Berlin Alexanderplatz Page 7
Gusts of wind, the papers blow loose from the clamps. “Say, bo, you ought to put up an umbrella outside here.” “So nobody could see anything?” “You could put a glass pane in front of it.” “Come along, Franz.” “Well, wait a minute. Jest a second. That man stands here for hours on end and isn’t blown over. Don’t be so fussy, Lina.” “But what makes him keep on grinning like that?” “That’s the expression of my face, Fraulein, my features, I can’t help that.” “He’s always grinning, I tell you, Lina, the poor guy.”
Franz pushed his hat back, looked the newsvender in the face and burst out laughing, holding Lina’s hand in his. “Why, he can’t help it, Lina. He got it from his mother’s breast. Do you know, bo, what kind of a face you make, when you grin? Nope, not like that, I mean, when you grin like you did before? You know, Lina. As if he was lying at his mother’s breast and the milk had got sour.” “That’s where you’re on the wrong tracle They raised me on the bottle.” “A lot of boloney.” “Listen, bo, what does a man earn in this business?” “Rote Fahne, thanks. Let this man get by, please. Watch out, a box coming.” “But you’re sure in a nice mob here, all right.”
Lina pulled him away, they floated down the Chausseestrasse as far as the Oranienburger Tor. “That’d be something for me, all right. I don’t catch a cold so very easy. If it wasn’t for all that hanging around in the hallway.”
Two days later it is warmer. Franz, who has sold his overcoat, and is wearing thick underwear, which Lina got him somewhere, stands on the Rosenthaler Platz in front of Fabisch & Co., high-class men’s tailoring to measure, excellent work and low prices are the characteristics of our products. Franz is hawking necktie-holders. He shouts his spiel:
“Why does the smart man in the West End wear a bow tie when the proletarian doesn’t? Ladies and gents, right up here, you too, Fraulein, with your husband, minors allowed, it costs no more for minors. Why doesn’t the proletarian wear bow ties? Because he can’t tie ‘em. Then he has to buy a tie-holder, and after he’s bought it, it’s no good and he can’t tie the tie with it. That’s swindling, it makes the people bitter; it pushes Germany still deeper into poverty than she is already. Why, for instance, don’t they wear those big tie-holders? Because nobody wants to put a dustpan around his neck. No man or woman wants that, not even the baby, if he could speak for himself. Please don’t laugh at that, ladies and gents, don’t laugh, we don’t know what’s going on in that dear little child brain. Oh, Lord, the dear little head, the little head and the little curls, it’s pretty, ain’t it, but when you got to pay alimony, it’s not to be laughed at, that gets a man into trouble. Go buy yourself a tie like this at Tietz’s or Wertheim’s or, if you don’t want to buy it from Jews, get it somewhere else. I’m a Nordic, I am.” He raises his hat, blond hair, red ears standing out, merry bull’s eyes. “The big department stores don’t have to get me to advertise them, they can exist without me. Buy a tie like the one I have here, and then decide how you’re going to tie it tomorrow.
“Ladies and gents, who has time nowadays to tie his tie in the morning, when he would rather take one more minute of sleep? We all need a lot of sleep, because we have to work so much to earn so little. A tie-holder like this helps you go to sleep. It competes with the drug stores, for whoever buys a tie-holder like the one I have here don’t need any sleeping powder and no night-cap or nothing. He sleeps without rocking, like a child at his mother’s breast, because he knows there’ll be no hurrying around in the morning; all he needs lies, ready for use, on his chest of drawers, and has only to be shoved into the collar. You spend your money for a lot of junk. Last year, for instance, you saw the crooks at the Krokodil bar, in the front they sold hot dogs, in the back Jolly was fasting in a glass case with sauerkraut growing around his mouth. Everyone of you saw that-just come up a little closer, I wanta save my voice, I ain’t insured my voice, I never had the money for the first premium-you saw Jolly lying in the glass box, didn’t you? But how they smuggled chocolate to him, that you didn’t see. Here you are buying honest goods, it’s not celluloid, it’s vulcanized rubber, twenty pfennigs a piece, fifty for three.
