Unknown - Isherwood, Christopher (The Berlin Stories - The Last of Mr Norris - Goodbye to Berlin) (TXT)

I shivered a little, peering out over the water. It was cold. Bernhard’s soft, careful voice continued in my ear:

“I used to stand here on those winter evenings and pretend to myself that I was the last human being left alive in the world. … I was a queer sort of boy, I suppose… . I never got on well with other boys, although I wished very much to be popular and to have friends. Perhaps that was my mistake—I was too eager to be friendly. The boys saw this “nd it made them cruel to me. Objectively, I can understand that … possibly I might even have been capable of cruelty myself, had circumstances been otherwise. It is difficult to say… . But, being what I was, school was a kind of Chinese torture. … So you can understand that I liked to come down here at night to the lake, and be alone. And then there was the War. … At this time, I believed that the War would go on for ten, or fifteen, or even twenty years. I knew that I myself should soon be called up. Curiously enough, I don’t remember that I felt at all afraid. I accepted it. It seemed quite natural that we should all have to die. I suppose that this was the general wartime mentality. But I think that, in my case, there was also something characteristically Semitic in my attitude. … It is very difficult to

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speak quite impartially of these things. Sometimes one is unwilling to make certain admissions to oneself, because they are displeasing to one’s self-esteem… .”

We turned slowly and began to climb the slope of the garden from the lake. Now and then, I heard the panting of the terrier, out hunting in the dark. Bernhard’s voice went on, hesitating, choosing its words:

“After my brother had been killed, my mother scarcely ever left this house and its grounds. I think she tried to forget that such a land as Germany existed. She began to study Hebrew and to concentrate her whole mind upon ancient Jewish history and literature. I suppose that this is really symptomatic of a modern phase of Jewish development—this turning away from European culture and European traditions. I am aware of it, sometimes, in myself. … I remember my mother going about the house like a person walking in sleep. She grudged every moment which she did not spend at her studies, and this was rather terrible because, all the while, she was dying of cancer. … As soon as she knew what was the matter with her, she refused to see a doctor. She feared an operation. … At last, when the pain became very bad, she killed herself… .”

We had reached the house. Bernhard opened a glass door, and we passed through a little conservatory into a big drawing-room full of jumping shadows from the fire burning in an open English fireplace. Bernhard switched on a number of lamps, making the room quite dazzlingly bright.

“Need we have so much illumination?” I asked. “I think the firelight is much nicer.”

“Do you?” Bernhard smiled subtly. “So do I. … But I thought, somehow, that you would prefer the lamps.”

“Why on earth should I?” I mistrusted his tone at once.

“I don’t know. It’s merely part of my conception of your character. How very foolish I am!”

Bernhard’s voice was mocking. I made no reply. He got up and turned out all but one small lamp on a table at my side. There was a long silence.

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“Would you care to listen to the wireless?”

This time his tone made me smile: “You don’t have to entertain me, you know! I’m perfectly happy just sitting here by the fire.”

“If you are happy, then I am glad. … It was foolish of me—I had formed the opposite impression.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was afraid, perhaps, that you were feeling bored.”

“Of course not! What nonsense!”

“You are very polite, Christopher. You are always very polite. But I can read quite clearly what you are thinking. …” I had never heard Bernhard’s voice sound like this, before; it was really hostile: “You are wondering why I brought you to this house. Above all, you are wondering why I told you what I told you just now.”

“I’m glad you told me… .”

“No, Christopher. That is not true. You are a little shocked. One does not speak of such things, you think. It disgusts your English public-school training, a little—this Jewish emotionalism. You like to flatter yourself that you are a man of the world and that no form of weakness disgusts you, but your training is too strong for you. People ought not to talk to each other like this, you feel. It is not good form.”

“Bernhard, you’re being fantastic!”

“Am I? Perhaps… . But I do not think so. Never mind… . Since you wish to know, I will try to explain to you why I brought you here. … I wished to make an experiment.”

“An experiment? Upon me, you mean?”

“No. An experiment upon myself. That is to say… . For ten years, I have never spoken intimately, as I have spoken to you tonight, to any human soul. … I wonder if you can put yourself in my place, imagine what that means? And this evening… . Perhaps, after all, it is impossible to explain… . Let me put it in another way. I bring you down here, to this house, which has no associations for you. You have no reason to feel oppressed by the past. Then I tell you my story. … It is possible that, in this way,

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one can lay ghosts. … I express myself very badly. Does it sound very absurd as I say it?’

“No. Not in the least… . But why did you choose me for your experiment?”

“Your voice was very hard as you said that, Christopher. You are thinking that you despise me.”

“No, Bernhard. I’m thinking that you must despise me. … I often wonder why you have anything to do with me at all. I feel sometimes that you actually dislike me, and that you say and do things to show it—and yet, in a way, I suppose you don’t, or you wouldn’t keep asking me to come and see you. … All the same, I’m getting rather tired of what you call your experiments. Tonight wasn’t the first of them, by any means. The experiments fail, and then you’re angry with me. I must say, I think that’s very unjust… . But what I can’t stand is that you show your resentment by adopting this mock-humble attitude… . Actually, you’re the least humble person I’ve ever met.”

Bernhard was silent. He had lit a cigarette, and now expelled the smoke slowly through his nostrils. At last he said:

“I wonder if you are right … I think not altogether. But partly… . Yes, there is some quality in you which attracts me and which I very much envy, and yet this very quality of yours also arouses my antagonism… . Perhaps that is merely because I also am partly English, and you represent to me an aspect of my own character… . No, that is not true, either. … It is not so simple as I would wish… . I’m afraid,” Bernhard passed his hand, with a wearily humorous gesture, over his forehead and eyes, “that I am a quite unnecessarily complicated piece of mechanism.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then he added:

“But this is all stupid egotistical talk. You must forgive me. I have no right to speak to you in this way.”

He rose to his feet, went softly across the room, and switched on the wireless. In rising, he had rested his hand for an instant on my shoulder. Followed by the first strains of the music, he came back to his chair before the fire, smiling.

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His smile was soft, and yet curiously hostile. It had the hostility of something ancient. I thought of one of the Oriental statuettes in his flat.

“This evening,” he smiled softly, “they are relaying the last act of Die Meistersinger.”

“Very interesting,” I said.

Half an hour later, Bernhard took me up to my bedroom door, his hand upon my shoulder, still smiling. Next morning, at breakfast, he looked tired, but was gay and amusing. He did not in any way refer to our conversation of the evening before.