The novel of the XII.

Printed by Wilhelm hecker in Gräfenhainichen.

The novel
the
ßermann Bahr - Otto Julius Bierbaum - Otto Ernst - Berbers
Eulenberg - Banns Beinz Ewers - Gustav Falke - Georg ßirldiield
- Felix ßollaender - Gustav üleyrink - Gabriele Reuter - Olga
Wohlbrück - Ernst v. Wolzogen.
1st-5th ongoing.
Berlin.
Konrad W. Mecklenburg formerly Riditer'fcher Verlag.
Copyright, ^909, by Aonrad W. Mecklenburg
formerly Richter'scher Verlag, Berlin.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013
http://archive.org/details/derromanderxii01
bahr
how the "Novel of the XII" came about.
The idea for the "Novel of the XII" came to
me quite suddenly one fine day, and it just so
happened that I spoke to Hanns Heinz Ewers
about it.
He looked at me fixedly with his pince-nez
for a while and then said slowly and with
emphasis through a cloud of cigarette vapor: "A
crazy idea - but good!"
A few days later I read in the "New-Hork
Gerald" that a work of a similar nature had
appeared in America, albeit written by authors
of little importance, and was about to give up
my plan. But Dr. Ewers shouted: "Don't hang
your head! Duplicity of events! Think of
Zeppelin, Groß and Parseval! Wright and
Bleriot! (Peary and Look were not yet fighting
each other back then.) No one is the first - and:
everyone is! There is nothing I believe in more
than the coincidence of events!"
 Of course, nothing was further from my
mind than claiming equal rights with the deeds
of the aeronauts and the explorers of northern
Poland for this "coinciding publishing idea"!
Nevertheless, these facts encouraged me, and
so I set out to search the German poetry forest
to find the best, because only they could
publish the "Novel of the XII".
the interesting, grotesque literary joke that it
has now indeed become.
True, it was not easy to catch the colorful
birds: one was just hatching from a new, large
egg and had no time for a happy incubation.
The other had flown over the sea, the third had
to take a short break from laying eggs, the
fourth had been locked up in a gold-barred
poultry yard by his publisher and was only
allowed to breed for him. So it became a hot
pursuit, which was hard work and laborious -
but in the end it was successful!
I now also learned that the priority of the
idea did not belong to the Pankees at all, but to
us Germans.
Georg Freiherr von Ompteda, for example,
said that he had published something about a
similar idea in a monthly magazine long before.
Ernst Freiherr von Wolzogen wrote: "Several
decades ago I wanted to implement such a plan,
but it was not well received by the 'celebrities'
of the time, hopefully you will have more luck!
It would be fun if readers were offered prizes
for correctly guessing the authors ..." Of
course, I was happy to take up this new idea:
that's how the competition came about. This
should also stimulate interest in our
contemporary literature; the statistician,
however, may not be indifferent to this
competition insofar as he can determine how
much this dozen of our most capable and
popular writers are known to the general
public.
I would particularly like to mention the
letters of approval from many poets, both those
who later worked on the novel and others who
were unable to participate for one reason or
another.
The cheerful Detlev von Liliencron, who
was unfortunately taken from us so suddenly in
the best of times, exclaimed: "Yes, that will
certainly be a good joke, it's an excellent idea!"
 Gerhart Hauxtmann wrote: "It goes without
saying that I look forward with keen interest to
the great literary joke that brings together so
many famous names."
"Your idea is very funny," said Otto Julius
Bierbaum, "I'm afraid it's too funny for gloomy
Germans!"
"Line famose Idee, dieser Zwölfer-Scherz,"
said Richard Dehmel.
These friendly lines arrived from Munich:
"Your idea is excellent, the joke will succeed
and no one is looking forward to the 'Roman
der XI' more than your very devoted Thomas
Mann."
"But," warned Gustav Meyrink, "won't you
be like the dog (pardon!) with the crabs? There
was once a dog who was supposed to guard a
handkerchief filled with twelve crabs. When
one crab escaped, the dog managed to get it
back into the handkerchief, but in the meantime
two others had escaped in different directions.
The dog breathlessly brought these two back
too, but there were four others, etc. etc."
Well, it didn't work out that way! - I am
indebted to all twelve collaborators who made
themselves available for the work for the final
success, but especially to Heinz Lwers, who
gave me excellent support and always knew
how to overcome every new difficulty - and
there were quite a few - in a good and clever
way.
The reader will now be interested in the
genesis of the novel itself. It was simple
enough: Mr. A. (let him guess the name
himself!) wrote the first chapter, which was
immediately sent to Mr. 8. When he had
finished chapter 2, Mr. 0. was given the first
two chapters to write a third. And so it went on;
each of the XII poets continued the thread in
his own way and style.
 The carpet is certainly colorful enough and
shimmers in all colors, well - that's what it's
supposed to be! But if you have eyes, you will
be able to recognize from whose hands the
weave at the ends, in the middle or at the sides
originates! However, all those who enjoy
amusing and stimulating hours through the
"Novel of the XII" will certainly be just as
grateful to our twelve authors as
the publisher.
Berlin, October ^909.
Prelude.
"What is a man?" A man is the fulfillment
of God. He is the only proof of God's existence.
lvas is a man? - Embodied strength,
embodied beauty, embodied freedom,
embodied pride.
Mas is a man - the symbol of truth and
simplicity.
lvas is a man - an explorer and trailblazer.
A seafarer who strives into the open sea and
discovers new land.
lvas is a man? -^The coiner of all values.
What is a man? - An eagle circling through
the air."
"lvas is a husband? - A ridiculous figure
from the very beginning. A plow horse that
makes deep furrows in the clod.
lvas is a husband? - A frightened animal
with a broken back.
Mas is a husband? - A maltreated man who,
in the morning, does his dreary day's work
begins and in the late stage it ends with
extinguished eyes.
What is a husband? - The living proof of
the lack of freedom of will. He is the negation
of God."
*
"N)as is a woman?" - The fulfillment of the
devil, the only proof of the devil's existence.
What is a woman? - The epitome of
wretchedness, the embodiment of pretense, lies
and baseness.
What is a woman? - A soaked sponge,
heavy with the araft she has sucked from the
man.
What is a woman? - The symbol of
barrenness and vanity. Embodied cowardice,
embodied powerlessness and embodied
meanness.
What is a woman? - A fruit whose skin
shines and whose core is rotten and rotten.
What is a woman? - The scourge of God. -
God? - Who is laughing! A woman has nothing
to do with God! She is the scourge of the devil.
What does a woman do from sunrise to
sunset? - She grinds the man's bones. She
drains his brains, and her otherwise dead eyes
sparkle and shine.
 What is a woman? - The plunderer and
counterfeiter of all values.
What is a woman? - Always and forever a
proof against God.
What is a woman? - Line goose, cackling
endlessly across the yard.
Scripture has laid bare the relationship
between the tub and the woman. Recall
Samson and Dalila and be startled by the
concise force and succinctness of the formula
discovered here: shake your locks, poor fellow,
and let them blow in the wind. The hour strikes
when the curls fall - the hour strikes when you
grow weary.
What is the The? - The bloody tragedy of
life, the most ridiculous farce staged on the
planet Trde.
In his shameful fantasy, the man dreams of
the planet that never bore a woman as the other
side of his longing."
**
"For what is marriage? - The mating and
the fight between an eagle and a goose. And
the end? - The eagle lies on the ground with
broken wings, and the goose stands next to it,
cackling upright.
 What is marriage? - The highest madness
that culture has produced, the most ingenious
means of suppressing the powers ^and
inhibiting development..... It is a superfluous
effort to enumerate all the humiliations that
have been inflicted on men on this path of
suffering. It was only through marriage that the
whole social question could be raised and the
mania for property, in which all impudence and
licentiousness are rooted, could be born. The
viciousness of the possessive pronouns finds its
most glaring illumination in the formula: My
husband.
The woman enters the man's life in order to
break and destroy him from the ground up. She
penetrates - like a thief - without shame into his
innermost being. A being completely alien to
him takes possession of him and appropriates
his thoughts and feelings with clumsy audacity,
talks with his vocabulary, steals his weapons,
outwits him seven hundred and seventy-seven
times every hour and does not feel for a
moment how it burdens him and presses him to
the ground. It never occurs to this creature that
she is a foreign body in the man's life, that a
mean coincidence has led her to his side. For
her, the bed is the equalizer of all things. Has
she ever heard the silent groans that the man
chokes into himself because he still preserves
the chastity of his soul in his suffering? - His
silent questions are: What does this man want
from me! I was free, independent and happy. I
had collected treasures that I could live on until
the end of my days. With what right does she
miss breaking into my seclusion! - How can a
stranger, who has not experienced my
childhood and my growth, want to comprehend
and understand me, how can the closeness of
the bed cancel out the distance that lies between
me and her - even in the hour of my death I will
feel that there has never been a connection
between me and her. She wove me the shroud
while I was alive, which is poisoned in all its
lasers. And she pulled this poisoned shroud
over my poor body day after day, hour after
hour, and feasted with fervor on the duals that
my poor body bore, that my sore soul suffered.
She was the burden of my existence, under
which I collapsed. And I look at the Aind of her
body with fear and mistrust, because it also
carries blood of her blood and is a counterfeit
of my existence.
When I write these sentences down, a
shudder runs through me, because suddenly the
thought of my mother and sister comes to mind.
And if I wanted to draw all the consequences, I
should stop at neither mother nor sister. But this
is the meaning of marriage, that it makes a man
cowardly and weary and deprives him of the
courage to draw consequences.
 My scorn, never let a woman be your
purpose. In all your life's journeys, she is only a
means on the winding paths of your existence I"
**
When the Privy Medical Councillor von
Dülfert departed with death, the above lines
were read in his will, which were addressed to
his only scorn. The will contained nothing else,
not the slightest hint of his last wishes. The
Privy Medical Council seemed to have
considered it superfluous to make any kind of
provision for his miserable estate.
The story of this man can be told in a few
banal sentences. He had married the most
beautiful woman in the city, and the first house
in the city had been the finest. At the midday
height of life he had made an epoch-making
scientific discovery that would bring him so
much prestige and wealth that the concept of
money no longer had any meaning for him. At
that time he was raised to the hereditary
nobility and received the title of Excellency.
There was only one mockery left alive that
he did not understand. This was a man with a
fused body and a complicated mind. His father's
words rang in his ears until the hour of his
death: "As an anatomist, the
session of your body with regard to the
convolutions of your brain."
The father and son passed each other with
deep mistrust.
The Privy Councillor who made the most
extensive use of the title of Excellency - she
was 29 years old when the Privy Councillor
received this honor - was a systematic person.
She first stole the man's money, then his
reputation and honor.
The Privy Councillor endured it with a shy
smile.
When she left his house one night, he
smiled again in a very tired and shy way.
But his life changed from that hour. He
separated from his son. He gave up his home
and his practice and became a diligent drinker
before the Lord. However, he never drank in
company. In a remote wine bar, he sat alone in
front of the round, wooden table and stared
gloomily and pensively - the gold glasses on his
bent nose - into the blood-red wine. The Privy
Councillor was in favor of Burgundy. He had
turned off the white wines.
On the occasion of his death, neither his
epochal discovery nor his domestic affairs were
mentioned. With a quiet, unmistakable 2
In the past, he said with the utmost respect,
there was no one in the city who knew more
about Burgundy than he did.
After his death, the few lines that make up
the beginning of this book were found in his
will.
First chapter.
Gin reunion.
It was after dinner. The hotel guests had
moved into the large vestibule, which was
bathed in a flood of whitish-yellow light from
countless electric lamps. The heavy Persian
carpet muffled the loud conversation emanating
from various tables and groups. It sang out the
sounds of gypsy music, which was invisibly
positioned somewhere in the background.
The old gentlemen sat in the large
aluminum chairs and smoked in quiet comfort.
English, French, Russian and Italian vocabulary
buzzed around the room. And the gentlemen
with their long gauze scarves flowing from
their shoulders down to the ground, from which
glittering stones and matt pearls shone out,
performed a kind of symphony of colors, into
which the bright silver laughter from all corners
and ends and the muted tones of the music
resounded.
The servants served the aaffee, the aognac
and the liqueurs. The bluish haze of the havanas
blurred the faces.
A lady with the figure of a slender doll was
sitting at the fireplace. You could only see her
slender
Her back and her bright red hair piled high.
There was a book on a small table next to her.
Despite the cozy warmth, she rubbed her
slender palms against each other. She seemed
to be freezing.
Then the loud babble of voices was
interrupted for a moment.
A tall gentleman in a brown tailcoat and
velvet collar entered the vestibule. Was he
young - was he old? It was impossible to tell in
the fine haze that covered the room. But the
whole company stared at him for a second.
He seemed tall and elastic, despite the
visible hump he had, and despite the slightly
raised left shoulder. Gin's clean-shaven Goethe
head with amber-yellow hair, sharp, concise
features that had nothing Goethean about them
- a Goethe head only at a distance, problematic
lines without unity close up. Water-bright eyes
that constantly changed color, beneath them a
narrow, long nose and thin, tightly closed lips.
A broad chin, out of proportion to the other
parts, formed the finishing touch. This
gentleman attracted the attention of the whole
company for a moment.
The lady by the fireplace turned around
involuntarily, and now something strange
happened. She suddenly stood up and stared at
the gentleman motionlessly.
The gentleman walked straight towards
them with his head held high. He completely
ignored the rest of his surroundings.
 "That's what I call a surprise," he said,
quietly tilting his head.
She just nodded as she swallowed her
movement with all the energy she could muster.
She barely reached his shoulders. She stood
next to him like a rococo figurine.
He suddenly smiled in an amused way.
"Sit down," she said quietly.
He followed, while at the same time she
settled back into the large armchair in front of
the Aamin.
They sat at the back of society. No one
could watch them.
"Why were you smiling?" she asked.
"I was thinking about the first time we met.
How many years ago?"
"Six years," she replied, and her soul
contracted.
"Now you know why I was smiling."
"I know itl"
"It's been six years," he repeated, "and I
think it was yesterday.It was just like today
"I was J7 at the time," she interrupted him,
"I guess there is a difference."
"Let's forget this for a little while," he
replied. "But even then you were sitting in front
of the Aamin, and the red glow hit your face
and your red hair. You were wearing a red
Nlorgen dress,
that was covered with black cords. Do you
know what I said to you back then?"
She smiled for the first time. "You said I
looked to you like a tin hussar you'd pulled out
of a wooden Christmas box."
"Yes, that's what I said."
Both remained silent.
"I will never forget this encounter," she
began again. "I hadn't been able to sleep. I had
fled to the Pompeian Hall. The whole hotel was
asleep. I was reading - and suddenly you were
standing next to me. I dropped the book in
shock."
"And I picked it up and was also startled,
platon's guest painting in the original text. The
red hussar and j)laton - it didn't quite go
together That's funny," he interrupted, "like
back then, another book next to you. May we
see?"
"Please."
"Guy de Ulaupassant - Bel Ami," he read,
"you have come a long way."
"Yes," ste replied and suddenly looked at
him wide and penetratingly.
Gin American next to them laughed
brightly.
 She nervously raised her narrow shoulders
and lowered her head. "I was a student then,
Doctor."
"Yes, yes," he replied absentmindedly. "By
the way, you can still hear the Norwegian
Alang from your
Voice. Do you know,' he continued abruptly,
'that we were both very cowardly at the time,
Miss Holmsen? '
"Not me. I would have followed you to the
ends of the earth."
"And yet you let your stepsister drag you to
Rome like a piece of luggage."
"I wrote to you to come and get me. You
didn't come."
"I was in Rome. However, I was afraid of
your sister and your brother, who was a
minister at the time. Your sister was a resolute
person. How is she doing?"
She ignored this question.
"You don't know that she threatened me
with the public prosecutor if I got serious.
Kidnapping a minor, etc. I became afraid of
her. I had written to you and called you to the
Café Romain. The sister turned up instead of
you. It was a ridiculous situation. I had to give
my word of honor. Nota bene, how is your
sister?" he asked again.
Again, she ignored his words.
"By the way, I saw you again in Rome.
Björnstjerne Björnson was sitting next to you
and preaching. I got scared and stood up.
Preaching always scares me."
She looked at him inquiringly. Something
in his features didn't sit right with her. But
when his watery
Bright eyes lit up, she felt her hands grow cold.
"You think I've changed?"
She remained silent.
He leafed through the Maupassant. "An
excellent book. The only classic among modern
writers. He died in his early forties of a
softening of the brain."
"Do you want to entertain me?" she asked,
her voice a little breathy.
"Please, please, I didn't mean to offend you.
Tell me how it went for you. I thought you
would have been a mother or a professor of
mathematics at Upsala by now."
Her features became bitter. "Now you're
lying," she said. "You never thought of me. I
was nothing to you but a little
adventure...Please," she continued nervously,
"don't defend yourself. You want to
know how it went? Good. My sister died. My
brother died. And I've become something of a
globetrotter. I travel. During the season I'm in
London, in winter in Paris, Vienna or Berlin, in
spring on the Riviera and in midsummer in
Norway. - Program music."
"Hm," he said.
"And you? What happened to you?"
 "Nothing so far. I was away for several
years.
gets married."
 "Ah!" she said, startled.
He pretended not to notice.
"I met a little person who I was with for
several years."
"Died?" she asked.
"Quite the opposite - she is very lively. She
is currently singing in a: Luke chantant in New
IJorf. We parted as the best of friends."
"do you have Ainder?"
"She got two Ainder during this time. I
won't swear to whether they are mine."
She moved her chair aside a little uneasily.
"You've changed a lot." She ran her hand
over her forehead, which was hot.
"In what way?"
"Have you forgotten everything?"
"I don't know what you're alluding to."
"lvas didn't you want everything back
then!"
"Maybe I still want some things today."
"Do you remember what you told us about
your ideas for the future at that time?"
"I have become forgetful in the baptism of
years. Perhaps you will come to my aid."
"You can only change like that!" she said
quietly. "I'll never forget the night you told us
your plan."
"What was that plan?"
24
"They said there was no Aartoffel question.
The whole Aartoffel question is a humbug."
"I still hold this view today."
"But then you went on to say that you were
about to solve the only problem that mattered."
"(U)hat was the problem?"
He smiled absentmindedly.
"You would travel around the world, you
explained at the time, and collect the geniuses.
You wanted to found an assembly of
unrecognized geniuses. Because, you said,
social misery consisted in the fact that there
was so much genius running around in the
world and perishing. The unrecognized
geniuses, you claimed, should be collected and
made fruitful. And when the Nlarquis Ahiasi
asked you what you would do with this rabble
when you had happily gathered it together, you
replied that you wanted to open an international
bureau with branches in New York, Paris and
London and make the ideas fruitful. The dead
capital should come to life and be ignited by
the ideas and discoveries of the geniuses. The
whole UUsere, you explained, consisted in the
fact that genius, which was present in every
nook and cranny, was perishing miserably
because it had no opportunity to work itself
out. Our whole development is so dull and
bungling because it lacks ideas and inspiration.
The business that today's a-capitalism
are clumsy and unimaginative. They are
pathetic businesses and Urämer affairs. They
wanted to sell ideas everywhere.?hey talked
about an architect who would build the glass
cities.-------You see," she said, "I've
memorized every word you said."
"The green fantasies of an immature
person! They were 5 years old then, I was 22.
That explains everything."
5 She stared at him, stunned.
"My God, how is that possible! The
Marquis Fihiasi gave you 20000 lire back then
to ..." - She paused in the middle of her patter.
"To go on the first business trip and buy
genies," he added. "How Tie kept all the
details! - Unfortunately, I only found battered
geniuses who were of little use. - Incidentally, I
sent in the hotel bills to your Marquis Lihiasi
and kept a record of all my expenses."
He laughed cheerfully and his features
became young again.
"It wasn't a bad idea. At least it brought me
a few interesting acquaintances."
"And what have you written since then?"
"Nothing more. I'd had enough of the first
book. Writing books is a nasty business. You
have more important things to do."
 "What are you going to start now?"
"I don't want to say anything more about
that now. All I know is that from now on I'm
going to focus on myself. The others are no
longer my concern. I'm going to do my career."
"For God's sake," she said, and for the first
time a miserable smile lit up her face. "You
don't want to be a minister, do you?"
"Does that scare you so much?" he asked,
amused.
"Yes. I have to think of my brother who,
when he pushed through a law in the Aammer
that teachers should start with ^00 instead of
^200 arones, felt he had accomplished his life's
work. He lay down and died in bliss."
The memory of her brother made her laugh
out loud.
"Things are not as simple as you make them
out to be."
"So you want to become a minister after
all?" she asked cheerfully.
"No," he replied. "I wouldn't be interested
in a ministerial chair. But I could very well
imagine that, after Bismarck, I would have the
greatest talent to become Chancellor of the
Reich, and a Chancellor of the kind that is
needed at the moment."
She listened, and from her eyes glowed
again that strange spark that his young,
had inflamed my fantastic senses in the Tapres
days.
"And who knows," he continued, "whether I
won't come to you and offer you the cost of
Princess Bülow."
"Don't make any premature promises. You
will never come. And if you do have serious
intentions, you'll find out in due course that it's
too late."
"It's never too late."
"Oh yes, sir. Today I am 23 years old, in
five years I will be 28, and then in Germany
one counts as a sour girl. And if you add two
more, I'll be an old maid of 30 who is still
invited to evening parties, however difficult it is
to get the poor soul home again."
"You mean the cavaliers are dying out?"
She nodded.
"But today you are 23."
"A sensible woman begins to resign herself
at 23. By the way - let's leave that - let's come
back to the Chancellor. I love it when you
fantasize. That's one of my best experiences
from Italy, did you really still think of me?"
"I haven't forgotten you at any time."
"Thank you. However - that's not the point.
U)hat would you achieve as chancellor?"
 "Why do you shy away from the mold?
Why do you immediately ask the cardinal
question?"
"Because Äe have certainly dreamed about
it and have long since formed a certain image."
"Good, so you hear. Bismarck has left his
successor an inheritance that no one else has
ever taken up. The Reich is stronger on the
outside. Wan must conquer it internally.
Germany must be turned into an educational
province."
"What does that mean?"
"Race 5ie Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister^?"
"No," she replied, "I'm not that educated."
"Very well. In a chapter of "Wilhelm
Weiftet, Goethe, using all the great ideas of the
time, has clearly defined the program of the
future state - much more clever, much more
meaningful and much more significant than all
later ones have succeeded in doing. He just
doesn't say "future state", but finds the formula
"pedagogical province^. - But doesn't that bore
you?" he interrupted.
"Not in the least. Go ahead."
"Well then, we are now ripe to finally install
the state of the future, and this revolution can
only be made from above. There is no longer
any revolution from below. I would therefore,"
he said, "make a clean sweep according to
Goethe's recipe. The school and science would
have to be turned upside down, an education
that throws all dead weight overboard, on the
strong/passionate life
and unites spiritual and physical culture - a
return to nature and a renunciation of all lifeless
aram. An idea that the sparrows are whistling
from the rooftops today, and which should
finally be implemented in earnest. Then I would
build the glass cities that my friend 5>cheerbart
designed twenty years ago and create Robert
Owen's communist colonies in them. But I
would also introduce the workers' catechism
and Count 5aint-5imon's new Lhristianity. For
it is part and parcel of the Marxists' and
political screamers' absurdity that they want to
invent a state in which religion is switched on.
Religion in German does not mean belief in a
personal God, but it means reverence.
Reverence is the first and last commandment of
education. My tongues should lead the horses to
the watering place, the cows to the pasture and
learn English in the process. Above all,
however, they should be taught reverence for
nature and respect for work and the worker. I
am by no means of the opinion that the 5taat or
the new community should become an
institution for lazy people. Those who are lazy,
indolent and incapable of creating value should
perish. I know no pity. I do not reproach anyone
for their condition and I am quite aware that
diligence and talent are not merit and laziness
and lack of talent are not merit.
are to blame. But this awareness is of no use to
me if I don't draw conclusions anyway. The
good man has a right to exist, he who cannot
swim perishes because he is superfluous and
stands in the way. But now I come to an
important distinction. There are many talents
that are crushed in the treadmill of life because
they lack practical meaning. The fruitfulness of
these poor souls must be discovered and
harnessed for the common good. And this, in
turn, is only possible through liberal and
individual education. In a word, so as not to
lose myself in the boundless: the new Reich
Chancellor must create the new Reich, whose
geographical borders have only just been
defined. And for this he need only read his
Goethe, who is still shockingly unpopular
today."
He suddenly laughed out loud.
"Why are you looking at me so aghast? I
will never become Chancellor of the Reich, I
know it. But perhaps I will buy the Lüneburg
Heath and build the great glass city on it,
establish great industries and prepare a home
for human dignity. I have made the great glass
city with the new people, in which everything is
transparent, clear and without meanness, my
program. - Ah," he said, "I see a sneer on your
face. Why don't you believe that I am carrying
this out?
am I capable of? Do Äe take me for an
everyday person?"
"Oh no," she replied, startled. "I know
you're not just spouting phrases. I've read your
book. Why haven't you written anything more?"
"I have contempt for book writers and
regard my book as an infamous piece of
juvenilia. There must be cobblers who write
books. I readily admit it, although I don't care
so much for all these books of fine literature -
he clicked his thumb and forefinger together.
But I don't want to be one of that five kinds of
Ulenschen. I want to do something, do
something positive. And whether you believe
me today or not, I'll get something done,
something that will reach your ears - and when
you've reached the North Pole on your journey
around the world. Maybe I'll light this city on
fire in every nook and cranny. lVer want to
know! Build it up or destroy it from the ground
up and create space for a new one - it all comes
down to the same thing."
"Oh," she said, "now I'm beginning to
understand you. There is an eminent drive to
destroy in you."
"You suddenly think so?" he asked,
puzzled, and grabbed her hand, which was
sobbing quietly - he could clearly feel it - in his
delicate hand.
 "I love your hand," he said, without waiting
for her answer.
"Thank you." She took it from him." "You
love my hand, and you have walked over my
soul without mercy."
"You think so?"
"I don't believe it. I know it. You take a
wife, bring children into the world and abandon
your wife and children. What makes up the
content of life for others, you ignore like a
superfluous episode."
He furrowed his brow.
"I think it is more decent," he said very
slowly, "to resolve indecent relationships than
to make a miserable slave of oneself. I have
always recognized as fundamentally wrong the
obligation that one should finish the soup one
has made for oneself. On the contrary, you
should stop at the third spoonful if you can't
stand the dish."
"Wonderful and extremely comfortable,"
she replied.
He brushed back the amber hair that had
fallen over his forehead with a nervous
movement.
She saw the bluish veins standing out on his
slender hand, and she felt quite clearly that her
words had struck and wounded him. She bowed
her head sadly.
"I'll stop already ..................I know you
don't love that. I will never speak of it again
once it has been said."
"We live past each other because we don't
understand each other. Every human being has
a code of morals and wants others to live
according to their standards. I find that fatal and
embarrassing."
Both were silent for a while.
She suddenly smiled painfully.
"Promise me one thing: call me when you
are sore and weak and lying there with broken
limbs."
"Oh no," he replied, "I will call you when I
have built up the Lüneburg Heath and brought
the new community under roof."
"Good, but call me when you are
miserable."
"I'm not going to put my glend on display.
I'll let Äe know when friend Hein is standing at
my camp and is about to load me onto his
hump."
"And when will Äe buy the Lüneburger
beeide?"
"This is still a long way off. First, I will
publish notes on the secret forces that we do not
know, even though they determine our
existence - on the iron law of chance and the
transmission of will, of which today's
a few fools think it is spiritualist humbug, when
in fact it is a real thing for which there is
scientific evidence. To be a genius is to transmit
your will to others."
"And how will you live in the meantime?"
"Yes, don't you know that I sold the
Duchess of Orleans' top collection for five
million and made five times a hundred thousand
marks on the deal?"
"Ah," she said, "they're trading."
"If that's what you want to call it, I'm
trading. Don't pull your lips down so
contemptuously and don't turn up your nose. I
have no more sacred respect for anyone than for
the great businessmen. The geniuses perish
because they do not understand their business,
or because they draw attention to themselves by
their foolish vanity and thereby arouse the
dangerous envy of their fellow men. The
crooked-nosed hucksters who go about their
business in silence, who never utter a useless
word, who reckon and act with cold blood:
They are the only ones who achieve their goal.
They are the masters and secret emperors. The
others are bunglers. The only thing that matters
is reaching the goal."
 "---------And not to burden yourself with
women."
 "That's right. This maxim is the only legacy
my father left me."
"And you took it on as an obedient
reward."
"With a certain reservation, of course. If I
remember correctly, I told you at the time that
my father died from the little tragedy of his
giving, which he embellished with literary
reminiscences of Ltrindberg."
"Lie showed me the will! - What did it say?
- The woman is always and forever the proof
of the devil's existence!"
"Va bene. Incidentally, I've never gone so
far as to eliminate women from my life. I just
don't want to be ruined by them and let them be
a determining factor in my life. - Don't give me
such a nasty look, give me your hand. I want to
unravel the fine lines of this hand. The science
of the hand doesn't exist yet either."
At that moment, a servant approached him
and handed him a business card on a silver
plate.
"How do you do? I beg your pardon," he
said.
"Am I disturbing Lie?" asked the young
lady.
 "You will get to know one of the most
interesting people, one of the great tugs and
secret aaisers."
 Your servant was followed by an
inconspicuous little gentleman. He had a
scanty, lean, grayish beard, a hawk's nose and
sparkling, melancholy eyes whose color could
not be determined.
They appeared greenish to the young lady.
His hands were covered with yellow glaces.
In his right hand he carried a cylinder covered
with dull black cloth.
"Mr. Privy Councillor Liebenberg - Miss
Aaren Holmsen from Thristianin," he
introduced.
"Pleased, very pleased," murmured the little
gentleman, whose elegance had something cute
about it, and unabashedly assessed the young
lady as if it were a matter of fixing the price of
a commodity.
"I'm not interrupting, I won't be two
minutes, not two minutes, Doctor. I just wanted
to let you know that I've got the tickets for the
opera."
"Won't you take a seat for a moment?"
"Thank you very much, thank you very
much. The lady's golden hair dazzles me.
Superb! Where else on earth can you find hair
like that! What do your amber-yellow strands
mean, doctor? - You must know, my dear lady,
golden hair has a magnetic effect on my
monkey."
"Please, stop it, Mr. Privy Councillor.
These are things that get on my nerves." And
with a casual movement of his head towards
the doctor: "You want to go to the opera?"
"Yes," he replied, "to an act. 3<$ must hear
the Destinn."
"So you don't know," remarked the Privy
Councilor, "that Destinn is his latest crush?"
"Please, don't distort the facts. This is the
voice of Destinn."
"You little shill!"
The Geheime Aommerzienrat raised his
gloved right hand threateningly.
"Tr has been madly in love with the person
since he first heard them in Prague," he
continued.
Miss Holmsen smiled painedly.
"Or are you in denial?"
"I don't deny anything. Destinn's voice has
an effect on me, like a secret power that
triggers hidden things in me. I close my eyes,
and at the sound of her voice, the most daring
ideas, the greatest projects come to me. - You
have heard," he turns to Miss Holmsen, "that
there are people who see certain colors during
music. Well, I experience my innermost being
under the alange of this voice."
"May I recommend myself now?" asked
Miss Holmsen.
 She suddenly reached out her hand to the
doctor, greeted the Aommerzienrat with a silent
nod of her head and floated silently away.
"It seems I've made a big mistake," said the
Privy Councilor.
Doctor von Dülfert raised his left armpit a
little.
"Let's go to the opera," he said briefly.
Chapter two.
In the Arauenktub.
Miss Hobnsen had run to the elevator to be
taken up to the third floor. Her lips twitched and
her throat suddenly became so tight, as if a large
hand was squeezing between them and choking
her. She turned away so that the elevator boy
wouldn't look her in the face.
But there was a large mirror pane set into
the wall and her own face was staring back at
her. Hideous! How chalky white her
complexion stood out against her red hair! And
now the anger at her own stupidity even drove
red spots onto her cheeks, as she sometimes got
when she let herself be tempted to drink heavy
wines.
She fussed with her: handkerchief to hide
her excitement and, when she reached the top,
she swept through the dimly lit corridor,
breathing quickly and sighing, as hurriedly as if
she thought she was being followed.
Her room was unlocked. She stepped inside,
threw the door shut behind her and staggered
over to the small sofa bed. Now she could
finally start crying. Ah, that felt good! She
sobbed out loud, rummaging through her red
She scooped her head and worked furiously on
her skull with her small fists.
A small electric lamp was burning on your
desk, shaded in green, and in the light of this
lamp an old lady was busily crocheting a
woolen shawl with long wooden needles. This
was Mrs. Bolette Aumundsen, a deserving
widow who was always making woollen goods
for the Greenland mission when she wasn't busy
reading novels. This worthy lady had been
startled when the door slammed so violently,
then she had taken her glasses with the large
round lenses off her nose and watched the
strange goings-on of Miss Aaren Holmsen in
silent amazement.
"No, no - nope!" she mumbled, shaking her
head; then she threw her work on the table, rose
to her full height and with two long strides was
at the sobbing girl. She took her by the arm and
shook her softly. "Gud bevares! Hva' ha du dok,
litten Karen?" she wailed in her piercing,
mewling male voice.
"Let go of me!" the young lady shouted at
her. "Don't touch me, do you hear me?"
"No, no," the tall lady creaked and took an
offended step back. But then she felt sorry for
the poor young thing again. She sat down at the
foot of the small sofa and stroked it with her
hand.
her scrawny arms very tentatively over Miss
Aleid. She waited patiently for quite a while,
but then her curiosity got the better of her. Her
terribly clever, studious young lady, who was
usually so in control of herself and used to
mock women's room follies so pitilessly .... .1
"But no, you can't nod!" she croaked with
gentle reproach. "Tell me, what have they done
to you? You're making yourself sick! Have you
lost all faith in your old Bolette?"
Then Aaren staggered up, grabbed his: neck
and ran hurriedly through the open side door
into the bedroom. Mrs. Aamundsen followed
her and just managed to hold her head, she
threw up violently.
Finally Aaren straightened up, looked the
old companion in the face for the first time with
a distorted smile and said: "You would do best
to give me a good slap in the face."
Mrs. Aamundsen was very hard of hearing.
She had to have the strange request repeated to
her, and when she had understood, she clapped
her hands together and wailed in her highest
frog tones: "But no, but no, about the Aind!
What does that mean?"
"That means that I'm a stupid woman who
simply deserves to be beaten!"
 The old lady smiled mischievously and
rubbed her nose with her index finger. "Sososo -
then I understand. Litten Aaren is in love."
"Oh nonsense, you don't understand
anything about that," the young lady gruffly
snapped at her and walked past her into the
small bedroom.
"I understand something about that," the
long lady insisted stubbornly, following her
charge and settling back down to her work at
the desk. "I'm not as stupid as you think. I'm
fifty-seven years old and have been married -
and what's more, even the most stupid n)eiber
can understand it. If an otherwise sensible girl
like you is acting so crazy, then there must be a
man in the picture, listen, tell me! Even if you
have studied - you have no experience in such
things and no Greek or Latin will help you. I
can give you better advice."
Miss Holmfen just shrugged her shoulders
and began to walk slowly up and down between
the bedroom and the living room to calm her
excited blood.
Mrs. Aamundsen waited for quite a while.
But when the young lady made no move to pour
out her heart to her, she resumed her wool work
for the converted Eskimos and growled
insultedly to herself: "All right, we'll see how
you fall in. Such overconfident
Ladies always fall into it the worst when they
don't want to take good advice from
experienced people."
Miss Holmsen did not answer again. She
went into the bedroom, pulled all the pins out of
her hair and combed her hair for a long time.
Then she sat down on the chair by her bed and
tried to think quietly.
So it was true after all - she loved this
hunchbacked giant. Of course, otherwise she
wouldn't have felt that electric shock when he
suddenly stood in front of her again. She hadn't
been able to forget him all these years. But she
hadn't wanted that to be a decisive factor. She
thought it could simply be explained by the fact
that she hadn't happened to meet a man who had
an effect on her senses in the meantime. This
one, she thought, had only affected her mind
because she took such pleasure in his
paradoxical assertions and fantastic plans, was
it really possible that this man was capable of
intoxicating her purely as a man? - And she had
betrayed herself so stupidly to him; as if she had
been surprised by him in her nakedness, she
felt. N)ow blissful it must have been to be so
surprised by a loving man! His astonishment,
his emotion, his grateful homage - delicious for
a girl to be able to savor it all in a secure feeling
of victory.
But that one ...? Gr had only made fun of her,
mocked her fidelity, her confusion. He had
treated her en canaille! Yes, because when a
clever man fobs off a clever woman of his own
intellectual standing with irony like the first
best goose, that is called treating her en canaille.
He probably only played this role of the
fantastic striver, the ingenious man of will,
because he had remembered from that time that
she fell for such romantic jokes. Presumably
these were just highlights for an amusing
conversation that he had already tried out who
knows how many times as an effective way of
dealing with rapturous backfishes and the
"misunderstood". The story about the lace trade
gave her food for thought. In the end, Gr was
just an adventurer, just a soldier of fortune,
sniffing around the various social circles for
opportunities to do business. And what he said
about his father's will was surely a hoax. He had
probably picked up these perfidies against
women somewhere from the dreadful
Strindberg! And she, of all people, the clever
Aaren Holmsen, had fallen for the scam! She
had traveled so far in the world - for six years -
she had met so many nice, clever, amiable men,
she could have made good matches,
experienced delightful adventures - but the most
serious ones
The most delightful temptations had slipped
away from her, because she raved about her
high mission in life: she was called to redeem
this unhappy heir of a wild hatred, she had to
help this hunchbacked giant with the hard
features and the amber-yellow headdress to
regain his faith in woman. The sacrifice of her
life would not have been too great for the
enjoyment of the one hour in which he had
made the redeeming confession to her that his
father had been a slanderer and that she, his
sweet Aaren, was by no means only "a sponge,
heavy with the strength she had sucked from
him", but rather the holy spring from which he
had drunk himself health and a new strong faith.
- That was how she had felt all those years. And
when he suddenly stood in front of her again, it
was like a glowing breath over her skin, the
sudden awareness that now the hour had come
for her. She had been so solemnly serious, for
now it was time to test the weapons she had
kept ready for the battle for this soul, now
perhaps it was time to adorn herself for the
sacrificial death in beauty. - And he? He had
probably only paused for a moment, searched in
his memory and then, with suave certainty,
pulled out the tried and tested pattern for the
conversation with her from the right memory
compartment. Imperial Chancellor - glass city -
Lüneburg Heath
- facon de parier - nothing more. And then he
knew to go quickly to intoxicate himself with
the voice of Destinn. What other insane needs
he might have! He had told her flattering things
about her hand. He probably also felt the need
at times to wrap Anna Tsillag's one hundred and
seventy-five centimeters of giant hair around his
neck to protect himself against bronchial catarrh
or to kiss Saharet's feet to be immune to
podagra! - U)ntil when did such a man have the
outrageous temerity to use up all of femininity
and its most sacred sensations for the private
needs of his vanity, like an old coquette the
dozens of perfume bottles, tins of ointment,
powder boxes and make-up sticks on her toilet
table? - And what was he doing with that
Destinn? - Oh, she wanted to go to the opera
too, she wanted to hear if . . But no, nonsense!
She should be ashamed of herself! She never
wanted to see the man again, never! She wanted
to pay him back in kind. She wanted to make a
sport of mocking the Wanns, she wanted to
make it her life's work to embarrass them to the
bone.
Ah, then she remembered that her latest
Berlin friend, Bella Waßmann, had sent her an
urgent invitation to the discussion evening of
the General German Women's Association this
evening.
had to hold. She was in just the right mood for
that. And she jumped up, stepped onto the
threshold of the living room and commanded
her faithful guardian: "Get ready, one, two,
three, we're going out."
The deaf Bolette had not understood. She
lowered her pious work into her lap and put her
hand to her ear.
Miss Holmsen repeated her order in a tone
that brooked no objection and, with nervous
impatience, tore off her tea-gown to change for
the evening.
Line half an hour later, the two ladies were
on their way.
*
The meeting place was in the Potsdam
district. It was a moderately large hall adjoining
a bourgeois beer hall with cheap prices and
whose shabby elegance dated back to the
tawdry seventies. The hall had a special
entrance from the courtyard, but the ladies had
had the door locked for the sake of the
procession and preferred to enter through the
beer hall in the front building, although of
course walking through this room was a bit like
running the gauntlet. It had soon enough
become common knowledge among the guests
that these women flocking here in droves were a
48 radical emancipation club, which tonight
had put up for discussion the assertion of the
moral inferiority of men. As a result, jokes
were soon coined that were appropriate to the
intellectual level of the regular audience.
Bolette Aamundsen, the pointy-nosed
Nordic giantess, with her ward, this pale fox in
a close-fitting, solid elegance, caused a
sensation among the regulars. One of them
proclaimed: "Ouch! My mother-in-law!
Where's it coming from?" And Ehorus took up
the suggestion full of zeal and temperament. It
was fortunate that the good lady had such poor
hearing and little command of the German
language, otherwise she would have ended up
making candles of the bad jokes. She, who was
so innocent in this affair! She, the widow
Aamundsen, who had never doubted the
intellectual and moral superiority of her blessed
friend, and who was in the habit of transferring
this esteem to all the better gentlemen, at least
as far as they were in office.
^On arriving at the meeting place, Miss
Holmsen fortunately found her friend Bella
Maßmann soon out of the already densely
packed crowd of ladies, and even managed to
get two chairs and wedge them into the row of
others around the table. They were sitting at
tables because the landlord only allowed them
to do so on one condition,
that something would be consumed that was
fine. As most of the members of the association
were also temperance drinkers, the landlord had
to be able to provide coffee, tea, cocoa or even
more harmless drinks, lemonade and non-
alcoholic cider.
The Bureau had already been constituted.
The president's chair was occupied by a lady
who represented the type of the new woman
most effectively. A slender, somewhat above
average height figure in a black velvet dress
with no waist, flowing far down and no collar.
His white neck stood out favorably from his
black frame, and he wore a short-cropped head
of dark curls that would have done credit to a
young scholar of suave sophistication and
lawyerly finesse. Gin's finely drawn, energetic
beard, a pronounced aquiline nose, which was
by no means coarse and bulky, and the calm
and sharp-looking eyes under the broad black
brows gave this spiritual face its striking
peculiarity.
Miss Waßmann informed the inquisitive
Aaren that this was Miss Dr. Benita Ulm, who
had enjoyed great fame for years as a lawyer
and tireless agitator for women's causes. And
the pleasantly rounded older lady next to her,
whose comfortable femininity formed such a
strong contrast to the chairwoman,
This was Mrs. Berta Lauer, a lady who was said
to have not only a fine mind but also a great
kindness of heart. Line three acted as secretary,
a nasty, stubborn old lady who had been a very
harmless teacher in her youth and had acquired
a certain importance as a writer through a
specialty, the j)ilzküche. But the lady had
experienced her day in Damascus, when she
had realized the full shame of her gender,
oppressed by the world of men. She was the
most fanatical of the female leaders, and they
didn't like to let her have her say because she
had often damaged the good cause in her
overzealousness.
"You're really lucky, dear Aaren," Miss
Maßmann whispered to her new friend, putting
an arm around her and pressing against her
tenderly. "The Tiedgens from Aöln has taken
over the presentation."
"Who is that? 3^ never heard the name?"
"Ursula Tiedgens? I haven't heard her
either. She's speaking in Berlin for the first time
today. But she's supposed to be a great debater.
My brother once heard her as a student in
Bonn. Tr calls her an impeccable revolutionary.
I'm actually surprised that Lauer allowed the
topic. Moral inferiority of men* is actually
great, isn't it? But the
Tiedgens will cram his way out. Ainder, I'm
really looking forward to it! - By the way, you
look bad, dear Aaren. Have you even been
crying? Oh dear, we don't do that anymore!"
And then the cheerful girl turned decorously to
the lady of the guard on her right, who had
been introduced to the table but to whom no
one had yet spoken. She asked her, shouting
loudly in her ear, what was wrong with her
miss? Miss Holmsen did not look well at all.
Mrs. Aamundsen had kept a bit of French
and a bit of English from her youth, and with
these vague memories she had made her way
through the world, which she had been forced
to do with Aaren Holmsen for several years.
She was pleased with the speech, put on her
most amiable smile and creaked out loud,
stringing the words together thoughtfully: "0ui,
eile a eu du chagrin. Elle a vomise ce soir."
The ladies in the immediate vicinity, as far
as they had understood her saying despite the
strange participle of vomir, giggled into their
handkerchiefs and enjoyed themselves royally,
but Miss Aaren turned dark red, puffed her
maid of honor in the ribs behind her friend's
back and hissed at her as energetically as
possible: "Tyss dok! Aa fy for skam!"
The bourgeois girl was taken aback and
stared at Miss Maßmann's luscious hairstyle
away from her Raren into the sparkling gray
eyes. Offended, she was about to ask why on
earth she shouldn't tell the truth when asked.
At that moment, the chairwoman's bell rang,
putting an end to the loud babble of voices in
the hall.
Miss Ulm began with a brief overview of
the general status of the association's affairs
before giving the floor to the speaker from
Cologne. She also felt obliged to preface this
agenda with a few words of apology.
Personally, she did not particularly like the idea
of contrasting the moral and intellectual
strengths of the two contending sexes in such a
way that the one of these sexes was labeled
inferior in advance. Of course, she had to leave
the responsibility for such an assertion to the
speaker, who in turn should be prepared for a
fierce discussion; for although her gender had
been severely challenged by advances from the
male side a la Professor Möbius, it should be
the woman's concern not to fall into the same
error of passionate subjectivity, but on the
contrary to prove herself the better person
through the good will of justice. Incidentally,
she noted to her lively regret that the male
world, despite the fact that they are
publicly invited to confront their female
attacker, is today only represented by two
specimens, who apparently intend to replace
what they lack in experience and numerical
superiority with the acuteness of youth. Or
should the appearance of these two isolated
young tugs even be interpreted to mean that the
male world was completely indifferent to their
moral assessment of the opposite sex? W The
ladies responded with gleeful giggles at this
turn of events and gave the esteemed
chairwoman a spontaneous ovation by standing
up, clapping their hands and shouting bravos.
However, the main purpose of standing up was
probably to be able to crane their necks at the
two brave Iung men mentioned above.
These two anabaptists sat at the very back
of the wall, near the exit door to the beer
restaurant and hid shamefacedly behind the
backs of the women seated first, so that only a
few ladies sitting to the side were able to realize
that these two delegates of moral ^nferiority
must obviously be academic citizens who had
only recently turned to philistinism.
Now the guest speaker, Miss Tiedgens from
Cologne, took the podium. Miss Ulm and Mrs.
Lauer moved apart and between them the small
shapeless figure with the sharp-
She took up her post with her cut, but almost
defiantly funny looking little bird face between
her somewhat high shoulders and, as soon as
the President's bell had restored calm, began her
speech in a not unpleasant, almost girlish alto
voice.
"Ladies," she said, flashing her bright eyes
challengingly over the gathering, "my highly
esteemed bosom enemy, Professor Hridolin in
Bonn, is now sadly dead. Of the little I may be
now, I owe most to him. His bold assertions
have filled me up to the neck with indignation
and I have sharpened my weapons in the
constant battle with his arrogant presumption.
The writings of this professor will not have
remained unknown to you. You will know that
he took his evidence for our alleged inferiority
in the physical, ethical and intellectual fields
from statistics, and you will also know that
everything that can be substantiated by
experiment or statistics is to be regarded as
scientifically proven. The male brain, as you
can see from any encyclopedia, weighs on
average fourteen hundred and fifty grams, while
the female brain weighs a mere thirteen
hundred grams. This fatal number thirteen is
therefore the scientific rock on which we
miserable second-mass humans necessarily fail
muffle with our silly dreams of equality etc.!
This minus of one hundred and fifty grams of
pulpy gray matter will in any case stick to the
future mothers of the superhuman as a stain and
banish them to the borders of animality."
Gin's occasional robust "pfuil" and a many-
voiced but somewhat uncertain giggle flew
after this ironic arrow shot.
The speaker smirked and drowned out the
buzzing noise with a raised voice. "Professor
Fridolin, my bosom enemy, has been dissected
at his own request. I am not generally of a very
malicious nature, but I should have liked my
revered professor to have lived to see his
dissection, for it turned out that his own brain
weighed only twelve hundred and seventy-two
grams, twenty-eight less than the average
female brain!"
At this brilliant trump card, the whole
assembly went into a frenzy of enthusiasm and
a shriek of joy arose, which could only be
calmed down again when the speaker waved
her thanks to her audience with a droll bow.
The unfortunate Professor Fridolin had done
his duty and finally sank into the oblivion of
Bonn anatomy. Miss Tiedgens now approached
her subject with calm seriousness.
on the body. She accepted the physical and, to
the astonishment of the ladies, even the
intellectual superiority of men, even though she
did not present the latter as a necessary and
unchangeable condition, but only as the result
of a natural development process to date. She
only asserted with all determination the moral
inferiority of man at the present stage of
development and proved the necessity of this
state primarily from the non-participation of
man in the breeding business. She declared it
impossible that the moral sense of duty could
take root in a class of men for whom the most
responsible activity of humanity, namely
procreation, was only a pleasure, a pleasure in
which not even the finer emotions of the soul
needed to be involved, but which for the
majority was on a par with the pleasures of the
table and the cup - at best! The man, however,
is first and foremost called upon to shatter and
rebuild world views. He is also the one who
establishes his own moral laws, as well as the
criminal and civil laws; but in applying these
self-made laws, he has always and everywhere
done considerably less than women. Precisely
because he is used to exploiting his physical
and mental powers ruthlessly, he also lacks
moral resistance.
He was susceptible to every seduction and
attached so little importance to victory over
temptation that he even indulged with true lust
in the consumption of all those poisons that
were particularly suitable for weakening moral
resistance. Nothing is more detestable to her
than the silly glorification of man, which only
glorifies his pathetic weakness. The woman, on
the other hand, was the guardian of morality,
legislator and law-fulfiller in one person,
appointed by the will of nature. Her highest
destiny, the joy of motherhood, can only be
achieved through painful renunciation, and it is
in this toleration and renunciation that the high
school of morality rests. Social morality is not
even particularly important here; for even if, for
example, the defense of virginity were no
longer required by the prospect of making a
better deal on the marriage market, a woman's
resistance to banal temptation would always
find sufficient support in her sense of sexual
duty. Even the lowest-ranking woman is still
kept in check more effectively by the purely
physical fear of the consequences than the
mentally superior but physically irresponsible
man. The woman, however, who shirks her
maternal duty only to lead an idle life of
pleasure, is morally even inferior to the man.
Miss Tiedgens continued this train of
thought
with due seriousness, but still gracefully
illuminated with sharp satirical and cozy
humorous lights, in an easily flowing and
impressive speech for over an hour. She
concluded, as she had begun, with a good joke
and thus secured a brilliant exit.
"You may ask how I, as an old maid, come
to be so passionate about our highest
profession. I assure you, motherhood is not sour
grapes for me. As long as man remains in his
present normal state of absolute moral
incapacity to resist and God-blessed stupidity
towards our arts, it is impossible for any woman
to attain motherhood. But as far as my humble
self is concerned, I simply haven't had the time
yet. - No, no, don't laugh, I have had to make
the most of the few pounds I have been given. I
have set up a school in which ladies of all ages
and social status can learn civics, speak in
public and perhaps even learn to think a little in
private. My system is based on recognizing our
weaknesses. I punish with insults, which hit
female vanity the hardest, and reward with
pralines. I have had such wonderful success
with this method that I believe I have found my
life's reward in such schoolmastery. -
But the rest of you, who cannot talk Luch out of
such an inner calling to an absolutely useful and
necessary activity, you must put into the world
whatever you like, whether it gives Luch
pleasure or not. In any case, you are not giving
men any pleasure, and in this way something
has already been gained for the elevation of the
moral standpoint of mankind, for we have seen
that something immoral always comes out of
men's pleasures."