“Get away from the curb, young man, or you’ll be run over by an auto, and who is going to sweep up the rubbish afterwards? Now I’ll explain to you, how the tie is tied, or do I have to knock you on the head with a wooden hammer? You’ll understand it at once. Here you take about twelve to thirteen inches from one side, then you fold the ends together, but not like this. That looks as it a flattened out bedbug was sticking to the wall, a wallpaper splotch, a man of the better class don’t wear that. That’s when you take my contraption. We gotta save time. Time is money. The romantic days are over and won’t come back again, we all have to take that into consideration nowadays. You can’t pull a rubber hose slowly around your neck every day, you need a ready and efficient article like this here. Just look, that’s your Christmas present, that suits your taste, ladies and gents, it’s for your own good. If the Dawes Plan has left you anything at all, it’s your head under your lid, and it ought to tell you that this is just what you want; buy it and take it home, it’ll be a consolation to you.
“Ladies and gents, we need consolation, all of us together, and when we are foolish, we try to find it in the saloon. But if you’re reasonable, don’t do anything of the kind, for the pocketbook’s sake anyway, because the kind of rotten liquor the bartender hands out nowadays cries to heaven, and the good kind is expensive. Therefore, take this contraption, put a small loop through here, you can also make a large loop, like the ones the fairies wear in their shoes, when they step out. You pull it through here and then take hold of one end. A German citizen buys only genuine goods, that’s what you get here.”
Lina gives it to the Pansies
But that isn’t enough for Franz Biberkopf. He rolls his eyeballs. In the company of sloppy Lina he observes the sweet life between the Alex and Rosenthaler Platz and decides to sell newspapers. Why? They had told him all about it. Lina could lend a hand, and it’s just the thing for him. Moving to, moving fro, roundabout and away we go.
“Lina, I can’t make speeches, I’m not a popular orator. When I’m selling something, they understand me, but it’s not just right, either. Do you know what ‘mind’ is?” “Nope.” Lina ogles him expectantly. “Look at the boys on the Alex and here, too, none of them has any mind. The fellows with the stalls and wagons, too, that ain’t nothin’ either. They’re smart, clever boys, a lot of sap in ‘em, needn’t tell me anything about that. But just imagine a speaker in the Reichstag, Bismarck or Bebel, why, the ones we got now ain’t nothing, take it from me, they got mind all right, mind, that means head, not just any old noodle. None of them can get anything out of me with their soft soap. A speaker that is a speaker.” “Ain’t you a speaker, Franz?” “You make me laugh - me a speaker! Know who’s a speaker, well, you’ll never believe it, your landlady.” “That Schwenk woman?” “Nope, the other one, where I got the things, in the Karlstrasse.” “The one near the circus? Don’t talk to me about her.”
Franz bends mysteriously forward: “She sure was a speaker, Lina, a real one, I tell you.” “Not on your life. Comes into my room, and me lying in bed and wants to get my valise on account of one month.” “All right Lina, now listen, it wasn’t nice of her. But when I went upstairs and asked about the valise, she started off.” “I know that bunk of hers. I didn’t listen to her. Franz, you mustn’t let a woman like that put the skids under you.” “I tell you, Lina, she started off about criminal law, the civil code, and how she squeezed out a pension for her dead old man, when the old fool had an apoplectic fit, which didn’t have anything to do with the war. Since when has apoplexy got anything to do with the war? She said so herself, hut she didn’t give in, and she won her case. She’s got mind, Fatty, no two ways about it. Whatever she wants she gets, that’s more than earning a coupla pfennigs. That’s where you show what you are. That’s how you get air, baby. I’m still knocked flat.” “You go up to see her once
in a while?” Franz protests with both hands: “Suppose you go up there, Lina, you want to get a valise; you’re there at eleven sharp, you got something to do at twelve, and about a quarter to one you’re still standing there. She talks and talks to you, and you haven’t got your valise yet, and maybe you trot off without it. She can talk, that one, take it from me.”
He meditates across the table-top, and draws a design in a beer puddle with his finger: “I’m going to get a license somewhere and sell newspapers. That’s a good thing.”
She remains speechless, slightly insulted. Franz does what he pleases. One noon, he’s on Rosenthaler Platz, she brings him sandwiches, then he lights out at twelve, plunks the box with the tripod and all the cardboard-boxes under her arms and goes out looking for information about newspapers.
