustrade, the ranks of armed silent police. “Look at them,” cried Bayer. “Poor chaps! It seems a shame to make them stand out of doors in weather like this. Never mind; they’ve got nice thick coats to keep them warm. Who gave them those coats? We did. Wasn’t it kind of us? And who’s going to give us coats? Ask me another.”

“So the old boy’s done the trick again,” said Helen Pratt. “I knew he would. Won ten marks off them at the office, the poor fools.”

It was the Wednesday after the election, and we were standing on the platform of the Zoo Station. Helen had come to see me off in the train to England.

“By the way,” she added, “what became of that queer card you brought along one evening? Morris, wasn’t his name?”

“Norris … I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him for ages.”

It was strange that she should have asked that, because I had been thinking about Arthur myself, only a moment be—

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fore. In my mind, I always connected him with this station. It would soon be six months since he had gone away; it seemed like last week. The moment I got to London, I decided, I would write him a long letter.

CHAPTER NINE

Nevertheless, I didn’t write. Why, I hardly know. I was lazy and the weather had turned warm. I thought of Arthur often; so often, indeed, that correspondence seemed unnecessary. It was as though we were in some kind of telephathic communication. Finally, I went into the country for four months, and discovered, too late, that I’d left the postcard with his address in a drawer somewhere in London. Anyhow, it didn’t much matter. He had probably left Paris ages ago by this time. If he wasn’t in prison.

At the beginning of October I returned to Berlin. The dear old Tauentzienstrasse hadn’t changed. Looking out at it through the taxi window on my way from the station, I saw several Nazis in their new S.A. uniforms, now no longer forbidden. They strode along the street very stiff, and were saluted enthusiastically by elderly civilians. Others were posted at street corners, rattling collecting-boxes.

I climbed the familiar staircase. Before I had time to touch the bell, Frl. Schroeder rushed out to greet me with open arms. She must have been watching for my arrival.

“Herr Bradshaw! Herr Bradshaw! Herr Bradshaw! So you’ve come back to us at last! I declare I must give you a hug! How well you’re looking! It hasn’t seemed the same since you’ve been away.”

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“How have things been going here, Frl. Schroeder?”

“Well … I suppose I mustn’t complain. In the summer, they were bad. But now … Come inside, Herr Bradshaw, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Gleefully she beckoned me across the hall, flung open the door of the living-room with a dramatic gesture.

“Arthur!”

“My dear William, welcome to Germany I”

“I’d no idea …”

“Herr Bradshaw, I declare you’ve grown!”

“Well … well … this is indeed a happy reunion. Berlin is herself once more. I propose that we adjourn to my room and drink a glass in celebration of Herr Bradshaw’s return. You’ll join us, Frl. Schroeder, I hope?”

“Oh … Most kind of you, Herr Norris, I’m sure.”

“After you.”

“No, please.”

“I couldn’t think of it.”

There was a good deal more polite deprecation and bowing before the two of them finally got through the doorway. Familiarity didn’t seem to have spoilt their manners. Arthur was as gallant, Frl. Schroeder as coquettish as ever.

The big front bedroom was hardly recognizable. Arthur had moved the bed over into the corner by the window and pushed the sofa nearer to the stove. The stuffy-smelling pots of ferns had disappeared, so had the numerous little crochet mats on the dressing-table, and the metal figures of dogs on the bookcase. The three gorgeously tinted photochromes of bathing nymphs were also missing; in their place I recognized three etchings which had hung in Arthur’s dining-room. And, concealing the washstand, was a handsome Japanese lacquer screen which used to stand in the hall of the Courbierestrasse flat.

“Flotsam,” Arthur had followed the direction of my glance, “which I have been able, happily, to save from the wreck.”

“Now, Herr Bradshaw,” put in Frl. Schroeder, “tell me your candid opinion. Herr Norris will have it that those

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nymphs were ugly. I always thought them sweetly pretty myself. Of course, I know some people would call them old-fashioned.”

“I shouldn’t have said they were ugly,” I replied, diplomatically. “But it’s nice to have a change sometimes, don’t you think?”

“Change is the spice of Life,” Arthur murmured, as he fetched glasses from the cupboard. Inside, I caught sight of an array of bottles : “Which may I offer you, William—kiim-mel or Benedictine? Frl. Schroeder, I know, prefers cherry brandy.”

Now that I could see the two of them by daylight, I was struck by the contrast. Poor Frl. Schroeder seemed to have got much older; indeed, she was quite an old woman. Her face was pouched and wrinkled with worry, and her skin, despite a thick layer of rouge and powder, looked sallow. She hadn’t been getting enough to eat. Arthur, on the other hand, looked positively younger. He was fatter in the cheeks and fresh as a rosebud; barbered, manicured and perfumed. He wore a big turquoise ring I hadn’t seen before, and an opulent new brown suit. His wig struck a daring, more luxuriant note. It was composed of glossy, waved locks, which wreathed themselves around his temples in tropical abundance. There was something jaunty, even bohemian, in his whole appearance. He might have been a popular actor or a rich violinist.

“How long have you been back here?” I asked.

“Let me see, it must be nearly two months now … how time flies! I really must apologize for my shortcomings as a correspondent. I’ve been so very busy; and Frl. Schroeder seemed uncertain of your London address.”