Miss Tiedgens left the podium to the
cheering applause of the entire audience.
Bella Maßmann was among those who
applauded obsessively and shouted bravo at the
top of their lungs. But when she noticed that her
friend was not joining in the applause, but was
even shaking her head doubtfully, she
immediately stopped her raving and asked her,
bringing her mouth very close to her ear,
whether she did not agree with the Tiedgens'
argument.
Aaren Holmsen lifted his narrow shoulders.
"I really don't know. It all seems like bad fun to
me."
"Isn't that right?" replied Maßmann eagerly.
"Stupid exaggeration, I say. Now just listen to
how the women are doingI The unanimous cry
for the Ainde! Do you believe it? - I don't. If
I'm going to shout, then
I scream for the man." She wanted to burst out
laughing. She had a great deal of respect for
Miss Holmsen, the little measure-man, firstly
because she came from Ibsen's fatherland,
where the Noras and Hedda Gabler are as cheap
as blackberries, and secondly because she had
studied and had not yet married, despite her
money and pleasant appearance. She regarded
all this as a sign of immense intellectual
superiority and endeavored eagerly to agree
with the Norwegian in all important matters.
But as this lady did not join in her laughter,
little Bella Maßmann became indecisive again
and eagerly encouraged her friend to speak up.
After all, it would be extremely piquant if a
lady were to defend the morals of men.
After the applause had died down, Dr. Ulm
had opened the discussion and asked the ladies
who had something to say about the agenda to
sign the list of speakers.
It then fell completely silent. No one spoke
up. You could see the ladies at all the tables
putting their heads together and encouraging
each other, but there was still no one who
wanted to make a start.
Suddenly, a robust, creaking voice emerged
from the hissing whispers. It was the staid
Bolette Aamundsen, who had been working on
a beautiful French sentence during the entire
lecture.
with which she now surprised Miss Bella, who
had first honored her with a speech earlier.
Quand on a vomisd, on se trouve toujours
meilleur. II n'y a aucun chagrin, qui pourrait
rösister a un bon vomissement."
A general giggle rewarded this benevolently
dispensed hygienic enlightenment. The ladies at
the table on board, however, had just had
something to discuss with each other and
therefore did not understand the French
interjection.
Miss Ulm stood up and asked if the lady
would like to speak, she apologized for having
overheard her remark. Then some of the
younger ladies shrieked out loud with
amusement and even Miss Holmsen had to
laugh. She translated to her astonished guardian
of virtue what they wanted her to say, and then
the lady got a huge fright, stretched out both
hands defensively against the board table and
shouted loudly into the general laughter: "No,
no! Gud be- vares!"
The gathering would probably have
continued to amuse themselves for some time at
the expense of the deaf Bolette, but then a
figure suddenly appeared on the podium and
immediately attracted everyone's attention. A
slender, rather tall figure in a well-fitting tailor's
dress and an enormous hat overloaded with
green feathers approached the board table, gave
her name and asked to speak
 And now she turned her face to the
assembly. Gin's narrow, morbidly pale face
with an unnaturally large pair of dark, deep-set
eyes and an equally large mouth with pale lips
turned up sharply.
The chairwoman's bell rang out and as soon
as silence fell, the new speaker pressed her
right hand theatrically to her heart and began to
speak in a voice quivering with excitement:
"My dear fellow sisters! Until five months ago,
I was still a streetwalker - a very mean
streetwalker in Friedrichstrasse..."
"Bravo!" shouted a voice from the
background.
All the ladies turned their heads backwards.
Miss Vr. Ulm jumped up from her seat and
shouted with darkly drawn brows: "He shouted
Bravo? I must seriously forbid myself such
nonsense!"
No answer. But everyone at the table stands
up, craning their necks, excited.
And Miss Ulm raised her voice: "Gs was
one of the two gentlemen who gave us the
honor of their visit. I would like to point out
that although the ladies have the right to
introduce male guests to our assembly, they are
also responsible to the general public for the
quality of these guests.
are responsible. I must therefore ask the one of
our members who introduced this gentleman to
explain whether he wishes to take responsibility
for his further conduct, or else ask him to leave
the premises."
Dead silence. Then the two young men in
the background stood up, and one of them,
whose still fresh and extremely numerous
smears proved his high degree of academic
activity, pressed his eagerness more firmly on
his patched nose and then called out in a piteous
tone with an indeterminate hand movement
towards the assembly: "You see, Röschen, now
you're denying me. I don't think that's very nice
of you." Good evening, ladies. It was very nice
- I was very pleased."
Amid deep silence from the congregation,
the two young Zerren took their coats from the
wall hooks and left the restaurant as requested.
As soon as they had closed the door behind
them, however, a storm of indignation broke
out. Shouts of "boo!" and heavy invective were
hurled at the impudents. Hands clenched
threateningly, eyes shot devastating glares and
bosoms heaved wildly. Miss Ulm and the pale
lady in the green feathered hat, who had so
boldly declared her allegiance to
Friedrichstrasse, stood unshaken in the wild
storm. She now held both hands pressed to her
heart. And when at last the moral indignation at
the masculine behavior of
When the crowd had calmed down somewhat,
she continued her speech, her rimmed martyr's
eyes raised to the ceiling.
"Yes, my dear sisters, now that we are
among ourselves, I repeat it without hesitation,
I was a common streetwalker until five months
ago."
But that was as far as she got. For now Mrs.
Lauer stood up with a mild smile, plucked the
speaker by the sleeve from behind and said in
her gentle motherly voice: "My dear Aind, I
think you are mistaken. You are not here at a
Salvation Army meeting, and we do not feel
called upon to receive confessions of sin."
The pale woman pressed a tiny cloth to her
eye sockets, then she looked around with a
painful smile and said, faltering uncertainly: "I
know that, dear lady. I just thought ... Because
the men here have been made out to be immoral
all together, I should have something to say
against that from my experience. It may not
happen often, but it happened to me because a
gentleman pulled me out of the deepest swamp.
No one else in my life believed me and no one
had confidence in me. My mother chased me
out of the house and my sisters and all my
friends were afraid of me.
spit out of me when I wasn't even bad, just
stupid and reckless. And since then I've never
heard a kind word from a woman again. And
when I was really bad, really down, this Wann
came and believed my tears and said he wanted
to give me the opportunity to show that I was
really serious. I m^^ work like a horse. I can't
let my hands be seen without gloves. Gr won't
keep a maid for me. I have to take care of the
four young people from the store and the whole
house by myself and do without everything I
used to enjoy. I have to eat in the kitchen and
sleep in the attic. Only, when I'm finished with
everything, I'm allowed to get dressed and go
for an hour's walk with his two Russian
greyhounds. And when I've done all that
impeccably for a year, then this Wann will
make me his wife."
Mrs. Lauer interrupted the speaker again:
"Yes, that's all very interesting and also very
honorable of you; but I don't think it's part of
the matter."
Gin's fleeting message flitted across the
poor sinner's pale face. "So? That's not the
point, do you think? Well, then I can..." She
prepared to leave the podium, but hesitated
once more, threw her head back and
gathered all her strength to call out to the
congregation in a reasonably firm voice: "When
I read in the newspaper that the ladies here are
supposed to prove that all men are immoral, I
thought to myself that you can't stay at home.
You have to go and bear witness and say it's not
true, because you know better: men are never as
vile and envious and insidious and arrogant as
the gray ones are against each other. And
anyway - magnanimity and justice only exist in
men. I just wanted to tell you that." Her big
mouth twisted into a mocking grin and then she
quickly stepped down from the jDodium and
left the room, weaving her way between the
tables.
As if a whole nest of poisonous snakes had
been taken alive and a whole battalion of rats
had been set upon by a column of dogs, the
ladies' indignation hissed and hissed behind the
green feathered hat. "Outrageous impudence!"
the fat voice of a fat dignitary was heard from
the front row. And a dried-up elderly lady even
jumped to her feet and crowed up to the board
table: "Decisive precautions must be taken to
ensure that such elements cannot force their
way into our Ureis."
 But Miss Holmsen whispered to her friend:
"It's a pity she's gone so quickly, I would have
gladly pressed the poor animal's hand for its
bravery."
The general moral indignation would hardly
have calmed down so soon if the appearance of
a highly imposing personality on the podium
had not attracted the ladies' attention. A proud
frigate was now anchored there, resplendent in
a colorful parade of flags. Above the pedestal of
the powerfully arched bust, the head of an
ancient city goddess, adorned as if by a mural
crown, rose in red ^ocks. A generous use of
powder and make-up had dimmed the matronly
face. The significant forms were enveloped in
checkered light silk fabric and a whole
^uwelery display was spread over the ten
fingers, wrists, ears and neck of the lady.
"For God's sake, who is that?" Aaren
Holmfen asked her friend.
Little Maßmann, who didn't know either,
pushed her way between the tables as eagerly as
a ferret to find out from some of the older club
members who the lady was. She had indeed
asked to speak on the agenda; the chairwoman
had introduced her to the meeting as Mrs.
Gräsin von Soundso. It was a difficult Polish or
Russian name that nobody really understood.
The lady had already started her speech in
full course when Bella Maßmann returned to
the table with her information.
But what did that mean? Aaren had moved
next to her deaf guardian, the mighty Bolette,
and was clinging to her arm with both hands as
if seeking protection, while she stared wide-
eyed at the red-haired speaker up there on the
podium. She now looked as pale as the brave
confessor in the green feathered hat had earlier.
And as soon as she saw her friend, she reached
out her left hand and pulled her close to her. 5
She didn't know this woman who was speaking
up there, she had never seen her. But there was
something about her that frightened her. The
stranger spoke quickly, torn off; Aaren hardly
understood the context, only catching here and
there a shrill, scornful word thrown far across
the air. She heard Schopenhauer's, heard
Ärindberg's paradoxes - they sounded even
wilder, even more venomous and spiteful from
these lips. And again and again the basic tone
came through:"These are our opponents' brutal
weapons-----------------------------------------and
we, we should fight with flowers?"
A strangely fascinating fear gripped Aaren,
hot with excitement, without-taking her eyes off
the woman on the podium, she whispered to her
friend
to: "Who is this woman? Listen to what the
woman is saying! I want to know who this
person is/'
Bella Maßmann quietly said back to her
friend: "What's the matter with you, dearest
Aaren? What are you so upset about? That lady
there? - Yes, she's supposed to be a very strange
person. She used to be very famous or infamous
because of her adventures with an important
politician. I didn't quite catch the name. She is
said to have made it a point to have affairs with
all the important men who are currently making
a lot of noise about themselves. She is said to
have a fabulous power over men. She was
married four times and only recently, in her
fifty-second year, she got the fifth. A rich
Polish count. He is even said to be a highly
educated and still youthfully beautiful man.
Isn't it incredible? - What's the matter with
you?"
But Aaren did not answer. Without realizing
her feelings, she felt that a similar power was
acting on her instincts as that which a few hours
ago had made her listen so anxiously, against
her will, to the paradoxical Gaston von
Dülferts. And she felt as if she must wait, wait
for something rare and strange, for some
impudent, scornful word which the countess
would hurl in her face like a poisoned arrow.
 Wasn't it as if she was just talking to her?
Those great flickering glances flashed through
the hall, fixed themselves fervently in her eyes.
Aaren trembled, she felt: now it had to come.
And the word leapt shrill and sharp through the
hot air:
"What is woman? - Always and forever the
proof of the devil's existence!"
It hit like a whiplash. But at the same time a
liberation, a release came over her as if from a
tremendous pressure. -
Clenching her teeth, but opening her lips
wide and holding out her small fists
threateningly, she gritted: "Don't let her read
any more! I don't want to hear it! It's
infamous!" She leaned heavily on her two
hands, stretched herself upwards, swayed and
fell back onto her chair in a dead faint.
Chapter three.
Longing.
"No!" said Aaren. "Just get in the cab and
go home! We want to go for a little walk." And
suddenly, laughing, she pulled little Maßmann
close to her with one of her incomprehensible
bursts and said hastily: "We want to walk a
little through the beautiful rain."
The good Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen, one
foot already on the wagon step to push her
heaving mass into the cab, was so frightened
that she could only gasp in astonishment. And
one could hear from the groans: "Gud bevares!
Hva? ha du dok, litten Karen? Gud bevares!"
Until Aaren helped her into the carriage with a
little, gentle j)uff; then she was suddenly lying
on the seat and before she herself knew how it
could be that she had left little Aaren alone on
the street with her young friend in the middle of
the night, in the middle of Berlin, which was
surely quite inappropriate, she was already
driving away.
Aaren had slammed the car shut, told the
ouchie where the hotel was and impatiently
urged him on: "But a bit quick, my good man!"
And now she stood, her slender white hand on
the hip of the little
Berlin friend, and looked after the cab, which
seemed to slowly melt away in the thick fog
whitened by the light of the lamps, into the
open maw of the rainy night.
And Aaren said mockingly in her bright,
hard, hammering voice: "Gud bevaresl." And
Aaren laughed, with her short, tinkling laugh, in
which every note leapt out of her throat one by
one, so that it sounded like a game on glass
bells. And it was only when the tiny Maßmann,
pressing against her, suddenly took her hand
and she felt her cheerful friend's hot singers
twitching that Aaren was startled and only now
did she remember. She looked around, they
were still standing in front of the pub. She felt
as if years had passed since this had happened,
or as if she had just had a bad dream a long time
ago. But now the old dream came back to haunt
her. She trembled with fear, like one who feels
love rising within her; her white face became
pale, with very small round red spots on her
cheeks, as sometimes happened to her when she
had drunk strong cold punch or a heavy IDein.
In this rustling fear, which ran clattering
through her slender, hasty body, she carried her
friend away, and the two bright young girls ran
down the wet, glistening street in the fine gray
rain, as if pursued by a chasing danger, only to
escape the memory of the bad dream.
 They didn't know where to go, whenever
they came to a side street, they turned into it.
And only away from the light, only deeper and
deeper into the night, away from the noisy
people they heard hurrying behind them, and
over, under the trees, towards the zoo. They
kept to the fences, running, they could hear
themselves breathing and their hearts beat with
excitement and fear and also with the pleasure
of movement, as they ran through the silent rain
with their small, fearless steps.
And Aaren always thought to herself: But
what actually happened, how did it happen? She
was so afraid to remember, but at the same time
she was driven to do so, and she tortured herself
mysteriously to find out what had happened to
her. She could still only see the desolate,
flickering face of that hideous woman in make-
up, shimmering with colored stones, and heard
the crack of her mocking old voice. And then
she again felt this terrible compulsion to jump
up and hit the gloating old woman in the face to
chastise her in front of the whole world and to
take revenge, as if for an unbearable insult that
she could no longer live with until the horrible
evil had been destroyed and eradicated! And
still everything inside her cried out: "Let her be
silent! I don't want to hear her anymore! It is
infamous!" But then she knew nothing more,
she only heard the tumult of the jumping,
shrieking, frightened
The gray ones fleeing, excitedly threatening,
pushing towards her table and the tribune, and
the shrill, hoarse bell of the president, who,
powerlessly commanding, lifted her white neck
out of the long, wrinkled, black aleide. And
then, suddenly, the huge mass of the good
Aamundsen had formed in front of her, like an
immense wall of fat. She also saw her new
friend beside her, fighting bravely for her with
her little fists, furious, like an offended white
fox terrier. But then suddenly a face pushed
through the crowd, everything seemed to
vanish, the hall with the gray ones vanished,
only this face was still there before her, a
smooth, mocking, alternating face with such
scorn in the water-clear cold eyes and such araft
around the hard failing lips, and she knew that it
could not be him, he was now sitting in the
opera to drink the voice of Destinn! She was so
ashamed that she would rather have died, but
then her senses sank. She was carried away
through the hall, between the greedy eyes of the
drinkers. She only woke up outside in the silent
rain, which stretched its thin, gray threads
around the flowing light of the lanterns.
The rain did her good. Suddenly she felt
light and happy. She could only feel the gentle
rain running down her hot cheeks and breathed
in the wet, soft, misty air. She was a little tired,
but of a good, flattering, cozy tiredness, into
which she would have liked to lean back as if
into a deep, soft chair to sleep a little.
Then she saw her little friend beside her,
still trembling, and above her puffed the
swaying tower of the terrified Aamundsen.
Suddenly it all seemed so funny to her, in the
wide, wet street glistening through the fog, and
suddenly she loved life again, especially this
cute little girl with her big, frightened black
eyes in her pale, uncertain, lost face. And she
thought to herself: N)ow silly we are to be
drifting around here instead of rocking
somewhere, at home, in a little boat, very close
together and hand in hand, while the bright
laughing wind blows from the north! Only now
did she realize how much she loved her new
little friend. She found her a little strange in her
helpless eagerness to work and stir
everywhere. But that's what she thought was so
wonderful, to love a person whom you can
sometimes laugh at a little!
And suddenly all she wanted was to run out
into the wide world with her! Then she
laughed, pushed the old woman, who was so
frightened she knew nothing, into the carriage
and drove the carriage away. And now they
were really running, her cheerful little friend
and she, running through the wide streets in the
shivering fog
land in hand, while their candles beat as if they
were running to the end of the world!
3In the zoo, little Maßmann suddenly stood
still. "Just a moment!" she said.
A vapor floated on the paths, smoking from
the earth as if it were sweating. It was a silvery,
foaming dew, as light and thin as the bright,
quiet alinging of the streetcars in the distance.
Somewhere over there, an automobile bumped
dully through the night. The long, bare trees
stabbed into the black sky. But everywhere,
under the silent rain, there was a hovering and a
flying of mist and steam, as if the breath of the
whole city were riding through the garden on
white and gray wings. The two girls stood, not
hearing anyone around them.
Then little Maßmann said, suddenly startled
by the silence: "Shall we go again? If you don't
mind!"
Aaren replied, "Let's go!" But after a few
steps, she stopped again, looked at the restless
tiny friend and asked brightly, "But why do we
say you to each other?"
Aleine's wide eyes popped open. At first she
couldn't say anything, but suddenly the foolish
Aind was laughing and crying in the arms of
the slender Nordic girl.
Aaren said: "Just don't strangle me! Who
would have thought how wild you are? And
why are you crying?"
 Little Maßmann stammered: "I'm not
crying, I'm not crying, but -" She had no breath
left and just swallowed. But then she laughed
brightly and said: "But just because I'm so
happy, I'm so happy, all around and through
and through I'm happy!" And she continued to
laugh, shaking herself and jumping. Suddenly
she said: "You don't even know it. But you
pulled a poor cat out of the water!"
Aaren said, stopping, pointing into the
darkness of the trees, into the gliding haze:
"Look how it floats mysteriously there! Are
there witches in the Stabt Berlin?"
The Maßmann said gleefully: "They have
long white shirts." And she hurriedly pulled her
friend along: "I want to dance with them!" But
then she snuggled up close to her and said very
quietly: "Because now every fairy tale is
possible for me!" And then, even more quietly:
"Since this has happened, I can believe
anything." And then she bent forward very
gently and very quietly took the slender white
hand of her Nordic friend, lifted it very slowly
to her mouth and kissed it. She kissed each of
her long fingers, then turned this white hand
over and kissed the narrow plate, along the
beautiful, clear, sharp lines.
They walked in silence for a long time. The
path crunched softly. Then Aaren said: "So you
see, your gatherings have a purpose after all."
 "Don't mock!" little Bella asked quietly.
And then she laughed merrily and said, "It's all
so far away from us now, I don't know anything
about it anymore." 5She snuggled up again and
as they walked between the bare branches,
wrapped in the gray cloak of rain, she took her
friend's hand again and again and lifted it
tenderly and held it tightly.
Aaren suddenly asked: "But why? Why are
you going to those horrible women? Why did
you take me there?"
"Don't be angry!" the tiny girl begged
meekly.
Aaren laughed. "Oh, you Germans! How
strange you are! Whoever thinks differently
must always be 'evil' with you? Why is that?
You could have a crush on those horrible
women and I would still love you. But if you
are to love a man, you demand that he should
be like you, and anyone who carries himself
differently from what you have decided is
beautiful according to your latest views on the
right and freedom of the gray ones, you could
not be good to him. How stupid! The beautiful
thing about loving a person is that you don't
have to do anything for it, it's there whether you
want it or not. And how comfortable you feel
when something comes into your life that is
stronger, so that you don't even have to think
about whether you should and may, because all
this is nothing after all.
helps, because here fate finally takes the
courage not to ask for a long time, but to do its
will, because one must, simply must, unasked
and unconcerned must! That's the beauty of it!
Have you never felt it before?"
The aleine opened her frightened eyes, her
wide, empty face twitched. She said sadly:
"No. I've never felt that before. Because I have
never felt anything. I haven't felt anything in
my whole life." And after a while she
continued, her anger turning wistful: "That's
just it. That's why I have to look everywhere."
And anxiously she asked again: "So you're not
angry with me? I hate these stupid women too,
believe me! They should never see me again!"
"You'd better listen to what I want to tell
you!" said Aaren, a little impatiently.
"Yes," said little Maßmann obediently.
Miss Aaren Holmsen took long strides and
as she walked her voice gradually took on the
same beat, giving it a marching quality. Like a
marching song, she began to speak with firm
steps, one two, one two, and the drum beat.
"So! When you like a person, the best thing
about it is that you have to. It comes over us
and is so strong that we feel we can do nothing
against it. And it is precisely this feeling of
being completely weak and abandoned and
redeemed from ourselves that makes us so
happy. Now it is
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have nothing to do with ourselves. That always
tormented me so much, but now you've come,
you, now you're here!"
"When we first met," said Aaren, "I didn't
really care about you at first. You just made me
curious. All of you here make one curiousI
There's a running and rushing in you, you push
and shove, one always thinks something
monstrous must be going on right now, one can
see it in your faces! But we never find out
what! The whole time I'm here I keep asking
myself where you're pushing to? It's always like
being in front of a big army. But against
whom? But for what? You never find out.
There's a tremendous tension in your city. You
get the feeling: No, they can't stand it any
longer, tomorrow the Aestel will jump! But it
doesn't jump and you live on quite calmly, as if
this tension, which seems unbearable to
strangers, is an element of the most beautiful
comfort for you. We cannot understand this,
because here at home, what has once been
thought must be done. But you have the habit
of thinking everything and doing nothing.
Sometimes, when one hears you, one must
think that nowhere else in Europe can there be a
more audacious breed of people. But when one
sees your life, it has nothing of this audacity.
You are only right and your life is only right,
but either you should think like
You live or you should live as you think, one
would think. And we can never understand how
you actually do it, that it somehow works out in
the end. We'd love to take a look inside one of
you, but it seems that no Berliner is willing to
do that. That's why we're so curious about you,
about each and every one of you, about
everyone who lives here. But at first you were
nothing more to me than just another one from
here - for my curiosity. And I would never have
gone to your gray ones there if I hadn't -" She
paused. Then she said, a little trepidatiously: "I
have seen once again today that people like us
cannot understand people like you at all. I can
only take in the alang of your speeches, but
they don't give us any Änn. Or rather, the
meaning that they alone would have for us is
not meant by you, that turns out again and
again; and what we say or do seems again to
communicate something quite different to you
than we want to express with it. Line
communication is not possible. And yet we
would like to be able to communicate with
some people. Really nothing more than to
understand them and feel understood. If only to
get past them calmly and move on without
running into each other and without bruising
yourself. The biggest obstacle in: ^life is when
someone stands in your way who you can't
understand."
 "ll)he then?" asked the aleine in a pained
voice. But she was immediately ashamed to
have asked, and her big black eyes were afraid.
Aaren pursed his lips and said, "Whoever it
is. It's the same. It really is the same. Cedar,
whom one cannot understand humanly,
confuses one and nothing brings me down like
confusion in my feelings, where one then
finally does not know whether it is hate or
love, whether one wants to defend oneself or
surrender, or whether one must belong to this
person or destroy him in order to assert oneself.
But since we don't understand all of you, it
would be wrong to dwell on one individual.
Grst, I have to find out about your whole
nature, which is common to you all. That is
why I went to your wives. This is what drove
me there."
"What power you have to make everything
clear!" said the aleine shyly.
"First I have to find out about all of you,"
Aaren repeated, "about all of you as you are
here, otherwise the confusion will suffocate
me. That's why I went there. And now look
how kind life is! Miracles still happen every
day. For, did I not find enlightenment among
the ugly fools, but you, you little thing! I had
met you long ago and yet I didn't know you.
But there, in front of the
nasty aneipe, while we were calling the
Autscher, it drove me to look at you, with your
dear face all stupid with fear, and then you were
suddenly open to me, as if we had known each
other for many years, and I know now that we
are good for each other and must have each
other. That's the way it goes, you just have to
look and you'll find it, not what you were
looking for, which is almost never. But what's
the matter if you've only found something once
again, a piece of life that can grow on youl Do
you want to, little thing? Tell me if you want it"
"Do I want to!" said Aleine between
laughter and tears. "O Aaren! Just look at me!"
And with a bristling! Laughter she repeated:
"Will I! Do I want to! And still ask if I will!"
And then she threw herself at her and said: "O
Aaren! There you have me with skin and hair!
And, Aaren, to the death!"
"Well, we'd rather not set a date," said
Aaren. "Gin year or two, if fate wills, is also
quite a time. And as fate would have it. Just
don't make any contracts!" She let the words
drip slowly from her haughty voice. As she did
so, she broke away from her friend and,
stepping out again, raised her head a little and
thrust her square little chin forward.
The rain had coagulated, it no longer
poured, but hung motionless in lust. Aaren's red
Hair shone out. As sometimes on restless,
anxious summer evenings the pale red ball on
the horizon, of which one does not immediately
know whether it is the moon or still the sun.
With such a glow, her head shone out of the
whitish gray vapor through which she walked,
in front of her little friend, who followed her
timidly, but suddenly she stopped and held out
her hand, waiting until the aleine was next to
her. Then she said with a smile: "Yes, little
thing, that's just the way it is! You always want
to rave and no Mort is strong enough for you.
But I don't trust speeches that are splendidly
dressed. You'll have to get used to that with me.
I don't promise much, but we keep our
promises; that's the difference. I want to be
good to a person and feel that he can repay me.
I have always missed such a person. And now I
suddenly feel that you could be. And that, I
think, would be wonderful for both of us. But I
can't know for how long. And neither can you.
And what's the point? No, I don't want to know.
Mas I know, it's just -" She paused and looked
at her friend, whose listening black eyes
seemed full of expectation.
"Mas?" asked little Maßmann, panting.
"Mas you know?"
Aaren said, smiling, "Mas I know, for sure,
is just that we're already all wet and
that I have a terrible young one. And I think it
would be very funny to sit with you somewhere
in a little cafe, to the horror of good Berlin
citizens. Because all two of us certainly look
very precarious now. Would you like to?"
Bella clapped her hasty little hands together
and said, childishly amused: "Oh, how nice! I
know one nearby. Over by the tramway, in the
arch. It's very small and quiet, only young
people with their girls and a few newspaper
readers come there, we're completely
undisturbed. I've never been there, but think
how wonderful it is when I pass by - because
the way to my teacher always takes me past,
you know I play the violin - and so whenever I
pass by and look through the window, I always
have a very strange feeling, a beckoning
feeling, as if I'm expected there! Stupid, isn't it?
But I swear to you it was like that. I always
knew that something would happen to me there
again. You laugh at yourself then. Are there any
premonitions? And yet! For you see, now we
are going there and I shall be with you, all alone
with you, as I have always wanted so much
since I knew you! O Aaren!"
"Yes," said Aaren cheerfully. "This should
really happen now. And as quickly as possible!"
And she pulled the aleine away through the
thick fog. The aleine had
She was frightened again, because she didn't
understand Aaren's warmly mocking tone. But
as she felt the strong step of her friend at her
side, she was soon comforted and trudged
bravely along. And she was so happy that she
suddenly felt the need to say something great or
very sweet to her beautiful friend. So she said,
pointing with her twitching hand into the steam:
"Through dark fog into bright happiness!"
"Yes," Aaren said, her voice impenetrable.
"And from wet rain to hot punch!"
They sat down at a window of the little
Lafä's. Nlaßmann kept saying, as if she couldn't
believe it yet: "We're sitting there all alone
now, me with you and you with me and nobody
else!" And then she always laughed again and
blushed as if it was forbidden. Aaren said
nothing, just ate and drank. The other watched
her in admiration. Then she said, "You're such a
little doll, like porcelain, that people don't dare
touch your fingers for fear of breaking
anything, but when they see you eating and
drinking, you're suddenly a wild U)iking,
really!" And she looked for another U)ik, but
found none, and only said, as if everything was
included in this name: "O Aaren!"
 Aaren then had cigarettes and another
punch brought to her. As she inhaled the
smoke, over the
Leaning forward at the little table, her
flickering eyes closed, sniffing with the short
nibble, a lascivious and almost treacherous trait
appeared in her fine, almost transparent white
face on the narrow, doubtful lips, which it
usually did not have. Her cheeks clouded over
with very small reflective red spots, her hair
cast its rusty golden sheen in her white
forehead, she seemed to be all aflame with an
unknown greed, suddenly she thrust the
cigarette into the cup, opened her bright eyes,
from which little green sparks leapt, and said in
her glassy voice, which sounded both cunning
and moved by a quiet pity: "And now, Aleines,
you must tell me."
"Za," said little Maßmann happily.
"First of all, poor thing, how did you end up
among those horrible women? What were you
doing there? That was one hell of an idea of
yours!" And she laughed.
The young girl sat up and asked, quite
ashamed and very eagerly: "May I tell you
about the beginning?"
"From the beginning of the world," Aaren
said with amusement, "if you like! Like the
Germans always do, you're thorough! Even if it
takes half the night! All the better, with punch
and cigarettesI" And looking around the small,
quiet room, she continued: "They must think
we're students here. And we are! Students of
life, hurrah!" She drank, she took
Another cigarette, she laughed. Her whole
being was in a fluttering heat. And impatiently
she said: "Let's go!"
Little Bella was very flattered that she was
allowed to tell her Nordic friend. "When my
mother died, I was seven years old. Only one
sister remained with me, who was barely two
years old. My father was hit very hard by the
death of his wife and his worries didn't allow
him to look after us much, he was at work all
day and when he came home we were already
asleep. So as a very little girl I was already a
housewife, I was in charge of the household, I
brought up my sister. There was always
something to do around the house - and that
was actually my best time. Until our great
misfortune came, until the little sister died too; I
had just turned fifteen. You can't imagine what
it's like when you're used to having someone
who needs you, and suddenly they're gone! At
first, I didn't realize it myself for the longest
time, I thought it was just the pain of the child,
and such pain heals again! For the longest time
I did not know what it was, until I gradually
realized that once you are used to being
something to a person, you can no longer do
without it. But then I began to search. I can't be
anything to my father; the death of Aindes has
completely destroyed him.
He continues his work in silence, almost like an
obedient animal, but he pushes me away. No,
you mustn't think he's bad, he's just completely
exhausted since then, he no longer has the
strength to love a person and if you want to be
good to him, he realizes that he can't
reciprocate, and that hurts him so much that he
gets angry. So I've been all alone ever since.
I've tried to learn and do all sorts of things, but
what use is that to me? What's the point of
knowing or being able to do something if I
don't have someone to help, someone who is
happy about it, someone who owns everything I
know and can do? What's the point then? Do
you understand what I mean? And when people
tell me that there are so many beautiful things
in life, well, that can't help me if I don't have
someone with me who is happy about it,
because only then could I be happy about it.
When I see something beautiful, like the sun
going down or it snowing, it just makes me sad
because I have to think all the time that I don't
have anyone to show it to and say: 'Look how
beautiful it is! But that's part of it."
"And now you're looking for one, you
helpful girl?" Aaren asked in a hushed voice.
 The young thing looked at the glittering top
of the small table and replied anxiously:
"Something terrible has happened to me. When
I was in this big
longing for someone I could be something to, a
man came along who pleased me. Now think of
my happiness! Everything beautiful in me was
ready for him." She remained silent.
After a while, Aaren asked, "So?"
"And," said little Maßmann, "and he didn't
want it." Aaren laughed softly. Then little
Maßmann looked up and said fiercely, "No, you
misunderstand me! Gr did want me. But I
realized that he wanted ugly things from me,
things that were mean and bad in me, not the
beautiful things that were ready for him in me.
No, they want the bad, the mean from us."
"They want the bad, the mean from us,"
Aaren repeated, sucking on his cigarette with
greedy lips.
Sadly, the other continued: "So I went to the
gray ones who want to get away from men.
Somewhere there must be people for whom the
good you have is meant." She sat quite
absorbed. Then she suddenly looked up, her
poor, uncertain face brightening with gratitude,
and said happily, "But now I have you!"
"And for me, do you think it's good?" asked
Aaren.
Little Maßmann was startled by how
different her friend's voice suddenly sounded,
completely empty and strange. But Aaren had
already stood up and, with a movement as if she
were shivering, said
she says briefly: "I'm tired. I'm very tired all of
a sudden. Please, let me get a cab. I have to go
home. No, you mustn't come with me. I'm too
tired.
In the cab, she said through the window to
poor little Maßmann: "Why don't you call me
tomorrow so we can discuss when we can meet
again? Maybe you're doing the men an
injustice. And anyway, little thing, the bad and
mean or ugly or whatever you call it!"
"He knows!" said Bella Maßmann and
closed the cab - "May I bring my violin
tomorrow? - I could play a little music."
Aaren nodded: "Yes, bring it along if you're
happy to. I'm also looking forward to taking my
violin out of its old case again! - Goodbye
Bella, dream of all things beautiful!"
Sadly, little Maßmann walked home alone
through the fog.
fourth chapter.
The: man who: ^at.
Gaston von Dülfert sat in the opera house as
if in the consulting room of a neurologist - in a
pleasant languor, seriously and patiently
devoted to a suggestive cure, U)hat he heard
and saw there, in the wide, luminous stage
frame, was (noise, Bizet's (noise, of which he
knew every note, every scene in his memory.
He had certainly not come here for the sake of
the opera - the ridiculousness of its traditional
apparatus disturbed him so much that he could
never stay in the theater for long. But the
Deftinn stood there on the stage and held his
yearning senses with her voice as if with
magical, inescapable ghostly hands. The face of
the Slavin with the strange, small, black
burning eyes, with the broad nose and the full
lips, all in all a face that overcame an ugliness
threatened by nature in pain and sweetness to
beauty - it was dear to him, for he felt related to
this singer, he, with his wings in his hump,
encapsulated and struggling, like a fairy-tale
flower in a hard shell. But the doubt that an
impression in the theater, like every other
impression, pressed into his soul, told him
91
earlier than usual today. What was that woman
doing there? Who was she? What did she want
to achieve? Tarmen's essence - did she
resurrect it? (Lärmen, the gypsy who lived
because Profpsre Werim^e and George Bizet
saw her, the pearl in the feces, the rose in the
garbage - was it her? And her arts, gypsy arts,
criminal and wonderful, did she really let them
play? No - he paid for her artistic performance
like a night in an opium den in Batavia. He had
bought a seat in the Berlin opera house from a
dirty ticket dealer: Emmy Destinn, royal
Prussian Kammersängerin, sang the title role in
"Tarmen" to so-and-so Wale today. It was not
reality - the higher reality he was striving for -
not even this. The beautiful woman was
"socially minded", she did her work, she
"acted", i.e. she lied and disguised herself on
stage. When she left her artificial light, he no
longer knew her; on the contrary, he had to
realize that he had never known her. Nor did he
feel the slightest desire to play the habitus and
look behind the scenes - not even here. Her
voice had always seemed real to him. At least
as truth - because what sounded there and
connected with his mute soul was a miracle in
itself, an unquestionable vote of God, detached
from women and art and theater. But a truth
placed in the service of deceit? An opium pipe?
A foolish, adverse
A thing that was only forgotten because it
would bring oblivion?
Gaston von Dülfert shifted restlessly in his
chair. Geheime Aommerzienrat Liebenberg, his
togen neighbor, often looked at him from the
side in astonishment, as if he were the
impresario responsible for the Destinnstimme
and did not understand that the U)under
remedy was not working today. He himself was
highly satisfied - lulled by the sounds, he had
even come to the firm decision to drink
Thablis, not Rhine wine, at the supper
afterwards. When the curtain fell after the first
act, Dülfert rose and gave the signal to leave.
"But you can't possibly eat before nine
o'clock, can you?" Ciebenberg objected, more
shyly and pleadingly than forcefully.
"I can't stay in the theater any longer - why
don't you join me?"
"No, no," sighed the other one wistfully and
stretched his arms out to slip into the fur the
servant had prepared for him. "Now I have no
more £uft. Sitting here alone - no. But wasn't
the Destinn wonderful, Doctor?"
The giant in the wide delivery coat pulled
his high shoulders up even higher, tipped his
hat over his amber-yellow head with clear
anger and hurried down to the vestibule
without answering. The Privy Councilor's car
was waiting outside.
7
Liebenberg climbed in without further
resistance, and the electrically lit vehicle
whirred away.
The old man finally interrupted the doctor's
muffled silence by putting his hand on his anie:
"Where are we actually going?"
"To the Adlon. And then to Maison Remy, I
think," came the half-dreaming reply.
"You think? That's nice -"
"No, no, I know for sure - I told the
chauffeur: Hotel Adlon."
Liebenberg remained silent. And since he
no longer needed to speak, Gaston von Dülfert
boldly pulled what he had actually wanted to
banish with all his might in front of his closed
eyes. It was Aaren Holmsen's picture. She
wanted to claim her right now, and he let her
have it - in secret. She had no idea. A triumph
over the Destinn - over the voice of the
Destinn! If she had known! He smiled. Za, that
was what mattered to her. Triumph over a rival
- as always. Contempt is strong food, but it
tastes bitter. "Are women there to be despised?"
his quiet neighbor in the car had once said. He
didn't look at him now, he felt lonely and
burdened. Of all the gray ones he had met,
Aaren was the truest, Aaren was the truest. That
was not Tarmenmusik ...
 But defiantly he suddenly straightened up
so that his neighbor flinched. Did he want the
truth? Dom woman? Energy - in front of a
woman? Might others, like his unhappy father,
be on this quest? Tr was with the men - with
the manly men who must and certainly did
exist.
He suddenly turned to Liebenberg and said:
"We're meeting Tgon Ginsterling, whom you
know, at Maison Remy."
His neighbor made a face as if he were
being offered a questionable piece of paper on
the stock exchange. "That skinny grasshopper?
The starving artist? What do you want with him
again?"
"Leave it alone - Egon Ginsterling has his
merits. It is undeniable that he has a higher
willpower. I have proof of that. How else
would it be possible for this inconspicuous,
weak, almost crippled man to have the power to
gather rare geniuses of energy around him? The
Greek DiomedesI Quaste, the man who does
what he thinks! And above all Wisconsin, the
aeronaut! - He does that without money, my
dear - do you do anything without money? By
the way, Tgon Ginsterling is only a starving
artist on his worst days."
The Geheime Aommerzienrat clasped the
gold knob of his
He put his forehead on it. Dülfert realized from
a slight shrug of his shoulders that he was
laughing. "You're a strange enthusiast, Doctor.
One might almost say you're an Aind. But I am
curious about your genius at the Maison Remy.
How did you come up with this story again?
What did you always call your first youthful
pursuit? The search for genius! Or do you want
to give the Marquis Fihiasi back his 20,000
francs with interest? ,
"I don't care about the marquis. He has
fulfilled his task in my life. I forgot - him"-
Another one I will never forget - he continued
wordlessly. She who reminded me today of my
first ascent. Of my jDhaeton ride. She has faith
- she has waited for fulfillment. What an Aaren
Holmsen believes in, on the lonely fjord of her
Nordic heights, at least deserves to be pursued
to the limit of what is possible.
Now the car stopped. They dined at the
Adlon. Then, at twelve o'clock, they walked,
somewhat animatedly, arm in arm along the
Linden to the Maison Aemy. The automobile
was sent home for the time being.
The nightclub was in the rear building,
alluring and hidden. The unequal avaliers
walked through a long, lighted corridor, then
down a staircase until they arrived in the pretty
hell of Madame
Remy stood. Gypsy music and dancing couples
- slender girls with huge hats, somewhat
wobbly tugs - Negro waiters - champagne
tables, flowers - above all a reddish light that
had nothing ordinary about it. The Mirtin, a fat,
made-up creature, always smiling and moved,
greeted Dülfert and Liebenberg like guests of
honor. She led the Zerren to the "Genietisch",
where only Egon Ginsterling and a strange little
gentleman were now sitting. The latter was
strange in that he not only turned his back on
the dance hall, but also on the table at which he
was sitting and his friend. He had very long,
flexible arms and was able to reach over his
shoulder for his champagne glass and put it
back on the table behind him. When Egon
Ginsterling, a kind of scarecrow, a bony stand
of his not very clean clothes, with a thin goatee
and dark burning fanatic eyes, introduced his
neighbor to the Privy Councillor of Commerce,
this surprising young man only reacted by
saying: "Mieder so'n oller Jude!". Then he
turned around, nodded his beardless head in a
friendly manner and returned to his previous
position.
Liebenberg changed color. "What a lout he
is," he whispered. But Dülfert quickly
whispered to him: "Don't talk to this person
about anything! Don't hold anything against
him! That
nobody here does, dear Privy Councillor! §You
have Jakob Quaste in front of you, the When,
who does what he thinks!"
"Comfortable," said Liebenberg, forcing
himself and taking his seat.
"Who knows," Dülfert replied quietly.
Ggon Ginsterling no longer seemed to be
paying any attention to the circus tricks of his
friend, who had just started to alternately put
his cigar between his lips with the wound end
and the burning end. Gr turned to the new guest
in an engaging manner: "I am delighted to meet
you in person today, Mr. Privy Councillor - I
know of the importance of your intelligence, of
your constant willingness to help great causes
-"
"Why don't 5e say in good German: I know
your Ield?" Jakob Quaste interjected.
Liebenberg wanted to start up again, but at
a sign from Dülfert he smiled disdainfully and
turned to Ginsterling. He continued without
paying attention to Quaste: "Today, friend
Gaston Äe has brought us to the right hour. Our
comrades are not yet assembled. But it's about
nothing less than the founding of a glass city on
the Lüneburger kleide and about the albatross,
the steerable riding bird of Adam Wisconsin."
"It's not about that for me today," remarked
Quaste, still turned away.
 "Nobody asked you for your opinion, dear
Jakob," Ginsterling replied gently.
"2^ will choose a woman for me here, for
dessert, to take home."
Liebenberg turned dark red, his blood
boiled in his veins - he could do something in
moral indignation. But it was too embarrassing
for him that in this place feelings came up in
him as they usually did towards his ill-bred
sons - he fell silent. He looked indifferently to
the side, at the dancing couples, and hummed
along to the "Dollar Princess". Ginsterling did
not take his eyes off him, while Dülfert looked
up at the ceiling with amusement.
"May I ask," Ginsterling continued in his
hollow voice, "which of the two problems the
Privy Councillor is particularly interested in?"
"I haven't decided on one yet," Liebenberg
replied comfortably. "Frankly, the glass city is
too fragile for me, and the albatross bird will
end up flying away with my money."
"Bravo!" Jakob Quaste suddenly shouted,
turned around and poured a glass of champagne
for the Privy Councillor, who had not yet
ordered a drink. "We are comrades of the will!"
"Thank you very much," Liebenberg replied
quickly.
"Wacht nischt! You are still too feije for the
time being
to it! But the unconscious will become
conscious! Cheers!"
At that moment, the dance music stopped
and the couples returned to their tables. Dülfert,
who had just emerged from his stupor and was
looking around at the laughing people walking
arm in arm, was brushed by a girl who
deliberately approached him and hurried away
from her dancer to Ginsterling's table.
"Tatyana!" cried Tassel to the hot and
breathless woman. Then he jumped up and
kissed her heaving bosom. The next moment,
however, he had already received a slapping
cheek stroke. "I'll do what I think too!" cried
the girl. Everyone laughed and applauded.
"But of course!" replied Quaste quickly. "It
was very pleasant for me!"
Dülfert fixed his gaze on the girl, the
famous Tatjana Lewska, whom he had often
heard about. 5So what did the Russian terrorist
look like? Gin pale face with soft yet
pronounced, roundish features, pale red lips,
gray eyes and very strong, copper-colored hair.
T's was not a handsome or refined countenance,
rather it tended to ordinariness, but it had the
enigmatic power to put the man at his ease.
Wherever she met her, at any age, in any
character, Tatyana Levska incited the opposite
sex. Her
His flexible body was already nestling in snake
beauty, while he was still far away from
Nlanne. The desiring lips kissed without a kiss,
the silver-gray staring eyes confessed
wordlessly many tender words. But there was
more, far more, on her high and free forehead
than Tva was otherwise capable of thinking. A
dark furrow between the fine bulges, a play of
shadows that must have come from real
suffering, not from dancing and dalliance. 5o
was Tatjana Lewska, and what else Gaston von
Dülfert noticed about her, quite clearly, at first
glance: she was not Russian - that would almost
have bothered him - she was Jewish.
Ginsterling had once claimed that her name was
actually Levi - he was probably right. She had
to be related to the original people, who were
capable of more than nomads and eastern
barbarians, more in a century than those in
millennia. Doctor von Dülfert no longer took
his eyes off her. Now the Destinn sank into the
insubstantiality of her "art", her voice
extinguished behind an iron door that life
closed. Tatjana Lewska returned his gaze and
passed the j)robe that Gaston always subjected
a beautiful woman to. She must have noticed
his physique, but she looked into his mind's eye
with full approval, undisturbed. She recognized
his strength. She found him "beautiful". That
this gaze was not the first one she directed at
him, but that she had already completely
absorbed him in her eyes while dancing over
him.
Gaston von Dülfert knew nothing about this.
Tatjana sat down at the table and drank two
glasses of champagne. She laughed at Jakob
Quaste as if he were a fire-eater or a tlown - she
didn't seem to have found a higher side to his
whimsical goings-on. Quaste was disgusted
with his top hat and threw it into the middle of
the hall, so that a rushing Aellner crushed it.
His wine no longer tasted good, he wanted to
order another and poured the first one on the
floor. Tatyana asked him, laughing, whether he
really dropped his umbrella in the middle of the
street when it was no longer raining, and
stepped off an electric car at full speed as
calmly as from a garden veranda without
falling? He was also thrown out of the
Deutsches Theater the other day because he had
answered a Faust actor's profound question out
loud from his seat to general laughter?
"They're acrobatic things, stupid things,
dirty things," Liebenberg hissed half aloud.
"Can't the original person do better than that?"
"Yes, yes," muttered Dülfert
absentmindedly, but turned away from Jakob
Quaste in disgust. Now he was annoyed by the
attention Tatjana Lewska was paying to the
fool. "Demonstratively, he suddenly listened to
Egon Ginsterling's explanations, which he had
been delivering for a while without an
audience.
had begun to find. Stroking his mousy
hairbrush with his scrawny right hand, he
declared that he had decided to become an
itinerant preacher for the pool of the glass city.
This was his latest martyrdom. He would set
the whole of Germany in motion, he would
awaken the great shame and the great longing
in the candles of the fugend - -
"And you'll be stopping off in plö^enfee on
your journey," Liebenberg said calmly, while
Ginsterling's eyes turned brightly to the
immobile Dülfert.
"My path also goes through prisons, Privy
Councillor," the martyr replied simply and
unflinchingly.
"And you don't want to spend time with
bankers?"
"You know that anyway."
"I don't know anything."
"I want you to know!"
Liebenberg wanted to laugh - but the look
on this hungry man's face was indeed so
strangely strong and intimidating that he
couldn't counter it with the full security of his
wealth. He turned away uneasily and shrugged
his shoulders.
 "We need 5 million for the foundation of a
glass city, hasn't Mr. Privy Councillor already
spent more on greater follies?"
 Now Liebenberg didn't even laugh. Was it
the suggestion of that hollow voice or the truth
of the naively pertinent question that penetrated
the center of his old life, as it were? He
remained seated with a serious, almost
sorrowful expression, raised his strong brows
and gazed blankly into the tinsel splendor of
the hall, as if he were calculating something
monstrous.
"But I think your glass city is ugly -
horrible, horrible ugly," Tatjana Lewska
suddenly called out in a cutting voice.
"Ugly?!" Ginsterling asked whining, with
wrung fists, like a penitent preacher.
"Yes! To put the people of today with their
lives, with their bodies, with their beds - er -
with all their hideousness behind glass? What
do you say to that, Mr. von Dülfert?"
Gaston was confused by the sudden
question from this girl. He even blushed, which
she received with an acquiescent, tense smile,
and replied hesitantly: "I can't think of a
preparatory stage, though. The physical
refinement of modern mankind in the sense of
antiquity would take a little long. But the
spiritual is unquestionably far ahead of it -"
 "Without question?"
"Without question, my lady - what use is
ironic skepticism? She's certainly right about
the present,
but it is cheap, and faith in the future is not a
luxury. Do you dare to doubt that there is a
great, deep, lasting purity in man that can be
awakened ever more strongly?"
He wondered about himself, what was
coming out of him? It wasn't his own sound, he
was suddenly playing the violin of another soul.
It still had to be around him, before those
scratches - the faithful human child, the
offended, unyielding one: Aaren Holmsen . ..
Tatjana lowered her head and smiled
ambiguously, her lips drawn in as if she wanted
to ward off a bad smell. Then she shook herself
and shouted: "No! I'm not coming to your glass
city. I appreciate Egon Ginsterling, but I don't
want to look at him there! And so on! Don't
give a geller for this project, Mr. Privy
Councillor I"
"Quite your opinion, dear lady."
Ginsterling lost his noble balance - but he
didn't become agitated, he just became a little
paler and gave Tatjana a tremendous, punishing
look. Jakob Quaste chuckled and was busy
drawing Ginsterling in its natural state on the
menu behind glass walls. Doctor von Dülfert,
however, sat silently with a stony face. He
searched for the hidden scorn in Tatyana's
words. He wanted to know whether she was
capable of responding to his misfortune in the
glass house.
of purity and truth. As if she had seen through
him, she forestalled his outburst of offense:
"Here come two of them, Doctor! You can hire
them! - I wouldn't go to the glass city myself! I
can't put up with that from my old littermates in
Vilnius! They didn't make me like that!"
Half soothed, Dülsert turned to the new
apparitions. He already knew one of the men,
Diomedes Sterz, the new Greek - but the other,
a beardless American, all sinew and bones, who
was he? The long-wanted man perhaps? Adam
Wisconsin, the airman? Yes, it was him, and
now Doctor von Dülfert's heart grew lighter.
These snakes, these snakes, crawling, lustful
worms that kept bothering him. The man who
wanted to discover the flight of birds for
mankind, to death and life, beyond woman and
the world, the manly man - he was looking for
him!
Diomedes Sterz, a Saxon who, as always,
ordered two roast beefs at once and indulged his
inexhaustible appetite for hours, was of no
interest to him today. This man's body was
beautiful, perfectly beautiful - there was no
doubting that. But today Gaston recognized
more clearly than ever that the former athlete
was only a test creature of the scanty
ginsterling, the normal human beauty that the
latter used as an advertising poster for his glass
city.
needed. An animal, by the way, not a human
being. He turned away in disgust and left the
beautiful Diomedes to his crooked traveling
preacher, who immediately made him aware of
the wonderful educational task for which he had
chosen him, but let the irritable lion continue to
eat quietly. Gaston looked fixedly past Tatjana
Lewska and now devoted himself entirely to the
inventor Wisconsin, who had also attracted the
attention of the skeptical Liebenberg. Among
all the "crazy" people here, the banker finally
saw a man with whom he could do business.