To start with, an elderly man on the Hackesche Market in front of Oranienburger Strasse advises him to take an interest in sexual education. It’s now being practiced on a big scale and doing quite well. “What’s sexual education?” Franz asks, and hesitates. The white-haired man points to his exhibit. “Better first take a look at this, then you won’t ask questions about it.” “Those are naked girls painted there.” “That’s the only kind I got.” They puff silently side by side. Franz stands and gapes at the pictures from top to bottom, puffing into the air, the man looks past him. Franz looks him in the eye: “Listen here, comrade, do you get any fun out of this, these here girls and pictures like that? The Gay Life. Here they go and paint a nude girl with a little kitten. Wonder what she’s after, on the stairs, with a li’l kitty. Suspicious bird. Am I disturbing you, pardner?” The latter, seated on his camp-chair, takes a deep breath and sinks into himself: there are jackasses in this world as big as mountains, the real thing in blockheads, who run around the Hackesche Market in broad daylight and stop in front of a fellow, if he’s in bad luck, to talk a lot of tommyrot. As the white-haired man becomes silent, Franz takes a few magazines from the hook: “You mind, pardner? What’s this? Figaro. And this one, Marriage. And this, Ideal Marriage. Now I s’pose that’s different from marriage. Woman’s Love. Everything to be had separately. Why a fellow can get all kinds of information here, if he’s got any money, but it’s mighty expensive. Beside there’s a catch in it somewhere.” “Well, I’d like to know what kind of a catch is in it. Everything goes. Nothing’s forbidden. What I sell, I got authorization for, and there ain’t no catch in it. Things like that I leave alone.” “I can tell you one thing, I just want to tell you, looking at pictures is no good. I could tell you a thing or two about that. It does a man harm, yes, sir, that botches you up. You start by looking at pictures and afterwards, when you want to, there you are, and it won’t go naturally any more.” “Don’t know what you’re talking about. And don’t spit on my papers, they cost a lot o’ money, and don’t paw the covers like that. Here read this: The Unmarried. There’s everything, even a special magazine for people like that.” “Unmarried, well, well, why shouldn’t there be people like that, why, I’m not married with Polish Lina either.” “Well, here; look what’s here, if that isn’t true, it’s only an example: To attempt to regulate the sexual life of the two parties by contract, or to decree conjugal duties in this respect, is the most loathsome and humiliating slavery we can possibly imagine. Well?” “How so?” “Is it true or not?” “That don’t happen to me. A woman who would ask a thing like that from a man, is that really possible? Can it happen?” “Well, there you read it.” “Well, that’s going a bit strong. Just let ‘em come and try anything like that on me.”
Franz reads the sentence again in amazement, then he gives a start, and shows something to the old man: “Well, and look what it says here: I would like to give an example from the work of d’Annunzio, Lust, now watch out, d’Annunzio’s the name of that super-swine, he’s a Spaniard or Italian or from America, maybe. Here the thoughts of the man are so full of his distant sweetheart that, during a night of love with a woman who serves as substitute, the name of his true love escapes him against his will. That beats everything. No, sirree, I won’t have anything to do with things like that.” “Hold on, where’s that, lemme see it.” “Here. Serves as substitute. Artificial rubber in place of rubber. Turnips instead of a real meal. Did you ever hear anything like it, a woman, a girl, for a substitute? He takes another one, just because he hasn’t got his own, and the new one notices something, and that’s the end, and I suppose she’s not to peep? He gets that printed, the Spaniard! If I was a printer, I wouldn’t print it.” “Well, cut out that rot! Y’ mustn’t think you can understand everything with your little brain, what a fellow like that means, a real writer, and a Spaniard or Italian at that, right here in the crowd on the Hackesche Market.”