This American really was a man of action -
there was no doubt about that after a few
minutes. Lr tackled the matter of the future in a
practical way - not with cheap words or written
paper, like the unclean renownists at the genius
table. The Albatross was to beat all previous
achievements in Europe and America. Zeppelin
and Parseval, Wilbur and Orville Wright -
where were they behind his machine? A giant
winged animal made of aluminum with wings
like the kites of prehistoric times. Only two
riders were to sit on its back. Two full days'
travel was likely based on previous attempts, as
the mechanical flight power of the wings was
supported by a combination of gas balloons
built into the bird's fuselage. However, this new
improvement required a
UQ completely new machine. There was no money
for it. Now, if a patron stepped in for the glorious
pool, and if at the same time a comrade could be
found, a courageous one among trillions of faint-
hearted people who wanted to join the tremendous
journey - then the goal was achieved. Mammon
and courage - these were the two values that Adam
Wisconsin was looking for.
To be the first, free and bold, to survive a
mortal adventure far away from woman and the
world - high above woman and the world - - it
hammered loudly in Gaston von Dülfert's candles.
What was to be won? Everything! What was to be
lost? Nothing! ... They drank porter with pommery.
Wisconsin's cigarettes were like the narcotic
Chinese opium pipes. Through the blue haze of
smoke, Tatyana Levska's pearly pale face smiled at
the hunchbacked giant. He might have pronounced
his decision right then and there, despite her
mocking doubts. But what could Adam Wisconsin
do with his decision? What was the companion to
him if the Maecen remained as dumb and
unresponsive as a block of wood? ...
"You could do it, Privy Councillor. In that
case, I say yes."
None of the tugs at the table had said the last
words. When Doctor von Dülfert looked up in
surprise, he noticed that a slender, aristocratic
gentleman with a blond, pointed beard and smiling
but somewhat extinguished eyes was standing at
the table. He was standing
had been there for quite a long time, an amused,
silent observer who had listened attentively to the
geniuses' conversations. "Count Poczerewski," he
introduced himself politely to the doctor with a
Polish accent. It was he who had last danced with
Tatjana Lewska. After a detailed inspection of the
ladies present, he had returned to Ginsterling's
round table.
Liebenberg knew him. "Do you think so,
Count?
- And the glass city?"
"Slump, slump."
"The albatross bird - par for the course?"
"Bull market, bull market!"
"You really are a terrible person. Why do you
say that? I have to rely on your nose. You have the
power of resignation. On the racetrack, I win with
your tips because you don't care about metts. On
the stock exchange, I buy what you reckon,
because you despise good business, and that's why
fortune follows you."
The count laughed. He stopped and looked at
Dülfert. The lid of his right eye twitched, which
was a sign of strong excitement.
"Who is that?" Gaston asked Egon Ginsterling
quietly.
"Count poczerewski, a Pole, sportsman,
colossally rich and also the current owner of the 8
strangest woman, have you never heard of the
poczerewska?"
"Never," replied Dülfert.
"The famous man-pleaser, the vampire of the
international women's movement? She often
speaks in public. Strange that you've never heard
of her. She marries again and again just to suck the
blood out of a: special male specimen. most
practical revenge of the woman - isn't it? Her first
husband is said to have been a great scholar - I've
forgotten the name."
"Gin doctor?" . . .
"A doctor? I don't know that. Aann be. Tr
drank herself to death at the The. - She's of Slavic
descent."
Doctor von Dülfert stood up. Tr pushed the
table back so violently that the glasses clinked
together and Jakob Quaste, not content with the
noise, smashed another bottle of champagne. Then
he called out in a hoarse voice, a strange glint in
his eyes: "Mr. Privy Councillor Liebenberg! You
will have to give up a line of business! You will
leave the Australian grain to the competition,
because you already have seventy million, don't
you, seventy million in cash! You're there for
action, not sentiment! Will you give Adam
Wisconsin the money?"
"What's in it for me?" Liebenberg asked pale,
his lips twitching.
 " Eternity I"
"Oh no, eternity!"
"You have to! - Am I friends with you to go
along with j)hilisterfreuden?"
"I'll give you a safe contract. I don't want you
to lose anything," Wisconsin said calmly, with his
arms folded.
"And who's going?" asked Tiebenberg with a
sneer. \ "Me! If you give the money!"
Liebenberg stared at Gaston von Dülfert - his
eyes alternated between shock, hatred and
admiration.
"Then I'll do it. Good! Thank you for your
j)ression!"
"High Liebenberg!" cried Jakob Quaste,
jumping onto the table. "That was a true word!
You are a great man!"
"up Liebenberg!!!"
The homage that surrounded him flattered the
old money man. Alan saw it. 500,000 marks, well -
for that it finally blossomed once again from every
nook and cranny of his fragile existence, ugly old
Jew, well-------------------------he even inseminated
a hot outside of Tatjana . . .
Count poczerewski looked with a smile at the
frenzy of excitement caused by the decisions of a
grown man and a tradesman.
8*
U5
He put his top hat on his head and left the table of
the valley folk to find only words, words, words,
nestled among drunken women.
-i- * *
The night was cold. Gaston von Dülfert was
greeted by a heavy flurry of snow as he stepped
out onto the pale lime trees at Tatyana Levska's
side. He himself did not know how it had
happened - suddenly the others were all gone, he
was alone with her.
"You really want to risk your life?" she asked,
clinging to his arm. The expression on her face
was indefinite. The dancing snowflakes disturbed
the seriousness - and the mockery of it.
"That's not a deep question coming from you,"
Gaston replied. "What else is a man to do? A man
who does not want to wither away from his own
self, but looks beyond it? As far as I know, you are
even a woman who understands that, who has a
similar will."
"Me? ... You've been misinformed, Mr. Doctor.
It was me once."
"Are you no longer in the: Russian secret
society? Or are you not allowed to answer this
question?"
U5
"I may, if you are secretive. I once belonged to
the propaganda of the deed. The fate of executing a
sentence on the Tsar's clan would have fallen on
me once too. But before it happened, I broke away
and fled to Germany."
"Because you lost the acute?"
"No, because I gained courage."
"I don't understand that. You women are
always ahead of the action with your will.
Enthusiasm, not accomplishment. What did you
win Akut for, if I may ask?"
"To myself and to life."
"Me too l But it depends on the perception.
Men and women are completely different. Why are
you laughing?"
"Because it is delightful how a man puffs
himself up and reflects himself, like a turkey in a
pond, out of sheer self-admiration I You are
exposing yourselves to death for your own sake,
yes, yes, yes, for your own sake! We may do it for
you at best! But not for us! I like the knights of old
who fought for women better! They were so stupid
and so good! But you? You refugees? You
egotists? Oh, a hero is so poor! I know the Melden!
You know, I'm not ugly, am I? I have won many a
heart! And the only thing for which I denied my
natural possessions was the immense misfortune of
Russia!
U6
My fatherland! Enslaved, dishonored, mistreated
people! Man or woman - that was worth suffering
for! And yet I threw it down! N)ecause I am a
woman! yes! You laugh - get serious, because
you're right! ^I am here for you, I am here for the
man and therefore for myself! The man, the hero
par excellence that the fatherland needs - I would
only be that if I had had the blatters, or if I was
cross-eyed!"
She laughed - it was a laugh, shameless and
sweet at the same time. The blood rushed to his
head. She stopped, for they had arrived in front of
her apartment. Gr stood close to her and
whispered: "Maybe - what you are - so
wonderfully real and true - yes, true, Tatyana
Levska - I pay homage to your truth - that would
be the basis on which we stand. That would be the
earth. But I aspire away from the earth - to give an
example. Gin example! That's what matters to me.
To be poor and rich up there. - Phrase-mongers,
originality-haters, pretty animals - no - they belong
in the Maison Remy. But a hero is an 'unhappy'
man, because your happiness is not his. That is
why I consecrate myself to Adam Wisconsin's
cause. Farewell, Tatjana Lewska."
"Farewell, Gaston von Dülfert! Goodbye! With
me is comfort and truth!"
 The front door fell shut. I thought I heard her
light, laughing step down the dark staircase.
up there. He felt that he could have gone with her!
. . . But he tore himself away. He clenched his
teeth, drew up his shapeless shoulder and hurried
away.
***
Winter passed, spring came. By May, the
American Wisconsin had built a fine flying
machine. Liebenberg relieved him of the burden of
debt that he had already taken on for the cause of
his life. Finally, the day came when the great
endurance flight was to begin. The airship's
barracks were set up in a lonely field north of
Berlin. The day of the ascent had been kept secret -
only a few spectators turned up in the early hours
of the morning. The Round Table in the Maison
R^my, of course - Ginsterling, Jakob Quaste, who
had dressed his overcoat differently than usual
today, with the green silk lining on the outside, and
who was wearing armpits because his corns were
hurting him - also Diomedes Sterz in his Greek
fantasy garb, the delight of all Berlin street boys -
Liebenberg accompanied by Count Poczerewski
and several other strange, shivering figures. They
had all once again spent the night at the Nkaison
R^my, they had not gone to sleep but had come
straight from the dance hall. Gaston von Dülfert
had been staying in Wisconsin's barracks for
weeks
U8
- His heart beat faster and faster towards the day of
everything and nothing, he could hardly wait for it.
Today at last, today - there it lay before him as he
stepped out into the morning. The colossal
mythical creature of technology, blinking silver,
with limp, resting wings, still flying! Yes! It
carried him up, like the lark, the free-born, into the
blue spring sky, he was probably only a companion
and comrade, only the standard-bearer of a hero -
no matter - the ingenious inventor gave him the
way to great life or great death - salvation,
NlanneswertI - Yes, Nlitfliegen was also flying!
He greeted his acquaintances with a feverish
hand. - Tatjana Lewska had not appeared. At first
it hurt him, because the coming triumph was only
half a triumph if her eyes were missing. He had
dreamed of being able to trample the feeling that
drew him down to this victorious harlot, which he
loathed and yet could not get rid of, into the dust
before her eyes today. She had probably feared it
and didn't come. Soon, however, he thought he
saw another female figure instead of her among the
crowds of happy people. She, too, was far away,
but she had learned of his decision to help the
cause of a hero, and a red-hot bouquet of roses,
which was brought to him after sunrise, showed
him that her
Thoughts were close to him. What at any other
hour would have made him bitter and ashamed as
sentimental, today he could not have done without
it. The anabaptist dream of an army farewell
enveloped him. He felt Aaren Holmsen's
handshake, the gentle spring breeze carried her last
out to him. He tore himself away from her when
Adam Wisconsin gave the signal to leave, not from
Tatjana Lewska. He quickly sat behind the first
rider to take the wheel. Gin gave a final jerk, a
stormy hurrah from below - then the albatross took
to the air.
O wondrous, highest, first feeling of life! He
felt as if he were reliving his birth as a mature,
thinking Wenfch. Swallows circled around him,
chirping - sisters - now he understood them! Gr
bent down once more out of pleasure and light to
the upwardly staring, jubilant Wenschen- schar.
Shortly after the ascent, a light vehicle had
come out of the town at the fastest trot onto the
field. Gine Frau was driving it, a no longer young,
once beautiful woman, made up and corpulent,
with a dark red crown of hair - gold jewelry and
precious stones flashed around her, the leather of
her black horse was white, and bouquets of violets
hung from his temples, The woman was only hotly
excited when the steerable bird took to the air with
the two men. She brought her carriage alongside
Count Poezerewski, who only gave her a quick
glance and then stared up through the Arimstecher
again. His right eye twitched violently. It was only
when the albatross seemed to be just a tiny thing in
the blue aether that he turned to her and joined in
the conversation that Privy Councillor Liebenberg
was having with her. Then they realized that the
lady was the Countess Poczerewska.
Gaston von Dülfert had no longer seen the
redhead who was gazing after him with such
fascination. The music of the spheres surrounded
him. He surrendered to his new life. As he had
nothing to do for the time being but to be quiet, sit
still and fight off the dizziness, he enjoyed a
tremendous hour. The solid world stretched out
beneath him - but it was actually floating too, a
rolling sphere. Today he understood the spherical
shape of the earth for the first time. Everything
was in motion! Hey, only the sun was stationary.
They flew towards it. Adam Wisconsin sat
motionless at the wheel. He hadn't made a sound
yet - excitement, willpower, a last gasp, that was
all there was to him. After a few zig-zag flights,
ever closer to the hot, shimmering altitude, he
spoke his first word: "We have to go down a bit."
"Why?" Gaston asked disappointedly and
hastily.
"It's too hot, the friction on the joints is too
strong. I also don't trust the east."
"The East?"
 "Do you lehen the gray Wolfe? I think the
wind is changing."
Gaston shuddered, but it was only for a
moment. Then he said, "Good," as a sign that he
would obey the inventor's every order. The
Albatross descended, and all too soon the truth of
Wisconsin's fears was proved. The beautiful
morning had been a deception. There was a thick
wall of cloud on the eastern horizon, and suddenly
the fiercest breeze tugged at the bird's firm wings.
He withstood it - oh, he was good, he showed
himself to be prepared for completely different
trials. But the two riders were beginning to get a
taste of hell. They did not yet need to doubt the
steerability of their machine, but in bitter irony
they only managed to stay in one and the same
place with the wheel. Like a lark, banned in front
of the light and fluttering, singing with its silver
voice even in the storm, only sharper, more
plaintive, the albatross hung on the fin. The gray
clumped around him. The victorious blueness
faded. A whistling and groaning sound surrounded
the airship.
"We'll have to wait and see," the American
remarked dryly.
Gaston would have loved to look at his hard
face now. With twitching lips, he addressed the
firm, black head from behind: "How about we let
ourselves drift, Mr. Wisconsin?
I fear for the wings if this goes on for much
longer."
"No, doctor. I never surrender."
"Surrender?! ..."
There was no reply to this.
And hours passed. The albatross was still
groaning and turning, like an enchanted lark, with
trembling wing beats in one and the same place. A
thunderstorm was gathering - it remained below
the airships. Every view of the earth was blocked,
all orientation was impossible for the time being.
The storm now broke out with full force from the
east. It was now a fight to the death. Poor
Albatross!
"Aren't we going to let ourselves drift, Nlr.
Wisconsin?" Gaston von Dülsert now asked the
soaked, crouched American again.
"No!" was the answer - it sounded like it came
from far away. "I didn't blow my cover for that."
Should he talk back? Should he fight with him?
Up here, the two of them, in boundless loneliness?
- What was that? Waiting for death?! He was
riding with the devil! Oh, now he recognized him!
- Tatjana Lewska stood next to him on a black
cloud - she flew towards him, she called out once
more: "With me is comfort and truth! What is
victory? What is Wannestum? Lie, Nlaterie! Come
to me!!!" And suddenly in the howling confusion -
he was
yes, all alone - the tempter before him had already
fluttered away - suddenly - a crash, a splintering, a
cry--------------------then into the bottomless pit -
down, down - woeful, glorious - gentle, swift as an
arrow, silent sinkingEternities Gaston von Dülfert
lived through at the moment of the fall - his whole
past §eben - the father - Aaren - - - he spread his
arms - the earth came, the hard earth he knew
nothing more.
*
*
The fall of the Albatross happened on the third
of May. It had brought death to Adam Wisconsin,
the inventor. Gaston von Dülfert, his companion,
who had not left his seat and had been saved from
the worst of the impact by the machine, was taken
to Count Poczerewski's house with serious injuries,
where he lay for weeks in delirious feverish
fantasies. The countess nursed him devotedly - no
one had believed this woman capable of such an
act of Samaritanism. The Poczerewskis had
volunteered to care for Dr. von Dülfert.
Ginsterling's comrades in crime took little interest
in such deeds - they were gladly left to the rich
Poles.
Finally, one July evening, Gaston came to his
senses. He woke up in a large, airy
124
Room - the countess had just left Aranken alone.
He looked around in amazement. How beautiful
and quiet this room was. Through the wide, open
window, he looked out into a garden whose
treetops were golden before the sunset. Where was
he? He soon realized what had happened to him.
The only thing he would have liked to know was
Wisconsin's fate - his own was taught to him by his
bandaged head, his left arm and his right leg in a
splint. He had escaped with his life - as a cripple
perhaps, even more of a cripple than before. Gin's
lips curled in a bitter smile.Flying along was also
flying?--------------Who had said that lying word?
Himself, perhaps?- he not said goodbye with
Aaren's blessing, had Tatyana Lewska condemned
him?-----------------Oh, deception in his soul.
Endless deceit. It was not Aaren who had saved
him from falling, it was not Tatyana he thanked for
saving his life. But who was his benefactor? In
whose house was he?----------------
Liebenberg, the money man who had thrown
half a million into the air for nothing, did not own
such a home. He had been leading a crazy hotel
existence since his divorce. The convalescent
looked up at the ceiling with dull, peaceful senses.
His curiosity about the noble innkeepers was less
than the old, romantic instinct in him to imagine
people lovingly before he knew them. He sucked
in a silent breath
I drew in the pure evening air, and saw a young,
fair-haired woman before me, and her brother, yes,
her brother, not her husband - both pure and
serious, all comfort, all helpfulness, like the
persecuted Thrists in Roman times. They had
carried the wild, wounded bird into their house.
They were delighted by his recovery . . .
Strange infatuation! He knew he had a crush,
but he couldn't defend himself against it. It was an
inheritance from his father, who had later become
so skeptical, so cynical. He remembered an eye
picture of him, showing him as a blond, long-
haired student with a girl's face full of fantasy and
chaste faith. The Wann always remained an Aind -
the woman could not be said to be one. Only the
Wann remained an Aind . . .
The door was opened quietly. He heard
someone enter, but he did not open his eyes. The
person - Gaston felt it was a woman - approached
his bed cautiously and looked at him. The nurse
seemed to notice that he was awake and that his
sleep was only apparent, for she flinched
perceptibly and moved away again in a hurry.
Strange. His eyelids were too heavy; he could not
even look after her. A deep, strange trepidation
also settled on his chest, which had just been so
free. He remained motionless until a new visitor
arrived.
came. Gaston blinked and recognized Count
Poczerewski. In deep surprise, he straightened up a
little.
"Why don't you lie still! Lie still!" the j)ole
called gently and quickly. "He's always taking
risks again - he's hardly woken up! Well,
congratulations, dear doctor - my wife has just told
me that the great Arisis is over - I'd like to be the
first to congratulate you on your new life!"
Gaston left himi his matte right hand. "You
saved me," he whispered. "Thank you."
"Oh no, dear friend, not me, I've only put a
room in my ruff at your disposal. The Privy
Medical Councillor Breyer and my wife must have
done you some good."
Gaston stared in front of him. "Your wife - I
thought so. I thank her for everything. - Yes, I still
love my life. I suppose that seems strange to you?"
"Why? You dear, good Tor! You're going to be
all right! You have proved by your courage that
you have a greater future ahead of you than all of
us put together!"
Gaston shook his head. "I am content when I
can breathe and gratefully leave your house . .. Is
Wisconsin alive?"
 "No . . ."
"I thought so. What's left of the big dream?"
"Don't get excited!"
"I was just a follower."
"Easy, easy."
"Where is your wife?"
"You can't see them now."
"Why not? Now the gratitude she needs lives in
me! I have awakened to thank her, Count! Call
your wife!"
"You're being reasonable, doctor - you'll get a
fever again -"
"If you deny me my wish - then it will
happen!"
"do you promise me you'll be prepared?"
"Captured?"
"Who also - I mean - -"
"What do 5ie think?"
"Someone might confront you--------------"
"What do you mean, Count?"
poczerewski left the room. Gaston von Dülfert
clutched his finely hunting heart. Who was fine
savior? Who was this man's wife? Something
monstrous surrounded him - shaken, he heard the
darkly booming grandfather clock strike seven.
Then the door opened again - a high and
A broad figure with a crown of red hair stood on
the threshold. She spread out her arms and looked
at him with a smile that encompassed the pain and
bliss of his indifference. He straightened up.
"Mother!" he cried out with elemental force -
then he sank back unconscious into the aisles.
Chapter five.
Hopes and fears.
Aaren Holmfen betrayed herself when her little
friend brought her the first news of the airship's
fall. And so treacherous was the short cry of terror
that Aaren himself realized that denial and
concealment would be in vain.
Bella Maßmann now knew that Dr. v. Dülfert
was very close to her friend's candles.
Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen had repeatedly found
her conviction that "litten Aarell" aln Manne was
suffering confirmed. She really had some
experience in this. She had been married.
"I know the men I"
She never tired of repeating this, repeating it in
a frenzy, as if she had had the worst experiences
with these most wretched of God's creatures, while
on the contrary she had a deeply rooted respect and
humility for these chosen ones and saw the greatest
happiness of life in man.
But Miss Holmsen was of a different opinion
and expressed it with mockery, irony, sharpness
and gruffness, even rudeness, when the good
plump soul was too insistent in her curiosity.
tried to find out about them. Mrs. Bolette
Aamundsen finally no longer dared to touch this
point. But she resolved to be vigilant.
Throughout the winter, Aaren had only seen
and spoken to Dr. v. Dülsert once. Line
tormenting, tormenting conversation as always. He
always sat on the high horse of his ideal projects,
only to suddenly slide out of the saddle with an
ironic smile.
Should she still take him seriously?
He was nothing more than a platitudinous hero,
a weakling who boasted of future deeds. A
peacock who pretended to be an eagle.
Sometimes she positively hated him, indeed
there were hours when she imagined she despised
him. But she measured how unhappy she was by
the vehemence with which she threw herself into
the arms of her new friend, this small, soft, dear
and good-natured thing, Bella Maßmann. The
name of the man who occupied Aaren's heart with
love and hate, with longing and strange fear, was
never mentioned between them. Aleine knew
nothing of the existence of this man.
But the topic of "man" in general was often the
subject of their conversation.
Aaren had taken a look inside Bella's home.
Poor thing! It was natural that she was looking for
connection, hungry for friendship and love. She
was evidently not lacking in external
She was the sole ruler in a friendly apartment,
which a canary filled with a bit of loud chirping. It
was cozy with little Maßmann, who was just as
cozy herself. Only her dad disturbed this harmony
a little. It was as if the bird stopped singing and the
green blinds in front of the windows lowered
themselves and locked out the barrel when he
entered the room. Of course, he was usually in the
store. He left the apartment every morning at 9
o'clock, came in at noon for two hours of lunch
and a little nap, and then left again by 8 o'clock.
Mr. Waßmann was a short, lean man with
sideburns and a large bald head. Two tired, almost
colorless eyes were hidden behind golden glasses
that sat on a short, broad, slightly too fleshy nose.
A good observer first noticed a resemblance
between father and daughter on this nose. They
were indeed the same noses, even if Bella's was a
little softer and rounder and less obtrusive, it was
the father's nose translated into the female one.
Starting from this nose, further similarities were
soon found.
Above the tofa hung two badly painted pictures
of Mr. Waßmann and his blessed wife. He was still
in the sorry plumpness of youth with well-groomed
hair and no glasses. Cedar immediately recognized
Bella's dad in this picture. Tie, the ver-
The young lady, who had died, showed greater
fullness, youthful softness, fullness, plumpness,
almost like the daughter, but with a long,
meaningless face. One could attribute a certain
good-naturedness to the lady when one asked
oneself how the husband could still be attached to
this woman after so long a life, could mourn her so
painfully that the living were cut off from their
rights to his participation by this loyalty to the
dead woman. But the picture was badly painted,
and Mrs. Maßmann might have been a good, well-
behaved woman.
When Aaren saw Mr. Maßmann for the first
time, he was very polite, very talkative - Bella had
that from him too - and he laughed a few times.
And his laughter resembled his daughter's, not so
much in its alang - he grumbled too much - as in
its rhythm and the whimsical interval jumps, and
especially in the slight tossing of his head. Aaren,
who was a keen observer, soon discovered other
little common traits.
This father now lived alongside his daughter,
who was so completely his own. There didn't seem
to be any spiritual communion between them.
"My sister was quite the mother," Bella once
said. "I was always more like him. Perhaps he also
finds his faults in me and is annoyed by them. He
would certainly have been much better suited to
my sister, lived much more lovingly and tenderly."
 Was it possible that this old, ossified old man,
who wore an old hat, had no feelings of heartfelt
gratitude towards his daughter, who kept his house
comfortable and took care of all his fine needs
faithfully and childlike? Was it possible that this
man, whose average attitude was that of a
wandering ledger that spoke of good business,
could continue for years to mourn his dead wife
and an aunt who had died so young, and that his
emotional life for the present could die away
completely?
Aaren could not come to terms with her
opinion of Mr. Maßmann. "Perhaps old Aahlkopf
will make amends in some other way." This ugly
thought crossed her mind once, but she was
immediately ashamed of it and silently asked Bella
for forgiveness, as if she had offended her.
Poor Aleine, with her need to look after
somebody, had to waste her tender mind on this
decrepit old gentleman, for there was really no
greater happiness for her than to marry. And all her
present doings, her running along with the:
Lrauenklub was nothing but the search for a trfatz
for her j)apa, for a man who would dip her home-
baked pot pie in his aaffee, praise her roast and say
"mein Aummelchen" to her.
 What wonder that the Aleine always had the
man in her mouth! It was her destiny to be a fine
woman, a housewife. Basically she was just a
A pot looking for its lid. Of course she idealized it.
And without love, she would probably only be able
to marry a man much later. She still talked about
love like a baked fish. "The highest! the holiest!"
And sentimental! And completely moral! Of
course, Aaren, who was clearer, wiser, more
energetic, more mature, served her as a substitute
for the man who scolded her, praised her, guided
her, said "Aleines" to her and accepted services
from her.
Ever since that confession that she had once
been mistaken in a man, and that he had only
desired the ugly from her and had not recognized
her good, and had not sought it at all, the talkative
Bella returned to this subject again and again with
boredom, today pestering Aaren with it, tomorrow
tormenting her with it, always boring her.
This little, insignificant, good girl as a member
of the women's club! U)hat did she want? lvie the
majority of her comrades cry out in wild morts
against the man because he did not give them the
opportunity to give him their good, all the good
she had in her for the man.
Aaren would have felt strange as a defender of
men. Only once did she speak very seriously about
the ugly and the good: whether it was really the
ugly that the men were looking for in the !Veibe,
whether this ugliness was not also a good thing.
"No, no!" cried little Maßmann in pain.
businesslike. "How can the ugly be a good thing?
It's just ugly. You can feel that."
"What else should the when look for in a
woman."
"Ugh, Aaren! If that's all he wants, it's the ugly.
If it is to be good, a good thing, it must be the last
and the highest, the fruit, as it were, towards which
all becoming and growth pushes, and then - no,
you know that as well as I do. Just like that, in
itself, as the only thing they want - that's so ugly!"
And little Waßmann had become so excited
that she cried, so that Aaren stroked the top of her
head in fright, met her with half words and
comforted her. But she could not suppress a quiet,
wise smile. Her little friend was an open book to
her, in which she had just effortlessly read a few
pages again.
Did Gaston only seek and desire the ugly in
women? This intrusive thought came knocking
again and again.
His divorced wife, the lafechantan singer, what
was it with that?
But did he have to be the culprit? The best are
wrong. And what hell it must have been for him to
feel chained to such a woman. One breaks such
ties. Out of self-respect. Out of a sense of purity. It
had been wrong of her to accuse him of being the
"most comfortable".
 And the Destinn?
U)s it not only her voice that captivated him,
her good, her best?
No, not him! Fine as he liked, it wasn't in him.
He had never betrayed anything like that to her,
not even with a glance. On the contrary, she
suffered because of his coldness.
But with others?
Did he also air them with his lofty plans, his
gospel of action, his glass city, only to then push
them aside, overlook them, humiliate them as a
second-rate thing, something inferior? And yet his
eyes could shine tenderly, his hands could press
softly, his voice could sound intimate. All of this
was at his disposal, he used it socially, like his
beautiful phrases: a doer in this too.
Yes, Aaren had been very harsh with him
during the IDinter. She had stripped him of all his
flitters. He stood naked and pathetic before her.
But then she heard about the Albatros
company. And her heart was filled with joy. She
had done him wrong! He was the man, the hero,
the man of action without fear! What did his
father's will say?
"(U)s the man - gin mega-seeker and
trailblazer. Gin eagle, circling through the skies."
Gr an eagle, you eagles!
 He flies proudly towards his goals. He will
reach them all!
He will also build the glass city.--------------
The night before the: The ascent of the bold
aviators was spent sleepless, between chasing fear
and jubilant pride.
Would the gardener deliver the roses she had
chosen herself on time, so early in the morning?
Would Gaston remember her when he greeted
her with flowers? Her confidence in his heroism?
Her expectations of his deed?
Shouldn't it give him joy and strength and
confidence? She, the One at least, believes in you,
her thoughts accompany you to the highest heights,
she spreads her wishes and hopes under you like a
magic cloak.
The dust of every single rose had to tell him.
With him alone, high above this small,
insignificant earth gear, in the pure ether, a veiling
veil of clouds beneath her, above her the radiant
star of all giving, his firm hand on the wheel--just
once this high flight She would not tremble.
And that was no longer a presumptuous wish.
Man was about to conquer the realm of the skies, a
royal flyer through all the skies. And he, their hero,
stormed ahead on this path of victory. And his
wings carried them upwards.
 Then came the morning, when she stood
feverishly at the window and stared up at the early
morning sky, as if her proud eagle would appear
there at any moment, in the poor little piece that
her gaze could catch. She was almost staring out
her eyes as she wrestled with herself whether she
should not rather mingle with the spectators of that
glorious venture.
But who would these people be fine? Before
dew and day. Who would she have to share it
with? And would she be up to this spectacle, this
excitement?
And the sun rose higher and higher, the sun
towards which her hero now stormed on the wings
of genius.
Mrs. Bolette Aamundfen called for breakfast
and was once again appalled by Aaren's
appearance and behavior.
"Gud bewares! hva ha du dok, litten Aaren?"
And then - then came the terrible news. Aaren
Holmsen uttered that scream with which all the
gates of her heart burst open, so that the frightened
eyes of little Maßmann could see deep inside her
with a single glance.
Then Aaren found out from the newspaper
where the casualty had been taken in.
 poczerewski?
Where had she heard the name before?
Bella Maßmann had come to the aid of her
memory.
The horrible red-haired lady in the women's club?
Horrible!
He was now in her hands. She cared for him in
the end, sat at his: bedside.
The thought was terrible. She was tormented
by raging jealousy, disgust and the most
adventurous speculations. And the recurring hope
that he might send for her.
N)hat did he say back then?
"I won't put my misery on display. I'll let you
know when friend Hein is standing at my camp
and is about to load me onto his hump."
Now that she had proof that he was a man of
action, a man of his word, could she imagine that
he would still send for her?
Foolish thought!
But to rush to him uncalled, to assert a right to
him before this horrible woman, a right that her
faith in him gave her, she who had recognized him
correctly, had judged him correctly?
Madness!
"I'll let 5you know when friend Hein is at my
camp."
He will let them know!
And he has not forgotten her, cannot have
forgotten her. The roses that he took up with him
as her morning greeting on his flight of fancy, they
had to be a reminder to him. She was sure of this
one thing: she heard from him before his end.
And he was still silent. So he was still alive. -
Little Maßmann had long since become her
confidante, $to Mrs. Aamundsen's deepest sorrow,
who had to stand completely outside. The little
friend listened and inquired whether she could find
out anything from acquaintances, read every
newspaper to see whether anything further had
been announced about the accident and the ailing
man's condition, and was finally able to bring the
news of Dr. von Dülfert's slow recovery. And then
one day she offered to make inquiries in the house
herself, urging Aaren Holmsen to do so fiercely
and passionately, and thus putting him in a new
duality. Should she let her friend go? Should she
forbid her? Shouldn't she go herself?
"What do you want to say there? How do you
want to introduce yourself? On whose behalf? You
can't mention my name!"
"A lady who takes an interest in the recovery
of the ailing, an admirer of all heroism who wishes
to remain unnamed."
Aleine did the impossible in her eagerness, and
even forced a smile from Aaren.
"You good, dear little animal," said Aaren,
touched, "I'm so grateful for your friendship, but I
can't admit that. You mustn't."
 Aaren Holmsen had no idea how much of little
Waßmann's eagerness stemmed from friendship. In
her own excitement she was blind to the feverish
restlessness that had taken hold of her friend. She
did not realize that she was concealing something,
concealing out of friendship, which had struck her
with a sudden shock and now filled her with
agonizing anxiety.
While the press had previously been
deliberately kept in the dark about the airmen's
daring attempt, it had seized on this sensational
incident all the more vividly after the daring pilots'
horrific fall, not only in words but also in pictures.
The gaunt, bold face of the American, on
which her pitying eyes rested a little longer, had
aroused little interest in little Waßmann. But she
had suddenly blanched at the picture of Gaston v.
Dülfert, which the newspaper also carried.She
thought she saw in him the features of the man
who at that time-------sought and desired the ugly
in her Aaren had declared the picture to be
horrible, "not a trace of resemblance", and had thus
given the mortally frightened friend a small
consolation. But the most unsuccessful portrait still
shows a few similar features.
The thought that Gaston v. Dülfert, the idolized
hero of the girlfriend and that terrible
man were one and the same person, did not want to
be banished.
Miss Holmsen knew nothing of her little
friend's aual, who would have made any sacrifice
rather than utter a single syllable of her terrible
suspicion, and so she could only attribute Bella's
eagerness to penetrate the count's caretakers to
friendship for herself.
3a, even this small, soft, dark girl, Bella
Maßmann, possessed heroism. She didn't want to
tarnish the image of the man who meant
everything to her beloved friend until she was sure.
But she had to have certainty, if only for Aaren's
sake, so that she could warn her, so that she could
pull her back from the abyss at the last minute:
look, he's like that too! flee from him! He does not
want the good. He wants the ugly. And he will
defile you too.
The poor girl had a difficult life. *
"I'm going, I'm going, I have to."
But she had promised Aaren Holmsen not to
leave.
5 She thought about it for a long time.
"I'll talk to Mrs. Aamundsen," she finally said
to herself. "She can do it. She's not forbidden.
Perhaps she will see him and see the resemblance
to these: I can see the likeness. It can be done. She
must have something
 Hopes and fears. |"If you want to do
something, go shopping, go to the chemist's, or
walk to the j)ost - you'll find something without
Aaren noticing, Mrs. Aamundsen is an old lady,
it's not offensive to her either."
Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen adored Bella
Maßmann from the moment she took her into her
confidence. Her large cheeks trembled with
excitement as she assured her, in the softest
whisper she could muster, that there was no better,
more reliable person to turn to.
And one lunchtime, Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen,
dressed in her Sunday best, sat in the count's
antechamber. A large bouquet of roses fluttered in
her lap, which she carefully picked up every
moment in order to bring it just as carefully to an
even better day. She was full of expectation, but
also a little offended that she had been kept waiting
for almost a full ten minutes, and yet again glad
that she had been granted this respite. 5She did not
possess the bravery that would have made a
suitable dwelling in such a large and bony body.
She was as self-conscious as a schoolgirl.
The strange task that had become hers, the
innate reverence for nobility and titles - she had
never faced a count or countess - in short, Mrs.
Bolette Aamundsen was not at all at ease. Äe
memorized her salutation, sighed audibly a few
times, and felt her
My hands are getting colder and colder in the pearl
gray gloves.
"I should rather not have taken this matter," she
said to herself, "it is not proper for a person of my
age, how can I have such secrecy from Aaren. But
it's only out of spite to her that I expose myself like
this."
Her gaze kept running along the walls, from
one picture to the next, without noticing more than
bright spots of color in a wide frame. She only
took in the largest one; it showed a sledge being
chased by wolves, the four horses rushing through
the snow in mad fear, and an older Wann, wrapped
in a fur, turning back, shotgun at the ready.
Mrs. Bolette had once heard about wolves in
her childhood up in Sweden and had also seen their
tracks; they had come as far as the village in a
harsh winter, where she was visiting an uncle. It
was through this uncle that she had later joined
Karen's family. And that perhaps explained why
she thought of Karen with a strange feeling of fear
every time her gaze rested a little longer on that
picture of the bloodthirsty beasts.
"Poor little Karen, I don't want them to hurt
you, I'll protect you and pray for you." That's
pretty much how she felt.
And yet here she sat with the roses in her hand,
interfering in Karen's affairs in a way that was
which she would not thank her for. But in this she
would refer to Miss Maßmann. It had not been
Mrs. Bolette's idea to go here. Only her love for
Aaren had guided her. She felt blameless. She had
been asked to do this, and now she was doing it.
The clock on the Aamin struck three. Three
hasty, shrill strokes that made her flinch. She really
had been waiting for ten minutes. But she couldn't
forget that she was sitting here in the antechamber
of a count's household. Noble people tend to take
their time.
Her blessed husband had once spent a quarter
of an hour talking to a baron: Baron, it had been on
the steamship between Aopenhagen and Malmö.
He had never tired, even after years, of talking
about his encounter with Mr. von Rosenkrantz. It
was an event in his life. "My dear Mr.
Aamundsen," the baron had said a few times, "my
dear Mr. Aamundsen."
Mrs. Bolette thought back to this glorious day
of her blessed husband and felt uplifted. But she
slumped down again, shuddering in awe. After all,
these were countesses. One would hardly say "My
dear Mrs. Aamundsen" to her. .
Then the door opened and Count Poczerewski
appeared with a slight, questioning bow.
<o*
 Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen rose to her feet with
remarkable speed, shot up steeply, and, trembling
but with considerable dignity, did an Anicks.
"But please, ma'am, keep your seat."
And Mrs. Bolette dropped back into the 5chair
with the same self-conscious haste with which she
had leapt up. And the 5chair sighed.
"What can I do for you?"
Count Poczerewski stood close to her with an
obliging smile. Mrs. Bolette lifted the burning
roses halfway up her yellowish bird's face, and the
count held out his hands to them, a little hesitantly,
as if he feared a misunderstanding.
"I have been instructed to inquire about your
condition. The terrible misfortune," Mrs.
Aamundsen said in her deep male voice, which
sounded even more croaky than usual in her
embarrassment.
"Yes, unfortunately, most distressing."
Ls sounded really half apologetic. Lr pulled up
a 5chair and sat down.
"Feeling better again?" Mrs. Aamundsen asked
sympathetically. Her gray, somewhat empty eyes
cast a pitying, almost reproachful glance over her
long pointed nose at the Count.
"But please, may I release her from it?"
 Count poczerewski took the roses from her
hand and placed them on the table.
"Who can I order a greeting from?"
"Line admirer of noble heroism and masculine
courage allows herself unknown -"
The Count raised his eyebrows a little and
puzzled Mrs. Bolette with an astonished look, then
smiled almost imperceptibly at her embarrassment.
"Just tell your unknown client that Mr. Or. v.
Dülfert is in maternal care and is recovering. But
perhaps you can still reveal the secret and tell me
-"
"I'm very sorry, Count, it's strictly forbidden!"
Mrs. Bolette pulled both knobby shoulders
almost up to her ears with a mysterious expression.
poczerewski took another quick glance at the
bouquet, whose manliness harmonized with Mrs.
Bolette's figure, and a longer one at the old lady
herself, and rose.
Line minute later, Ms. Aamundsen was back
on the street.
Could she be satisfied? She thought she had
done her job with dignity. Admittedly, she would
not see the ailing man. But she had the certainty of
his recovery and the reassurance that he was in
maternal care.
 ^8
5 She hadn't had any children. But she had
been married, she knew what it meant to be a
mother.
"The poor young man. Will he get the roses?
The Hoehne's circumstances are always viewed
with jealous eyes by their mothers."
Hie tried to get a picture of the mother.
The poor old woman. Hie had perhaps rushed
here from afar to nurse her child in the strange
frizz. The roses must have done her good.
Yes, yes, it was a good idea to buy these roses.
It had seemed so necessary to her, so essential, not
to come up empty-handed, and so much more
natural and inconspicuous. Miss Maßmann would
gladly reimburse her for the five marks she had
spent on them.
And then she suddenly heard the count's voice
again: "But please, my lady, keep your seat."
And how caringly he had taken the bouquet
from her. Gin lovely gentleman, the Count! And so
very Polish. Those fiery, dark eyes. That elegant
appearance, that chivalrous demeanor. There is
something about nobility. "It's the aristocracy that
does it," as the blessed Aamundsen used to say.
Miss Maßmann was not very satisfied with
Mrs. Bolette's expedition. Nothing had been gained
for her except five marks in expenses, which she
had not expected.
 "I thought it was so natural," Mrs. Aamundsen
defended herself, "and I wouldn't have known
what to say without flowers."
That made sense to Bella. She was also far too
good-natured to make serious boron throws. She
only realized later that the roses could turn traitor.
For the time being, it was all a minor matter. The
main thing was the maternal care Mrs. Bolette had
told her about.
Maternal care?
5o he had a mother. And she cared for him in
the count's house.
Riddle after riddle!
But for Aaren it must undoubtedly have been a
comfort to know that he was in his mother's care.
Of course, she didn't want to know anything about
the whole visit, but she was supposed to know this,
occasionally, they had heard it somewhere. It had
been told by acquaintances. Or it had appeared in
the newspaper.
But the news that Gaston was in her mother's
care had a quite unexpected effect on Miss Aaren;
she turned pale, monosyllabic, fell completely
silent, and then, after a while, started up violently.
"That's stupid gossip. These ridiculous
newspaper reporters are just such tomfoolery as all
women."
"Why shouldn't it be?"
 "He never told me about his mother." "That
doesn't prove anything." "It certainly doesn't."
"So."
"He wouldn't have risked his life like that if he
still had a mother."
Aaren Holmsen wanted to deny the fact that
Dr. v. Dülfert still had a mother. 5 She became
illogical, unjust and ungrateful in this endeavor,
even though an inner fear and dread gave her the
lie, a growing fear that a terrible suspicion had
been confirmed.
"To know such a man in everyone's mouth,"
she said. "In the teeth of newspaper reporters!
What else will they gossip about him? Please don't
tell me any more, do you hear? I don't want to hear
any more, nothing at all. You're asking around far
too much. I'm asking you to stop. This man is too
good for you."
"Don't you want to be wrong," said little Bella,
offended at being lumped in with all the other
people like that by Aaren.
"What do you mean?" Miss tzolmsen asked
back sharply.
"I'm just saying. You know I stopped believing
in men a long time ago."
"I forbid you to speak of him like that."
"I'm just talking in general."
 "Because one, a single one, once the ugly as
you call it -"
"Rightly so."
"Dear Aind -"
"I am no longer an Aind."
"In some things after all. And in this certainly/'
She said it so contemptuously that the little girl
fell silent, offended. Tears came to her eyes.
"I only want to wish that you are not mistaken
about him," she sobbed.
"What's that supposed to mean? You've said
that before. Do you know anything about him?"
Aaren Holmsen was already regretting the
question. How ugly it all was. This women's room
bickering.
But if you let yourself down.
As good-natured as Aleine was, as fond as she
was of them, mentally she was on the same level as
all the other women. And they were mean,
commonplace, petty. How could she, Aaren
Holmsen, forget herself enough to argue with this
fool about Gaston v. Dülfert?
"You abuse my confidence," she said cuttingly,
"I never wish to speak to you of this matter again.
You presume to pass judgment on a man you do
not know."
 "Maybe you do."
"Maybe it is? What does that mean again? Do
you know him?"
 "In the image - that is - if it is similar - -"
Little Nkaßmann immediately regretted what
she had said. But it was too late. She saw how
suspicion suddenly arose in her friend. The look
Aaren gave her was enough to silence her.
But then Miss Holmsen burst into a loud,
somewhat contemptuous laugh.
"If you mean to imply, dear Aind, that Vr. v.
Dülfert was the one who demanded ugly things
from you - - -"
*
Aaren Holmsen had laughed, but it hadn't been
a liberating laugh. She had lied with that laugh.
j)fui, she said to herself.
What had become of her? What had those days
been like? She was completely out of balance, a
small, ordinary, helpless woman, moody,
quarrelsome, untrue.
Bella Nlassmann kept her distance, sulking,
because Aaren had allowed herself to be denied the
day after this bickering. Aaren knew that she had
done her wrong, that she was ungrateful. Aleine
only meant well with her.
But to express this suspicion, to tarnish his
image, which had just been restored to its former
glory, in this way!
 And then the insane thought that this terrible
woman was a fine mother!
What if it were true? The one like the other?
Aaren Holmsen really had every reason to be a
little whimsical these days.
Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen bore her mood with
the patience of an angel. She was now in the loop.
It gave her calm, composure, superior dignity.
Litten Aaren is ill. But you know this sickness.
One has not been married for nothing! When the
blessed Mr. Aamundsen first approached Miss
Bolette -
But of course that was a long time ago. The
shadow of the blessed Mr. Aamundsen only
emerged very, very shadowily from the past and
retreated in horror each time before the dazzling
appearance of an elegant gentleman with fiery dark
eyes, a black goatee and an aristocratic manner.
"Please, ma'am, keep your seat."
The last little corner of the blessed Mr.
Aamundsen gathered again to the shadows,
nothing remained but the enchanting picture of
Count j)oczerewski, a bouquet of roses, two
slender, white, ringed hands, - Mrs. Bolette
Aamundsen sighs - and that too disappears
But it returns. With a regularity that must put
the shadow of the blessed Mr. Aamundsen to
shame.
154
Poor little Aaren, one understands you
completely. One is full of sympathy and would like
to inquire daily from Count Poczerewski how Dr.
v. Dülfert is doing. But you are not allowed to.
One must not even speak of the one visit to that
house.
You have your secret, you have your secret!
And the extent to which this elevates people and
increases their self-esteem is proven by a wealth of
experience.
"But Bolette, I've already rung the bell twice,
are you asleep!" Aaren Holmsen shouts in a
nervous voice.
And the scolded woman drops her woollen
scarf for the Greenland mission into her broad lap,
where the delicious roses had just bloomed.
The poor roses of Mrs. Bolette Aamundsen!
Chapter six.
Donna e mobile.
During the long period of his gradual recovery,
Gaston had had ample leisure for reflection, inner
contemplation and contemplation. It was as if the
violent shock of the sudden fall had thrown his
world-view into a different and, as it seemed, more
natural position; as if he had been set down,
somewhat roughly but effectively, from the whey
of phrase to the ground of reality.
What a miserable and silly life it had been -
viewed from the peace and quiet of a months-long
aranc camp! A life of fog and gossip! A life of
talk, because there was a lack of determination
and, above all, a lack of real ability. A life with
those nocturnal three-headed geniuses you find by
the dozen in every nightclub, who grumble about
the masses because they don't understand their
colossal ideas. ideas and didn't even lift a finger to
carry them out, indeed, they didn't even know how
to start because they had no idea of the scope and
content of their "idea" themselves. Letting a big
word fly into the world like a soap bubble or a
cattle balloon - wasn't that genius?
 enough? "Buy geniuses" - "Acquire the
Lüneburg Heath and build the glass city on it" -
"Build Goethe's pedagogical province with the
help of Owen and Samt Simon" - "Turn science
and school upside down" etc. etc.
He was seething with shame when he now
imagined that he had paraded before Aaren with
such phrases, proud as a reforming secularist,
before Aaren, that fine, agile, delicate but nervous
and muscular spirit! How she must have laughed
inwardly at him, how deeply she must have looked
down on him!
"Maybe I'll set this city on fire in every nook
and cranny!" he had declared. That would indeed
have been a huge achievement, worthy of the
genius of Ensign Pistol! And what would have
been achieved with the glass city as long as the
people were not glass! Wasn't it better to see
through them and their actions without glass?
Wasn't it better to educate them to be ashamed and
open with themselves instead of being open and
ashamed with others, who could be lied to behind
glass walls? He asked himself whether he would
be able to teach a young boy how to lead horses to
water and pasture or how to speak English? No, he
said to himself with the utmost honesty, you
couldn't do any of that, nothing at all! And yet
there is more genius in even the smallest, well and
precisely executed achievement than in all of
those:
Gallimathias. What Nkaxinien had he finally come
to, for God's sake! "Nkitflying is also flying" - he
had believed that in all seriousness! He had
thought that squatting on the back of someone
else's work was a deed! Well, yes, it might be a
deed, but a deed that a foolhardy or drunken
grenadier could do just as well, it wasn't "flying",
that was for sure; because flying still meant that
you needed the wings yourself.
If concussions, such as Gaston had suffered,
usually cause destruction or even disruption of the
mind, with his fortunate nature they seemed to
have had the opposite effect of shaking up the
inner inventory. It was not for nothing that his
father had said: "As an anatomist, I would be
interested in the dissection of your body with
regard to the convolutions of your brain."
So he finally admitted to himself with
unreserved honesty that in the final analysis it was
Aaren alone who had induced him to make the
mad ascent with the American. He, who "did not
want to eliminate the woman from his existence,
but did not want to allow her to influence his life",
had risked his whole life for this provocative little
girl, without even realizing that he was doing it for
her sake! It was the old artifice of nature that
tempts even the sparrow to try his hand at singing
when he desires a female. He had spread himself
out before this maiden
in his masculinity, which had no need of a woman,
and yet it had only been the spreading of the cock
before the most graceful hen!
*
The encounter with his mother had set the
convalescent back a few days in his recovery.
When Gaston awoke from a pleasant slumber on
the fourth day after this shock and let his eyes
wander, they met two large blue bovine eyes,
which were directed at him through the fragrant
curtains of the open veranda door. He beckoned to
these eyes, and a lovely raven of about five years
old walked in without hesitation, stepped to his
bedside and said: "Good morning! Are you feeling
better?"
Gaston took the cow's hand and said with a
smile: "Yes, my dear little cow, I'm much, much
better. What's your name?"
"Gaston," said the Rleine.
Gaston? That was strange.
"What have you got there?" asked Dülfert.
"A paper kite. But it won't fly!"
Dülfert took the kite and examined it. "Yes, it
can't possibly fly like that!" he exclaimed with a
laugh, untied the incorrectly attached strings and
tied them properly. He knew all about how a real
kite should be made from his time as a raven, and
he enjoyed this work. It
 It was a small thing that he was doing, but it
was more than just talking. Meanwhile Anabe had
run to the door of the veranda and called out into
the garden: "Rita! Rita! Come here and see, the
sick uncle is fixing the kite for us!"
An adorable little girl, barely four years old,
with a potty full of amber-yellow curls, soon
hopped in.
"Is that your sister?" asked Dülfert.
"Yes," cried Anabe proudly, "her name is Rita,
just like mom."
Dülfert's eyes stared fixedly. "Does your mom
live here in the house?" he asked.
"No, mom is far, far away, in America; she
always has to sing, and that's why we're with
grandma."
Dülfert jumped up out of his aisles. With his
grandmother? That was his mother! Only now did
he realize that he was lying here in his mother's
ruff. Gr fell back into his pillows and closed his
eyes.
5a Ainder! That was the beginning of his
pedagogical province. Gr had wanted to educate
Germany differently and had not educated his own
Ainder at all.
He stood up again, took the children by the
hand and wanted to kiss them; but as they resisted,
he only pressed their little hands to his lips.
 And now one thing was clear to him: the cattle
had to get away from here, away from this
"grandmother", and he himself had to get away, as
quickly as possible, before his cutter came back -
he had to flee from this house!
But how? He needed help from outside, for in
his condition he was not safe from any accident
that could thwart his whole plan. It was significant
that his first thought fell on Aaren, that she
immediately presented herself to his mind as the
brightest and most determined. And it was just as
understandable that his thrust at first rejected this
idea. But whom should he choose? Liebenberg?
The new Gaston no longer felt any sympathy for
this cynical man of money. The privy councillor
would hardly have agreed to it for the count's sake.
One of his "friends" from the "Maison Remy"?
He laughed bitterly. That was characteristic of
his former life: it had not granted him a single
friend. All these "acquaintances" were only too
familiar to him: they only took one thing seriously:
themselves. Of course, there was Tatyana, Tatyana
Lewska! She was a pleasing girl in every respect;
she would do it - "they are all good-natured," he
thought with Ferdinand von Walter. But a chaste
feeling inside him revolted at the thought of giving
her an insight into the delicate secrets of his family
history. So only one remained: Aaren. And she
it should be! She was also the rose-giver, she and
no other! He did not believe, did not want to
believe, in the great unknown of whom the Count
spoke; such enthusiastic ladies only adore first
tenors, not second tenors; the event was far too far
in the past for such admirers. Who else would take
an interest in him? Tatyana? She would not have
put anyone else forward, would have sent the roses
with her Aarte. So only Aaren remained. They
were with her; he felt it.
"Gaston!" whispered Dülfert with tense
caution, "could you bring me a sheet of j)apier and
an Auvert from the desk there? And a pencil?"
The Anabe would bring him what he wanted.
"Is there a letterbox at your house?" he
inquired further.
"Not at our: Not at our house, but next door!"
said the Aind.
"Would you be able to put a letter there, but in
such a way that no one in the house can see it?"
"I will go through the garden," said the Anabe,
to whom the mysterious mission gave a sense of
importance.
"Good."
And Gaston wrote just a few lines, closed the
envelope and sealed it with the address. If she had
sent him the roses only a few days ago and if she
had taken such an interest in his fate u*
she was certainly still in Berlin and in the same
hotel. Just in case, he wrote on the envelope:
"Express letter. Possibly fl. to be forwarded!" and
the sender's name. He did not have a stamp to
hand, so he handed the unstamped letter to the
postman, who jumped out with it, looked carefully
around the veranda to make sure no one noticed
him, and then disappeared.
An hour later, the count quietly entered the
room.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "you look splendid; you
are getting your color back, dear friend! The
countess is consumed with longing to speak to you
at last. May I call her?"
"Thank you," Dülfert replied with an ironic
smile. "I'm not nearly as well as you might think.
Later!"
The count sat down slowly on the chair beside
the bed. "I have no right," he began in his
ingratiating voice, "to interfere in the relationship
between your mother and yourself; but as the
Countess's husband, I have not only the right, but
even the duty, to protect her character from
misunderstandings. The Countess has had an
eventful life - you can reveal nothing to me in this
insight that I would not know from her own lips -"
"Count," the Aranke interrupted him, "you
justify the reputation of an unprejudiced man,
which you possess everywhere in the world; but
you will understand that in my position, as your
guest, to whom you extend a more than princely
hospitality, I cannot well contradict you, that I -
may I think what I will of my cutters - may not
contradict anyone who speaks well of my mother."
"You have nothing at all to thank me for," the
Pole replied briskly, "so feel free to contradict me.
Your admission to this house and the - I may say -
loving care you have received here is entirely the
work of your mother, who - no matter what she
may have done - is a lady of great qualities of mind
and heart. She is inclined to many an extravagance,
and her most fatal aptitude is probably that she will
under no circumstances consider the judgment of
the world worth so much as a pin. Indeed, she
takes a diabolical delight in it and also possesses a
"merf" worthy virtuosity in fooling the judgmental
world, in giving it the most false and most horrible
opinion of herself possible. 5o For some time now,
she has been playing the great game of teasing the
women's rights activists, going to their meetings
and, as a supposed comrade in spirit, outdoing the
"man-hatred" of the old maids with the most
insane invectives against our gender, although she
is not exactly being treated with
"If a woman looks up to a man with admiration,
she cannot really be said to dislike him."
"No," said Gaston.
"It's quite a futile effort," continued
j)oczerewski, "to advise her against such eccentric
pranks. I told her beforehand, of course: "You'll
expose yourself to the grossest misinterpretations
again; people will take your burlesque
exaggerations for laughs -" "But that's the main
fun, that's what I want!" she exclaimed. And she
achieved her purpose. Line Dame took ibre tirades
bloody seriously, interrupted them screaming,
fainted and God knows what else. - But I'm tiring
you out, it seems to me!"
"If you don't want to hold it against me, yes,"
Gaston breathed, thinking it advisable to make
himself look sicker than he was.
"Well, I'll be going," said the Count, rising,
"get some sleep, and when you feel better, think
about what I've said. You have probably only ever
heard your mother's story from one side; but a man
like you is not satisfied with one-sided accounts. If
I may tell you one more thing, it is this: I have
been disappointed by every man I have ever met,
and the well-souled ones have usually been
unpleasant, the ill-souled ones almost always
pleasant."
The Count quietly shook the patient's hand,
nodded to him with a smile and walked out with
silent steps.
lf he knew the "Prince of Homburg", he could
tell himself as he walked away:
"I am certain:
"My word fell, a weight, into your breast." It
was not for nothing that the new Gaston invoked
justice and objective reason. The Pole was right:
Gaston had only ever seen the story of his father in
one light: that of his mother's enemies and his
father's will. This woman had squandered her
husband's fortune and, with the fruit of adultery
under her candle, had left his husband's house. She
had gone up and away with a very rich gentleman
from the Swedish-Norwegian legation; what was
his name? - Well, no matter, it was one of those
indifferent names on "-sen" that are as common as
sand by the sea up there and are always confused.
She had "stolen her husband's money, reputation
and honor" - that was his father's account. But did
this gory Burgundian portrayal have to be the right
one? Were not other points of view also possible?
His father's will - yes, when he thought it over now
as a mature man with a clear head, he had to say to
himself: the whole thing didn't just point to
Burgundy, much of it suggested old, ingrained port
wine habits, so to speak.
And the big, decisive question in the end was:
what had happened before: the Burgundy or the
adultery? He had been a six-year-old Anabe when
his mother had fled, and he still remembered it
with full certainty: his father had drunk a dark red
wine even then.
How much he had drunk was, of course,
beyond the judgment of the Anaben. But there was
another thing he remembered with perfect
certainty: that his mother had never been unkind to
him. The relationship might not have been of that
warmth of blood which corresponded to the natural
instincts between mother and Aind; but she had
never treated him disgustingly, and his memories
of her from early Aind years showed him a not
unpleasant face. Although even then he had never
resembled her in any way! Za, he also remembered
that relatives and acquaintances always
emphasized his great resemblance to his father, but
never a resemblance to his mother! And today - he
was absolutely clear about this - he had nothing in
common with this woman, at least in her finer
appearance. If he held the image of his father
against it, it did not stand out too favorably from
that of his mother, from a purely human point of
view. "I regard the child of her womb with fear
and distrust, because it also carries blood of her
blood," it said in the "Testament". Did this apply to
him or
 to his older brother, who had died at a tender
age, or both? In any case, it was not a sign of a
loving candle. The father had been able to part
with his 5 son without a cold heart and had simply
left him to his own devices!
Gaston had involuntarily straightened up again
in the belle; he stared broodingly in front of him:
his eyes had something of a searching, digging,
corpse-excavating quality ------
Why did his father prefer to speak French and
socialize in the French colony of the capital? Why
did he prefer French wines and completely ignore
white wines, i.e. German Rhine and Moselle
wines, and why did he give his son a French first
name?
Here lay a dark secret . ..
*
*
No, she was not having good days, poor little
Aaren! Well, she knew that her hero was
recovering; but lovers are not satisfied with such
general bulletins, and reluctant lovers least of all.
And the two pathogens that Bella Maßmann had
put into her blood left nothing to be desired in
terms of vitality.
Was this red-haired Abundantia his mother?
She had fought this thought for a long time, but
one day it suddenly became a certainty.
It's ridiculous that the most obvious things
sometimes make sense the latest! Of course she
was his mother. It had been she who had read his
father's will at that dreadful meeting! How could it
have come into her hands if she wasn't the closest
person to him? The chain of evidence was
complete: the poczerewska was Gaston's mother!
Was that why Aaren had been seized by that
strangely fascinating fear when the countess had
mounted the lectern? Was that why she had clung
to the Bolette bulwark as if seeking protection and
stared at the speaker with wide-open eyes, as if
dumbfounded, before she had spoken a word? Had
she noticed a family resemblance between Gaston
and this lady? No, no, Gaston didn't have the
slightest trait of this massive beauty! No, there was
something else at work, something unfathomable,
unknowable, a secret, instinctive feeling,
something that lay completely or almost
completely beneath her consciousness and would
not allow itself to be lifted into the light, no matter
how much she pondered and searched. She always
felt as if she had not seen this imposing lady with
the messaline face for the first time that evening in
the women's club; again and again she rejected this
conjecture as nonsensical, and again and again this
thought returned, although she always tried in vain
to find out where and when she had met this
person.
could. Poor little Aaren couldn't rest over these
questions.
The other question was not quite as intense, but
still intense enough: was Gaston the one who had
demanded "the tangible" from Bella? Of course,
for her this question was actually quite different,
namely: had he loved this girl when he demanded
complete devotion from her?
If he had really loved her, Aaren would have to
renounce her, for as Aaren loved and wanted to be
loved, a man could only love once. But it was not
likely that a Gaston v. Dülfert would have loved a
Bella Maßmann with such love.
Not that she didn't think little Maßmann was an
amiable and lovable creature! Oh, Aaren Holmsen
was not one of those women who do not see and
do not honestly recognize a rival's advantages.
Little Aaren was not small at all. But little
Maßmann, for all her grace, was really small, and
therefore Aaren Holmsen did not want to think that
she could have instilled true, great love in a
Gaston, but if she had only attracted him as much
as any pretty girl attracts a man - well, a
philosopher like Aaren did not think small about
that. It was significant enough that "Gr" should
have approached her with such impositions on the
very first evening of his acquaintance with Bella,
on his way home from a champagne-filled artist's
banquet.
 she doesn't even remember his name! U)s it
says in "Fauste:
"It only seemed to turn him on to deal with this
harlot straight away," and as good Bella always
had her heart on her sleeve and her senses in her
eyes, she may well have encouraged him to do so
in all her foolish innocence. Well, that would soon
become clear in a conversation with Bella.
Aaren had realized that she had treated her
affectionate friend undeservedly badly and now
asked for her forgiveness and her visit. Naturally,
Bella was a thousand delights to take the next
streetcar to her. She threw her arms around her
adored friend's neck, weeping, and assured her that
she now knew for certain that Gaston was "the
one", for she had just seen an excellent portrait of
him in a family friend's journal, which removed all
doubt as to his identity. And she was pleased to be
able to warn her parents in time about this person,
who was calling her "ugly" and so on.
But then Aaren finally lost his temper. "Be so
good as to spare me your 'ugly'! Ts is still very
much the question of whether it's that ugly!"
Was it out there? Bella was rigid.
"Yes, yes," Aaren continued eagerly. "I advise
you to go to the theater when they're playing
Schnitzler's Hiebelei. An old man tells how
He had carefully guarded his sister from men until
she had withered and faded, and that now, in his
twilight years, he wondered whether he had done
the right thing. The relentless moralizers are the
husbands who have cooled their heels and the
envious who have been denied love. And what do
they give you when you're old and they've talked
you out of your happiness? Their mockery and, at
best, a pitying shrug of the shoulders/'
Good Bella certainly couldn't think of anything
to object to. 5 She was and remained rigid. But
Aaren made her own objections.
"It is true that nature wanted to restrain
women, nature and therefore also human society.
They have imposed the consequences on women.
That is a woman's burden, but it is also her dignity.
A dignity without a burden, but also no burden
without dignity. And low is the when that does not
show us compassion and respect. If we carelessly
violate this dignity, we are doubly guilty, just as
the priest and the prince, who also enjoy an
elevated status, are doubly guilty if they violate
virtue and justice, which they are supposed to
uphold. If both sexes were like the woman,
mankind would die out; if both were like the man,
it would perish from vice. That is why it is so
boundlessly silly of your women's rights activists
to lump man and woman together.
j?2
Let us not ask of man what nature does not ask of
him. But at least let us not lie to ourselves about
our feelings. 5>"Honestly," - here Aaren had
stepped close to the startled Bella - "wouldn't we
act just like men if we had nothing to fear? There
are still two of us who have committed this kind of
sin!"
The little red hussar philosophized with such
brilliance. Oh yes, it may well happen that a hussar
reads Plato; but no hussar has ever been
enthusiastic about Platonic love!
Little Bella still couldn't think of anything to
say in reply; she only said once over the other: "Za
- yes - that may well be - you're so clever - and
you've studied -"
And then she spoke again about the picture,
how tremendously similar it was and how
handsome Gaston looked in it, and that the Count
and Countess jDoczerewska were also depicted in
the same sheet as his generous guest friends; the
Countess was much younger and more beautiful
than she was in reality.
That would get Aaren, who had calmed down a
bit after her: sexual enlightenment ride into the
land of Ahilister morality, moving again. Gin
picture of j)oczerewska - she had to have it! She
had to examine the features of this face once more!
And of course, good Bella had to set off
immediately to fetch the journal.
 "Za - I hope they still have it," Bella said and
left.
"If they no longer have it," Aaren called after
her, "then get the number and get it from the
bookseller, no matter how much it costs!"
After half an hour, Bella was back and the
number of the magazine with her. Aaren hurriedly
leafed through the pages to find the picture, found
it and fell into her friend's arms with a cry. She let
her slide gently into an armchair and called for
Mrs. Aamundsen. When Mrs. Aamundsen had
looked at the picture of the countess through her
large spectacles, she fell so powerfully on the
nearby (Lhaise- longue that three springs of anger
burst the bonds of years of attachment with a cry
of rage; she reached for her candle and stammered
with pale lips: "Ouä bevares - Gud bevares!"
The Countess had given one of her oldest
photographs for the illustration in the magazine,
and that is the peculiar thing about many (if not
all) pictures: the older they are, the more beautiful
they are.
Aaren had seen this woman in a picture before
- now she knew. Her father, sitting at his desk, had
looked at a picture of this woman for a long, long
time, and when he finally realized that his little
daughter was looking over his shoulder, he had
thrown the picture into a compartment of the desk
with every sign of fright and locked the
compartment. Then he had told the child in a
She ordered him to go out in a harsh tone, the like
of which she had never heard from him. And now
Aaren felt as if this N)eib had once flitted through
the morning mist of her childhood in living form.
When the red-haired Aybele had mounted the
podium of the women's assembly, Aaren had
immediately dug her nails so deeply into the fleshy
arm of her duenna that the startled Bolette had
been far too preoccupied with these impressions
and with her concern for her fosterling to
recognize anything other than the reddish
flickering area of Aaren's face with her already
unreliable eyes, her already unreliable eyes to
recognize anything in the face of the made-up,
powdered and aged Countess other than a
flickering reddish area, and the hard-of-hearing
lady had only heard something like the rattling
noises of a gramophone from the speaker's voice
and mortens.
But this picture here, that was certainly clear.
Yes, that was her. "Det er hun!" the old lady
mumbled to herself, still glued to the Thai couch.
And the wages of this woman love her ears!
Horrible. Yes, now she had to speak.
Aaren, who had regained her senses, didn't
need to ask her for long about the cause of her
mood swings.
Yes, that was Mrs. v. Dülfert, with whom the
Norwegian envoy Lnorre Holmsen had gone from
Berlin to Aristiania and for whose sake he had had
to break off his diplomatic career.
Soon after her arrival on Norwegian soil, she had
given birth to a red-haired daughter, and when the
divorce from her first husband and his first wife
had been finalized, they had married.
She had not been unpopular up there in the
harsh, moralizing, abstinent north, on the contrary!
Some called her "Airke", others "Dona Iuana", still
others called her "the field battle" because of her
man-killing qualities. Wherever she appeared, life
came into the house; it is said that the lively word
"Hopla, father doesn't see it!" was first spoken by
her, or, as one must say today, coined by her. She
had stayed with Mr. Holmsen for three full years;
then she had told him that she wanted to leave. In
response to his dismayed "Why?" she had declared
with incredible frivolity: "I have only one male
characteristic: I can't be faithful" and had
disappeared never to be seen again.
But little Aaren's answer to her questions had
always been that her Nkutter had died. That had
been twenty years ago now, just when Bolette
Aamundsen, the loyal, longtime and selfless friend
of all the Holmsens, had returned from Greenland,
where she had buried her INänn, the captain and
later Nkission preacher Aamundsen, and where she
had caught a cold that was only too well motivated
by the temperature there, which then became
Of course she, the childless one, had immediately
agreed to stand in for poor little Aaren's mother,
but only on condition that she was offered no
earthly wages. She did not need and did not want
to need more than her small, saved-up fortune and
her tiny widow's pension afforded her. öie was
strictly correct and economical in everything, the
old lady; that was why she had let Bella Maßmann
give her back the five marks for the roses. Only in
her love had she never been economical.
5o things stood. Gaston and Aaren siblings!
Would there come a day that would make them
disappear again?
Chi lo sa? or, as the Germans like to say: Who
knows?
Chapter seven.
The eternal feminine.
The poor little red hussar lay on his bed like a
deadly wounded man in a murderous battle. It had
fallen to faithful Aamundsen to stab the dear girl in
the heart with her tale of her parents' dismal love
affair, with tears of pity and misery streaming
down her good-natured, broad face at the
destruction she had wrought in the mind of her
ward. Now she tried to console her somewhat fatty
brain as much as she could with such a desperate
situation.
She spoke of the strange ways of God, of the
incomprehensible but always wise way of the
Creator of the world in guiding his children; she
pointed to the peculiar predilection of the Most
High to chastise his favorites with particular
cruelty. However, because these religious
considerations did not seem to have any effect on
the wild crying fit into which poor Aaren had
fallen, the faithful soul had, as on many occasions
in earlier years, carefully undressed the shaken
Aind and put her to bed.
J2*
1?8
She put cold compresses on her burning forehead
and mixed her a soothing sugar water. Aaren,
completely apathetic, let everything happen to her.
Someone who has just lost the dearest thing he had
in the world allows himself to be led dully through
the immense numbness of pain, to act as those
around him see fit. Bella Maßmann had run to the
nearest doctor in great fear about the frightening
condition of her otherwise so strong friend. The
doctor, a sensible man, after hearing what little
Maßmann had told him about the case, refrained
from further agitating the unfortunate woman with
his visit, but simply prescribed her a sleeping
powder. When this was finally administered to the
woman, who was already half stunned by the
emotional storms of the last few hours, with the
combined forces of persuasion, nature, kindly
supported, claimed its rights. After half an hour,
Aaren's hot, inflamed eyelids drooped over his red
eyes and his sore chest heaved with deep, calm
breaths.
Bella had slipped away. How ridiculously
small her own experience seemed to her compared
to the storm of fate that had hit her friend. Little
Maßnrann was a little ashamed to have made such
a fuss about the "ugly" one. - Actually, it was
really the most interesting thing she had ever
experiencedI
 Bolette Aamundsen, however, resorted to the
large, soft, gray missionary knitting for the
Greenlandic heathens for her consolation in every
need of life.
"Oh yes - if only people would be modest and
not always claim so much happiness and joy for
their own worthy person," thought the faithful
soul, "then we wouldn't end up with such strangely
entangled family relationships, which the honest,
simple tourist could no longer possibly
comprehend, and which were definitely fraught
with all kinds of dangers. This Dülfert-Holmsen-
Poczerewski family! Good God! It had been
clearer with the Aamundsens -" And suddenly the
elegant count with the beautiful dark Polish eyes
stood before her imagination again - but at the
same time, for the first time, she was seized with a
vague fear at this amiable vision. No - she, Bolette
Aamundsen, captain's and missionary's widow
from Greenland, did not want, even in her most
secret thoughts, to knit a girl and a little girl into
the intricate web of this family history! Resolutely,
the good Aamundsen stood up and reached for her
tattered Norwegian hymnal to steel herself against
the temptations of evil with one of the hard, dark
airs of her hard, dark rocky homeland.
 She had just adjusted her glasses, put the book
in front of her^and put the knitted fabric back on.
when there was a knock at the door. The
chambermaid appeared and, alerted by warning
gestures from the startled Bolette, danced on tiptoe
to usher in the letter carrier, who was also
tramping somewhat clumsily on tiptoe. Lr would
bring a Tilbrief to Miss Aaren Holmsen. An
unstamped express letter. He wanted to charge 35
pfennigs penalty postage for it, Mrs. Aamundsen
looked at the letter suspiciously from all sides. The
address was written in pencil - by a man's hand;
but the writing was a little shaky and uncertain.
There were a few stains on the ribbons of the
otherwise elegant cover, as if from the pressure of
small, not exactly clean Ainder fingers.
Mrs. Aamundsen looked anxiously and
helplessly at the letter carrier over her horn-
rimmed glasses.
She had once heard of anonymous letters and
that they were capable of causing an endless series
of horrors. This unstamped letter, addressed in
pencil, certainly seemed to her to have the
character of an anonymous letter. No decent and
orderly person is in the habit of affixing postage
stamps to their letters. "Gud bevares! Gud
bevares!" she sighed.
"You can refuse to accept it!" said the letter
carrier.
"Aann I can - o - yes? - Can I?" Bolette
Aamundsen asked with relief, smiling at the
 Messenger to me in a humane manner. "Then I
don't have to pay any penalty postage?"
"No, you don't need that," said the letter
carrier, also smiling. "The letter will be opened ex
officio and redelivered to the sender."
"Oh - yes - but -" Mrs. Aamundsen pleaded in
confusion - "Won't my friend be inconvenienced -
I'm afraid it's an anonymous letter," she whispered
confidentially to the messenger.
"Don't worry," he replied, "the office is obliged
to remain silent."
"Oh - yes - I understand - then take the nasty
letter back with you!"
And relieved, Bolette Aamundsen handed
Gaston von Dülfert's call for help back to the man,
who cold-bloodedly lowered it into the black
pencil case and carried it away to have it officially
opened and returned to the sender. (Line calm
satisfaction filled Mrs. Aamundsen's mind, as
always, when she had managed to save 55
pfennigs.
Aaren Holmsen had slept soundly all night
under the effect of the powerful powder. She woke
up with a happy feeling of refreshment - then
suddenly she felt something
Sore, aching in her chest - her heart began to
pound violently and she was overcome by a vague
fear. What had happened? Something had
happened - and the memories rushed over her poor
heart like hungry predators. But strengthened by
sleep, her healthy, fresh nature now vigorously
resisted succumbing to stunned grief.
Two difficult facts had to be looked
courageously in the eye!
Gaston von Dülfert, the beloved Wann, was her
brother. - That dreadful woman who had instilled
only shudder and repugnance in her was fine
Wutter - was her Nkutter.
How was such a thing possible? How could
nature commit such unreasonableness - such
incoherence? öie Karen - whose highest inner law
had always been to keep a tight rein on all
passionate feeling - who, with every modern
freedom of outward movement, had never
disregarded bourgeois correctness as a pleasant
and secure protective wall - she, the daughter of an
eccentric person, hurled down and up by her wild
whims through countless adventures...! But had
she not often observed with astonishment those
pairs of women on her travels: the frivolously
dressed Wutter, animated by youthful pleasure-
seeking - the serious, tasteful - a
 little sad daughter? This sadness would
probably have come over her, too, if fate had
forced her to live with this mother... Aaren
compared her features, as Gaston had done
yesterday, with those of the countess in the journal
picture. She did not find much resemblance, thank
God, but the red hair-O that devilish color, how
she hated it! And her hands, wildly angry,
rummaged in front of the mirror in the glistening
splendor that so undoubtedly proved all her
misfortune.
How she hated this red-haired sorceress from
the bottom of her heart, with all her senses and
with all her mind! She didn't want to make excuses
for her, she would have glared at anyone who tried
to force some kind of justification on her for her
mother's nature and actions. This hatred and anger
was her refreshment, her most necessary food for
the soul; she had to let all her evil feelings run riot
at this point in order to embrace the other person in
the drama with purer, more intimate and milder
thoughts: Gaston - to whom the unfortunate
revelation was still to come ... How would she
affect him as a man? Ah - Aaren was now
suddenly so sure of his love, she felt it with every
pulse of her blood, how he desired her. . . And how
impetuously his whole nature would rebel against
the renunciation that was demanded of him, how
he would suffer!
w
While Aaren tried so intensely to put herself in
the place of her beloved man, while she, made
clairvoyant by her own strong feeling, suffered
with him all that threatened him, it happened to her
that in this deep participation, in this becoming one
with him, the desire in love forced itself to rest,
defeated and held in check by a mightier, holier, by
a motherly, caring sisterly love, which wanted
nothing more than to love - than to lighten a
difficult lot for the one person who was most dear
to her, who was bound to her by such mysterious
ties, to support and comfort him as far as it was in
her power to do so.
She had once read a little book - a beautiful,
sad little book about a girl who loved, trusted and
was happy. Then her bridegroom found out he was
her brother - left her without ever telling her why,
and she grieved to death over his incomprehensible
actions. It was no fiction - it was the story of a
living, wonderfully tender and richly animated
female creature. Even then, Aaren had asked
himself indignantly: Why didn't the man tell his
bride the truth? She would surely have had the
strength to transform her love into sisterly love and
perhaps, away from him, remain his best friend, his
guardian angel. She, Aaren, wanted to prove to
herself that this was possible.
 She did not want to leave it to some stupid,
insidious chance to enlighten Gaston. She herself
wanted to be the one to prepare him in the gentlest,
kindest, gentlest way! All the shyness that had kept
the enamored girl away from ^m until now had
vanished from her in one fell swoop . . .
She rose from her bed, refreshed her hot face
and burning body in a cold bath and began to dress
with firm, energetic movements.
Yes - she had to go to him, had to see how far
his recovery had progressed, had to talk to him ... .
But then her thoughts faltered. He was in the
frizz of that horrible woman. . . His mother - her
mother. ... - No, it was not possible! She had to do
without - had to let events go as they would.
She could not face this woman. At the thought
of hearing her voice again, Karen's whole body
went ice-cold with terror, her eyes went black and
dizzy. No, it was impossible! She had to avoid this
woman - there had to be an ocean between her and
her to avoid even the last chance of meeting her!
There was not only Europe - there was also
America - Australia! Why did she want to stay
here in Germany?
country? The safest - the most peaceful - the
easiest thing for all parties was for her to simply
disappear - to vanish from Gaston's sight - never to
be seen again.
The good Aamundsen, who had lived frugally
on whale oil and roast seal for many a year, would
also make friends with the tough beef that could be
found on the Argentinian pampas - she could count
on this faithful companion in all situations.
Her decision was made - no cowardly
hesitation in carrying it out! The comb still in her
hand - for she was about to tame the red masses of
hair for the everyday, bourgeois hairstyle of an
elegant young lady - she tore open the door with
her right hand and called for Bolette Aamundsen in
a bright voice.
She came wobbling up in a hurry and looked
with astonishment at Aaren's reddened cheeks, into
her warlike, flashing eyes. This incomprehensible
girl!
Bolette hadn't dared to move so as not to
disturb her darling - by then the Aind was almost
dressed and called out to her impatiently:
"My good Bolette - please, pack our suitcases"
and let's do the math. We want to go to Argentina -
deep into the interior, into the Pampas.
 do you hear me! I long for the sound of the sea
and sea storms - for long rides in endless expanses
- oh - how I long for unculture!"
,,6-ud devures - litten Karen"-said ^rau
Aamundsen, startled, "why to Argentina? Why not
to Africa? Ts is more in vogue, I thought?"
"That's precisely why not! Africa is now just a
Berlin summer resort - they go there looking for
diamonds like they used to look for shells in
Heringsdorf! Understand me, Aamundsen! Why
won't you understand me? Why do I have to be so
clear?"
Aaren's eyes suddenly shimmered with tears - a
sore line appeared around her mouth ... Little red
spots appeared on her pale cheeks, as if she had
drunk too much wine. - The good Aamundsen
hastened to assure her that she understood
everything, and that Litten Aaren did not need to
make herself clear! She only asked if Aaren
wanted to take little Maßmann with him. Aaren
made a defensive gesture.
"I have to talk to her - I can keep quiet with
you, Aamundsen!"
And the good Bolette nodded and looked
tenderly at her protégé with loving, light blue eyes.
 "You" - Aaren said and wrapped her hair into a
messy anote, which she fastened carelessly with
two tortoiseshell pins - "I'm hungry and want
breakfast! Just give me my aimono! There! Please
ring for my tea."
The Aamundsen wobbled busily around her
protégé in her rocking frigate gait while he sipped
the sugar-and-cream breakfast potion poured by
Bolette in the small living room.
"I'm very pleased," the good Bolette remarked
with satisfaction, "that you didn't get that nasty
letter . .
"What letter?" Aaren asked, turning deathly
pale.
"Yes, just think, Aaren, last night a very bad
person tried to write an anonymous letter to you.
Without postage! But now it's being opened ex
officio."
"For God's sake, Bolette, what's with the letter
-?" Aaren began to tremble violently. "I was
expecting a letter, an important letter . . ." She
jumped up and stepped close to Bolette.
"Aind, it can't have been this one you were
waiting for - his address was in pencil and it was
without postage - 35 pfennigs penalty postage. The
people you correspond with are fine people and
don't write with pencil and penalty postage ..."
 "Bolette, the letter may have come from one:
Totenbette...."
"Gud bevares - Totenbette -" stammered the
good woman in horror - did she have to cause
mischief upon mischief with all her ll)ohlmeinen!
Aaren suddenly jumped up. "When did the
letter arrive? Yesterday with the last mail? Then in
the end it was still possible to get it back at the
post office, quickly, Bolette, my hat, my dress, my
passport, so that I can identify myself - mercy,
quickly, Bolette!"
Five minutes later, Aaren was in a: car on the
way to the post office in her district. After a few
hot summer days, a morning thunderstorm loomed.
When Aaren had barely climbed into the open
vehicle, a whirlwind roared through the streets,
sweeping up thick clouds of dust and immediately
grabbing Aaren's hat, tearing off the poorly
fastened one and whipping the long red strands of
hair across her pale face. She hurriedly gathered
the uncomfortable fullness back together so as not
to have to appear before the "office" in too
offensive a state. She had already learned from
experience that all the authorities in Berlin, the
cleanest, tidiest city in the world, expected their
citizens to have a clean and tidy appearance if they
were not to be distrusted in the widest sense of the
word.
 But luckily Aaren had remembered her
passport! She never actually went out here in
Berlin without it, she carried it in her pocket when
she bought silk shoe laces, because you never
knew on what occasions she, the foreigner, would
be asked for an identity document.
When the office saw this stamped paper, it
became friendly and communicative. Gs
confessed, after some research, that it had not yet
found time to open and close the letter in question,
as this would require a higher authority, which was
not available at the moment. Finally, after the
penalty postage had been paid, the pencilled letter
addressed to her was handed over. She read it:
Dear, dear, dear friend, do not be alarmed by
this letter. My friend hein has passed by this time.
It is not to greet him that I call you, but because
you are the only person in the world in whose
alughness and kindness I have so much confidence
that I would like to approach him for advice and
help in a matter that is as embarrassing to me as it
is important. Would you like to do a convalescent,
who is still impatiently awaiting recovery, the high
honor and the purely human and sisterly mercy of
a short visit? Tomorrow I will
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161
'^EpUMM bims svd
to the home of Count and Countess Poczerewski
without further hesitation.
^he blessed urge to martyrdom of the deep,
the real lDeibe's best part, in which it
accomplishes its highest deeds, had also seized
Aaren Holmsen, the little red hussar, and sent
her racing through morning Berlin, swirling
with gasoline vapor and clouds of dust,
surrounded by lightning, accompanied by the
rumble of thunder and drenched by floods of
rain. After a few minutes, Aaren had to pin up
her masses of hair for the second time as they
broke free on all sides -■ but now even the last
tortoiseshell pin broke. In the midst of all the
pain and sacrifice, she was forced to look for a
hairdresser's shop window in search of help.
She couldn't possibly show herself to Gaston
with this wildly fluttering flag of fire around her
head. The domestics of the count's house might
not even allow her to come forward, possibly
mistaking her for an ambiguous adventuress or
one of those hysterical women who approach all
people who have become famous through some
event with the strangest requests.
She wished to appear before Gaston as a
sister, quietly and confident in her decision; but
a sister should have her hair smoothly combed,
tightly braided, and tamed in every sense. She
also had to admit to herself that it was still a
little early in the morning for a visit to a strange
house.
 So Aaren let her vehicle stop at the next
large shop window, from which smiling wax
ladies with wonderful flower-bedecked and
pearl-adorned egg coats beckoned, paid the
chauffeur and stepped into the large
hairdressing salon to give her appearance the
outward correctness she considered necessary
for her purpose. During this time, she would
also be able to collect her thoughts and feelings,
which were tumbling all over each other, a little
more internally.
It was an elegant salon that Aaren had
stumbled into. A whole row of ladies, dressed in
white powder coats, were already sitting on the
swivel chairs in front of the marble tables with
the large movable mirrors. An elderly
gentleman, apparently the owner of the store,
approached Aaren and asked what she wanted.
She took her hat off her head and asked him to
serve her quickly. As all the assistants were
busy, he led her into a second room, separated
from the first by Spanish walls, which seemed
to be reserved for favored customers and where
he himself practiced his art.
"My dearest, nature has given you an
unusually splendid treasure in your hair," said
the old gentleman in a gentle, almost reverent
voice, letting Aaren's shiny, red mass of hair,
which rolled far down over the back of the
armchair, glide through his singers. When
Aaren didn't even crack a smile at this serious
When he recognized the expert, he thought he
had offended her and continued: "My dearest
must not think that I want to flatter! But you
see, when one of us, who has so much to do day
in, day out with false - with 'supplements', gets
such a magnificent natural wealth under his
hands - and of a color that is almost exclusively
produced by artificial means - .... . yes, it makes
your heart beat faster - the profession becomes a
joy - I would like to say an elevation "
"Please, just braid the hair into plaits and
pin them up tightly," Aaren ordered with mild
impatience.
"Certainly, madam - just no artificiality -
your hair is too bad for that, behen 5ie - I have
to work a lot with false tuffs and docks - and
strangely - the less the lady has on her head, the
more artificial she wants the hairstyle. Believe
me, I've been in the business for a long time and
have made my observations - the false hair and
the coloring of the hair have an effect on a
woman's character!" He spoke mysteriously, the
old gentleman before whom so many women
had revealed their toilet secrets; he spoke mildly
and shook his gray head a little: "I don't exactly
want to say 'phony' . . . mendacious would be
too harsh a word - but through the daily
handling of the wrong things, through the
secrets and lists,
to which she takes refuge, something false and
secret also comes into a woman's being."
"You may be right about that," Aaren said
absentmindedly. "You are something of a
philosopher!"
"It makes you wonder. It's not for nothing
that ancient legends attribute a mysterious
power to human hair. A woman with a proud
crown of hair also has a proud spirit..."
"And a woman with red hair - they used to
burn her because they thought she was a witch,"
Aaren exclaimed with a laugh, amused by old
Figaro's seriousness.
"Perhaps our forefathers were not so wrong
- red hair has magnetic powers - a red-haired
woman can achieve many things that other gray
women have to do without," said the hairdresser
and wound Aaren's long fiery braids into an:
artistic anote on her head: head. "I have an old
friend, a lady with famous red hair - the shade
reminds me of the gracious ladies - who used to
say to her friends: 'My red hair has determined
my fate/ It was - just between you and me - a
little adventurous. Dan:e is married for the
fourth time and talks a lot about herself. But it's
just funny that she also uses this expression to
me, who
196
has to dye this red hair every two weeks
Aaren had suddenly turned to the hair artist.
"Because it's gone gray?" she asked with a
wonderfully tense tone in her voice.
"They've probably been gray for a while
now - but I dyed them twenty-five years ago
when they were still brown. And yet I believe
the lady is right: the dyed red hair has
determined her fateI Anyone who goes through
the world with his head held high under a false
splendor dares to do many things that people
otherwise fearfully abstain from. To him, I
would say, the natural law is no longer
sacred..."
Aaren gazed fixedly into Wann's eyes, so
that he was frightened by the inquiring look in
her eyes. "The Countess Poczerewska?" she
asked sharply and harshly.
"God save me from revealing the name of
an old Aundin.... ." stammered the old hair
philosopher in confusion. "Gracious forgive me
. . . I have already said too much - it was the
admiration of this red splendor that tempted me
to become so confidential."
"Would you possibly swear to it in court-
that you dye Countess Poczerewska's hair?"
asked Aaren, holding the startled old gentleman
continually under the fire of her gaze.
"Madam - who says I was talking about the
Countess? Wake up an old when not unlucky
I can't." The comb fell clattering to the floor,
causing the good hair artist's hands to tremble.
* "The countess is a vindictive lady - she's
capable of anything - don't let me fall into her
hands!"
"Calm down," Aaren said a little haughtily
and stood up. "It was just a joke I was making.
How much do I owe?"
While another car hurried them out to the
wooded suburb where the JDoczerewskis'
house was situated, the young Norwegian's
heart beat with a heavy beat. A strangely
anxious joy, which did not yet venture out into
life, wrestled with worry and fear in this girl's
heart.
***
As Gaston had asked her to do in the
mysterious letter, Aaren had herself announced
as Miss Aatinka Hermann by the servant who
opened the door for her at the Villa
Poczerewski. She was shown into a drawing
room and a few minutes later, as she had
feared, the countess stood before her. Aaren
mustered all the energy she possessed to avoid
falling back into the stupid faint. She fought
bravely against the dizziness that came over
her again like an evil spell at the sight of the
enormous, busty figure. She auck) managed to
stand upright and with the haughtiest princess
face that the little red hussar could put on
could greet the Countess when the occasion
demanded it. -
This woman with the full, withered,
powdered cheeks, with the fleshy ribs that
looked so unnaturally crimson in the aged
matron's face, this figure that was surrounded
by a morning dress of straw-yellow silk
interwoven with red pre-Raphaelite lilies -
Aaren was henceforth to give her the sweet
name "Mother" - the fair, Aind sometimes
whispered to himself between dreaming and
waking, when the birds had begun to chirp
outside the window at dawn - when anxious
longing for something unattainably distant,
beautiful, had beset his little heart...
Aaren pressed her hand together so that her
fingernails dug into her palms as she asked the
countess to lead her to Mr. von Dülsert, in a
tone that sounded cold and hostile, despite her
efforts to keep it polite.
"The servant has already told me that you
wish to see my son," replied the countess,
scrutinizing the young girl with experienced
eyes. "But you know very well that my son is ill
and still needs a great deal of care. The doctor
removed the bandages a few days ago, his arm
and leg seem to be well healed, and he has
already made attempts to stand and walk. But
his nerves are by no means in a
desirable condition. I am rarely allowed to see
Gaston myself - the doctor has strictly
forbidden any visits. Can I send a message to
my 5 son?"
"^^^^ Countess," said Aaren slowly,
considering how best to accomplish her
purpose, "Mr. von Dülfert has requested me by
a letter in his hand to come to him on a matter
of business. I know that he is expecting me
now."
The countess scrunched up her eyelids a
little and smiled ambiguously.
"My 5ohn is unfortunately not yet in any
condition to do business," she said with an
expression that seemed abhorrent to Aaren."Äe
will understand that an Aranker often
overestimates his own powers considerably and
that those caring for him must watch him all the
more anxiously.-------------------------------Yes,
my dear lady," she continued, noticing how
Aaren grew paler and tears began to fill her
eyes, "I cannot help you, you will have to be
patient for a few more days ... . Then, of course,
I am the last person who would deny my: good
boys the pleasure of such a lovely visit . .."
"Countess," said Aaren, looking earnestly
into the Countess's face with her sincere gray
eyes, "I would not have you misunderstand the
purpose of my visit in any way. - I
I am not saying this out of girlish prudery, but
because for certain reasons that I cannot discuss
now, it would be dangerous and embarrassing if
the sisterly interest that I take in Mr. von
Dülfert were to be misinterpreted."
The countess laughed loudly and cheerfully.
"My Aind - how deadly serious you say that - I
absolutely believe your sisterly interest - that is:
I believe your own belief in it . . . But you are
too beautiful to demand that the world should
share this belief ... Speaking of which - didn't I
see you once in the women's club? Wasn't it
you who were so horrified by my brilliant
maiden speech - ha - ha - that you felt sick?
Well - frankly, I almost got sick myself from all
the stupid things I said. Incidentally, your
impotence helped me to a glorious success with
the press . . ."
"It wasn't your words that made this
impression on me - it was memories that were
awakened . . ." Aaren said gloomily, not daring
to look at the woman at this suggestion. did she
not remember - did she not have an inkling of
nature?
It almost seemed as if something was
awakening in the countess. "You are
Norwegian?" she asked Aaren. "Your name
doesn't sound Scandinavian, but the way you
pronounce German is so characteristic.
I lived in Norway for a few years, so I know my
way around."
"I am Norwegian, born in Thristiania,"
Aaren said with a sudden eagerness to explore -
to fathom.
"Did you know the family of the envoy
Snorre Holmsen there? I think it has died out,"
said the countess upstairs.
"He himself is dead. His two children from
his first marriage too. A daughter from his
second marriage is alive. Aaren. She went to
school with me. I know her well."
Aaren said all this with a feeling as if she
were talking in a completely improbable dream
state.
"Has she become a pretty girl? I would be
interested to hear about her development," said
Countess jDoczerewska coolly.
"She stands alone in the world and has
become an independent person in this
predicament."
"I'm glad to hear that. I was actually
expecting it."
And suddenly the countess began to laugh,
quite unmotivated, as it seemed to Aaren. "A
strange experiment," she said cheerfully. "I'd
like to see the girl again - no, better not! One
shouldn't want to reawaken past lives."
There was an icy rigidity in Aaren's heart."
------- No, no," she thought, "you're supposed
to live out
Sjipm aiQ 'a^Hn^ aup .usqaI jnv sl uoixj svq SS
qvb - upj svq uusq uuvz asqv - us^us^ sqrusa^
6;quv)j^oa" 'us^astz susav)^ m ss op(pj - "v^"
- usipjus^ sqmsa^ biquvtz^oa sun qmj aicu
uusq - usuuoz u^tij s)Lpm - uaj^nJ asquvms anj
sj^iu avb arm Zvq ^ustzs^sSms br^na
SpisjusbsS sun us^ocn aiar - usa^n^jnv sus?
ja^n^ smsz ;$M qun uaqpjq usip^us^ s^l^a^s
us^ocn arm - qui)^"
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ususbs^asa qun usbpnrutzsm ^as<;unca
msms ;uu mtzi ^vj <;un ushsjj ustz)qv^ usSunl
rusq aoa sij qs;;q lluvq "' - ^ usav)^ 'uwj jjqpj ss
^s;uuoz nq ^vachsnv usjm;o^ usmv)^ usq tzi;
Sjv - x^qusbn^ usuis o;^üq ^>^"
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;uu SurS qun ^s;;v^ usjjsj -s6 asqnusSsb usav)^
srj rusq ui ^nv l^n;jui;sA rusq uoa Suvaä^
r^vaA si(x -usnvaL usqrsq usq us^rcuk
us;^aastz susSiscutz)^ usnoa)vnb usqunzs^
sSimI
-usqaocusö asqn^f ms<; as;un )tzv^ qun
q;sS avcu s;^ ^xn?sb asäao)^ usa^i tz)anq ^vl
s;;vtz ss ^uv uskn^ us;suj^o -sS;;scn ;uu
ustziqv^ svq spavjj u^vaA si(x
- ' uojuqo^ usav)^ sHistz (pi - uuvmas^
DJUIJDJX 1^ .u ^! diuv^ upyj" :sbuvcu§
usipjiuoruvq Lusuis aspln sica ^usn;oi usa^i
usbsb ^si^ s;Sv^ sx^gusSn)^ usq^sjmsq m qu^ ,
- ' ' ;pj^|l =^2UZ ^ßiSup s;q rj; svq - $Ddiuü(J
srq - etc;; -usba^ --* us^ocu usxsmas
asqsica;tz)m us;;stzusSuvbas^
does she feel when she unexpectedly sees her
Aind again after so much driving? . . . And she
herself - did she feel a tremendous
disappointment about it - or was it not rather - a
tremendous relief...?" All this ran through her
mind in a flash, while the countess watched her
intently.
"They won't have told you very pleasant
things about me?" the countess then began,
inquiring in a coarse manner.
"I have never been told about - about
my ... . of you ... Only since last night have I
known that the Countess Poczerewska was the
wife of my date ... ."
"And Gaston's mother? Since yesterday
evening? - Poor Aind - poor Aind . .."
An expression of warm compassion crossed
the countess's full face and suddenly made it
more beautiful. 5 She wanted to grab Aaren's
hands, but she pulled them away abruptly and
hard.
"Since last night -?" the countess asked
again, ignoring Aaren's reluctance to touch her.
"And now you come here to - to seek a
discussion with Gaston - isn't that so . . .?"
Aaren glowed and the tears streamed
inexorably down her face.
"I was about to run away from him, forever,
without explanation - I thought it was the best
thing for
both of us . . ." she sobbed. "Then he wrote to
me - called me to him. . ."
"Gaston wrote to you - yesterday? Now I
can explain the new seizure he had in the
evening - the excitement that the nurse said she
noticed in him... How long have you known
each other?"
"We saw each other years ago in Eapri and
in Rome - then we met again here last
winter ..." Aaren faltered, what was happening
to her? She was confessing the most sacred
things in her life to this woman she hated . . .
The countess looked at her so strangely, it
was as if the seriousness in her face was only a
pretended mask, behind which the secret,
somewhat ambiguous smile from earlier
reappeared. Aaren didn't know how to interpret
this enigmatic expression - but she had a
longing that overwhelmed all other sensations:
just to get away - far away from all these
mysteries ...
She also rose, "Countess," she stammered,
"it is no use my being here any longer if I am
not allowed to see Mr. von Dülfert.... And
perhaps it is better that I do not see him - I - I
do not feel able to at the moment . . ."
 Footsteps approached the door - slow,
uncertain steps, and light, tripping feet ... .
 The countess listened. Aaren listened up.
The door opened - Gaston von Dülfert
appeared in its frame, pale and thin from his
long illness - a red scar ran diagonally across
his forehead. He was leaning on a cane; to his
right and left two charming children, a boy and
a girl, were trying to guide him in their childish
way by clinging to his legs with great effort.
"Gaston - what recklessness!" exclaimed the
countess, genuinely shocked.
But the two little ones cheered her on:
"Grandma, just think, the strange uncle who
mended our kite got better as soon as we told
him a beautiful lady was visiting you and she
had hair like the red copper kettles in the
kitchen!"
"You naughty children - who allowed you
to enter the infirmary?"
Gaston had meanwhile freed himself from
his lilliputian supports and wordlessly extended
his right hand to Karen in greeting. But he had
overestimated his strength - a deathly pallor
covered his face, he swayed precariously and
had to be led to the sofa by the two gray men
and set down there.
The countess rang for smelling salts and
Tham- pagner. ^in the combined Zamarite
service, the unbearable tension between the
three people was released
in the common feeling that there is only one
misfortune against which no herb of hope can
grow. Poor Wisconsin - in the midst of his
flight of fame, the end had seized him and
destroyed him. Gaston, however, was alive, had
recovered - and as long as man lives and
breathes, he will find a way out of the most
desperate situations.
Chapter Eight.
Music.
In order to speed up Gaston's recovery,
which was not making any real progress in the
count's ruff, he was sent to a small Silesian spa
by the doctors who were treating him. His
nerves, weakened by lying down for so long,
were still unable to tolerate any further travel.
It was only with great difficulty that he
managed to ward off the excessive tenderness
of the mother he had suddenly found. She
really wanted to travel with him and whined
and whimpered to him for a long time about
her love, of which he had unfortunately felt so
little until the day of his accident. It was not
until the doctors solemnly announced, after a
lengthy, learned conference, that her five-year-
old son absolutely needed to be alone, that the
mother's throbbing heart was able to calm
down for the time being and turn her somewhat
artificial love back to her grandchildren. On
the second evening after his arrival in the
small, beautiful autumnal Silesian seaside
resort, Gaston wrote this letter to Aaren:
Dear sister, and what wants to say more, dear
friend I
Come here! Leave Berlin, about which
little Berlin has already mocked enough. It's
wonderful here. The gerbst is still the greatest
INaler despite all the salons and recessions.
You have to see it with me, the beech forest
and the short meadows and the fog in the
evening and the fires in the fields and the dewy
silvered spinning nets early in the morning. It
is too much beauty for me. I have to see this
with four eyes, sister. We hardly know each
other. The few hours in Italy under a different
color, among strange trees and trees, seem to
me as if they were spent in an earlier existence,
before my present one. And that brief hour of
reunion after six years in the noisy Berlin hotel
vestibule, where, as it says so beautifully in the
novel, "the heavy Persian carpet muffled by a
little the loud conversation that emanated from
various tables and groups", that fleeting hour in
which I became cheeky and you shy, did not
bring us any closer either. Come, come, sister!
We can stay here together and socialize like
Paul and Birginie, whom you will remember
from school, now that we have this common
Wama - "Wutter" doesn't sound right to me
for this lady! - have discovered. Although I
can't feel any Columbus-like joy about it, there
doesn't seem to be any reason for me to howl
like a Corsican dirge. If, like me, you've been
close to the other planets and have spent
minutes hanging in despair between heaven
and earth, you think a little less about all the
family relationships on our little star. The lady
is a little large in form, Rubens was never my
taste, but we can only look at this case a
posteriori. Who knows how little, i.e. how
much, there was of her thirty years ago! Wine
father and her father, as witnesses to her death,
refuse to tell us about it in their graves. You
see, I am becoming frivolous without you.
Come here! Yesterday afternoon, as I was
walking three-legged along the stream to the
salt pans with my mended limbs on a stick, I
saw a fisherman's boy who had laid out bottom
fishing rods. Gr himself was lying on the grass
next to him, making melancholy sounds on a
willow whistle. "Why are you whistling, boy?"
I asked him. "It attracts the fish," he replied
whistling, and at the same moment pulled out a
fat carp by the twine, its scales glistening in the
sun, "Do you hear how I whistle? Come on!
Come on! ^I bought the carp for you. It is
waiting
with me on you. We put him in a big tub. But
he only lives in it for three days, Anabe told
me. Then he'll die, just as my mother, our
mother, would die in this lost bathing town
from longing for life, by which she means:
making a big toilet, having her hair done and
mummified for three hours and eating a lot of
soup in the evening after the theater. Come
on! Come on! Otherwise the carp will die of
longing for you
Your brother, your friend.
jDostskriptum. (My desire for you, my
desire to talk to you, goes on for hours, for
days, up to this tastelessness).
Do you remember the verses by the Italian
poet - Aetrarka, I think it is - that I once
recited to you in Tapri? They are badly
translated:
I will not invite you with words To the silent
feast on my breast, Lin happy ship drifts to
the shores Of bliss unconscious, Surrounded
by nymphs and naiads It runs to one
destination only: Its air
This could stand under Raphael's picture
of the robbery of the sea goddess Galatea in
the Farnesina in Rome, before which I
understood the spiritual that must lie in
mortar, glue and paint.
2U
and I only think back to it like Adam to the lost
paradise. Come I Come!"
Aaren didn't hesitate for half a second.