Franz continues reading: “A great emptiness and silence then filled her soul. That’s enough to make you climb trees. Nobody’ll make me believe that. I don’t care who he is. Since when, emptiness and silence? I can talk about that, too, just like that fellow, and the girls probably ain’t any different there than anywhere else. Once I had one of ‘em, and she noticed something, an address in my notebook, well, boy: she notices something, and then silence? Maybe you think so, heh, but then you don’t know anything about women, old feller. You shoulda heard ‘er. The whole house shook and roared. That’s how loud she bawled. I couldn’t tell ‘er what it was all about. She kept on going, as if she was on a hot griddle. People came running. I was glad when I got outside.” “Say, there’s two things you don’t seem to notice?” “Which are?” “When anybody takes a paper from me, he buys it and he keeps it. If there’s any tripe in it, it don’t matter either, he’s only interested in the pictures, anyway.” Franz Biberkopf’s left eye disapproved of that. “And then here we got: Woman’s Love and Friendship, and they don’t talk any bunk, I’m tellin’ you, they fight. Yes, sir, they fight for human rights.” “Why, what’s the matter with ‘em?” “Penal Code, Section 175, if you don’t know it.” There just happens to be a lecture in Landsberger Strasse, Alexanderpalais, tonight, Franz might hear something about the wrong done to a million people in Germany every day. It’s enough to make your hair stand on end. The man pushed a bunch of old papers under Franz’s arm, Franz sighed, looked at the package under his arm: all right, he’ll probably be there. What’ll I do there, anyway, shall I really go, wonder if it’s worth while handling magazines like that? The pansies; he just gives me this stuff and expects me to carry it home and read it. A fellow might feel sorry for those boys, but they’re none o’ my business.
He left in a great pother, the whole thing seemed to him so far from kosher that he didn’t say a word to Lina and got rid of her in the evening. The old news-vender pushed him into a little hall, where there were almost nothing but men, mostly very young, and a few women, who sat apart in couples. Franz didn’t say a word for an hour, but grinned a lot behind his hat. After ten o’clock, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to beat it, the whole thing, and those funny people, it was too ridiculous for words, so many fairies in a bunch, and he right among ‘em, he got out quickly, and laughed until he came to Alexanderplatz. As he was leaving, he heard the lecturer talking about Chemnitz and the police ordinance of November 27. This forbids all inverts to go on the streets or use the comfort stations, and, if they are caught, it costs them 30 marks. Franz looked for Lina, but she had gone out with her landlady. He went to sleep. In his dream he laughed and swore a lot, he had a fight with a silly old driver who kept driving him around and around the Roland fountain in the Siegesallee. The traffic cop, too, was running after the car. At last Franz jumped out, and the auto drove like mad around the fountain and around him in a circle, and this went on and on without stopping, and Franz was always standing around with the copper while they consulted together: what arc we going to do with him, he’s crazy?
Next morning he waits for Lina in the cafe as usual, he has the magazines with him. He wants to tell her what boys like that really have to suffer. Chemnitz and the article of the law with the 30 mar
ks, at the same time it’s not his business, and they can bother about their articles themselves. And then Meck might come too, trying to get him to do something for the cattle drivers. Nope, all he wants is peace, they can go soak their heads.
Lina sees right away that he has slept badly. Hesitantly he pushes the magazines towards her, the pictures on top. Frightened, Lina claps her hand over her mouth. Then he starts talking again about mind. Looks for yesterday’s beer puddle on the table, but there isn’t any. She moves away from him: Suppose there’s something wrong with him like the kind here in the papers. She doesn’t understand, up to now he certainly wasn’t like that. He fiddles around, draws lines on the bare wood with his dry finger, then she takes the whole package of papers from the table and throws it down on the bench. At first she stands there like a mænad, and they stare at each other, he looking up at her like a little boy, then she waltzes off. And there he sits with his papers, now he can think about the fairies.
A baldpate goes walking one evening in the Tiergarten, he meets a pretty boy, who hooks onto him at once; they have a lovely stroll together for an hour, then the baldpate has the notion-the instinct, oh the desire, immense at that moment-to be very nice to the youngster. He is a married man, he has often noticed these things before, but now it has to be, ah, it’s really marvelous. “You’re my sunshine, you’re my darling.” And the lad is so gentle. To think that such things exist: “Come on, let’s go to a little hotel. You can give me five marks, or ten. I’m quite broke.” “Anything you want, my sunshine.” He gave him his whole pocketbook. To think that such things exist. That’s the nicest part of it all.
But in the room the door has peep-holes. The hotel-keeper sees something and calls his wife; she, too, sees something. And afterwards they say they won’t allow such things in their hotel, they saw it all right and he can’t deny it. And they would never permit such things, and he ought to be ashamed to seduce young boys like that, they are going to report him to the police. The porter and the chambermaid also come and grin. Next day the baldpate buys himself two bottles of champagne: Asbach Uralt, and leaves on a business trip. He wants to go to Heligoland, to end it all by drowning while plastered. He gets drunk all right, and takes a boat, but comes back two days later to the old girl; at home nothing has happened.