Saying goodbye to the good, eternally knitting
^rau Aamundsen was easier for her than she
had thought. The petty bourgeois woman with
her parrot-like "Gud bevares" must have been
on her nerves for a long time, that she could
now part from her without a single tear, no,
downright relieved. She felt as if she had
happily shipped or deposited a large, heavy,
old-fashioned Aorb kosfer somewhere and now
had nothing more to carry but a small paper bill
in her purse. Fortunately for the good old
woman, the Countess Poczerewska soon tired
of the company of her two grandchildren,
despite her burning love for them. The term
"grandmother" gave her even less pleasure in
the long run than the name "Nlutter" had
obviously given her. She was very reluctant
when Aaren explained that she knew of an
excellent place for the two Ainder Gastons to
stay, but she had all their clothes and
belongings packed up as quickly as possible
when Aaren came to fetch them and warbled
happily: "La donna e
mobile," when her sweet grandchildren had
disappeared.
On this occasion, Aaren also learned how
the countess had come to have Gaston's Ainder.
Her mother, who moved from one music hall to
another in America, had soon found her a
nuisance, especially after she had invested the
not inconsiderable sum that Gaston had left her
for the Ainder family on their amicable
separation largely in rings, earrings and other
jewelry. She used the rest of the money to send
the Aleines back to Germany to her aunt, the
worthy owner of the Maison Remy in Berlin,
where she herself had always found a place to
stay when fate had made her unable to fly.
Count j)oczerewski had seen the aleines there
and soon enough learned from the landlady
about her relationship to the former regular
guest Dr. v. Dülfert. His wife, who was
extremely attracted to anything that looked just
a little strange and adventurous to her, had gone
there the very next day and fetched the Ainder -
nothing better could happen to them, thought
Madame Rem^f. The countess's plan to surprise
Gaston with them in her house had worked out
better than expected - Gaston's fall from heaven
gave her a wonderful opportunity to take him
into her house as well.
But Mrs. Aamundsen was beaming with joy
and fluffed herself up like a hen that has been
given greed to brood. The two aleines got to
taste all their long-saved pedagogical wisdom
and enjoyed their so-called happy youth under
her protection.
Aaren was still able to eat the carp with her
brother. They were sitting on the balcony
outside his room. Lr had just picked them up
from the evening train at the station. From the
first siblingly exchange they had made, still
enveloped in the steam of the train, they were
on first name terms. All by themselves, without
exchanging a word of agreement. And now the
first "Du" ran back and forth between them
almost like caresses; now and again the old
form of address fluttered between them. The
fruit was taken from the pear tree in whose
arbor they looked down from above. Gin, the
red peasant girl, stood on her bare stockings in
the branches and picked one pear after another
into her increasingly heavy apron.
Occasionally a few overripe fruits fell from:
Poking down from the branches with a soft
sound into the grass, where the girl's clogs
stood side by side, awaiting their mistress. Gin
other girl silently and diligently picked up the
white laundry that had been lying under the
trees to bleach from the grass. Gin's few
tobacco-brown leaves were scattered by the
wind on the snowy pieces of laundry. The
grasses were already
damp from the evening dew, a bluish mist hung
in long strips between the trees. Aaren leaned
back wearily in her chair. A dull dizziness spun
her head; the silence and the strong scent of the
land assaulted her, like anyone who has just
come out into nature from the big city where
they have lived for so long.
"Are you still reading ^Naupaffant?"
Gaston asked her. She had taken some book out
of the trunk out of embarrassment and put it on
the table next to her.
"Sometimes," she said with a smile. She
still avoided addressing him more often.
He read "Notre Cceur" and repeated it as if
he wanted to make himself aware of the title:
"Our Heart". "At the time, I called him the only
Alafsian among modern writers."
She nodded, remembering his every word.
"A rather vague label for this wine. U)hat I
like about it today is that you can always read
it," he continued. "On the train, in the
bathroom, in the study, at home, on a journey,
in any mood. He always forces us to listen to
him quietly when he speaks. And he doesn't let
us go, he holds us by the scruff of the neck until
his story is over and we ask, like the Indians
after a nlarchen: Already? He is never verbose
and even less boring. U)nless he can write?
Most writers express a sponge of dull words,
the
Confuse US. By the third sentence we are no
longer listening, our thoughts get mixed up, we
only see letters on the paper, a jumble of
sentences that are difficult to pull apart and
make clear to us, tiring, boring."
"How I love it when you speak," she said,
when he paused. "Forgive me for not going into
what you said. It is all quite true. But you, what
are you doing? Tell me about yourself!" She
looked at him almost anxiously, as if she had
only just noticed how pale he still was from his
long illness. "Where have your ideas for the
future gone? The collection of geniuses, the
great glass city in Lüneburg, the educational
province in Germany?"
His eyes suddenly widened and for a
moment he really did look like Goethen.
"Oh," he said, "those were foolish plans, the
thoughts of an idler, the projects of rapturous
ideologues like those in novels by Jules Verne
or Felix Holländer. I have no more desire to
become a man of action in the skies and in
reality to be just a poor fellow pilot who falls
out of an airship like a wren from the wings of
an eagle and tumbles to the ground and his
hump. I will leave it to Liebenberg and his
comrades to build Spanish castles in the air in
the Lüneburg Heath. My music of the future
sounds purer and more beautiful." She bent
She leaned towards him tensely. In a mood of
tenderness, she stroked back the curl that had
fallen on his forehead as he spoke. All around
them, over the garden and the roof of their inn,
the swallows were buzzing, screaming and
zigzagging as they gathered their evening meal.
Gaston drained his glass of red wine and
cleared his throat, as one does before making a
speech.
"The idea is only in its embryonic state, you
know. Yesterday I discovered a human pearl on
a bench here while chatting by chance. A
young theologian who is doing vicarage work
for the local vicar, who has the clap. A blond
youth, still as delicate as an eye, half out of a
novel by Marlitt, half by Spielhagen. Nothing
stands out about him, he has no special features
whatsoever: no resemblance to Goethe, no
amber-yellow curls, no hump. But he has two
virtues: he plays the viola wonderfully and he
is very reluctant to be a theologian."
Aaren laughed and clapped his hands.
"Do you see where I'm going with this?"
Gaston continued, becoming agitated. "We've
been playing together all morning, he viola, I
tello. You probably don't know yet that I'm the
best eello player who's played the bow since
Dotzauer! A man with a humpback on an
albatross, that's ridiculous. But behind a
violoncello and
2^7
It is precisely behind such an unfeeling,
peculiar instrument that he belongs, like
Napoleon on the battlefield and Humboldt
behind a globe."
"What next, what next?" Aaren asked,
becoming very serious.
"There's not much more to say," Gaston
almost shouted. "We'll gather two more violins,
travel through the whole of Germany and make
chamber music. Think of it: Bach, Handel,
Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms,
Mendelssohn and Beethoven I Beethoven, the
most beautiful thing there is in Germany, the
best that this nation has produced despite
Zeppelin, the only thing that testifies to a
common culture among us! Something that
never, never existed in art, from Pericles
onwards, from the Egyptian king Amenophrus
onwards, and that only very few of us know,
German music. To abolish this absurdity, to
spread German music in Germany, that shall
now be my life's work."
His pale cheeks had turned completely red.
He talked himself into more and more
excitement. "There will only be two types of
seats here. Three rows of five to one hundred
marks for the rich and the rest at twenty
pfennigs for the people. The hall will be
darkened when we play."
He went into raptures and fantasies, like
someone sitting at the piano and playing his
favorite piano.
piece on the keys, you start dreaming more and
more.
"Couldn't you use me as first violin?"
Aaren's bright, clear voice interrupted him
when he had finally grown tired. "I have
studied hard in Berlin for the last year" - she
named two or three teachers of repute - "I have
been given a good certificate, here it is, Mr. v.
Dülfert," she said, taking it out of her pocket
and making a domestique's knee in front of
him.
Gaston's hands trembled with happy
surprise. "That would be wonderful! That
would be wonderful! How foolish, we used to
talk about Plato and the Imperial Chancellor
and the Marquis Fihiasi and the devil knows
what else, and exchange novel phrases with
each other and talk about everything we can't
do, and keep quiet about what we can. If we
could now find a second violin, our conspiracy
would be complete and Tatilina and Fiesco
would remain bunglers against our plot against
the German Philistines. I can already hear the
march of the Davidsbündler in my ears." And
he drummed the Vchumann melody on his
glass with his knife, marked it on the floor with
his feet and almost ordered a postcard to write
to his contemporary Alfred Aerr because he,
like him, was so fond of this piece of music.
 Aaren knew what to do. "You could try
Bella Maßmann," she said hesitantly.
Lr seemed to have forgotten the name or
didn't know it at all.
"Who is that?" he asked. "Line
granddaughter of the gymnastics teacher who
invented the Aniewelle, the Riegenturnen and
the four Fs? The Prussian Tyrtäus?"
"You'll get to know her," said Aaren, "she
has her beauty and her ugliness^ like every
female. I don't know if she's related to your
gymnastics master. But she is more likely to be
related to Sarasate, for she plays the violin with
wonderful delicacy. She is always ashamed of
me because she claims that she can only pluck
against me. But this is more a consequence of
her exaggeratedly hot affection for me, of
which she was quite afraid for only one chapter,
than a real inability. I overheard her once,
without her knowing anything about it, and had
to weep tears in the alembic between her old
skirts, behind which I had hidden myself, so
beautifully did the longing that runs wild in this
young, shy, unfulfilled creature find expression
in her play."
"Let's give it a try! Vederemo!" said
Gaston. "We have six weeks left to sharpen our
weapons, tune our armor and get in tune with
each other. Before October we want to have our
field
zug contre les Philistins cannot begin. Long live
the Bremen Town Musicians!"
They clinked glasses. Meanwhile, it was
almost dark. The cigar that Gaston had lit after
dinner was glowing brighter and redder. A soft,
warm wind had risen and was blowing the
leaves in the pear tree back and forth like tiny
flags. It brought a sharp scent of cut grass from
the Aurpark. The girl who had just plucked the
fruit would bring them a snack on the table.
"The blonde won't be here until midnight
tonight," she said with a laugh when Gaston
asked her. And Aaren couldn't help thinking
that hardly anyone in the whole of Berlin would
know that now. She wrote down a telegram for
Bella Maßmann by the fluttering light of the
aerial lamp and gave it to the girl. They heard
her clattering down the stairs with her wooden
shoes, the cleared supper on a board in her
hand. They were both daydreaming in the dark,
seeing only the occasional glimpse of each
other by the light in the breeze. The moths had
begun their dance around the wreath. They
came buzzing in from all sides, flew into the
flame, hissed - "ss! ff!" it made every time - and
fell scorched and dead on the table. The girls
downstairs in the kitchen, who were washing
the dishes, began to sing a folk song in two
voices.
to sing sweetly. It sounded like this to those
listening and loving in the night:
On the Elbe I sailed the fifteenth of May,
Beautiful girls I drove At two or three in the
night.
But the most beautiful of them all, She wanted,
wanted to go with me. But she couldn't see the
way for all the crying.
"Farewell, my beautiful girl, for the distance is
much too far, And the day is already beginning
to gray, - And what do people say then?
if you feel like writing to me.
So you seal the letter with red varnish, For my
little ship sails on the Rhine And my name is
Matros.
If I die one day on the: Nheine, you'll get a
death certificate, Then you'll break the black
seal And leave me alone.
If one day I die in the hospital, they will bury
me beautifully and finely, and on my grave you
shall plant a bouquet, don't forget me!"
When Gaston looked up, Karen had
disappeared. Gr found this beautiful, this
wordless, quiet farewell.
and went to bed humming the melody of the
folk song. In his first sleep, he felt as if he were
listening to wonderfully beautiful dark violin
notes, then he dreamed of a rain of violets
falling down on him. Millions of deep blue little
violets swirled softly and silently on the ground
all around him like snowflakes in winter. In his
amazement, he could still clearly hear Aaren's
voice calling out: "That's the summer snow!"
That was all he knew of his dream when he
woke up the next morning.
Aaren had gone into her parlor just above
Gaston's room. She was stunned by the strong
air and nature. Half asleep, she undressed and
loosened her long red hair. Standing naked, she
stepped in front of the mirror that filled the
entire door of the wardrobe. She brushed back
her hair and, for the first time in a long time,
looked at herself as she really was, without
aleiders, without toiletries, without tortoiseshell
pins, of which so much had been said in the
previous chapter. She was very well grown,
perhaps a little too petite. Her skin was
extremely soft and rosy, like that of most red-
haired women. Only at the folds of her body
and at the top of her shoulders, where her shirt
always hung, were a few brownish lines cut into
her skin, the color of sea foam that had just
been smoked. She had a small round birthmark
at the top of her right shoulder. A thin
reddish fuzz shimmered above her neck. A fine
scent, as of freshly mown grass, seemed to
emanate from her skin. Her legs and ankles had
grown a little too manly; but her breasts were
beautiful, broad, small and full of trembling
pink tips. Finally she grew tired of looking at
this splendor all by herself and could no longer
bear the stupid, longing thoughts that came to
her at the sight of her reflection. She turned
away, the image disappeared and she felt as if
she had plucked a rose from the dark,
shimmering mirror glass. "5o not!" came from
her lips. She bent down - the warm evening air
on her naked body had refreshed her again - and
took her violin out of the case. She tightened
the strings a little without tuning loudly and
then, naked as she was, began to play Bach's
Eiaconna to herself and then another piece by
Schumann and then another, until she had
become completely calm, weeping sweet, not
bitter tears. She wanted to write something else
about that evening in her diary, but she was
afraid it would be too sentimental and she
would be ashamed of it the next morning. So
she only scribbled two lines in pencil:
A day in which you only loved, Is too beautiful
for you to describe.
She laid the violin down solemnly on the empty
chair next to her bed and fell asleep smiling.
*
It turned out that Bella Maßmann had
already met Gaston before. As soon as he
picked her up at the station with Aaren, they
recognized each other. Bella was a little
embarrassed, but Gaston immediately saved the
situation with a harmless joke. Aaren laughed,
her changed relationship with Gaston from
friend to sister no longer making her take this
adventure too seriously. She gave her brother a
few good, but joking slaps in the face and gave
him a good tug on his amber-yellow hair. But
then she reconciled the two of them, who now
shook hands warmly.
The young, delicate priest's apprentice
without any particular features, who was
addressed by everyone, young and old, only by
his first name "Neander", contributed a great
deal to this peaceful outcome. Gaston had
brought him to the station on a premonition,
and from the moment Bella pressed her little
feet on the unfamiliar ground, the amiable
young man was anxious for the young girl. The
two of them were extremely shy when they
spoke together, starting every sentence with
"Oh! Oh!" and completely confusing each other
when they looked at each other. It was
Then it was as if their eyes became entangled
with each other and they turned red in the face
with the effort to untangle them. Strangely
enough, they were able to play together without
the slightest shame or shyness. On the contrary,
with the violin pressed firmly under her round
chin, she vied to win his approval even more
than Gaston's and to play only half as
beautifully as Neander.
The four of them now practiced every day
and hour that Neander did not have to baptize
one person or bury another. Gaston had found
the best room for his preparations for the great
winter campaign in a small side room of the
Aurhaus. There he drilled himself and his
soldiers on a daily basis, among whom "the
little hussar" was his favorite. Nothing seemed
more beautiful to him than when they talked
like this, instruments in hand, on which they
could make the most ardent declarations of love
and exchange the sweetest caresses without
Tello and Violin asking whether they were
brother and sister. Here their souls found each
other, mingled and mated without words in
play, and both never tired of enjoying this
spiritual voluptuousness, a supernatural feeling
similar to that which the priest feels when he is
surrounded by incense, surrounded by bells,
brings the eel to his lips and drinks the wine,
the blood of his god, into himself. - Only one
person again disturbed the "complete (5*
Harmony" of the four, which, as Gaston,
smilingly referring to Leibnitz before each
rehearsal, explained anew, had to be "pre-
stabilized" when playing auartets. That was old
Maßmann.
This scrawny little philistine with his big
bald head and his golden glasses on his short
sausage nose had declared from the outset that
he would never let his "dear, sweet, chubby
Aleine" - he suddenly became more tender than
even Madame la Tomtesse poczerewska - travel
alone. He thought the whole thing was a mere
whim, as he, who sat in his store all day, had
hardly heard his daughter play the violin.
Besides, he hated that scratchy instrument
which his blessed daughter, now soft, full and
plump in effig-ie, but with a long meaningless
face painted on her, had once brought into his
quiet home. Mr. Maßmann liked to read a few
pretty, harmless stories by Otto Ernst or Gustav
Falke from the lending library before his nap,
probably also leafed through the "^örn Uhl"
once in a while or let a waltz on the phonograph
drone peacefully and smilingly into the
dreamless sleep of a little civil servant, but
classical music, God forbid, or "6iuck devures!"
as the good Mrs. Aamundsen, who spoke to her
Lord God in Norwegian, would have said. It
was only out of concern for his dear Aleine,
who was not subject to the fantasies of her
"twisted" friend
He had made himself into a series and traveled
along. Now, with his thick nose and mild,
lackluster eyes, he stood around behind his
golden glasses as an annoying addition to the
rough ones. He always had something to
grumble and growl about, like a dog that wants
to get his ankle. He thought the whole idea was
cranky and hunchbacked and overstretched and
not at all suitable for making money, and that
was all that mattered in the world. - Gaston
tried to persuade him to go for walks in the
beautiful surrounding countryside in order to
get rid of him as soon and as well as possible.
But this bespectacled bourgeois seemed to
have an even more unfavorable view of nature
than of Gaston's ideas for musical pleasure.
Suddenly, to the delight of all four of us,
Mr. Maßmann was rarely seen at rehearsals
anymore. He now usually slept until around
noon, he who had usually left his apartment at
nine o'clock sharp every morning, and was
getting more and more nervous from day to
day. At ten o'clock in the evening, when the
concert in the Aurhaus had finished, he would
leave the small inn where he had taken up
residence with his daughter, his hands and legs
trembling, and only return at the crack of
dawn, gray in the face, tired as if from galley
work.
If you had followed him on his walk in the
evenings, you would have been surprised by
the frequent
Mr. Maßmann, who was turning around, would
have noticed how this good citizen ran around
the Aurhaus a few times like a raven, only to
disappear into a small dark door that led into
the courtyard of an annex to the Aurhaus. An
iron spiral staircase ascended in this courtyard
next to the building. On the second floor, Mr.
Maßmann stopped to blow and knocked three
times on the iron door that led into the house.
The door opened, an old woman who had
opened it for him pushed open a second leather
door for him, and Mr. Maßmann stood in the
paradise he had longed for. It was a rather bare,
square 5aal, decorated in white stucco, without
any windows, with many chairs around a long
green table. To the left was an alcove reserved
for the bar, which opened here after two o'clock
in the morning. A blind man would have
realized from the fine alang of the coins on the
soft green cloth and the hot breath of the people
staring at the cards around the table that this
was a gambling den. And the banker, the
organizer of these forbidden pleasures, who
cold-bloodedly laid his trente et quarante before
all greedy eyes, was none other than the
amiable Count Poczerewski, that noble Pole
whose fiery, dark looks had still disturbed poor
Bolette Aamundsen's widow's rest when he,
with aristocratic nonchalance - Polish counts
are always non
chalant - had said: "But please, ma'am, keep
your seat!" His wife didn't seem to be in the
seaside resort, at least they hadn't been seen
together here yet.
3In this gambling den, the brave Mr.
Naßmann spent the most unvirtuous but blissful
hours of his life, entering the room every night
at ten twenty and leaving it last at six in the
morning. Only Privy Councillor Liebenberg
next to him played with similar passion. But
this little Jew was one of the great gentlemen
and secret aaisers, as Gaston had once described
him to Aaren, and possessed seventy trillion,
while poor old Naßmann had only a small
fortune of his deceased wife, which was
intended for Bella, to administer, and,
moreover, only small savings, which he had set
aside for his old age.
Gaston first noticed the changes that
threatened the very foundations of the old
Naßmann's character. One afternoon he had
picked up Neander from the Airchhof, who had
preached at a funeral in Ainder. They both
walked side by side in the sunshine to the
rehearsal at the Aurhaus, where the Dainen
were waiting for them. Neander carried his
viola hidden under his gown, which he had
thrown over his arm. The trees in the avenue
they were walking through had already turned
brown-red.
Every now and then, a leaf fell from the
treetops to the ground, rippling like a silken
thread in the golden glow of the autumn sun.
The two of them tried in vain to march in time
to a Beethoven sonata they were whistling.
"Don't you think," Gaston interrupted, "that
my father's will, which I gave you to read
yesterday, is quite absurd?"
"Certainly! Surely!" Neander stuttered in
excitement, "logically, an unmarried Wann, a
bachelor with an unbroken backbone would
have to be the Arone of creation. Look at them,
these Arons! Ridiculous, as if the beautiful
impulse to build a nest, a home, and to
procreate were not an inviolable part of human
nature and of nature as a whole!"
"Bravo, Lunäi6utu8 theologiae!" added
Gaston. "Weren't Goethe and Napoleon also
husbands, and didn't they end up lying on the
ground as eagles with broken wings, while the
goose woman stood cackling upright, as my
father fantasized, with strong references to
Zarathustra, by the way?"
As the two were consoling each other about
the value of marriage, a strange-looking couple
came strolling down the avenue towards them.
A strikingly dressed lady with a pale, powdered
face and a strongly built gentleman in a Greek
fantasy costume.
25 (
"That's Diomedes Sterz!" Gaston called
out, stepping towards him, "and you, am I not
mistaken, are Tatyana Lewska!"
"Yes! We've become a couple," explained
the Saxon new Greek, "on a trial period like in
Japan, you see 1"
"Two years for the time being," the
beautiful Tatjana called out between them with
her old, sweet, shameless laugh.
"But what are you doing here in this mouse
hole?" Gaston asked her in astonishment.
"The same as you!" Diomedes replied with
a sideways glance at Neander's viola, which
was peeking out from under the gown, "we're
playing. Why don't you come there at
midnight? Pick me up! I'll give you a tour.
Liebenberg, Ginsterling, the Hungerling,
Tassel, the Dog's Snout, toute la bände from
the Maison Remy, meet you there. Gs gave
Heuer a pure secessio of the Geldplebs of
Berlin in montem suorum here, when one
learned of these: secret play heaven. You see,
there comes such a gnome who tastes the
delights of hell!"
Diomedes pointed to a small figure coming
towards them across the field, talking to
himself as if disturbed.
"What, old Maßmann, a gambler?" cried
Gaston. "That's impossible. You're joking
again."
But Maßmann finally recognized Gaston
when he was almost in front of him, turned
around quickly and stumbled away
He went back across the field without realizing
that he had lost his hat.
"No joke at all, my dear fellow!" said
Diomedes. "Aerl still owes me a hundred-mark
bill that I advanced him yesterday. But he seems
to be as afraid of you as he is of his good
conscience. Line droll old screw! We always
call him the repeater watch. I want to hurry after
him. Come along, Tatyana!"
And as he was leaving, he called out: "So
you're picking up niid? By the way, your
stepfather is holding the bench. Au revoir,"
Gaston and Neander were both speechless at
this adventure. They could still see Diomedes
standing the old man of measure in the field,
while Tatjana Lewska stood laughing beside
him. Then they heard the peaceful old man of
measure shouting in a wild voice that neither of
them recognized in him: "Fake players! All of
them cheats!" and saw that he continued to fly
away across the stubble field like a big, black,
disheveled bird. It was quite spooky to watch
the little man dressed in black, waving his arms
and legs and lifting them like four strange wings
over which he no longer had any power,
jumping around like that, without a hat, without
glasses, and always croaking: "Fake players!
Fake player!" he croaked.
The other afternoon after this encounter,
Neander came running to Gaston in great
excitement.
"Just think, old Maßmann has disappeared,
hasn't been home since last night. Bella is
downstairs. The police have been notified.
Something must have happened!"
Gaston was immediately ready to join the
search. Down on the street, they saw the town's
security guard with a large police dog preparing
to inspect the surrounding area and the Aurpark.
Bella just sobbed more. On Gaston's advice,
they went back to the inn. A few curious eyes
watched the three of them with the voluptuous
shudder that people feel at unexplained events.
Once more the room in which Mr. Maßmann
was staying was searched thoroughly, without a
trace being discovered. The only conspicuous
thing they found, under Gaston's secret smile,
beside his library, which consisted of a well-
read volume by Gerstäcker, was a series of
booklets and brochures with the titles: "U)ie
werde ich ohne Mühe reicht, or: "Wie sprenge
ich die Bank?" or: "Rouge et noir", "Red today,
dead tomorrow", or: "My experiences in Monte
Tarlo", or: "All the chances of winning at
Trente-et-Qua- rante, completely systematized
by a gambler who has become rich", or "Rules
for games of chance" and many other similar
publications. In between lay a stamp collection
from which, as Neander noted, the more
valuable pieces had been cut out with scissors.
Perplexed
They went down again and, so as not to return
to the street, they stepped out into the courtyard
behind the inn. It was oppressively humid
outside under the chestnut trees, which cast a
blue-black shadow over the courtyard. A large,
gray cat preened its paws and ran up a tree in
front of the three of them, startled. The tall
Georgines shone yellow and red up to them.
Unthinking, relaxed, they walked down into the
garden as if attracted by the light. A few bees
hovered sleepily up and down on the flowers,
while many fat autumn flies buzzed between
them, their greenish wings always clinging to
the flowers like rubber. It was very quiet. None
of the three knew what to say. Only Bella
swallowed occasionally, sobbing like a
frightened child.
Next to the pile of compost in the corner of
the garden at the back stood a former utility
shed, now long unused and rotting away with its
rotten wooden walls in which the sponge was
sitting. Seized by a sudden ominous
premonition, Gaston walked quickly towards it.
A swarm of fat blowflies, which had apparently
made their headquarters here, swirled up from
the heap of garbage next door, in which leaves
of cabbage, ripe flowers and fallen fruit were
rotting. Gaston tore at the door, which was
locked shut,
but the rotten wood soon gave way. There
crouched the old man of measure, his head
drooping, one hand on his anie, the other
hanging limply to one side.
"But Mr. Maßmann! To frighten us like
that!" cried Neander, who had joined us in
confusion.
"Father!" sobbed Bella, wanting to
approach him despite an unpleasant feeling of
embarrassment.
"Get back!" Gaston shouted, holding his
arm in front of her. Gr had seen a blackish,
thick, already viscous pool of blood on the
wooden floor downstairs in the darkness of the
dwelling, with a revolver lying in the middle of
it. Dozens of flies, startled by these strangers,
buzzed out of the red and black mash and sat on
the corpse's hair, beard, aragen and aleider, as if
to announce that they had begun their reign
over this dead man. Gaston cringed at their
triumphant whirring. The old man of measure
had chosen this ugly place in the whole "wide
world to put an end to his failed little life. In
silence, the two men carried the girl, who had
fainted, into the house and onto her bed.
It was only a small procession of people
who followed the unattractive corpse to the
grave. Gaston and Aaren walked behind the
coffin, preceded by Neander without regalia,
who told him about his Christian
The suicide had been forbidden by his
superiors. Bella was still too weak to go along.
Among the victims was Egon Ginsterling, who
looked deathly pale and gaunt because he was
terribly upset, and next to him was Zakob
Quaste, who kept ranting about the nonsense of
dying. Diomedes Sterz had not come along out
of courage at the loss of the hundred marks. A
few old men, who, out of curiosity, went with
every corpse, concluded the sad procession.
Neander made such a beautiful speech at the
grave that even the sky above them was moved
by it and a heavy shower of rain fell on the bare
heads.
In the end, they were still glad that they
could duck into the hearse, as it was pouring
with water. The master trickled into the open
grave from all sides. The gravediggers stood
shivering under a weeping willow and waited
patiently for the rain showers that wove mold
and earth into a melancholy gray. At a rumbling
trot, the black stomach rattled back into town
with the funeral procession. They all looked
miserable, wrinkled and sad, as if they had
come from an institution.
***
 It turned out that old Maßmann had not only
used his own small savings, but also Bella's
fortune inherited from her mother until
had gambled away every last red dollar.
Neander, who owned a small fortune, shared
Gaston's concern for Bella's livelihood.
Count Poczewski was involved in the
suicide of the good philistine in a special way.
The police discovered from the: monogram on
the gun that the revolver with which the old
man had shot himself in the mouth was, or had
been, the property of the Polish count. There
was a judicial investigation, as a result of which
Grafpoczerewski was arrested for commercial
gambling.
Gaston was summoned to court one
morning to give evidence about the count's past
life. Furious at being an hour late for the trial
and having to be without Aaren, he rushed into
the courthouse. In his excitement, he ran into a
young lady dressed in bright red who was just
leaving the interrogation room: She had just
stepped out of the interrogation room.
"I'm so sorry/" he apologized, looking
embarrassed.
"O Gaston, I have long since forgiven you
for everything!" replied the lady, with a
strongly chastened expression. It was Anna, his
^r. u. She had returned to Germany not very
long ago, as she could not, of course, stay
forever in the New tzork Taf4 Ehantant, and
had immediately moved in with her aunt,
Madame Remy.
 On the very first evening she had shown her
Count Poczerewski, the man who had taken her
children into his lavish home, although Mouche
Delon - that was the artist's name of Gaston's
wife - had, with her aunt's consent, been careful
not to appear to Grasen as the mother of her
children: they both feared that they would
unexpectedly get them back again and were
glad enough to be rid of them so well and to be
able to say with the best conscience in the
world that they were well provided for. Mouche
Delon, however, was naturally interested in the
philanthropic count and missed no opportunity
in the easy-going house to make him the e^of.
So neither she nor her aunt were surprised
when the count asked her one day if she would
like to take over the bar in an intimate little
circle of players. She said yes - and she didn't
feel bad about it: in just a few weeks she had
already saved a not inconsiderable sum.
Old Maßmann had fallen victim to her
gradually fading beauty, having spent the last
few nights of his life drinking and spilling
several thousand marks' worth of champagne
with her in the hope of being able to draw this
open red rose to his fat nose and chest. Her
brittleness against him had put an end to his
despair.
Before Gaston had even recovered from this
unexpected reunion, he was attacked by
The bailiff called him into the 5aal for
questioning. Grinning with nervousness, he
said goodbye to his recovered wife and stood
before the judge, a kindly looking old
gentleman with small eyes, whose nose could
not have turned so red and purple from just
drinking water. Gaston made his statement.
"I hardly know Count j)oczerewski at all.
We are complete strangers, if not
unsympathetic. Proof of this is that he has not
sought me out here, but has shyly avoided me,
and that I have not felt the slightest desire to
continue my acquaintance with him. The only
relationship that exists between us," he added
laconically under the clerk's furtive smile, "is
that the Count is married to my mother, and is
therefore my stepfather."
"Pardon me if I interrupt you," interjected
the old district court judge, "the Countess j)o-
czerewska is your mother? That must be a
mistake, if you are the son of the deceased
Privy Medical Councilor v. Dülfert."
"I certainly am," Gaston confirmed,
trembling with excitement.
"I knew your father very well, we were
university friends, in my apartment he wrote
his pessimistic, brilliant will, which he was as
proud of as a turkey. Countess Poczerewska
Your mother! You are the 5 son of your
father and a young, charming Frenchwoman,
whom your mother, what am I saying? find your
way around these complicated Hamilian
relationships! - who had taken the Privy
Councillor v. Dülfert had taken as a companion.
Your real mother died when you were born.
Believe me, I know well enough about it, for it
was I who helped your father to arrange the
legitimization of an illegitimate - that is, your
legitimization."
Gaston held on to the wooden bar. It all
came to him so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that
he could not find the words to answer; he could
hardly pull himself together to make a silent
bow. He had never quite been able to
understand the utterly unmotivated cry of
"Mother!" that had torn itself out of him with
elemental force when he had stood on the
arancine bed in front of the countess.
Gaston emerged from the courthouse into
the daylight again, as dizzy as someone who has
spun around several times on the gymnastic bar
or ridden the Russian swing. Outside on the
street, a tornado was blowing up a run of dry
autumn leaves mixed with dust in a gray spiral.
Gaston rubbed his eyes, burning with
excitement from the dry dust that had flown into
them. He marveled that everything outside was
still standing and growing just as he had seen it
a quarter of an hour ago: the half-grown
2^
The row of defoliated trees, colored like old
gold in the morning sun, that led straight to the
Kurhaus, the arid fields that smelled of potato
weed, and the blue mountains on the distant
horizon that seemed to swim in the haze. He
had a feeling of immense astonishment that
everything was still as unchanged and alive as
it is when one has passed an examination or
heard a shocking piece of news, and, stepping
out into the air and life, sees everything as it
was before.
At that moment, a light carriage of a black
horse with white leather clothes and a bunch of
hatchets on its temples, which had already
appeared once at a so-called turning point in its
life, approached at the fastest trot. It carried the
Countess jDoczerewska, who, with a dumb
servant beside her, drove it herself. She had
come here as a witness for her husband and had
rented the entire first floor of the Kurhaus for
herself.
"Oh, Gaston, my dear, how happy I am to
see you so tanned again!" she called down
from the carriage. "What do you say to this
desastre? By the way, your little ones send
their love to you, the dear, golden creatures!
This good Mrs. Aamundsen is taking care of
them, in my absence of course. 5>She also
brought up my dear Karen, back then - -"
Gaston knew nothing to say in reply. The
feeling of happiness that this aging, made-up
woman
and fat woman with her dark red hair was not
his !mother and therefore Aaren was not his
sister, suddenly filled him to the brim with joy,
foaming joy. Not for a moment, of course, had
he been able to believe in this sibling
relationship with Aaren, in which he had
suddenly become embroiled as in a novel. Gr
had to run to her, tell her everything.
"But Gaston, don't you have anything to tell
me?" she interrupted his stormy thoughts.
"Not now!" he shouted and ran off. "Excuse
me! I'm in a j)ompadour mood. Apres moi le
delugel"
Chapter nine.
Headed off.
The great music tour with which Gaston
von Dülfert wanted to delight Germany failed;
it died before it was even born. Gaston raged
for a mile and took his displeasure out on those
who had let his idea down - Bella and her
blonde groom. But his powers of persuasion
were of no use to him, even if he could easily
influence the ideal theologian, he found
unexpected resistance from little Bella
Maßmann. It was as if the death of her father,
this first terrible event that struck her doll's life
like a bolt of lightning, had matured the little
girl overnight. The practical sense of the
original Berliner awoke in her, she suddenly
saw the whole situation with calm, clear eyes.
She loved Neander and he loved her - but it was
a healthy, staid bourgeois love, a love that
wanted to build a nest and nothing more. Oh
yes, there was a little bourgeois romance here
too, which love never lacks, but it was limited
to using a few colorful feathers and scraps of
paper to build a nest: Walks^at sunset, common
making music and beautiful dreams for the
future. That was all. And her feelings strongly
resisted sailing through the world on an unsafe
little ship. Bella Maßmann had grown up in a
calm, quiet middle-class home and her father's
example showed her that it was not good for
people of her type to venture out into the wide
world. She understood that well. It might be
good for Vr. v. Dülfert, good for Aaren too, but
never for her and her fair-haired bridegroom.
The influence of her friend, whose words until
then had been an oracle for her, burst like a
soap bubble: she was now her own master. A
very small master, of course, on a small clod of
earth - but still her own. She calmly reflected
that this tour would mean a complete break
with Neander's career under all circumstances
and that the future was quite uncertain. No, no!
His small fortune might be enough for them
both, especially as he would soon get a
permanent job - that meant a quiet, full,
peaceful life. - And on the other hand, a chase,
a rush through life, up and down - and certainly
down at the end - of that she was certain. So she
said: "No!" and stuck to her "No!"
And then she explained that she was going
back to Berlin. It was not proper for her to live
in the same place as a single girl
like her bridegroom. Gaston laughed, but the
Berlin woman explained to him that it didn't
matter how he viewed the situation. Only what
"the world" would say was decisive here. And
"the world" in this case was Neander's
superiors, preachers, consistories, airchen
councils, presbyters of the parishes and
patronage lords to whom Neander had applied
for an aanzel.
"A nice world!" Gaston scoffed.
Little Bella looked him straight in the face.
"Gs is the world, doctor, we have to reckon
with, my groom and I." She put her hands
together and her breath flew. And then she said
something that made the blond Neander blush
slightly and made Aaren astonished - she didn't
recognize her little friend.
"Don't you think, Mr. von Dülfert, that I
would rather lie in his arms tonight than
tomorrow? - But precisely because I long for it,
and ardently wish for the day when I may be his
- that is why I remain chaste! Because I want a
happiness for him and for me that will last
through the night; I want solid ground beneath
us - that's what I want!"
Aaren said nothing, but she held out her
hand to her friend. She felt that little Ulaßmann
was right in every one of these honest words,
but she also felt, more than ever, that there was
an aluft between them that nothing could
overpower.
5 She shook Bella's hand warmly, but she felt
as if it was a farewell for life.
Bella also felt something similar. - Her
world was not that of these people, and it
sounded as if she still wanted to show some
kindness to the friend from whom she was
parting forever when she now said, stammering:
"I want - I want - to make myself useful. I want
to clear up our flat in Berlin - maybe I'll save a
few pieces of furniture from my father's
creditors. And then - if you allow it - I want to
move in with Mrs. Aamund. - I want to help her
with the cattle until - until -"
Neander interrupted her. "Until we can get
married! - Soon - hopefully soon."
"Yes! Hopefully soon!" Bella repeated.
"But until then, I want to make myself useful."
*
Gaston walked around like a defiant boy
whose toy had been taken away. He took long,
lonely walks and avoided Aaren wherever he
could. The morning the old magistrate had told
him about his birth, he had run to Aaren in a
hurry, telling her with an exuberant heart that
she was not his sister. He loved her and she
loved him - he knew that well, and he had
probably expected that they would now
embrace each other in the most ardent manner.
would sink. And had completely forgotten that
no word of love had ever been exchanged
between them! Not now - not in Berlin - and
not then in Italy either. And neither of them
took the first small step. She waited for his
words, he for hers. And neither spoke.
So it happened that the news, which so
suddenly removed the seemingly
insurmountable obstacle between them, did not
bring them closer together, on the contrary, it
distanced them from each other. They had
forced themselves to look at each other with
brotherly eyes, had sought and found an outlet
for the feelings they harbored for each other in
light brotherly and sisterly tenderness. And so
they had become close, very close indeed, in
the certain feeling that a naked, separating
sword lay between them. But now this sword
had been taken away.
They felt that they had to come together -
but in a different way. And they didn't find that
way. They were groping in the dark, walking
past each other.
As they were walking, Ginmal said to
Aaren: "You're still married."
She lied; she felt well that this ghe was not
even for a moment a thing that separated them,
that could keep them from sinking into each
other's arms. And she felt that Gaston felt the
same, and that he knew well that she was lying.
And yet
she did. It was as if she was looking for
obstacles to her love - now that there were
none.
And he sighed and remained silent, seeming
to give in to her lie. So he returned her insult.
**
*
He walked through the autumnal avenues;
he felt how the fresh air gave him back his old
strength. Now he was well and back to himself.
And he saw his past gliding past him like a
roll movie in the Ainema. But he saw the
pictures like a stranger, read the story of his life
like the book of some poet who was completely
distant from him.
There was the first childhood and the
parental home. The man who never took care of
him, who let him grow up like a wild weed -
that was his father. And the beautiful, tall
woman was his mother. - Yes, she was, she was
Ainde's mother, but Anabe had no relations in
the house, neither with her nor with him. He
only loved the big yellow St. Bernard dog that
he played with in the garden.
Of course, he had no memory of the other
woman, his real mother. Of course, he had gone
back to the magistrate, his father's old friend, to
have him repeat in detail what he had been told
by his father.
had already said in broad outline during his
examination as a witness. There was one thing
he still didn't understand: if his father had loved
this woman - his real mother - so dearly, how
had he come to make such an incredible will?
N)ow had he come to his cold, almost equally
hostile mood towards him, his son, when he
was an aind of hot love? But the old council
had also enlightened him about this: a few
months after the partner's death, her letters had
been found - her intimate correspondence with
a third party. And the old cynical magistrate
smiled as he said: "Yes, you know, my dear
young friend: La recherche de la paternit6 est
interdite!"
Gaston laughed bitterly. He changed his
fathers and mothers! So perhaps he was not the
son of old Mr. v. Dülfert? Perhaps - who could
know? In any case, his father had never got
beyond this doubt throughout his fine life, and
it was this circumstance that had driven him to
study Burgundy so diligently, during which the
district court judge had overheard him many a
time.
When he was barely six years old, he was
taken away. To a pension, to an old professor.
And the terrible school years began, lasting
twelve endless years. He ran away three times -
but what was the point? He would be taken to
another town and another school. He was
alone among strangers, and when he was at
home on vacation, he was even lonelier. That's
how he grew up.
University came and freedom. He enjoyed it
to the full and drank in his youth until the drink
became stale. Accustomed to receiving any
amount from his father, he became a beggar
from one day to the next when his father died.
There was nothing, nothing. Only debts - his
own and his father's.
Then he leapt into life. And became an
alarm in one night. He did not think of looking
for any job, firmly convinced that he would
never fill even the smallest one to the
satisfaction of his superiors. He would never be
able to work his way up: if he wanted to be at
the top, he had to start at the top. He felt good
about that.
He had nothing but two large, clear eyes
that could see. But that would have to suffice.
He went to the races. He knew some people
at the Turf and soon understood how to lay the
odds that were good and throw away the tips
that were just phrases. He bet and he won.
He played the stock market. He made trips
for bars and for Baedecker; he was
representative enough and had a strong sense of
organization.
But the interim profits, that was his force,
those were the real main profits! He laughed
when he thought of the delicious land
speculation in the Schulzenstraße in the east of
Berlin. It had helped him to set up a public
limited company
Admittedly, the admissions office of the stock
exchange had also put on a somewhat
dismissive face at first, but he knew how to get
the people around. So the prospectus was
tweaked a little differently. The main thing was
always to keep the right instinct for the
borderline. That's where many an ingenious ape
failed. How did the good Daniel August
Stöcklin, with whom he met in Baku, fare? Gin
man, full of grandiose ideas, who only lacked a
feeling for how far the bourgeois order could be
bent without the: bow-tie with a hard blow to
his own face. How he might have reflected in
prison on the brilliant time during which he
played the little Lord God as Mr. "von Gklin" at
the Saxon machine factory Hartmann in
Themnitz!
And Gaston felt well that he was made of
nobler stuff. He created trouble wherever he
went, grabbed money from the §uft and yet
remained a decent man.
But it wasn't the gel that appealed to him -
only the §eben. Gr won fortunes and threw
them back out the window. Gr rode in all
saddles and all doors opened wide for him. And
he felt that he was a master.
 But then there was something that kept
throwing him out of everything. Line longing, a
great one,
indomitable greed for impossibilities, an eternal
fervent dreaming of all the stars.
Once he thought he was a poet. So he
wrote. But he tore it all up again as soon as it
was on paper. He struggled long enough, but he
never succeeded in saying what he felt and
thought. The form killed him, the form.
"I am a poet," he thought, "a poet of life."
Yes, he might well have been. But he well
realized that it was the most dangerous thing
there could be for a human being: such a steam
boiler without a valve. The poet took up his
pen, the painter his paintbrush, and the tone
poet flapped his wings - the wild imagination
ran riot. But he was an artist who could not
write poetry, paint or compose: there was no
outlet for the glowing lava of his soul.
He sometimes took up the eello, but even
then he could not say in tones what swelled his
chest. He was only allowed to sing a strange
song, a marvelous, wonderfully beautiful - - but
still a strange one. And so it happened that
often enough his playing did not soothe him -
no, it chased him even deeper, even wilder into
all the whirlpools of life.
Then he let his little ship drift. That was the
time when fine brains were always devising
new, ever more adventurous plans; where only
profit could tempt him.
which had some great, strange aftertaste. He
had traveled around for j)ierpont Morgan and
had bought many a splendid work of art and -
what was more - smuggled it out of Italy,
despite the strict controls. He had caught wild
horses for Hagenbeck in the high plateau of
Iran and had discovered Lady Diana Baughan
and her good devil Bitru with Leo Taxil, his
good friend. He had fixed South African
diamond shares and sold a new type of
submarine to the Navy Department of the
United States. He had - -
But everything, everything seemed to him
to be just a boredom game. Whatever he started
interested him only for a moment and left him
completely indifferent after a short time. Out of
a certain selfishness, he finished what he had
started, but never took on another job of the
same kind and always lived in a great sense of
expectation: one more thing had to come.
Just what? Yes - what? - The great game of
life -
He thought about all his pranks and
adventures and let them pass him by one by
one. Strange - there was not one that he
regretted, not one that he might miss in his
life.Or perhaps--------------his marriage?
 Certainly, that was his stupidest prank! He
had Mouche Delon in a London music hall
and it could not be denied that she was
delightful on the stage. He was seated with
three in his box, dashing, rich boys of the
Gentry. They had come from the Alub, and
were drinking whisky, and joking and laughing,
and looking up admiringly and lustfully enough
at the beautiful diva.
"I'll have her I," cried Iohnnie Davis.
Tecil Graham laughed: "Ten to one! I get
siel"
"You? - Twenty to one she'll be mine,"
cried Lionel.
And Gaston von Dülfert threw his trump
card: "One hundred to one for me!" That was
their game. But it became serious as they bet.
Sir Lionel Gronow pulled out his notebook and
entered the odds. And he put ten thousand
pounds sterling on his aarte. They gave
themselves three weeks.
After the performance, they went to her
dressing room together. But Wouche Delon was
clever enough; she knew the young twirlers of
London and knew well that nothing appealed to
them more than to find severity where it was
not expected. She was cool and very dismissive
- bah, she gave the flowers to the hairdresser.
The race began and they took it seriously
like good sportsmen. They started with roses,
soon moved on to diamonds and ended with
pretty cars. - But the diva sent this one back
like the
others. She cried every time she did it, but she
felt with sure instinct how her value would rise
with every rejection. And it did, with every
week, every day, every single hour. One
Sunday, Lord Graham proposed to her. She
somersaulted with joy when she received the
letter, but she did not accept immediately. She
was so in the habit of refusing that she
answered him coolly enough, asking three days
to think it over.The next day she received two
requests at once------------------------and she
gave Gronow and Davis the same answer
"Now only the fourth must come!" she
laughed out loud. And he did come, came
himself - Dr. Gaston v. Dülfert. She wanted to
turn him away, like the others, wanted to have
free time to choose. She showed him the letters
from the others and asked him to wait like her.
But he wouldn't let her rest. He wanted to be
the first to reach the finish line and win his
race; so he let the full force of his personality
take effect, giving her no time to think. Only
weakly, almost overwhelmed, did she consider
the chances. Rich - well, they were certainly
rich, all four of them. Of course, she should
have inquired -
The one in front of her had a small blemish,
of course. But it was a German. If she took one
of the others, she would surely have to stay in
England, that dreadful country she hated. So
she returned to Germany------------------
17
 "Dr. v. Dülfert," she thought, "that sounds
quite nice!"
So she said: yes.
His three friends were best men. As they
walked away from the wedding luncheon,
Davis said, "Ainder, I honestly tried hard to win
my bet, I fought like a gentleman. But - God
punish me - I'm so glad I lost it!"
The others laughed; they were no less
happy.
Only Gaston wasn't laughing at all. And it
was very difficult for him to wear the mask of a
happy lover to his acquaintances.
But little Mouche - now Mrs. Anna v.
Dülfert - was also bitterly disappointed. She
believed she could wrap this man around her
finger, she believed in his great passion and
was disappointed enough when Gaston calmly
told her the reason for the four proposals. "For
the rest," he concluded, "it is best to spoon up
the soup you have made for yourself."
And for a good while, Gaston had indeed
tried hard to establish a more or less tolerable
relationship between himself and his now wife.
He had tried hard to elevate her, to broaden her
horizons, to fill out her rather inadequate
education a little. He traveled with her in
Europe and in America, hoping to gain all the
advantages of the soft growth he saw in every
woman.
gradually knead out a very pretty figure. But he
was very wrong: beyond the external forms, his
pedagogical attempts had very little success.
5o He let her go her way and went his own
way. If it hadn't been for the Ainder, he would
have simply bid her adieu without bothering
about her any further. 5o But again and again
he made a fruitless attempt on the other. Then,
when he realized that any cohabitation with this
woman was a lie, when he saw her becoming
intimate with any artist almost before his eyes,
he grabbed his suitcases. He gave her
everything he had at that moment, even leaving
her the Ainder, for whom she pretended to have
a great love, while he felt little enough for her
at the time.
5>o he departed, once again a beggar. But
not for long: picture purchases, which he
brokered between the King of Belgium and
j)ierpont Worgan, 5peak sales, which he
arranged between the Duchess Amelie of
Orleans and the London Rothschilds, and
petroleum drilling, which he and Liebenberg
drilled in Galicia, soon made him a rich tub
again.
Then came the last year, came his
acquaintance with Adam Wisconsin, his flight
and his fall. Aam the half-forgotten Aaren,
came the rediscovered Wutter and the new
stepfather. Aamen his Ainder back, Aaren
suddenly appeared as his
<7*
Sister in front of him and finally, to make the
great whirl full, he lost the mother again - as
mother - and Aaren - as sister!
He laughed, it was a bit much all at once.
Foreign forces had clumsily intervened in his
life, crude powers had whisked and twirled his
fate with clumsy creative whimsy so that it
looked like a half-baked apple strudel. And in
all this he had lost himself, had allowed himself
to be torn to and fro by conflicting feelings, had
become sentimental, almost bourgeois-
banausic. Ah, it was high time he found his way
back to himself.
He walked through the lonely avenues, the
cheerful autumn wind chasing the brown
chestnut leaves before him. He expanded his
mighty chest and felt good that he was now
healthy.
He went to a garden restaurant outside and
asked for tea. The wide terrace was deserted in
the afternoon sun, only two young girls were
sitting at the table next to him, the last summer
guests. They were drinking tea like him, but he
could see that they had just come from work:
Paintboxes, Held chairs, stretched canvas
frames, small easels stood around them. He
glanced at the colourful, half-finished studies
and recognized the type immediately. "Munich
painters," he murmured.
The two blonde girls didn't bat an eye at
him. They were busy calculating and he took
from
The few words he understood told him that they
were calculating how long their money would
last and how many days they could stay here.
One of them had emptied the money from two
purses onto the table and was counting it, the
other was adding up the remaining expenses. Gr
heard her say quickly and carelessly: "Three
times seven is twenty-one - twenty-two at most
- it will be enough, CiUy, it will be enough!"
The painters shouted for the Aellner, paid,
packed up their sevenfolds and walked away
laughing. Gaston watched them go.
"Ah, that's life!" he whispered. "This is the
fresh, joyful life. The life that proudly rises
above all the nagging and rules and goes its
own way. That somersaults over stupid stones
that lie in its way, that climbs trees and eats
unripe apples with delight. It swings its legs and
laughs merrily at all the people who know
about the rule de tri!"
The sun was setting, its last rays kissing the
vibrant colors of the autumn garden. Cheeky
sparrows hopped on the deserted table and
pecked at the breadcrumbs. They squabbled and
chirped loudly in a happy mood.
Gr said: "Three times seven is twenty-one -
at most twenty-two!" - Has any wise man ever
put the love of life into a better formula than
this blonde girl? Has ever one of the instinctive
given a more splendid expression of contempt
for all bourgeois values? - Twenty-one -
twenty-two at the most! - May all the good gods
guide you, you young thing - you are in truth
my sister!"
That evening he felt a tremendous desire for
action, a strong, powerful will to create
something. He walked around his hotel room,
searching and searching, letting a hundred
adventurous plans arise in his mind, and finally
he did as the two Munich painter girls had
done: he sat down and did the math, calculating
how much money he currently owned. And it
was almost a pleasant feeling to finally realize
that he was once again almost finished: there
were hardly a few thousand mark bills left and
his debts might be five times as much.
"All right!" he muttered, "so I have to make
money firstI" That satisfied him. Now half the
work was done - he knew what he had to do.
And he also wanted to find the "how".
The gong struck; he went down to dinner.
Aaren was not at the table; the waiter told him
in answer to his question that the mistress had
ordered dinner to her room. 5o He ate alone.
Then he went into the reading room, took a
dozen or so newspapers and retreated into an
aluminum armchair. He smoked heavily, one
cigarette after another,
He drank whisky and soda with it. And he read,
read for hours - the trade section everywhere.
Suddenly he jumped up. "That's it!" he
shouted. He went to his desk and wrote, thought
about it for a long time and then wrote again.
He closed the envelope and addressed it: "Mr.
Aommerzienrat Liebenberg. By express
messenger."
He looked at his watch: half past one. "It'll
be fine!" he shouted, "I'll be at the station in
twenty minutes." He picked up his hat and
walked through the night.
The Berlin train was just pulling into the
hall when he arrived. He threw his letter into
the mail coach himself.
Laughing and singing, he went back and
beat down the thistle heads on the side of the
road with his stick. Then he came into the hotel,
played for a while with the landlord's cheeky
dachshunds, who barked at him, and went up to
his room. He undressed, walked across the
corridor to the bathroom in his pyjamas and
took a cold shower.
Then he went to bed.
And he fell asleep, happy and light, and
almost happy.
***
The sun was high enough in the sky when
he woke up. Someone knocked and he shouted:
"Come in!" The letter carrier came to his
bedside and handed him a dispatch.
 He tore it open and read: "Agreed, half-
part. Ciebenberg." He jumped out of bed and
rummaged in his trouser pockets. He took out a
ten-mark coin and gave it to the messenger.
"There, my tongue! As a reward! Not for
you - but for me!"
So Liebenberg agreed! So his thought had
been a good one, since this old fox was biting
so happily! Then it was indeed a NAUion
business that he had pulled out of his fingers
last night - between a cigarette and a glass of
whisky! - He stood in front of the mirror and
made a polite bow to his image. "Respect! All
respect!" he laughed.
He got dressed and then went to Aaren's
room to fetch her for breakfast. He knocked
and opened it at her call.
He found her standing in the middle of the
tree, in her hat and jacket, completely ready to
go. The suitcases and bags stood around her.
He sighed. "You want to leave?" he asked.
She nodded, hard and short sounding, "Za!
- I would have left two hours ago," she
continued, "if you hadn't gotten up so late. Now
I'm standing there waiting for you!"
He sat down on a chair. "The devil take me
-" he began. But he interrupted himself. "No,
Aaren, I don't want to get angry today. I'm in a
wonderful mood and I want to share it with
you.
share with you and not carry your bad mood I -
Jdj tell you, Aaren, life is a comedy and a funny
one at that. I've found a nice little gig and that's
why I'm happy."
She said, "I don't understand you."
Gr laughed: "I believe you! - So listen:
yesterday I thought of a good new job and I told
Liebenberger about it that very night! - Here,
read his answer!"
Gr handed her the telegram, she took one
look at it and carelessly handed it back.
"What are you doing?" she asked coolly.
Gaston jumped up. "What's that supposed to
mean?Three times seven is twenty-one - - at
most twenty-two that's what itII Gs means
that I'm myself again That I'm standing on my
own ground again and have the desire for new
journeys in life. That I am healthy, that I am
breathing freely again and am out of the haze of
this past year. That I am inwardly free from all
society and realize again that a single lazy joke,
a single jingle with the bell-cap of good Mr.
Jakob Quaste is worth infinitely more than all
your bourgeois respectability! That I have had
enough of all the Bella Maßmanns and
Neanders, all the Aamundfens and
poczerewskis! That - -"
She interrupted him."Forgive me - Count
Poczerewski and----------------------------seem
so very bourgeois to me
Not to be my mother right now." She said: my
mother, and emphasized it sharply.
He laughed. "You're right, Aaren! They're
probably not bourgeois! But they would never
learn to understand the good word: three times
seven is twenty-one, at most twenty-two!" And
he told her the little experience of yesterday
afternoon. "O Aaren," he concluded, "that word
was the golden conclusion of all my meditation.
It was a verse which laughing fortune wrote in
my destiny's book!"
She looked at him wide-eyed. Yes, that was
the Gaston from before, standing there in front
of her. This tall, laughing, dreamy ^unge whom
she loved. This splendid, honest man who was
nevertheless a bit of a braggart, a bit of a
braggart and a bit of a rennomist. For whom the
deed itself was not the main thing, but only the
thought of being able to say: "Look what a
great guy I am!" He was all about the gesture
and could commit the noblest of deeds for the
sake of a beautiful pose - but also quite dubious
pranks.
She felt good that she loved him
-----------------------------------------------------
ashe was And she also felt that this Wann
needed a hand to guide him, and that she herself
possessed this small hand. And yet the old
contradiction stirred in her. His certainty, his
strong self-confidence hurt her deeply; she
realized that this man had nothing in the world
fully and seriously. But her self-love very much
demanded to be taken seriously. But he would
never do that, never, not even for a moment. He
would only ever see her as a toy.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she bit her
lips and fought them back with a tremendous
effort. Her fires trembled, but her lips fell cold
and hard: "I see, Gaston, you are well again.
Completely well. You don't need me anymore. I
will go now."
He grabbed her hands, "Aaren," he begged,
"Aaren -"
His voice sounded soft, like an Anaben's
voice. She heard her name and all pride melted
in her chest. She could have thrown her arms
around his neck and kissed him. She felt that
she had to do it, that she was necessary to his
life. Yes - that was it! If only he would tell her,
just one little time. Only this one, smallest
concession he should make to her pride.
And she asked softly: "Do you need me?" It
was supposed to sound soft, sweet and good.
But it came out harsh like the other one,
sounding like a last cry of offended self-love.
He realized it well. He felt that he needed
her, just her and no one else, felt that he had to
say "yes" at all costs. But he also realized that
she wanted to hear this "yes", that she expected
it and wanted to force him to say it.
 So he said defiantly: "Need? - No I - I don't
need anyone."
She felt the blood rush to her temples, she
turned red with anger and shame down to the
roots of her hair, she said nothing; they stood
silently opposite each other without looking at
each other.
Each one waited. For minutes.
Then there was a knock. The servant came
in to fetch her suitcases. The carriage was
waiting - was the lady ready? 5 She nodded.
Gaston said: "Shall I walk you to the train?"
"Thank you." Soundless, short, torn.
Äe walked out of the room. "Goodbye,
Gaston," she murmured.
And he said, "Goodbye."
That was her farewell.
*
*
Gaston von Dülfert whistled the cinoise as
he stepped out of Aaren's room. But he broke
off in the middle, his thin lips twisted into an
ugly, bitter laugh. He had a fine bill handed to
him and rang the bell for the room waiters. He
ordered them to grab his suitcases and stood
idly in the window watching them.
 He wanted to take the beer clock train.
What was he supposed to do in the meantime?
 The countess had left again after a two-day
stay, with her husband, who had been released
from prison on bail. Stertz and Tatjana and
Ginsterling had returned a short time after
them; Privy Councillor Liebenberg had only
been in the small spa for a few days. - Should
he go to Neander to bid him farewell? He shook
his head; he felt that he would be abusive and
insulting to the good boy today.
He had a little breakfast, ordered his
suitcase to be taken to the station and a ticket to
Berlin to be bought for him. Then he took his
hat and went for a last walk.
He walked far out of the small town, his
beloved lonely path through the J)ark. Taking a
detour, he finally came back to the same quiet
inn where he had been yesterday. He didn't
enter, walked around the building and the
garden and strolled through the autumnal,
yellow lupine fields.
Then he saw two easels standing close
together and two large white painting screens.
"Twenty-one - twenty-two at the most!"^ he
thought. "That's where my painting girls are
sitting."
They sat behind their umbrellas, turned their
backs on him and did not see him. Slowly and
quietly enough, he came closer.
 He heard them laughing loudly; then one of
them raised her voice.
You catch:
"When the capercaillie mates, when the red
toad caws, when the Rohlbrennerbua cries, it's
the most beautiful time."
And the other one quickly came to mind:
Blue is the sky, White is the snow, And that
the sky is burning red, We know anyway!"
Gaston had come close enough; he was
barely a step behind the Ulal umbrellas. He
could hear them laughing and chatting.
"Still so flaming red, Lili?"
"Still!"
"Still the Sepp?"
"Well, you know that! - Still do!"
And they laughed and sang the beautiful
song about the "Schimmi, der noch am Leb'n is
g'we'n".
Gaston crept back as quietly as he had
come. A feeling of envy seized him. Ah, to live
like those two big children, into the blue day!
Twenty-one - at most twenty-two l
He walked slowly through the park towards
the station. Then he heard the clock strike three
quarters, so he hurried and took long strides.
And he made it at the last moment, the porter
gave him his ticket and the baggage receipt,
tore a loupe-
door and carried the handpieces inside. Gaston
paid him off and got in himself as the train was
already pulling up.
Line Dame sat in the other corner. "Excuse
me!" said Gaston lightly.
"Excuse me - -" he repeated again,
somewhat haltingly. The lady laughed - it was
Mouche Delon, his wife, Anna v. Dülfert.
"But here you go!" she said, "Nothing to
apologize for. Since when have you been so
shy?"
Shy - well, he wasn't exactly shy, but he
was downright embarrassed. Lr would have
preferred to lean back in his corner and keep
quiet, but he felt that he could hardly avoid an
argument. So he instinctively tried to make
light conversation; he pointed to the notebook
she was holding and asked indifferently: "What
are you reading there?"
She held the book in front of his face,
laughing, and he read: "You may commit
adultery. By Herbert Lulenberg."
"Line nice reading," she said, "what? - You
like the author, don't you? Lin clean fruit, like
you?"
Gaston pursed his lips, "Do you think so? -
He'll probably be a very decent man and a very
good husband. - Dogs that bark don't bite." Lr
interrupted himself, trying to get off the subject.
"You've been here until now?"
he asked. "I thought you were long gone."
She laughed again: "You're not an attentive
husband, otherwise you would have looked
around for me! But of course - you had other
things to do!"
He snapped: "What I have to do is none of
your business! - I'm not even thinking about
taking care of your business."
"Well, dear man," she mocked, "don't get
upset! You ask what else I had to do here? I've
helped the count's lords to put their affairs in
order here! - Fine people!" she concluded with
honest admiration. "You could have looked
after them a little too."
"Of course!" he nodded. He thought that he
should certainly have taken care of her; the
simplest courtesy demanded it. He had found
shelter and care in her house; he had lain there
for long weeks. But an instinctive aversion to
this tall, dolled-up woman, his mother - no - but
his father's wife - had been so strong that he had
deliberately avoided any approach.
"Aren't you going to go and apologize?" she
continued. "Then everything will be fine."
Her: tone sounded so deliberately superior
that he looked up in astonishment.
27J
"What will be good?" he asked.
"Well, they're a little angry with you!" she
continued. "You can't hold that against them!"
He laughed. "Certainly not! - But I don't
care at all whether they're evil or not!"
"Well, as you wish! They've made their
villa available to us; they have a very beautiful
villa on Lake Garda, I've seen the photographs.
We could have lived there so beautifully - you
too! - Now we'll have to move there on our
own."
He looked at her wide-eyed. "Who - us?"
She returned his gaze calmly, "Who? -
Well, me and the Ainder.I told your mother
about you and me--------------
"She's not my mother!"
She laughed. "I know that! But she has a
good heart and still feels like your mother -
despite your father's misstep! And despite your
ungrateful behavior, Gaston, she still clings to
your - to our children!"
He started up. "My children are none of
Countess Poczerewska's business!"
"No?" she said. "Well, but they are my
business, aren't they, dear man?"
He felt as if he had been slapped in the face
when he heard this pronounced "dear man". He
bit his lips. "Mas is that supposed to mean?" he
asked hoarsely.
 She shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing
special! Just that I'm now on my way to Berlin
to get my cattle back!"
He shouted at her: "You're crazy, Anna!
What do you want with the cattle? You don't
love them and they're just a burden to you!
Now they are perfectly well looked after and I
swear to you that they will never want for
anything!"
She pulled out an elegant gold case, took a
cigarette and lit it.
"You allow it, don't you? - Please, help
yourself!"
He thanked.
"No matter how well they are looked after,"
she said, "they are always with strangers, they
are missing the cutter's heart."
He sensed her scornful tone; he would have
liked to punch her in the face. But he restrained
himself. "I beg you, Anna," he began, "for
God's sake, don't play a romance on me! You
don't care about the cattle, that's for sure!
Listen, I'm going to give you a borage; it's
better for both of us if we finally clear the air.
We want a divorce; of course I'll take all the
blame. Malicious desertion - that will soon be
done. The only condition is that you leave only
the cattle. I'll give you so much money in return
that you can live decently on the interest!"
She looked at him coolly. "
So how much?"
 He replied: "hm, let's say - two hundred
thousand marks."
She laughed. "Well - according to my
information, you have nothing but debts at the
moment. - But even if you had money - or
would get it - that's easy enough with you - I
would reject your offer outright."
There was such malice in her words that he
froze. He thought he knew this woman well
enough - for all her faults, she had always been
good-natured and, in the end, reasonably
decent. Where did this sudden contradiction
come from? And it seemed to him that he heard
the shrill laughter of Poczerewska in the young
woman's voice.
"Reject - ?" he asked. "Tell me, did your
count's friends blow that into you?"
She looked him cheekily in the eye.
"However, we also discussed the possibility
that you would come with such offers. And we
decided to reject them outright."
He was silent for a moment; then she
continued: "Since you speak so frankly to me, I
will pour you some pure wine. I will not
divorce you under any circumstances, and I will
take every care that you find no grounds for
divorce against me. So now you know!"
 Gaston straightened up. "Yes - but for
heaven's sake, Anna, what's all this about?
What are you - or rather, what are you actually
up to?" J8*
 She tapped the ashes off her cigarette and
whistled a popular song. "Oh, Gaston," she
laughed, "how stupid you are, don't you realize
what it's all about? Listen, then you'll see the
light! So your mother found you again, she
looked after you and was very good to you -
right?"
Tr gave no answer. "Right?" she asked
again.
"Yes, yes!" he mumbled nervously.
"Well, then!" she continued. "The Count
discovered the Ainder with Madame Remy, my
aunt, and they were also taken into the house -
it cannot be denied that the jDoczerewskis were
very, very good to them too!"
"I don't deny it," he said. "But I assure you
that my so-called mother only did it on a
whim!"
She hunched her shoulders. "That's none of
my business! They did - and that's enough. And
to thank them for it, you cut them where you
could when you still believed the countess was
your mother, and were downright hostile to
them when you found out she wasn't."
"hostile?"
"Yes! The count has read your statement to
the: examining magistrate - it's not exactly
exculpatory for him!"
"Hell, I told the plain truth,
and as mild as possible!"
 "That's a matter of taste; in any case, the
Poczerewskis are not very happy with it. They
blame your behavior on the bad influence of
your latest flame - Aaren Holmsen!"
"Yes - but! Since you are so well acquainted
with the family circumstances, Anna, you will
also know that Miss Aaren Holmsen is the only
daughter of the Countess from her marriage to a
Norwegian Mr. Holmfen!"
"I certainly know that! - But this Miss
Aaren approached your mother - her mother - in
a manner that leaves nothing to be desired in
terms of clarity. 5 She has not taken the
slightest trouble to conceal her dislike. - You
had the Ainder brought to her companion - I'll
pick her up there!"
"You won't do that!"
"That's what I'm going to do! - And I'll tell
you what I'll do next - provided you don't agree
to our terms!"
"On what terms?"
"I would have told you by letter in the next
few days, but I can tell you just as well now. So
we demand that you give up this Norwegian
lady for good and move back in with me for
good."
 He laughed in her face: "5ag' times, Anna,
did you think for a moment that I would go for
it?"
 She offered him her case again, this time he
took a cigarette.
"Certainly not!" she replied, "It was just a
form! But now I'll tell you what I'm going to do
next! For the time being, I want to move with
the cattle to the villa on Lake Garda - but only
for a few weeks, until the silly story that the old
donkey's death has brought upon the Count has
been settled. Then I come back to Berlin. The
Count - who has been a partner in the Dauses
Xemy for years - is now buying my aunt's share
and transferring it to me. And I'll run the house
- I know the business, believe me, it's worth
much more than your 200,000 marks! Of course
we'll leave the old, good Remy company, but
we'll give it a new name when we add: Owner
Mrs. Vr. Anna v. Dülfert! - Because your name,
dear man, is well known in all sorts of places in
Berlin! That is worth its weight in gold!And as
for the cattle----------------------------------------
She faltered deliberately. Breathlessly, he
asked, "Well - the cattle?"
"They should get to know the business
early. The Countess said that the girl could
probably take it over later when she had
become sufficiently familiar with all the
practices of the Dause. The count will take care
of the boy himself - he has a number of other
interesting businesses, pawnshops, gambling
parlors and even better ones that bring in a lot
of money.
carries. - And he will be able to use a lot of
help over time I"
Gaston stared at her. 5o - like this - were
his children to grow up? The image of his
father appeared before his eyes and he now
realized the terrible hatred the old man had felt
for this woman.
Tr spat out. "Ugh, devil!" he whispered.
She smiled at him carelessly. "What do you
mean?" Gr pulled himself together, grabbed
ibre's hand. "Anna," he said, "none of this has
grown in your head. It's an outrageous scheme
that the countess has cooked up and you're not
going to go along with it. You can do what you
like for yourself - it's none of my business. If
you think you can acquire riches this way - fine
with me! But what do the Indians have to do
with it? - So I beg you - let me have the
Indians?"
She quickly removed her hand from his.
"Gaston," she replied, shaking her head,
"you're more obtuse than ever today! - Should I
let you keep your eyes? They are my main
trump card and the only one I have in my hand!
Do you think that the count's lords would make
such propositions to me for the sake of my
beautiful eyes? Are you offering me the
200,000 Wark for my sake? You only want the
Ainder! And do you imagine that the lords are
more philanthropic than you? You fool! - You
and your love have hurt the Countess in the
only place that may hurt her.
If you had told the most insane stories about
her, she would have laughed. But you showed
her - both of you - that you didn't want to have
anything to do with her. You wanted to ignore
her, just ignore her! And that's the only thing
your mother can't stand: she wants to be dealt
with! No matter how - but she wants to be a
factor to be reckoned with, for good or bad -
she can't stand being overlooked! - And that
you two tried to do that - that's what hurts her
so much! And she wants her revenge - she
wants to force you to think of her! That is why
she made these proposals to me: if she has me,
she has the Ainder - and she knows quite well
that you love her! 5o The matter stands,
Gaston! The countess is clever, she knows
where you are vulnerable!"
He looked at her, confused, depressed:
"You seem to know her well, Anna," he said.
"Heaven knows, you've gotten smarter since I
haven't seen you!"
She laughed: "You think so? Oh well, I've
just learned from you."
Gaston laughed. He remembered that he
had once read O. I. Bierbaum's "Nemt, Frouwe,
disen Aranz" to this woman in order to educate
her. She could hardly have gotten her wisdom
from that. He turned to her again. "Tell me one
more thing. Why are you - you Anna - putting
yourself up to this? I now know how little you
"I'm not going to hang on to the cattle, even
though you sang a completely different song to
me back in New York. But surely that's no
reason to deliberately force the poor creatures
into - into - into such filthy conditions?"
5 She remained completely calm and
composed. "Beloved man," she replied
scornfully, "I will give you an answer to that
too. If you had come to me a few weeks ago, I
would certainly have done everything you
wished. I was stupid and good-natured and
would probably have remained so all my life.
But the Countess gave me the cataract - today I
am no longer blind! Today I know only too well
that a woman has only one enemy in the world -
and that is the man. If we become bad, it is only
through the man. The man -every man - hates
the woman and tramples her underfoot
wherever he can-----------------------------------
He interrupted her: "But, Anna, those are
the kind of phrases the countess says at
women's meetings! She doesn't believe in them
herself and you wouldn't trust me with such
ridiculous views!"
"Not you? Especially you! The countess
showed me a copy of your father's will, shall I
repeat to you what it says? The man is the
image of God, the man -"
"Thank you, thank you!" he cried, "I know
all about it. I've peddled this will often enough
myself, and I can assure you that I'd be glad to
to refrain from having others pray it to me over
and over again."
"So much the better!" she continued. "But I
tell you, Gaston, turn everything around nicely -
then it might be more true."
"I beg you, Anna, let my old father sleep in
his grave now; he has achieved a lot in this
world and deserves his rest. And after all, it's
me and not him."
"Certainly about you, my dear Manul About
you, whom the countess has now taught me to
look at with completely different eyes! What
are you but your father's real 5 son? - Just
remember why you actually married me!
Because you loved me? No way! Just because
you made a bet with a few other heartless boys
about me! You were so tender-hearted to tell
me yourself!"
"Well, and it didn't seem to offend you
much then, Anna."
"No, not back then! Because I was a stupid,
blind little goose who was used to seeing a kind
of Lord God in every elegant ravalier! - But
now I know better what a mean insult it was!
You gambled on me like the rule-breakers cone
out a goose.Only a man in Germany can
comprehend the noble soul of a woman, only
j)eter Altenberg----------
 The train stopped with a mighty jolt.
Gaston looked out of the eoupe window and
saw the brightly lit hall of the Silesian station.
"Ah - already?" he murmured. He turned to
his companion. "Where are you going to get
off?"
"I'm expected at ^riedrichstrasse."
He leaned back in his seat; they drove
through Berlin in silence. At Alexanderplatz,
he said: "Anna, think about it. I want to give
you half a million. Leave me the Ainder."
She gave him no answer.
He continued: "Anna, I will work for you.
Just give me some time. I want you to get a full
million!"
"No!" she cried, "No! Accept our terms or
give up the Ainder."
"And if I were to accept your terms?"
She laughed mockingly: "Then it's all right!
But don't forget that today I'm a different
woman from the one you married. Then I was
your plaything - now you will be mine!"
He looked at her full on, a wild, fanatical
hatred speaking from her face.
"Do you know how it would end?" he
asked half aloud. "I would write my father's
will again."
Friedrichstrasse station. The train stopped
again.
She picked up a handbag and a hatbox. "So
you don't want it?" she asked mockingly.
 "Shut up," he said, "I don't feel like messing
with you."
She got out, shrugging her shoulders,
without saying hello. He stepped to the window
and pulled the exit door shut behind her. He
saw her hurry across the platform with long
strides - towards the Poczerewskis. The elegant
count tipped his hat politely and held out his
hand to her. But the two women fell noisily into
each other's arms and covered each other with
resounding kisses.
Gaston turned around in disgust.
*
*
He got off at the Zoologischer Garten and
drove to the j)arkhotel. He asked for a couple of
rooms and went to the toilet. Then he phoned
Liebenberg.
"Can I speak to you today?" asked the Privy
Councillor.
"Yes - where?"
"Well - maybe at the Nlaison Remy?"
He pulled back as if he had been slapped in
the face. "No!" he shouted. "No! Not there!"
"So not? At Fredrich's? At twelve o'clock?"
Gaston answered in the affirmative and quickly
hung up the ear trumpet. Maison Remy - did he
have to keep hearing that disgusting name
today?
A sudden restlessness seized him. His
children - the children! He felt as if he had now
become
felt for the first time that he loved her, now that
he knew they were in danger. Oh, of course, he
had to see them, he had to get them to safety
tonight, as quickly as possible! He hurried out
of the hotel, got into a car and drove to
Kurfürstenstrasse, where Mrs. Bolette
Aamundsen had rented a small furnished
apartment for herself and her two foster
children.
He hastily climbed the stairs. He rang the
bell; a maid opened the door. From the room he
heard a loud wailing of women's voices; he
walked quickly through the hallway and
entered the room without knocking. Mrs.
Aamundsen was sitting on an armchair with her
head resting on her elbows, while Bella
Maßmann was flying back and forth across the
room like a ball.
"The children? Where are the children?" he
asked breathlessly.
Mrs. Aamundsen moaned: "The children -I
Gud bevares! The children - - -"
He stepped close to her and shook her by
the shoulder. "Where are the children?"
But the old woman just sobbed
unstoppably.
 Bella Maßmann gave him information.
Excitedly enough, haltingly and confusing
everything. But she did provide information.
After that, the Count and Countess
Poczerewski had been there a good hour ago,
with another lady who had introduced herself as
Mrs. Or. v. Dülfert, his wife. They had been
accompanied by two police
They had been accompanied by the
commissioners and had demanded the
immediate return of the children. She, Bella,
and Mrs. Aamundsen had refused, but the
commissioners had explained to them that the
Wutter was in full: rights, and that if the
children were not handed over willingly, they
would have to use force. So they had had to
take the poor little ones out of their beds and
dress them in order to hand them over to the
strangers. The parting had been terrible, the
children had cried and screamed, had not
wanted to go and had run back to Mrs.
Aamundsen again and again, until finally the
guards had taken the crying and kicking little
ones in their arms and carried them out.
Mrs. Aamundsen was still sobbing and
wailing in her armchair. But then she suddenly
stood up, walked towards Gaston and launched
a long torrent of words at him. Gr was to
blame, he alone Why hadn't he warned her in
time? She could have gone to Greenland with
the little ones, they would certainly not have
been taken away from her! But this woman -
why had he never said anything about her? No
one had ever known that he even had a wife -
 Despite everything, Gaston had to smile: "I
can't have had the children alone, Mrs.
Aamundsen," he said.
Of course, that is probably true! But if
he now had a wife - he could not have two -
two at once! And it was a meanness and
falsehood against Aaren - -
Lr jumped up. - Aaren! "Where is Aaren?"
he asked.
The gray ones looked at him. "You're
asking us that?" replied Bella Naßmann. "I
think she was with you?"
"Was!" he shouted. "Was! But she went
back at lunchtime today I"
Mrs. Aamundsen stepped close to him:
"Driving alone? Not with you, doctor?"
Lr said uncertainly: "No, I went on a later
train."
But she didn't let up: "Why then? And why
isn't she here then?"
Gaston searched for words and reasons, but
found none. "I don't know," he mumbled.
The old lady grabbed his skirt with both
hands. "Doctor," she called, "Doctor, has
something happened between Aaren and you?"
Lr defended himself. "No, no - nothing
special."
"Yes, but!" wailed Mrs. Aamundsen. "Yes,
you do! I feel it!" 5 She fell back into her chair
and broke into convulsive sobs.
 Bella Maßmann beckoned him to leave. Lr
quickly told her his address, asked her to phone
him if anything happened and promised to
come back the next morning.
 "Are you staying here?" he asked. She
nodded: "Yes, I've been living here for three
days."
He quickly ran down the stairs. But he
stopped in the street. - What should he do? -
Where to turn? - Where should he go?
Where were the cattle?
And where was Aaren?
*
*
He walked through the alleys like a night
wanderer. Instinctively, almost unconsciously,
he reached into his left vest pocket and took out
a small tulabook. Gr opened it and took out a
few gray pills - hashish pills.
He had abstained from this poison for years,
and now, in a state of unfounded confusion, he
reached for it again. He quickly swallowed the
hashish and walked on, straight ahead, through
the mists of the night, into an uncertain,
dangerous land---------------------
Dreaming - forgetting - -
Chapter ten.
H'iefke.
When in a man's mind questions wind
themselves through questions, doubts through
doubts, he may, provided he possesses some
genius and is thus distantly related to madness,
be overcome by the most fatal feeling, as if he
physically sensed the convolutions of his brain.
This is what happened to Gaston von Dülfert
(whose genius no one will doubt) when, forever
asking himself: "Where are the Indians? Where
is Aaren? What will become of my new, great
toupee? How can I get away from Anna?" as he
walked along the Aurfürstenstrasse.
"Is my skull a pot of live eels?" he suddenly
exclaimed.
"Boy, tongue, tongue!" a voice sounded next
to (under? above?) him: "let Aem pinski'n cook
for you, and you have Aalbskopp with eel
soup!"
Gaston looked around. There was no one
around who could have spoken those vulgar
words.
"I seem to be going completely mad," the
amber doctor thought to himself, "because if I
19
If I'm not mistaken, that was the genius loci
whose voice I heard. Quite cute! But basically
not unpleasant. First of all, it takes my mind off
these endless uncertainties, and then I find it
interesting that when the demon speaks out of
me, its alang color as well as its symbolism
betrays the Berliner. The Berliner, that is, the
ironist; the ironist, that is, the human being who
sees around things. So I have just discovered, if
I am not mistaken, that my soul is also
hunchbacked. I called myself Aalbskopp. If I go
any further, I will probably discover that I am a
full-grown bovine.
"List too!" said the voice. "Don't you know
what you have to do to get to the bottom of all
these stories?"
This subconscious piefke is quite coarse,
felt, but not grudgingly, by the one who fell
from the "albatross"; one should continue to
tickle him up.
And Gaston thought.
What on earth do I have to do, he thought. I:
Gaston, am obviously too much of a cultural
man to get on the right track; but I: jDiefke,
considerably closer to the nature of this Slavic-
German-Jewish-French settlement, already
know! It' all comes down to piefkizing me.
 "Do you have any idea!" the voice bellowed:
"I had to drink Burgundy! Aren't you the son of
the old Ieheimrat?"
"Slipper! Rutscheeer!" Gaston shouted at a
passing cab driver, "drive me to the nearest
decent wine bar as fast as you and your
chopping engine can!"
"I can't drive," said the driver (or was it
piefke?), "but I'll drive ahead of you."
And tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
Away they went at a clattering gallop, so that
the sound on the asphalt was almost demonic ).*
In an old wine bar on Potsdamerstrasse
(sanctified by the two antipoles of German
painting now finally relegated by A. I. Meier-
Gräfe finally relegated from the history of
painting to anecdotal literature: Böcklin and
Menzel) it happened that the amber-yellow hair
of Gaston von Dülfert leaned deeper and deeper
towards the Medusa blood red of an old
Burgundy, which had coagulated from the mash

* The author makes use of bound speech

here in order to suggest paradoxically, but with
the utterly original sense of all opposites, that
Gaston was ultimately in a state of unbound
excitement.
tun into the fermentation barrel in the very year
when the French lover of the apparently very
French-friendly Burgundy admirer had given
birth to little Gaston with the words: "Mon dieu,
il a son paquet!"
Whether it was the sympathetic
circumstance of being the same age, whether it
was heredity from his father, or whether it was
simply a lack of direction as a result of a
delicately unbalanced mood that drove him to it
- in short, Gaston got drunk. To such a degree of
unconsciousness that even his unconsciousness
was silent, at least phonetically.
And yet he had advised him well, although
he had perhaps been thinking of something else,
something more serious. (It must be left to the
neuropsychologists to decide this. Nor does it
contribute anything to our story itself).
Namely, when Gaston stepped out onto
Potsdamerstrasse, he found himself in a most
peculiar state - a state that left everything far
behind that Burgunder Nulls had ever produced,
and which, in fact, can by no means be
attributed solely to Gaston's Burgundianization.
The wine of the same age had merely had the
most important purpose for the fate of our
Melden (and thus for this novel) of bringing to
light the hitherto latent consequences of his
albatross fall, the explanation of which, again,
as lying outside the poetic cinnamon, must be
reserved for a scientific pen, this-
times a psychopathological one. For there is no
hiding the fact that this condition exceeded the
limits of what we would certainly be prepared
to describe as genius in Gaston, and proved that
when a genius falls from a flying machine, the
concussion can produce extremely strange
symptoms - especially when Burgundy Nuits is
added to the mix.
Gaston stepped quickly out into the street.
Tr did not waver in the least, and, as usual,
showed the air of a modern, distinguished man
of correct bearing and soignée appearance.
Only his amber-yellow hair was wetter than
was proper, and his hat sat a shade too
crookedly for it to be said that it bore the
legitimate expression of an eccentric. And so
firmly did this unusual man hold himself in the
signorial hand, in spite of all his Burgundian
burden, that his features and looks showed
nothing of what must now be going on within
him, for he saw what no one saw, and did not
see what everyone saw.
For this was his condition: Tr saw
Potsdamerstrasse, that is, the houses, lanterns,
trees, the pavement: everything inanimate; but
he saw no living being. All the hundreds,
thousands that streamed past him remained
invisible to him. And not just the people: the
animals too. Empty cabs rattled past him,
seemingly from
moved by themselves; so did lumbering
omnibuses and trucks, pushcarts, dog carts. He
heard the whirring, whispering, murmur of
voices, heard the tread of feet, the rustling of
aleids (which, to report accurately, remained as
invisible to him as the people they surrounded),
heard coughing, spitting, clearing his throat: no
human or animal sound was lost to him. But he
had completely lost his vision of life. - Instead,
he saw the dead alive.
The old man of measure walked slowly
along in ridiculous loneliness, straight towards
him.
"Ah," he said, "so your famous tour has
happily come to nothing? I thought so. Mas was
also starting out with such a crazy idea."
"Don't stand around on the sidewalk!" a
female voice called out; "You're blocking the
whole passage!"
"Pardon!" apologized Gaston, who, by the
way, had the finest feeling for the proximity of
people he could not see and did not step on the
feet of invisible passers-by without a second
thought.
But Mr. Maßmann had already left. Instead,
his father came, staggering a little, across the
embankment, slowly finding his way between
two crossing tramcars with incomprehensible
certainty.
 'föat my boy,' he said, 'was I right or not?
You look pretty battered already. That there,
around the eyes, is from the women. On the
other hand, you smell quite cozy like
Burgundy."
Line guardian's voice: "Please go on, sir!"
Gaston held his father by the arm as he tried
to leave and shouted: "For God's sake, tell me:
is it true about the Frenchwoman? Am I really
not your wife's son? Are you really my father?"
Line bass voice: "Sir, are you out of your
mind? What are you insinuating?"
Line female: "Lr is drunk. Yikes! Such a
fine man!"
Gaston thought it advisable to go to a place
where he assumed the invisibles would
fluctuate less. But the Privy Councillor was
gone again.
What a pity, thought the doctor; now I
could have learned a lot about myself at the
end.
And he snaked his way between the
invisible humanity with whimsical instincts,
down Potsdamerstrasse to the Aanal. There he
turned right and waited.
Someone is sure to come, he felt.
 And he was not mistaken. Still (and perhaps
even more so now) just tendons and bones,
Mr. Wisconsin came along the other side of the
street as if he had never been dead, grabbed a
newspaper out of the air (because Gaston didn't
see a salesman) and began to read.
Lein's fellow pilot rushed to him and called:
"Hey, Wisconsin! Wisconsin!"
"Oh! Lie," he said, barely looking up.
Gaston held out his hand to him. But the
American seemed to have lost all politeness
with his journey to nowhere. He made not the
slightest attempt to shake hands.
"Do you have something against me?"
asked the doctor.
"Oh yes," replied the American. And now
the following strange conversation ensued:
Gaston: "What is it? If you don't mind."
Wisconsin: "That Lie is still alive."
Gaston: "Hell, yes . . God knows I'd
forgotten that Lie is actually dead. But Lie are
actually here."
Wisconsin: "3^ not really! What am I
buying for that! Can I take part in the flying
competition on the 'Ila^? Can I receive fees
from Mr. August Lcherl, G. m. b. h., for ascents
on the Tempelhof field? Can I inauthentically
prove to this doltish couple Wright that their fly
box is a disgusting insect without any beauty
next to my 'Alba- troß^? - What I can do in my
inauthenticity,
is actually just this: I can talk to the biggest
horndog of the Wilhelm II era, the most
insignificant German of the 20th century: you."
(This was followed by a blow to Gaston's
stomach, which proved with unwelcome clarity
that the unreal was by no means astral in
nature).
Gaston: "Why you are so insanely rude and
ill-mannered towards me, Mr. Wisconsin, I
don't really understand; after all, I was the only
one who risked climbing your 'Albatross' with
you. In the end, the fact that I didn't break you
in the process is no reason to punch me in the
stomach."
Wisconsin: "You deserved to be laid over
for this and to be severely beaten on the
buttocks like a schoolboy. No, more: you
deserved to be handed over to a welfare
institution in the city of Berlin!"
Gaston: "It's strange how well you know
about contemporary history."
At that moment Mr. Wisconsin laughed in a
very dirty way, in a specifically Berlin manner,
without any hint of Americanisms, and for a
moment the doctor felt as if the American
looked like him.
 But he was soon to have even more reason
to be amazed, because from then on the
unfortunate inventor from America spoke in
Berlin.
 Like this: "Do you think I don't take care of
my education? Don't you see that I read the
'Lokalanzeiger'? Are you completely stupid?"
"Sir!" cried Gaston, "I defy you to tell me:
are you Wisconsin or my piefke!"
A Saxon voice: "If you don't mind, my
name is Emil Schwengke from Dräsden."
"Pardon! Pardon!" whispered Gaston,
ashamed.
"Ä, there's nothing more to it," the invisible
Saxon replied; "a mix-up of personalities can
happen to anyone. You see, the following
happened to me once . .."
And the terribly tolerant Saxon, whose
sweet song, as it purred from the perfect
emptiness, had something eerily lemur-like
about it, told a completely uninteresting but
very extensive story that had happened to him
six years ago in Potschappel.
In the meantime, the American had gone to
the other side, where he stepped into an open
house to continue reading the focal indicator^,
favored by the staircase lighting.
Gaston didn't think about it for long, but
jumped after him. He told himself that this man
would continue to hurl insults at him, but he
was almost desperate to be insulted. All too
often he had done it to himself and
others had told him that he was an exceptional
genius. Now invectives did him good like a
massage.
"And if you're rubbing me down with a
grater," he shouted, "you must continue to tell
me what you think. I don't know whether it will
do any good. But it might, and I have the very
clearest feeling that there is something wrong in
me that needs to be put right."
The reader of the Lokalanzeiger didn't take
long. Soon he was speaking Berlin German,
soon American German, but he always said
rude things.
A few rehearsals: "'n Schenie wolln Se sin?
What have you done? You didn't do anything.
You were chattering and once you 'flew along'.
Aunstschtickel advertising stunt!"
"The glass city thing, ^err Doktor, is
typical. A poet has an idea. It's wonderful - as
an idea. But you have to be a very wicked fool
to materialize a vision. The vision is sublime
and subtle. But what a clumsiness to want to
materialize its spirituality! Instead of raising
money to caricature one of his ideas, you
should raise money for Paul Scheerbart so that
he can continue to show us the ideal landscapes
and fantasy constructions of his brain."
 "So you've been shouting and you're
ashamed of it? I'm ashamed! You will be after
that. Don't be so mousy about the writers! The
ale from them is worth more than all of you
nasty idiots put together."
"Just don't pose as Goethe too! It's bad
enough that you and your kind have discredited
Nietzsche. Leave off all airs and graces and let
Sk have the grace to work. But properly! And if
you can't do that, at least become a real and
perfect impostor. - Oh, if only I had followed
my instincts and thrown you down as ballast.
You prevented me from going up, cursed
"fellow flyer", - and that's typical again: you,
you cursed snobs, fellow talkers, fellow
runners, fellow makers, you are the weight that
has to be dragged along by all active forces,
and you still demand admiration for it, and in
the end the doer has to die while you just fall on
your noses for a bit of fame."
Gallon stood as if under a shower, wordless,
his head lowered, but suddenly he gave himself
a jerk, raised his head, spread his arms and
whispered: "Thank you, thank you! Thank God
I met you!"
"There ... what was that? ..." he felt
something soft . . . smelled something like
"Roger et Gallet: Ideal", plus Peau d'Espagne
plus something else ...
and ... . and . . . and ... ye eternal gods ...! he
woke up with his eyes wide open at the
countess's bosom, and felt her hand on the tip
of his right ear, and saw that he was standing
with her in this strange hallway, and heard her
speaking:
How sweet of you! Who told you about my
Buen Retiro?"
Gr had to pinch his own left earlobe to
make sure he wasn't dreaming.
But no, he was more alert than before. Gin's
gaze on the street taught him that he was no
longer seeing only the lifeless, and the countess
was decidedly not dead either.
She took his hand and led him, who did not
have the strength to break away, up the stairs.
On the second floor she unlocked a door and
led him into a very pleasantly furnished
drawing room.
She took off his hat and coat and rang the
bell.
Gin Thinese, dressed in nothing but a
yellow silk loincloth, appeared and took the
things.
Gaston looked at him with wide eyes.
"Do you like my Mongol?" asked the
countess.
"I'm training him to be a missionary."
Gaston was still far too stupid to say
anything appropriate in response.
"Gr is very talented," the countess
continued; the last brochure by Miss Dr. Benita
Ulm can be
He already knows it by heart. I hope that he
will spread the light of truth throughout Ehina."
Gaston was taken aback.
"How?" he asked, "has Miss Ulm become
pious?"
"Oh, I see," laughed the countess; "you
mean he's to preach the honor system? What an
idea! No, he should disgust the Ehines with
their husbands." - "Is there really a when who
would be so foolish as to indulge in that? For I
may well assume that your Mongol is not a
eunuch?"
Jamais de ma much But as far as the
stupidity of men in this matter is concerned, it
is bottomless. All the nonsense about the
women's movement was caused by you men."
"Nonsense? But you're going along with it."
"It is now the most modern. Since it doesn't
oblige me to wear a suspender skirt, called
Eigenkleid or German Reformtracht, I don't see
why I shouldn't afford this little public mise-en-
scene. Incidentally, I am acting strictly
logically. Since I would prefer to have all the
men to myself, it is only reasonable to keep
them from the other women. But there is a
more serious reason: you have to incite the men
to become men again. The eerebral males have
gotten out of hand, and the eerebral females
(brain ladies, as the delightful
Möbius ^atf whom I would have loved to
seduce if he had only been a little more
graceful), so the cerebral females are quite right
if they find nothing better in them than what
they themselves can come up with. But the
others, whose masculinity does not merely
consist of a dubious plus of brain mass, will, I
hope, soon take the cries of the ink-amazons as
a call to battle the sexes with the right weapons
and teach us respect for the masculine again. As
long as you, travestying your Schiller, who, by
the way, was a complete Uerl, saying of
himself that you could smell his masculinity on
his lyre, are glamorizing Laura on paper, you
prove that she is right when she beats her
infatuated papers around your ears. - But you
look like you're not even listening!"
Gaston, indeed, only half heard what the
Countess said, for he began again to ask those
questions which had been interrupted by the
awakening subconsciousness and the strange
fit, in which, by the way, he began to see a
continuation of the subconscious.
The countess, misinterpreting his silence,
continued: "But of course you're right. You
didn't come to me to make fine speeches. Now
tell me, how did you find my Lueu Retiro? You
were the first to inaugurate it! It was just
finished today! I can tell you
I can't tell you how happy I am that you of all
people have to initiate it!"
She stood up and threw herself over him
with furious armor.
At first Gaston thought of fighting back, but
that was not only physically impossible
because the countess weighed a good ninety
rilos, but there was also something in him that
was opposed to defending himself. Gr could no
longer hear any voices, but he could hear
j)iefke's voice from the depths. And it said:
"Now you are at the source of Alarheit! Here
you will learn everything you need to know to
finally get out of the fog and into the light."
And he felt that it had been a fine demon
himself who had led him here.
"It's no use," he said to himself, "I have to
empty this empire."
But he still tried a ginwand, and it did his
morals proud.
"I beg you," he moaned, "let me go! Even if
you are not my mother, you were my father's
wife!"
And lo and behold: morale was rewarded
on the spot.
The countess, breaking away from him,
laughed out loud, patted his cheeks and said: "I
can reassure you, my boy! I wasn't your father's
wife either."
 "What?" Gaston shouted and jumped up,
"you weren't Mrs. von Dülfert?"
"Yes, I already was. But Privy Councillor
von Dülfert wasn't your father."
And with undisguised disdain she added:
"Dear God, him! That was a Lerebral male; I
would say: of the purest water, if it should not
be more correctly called: of the purest alcohol."
Gaston grabbed his head. Then he said with
toneless devotion: "Perhaps you will be so kind
as to introduce me to the real one."
"That's impossible," she replied; "your little
mama, with whom the Burgundian man
pretended to be because he wanted to give me
an air, was of course not a cerebral female;
otherwise I wouldn't have hired her as a
companion. I once found three men in her room
at once: one in the bed, one under the bed, and
one in the under-wardrobe as a reserve. - I very
much hope that you followed her."
"Then the question will hardly ever be
solved," Gaston said resignedly.
"Aaum," confirmed the countess, "unless
Lisette's words at your birth, 11 a son paquet
give a hint. 5 For she said that when she saw
your little hump, and so it should probably
mean: He has his, namely his father's hump."
 "My God, my God!" groaned Gaston, "I
have to go hump hunting like this!"
The countess was quite right when she said:
"What for?"
"In any case," she repeated, "you can be
absolutely convinced that the man from whom
I had to leave in a hurry is innocent of your
existence. He could only make words. Hence
the will. - And now come!"
She took him by the hand and led him into
a room with a quote from R. Dehmel's
complete works written above the door in
imperative form: "SIN INTO THE CARPET
OF MY BODY.
I wouldn't have thought the countess was so
tasteless, Gaston thought to himself when he
read that.
Fortunately, the taste of the room did not
correspond to the quotation, although it also
paid homage to the same poet in the form of a
frieze which, in ornamental utilization, showed
the most profound word of the Markish aosmic
poet in endless repetition:
Wrwltwrwltwrwltwrwlt. Incidentally, it was a
splendid room, the decoration of which did not
do credit to morality, but to the countess's sense
of beauty. The problem of completely
furnishing a room with a single 2height was
brilliantly solved. But this one piece of
furniture, an enormous bed, was also a monster.
 "Eternal gods!" Gaston exclaimed, "what a
bed!"
"The experiences of a lifetime are
contained in its structure, its dimensions, its
material, its color, its decoration," said the
Countess with a tone of calm satisfaction.
"And the imagination of a Messaline,"
added the doctor. "Too bad it can't be depicted
in the 'Week'."
But the Countess said: "I would really
object to that. The next consequence would be
that it would come into the department stores
in bad imitation. No, the best that man has
made of his creatures he should keep for
himself: He should keep to himself and never
expose it to the mob. - But now I ask you to
step inside for a moment."
She lifted apart a door and pushed Gaston
into a small, blue-lit room, where the Thinese
received him with a solemn grin.
Before he knew it, the yellowish man had
undressed him and laid him gently on a cool
resting bed.
"What do you want to start with me?"
Gaston asked.
The answer came from the next room:
"Fear not, my darling. He's just going to give
you a little Chinese massage. The one about
the: Missionary was just a joke, of course, pan-
fei-sching is just my masseur."
 "So not missionary, but massionary,"
Gaston's latent jDiefke quipped. "Does he
speak German?" he then asked.
"No,just Pidjin-English/' replied the
countess. "But you won't think of talking while
he's massaging. One doesn't talk while
intoxicated with opium."
Gaston then felt the Mongol's hands on his
forehead and lost consciousness, henceforth
only accessible to the highly pleasant magnetic
currents that the strokes of this smooth hand,
charged as it were with life forces, sent his
way. Gr closed his eyes and surrendered to this
intoxicating filling of his life battery with
blissful serenity. Gin's monotonous singing and
the peculiar scent of the ointment with which
he rubbed him from time to time (musk?
Lhampaka? Auromoji oil? Odern- de femme?)
also helped to lull his outer senses to a
dreamlike sleep, although he could still clearly
feel the trickling gin of an urgent Araft in his
innermost life.
Pong-fu, miao, pu-hang, Pong-li, hsiao, fu-pong, Schen-hsi,
schen-hsi, miao-nü-tzö, Schong, schong, ta,
sang in the iambic meter of the Ghinese, and
the author would gladly provide the German
translation of everything, too, if the moral
I hope that the boundaries set for Chinese
poetry are not too far outside those of the
German public prosecutor. It will also suffice to
say that Gaston, without understanding
Chinese, fully understood the meaning of these
words.
When he came to himself, he had at the
same time come to the countess, whose
Junonian beauty astonished him to the utmost.
Even the Aopf now seemed less nasty to him
than usual, but there was so much else to draw
his gaze from one pleasant surprise to another
that he didn't pay much attention to the
features, which were familiar to him anyway.
It was a wonder that he completely forgot
why he had actually decided to "empty the eel".
He drank.
It was only when they were sitting in the
drawing room again, served with wonderful tea
by j)an- fei-sching, that he remembered the
higher purpose of his visit and said: "But now
that we have become good friends, let's talk to
each other as good friends."
"I've always been your good friend," the
countess replied, "and you would have learned
all kinds of good things from me a long time
ago if you hadn't thought I was God knows
what kind of monster, like most of the others.
Why is that?"
 "Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's quite
understandable: the will..."
"That's right! The will! Oh, that wonderful
learned gentleman and Burgundian man! What
has he not done to me! But I don't want to
complain, after all, it was he who led me on the
right path: my path. - But the other people also
seem to agree that I am a monster. For
example, these ... these Aaren/'
"We seem to be dealing with mutual
antipathy?"
"I'm her mother!"
"Allow me to doubt it."
"Please."
"You are too dissimilar."
"Have you ever seen her without an
enveloppe?
This immoral and moral slap in the face
stung. And Gaston suddenly realized that his
latest relations with the countess had a highly
improper nuance when he thought that he
wanted to become Aaren's Wann one day.
"Let's not do that!" he exclaimed gruffly.
"Gladly," replied the countess. But after a
while she asked: "Do you love the girl?"
Gaston was quite astonished when he heard
himself answer, as if he were a stranger: "I
don't know."
 "I'm glad," said the countess.
"Why?"
"Because I was jealous of fie."
"Ah, so."
"Yes, and then ..."
"And then...?"
"Now I have to admit to a lie."
"Well?"
3* was your father's wife."
"Jesus Christ!" Gaston shouted and jumped
up like a man possessed. "Won't this damned
carousel finally stand still?"
And, staring at her with glass eyes: "Are
you my mother after all?"
The countess took him by an amber-yellow
curl, led him to his chair, gave him a
thoroughly unmotherly look and said:
"Nonsense! I am still as little your mother as
the privy councillor was your father. But ... .
Holmsen had a little hump, and your mother
also had an affair with him."
"Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha!" the doctor
laughed like a lunatic. "Then Aaren must be
hunchbacked too?"
"Holmsen only had a tiny little bump.
Maybe he was just reaching for you."
 "You're right to take it ironically. It's really
all a bit of a joke!"
"What is it?"
 "Schnurz und piepe."
"Don't you want to translate these foreign
words for me?"
"Oh God, that's Pieske-German. God knows
why this infamous jargon is haunting me today.
There must be inner reasons. This much is
certain: I didn't inherit these language skills
from the hunchbacked gentleman from
Scandinavia!"
Gaston pondered to himself. Then he raised
his head very seriously and said: "By the way,
none of this interests me at all. But this,
Countess, interests me very much: What will
become of my children? Where are they? What
have you done with my children? What do you
intend to do with my children?"
"Now, now, now," replied the countess,
"don't be so solemn, Mr. von Dülfert holmsen!"
"Here all joking comes to an end! Wine
flesh and blood..."
"For God's sake, not so butchery-like!"
And the countess leaned back in her chair
and laughed so that one had to admire the
elasticity of her corset, for it withstood the
impact of the waves.
"You're laughing!!!" Gaston shouted,
pumping his fists in the air.
"Yes, my boy, I'm laughing, and if you say
my flesh and blood again, I'll laugh myself to
death on the spot."
3U
"Will . . . are you... saying... say... that
they... don't... .1?"
"Yes . . . I ... want . . . say . . . that she ... is
not. Absolutely and completely and
demonstrably not!" the countess repeated
distantly.
"There!" Gaston pushed forward between
his teeth. "There! Nice! - And can we perhaps
find out who . .?"
"But of course. One was called Zohnie
Davis, the other Gecil Graham. That means
Annachen wasn't quite sure about the first
baby. Because the one mole..."
"Stop it! I'm not interested in other people's
moles!"
"That's clever."
Gaston stood up and checked his watch.
"My God, half past twelve. If Liebenberg hasn't
waited, I've lost a million."
"You won't do it any cheaper? You know
what? Associate with us! If you're embarrassed
that Anna's in the business, we'll give her the
Brussels branch."
"But first I'm going to divorce her."
"So you do?"
"Like what?"
"Joining our company."
"I want to work, Countess, work."
 "Well, well, well, well!" said the owner of
the NIonumental bed.
But by then he was already out the door
and down the stairs.
pan-fei-sching had to carry the key after
him.
As Gaston put it in the lock, he heard from
above: "You can take it with you right now."
Chapter eleven.
All kinds of favors.
The Privy Councillor Liebenberg had the
habit, when he was the first to enter the agreed
restaurant, of placing his stet with the heavy
gold knob across the table he had chosen and
then leaving it there until the person he was
expecting arrived.
The gold knob sparkled from afar like the
glistening figurehead of a company. Anyone
who knew the gold knob greeted it. Reverently
and hopefully. It represented seventy million,
this gold knob. It reeked of money all around
him. A greasy, sticky smell that made some
people's necks crawl on the floor like the dear
Bieh, others' noses run up and down like
English smelling salts, or they got intoxicated
like hashish.
Oh, the people knew exactly why they
saluted the little Aommerzienrat's gold knob so
reverently, even more reverently than a court
equipage ...
W)hen the hats of passing acquaintances
flew off their heads, the evening paper, which
little Liebenberg was holding in the English
manner, bobbed in the air.
held his outstretched arms in front of his face in
a slight counter-greeting. He didn't make a fuss
in places like Hederich. At Adlon he was
amiable, at Waison Rämy he let himself be
made fun of. His wife had never understood
that little Liebenberg was a systemic
chameleon whose play of colors remained
subject to self-regulated laws.
The day that would have earned him the
title of "Geheimer Aommerzien- rats" separated
him from his wife. During the day, despatches
and well-wishers had arrived, who were
received and dismissed by the couple with
elegant jokes and laughter. In the evening, Mrs.
Selma, dressed in a brand-new nightdress,
climbed into the freshly covered French bed in
Liebenberg's bedroom and said:
"Siegmundchen, tonight I'm sleeping with a
Privy Councillor of Commerce." Little
Liebenberg slipped into his worgen shoes and
replied: "Selma, you belong in the Fliegende
Blätter and not in my bed" ... He said and left
the bedchamber to spend the night in the hotel.
That was the end of this thirty-year
marriage. He slipped it off like a suit he had
outgrown and walked out of it like a furnished
apartment in which not a single piece of
personal life and experience spoke.
He moved indifferently into a boringly
pompous apartment in a first hotel,
indifferently moved
He went to another one when he was served
cotelette à la soubise twice in the same month.
His entire luggage consisted of three large
wardrobes containing his wardrobe supplied by
Hoffmann and a chest of drawers containing his
silk underwear or underwear made of the finest
Dutch canvas.
Little Liebenberg, with his cute elegance,
was more flirtatious than an Australian dancer.
An old lady-in-waiting of Otero's shared the
care of his little person with the former first
assistant of the famous Parisian eoiffeur
^raneois, whom he had brought back from one
of his Parisian excursions as a valet de
chambre. He gave them ample opportunity to
steal from him in order to keep them
permanently tied to him. And that was what he
needed, because they could do something that
is generally most difficult for people and
almost impossible for servants - they could
keep quiet.
With a sudden jerk, Liebenberg dropped the
newspaper. The manager of the restaurant stood
in front of him and asked with all the devotion
that one is accustomed to show to seventy
million people whether the Privy Councillor
was perhaps expecting Dr. von Dülfert; Dr. von
Dülfert had already been sitting in the last room
on the left for an hour.
".. . Well, what does a person sayI . . ."
Liebenberg knocked on the table with the
gold knob and jumped up.
 A moment later, he was standing in front of
Gaston, who was slumped on a red velvet sofa.
His face was pale, his water-bright eyes stared
ahead as if glazed over, a strand of his amber-
yellow hair fell to the tip of his narrow, long
nose, his thin, tightly pursed lips were drawn
down at the corners of his mouth, suddenly
giving his Goethe head a strange air of
melancholy.
Little Liebenbeag looked at him, at first
puzzled, then intrigued by these strange facial
features, which unconsciously gave him a
feeling of closeness, almost affection, that he
had never felt for the blond giant, despite all his
outward friendliness.
He could hardly make up his mind to rouse
the doctor from the lethargy in which he
seemed to have sunk, as if he were tired of
feeling the invisible wall rising between them
as he awoke. But Gaston's rigid immobility
began to frighten him.
"DülfertI Man . . . what are you dozing off
for? Wake up!"
And he quietly hit him on the shoulder with
the gold knob of his cane.
He liked to keep his distance, little
Liebenberg, even if it was only the distance of
a stick's length. Because every person -
everything that killed him
or alive was only a commodity for him, and the
distance he kept was only ever that of a taxator.
Gaston flinched at the cautious yet firm
touch, blinked at him as if sleepy, then passed
his forehead with a hasty movement, and would
almost have called out "where am I?" like a
woman awakening from a swoon, had he not
recognized at the same moment the familiar
surroundings of Frederich's restaurant and the
small, cute, elegant figure of the secret aaiser.
"Gosh yes . . . lucky you came, Liebenberg
- it was time. What a wild dream - brrrrrrl"
Tr shook himself and ran his thumb under
his chin in a kind of guilty helplessness.
"It's all sticky on my tongue and lumpy in
my throat . ... rrruch ...!"
Little Liebenberg shook his head and
looked at the battery of wine bottles on the
table.
"Well, dear friend, if you drink this here as
Burgundy ^uit8 and in such quantities, then you
shouldn't be surprised that you get nightmaresI
know the wine! It's nothing other than
Grünberger with Berliner
Blend and artificial bouquet: Fleur de Grunberg
plus Chateau d'Eppan plus something else ..."
He banged his olatin ring, in which a dark
green topaz framed by diamonds shimmered
like the shard of a bordeaux bottle, against a
glass and ordered ostentatiously:
"Two glasses and a Fürstenbrunn. . ."
It often gave him mischievous pleasure to
order for only fifty pennies where he was
expected to pay a hundred marks and to throw a
six on the table as a tip for the baffled waiter:
he knew people. He knew how greedy they
were and knew that they would still kowtow to
his seventy million even if he threw a trouser
button into the machine instead of a penny.
Because if it was a trouser button today -
tomorrow it might be a hundred-mark bill.
The whims of millionaires are sacred.
With the seriousness of a medieval
alchemist, little Liebenberg poured one of the
three effervescent powders that he always
carried in his left coat pocket along with his
checkbook into the glass of mineral water and
slid it over to the doctor.
"Drink, dear friend, it will cool you down!"
But before Gaston brought the glass to his
mouth, he grabbed little Liebenberg by the arm
and asked, trembling, his eyes wide:
 "Do you have a mole and where? . ."
The secret emperor changed color.
"Am I a woman that you ask me about my
mole? ... . Where should I have gotten a mole?
My whole face is a mole, if you like, I am a
Spaniole. Our skin color is yellow and
distinguished like your hair color. But a mole ...
With an involuntary movement, he touched
his left shoulder, then his right. Should
Hoffmann ... .?
No, everything was fine.
"Drink, doctor," he added calmly. "You're
delirious."
The effervescent powder did its job,
gradually leading the madly whirling thoughts
out of Countess Poczerewska's bedchamber and
into the sober everyday life of a
Potsdamerstrasse wine bar.
"Oh, those women," groaned Dülfert. "My
father was right: they grind up a man's bones
and take out his brains!"
The Privy Councillor smiled lazily.
"We're not here to talk about women.
Women cost money and bring in nothing. As
long as women are not traded on the stock
exchange, they do not count for me in the
world order. And how is it that they push
themselves into everything, into all sciences, all
21
professions, the right to vote, the Reichstag -?
They don't register for the stock exchange!
Hey?"
"Send it to the Morgenpost as a prize
puzzle question," Gaston interrupted,
completely sobered. "A pleasant Sunday
occupation for people who want to earn a
bonus. I've got other things to worry about!"
"Care is also female and costs money,"
Liebenberg continued coldly, "How much?..."
The whole misery of his current situation
became clear and obvious to Dülfert. Gr had
come to do a million-dollar deal with the
Aommerzienrat, and now he was forced to
pump him for a few thousand marks, like a
bungling officer before he becomes a wine
agent.
At that moment, he didn't give a damn
about anything that wasn't related to Aaren or
his children.
The catastrophe in Aurfürstenstrasse had
completed what the encounter with his wife
had stirred up in him in terms of his sense of
responsibility towards his children and his
longing for the pure, noble woman that Aaren
was.
The harsh C^nish "how much" choked his
throat, as if little Liebenberg had put his
yellowish fingers around his neck.
Gr pulled himself together.
"I have two children, dear Privy
Councillor."
321
"Me too ... condolences," Nebenberg said
laconically.
"You misunderstand me . . . two lovely
little children."
"Aleine Ainder are always charming,"
Siebenberg said with a slight sneer. - "Think,
dear doctor, even I was supposed to have been
lovely. I know mothers who call their crippled
children 'beautiful children'. Fathers are said to
do the same: furor parentium."
"Fine. Call it that! My wife..." Aebenberg
looked at him attentively.
"Oh no! You have a wife too?..."
Sometimes his arnature broke through
atavistically.
Dülfert plunged past the hurtful words and
malice into a description of his short marriage
and the recent events.
Liebenberg sipped his stale mineral water
as if it were his favorite brand of Ehablis at the
Austermeyer. He calculated like this:
The doctor is a penny a head. If he makes
me a proposition, the proposition is worth a
million or two. If I pump him two thousand
marks, he will give me back two thousand
marks and split the two million. If I buy the
idea from him, it will cost me one hundred
thousand marks - so I will profit one million
and nine times one hundred thousand marks.
 The Privy Councillor's mute conversations
with himself always had that picturesque note
of pristine homeliness that he did his best to
avoid in his official life.
Dülsert's fate was already decided after the
first ten minutes.
And when he left the wine bar an hour later,
he had an order for a hundred thousand marks
in his pocket, but also the conviction that
Liebenberg would ask him for his support in
less than two weeks, since no one could smooth
his relations with the Belgian ruler like he
could, without whose approval the planned
major business transaction was unthinkable.
Little Liebenberg was wrong with his
contempt for women, and there were cases
where a boyfriend of a former porter's daughter
was a quicker and safer way to reach his goal
than with the numbing clatter of seventy
million. And even in Liebenberg's sense, hours
of love were not always lost hours.
With the check in his pocket, Dülfert once
again felt like the master of the world. He drove
back to the Parkhotel. Then he went down to
the dining room and ordered an exquisite
dinner despite the late hour.
 Zener's wild intoxication, which had also
made him look like one of those drunken
provincial strollers, the half-digested literary
memories and experiences of the past.
sentimentally mashed up into a thick paste,
demanded its equalization.
He dined slowly, with a strong emphasis on
correctness of form, and only sipped gingerly
from the three wines that were poured for him
at his command in an expertly gastronomic
sequence.
He constantly thought through all the
options open to him to get his children and his
beloved girl back.
In his wildly eventful life, he had learned to
reckon with time as a malleable concept, and
hardly ever had the goal itself - no matter how
passionately he longed for it - been more
appealing to him than the obstacles that had to
be overcome. His temperament was comparable
to that of a frozen person baked in hot dough, a
mixture of ice and glowing lava - cold where
one expected him to be glowing - scorching
where one expected him to be cool.
This was the only way to explain his
strange love, which for the first time had
honestly captured his whole being and thus also
unreservedly revealed the stark contrasts of his
inner man.
How else could he have said "goodbye" to
Karen at the same moment when there was only
one ardent desire in him: to take her in his arms
and never let her go?
I could specify the composition of a dinner
while my brain and heart were tormented by the
thought: where are my children?
As he slowly sank the small spoon into the
Turkish-style alochka, to which he added an
unusually large amount of sugar and a shot of
aognac, he noticed a slight agitation among the
waiters, who served the guests more
absentmindedly than would be appropriate for
the staff of a first hotel, whispering to each
other from time to time and often disappearing
into a large adjoining salon, from which the
backs of chairs and the faint sounds of a
harmonium could be heard when the door was
opened.
Dülfert finally felt comfortable asking a
question, even though questions did not fit into
his current behavioral program.
"Is there still a concert going on?"
Aellner, happy to be allowed to speak,
became communicative. A concert - a hypnotic
séance. BkarcheseTorinelli had been staying at
the hotel for eight days without being able to
obtain permission from the authorities to hold a
public 56ance. Tonight a meeting was to be
held in front of an invited audience. Bkarchese
would be a true sorcerer. Even without
hypnosis, he had already given unheard-of
proof of his supernatural powers. 5o Eight days
ago, Princess von Zsenstein had been presented
with a diamond necklace at the hotel.
worth five hundred thousand marks had been
stolen - the Italian would have named the place
where it could be found.
"So? And where was it?" asked Dülfert.
"Under the window, in the gutter."
"Oh no! And the thief?"
The waiter smiled indulgently.
"No further investigation was carried out
because the marquis said that the thief had
disappeared three days ago and would remain
missing for ten years."
The waiter obviously wanted to say
something else, but suppressed it and just
smiled meaningfully.
Incidentally, the Nkarchese lived in the so-
called princely rooms, and the princess had
introduced him to Berlin's highest society in
the last few days.
Dülfert asked if he could also attend
today's meeting, and the waiter, who was not
insensitive to the twenty marks Gaston slipped
into his hand, said that he wanted the secretary
to give him a blank press card so that the
doctor could secure a seat in the salon without
hindrance.
Dülfert probably still sometimes believed
that "Mt- flying - meant flying", ec also wanted
to believe "that 3X7 makes twenty-one, at most
twenty-two", only in supernatural powers of a
He had not believed Torinelli ever since he had
once heard a "great spiritualist" in Rome,
named Lonte (Larrare, with whom he was
walking home from a party, screaming like a
madman for help because two drunken and
otherwise harmless thugs had stood in his way.
Dülfert was of the opinion that it would have
been more natural to use the supernatural
powers at his disposal to avert the danger
instead of leaning against the pile wall shaking
on his knees and shouting "Soccorso!
Soccorso!".
A couple of good slaps in the face had
scared the thugs away, and little (Lonte (Larrare
had exhausted himself in a thousand thanks and
sworn never to forget his life-saver, to be
devoted to him "for ever" with "body and soul".
On the other day Dülfert departed and later
heard that Lonte (Larrare - involved in a not
very clean affair - had left Rome by night and
fog.
Gaston just had bad luck with his count's
connections.
The hypnotic session was not scheduled
until two o'clock that night, and Gaston decided
to take a little walk beforehand, blowing the
blue aringles of a heavy Upmann out into the
balmy October wind.
As he was about to cross the Aaisex
Wilhelm Memorial Square, a car whizzed past
him.
It was a Bedag illuminated from within, and
what he caught in flight was the silhouette of a
large black feathered hat and a wave of copper-
red maar, the sight of which made his blood run
cold.
"Aaren!" escaped his lips.
But the next moment the thought flashed
through his mind that it wasn't Aaren, but
perhaps his wife who had driven past in the car.
Aaren ... Anna ... The two very different
gray ones merged into one before his eyes at
that moment! He watched in amazement as the
car carried off a female creature with a black
feathered hat and a wave of copper-red hair.
Aaren ... Anna ...
The woman of his love - the woman of his
hate.
They both held his life in their hands. Both
of them stole from him - one stubborn and self-
tormenting, the other perfidious. He chased
after both - one to win her for himself, the other
to snatch the Ainder from her.
He wandered in the streets for a quarter of
an hour, and his thoughts, which at first, like a
startled bird, were always circling around a
black feathered hat and a wave of copper-red
maar, flew from there to the massive, made-up
countess, who, like a distorted image of the two
of them, grinned and laughed derisively at him.
had whipped him off the straight and narrow
path of his new life program, plunging him into
an abyss of excitement and despair.
He knew that - his wife was only the
mouthpiece of his dangerous enemy, a
shimmering soap bubble that depended on the
countess's poisonous breath and burst into
nothing when the poczerewska grew tired of the
game. But he now knew this criminal, in its
criminal ruthlessness almost grandiose !I)eib.
She would not tire of her game of revenge
until she had turned it into an infernal tragedy
of vengeance, until the victim of her intrigues
lay destroyed in the dust before her. And even
then she did not give him the coup de grace, but
feasted on his last convulsions...
It was not his stupid, silly wife with her
memorized phrases, which she reproduced with
the rattling noise of a phonograph, that he had
to meet, but her "8piritu8 rector", the woman
who had become a hyena because he had
disregarded the life in her...
**
It was just two o'clock when he returned to
the hotel and quietly stepped into the perfume-
scented, semi-dark salon, on whose makeshift
podium a small gentleman in a tailcoat with
The man, wearing a bright white shirt on which
a heavy black beard fell, made strange
movements.
Two bluish burning electric bulbs gave his
appearance something unreal, gnome-like, his
fine white-painted hands floated around the
room like the hands of an extatic orchestra
conductor, and his black eyes glowed like soles
from the artfully underlined areola of his deep
eye sockets.
The very elegant company gathered here
remained in silent stillness, as if the hovering
hands were performing a ghostly music that had
to fall silent before the faintest earthly dew.
In an armchair on the podium lay the
medium - a gaunt, blonde female creature who
seemed to have succumbed to the laws of
magnetic force without any theatricality.
Gaston could not help but recognize the
skillful direction of the Marchese. After he had
presented a variety of experiments for the
deepest edification of his guests, he invited all
those who wished to test the effects of his
hypnotic art on themselves to enter the podium
in sweet French.
Dülfert listened. The voice sounded
familiar.
And as he watched more closely and looked
at the long
beard away, he was taken aback.
 Meanwhile, the tension in the audience
eased, and a flurry of excited words proved that
the question of whether one should not take the
risk of being hypnotized was being seriously
discussed.
The Marchese leaned on a small, round
table that stood to one side of the podium and
smiled fixedly down at it.
"Eh bien?" he said at last.
A tall lady stood up, with the head of an
ancient city goddess, adorned with a crown of
red curls, rising above her mightily arched bust.
The abundant and skillfully applied make-up
and the bluish light conjured up a last remnant
of fading youth on the somewhat spongy face.
"Warchese, I place myself at your disposal,"
the insistent voice of Countess Pocze-Rewska
shrilled through the 5aal.
And without paying any attention to her
Wann, who turned his fiery, dark eyesii away
from her in even greater embarrassment than
when he appeared as a defendant before the
forum of the court, without paying any
attention to the distinguished company, she
climbed the two carpeted steps leading up to
the podium and repeated quietly, her eyes
greedily fixed on those of the interesting
Warchese: -
"Je suis ä vous!"
 At the same moment, the Marchese
flinched.
"Lonte Larrare," someone had called up to
him very quietly. And again, half warning, half
threatening: "Gonte Garrare". The Italian's eyes
widened and his pale face became even paler in
the black frame of his beard. But then his
wandering gaze was held by two water-bright
eyes that were fixed on him.
"Well," cried the countess, "get started,
Mar- chese . ."
But he did not move. 5his white-painted
fires fell as if powerless and he mumbled:
"Gs doesn't work. . ."
Ulan only had to deny the poczerewska
something for her to try to achieve what she
had refused in every possible way.
"Oh, why can't I? I'm healthy ... feel my
heart ..."
She grabbed the hypnotist's hand and
pressed it against her bosom.
The marquis tried in vain to escape from
her.
"Certainly, 5ignora, but something in your
eyes ... a train around your mouth ... no,
signora, don't do that ... I won't do it..."
 The audience became restless. 5 She really
compromised herself, this poczerewska -
behaved like a declassed woman!
 The Count felt that society expected him to
intervene.
"My dear . ... don't torment the Marchese.
Another time ..."
The countess played baby, bit and tugged at
her handkerchief, stamped her feet.
"Then I explain that it's all humbug,
nonsense. . ."
Chairs were pushed back violently, silken
trains rustled, a few tugs surrounded the ostrade
- again a desperate glance from the Marchese
flew over to the blond giant, who was leaning
against the wall at the very back of the hall and
did not take his eyes off him.
"Light..." he called out at last, ". . . Light..."
The electric light flooded the room as bright
as day. -

Dülfert disappeared unnoticed, just as he had

arrived .
As if freed from a nightmare, the Italian
breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was
completely self-confident again, completely a
man of the world, with a quiet undertone of
nervous excitement that seemed completely
explained by the situation created by the
countess.
And in the radiant light, as if deliberately
stripped of all mysticism, he said:
"The signora is too nervous for such
experiments. She would suffer from a severe
headache afterwards. But my experiments are
not intended to cause suffering, only pleasure -
and above all, benefit. Because I
wants to serve science and the good of
mankind."
The Warchese could not have wished for a
better end to what was essentially a spoiled
evening. Tugs and ladies cheered him on, the
"necklace princess", as she was called after the
theft and recovery of her aollier, crushed a
trance of emotion and pride between her blond
lashes, and Count Poczerewski could do
nothing but lead his extravagant wife away
from the range of all the mocking and
disapproving glances.
The countess raged. It was once again that
her will had bounced off a stronger will. Was it
possible that this small, slender Wann had
offered her such unyielding resistance for no
reason . ..?
She dreamed of him all night. Not in the
years of her wildest passions, her most reckless
pranks had she felt anything like this. The
Italian's black eyes followed her everywhere.
She could have beaten herself.
At eight o'clock in the morning she rang the
maid's bell and had tea with arak brought to
her, by half past eight she had made plans to
move the Warchese into her house, whatever
the cost, by nine she was considering the
possibility of marrying him, and by half past
nine the possibility of divorcing the earl.
 L's future projects were not always entirely
logical, but they were spirited and accelerated
in tempo.
She was already on her fifth honeymoon
when she asked herself what halfway valid
reason for divorce she could give against the
count. Tr was "chivalrous and nonchalant" like
all Polish counts and had never given ibr cause
to complain about him, never . . . until ...
A name suddenly flashed through her mind
like a lightning bolt: Anna von Dülfert.
She was not a jealous woman, Aooze-
rewska - perhaps only because she was so
preoccupied with herself, but now that she was
thinking so frantically, tracing the count's
sympathies and his likes outside the race - it fell
from her eyes like scales.
Anna von Dülfert, of course! For weeks and
months Miami had been chasing after her little
red-colored Alouche, ^it had been her idea to
buy the business from Aemy and give it to
Anna von Dülfert, ^she herself had only said
yes in order to cool off her little Alouche to
Gaston, to humiliate him in his wife, in his
children, in his name ... But the Count . ..
^she suddenly saw quite clearly, saw the
little coquette Wouebe prancing up and down in
front of the count,
with that suspicious swaying of the hips which
she herself knew so well from her youthful
days, she saw her husband explaining to her
with suddenly awakened businesslike
enthusiasm how useful Mouche had been to
him when he had engaged her as a barmaid,
how bravely she had then stood by his side, She
also remembered some jeweler's bills for
jewelry that she herself had never received, and
she could think of many other large and small
details that pointed to a closer relationship
between Anna von Dülfert and Poczerewski.
She spread out both arms in exuberant joy,
as if to press something to her bosom. She felt
her suddenly hated Poczerewski's veins fall
away from her and shuddered voluptuously at
the idea of being immersed in an alien will, of
being enraptured from all earthly heaviness,
and of being guided by soft white fathoms
through all regions of supernatural ecstasies.
At that moment, small Ainder fists knocked
on the door of her bedroom, and immediately
afterwards two Ainder stepped over the
threshold.
"Is it true, Grandma, that Aunt Aamundsen
is dead? Mama said Aunt Aamundsen is dead
and Aunt Bella too, and we're going far away
now ..." cried the boy, and mine added howling:
"I don't want to leave, Grandma, I don't
want to . . ."
 It was bitter to be torn from sweet dreams
of love by being called "grandmother".
But everything that came from these
Dülferts was always bad and unpleasant.
"Don't howl and get out," commanded
JDoczerewska with an imperious wave of her
arm, from which the children ran away as if the
wicked fairy-tale witch had thrown her broom
at them.
But the countess sank into an armchair and
pressed her white, fleshy hand in front of her
forehead.
No .. . Anna von Dülfert was not grounds
for divorce. If the marriage was divorced
because of her, then Gaston was also free. Then
nothing stood in the way of his divorce and the
children would be awarded to him by law. But
that - she had sworn to herself - could not be
allowed to happen. She wanted to see the man
in front of her who took it upon himself to
despise her.
There was no microscope, however subtle,
that could have made Gaston von Dülfert's
desired smallness visible.
J)oczerewska wrung her hands in strained
thought.
 After this thought process had lasted an
hour, she came to the conclusion that there
could be happiness apart from marriage, and
with the program-like refrain of a marriage
song,
she had heard in j)aris many years ago, she sat
down in front of her toilet table to pile up her
curls:
"O^ene, Ugene, tu me fais languir!
Ou il 'y a d'la gene, d'la gene 'y a pas d' plaisir!"
That very night, after the prematurely
interrupted hypnotic séance, Dr. v. Dülfert
knocked on one of the doors of his hotel room.
Gin Mohr, who had a bad case of berlin but
was otherwise quite clean-cut, opened the door
for him. Gaston had not yet had time to hand
him his aarte when the marquis himself stepped
out of the next room and pulled the blond giant
away with a hasty movement.
"I know what you're going to say, doctor, I
know everything. Mas wants me to do
something to please you. You once saved my
life. I belong to you."
"Thank you, thank you. I'm not asking for
anything," Gaston interrupted coolly. "And you
can't know what I want to tell you either,
because you don't know how much I know
about you."
The Marchese changed color.
Gaston made a defensive movement.
"Your hypnotic abilities are the only -^- I
want to say real thing about you. You have also
learned, as I have noticed."
 The Italian, flattered, bowed like a tenor,
pressing his hand against his heart.
"Incidentally," Gaston continued
unperturbed, "- you've remained the same
adventurer who doesn't shy away from the
crudest means. The collar story is really naive.
You did a better job in Rome... more
thoroughly."
"One becomes cautious," murmured the
Marchese.
"Still not careful enough - even if you
suspect two harmless rascals to be policemen in
disguise...! That evening, under hypnosis, you
had the Marchesa Skuderi hand you a diamond
tiara with instructions to found a women's
asylum near Florence. You traveled there,
bought a half-ruined trattoria from the side of a
hill, put two goat herders in it, gave them the
pompous titles of "Sister Superior" and "Sister
Recloser", and had the women write you a
borate of sentimental letters of thanks. The
whole joke cost you W00 lire. They
disappeared with the rest of the money - and
three months later the 'Sister Superior' set fire
to the 'Asylum' and died in the flames with her
comrade."
 The Marchese fiddled with his collar.
"Maybe you're still claiming that I'm also to
blame for the Messina disaster."
"My respect for you would only be greater
if I believed that. But the long-distance effect
of your
hypnotic power on a couple of old women is
enough for me. What you succeeded in doing
with the goatherd's wife can surely be repeated
again . . ."
The Italian ran his hand through his beard
and Gaston saw small beads of sweat slowly
oozing from his pores.
"The Warchesa, by the way, could not be
persuaded to denounce you, as I have heard,
even though all of Rome recognized you as a
swindler. You have always known how to link
your interests with those of your victims, and
the fear of scandal on the part of others built the
throne of your criminality."
"What do you want from me?" came half-
stammered from the Italian's lips. "I'm leaving
Berlin tomorrow - I'm not offering you any
money, because I'm on the brink of an abyss. A
year ago, I was a rich wannabe, and misguided
speculation has robbed me of my fortune."
Gaston laughed out loud.
"I see... You tried the 'honest purchase'?
That, my dear, you must leave it alone. That's
the end of 'genius', and you are a bit of a genius
in spite of everything - worthy of being
included in the collection I dreamed of earlier.
Manolescu died just as he was getting ready to
pay his first taxes, Tora pearl, the most famous
hetaera of the Third Empire, died on rotten
straw when she began to realize that
Flowers smell sweeter when they are peeled
from an envelope of plain tissue paper than
from a greasy thousand-franc note. You, dear
Gonte or Marchese, as you now prefer to call
yourself, will choke on the first piece of bread
that falls into your hands through honest
acquisition. If you weren't so miserably afraid
of police officers in disguise, I would admire
you. But after all, the Rockefellers, Larnegies
and others are no better off. They all fear for
their lives and they fear even more that what
they have taken from others will be taken from
them. Shake my hand, Marchese - like this. In
you, too, I welcome a secret emperor, and if
you lack anything for complete greatness, it is
only the ability to confuse the threads of your
complicated actions. You work too simply,
Marchese, too openly. A little too clumsy.
Don't take offense. You stand up and shout: I
hypnotize - you all have no will but mine.
That's childish, dear Marchese, really childish.
And in the end, in order to be considered a
hero, you are forced to hand over the stolen
goods like a domesticated animal."
Dr. von Dülfert feasted on the little man's
deadly embarrassment, feeling that the longer
he spoke, the greater and more devastating his
effect became. '
He concluded harshly and matter-of-factly.
 "And now listen carefully. Two years after
our interesting encounter in Rome, I was able to
release the Marchesa Skuderi from her spell
during another stay there. She died in my arms
and placed in my hands evidence against you
which - in whatever Tande you may be - will
suffice to impose on you the death penalty that
every Tande deserves. I assure you, dear
Warchese, had I not been so busy with my own
affairs, it would have been a pleasure of its own
to chase you geographically through all the
fears of death and finally ask you the cardinal
question: do you prefer the Austrian gallows,
the French guillotine, the German executioner's
axe, the electric chair of America, or do you
wish to be skinned alive in Thina, like the
Indian snakes?"
"If you don't stop, I'll alert the hotel!"
The Italian was as pale as cheese, his white
hand, from which the make-up mixed mushy
with the cold sweat, groped for the electric
Alingel.
Gaston placed his fingertips on his arm
almost tenderly.
"Not at all, Marchese... We're just between
us, and I admire you. I'd be sorry if you were
harmed in any way... And
then you see - how strange, Alarchese... I use
no force, my fingers barely touch your coat tails
- but you make the most desperate efforts to get
away, to shake me off ... and it doesn't work!
No, you really see... I can't..."
The water-bright eyes of the blond giant
gazed fixedly into the black-rimmed eyes of the
Italian.
"Let me - I'm suffocating... let me..."
Dr. von Dülfert stepped back, a mocking
smile on his thin lips, and as if nothing had
happened, he took a cigarette from his case.
"Strange... isn't it, Nkarchese? It seems that
of the two of us - I am the stronger? Didn't you
notice that earlier, when you tried to hypnotize
the lady and I called you 'Eonte Garrare' and
shook my head quietly?"
"Yes ... my arms became lame ... My
strength was blown away ... Weights were
hanging from each of my fingers."
The words fell from the Italian's pale lips
with a gasp, and in superstitious fear he touched
the slender, high-shouldered figure.
Gaston nodded.
"It's a pity when two forces work against
each other instead of uniting," he said slowly.
 He took a chair and moved it very close to
Nlarchese's armchair.
 "Did you think it possible, Marchese, that a
will even stronger than yours could control the
will of a third person through the medium of
your person?"
The Marchese thought about it.
"Yes ... that is possible. There have been
cases where the hypnotist unconsciously
transferred the will of another person, by whom
he himself had been hypnotized, to his
medium."
Dr. von Dülfert nodded with satisfaction.
"Beautiful. So the laugh is very simple."
And almost commandingly he continued: "The
strong lady from before is the Countess
poczerew^ka - the epitome of wretchedness, the
embodiment of lies, falsehood and perfidy. I
know this woman through and through. Lie is
certainly already in love with Lie at this hour.
Lie will draw Lie into her house and do
everything in his power to be hypnotized by
you. In front of a large audience, of course.
Because she wants people to talk about her all
the time, she wants to be the center of attention.
So far, only cowardice has prevented her from
being the first aviator to take to the skies on her
own. We will take this fear away from her,
Marchese."
The Italian jumped out.
"And then? ..
A cold, cruel tug tightened the corners of
Gaston's mouth.
"Then she will climb into your arms,
Marchese... It's just a matter of catching them,"
he added mockingly.
"Doctor, I had sworn to rnir . .."
"Aann I guess, all right," Gaston cut him
short. - "Swear back again. And now listen to
what you have to do: From now on, you will be
a constant guest of the countess, hypnotize her
as often as she asks, but only ever demand
joking things from her, little parlor games! Do
you understand? You will always refuse any
more serious experiments. At the same time,
you will initiate me into the secrets of your art,
and I will have the fun of making the
poczerewska dance a little to my tune,
invisibly, but through your mediation, and
unbeknownst to you and the countess. As far as
I can calculate your effect on the Countess's
temperament, the remote hypnosis will be able
to take effect after the fifth or sixth sleep. So in
eight days you can leave Berlin with a cash
sum of ..."
Dülfert looked questioningly at the
Marchese. He tried to squirm, looked for
excuses, pretended to be exhausted. Dülfert just
smiled.
"One u)ort from me, dear friend - and
you're under arrest."
"One hundred thousand marks," stammered
the marquis.
"You're a fool, you could have asked for
three times as much," Dülfert said immediately.
bravely and stood up. - "All right, one hundred
thousand marks. Now, don't try to make a run
for it. The first time you try to escape, the
police of five countries will be on your tail.
Good evening."
With that, Dr. von Dülfert left the room and
went to the night porter to tell him that he had
to inform him immediately if the Marchese
went out during the night, as he had promised
to join him. He only had to phone up.
It was four o'clock when he finally woke up
in his room and went to bed feeling exhausted.
*
The next morning, as he was sipping his
tea, there was a knock on his door and Neander
stepped over the threshold.
"My bride is downstairs. I didn't think it
would be proper to bring her into a gentleman's
room," he said, a little unctuously and almost
nobly, "but she wanted to come with me to tell
you herself what happened yesterday in
Aurfürstenstrasse."
Gaston barely let him speak.
"Gosh, you're a constant talker, I feel sorry
for your community. Where's Bella ...
downstairs? I'm coming."
 And before Neander could say a word in
reply, he was out of the door and racing down
the two floors to the reading room.
The little Maßmann, who already had
something oppressively jDastor-like about her,
held a simply folded handkerchief between the
singers, lacking only the hymnbook as a
support.
"Where is Aaren ... where are my Ainder?"
Dülfert called breathlessly to her.
Even before she replied, and despite the
excitement of the moment, little Maßmann cast
a chastising glance at him, who in his haste had
forgotten to carefully tie on his tie.
She moved away from him a little and told
him with measured coolness that Aaren
Holmsen had appeared in Aurfürstenstrasse late
yesterday evening. She had been with
Liebenberg and was highly agitated.
Gaston was taken aback. What was Aaren
doing at Liebenberg ...?
"Go on, go on..." he urged.
Liebenberg had told Aaren in what a state
of depravity he had found him, Gaston . ..
Little Maßmann cast her eyes down. The
missing tie was like a confirmation of her
slump.
She continued:
 "Aaren began to cry at Liebenberg's
description, and Liebenberg tried to comfort
her and finally told her that he would give her a
pearl the size of a pea for every unshed tear if
she would devote her attention to him in the
future."
"The rogue dared to do that..."
"Oh, he would have dared even more if
Aaren hadn't run away like a hunted deer," said
little Maßmann.
"Yes, what on earth was she doing at
Liebenberg?"
"She couldn't bear it for longing for you!
She knew that you wanted to meet Liebenberg,
so she wanted to inquire about your
whereabouts."
"The dear, good ..."
Little Maßmann put a stop to him.
"Make no mistake, Doctor, Aaren is deeply
hurt by your unworthy behavior. At first she
didn't want to believe that you were behaving
like a..."
"That I was drunk as a pig," Dülfert added.
- "Lordy, that happens to everyone!"
"You forget, Doctor, Aaren is Norwegian.
People there drink punch at best, but rarely
wxin. Getting drunk on wine is considered a
vice of the worst kind there. I have also drunk
punch
3^8
with Aaren and saw how her fine, delicate skin
turned red. But then she was always terribly
ashamed. And yet they were only small red
spots, while you, Doctor ..., lay in the aneipe as
if dead for an hour..."
Oh, this terrible, petty-bourgeois morality!
Gaston could have held the criminal Marchese
to his heart like a brother at that moment and
murdered little Maßmann.
Neander crept in quietly and sat down
devotedly in the corner of a chair.
"My dear girl, don't get upset, I want to
speak instead of you."
And he spoke ... with beautiful rhetorical
phrases and a soft look in his eyes, how
Fräulein Holmsen had arrived in Aur-
Fürstenstrasse, distraught with pain and shame,
how the description of the robbery had softened
her indignation at the doctor a little, and how
she had finally declared that she could no
longer live in a country like Germany.
"Pack your things, Bolette," she said to Mrs.
Aamundsen, "you don't belong to other people's
cattle, you belong to your Aaren Holmsen.
Tomorrow, on the first morning train, we're
going to Munich, and from there to Lake
Garda."
 She cleaned out the cupboards and
cupboards herself and even threw the
missionary sewing work, which usually got on
her nerves, into the waste bin. Ver-
We urged her not to be hasty, for the ways of
God are unsearchable, and so was Noah..."
"Enough, enough," Gaston cried, at the end
of his patience, and grabbed his head as if he
were in a madhouse or a meeting of the
Salvation Army.
"One more thing," said little Maßmann.
"When we took Aaren and Mrs. Aamundsen
onto the train this morning, we saw a little lady
with burning red curls and two children getting
on the same train. Aaren half fainted at the sight
and wanted to get off, but the train started
moving.
Line small pause arose.
"Is that all you have to tell me?" asked Or.
v. Dülfert tonelessly.
Neander stood up.
"No, doctor. The best and most beautiful is
yet to come."
Gaston grimaced. The good pastor was not
yet out of his shoes and was able to save the
"best and most beautiful piece" on his plate for
the "last" bite, even at the table: ...last bite.
"Well," he asked, without tension, almost
with that casual tiredness that comes as a
reaction after all major disasters.
"Miss Holmsen has this to say to you," said
the pastor meaningfully, "she is ready to tell
you everything.
if you follow her within twice twenty-four
hours. This is her last word. If you are not with
her after two times twenty-four hours - then
every bond between you and her is severed.
Forever. - Amen."
He cleared his throat, because the "Amen"
had just slipped out so thoughtlessly, out of old
habit.
Dülfert rubbed his forehead. His Aaren, his
clever, dear little Aaren, had issued this
nonsensical ultimatum. She too - "a goose
cackling endlessly across the yard"? ..
Did the will of a madman contain more
truths than anything "sane" people had ever
thought. . .?
His first movement was to take little Bella's
outstretched hand and shout: "Yes ... I'm
going. . . Not for another twenty-four hours.
No! Now . . . right now . . . with the next train."
But he came to his senses, first his business
here had to be settled.
"I'm leaving for Aaren in eight days," he
said. "A day earlier."
"Then it's too late," complained Bella
Maßmann.
"Lord, forgive him, because he doesn't
know what he's doing!" murmured Neander.
And hand in hand with "his dear girl", he
left the place of "sinful vice".
*
*
 After Gaston had completed his toilet in a
frantic rush, he drove to Liebenberg. He was
told that he had traveled to Brussels and was
not expected back for another six days.
Right, the big Brussels deal that he gave
him the idea for! The idea . . but not the
opportunity to carry it out without him. Oh, he
had learned to parry Liebenberg's cozy
monologues. And time was an elastic concept.
What he had wanted to do today could also be
done in days. And in six days' time, perhaps at
the same hour as he was giving his reckoning
with the poczerewska, he would give the little
privy councillor a lesson to think about.
Over the next few days, the whole of Berlin
was talking about the hypnotic sessions with
Countess Poczerewska. Had they not always
been so completely harmless, the police might
have interfered, but it was as if the beautiful
Italian anxiously avoided anything that could
have even the appearance of danger or went
beyond the bounds of innocent parlor banter.
The j)oczerewska now fell asleep without him
even having to touch her. Gin stared at her for a
few seconds and she was fast asleep. They did
not realize that the marquis was more reluctant
and hesitant to perform the hypnosis from day
to day and that after the experiment he stood
there trembling and drenched in sweat. - "What
did I order you to do, Aomtesse?" he
sometimes asked. She laughed
and said she didn't remember. He should know
that she couldn't remember anything when she
woke up.
Dr. von Dülfert also had an almost uncanny
nervousness around this time. When he wasn't
"working" with the Marchese, he would stare
ahead of him for hours and consider all the
"pros" and "cons" of his origins.
The wild dream from the wine bar
intertwined with reality to form an inextricable
ball. "II a son paquet," his mother had said
when he was born. "Son?" Whose? . . .
If only the decisive week was over, the
seven days that artfully built up his revenge
plan, bringing him step by step closer to the
hoped-for fulfillment. And wasn't this plan
itself the product of a crazy, sick imagination?
On the sixth day, a pneumatic tube letter
arrived from Liebenberg: "Come at once, I must
speak to you." So the Privy Councillor was
already back in Berlin.
That was to be expected! Now the first
reckoning was approaching. Liebenberg would
offer him money, buy his way out - a million,
two million. No . . . he had to see his blood, a
little bit of blood, just a splash, but the fear of
everything, the cowardice . . And then he
wanted to help him and hurry . .. But first
revenge, for every pearl offered a rapier blow,
with a flat blade if you like.
 The thought made him feel like after a cold
shower. ...
And everything happened as he had
foreseen. The fear - the grotesque fear!
"As you wish, dear doctor, if you're so
stupid as to fight a duel over a woman ...
Pistols? Rifles? An American duel with
poisoned pills if you like, and in the dark, but
not with swords!"
"Straight sword," Dülfert insisted, "naked to
the belt, so that I can see the tip of the sword
penetrating your flesh!"
"Brrrrr . . ." Liebenberg said, circling his
stint with his index finger. - "If you kill me,
you'll lose two million."
Dülfert just laughed. In the evening he was
sitting with the Marchese when the door opened
and poczerewska entered. 5 She went up to the
Italian, who looked at her as if dumbfounded,
and put both arms around his neck regardless of
Gaston.
"Why weren't you with me today, my love?
Why did you call me?"
The marchese escaped from her arms:
"I didn't call 5you, it's not true ... Go
home ... So go!"
Gr pushed her towards the door.
 The countess smiled and shook her full
curls.
"Everything is waiting for you. People in
Berlin are only talking about you and the
competition. But you
23*
you are greater than them all - your eye goes
higher, it goes beyond the atmosphere and takes
me with it
The marquis tried in vain to free himself
from her, his eyes looking to Gaston for help.
"Go," he said briefly and made a slight
movement towards the poczerewska.
She flinched. A stretch and a shudder went
through her powerful body. Then she lowered
her head and walked silently out of the door.
"So," said Gaston. - "The system works.
Speaking of which, Marchese, are you going
out to fly lVett tomorrow?"
The Italian smiled his sweet estrade smile
again.
"Shall I?"
"It would be very interesting if you could
report back to me. I have an appointment on the
eight floor at this time tomorrow.
Then he pulled the uncashed check from
Liebenberg out of the portfolio.
"Here, Marchese, one hundred thousand
marks. I would advise you to leave here early
tomorrow and settle your account. I won't tell
you goodbye - although with people like us,
you never know . . . So don't forget: tomorrow
afternoon! And don't let the pocze- rewska out
of your sight. She's so incredibly extravagant!
Night!"
 Without even shaking hands with the
marquis, Gaston left the room with a short nod
and a hard, firm look at the small, slumped
figure of the Italian.
He did not sleep a wink during the night.
Just as an Indian fakir is stunned by the wild
dance in which he spins around himself like a
top, his thoughts revolving around one and the
same point stunned his agitated brain, and once
again dream and reality swam together for him.
When the early morning red broke through
the dark red curtains, he felt as if his whole
room was drenched in blood, and he tore at the
curtain cords and the sashes of the window like
a suffocating man.
Windless and cool, the night light flooded
into the tree
Gaston von Dülfert gripped the pen with a
trembling hand and wrote in his hasty, large
letters across the stationery:
Dearest Aaren I
I don't know what the next few hours will
bring me: Salvation or madness. A dark destiny
seems to have pursued me from time
immemorial, and the zigzagging of my
existence was probably the consequence rather
than the cause of my strange disposition. I dare
no longer burden your young, strong life with
me -
I must not. Although I never felt as I do now
that I love you! I must save you from you, from
me - farewell!
Until the last breath
Your Gaston von Dülfert.
He sent the letter to Bella Maßmann, asking
her to send it on.
Then he left the hotel.
Alar the blue sky arched over the towers of
the Aaiser Wichelm Memorial Church, and
people walked along laughing and chatting,
breathing in the unusually balmy October air
like a gracious gift from nature.
Dülfert called a car and drove to the
fencing. He looked like a man condemned to
death when he got there.
"Are you afraid, Doctor?" asked
Liebenberg, who had no idea about dueling.
Gaston undressed in silence while the
seconds, two teachers from the fencing school,
examined the swords and an old, deaf doctor
arranged the bandages.
"Take your clothes off too," said one of the
seconds to Liebenberg.
"Rubbish," Liebenberg replied
disrespectfully. - "The sword is sharp enough, it
goes through like that ..."
 "Take your clothes off," both Zerren now
shouted as if from the same mouth.
 It was very unpleasant how they both
rushed at little Liebenberg and tore the Aleider
Dom from his body. They didn't know his
name, didn't know anything about the existence
of the seventy million, didn't know that a
padded Hoffmann suit, which cost four hundred
marks, wanted to be handled carefully, didn't
suspect that the little man's underwear was as
fine as the underwear of an Australian dancer
and would tear like cobweb between the
narrows if you tore it so hard. They only
followed the program of the duel farce that
Dülfert had laid out beforehand and wanted to
laugh their heads off at the small, hunchbacked
man with the high left shoulder, who suddenly
slipped out of their grasp like a frog and roared:
"I'm not taking part anymore! Give me my
shirt ... I'm not taking part anymore!"
Gaston was beside him in one movement.
"Father!" he cried out with elemental force,
and the sword fell clattering to the ground,
while a hot wave of blood rose to his head.
Little Liebenberg blinked his eyes
uncomprehendingly at first, but the two seconds
looked puzzled at the two half-naked figures
with the hump on their backs and the raised left
shoulder, on each of which a lentil-sized,
uniform mole stood out.
The Council of Commerce grumbled to
itself, and
One did not know whether it was out of a
feeling of relief at the conclusion of this stupid
affair or out of satisfaction at having had such a
fine nose that he had always felt so strangely
attracted to Gaston. And it was not without
emotion that he thought of the blonde
Frenchwoman, whose assurances that the cow
she was expecting was his cow he had not
believed at all.
Gaston was like in a dream. The secret
emperor his father, the man with the 70 million!
The Zerren hastily dressed and went down
the stairs. Little Liebenberg hooked himself
into Dülfert:
"We still want to say 'you' to each other -
we can work our way better into the brand. So,
listen, doctor, as far as Brussels is concerned..."
Extra sheets were loudly called out on the
street!
"The new record on the airfield in the
Iohannis Valley! Rougier flies for four hours!
Great accident! Death of the Countess
Poczerewska!" Gaston turned pale, while little
Aebenberg tore a paper from the merchant's
hand. He read aloud: "When the English driver
Ingram had just completed a lap with his Voisin
machine, a propeller broke just above the take-
off area. The machine fell from a height of
twenty meters, but the driver remained
completely unharmed. On the other hand, a
wing fell
The broken propeller crashed into Countess
Poczerewska's white horse-drawn carriage and
injured the lady, who was known far and wide
and was the first woman to want to fly in the air
today, so badly that she collapsed covered in
blood. The doctors who immediately rushed to
the scene could only state that the countess had
died as a result of a fractured skull."
"God rest her soul!" said Liebenberg.
Gaston sighed deeply. lWhat was that? She
was dead -dead-----and not through his fault!
Gin's dark fate had beaten him to it, had freed
him from the heavy guilt he was about to bring
upon himself. Only now- at this moment, when
the goal of his hateful wish had been achieved
and yet his plan had failed - did he fully realize
the gravity of his plan for revenge. His blind
hatred of this woman, who knew how to strike
him in his veins, had been justified in any
attempt to satisfy his addiction: His addiction to
all things outlandish and extravagant had led
him to seize the adventurous opportunity to
make use of the Italian's nervous powers.
Admittedly, he now had to forego the inner
satisfaction of having won a victory on a field
that no one so easily entered! But what was that
compared to the feeling of being able to walk
freely through life without the sense of guilt
 He took a deep breath of the clean, mild air,
whistled a few times and put the extra sheet in
his pocket.
"Twenty-one - twenty-two at most!" he
grumbled.
"What?" asked Liebenberg. "Percentages?
And for what?"
"No percentages at all!" replied Gaston. "A
new philosophy - which should hardly apply to
the stock exchange! Twenty-one - that's man,
you know - but twenty-two is something else -
destiny, fate, the deity or whatever you want to
call it! And it's just one digit more!"
Chapter Twelve.
The Heimtiche Kaiser.
Gaston v. Oülfert woke up after sleeping
through the night in a leaden unconsciousness.
Next to him on the pillow lay the crumpled
extra sheet of paper, showing the scorch marks
from the cigarette that had fallen out of his hand
while he was still smoldering in his slumber.
Again and again he scanned the lines and a
feeling of unspeakable liberation ran through his
heart once more. It was not the triumph over his
mortal enemy, not the joy of victory over an
adverse fate, whose steering wheel the
poczerewska presumed to grasp, - that filled
him, it was the deep sigh of relief of the
prisoner, who after a long night of anguish was
able to greet the fresh blue of the sky again. He
felt as if a dark, ghostly hand had let go of his
throat.
Only now did the dull pressure inside him,
which had been secretly weighing on him the
whole time he had been trading with the
criminal Italian, become a clear voice.
 The mere life of a human being does not
weigh as heavily as the philistine generally
believes, but it is the calling in of the dark
powers of the supernatural, the handling of the
tools of an invisible world - even if it is only the
seemingly cheapest, simplest, - hypnosis, of
which even the modern physician already
knows - to bumble with laws that are closed to
the human animal of today, that is what rattles
the doors behind which the Erinyes watch.
Sentence by sentence, he remembered with
infinite clarity the essays in the last book he had
recently read, which had already left a deep
impression on him at the time: "The Destructive
Principle in Nature" by Florence Huntley.
The woman who had interfered with his
plans and wanted to destroy him and his
children - just out of a narrow-minded female
hatred - to get rid of this woman by murder
would have been completely reasonable and
gentlemanly, measured by all the concepts of
"permissible" or "reprehensible" that he had
formed as a faithless "aulturist" in the course of
a basically quite superficial life.
Measured by his inner standards! And what
did he care about the standards of others? Or the
ten commandments of a Moses to whom he had
never been introduced!
 He would even have acquired a right to the
kind of sensations that inspire the hunter when
he shoots the harmful fox - the poczerewska had
also been red and harmful. The reassurance of
being the caring patron in the orderly goose
house!
The most elaborate structure of the planet,
however, which nature has sublimated in
billions of years from the turba of life-germs
through the retort of matter, the independently
free "ego-consciousness" - the individual's ever-
recurring root - seemed to him to want to tear it
down in a cheeky, stupid and, what is more,
excessive way, to want to tear down the
independently free "I-consciousness" - the
individual's ever-recurring root - impudently,
stupidly and, what is more, excessively by
making use of Eonte Earrare's disgusting
psychic influences, now seemed so horrible to
him that he could not even comprehend how he
could ever have fallen for such a thought.
Thank God, the ancient reaper's scythe had
whizzed between them---------------
Gaston v. Dülfert dropped the thread of his
thoughts.
He followed the snake patterns on the
wallpaper with his eyes for a while, tired of
thinking, and compared their irregular spacing.
The sharp, rhythmic clattering of the horses'
hooves on the asphalt, echoing up from below,
hammered itself more and more clearly into his
consciousness and fully awakened his memory
of daytime life.
 It was really unbelievable! Old Liebenberg
was suddenly going to be his father!
Gaston 'rummaged through his powers of
intuition. In his struggle with life, he had
gradually developed a strange method of seeing
through the thoughts of a partner or opponent -
terms that always coincided for him - or rather
of feeling them. All he had to do was imitate the
other person's facial features, gaze, posture,
voice, and with astonishing certainty the secret
thought processes would join in, like something
inseparable, all by themselves.
Gaston v. Dülfert had adopted this method
of getting into other people's brains so easily, as
if it were a matter of course, that he based most
of his business plans on it. What he found
particularly striking, however, was that the
Aryan race of men used this emotional key
almost exclusively, while the Semitic race
seemed to lack it altogether. - Whenever he told
acquaintances or friends, insofar as they were
Jews, about this ability in open-hearted hours,
he was always met with complete
incomprehension. - At best, his stories were
taken for superficial a- versation or he was told
that he had also read Edgar Allan Poe, who had
already exhaustively discussed all psychology
on this point.
 Gradually, the conviction had taken root in
Gaston v. Dülfert that the modern Aryans and
Lemites were not so fundamentally different
from each other in any point than in this one in
particular. The Jews - perhaps out of typical fear
and aversion to anything that smelled of
metaphysics - only ever used reason to achieve
victory, while the so-called Ehrists - mostly
unconsciously and always unsystematically -
took a feeling as the starting point for their
actions.
Gaston compared. - He had the ability to
guess thoughts as accurately as the
Aommerzienrat was able to deduce them
logically. - Each of them was a master of his
own racial idiosyncrasy.
Dülfert closed his eyelids and thought
himself completely, completely, completely into
Liebenberg. He cut the other's face in good and
bad humor, on this and that possible occasion,
imitated the short, fidgety step, spoke as a
hunchbacked little Privy Councillor of
Commerce to the hunchbacked Gaston v.
Dülfert with the water-bright pike-perch eyes.
He literally became vivid in his: inside.
He was three people: Liebenberg, vr. v.
Dülfert and an invisible shapeless figure.
Nothing! - Nothing common at the bottom
of the N)ese, completely different blood. - He
felt it, he knew it: he was not that reward.
 And he was happy. So happy. He almost
clapped his hands like a little Aind.
Why was that? He no longer understood
himself. He couldn't care less who his father
was or had been.
If he really was Liebenberg's son, this
would not have brought him any particular
advantage in the light of day. Under normal
circumstances, he could never become an heir,
and as long as the Aommerzienrat was alive,
his fatherly inclination towards him - Gaston -
would hardly have made the mutual business
relations more profitable for the younger part
than they had been in the past.
So was his feeling just a kind of
unconscious prudery of his vanity? Did he
simply not want to be related to the old man,
perhaps because every street urchin in Berlin
knew where the foundation stone of the 70
million came from? Liebenberg had grown
until the first 2-3 million had been collected -
he had taken 60% in the shade and how much
more in the sunI Gaston laughed out loud. What
else was there! What suspicion did he have? As
we all know, money doesn't smell at all!
So that wasn't it! And what else could make
him so strangely happy when he completely
surrendered to the feeling that he was not his
father? - Dr. v. Dülfert's gaze fell on
the evening newspaper, which he didn't finish
reading last night and which was lying on the
floor next to his fine bed.
Gr bent down, picked it up and leafed
through it quickly.
What was that? Gin's strange 5 sentence in
the advertisement section literally jumped out at
him:
"Your father hasn't died, Gaston, you'll see
him again soon."
Dr. v. Dülfert searched the newspaper line
by line, the words were no longer to be found!
Nothing more stupid and annoying than
hallucinations! Of course, when I quickly turned
the page, this idiotic tatz was formed from
existing words and tildes - Gasthof became
Gaston ufw.
It is strange, but sad, that even nature is
already working in Ritsch and allows such
senseless lead casting at all.
Annoyed, Gaston reached for his cigarette
case and lit a Gortesi.
Again he was overcome by a feeling of
indescribable comfort. Lr lolled himself up in
the soft cracks and resolved to lie there for as
long as he could and do nothing but enjoy the
cheerful light that shone through the yellow-silk
curtains like a barrel sheen in the room.
Now everything could, indeed, had to be all
right. Gr only had to keep his eyes wide open to
24
and let things ripen like fruit.
He knew Anna, his wife; suddenly she would
lust after the count's crown, even if it was only
the Polish crown of the Poczerewskis. To
negotiate the cattle for her and this nobleman
could then not be a trick.
But could it really not be accelerated? Break
over Anie? Gaston von Dülfert thought about it.
- If he had forced his way into the Count's
apartment at this moment, under a cunning
pretext, he could have bet that he would have
found Anna in the most compromising situation
- she had certainly already returned in response
to a telegram from the Count!
Yes, something had to be done quickly,
Aaren was quite right! It was unconscionable of
him to leave his cattle exposed for even an hour
longer to influences that must be poisonous for
them!
Dülfert was amazed at himself. How delicate
he was today. Unheard of for his battered views
on Woral. Surely this dreadful Neanderthal had
prayed all night for his salvation and had been
answered. Blonde, the Nlinstrel, had sung until
Richard the Lionheart, his lord and master, was
released from Dürnstein Castle.
The image of Raren suddenly forced its way
into Gaston's escape.
 Why did she have to give this silly
ultimatum: twice twenty-four hours?
No, no, nothing could be good any more; he
would have wounded everything, faced the
worst, the most shocking, but Aaren, his Aaren,
whom he had imagined in his dreams - how
ashamed he was of these dreams now - to be a
female eagle, to have shrunk to a chattering
gosling no, no, all the more he wanted to throw
himself into a frenzy of wildest debauchery, into
an up and down, a money-grubbing, a wasting of
money But away from this Schnedderedeng-
Berlin, this chic-less, mindless, "uh-champagne-
Madame-Remy-atmosphere", where even the
Aokotten were nothing more than unwillingly
preened North German turkeys, laboriously
alienated from the domestic henhouse by the
world of men, who - inwardly smooth-headed
house mothers - secretly mourned the familiar
embroidery frame.
Paris, Moscow, Saigon, Benares, San
Franicsko! Just don't have to see this Berlin
"Elejanzbetrieb mit Fixigkeit" anymore!
Gaston angrily pressed the electric alarm.
Almost at the same moment, the bolts on the
door to the room slid back and Budiner, Dülfert's
Austrian servant, entered.
 Gaston looked around in amazement at this
speed.
"Excuse me Baron, I was already on my way
to bring this letter up from the porter, 2^*
I just heard Mr. Baron ringing at the door."
Dülfert received the letter, which was
smeared with many stamps and blue lines.
"Any other wishes, Baron?"
"Yes, take a business card and J00 marks
from my pencil case there, Budiner. Get flowers
in time for the funeral of Countess
Poczerewska."
"To serve, Baron, and wish to be shaved
immediately or later?"
Gaston von Dülfert made no reply. He had
regurgitated the Auvert and his expression was
one of boundless bewilderment. It was only
when the servant timidly repeated his question a
second time that he waved his hand impatiently.
Budiner folded up his heels and left the room
on tiptoe, but with the grandeur of an Austrian
infantry captain.
Dülfert had straightened up in his arms and
was holding his head with both hands. "For
heaven's sake, am I really insane today?" He
jumped out of bed in one leap, tore the window
curtains apart and spelled out the letter again in
the clear October sunlight. The Auvert, a few
weeks ago, according to the date stamp
The closed one, which went from Berlin to
Munich, bore the inscription:
His Most Reverend Highness
Remark Mr. Privy Medical Councillor ^träger:^
Dr. Wilhelm August von Dülfert
Throw in at the bottom.
forward if necessary!
Munich
Berg am Laim No. 7
had traveled from Munich to all sorts of cities
and finally back to Berlin. The Berlin office had
opened the letter, searched in vain for the
sender's address and then ordered it to be sent to
the former apartment of the deceased medical
councilor "von der Heydtstraße No. 8".
Apparently the letter had come from there to the
Hotel Bristol.
Gastoni's first thought had been that
someone, an impostor, perhaps a madman, had
taken up the name and titles of the deceased
medical councilor and was living under her
protection in Munich, Berg am Laim No. 7.
The contents of the letter shattered this
illusion
right to the bottom.
I. Letter.
Berlin on JO. September.
Beloved brother in auro potabile!
Dear old Wilhelm August!
No longer will I - feeling you in anxious
uncertainty - put your longing on tenterhooks.
Yes, yes, yes, praise and glory to the highest,
everything has succeeded! - N)o doubt to the
WO Auintlein of that excellent "red lion"
(leonis rubri), for which our rotten bodies thirst
from rising to rising Solis are won and await
their purpose of rejuvenating all our old
candles.
It was a very bad and ugly piece of daring
to go after the worst pest and bush thief and at
the same time to snoop around in the old
duchess's dusty ancestral chamber by night and
fog under all sorts of venerable rumblings for
that inimitable leoni rubro (if I may say so),
only to bring it to safety vial by vial after lucky
discovery remained an extremely difficult
undertaking. The old lady in her own person
had noticed the traces of the sacrilegious
intrusion the next morning and had alarmed the
rushing crowd in the first fright, but did not
stand by, nor paint herself at the
 Aleinsten (our - the philosophers - leonem
rubrum they regard as a worthless and
contemptible thing and hardly know of its
existence) proved a departure, furthermore on
my - Dero old familiar personal physician
amicably coaxing (oh, about the wickedness of
the human heart), it must have been the puffing
Aater Getrapp that caused the noise and the
sacrilegious disturbance among the precious
junk at night, moreover a heart-breaking stench
in the ancestral chamber seemed to want to
favorably encourage my cunning speech - from
further inquisitionibus.
But be still now from all that in the bottom
of the heart yet detestable homeliness. Oh, how
I breathe a sigh of relief to see my difficult task
so happily accomplished with the help of the
highest.
Suffice it now to know that the exquisite
lic^uorem arrived safe and sound at the Grand
Master of our ancient Order when this script
was written.
Don't blame me, dear brother in auro vivo,
if I now feel compelled to go into a very
unpleasant matter of the gray everyday life
without any detours - almost without mediating
from the matter of our hearts. But better still, I
will lower my pen in this 5ach and enclose the
handwritten letter that has reached me
 on the past day Genovevae, speaking for
herself.
In fraternal embrace I remain in merourü et
solis spiritu ever faithful
Philaleta philosophus.
Akerke probably:
Enclosed is a handwritten letter from your
simple but kind-hearted old servant.
again Philaleta philosophus.
II. Letter.
Dear Sir Duke Reibrad!
Your honorable lord duke will certainly not
hold it against me if I take the pen in my hand.
I'll tell you how it is. U)nless it's not a bad thing
in Berlin, I've never been able to get used to
any foreign language. Doctor Anna von Dülfert
is Mr. Leibrad's wife, but she's such a good
woman that I'm glad she's out. Mr. Dokder
Gastong von Dülfert doesn't give a 5chmarrn
either and the wife says it iberal land out, sorry,
Mr. Dokder^äs a hallodri. This time the apple is
 but he's fallen from the sword, as the saying
goes, and the godly Mr. Bkedinalrad is turning
in his grave as he knows it. What a son he had,
I tell you. Because the ducal Lord Leibrad
always had such a good heart in the right place,
the family of Mr. Wedinalrad of Dülfert has
gone downhill, so I must recommend the
children to the Lord.
The old Dahme from Nordbohl, which the
children loved so much, had cried about the
police. Something has to happen quickly. The
little girl turned into a sumbfplume and the boy
went into his bath because they couldn't find a
place to sleep at the logger's wife Anna von
Dülfert's and the Hallodri fon a baba is away
for the next evening. Under- way. dear lord
ducal body wheel l I know it. Dear duke's body
wheel, I am glad that it is out. I have found it as
I have always rummaged up the old wheel at
his place in the black Dalahr. I am only a
woman from the Bolge and a catholic (teacher)
I have the great respect for the Freymeurern.
They are up at 6 o'clock in the morning in the
Friehe to take the Gudes. Mr. Duke, you take
your wing iron and you take a sword.
Sorry for my ^reyheid and heartily greeted by
the peaceful ^aushälderin Trescens.
Nodapene wans nach dem Geseze haeft die
Ains- frau fon der Gnäfrau von Dülfert schdehd
den ganzen lieben Dag beim l l- Monumang inr
Dir- garden mit die Ainder. lvann ein Man
komd die Ainder (räum) raupen, der Bolizei
schaugd weg wan he das Winggeleisen riechd
ich sags wie sies.
*
Gaston felt as if he was falling into a huge
yawning hole with ever-increasing speed. He
had personally attended his father's funeral - -!
The fantastic story of the Parisian alchemist
Nicolas Aamel, who had rejuvenated his life
with secret potions, then had himself buried as
seemingly dead, disappearing inconspicuously
from the crowd and only reappearing
temporarily a century later in Asia Minor as the
disciple of a curious cult, flashed through his
mind.
For a moment, everything he had absorbed
from his childhood about the "reality" of his
surroundings wavered.
^he letter of this mysterious old ducal
personal physician with his old Franconian
style, quite obviously written in the purest
alchemist's style.
Scrollwork - the second gruesome but not at all
insane letter from the housekeeper! Yes, by
God, there was no other way out : the
medical councilor, his father, was alive - had
been dug up - his coffin was empty, the
gravestone: "here rests etc." a stupid joke! And
- and - did a secret brotherhood really exist? A
row of ghostly, ancient ducal physicians and
musty aldermen in powdered wigs laughed
their heads off at the fools who were biting the
dust all around them, one after the other. For
God's sake, despite the Obertimpfler, Säckel,
Biederkopf and Alempke, there really was a
hidden science!
A hullabaloo reigned in Gaston's skull.
Voices from fairy tale books - the glass man,
Jack Mondory the spider nigger, the fat Ezekiel
with the stone heart, Fortunat with the sack -
grumbled at each other, - the gruesome
Amanita Club, whose masters seem to sleep
dead in drawers until the full moon comes,
hopeful Father Medardus and the insane Father
Einderella rose up from the past.
As if illuminated by a flash of lightning,
Gaston suddenly saw his father's library before
him again, the long rows of books by the
alchemists that he loved to read without ever
saying a word about them - the treatises on the
white and red salt of perfection, the "white" and
"red lion
of the philosophers", - the dark, heavy words of
Maria Prophetissa, the aurea catena Homeri,
Count Onupherius de Marsiano, the Pantakel
^errmann Fictulds, Adamah Boz and Alexander
von Suchten. - The figures of the adepts, of
whom it was said that they overcame the death
of the earthly body, held out their hands to each
other: Hu-tsu, the Manchurian, Ellas, Enoch,
Mani, Apollonius, John the Evangelist,
Thaitanya, Bab, Nostradamus, Mejnour,
Thristian Rosenkreutz, Nicolas Flamel, Iulap
Singh, Hilarion, Koot- Humi - and the great
Theosophist vr. Rudolf Schwätzer. - - - - - - - -
A loud exchange of words outside in the
corridor would bring Gaston back to himself.
He heard Budiner's eternal: "But please, it's not
possible, it's not possible, please!" being
shouted mercilessly across the corridor by a
rapidly approaching, shrill female voice. In the
next moment, the door was violently flung open
and Anna von Dülfert, her puff-red parasol
flung down, rushed in, clad in a breast-sugar
pink Tailormade, a croaked peacock on her
head.
Gaston retired to the back of the night
shelter, his shirt billowing.
 "Where are the children? That's unlawful,
oh, that'll be bad for you! Mean fellow, where
have you taken the children?" cried the woman.
 Gaston stared at her in amazement: "The
Ain---------------------------------------------------
- - are they missing?"
"Yes, yes, pretend too, you - you -
yesterday evening in the zoo," - her voice
changed, - "by car - cheekily kidnapped--------
An inkling dawned in Gaston: Tiergarten!
Monument No. U! Hai the "Freymeurer with
the winged iron!"
"Hand over the children," wailed Anna
with a fresh breath, "but you - you - I know
where they are, yesterday evening on the
express train to Munich, they were well seen! -
warrte nurr, you hunchbacked aerl - you - you"
Gaston's hunch became a living certainty:
The adepts! The adepts! They are! Lr let out a
wild cry of triumph.
Leine's wife pounced on him silently.
Gaston was at the washbasin with a bib,
had dipped his hands into a large bowl of
baseline with lightning speed and was awaiting
the attack in a wrestling stance, fingers spread,
arms half bent.
Anna von Dülfert shrieked and rushed
away, pale as a sheet: "Mein Aleid! The
Lcheusal, my Aleid, Budiner help, to help!"
Gaston stood motionless for a long time
with his hands dripping with fat and stared
ahead of him, pondering.
 Nlünchen, the Aunststadt with staghorn
buttons is feverish. The day before yesterday
Wedekind was beaten by the Catholic Iüng-
lingsverein, Mrs. Aommerzienrat Zettelhuber
rode onto the There-sienwiese in her new
Weißwurstgown, - yesterday the unveiling of
the monument to Obermayer and Niederhuber!
- Bavaria's most famous doctors hand in hand
like Goethe and Schiller! The immortal
Obermayer, who saw and introduced "protein
nutrition" as the most beneficial for the human
organism, and the no less ingenious
Niederhuber, who overturned the protein theory
and proved its harmfulness, peacefully gazing
into the distance in bronze.
And fermentation everywhere! An upheaval
in the Nlalerei! The first j)isles of the city, it is
rumored, have broken away from the old school
- from now on, the salvages on the beer mugs
will be painted upside down - with the roots
pointing upwards. And a new style of villa with
roofs that hang down low over the ears and
wooden balconies closed off like mullions: the
Tleo de Akerode type with automobile glasses.
Above all, the Oktoberfest l sports week! At
noon there is a big international whip cracking
competition, who will win, Upper Bavaria,
Lower Bavaria or the j)falz? Big day at the
tombola; if you're a Sunday child, you can win
a blue and white pied body bowl with a motto
for 20 j)fennig. - Only in the eastern part
devotion and dead silence; the Ulenge chews
the Aokosnuss and the excellent Schmalz-
nudel, - here and there only a detonator pops
when a rhachitic bajuvarenschlot successfully
hits the power machine.
At 2 o'clock, a dumpling eating contest. The
"Münchener ältesten Nachrichten" (Munich's
oldest news) is offered for sale, - sells like hot
cakes, everyone buys a sheet to retrieve the
fragrant pinfish. - The engine of the waxworks
cabinet rattles out the wedding march from
Lohengrin: the "secret illnesses" begin! Made
of wax, larger than life, from the cradle to the
grave - to deepen popular knowledge! High
school students circle the booth like jackals. -
With glowing eyes: they are not allowed in!
The "Ualifornian wonder tent" of the Aztec
Queen Huitzilopochtla is empty and deserted: -
everything has come out and the Bavarian is
not to be trifled with. Although the seal in the
bathtub is real, the Aztec Queen is just a Mrs.
Sonnenschein from Schmilesgasse in J)rag, co-
owner of the "Gänsebristel" hotel, who has
condescended to play the role of
Huitzilopochtla in order to get a free trip to
Munich. - And the night falls - court theater! -
Immortal classical art: "Das Lied vom braven
Mann" adapted for the stage by Engelmann, the
famous author of the Latin school grammar.
And tomorrow for the hundredth time with a
new cast: "Harras, der kühne Springer".
Compulsory toilet, tailcoat, thapeau claque with
beard.------------------------------------------------
! -Gaston von Dülfert - in a traveling suit and
light gray ice gloves - had decided to visit his
father's house on foot; it seemed disrespectful
and undignified for him to approach the home
of an adept in any other way.
Everyone he asked on the way about "Berg
am Laim" had pointed wordlessly to the east
with a wild wave of his arm, and the area had
become more and more beautiful.
At last he stood in front of what appeared to
be a windowless cube with a bacon-gleaming
arched doorway, which was positioned so that
it faced away from the Aleine houses in a
coldly coarse manner. Aa nameplate I Only a
large, conspicuous Aleine handle like a
Cyclops navel protruded from the middle of the
door. Beneath it, a letterbox slit bared its teeth
with an overhanging upper lip. Gaston waited a
moment to calm his pounding heart a little and
then pressed the Alingel button firmly.
He jerked back with a cry of pain: a sewing
needle had come out of the pusher poisonously
and stabbed him horribly under the nail. A
second, more careful attempt revealed that the
machine always worked like this. Confused,
Gaston shook his head and decided to knock
hard.
The next moment, his fist with the gray
glove stuck tenaciously to the door and the
greasy, shiny wood gave no grip. The whole
The portal was lovingly and thickly coated
with bird glue from top to bottom!
Gaston pondered and came to the
conclusion that his father had probably been
away for a while and a joker had thought up all
this nonsense.
In his thoughts, he pulled out a business
card and dropped it into the slot. He
immediately regretted it, as he had intended to
take the medical councilor by surprise, when a
highly disconcerting phenomenon caught his
attention.
A muffled rattling started behind the door,
grew louder and louder, grew into a frightening
gurgling and then degenerated into a roar of
terror, as if a powerful machine had become
terribly sick.
The sound of vomiting continued howling
downwards, ran under the pavement at
Dülfert's feet and finally dissolved into a bright
splashing sound.
Gaston looked around. There was his
business card floating rapidly down the gutter
in a murky stream.
"Aha! So a letterbox with water flushing I"
The machinery had audibly become more
comfortable again, as a melodic trickling sound
revealed.
Gaston suddenly understood the secret
meaning of the "note for the letter carrier:
throw in at the bottom" that was written on the
envelope of the ghostly personal physician! He
bent down. Right, deep down, meaningful 25
richly hidden in the arabesque pattern was a
second letterbox and - a second Alingelknopfl
Gin pressure! Anal! The door burst open at
the end.
*
*
"Gaston!" called an old man.
"Dad!" replied Gaston.
Unable to say any more, father and son
stared into each other's eyes.
The medical councilor had grown very old
and was as bald as a lammergeier.
He sat on a swivel chair in the center of a
monstrous black circular desk. Pencils,
inkwells, tobacco pipes, bottles, glasses and
other utensils were hanging from the ceiling on
rubber cords at exactly the right height.
Along the periphery of the circular tabletop,
on rails that all ran radially towards the hole in
the center - where the medical council sat -
were a number of miniature train carriages
packed with books. - They could be set in
motion - each one separately - by means of
levers.
"Gastoni"
The old man recovered first. The tabletop
slid silently upwards along four vertical guide
rods and then remained suspended at the top
like the roof of a giant mushroom.
 The two embraced in a genuine surge of
emotion. The old man gently pushed his son
into a feather-light armchair, which had been
hanging from the ceiling just a second before,
and urged him to talk, lovingly stroking his
anie from time to time.
Gaston's heart was overflowing as he
recounted his life in outline, spoke of his
frivolous marriage, his bold business dealings,
of Aaren, of Neander, the gruesome end of old
Maßmann, of the Privy Councilor Liebenberg,
the secret emperor with his 70 million, of
Ginsterling, )akob Quaste, of the albatross of
the American Wisconsin, the abrupt end of
"Mama" and the disappearance of his children,
whom he was now trying to find again.
At the albatross chapter, the old man made
a face and muttered angrily: "How little Moritz
imagines a flying machine" - he didn't quite
believe it.
He seemed completely indifferent to the
death of his former wife.
After Gaston had touched on the strange
letter from the duke's personal physician and
handed it in, but tactfully passed over the fact
that the medical councilor was no longer alive
by law, he concluded his report and looked at
his father in boiling expectation.
25*
 "And how have you been all this time,
Father?"
"Thank you, my son, as you can see, quite
well." The old man was affable, but apparently
not very forthcoming about his death.
"Speaking of which, you, I already have the
letter from my old friend pistorius in äuplo, and
as for your Ainder, they are quite dear
scratches, only they need to be thoroughly de-
Berlinized!"
Gaston jumped up and asked in
astonishment: "The Ainder are with you?"
The old man waved him off: "Let me finish!
When the inevitable fate befalls them and they
have to learn geography, you can make sure
that the line of land along the Spree is removed
from the program: program, or better still, you
can simply erase the spot from the atlas.As a
father, you are responsible for your child's soul
after all!-------------But maybe you smoke?!
Veronika, Ve-ro-ni-kaa!"
A full-grown female orangutan appeared in
the doorway.
"Cigars, Veronika."
"She usually wears a dirndl costume, for
example when she goes shopping," the old man
explained, "so she doesn't stand out so much
among the Munich women. - I gave my former
servant, a Mrs. Huber from Lower Bavaria, to
the new zoological garden - they didn't notice -
as well as an old badger.
Dog and three bedside rugs strangled by my
own hand. - - 3a, yes, when I died 20 years ago
in Vienna for the uninitiated, I would never
have dreamed that the servant question could be
solved so easily!"
Gaston seized the opportunity. "Tell me,
Papa, that is, if you like - I don't want to pry
into your alchemical secrets for all the world -
how did it actually go with your death and your
funeral?"
"Oh, God," said the old gentleman a little
peevishly, "the story would soon be told. The
inner experiences, you know, are too subtle and
too intricate to be told at all, and the outer ones
again too brief, too trivial, too transitory for a
man of taste to open his mouth about them. But
as far as I'm concerned, if it interests you." He
thought for a moment. "You know, there was a
time in my life when I took women seriously.
Even if I thought that wasn't the case, I was
thoroughly mistaken. - How else could I have
written that childish testament back then, which
clearly shows how seriously I took women -
because I was annoyed by them. The man is an
eagle! Hm! Please, where is the eagle? A
crooked nose is not enough to be an eagle. 3a ,
Napoleon was an eagle! - If he rang once, he
wanted a roast chicken, if he rang twice, he
wanted an undressed woman, if he rang three
times, he wanted a
dressed general. The blind Torquemada, who
burned JOOOOO cotton Protestants in one day,
was an eagle! Gin man who issues
philosophical propositions about the outside
world, the world of unfree rejection, is a
bovine, my dear son. And the inner world is,
thank God, unknown today. - All that was
missing was that the Aommis could do magic.
And what a 'marriage' is, namely the Christian
mystery, has been completely buried since the
theosophical chatterboxes started babbling
about it in public."
Gaston felt a strange chill run down his
spine as he stared at his father, in whose eyes
there was suddenly a fanatical gleam. - He
heard him mumble the strange words as if in a
dream:
"This day, this day, this, this, The Royal wedding is."
He felt that his father was thinking of things
beyond decay!
There was dead silence in the strange room
for a few minutes; - then there was a soft click
outside in the corridor: the Affin was turning on
the electric light.
Four round glass spotlights in the four
corners of the ceiling flared up like gigantic
bull's eyes, stared around viciously for a while
and then adjusted themselves so that the two
men sat in the focal point of their lights.
The medical councilor came to. "Yes, what
I wanted to say. I was then in my soul of the
I was full of horror and started drinking.
Burgundy. Burgunderl (He laughed grimly.)
Burgundy from Aoofmir & Eo.! That confused
me even more. - 3n vino veritas! Quite right - if
it had only been 'vinum'! - It would probably
have ended badly for me if my old friend, the
duke's personal physician von pistorius, hadn't
taken me into his secret order out of mercy."
Gaston listened. Now it came
"- Except for would have! - They gave me
something to drink. - A red, delicious - but
completely unfamiliar-tasting liquid. Red wine.
Real red wine! - As you know," (he looked
piercingly at his son, stifling any objection in
his breath) "there is no real wine in Germany
that can be obtained other than by stealing it
from caves, old graves, ancestral castles, etc., or
by robbery and murder. Otherwise: Fuchsin
with lead sugar! huh! Chateau d'odol grand vin,
Wutaüsbruch b huh! Do you know anything
about marriage? Za? Well then, stick a strip of
zinc sheet into the German 'Rebenblub', you'll
see what happens. Hooray, the German
brothers! Now their hard work and diligence
has finally succeeded in growing pineapple-
shaped water beets! Have you ever eaten
pineapple? - Have you? There you go!"
The Nledizinal councillor excitedly took a
few steps up and down the room. "Then when I
saw this
red lion^, I had - an intoxication! After one
bottle. But I was clairvoyant. I saw life in new
perspectives and decided - to die. That is - yes,
quite well: to die. I went to Vienna, sent for a
random colleague from the medical faculty, lay
down in my hotel bed, closed my eyes and
didn't move. The scholar came and could only
state that death had already occurred. He
hesitated for a while as to whether he should
quickly cut out my appendix, but refrained from
doing so when they couldn't find enough money
in my pockets to reconcile his views on
appendectomy and financial surgery.
Instead of my body, as has long been the
custom in England when someone wants to
permanently withdraw from family life,
cobblestones were placed in the coffin before it
was soldered shut. - The transfer to Berlin went
smoothly after both border states had made the
necessary customs formalities and the usual
phylloxera certificates had been exchanged. -
So, that's all there is to it! - I've been living
unmolested in Munich ever since. The
authorities have complete confidence in me, as
I never go out without leather pants, bare ankles
and green calf socks."
 The Privy Councilor for Medicine lit a
cigar.
 Gaston was very disillusioned. He felt
perfectly well that his father would never reveal
the secret compartment of his soul to him, - did
not consider him worthy of it. - He had noticed
all too well his father's sternness when he had
just uttered the word "mystery"! Everyday life
returned and with it the question: "So where are
the Ainder, here in the house or somewhere
else?"
The subject was not yet ripe. The old
gentleman gave Gaston good lessons, - spoke of
this and that. - Of the blindness of modern
statistics, which calculate exactly how many
people fall victim to snakebite, but do not
remember the countless who succumb to family
life! Of the bad habit of eating out, which
seems to be unable to die, etc. - "Lag mal,
Gaston, what are people actually thinking when
they dress in black, or rather undress half-
naked, and then - go to eat together? - Nobody
has ever gone to - let's say - gargle or cut their
corns together. - It has to be the eating? As if
that were more poetic! I can't shake off the
suspicion that these are remnants of the ancient
Orient. Speaking of the Orient, Gaston, on the
subject of Liebenberg, where did you get the
idea of calling something like that a secret
emperor? As you said yourself, the Aerl has 70
million. If someone has 70 times more private"
pomade, for example, than he can smear, he is
obviously an unfortunate man! - But not an
emperor! Or have emperors been so unhappy
lately? Of course I don't know, I don't follow
politics! Do you know, Gaston, for example,
who is a secret emperor? - I am a secret
emperor! - I'm already dead and beyond
patriotism - citizenship and 90 penny bazaar
culture. I also once had a three-storeyed
gckhaus - thank God, last year the thing
collapsedI hang the things that belong on the
ceiling on the ceiling where they don't bother
me instead of putting them on the floor or on
the table, - my mailbox works perfectly; not
even the mail can harm it, my stoves are
smooth and they heat, no majolica frog sits on
them and - not a cornucopia can be seen in the
house. - The only decoration is the painting by
pp. Rubens: the 'seven suckling pig people with
the wreath of fruit^ - but it hangs in the kitchen
in a frame of horseradish stalks, as it should!"
The old man blew his Havana smoke away.
Gr looked faithfully at his son, put his hand on
his knee and said warmly:
"Come on, Gaston, come on! - Die too!"
Gaston smiled, terribly embarrassed. - He
felt he wasn't ready. - Karen! - He felt with
tremendous clarity that he would never let her
go.
could be. No matter how she wanted to be -
even quarrelsome, silly, a little goose perhaps -
he couldn't, wouldn't let her go. Gr didn't want
to be an eagle. - He was no Napoleon and no
Torquemada. - To hide his embarrassment and
avoid answering, he quickly wanted to give the
conversation a different twist.
"One more thing, Father," he asked. "Who
is the good Arescence who wrote that nice letter
to your friend?"
"Line's old servant," replied the Privy
Councillor, "who is in Berlin eating up the
small pension I gave her. She has been
watching you - and what concerns you -a little,
as you see.Incidentally, she was not the only
one, I still have some people who gave an
account of Mn's life it seems that I have not
lost all interest in my son after all! I have a little
surprise for you here too -"
Gr interrupted himself, a soft shout came in,
it seemed to come from the street.
The Nledizinalrat listened intently for a
while, his eyes closed and the left corner of his
mouth raised. "Aha! The women have pressed
the wrong bell again. - They can't remember
that! - I have to - hey, Veronika, Ve-ro-ni-kaal
59^
Open up to the ladies and keep them company
for a moment!"
Ladies? Gaston was touched in the most
unpleasant way. Now an interruption - and he
would have had so much to ask! - Gr grasped
the old man's withered hands. "Papa, please,
please, one more thing. Forgive me, - it is so
hard for me, - forgive me, - but is it quite
impossible that I am not the son of that -
Liebenberg after all?!I feel so, so, so not worthy
of you, cannot
do not follow your eagle flight!"
The old man smiled unspeakably mildly.
"Be calm, my Aind. - I once had my doubts too.
Then one day, the Privy Councilor Liebenberg
became my patient.I'm not allowed to tell you
anything, it's a medical secret, but don't worry,
my ox, it's-----out of the question!"
"Papa! My dear, good old dad," Gaston
cried out. - There! - The door was torn open.
"Papa! Grandpa, Rita, Gaston.And
"Aaren, Aaren!"
"Gaston, my beloved - -"
Aaren had caught her breath. Her face was
flushed with blood. Her eyes searched the
ground in unspeakable confusion.
A moment's hesitation - like an invisible
obstacle in the air - and
Aaren's head in its bright, flowing head of hair
rested against Gaston's mighty chest.
"O Aaren, my Aaren!"
"Gaston, Gaston!"
Hand in hand, silent, wet-eyed, Veronika and
good old Mrs. Aamundsen stood in the doorway.
"Gud bevares," growled the faithful affine
Veronika, because üe had also picked up
Norwegian quickly and effortlessly.
Anal.
A good six months later, the Mercedes car of
Privy Councillor Liebenberg drove up to Gaston's
hotel in Berlin at lunchtime. The little man jumped
out of the car nimbly enough, went into the
vestibule and rode up in the ruse. He met Gaston
in his tailcoat, who was busy fixing a large white
gardenia in the hole.
"It's a good thing you're ready, my son!"
exclaimed the Aommerzienrat. "The tugs at the
registry office won't wait. But now we have plenty
of time." He strode up to Gaston and, with a
comical bow, handed him a very handsome
crocodile-skin wallet. "Allow me to present you
with a small wedding offer," he said.
Vr. v. Dülfert took the bag and looked at it
from all sides - but did not open it at all.
"Thank you, dear Privy Councillor, you are too
attentive." He made a show of pocketing the
wallet.
"Don't you want to see what's inside?"
Liebenberg called out impatiently. Gaston smiled
and gave him the
A favor. He pulled out a check - the extraordinary
amount made him wonder.
The Aommerzienrat rubbed his hands together
with a grin and hopped from one leg to the other.
"Well," he asked, "well?"
Gaston shook his hand: "Thanks!" he said,
"ThanksI That was really friendly!"
"Friendly?" laughed Liebenberg. "Fatherly!
Fatherly I"
vr. v. Dülfert joined in his laughter. "But. You
know that my father told me about this. It is quite
out of the question."--------------------------------
The Aommerzienrat was furious."Excluded
------what does excluded mean?If there had been
medical councillors in Abraham's time, they
would also have said--------------excluded! - But
come along now, Miss Bride will be waiting and
so will the guests!"
Gaston slipped into his overcoat; they both
went downstairs and got into the car. The
Aommer- zienrat, who preferred to drive
backwards, sat opposite him, Gaston silently
looking at the intelligent face. Yes, this man had
honestly helped him in the last few months, just as
the old medical councillor in Munich had done,
who in his old age had thrown himself into the
arms of such strange quirks, A)he might be his
father of both of them------------------------------
There was a real contest of paternal feelings
between the two.
Today, on his wedding day, the medical
councillor had of course not come to Berlin,
despite all his requests, and had also vigorously
resisted the idea of the small celebration taking
place in Munich. But he had paved the way for
him in every way. Although he hardly ever spoke
of it, Gaston had found out that the rather
mysterious abduction of his children from Anna's
control was only his work, which he had carried
out with the help of his religious brothers. Karen
and the good Mrs. Aamundsen, of course, thought
they were pushing - and yet they had only been
pushed, without knowing the force that drove
them forward and played into their hands.
The little Tiebenberg swamp was completely
different. Nothing of the mysterious, nothing of
the strange and eccentric.He called it a waste of
time---------------------------------------------------
money can achieve everything much faster and
better! And with his money he had quickly enough
eliminated the other difficulties, caused Gaston's
wife to divorce him and made her and Count
Poczerewski stay in Ehile for a longer period. He
had been so energetic, so worldly-wise - Gaston
involuntarily stretched out his hand to thank him.
 "Privy Councillor," he said, "wouldn't we
rather say 'you' to each other?"
 But Liebenberg refused. "Why?" he
shouted."Not quite excluded------is still not
certain! - I'll say you to your Hinbern!"
Gaston laughed. "As you wish!" he said. The
car stopped and they were just getting out when
another car arrived from the other side.
"There they are!" shouted the Privy Councillor
and opened the door. Aaren and Mrs. Aamundsen
got out of the carriage, with them Mr. and Mrs.
Neander.
As they went up the stairs, Neander pulled
Gaston a little to one side. "A word, dear doctor!"
he said. "I know you haven't got time today; Bella
told me so. - But surely you're going to get
married in church later?"
"Why not?" replied Gaston. "If it's fun for
Aaren!"
Neander started: "Fun? It's about a - - But I
don't want to preach today. Just promise me that if
you want to get married in church, I can perform
the ceremony. It would only be an inner
satisfaction."
"With pleasure!" laughed Gaston. "If we get
married in church, it should only be through you."
The registrar did his job quickly and
painlessly, like a photographer or a good dentist.
26
doctor. He was even somewhat humorous and
earned the goodwill of Liebenberg, who grinned
from time to time, earning himself a chastising
look from Neander. But Mrs. Aamundsen and
Bella preserved the seriousness and dignity of the
situation by shedding copious tears.
"6nä devares!" squawked Mrs. Aamundsen.
And Bella sobbed: "Poor dear Aaren!" - You
always say something like that when someone is
really happy.
"Ladies and gentlemen," declared the little
privy councillor when the ceremony was over,
"you know that I have taken the management of
today's little party into my trusted hands. I have
taken the liberty of ordering a small breakfast at
the Hotel Esplanade and have invited a few guests.
May I therefore ask you to follow me."
5They said goodbye to the friendly registrar
and drove to Bellevuestraße.
At the entrance to the hall stood Gaston's two
children with huge bouquets; they each recited a
poem that Neander had composed for this festive
occasion. This was yet another reason for Bella
and Mrs. Aamundsen to shed a few tears.
But Aaren lifted the two amber-blonde aleines
into her arms and kissed them heartily.
 Then an old, four-skinned person approached,
grinned, snapped and handed over a huge bouquet.
"Thank you!" said Gaston, somewhat
surprised.
"May I ask------------
But Liebenbcrg beat him to it. "The emissary
of the Medical Council!" he called, "Mrs.
Areszenz Filser! She brings you a handwritten
letter from the old magician."
"Aiß y b)and, Anäherr!" said the Areszenz and
handed Gaston an auvert, the purple seal of which
showed very strange cabalistic figures. Lr vomited
it and read:
Aodizill to my test client.
Gs remains: The when is an eagle-etc.
The woman is a goose - etc.
But: the goose is a much better creature than
an eagle. Not quite as poetic, but more useful,
more useful, more likeable.
Wilhelm August v. Dülfert, Lxz. Privy Nled.
councillor.
Aaren laughed: "He seems to have become
more conciliatory towards us poor grays in his old
age."
"Tr has met you!" said Gaston.
At a hint from Tiebenberg, Budiner, Gaston's
servant, pushed back a curtain and led the
26*
guests into the small banquet hall. There were two
ladies and ten gentlemen there; they quickly
approached the wedding couple. The Privy
Councillor introduced them.
"Dear wedding couple!" he said solemnly. "I
have a little surprise here. An ordinary wedding is
always attended by more or less pleasant or
unpleasant relatives and acquaintances. For your
extraordinary wedding, which only became
possible after so many difficulties, I have taken
the liberty of inviting some extraordinary wedding
guests. Each of them has a more or less close
connection with one of you and has taken an
active part in your fate: fate."
And he introduced: "Mrs. Gabriele Reuter,
Mrs. Olga wohlbrück!"
Gaston stepped forward and kissed the ladies'
hands.
"Mr. Hermann Bahr," the Privy Councillor
continued.
"Oh," Bella whispered softly to Aaren. "I
know him! I saw him when we were walking in
the zoo! He was always walking behind us and I
was scared."
"Baron Ernst von Wolzogen!" announced
Liebenberg very proudly.
 "Gud bevares!" cried the good Mrs.
Aamundsen. "Gud bevares! That's the baron
whom my good blessed husband once met on a
steamship between Aopenhagen and Malmö! My
dear sir
Aamundsen/ he said, 'my dear Mr. Aamundsen' -"
"Mr. Otto Julius BierbaumI Mr. Georg
Hirschfeld! Mr. Felix Hollaender! Mr. Herbert
Eulenberg!"
This time Neander stepped forward. "Dear
Herbert," he called out, "how pleased I am to see
you again!" He turned to the others. "It's my old
schoolmate." Then his face fell into serious lines.
"But on what path are you walking today, my poor
friend? You have written a very immoral story
with the title: 'You may commit adultery'!"
Mr. Eulenberg was very ashamed. "I never
want to write anything like that again," he
declared ruefully. Neander faithfully squeezed his
hand.
"Mr. Gustav Meyrink!" called the privy
councillor. The aleines jumped up. "Oh, that's the
good uncle who built Grandpa's funny house in
Munich, won't you make us a bell with a pin?"
"Mr. Otto Ernst! Mr. Gustav Falke!" continued
Liebenberg.
"My favorite poets!" said Bella, touched. "Oh,
that's how I always imagined them!"
"Mr. Hanns Heinz Ewers!" said the Privy
Councillor.
"6ii(1 bevares!" cried Mrs. Aamundsen in
horror. "I know him! He was in Greenland and did
some terribly stupid things there!"
 "But Bolette!" she reassured Raren.
"But it's true! The whole mission can testify to
it. And I read a story about him: and then I
couldn't sleep all night.You read stories to sleep
better-------------------
Liebenberg interrupted her: "May I invite the
gentlemen to the table?" Baron von Wolzogen
gallantly extended his arm to Mrs. Aamundsen.
Bella sat down between Mr. Ernst and Mr. Falke,
while Neander took a seat between Mr. Ewers and
Mr. Eulenberg: he rightly believed he could exert
a moral influence. The Privy Councillor led the
two Dainen and paid particular attention to Mrs.
Wohlbrück, whom he liked very much.
Mr. Falke let the bridal couple live, Mr. Ernst
spoke about Gaston's cattle, Mr. Bierbaum, who
was still not entirely clear about the somewhat
complicated family relationships, was only with
difficulty held back by Neander from speaking
about Mrs. Anna von Dülfert; he finally let the
"respectful fathers" live. When he had finished,
Liebenberg impulsively squeezed his hand under
the table. The toast to the fathers prompted Mr.
Hirschfeld to give a toast to the mothers. Then Mr.
Meyrink gave the Raiser's speech in Hamburg
dialect and with a bajuvarian raft. Mr. Hollaender
toasted all women and Mrs. lVohl- brück toasted
all men. Mrs. Reuter toasted both eagles and
geese. Mr. v. Wolzogen
to Mrs. Aamundsen and her blessed, k)err Eulen-
berg to Neander and Bella. Finally - at the Aase -
Mr. Bahr celebrated Liebenberg.
Mr. Ewers let Greenland live because there
was nothing else left.
Before lifting the table, Liebenberg tapped his
glass. "Bleine Damen und Zerren!" he said.
"Allow me to say a few words too. What can be
extolled today has already been extolled in poetry
and prose by the most eminent people, and I have
noticed that all these poets toasted only quite
tangible things: women, men, Indians, emperors,
bridal couples and Greenlanders. We are now told
that I, of all people, am too real-minded, so I want
to take this opportunity to prove the opposite!
Wines ladies and toasts! Raise your glasses
and clink glasses with me:
Long live the idea!"
Kikhouettes of the XII.
Drawn in woodcut style
from
T" John Höxier.
Provided with some harmless malice
from
Peter Aqueniius
Vindobonensiö.
 Hermann Bahr (born ^863 in £1113), looks
like the good Lord and only writes poetry in a
blue silk robe dabbed with golden stars. In
summer he writes poetry in a lapanne on the
beach of the Lido, in between he lives in Vienna
as an oracle, or dramatizes in Berlin with
Reinhardt, or discovers extremely strange Slavic
geniuses who can only become famous because
no one can pronounce their rhymes. Sometimes
he even gets married. He is one of the few
Viennese writers who also feels at home in
Berlin. He doesn't have the "water head" in his
stomach, but would even like to live in Berlin - if
it weren't for Vienna. He would also like to
encourage Berliners to build hotels in beautiful
Austria, at the very bottom, where it is still a bit
desolate, and thus spread culture, but Berliners
are not such "Tschaperls"! In all seriousness: he is
actually an old Celt and has a lot of Gallic in his
blood. He means a lot to modernity, which owes
many a success to his witty criticism. He is a
sxuerer who has dug out many lost pits, and also
an egghead who deeply feels the life of his time in
fine, fine nerves.
Bon H. Bahr's works are mentioned here: The
novels: The Good School. Next to Love. Theater.
 The Rahl. The Drut.
The essay collections: Renaissance. Reviews. The
dialog of the tragic:. Glosses, premieres.
The plays: Tschaxerl. Iosephine. The Star. The
Master. Sanna. The other one. Ringelspiel. The
yellow nightingale. The Apostle. The Kramxus.
The novella books: Eaxh. Dora. The beautiful
woman. Voices of the blood.
 Otto Julius Bierbaum
(born in Grünberg i. Schl. t865),
began as a convinced pantheist, only to soon become a
very funny husband. He then joined the voluntary,
sensitive anti-mobile corps and spent time as a "colorful
bird" - under the line. As such, he bred on a lonely island
near Tegel, close to the imperial capital, which he loved
so much, but soon flew south to collect ruins in Tyrol and
nest there. His unbounded esteem for Berlin and the
Berliners sometimes makes him seem unfair to other
cities. O. 3. B. is the ultimate bibliofex and is currently
composing a new book cover made of Ladin majolica
with real Dutch oyster humps and endpapers made of
French assignets from 1790; in addition, he is working on
a fundamental work on "Botticelli's influence on Anton v.
Werner", as well as on a somewhat mesmerizing duck
flight problem "Jean Paul in the Monoplan". After having
thoroughly tested all types of wine over many years, he
finally switched to well water; likewise, he is said to have
resorted to ordinary white writing paper, setting aside the
strange rag and rag types he had previously used. The fact
that he is said to have slowly converted to a reasonably
legible handwriting instead of strange runes and
hieroglyphics is a matter of fable.
Otto Julius represents a good piece of culture in our
time; he is one of the most belligerent fighters for
modernity, whose good blade is never rusty.
The following works by O.J. Bierbaum should be
mentioned:
Novels and short stories: Prince Cuckoo. Strange stories.
Cactus. The beautiful girl from Pao. pancratiusGraunzer.
The Snake Lady. Stilpe. Student confessions. Sensitive
journey in an automobile.
The poetry collections: The maze of love. Jew's harp and
flute. Nemt, Frouwe, disen Kranz.
Plays: The infatuated princess. Stella and Antonie.Lobetanz.
.
Monographs: Böcklin. Stucco. Thoma. Uhde.
 Otto Ernst
(born ^8^2 in Ottensen), claims to have experienced
nothing at all in his entire life. He is not even descended
from an old noble gypsy family, whose traces can be
traced back to the eleventh century in Astiuia, and even
less can he claim that his great-grandfather was a highly
famous and finally quartered robber-murderer. He is
outwardly the most negative experiencer of all German
poets and is mighty proud of it. He has only married once,
lives extremely happily and makes his cattle famous in
literature. His daughter "Appelschnut" grows up to be a
graceful maiden, whereas his not quite purebred
dachshund, which he also made immortal, shows signs of
old age, suffers from intermittent asthma and coughs like
an old grumpy grandfather who can't please anyone any
more.
He openly championed modernism in witty collections
of essays. His kind, abundant humor and his unique grasp
of the child's soul won him the love of German readers.
Of Otto Ernst's works, the following should be
mentioned here: The novels: Semper der Jüngling. Asmus
Semper's Land of Youth.
Novellas, stories, chats: Appelschnut. Dom geruhigen Leben.
Carthusian stories. Defeat victors. Sweet Willy.
Lssay collections: Open sight. Book of hope.
Poetry collection en: Poems. Voices of midday. Seventy
 poems.
Plays: The greatest sin. Youth of today. Flaxman as educator.
Justice. Bannermann, Ortrun and Ilsebill. Tartüff as a
patriot.
w
Berbert Lulenberg
(born ^876 in Mühlheim a. Rh.),'
is, as cannot be denied, a handsome man - see
opposite - and therefore very popular with all
old and young ladies. If he also wanted to write
sweet Liedercheu, he would have been a made
man long ago, but unfortunately he doesn't do
that at all, instead he writes his dramas in his
own way and doesn't take the dear public into
consideration at all. Of course, he also
represents German culture and gives the
Parisians great lectures on German poets. He is
the Dutchman of the Dumont in Düsseldorf and
the Dutchman of the Lulenberg Reinhardts in
Berlin. Recently he discovered that no one in
the whole world commits adultery, and to
remedy this intolerable state of affairs he has
written a book: "You may commit adultery".
Unfortunately, he will probably have little
success with it, because a good man doesn't do
that.
Don H. Eulenberg's works include the
following: Die Dramen: Dogenglück. Anna
Walewska. Munchausen.
Passion. Half a hero. Cassandra. Knight
Bluebeard. Ulrich, Prince of Waldek. The
natural dater.
The moral story: You may commit adultery.
Banns Beinz Ewers
(born J871 in Düsseldorf),
is the globetrotter among German poets. He is a
very amiable person and from time to time
delights his faithful with a pretty picture
postcard from Tonkin, Paraguay or
Madagascar. Some people say he is a very soft
and tender lyricist. But others claim that he is
the most bloodcurdling teller of gruesome
stories. Some declare him to be a dear old fairy
tale poet. Others swear that his main strength
lies in satire. What is certain is that he always
walks around wearing a mask and that nobody
knows who he actually is: he is a kind of great-
grandson of the eternal Jew. - Incidentally, he
has an extraordinarily healthy stomach, which
has been thoroughly worn out by the daily
consumption of 77 (77 and no more!) cigarettes
- he swallows the smoke like a fenner eater.
The only thing he can no longer tolerate is carp,
ever since he came up with the theory that they
feed mainly on bluish-pale corpses. For
example, when he read the passage in the
"Novel of the XII" where Raren and Gaston ate
carp together, he literally felt sick. His favorite
food, however, is tomato sauce (salsa de
 tomates), which he claims has an
extraordinarily stimulating effect.
Don p. £?. Ewer's remarks are as follows:
The novel: The Sorcerer's Apprentice or The
Devil Hunters.
G esch ichten: The horror. The possessed. With
my eyes.
The spectacle: Delphi.
The poetry collections: A book of fables (with
Ltzel). Mo- ganni Nameh.
The fairy tale volumes: The broom witch. The sold
grandmother.
Monograph: E. A. Poe.
 Gustav Falke (born J853 in Hamburg),
appears in his own poems and those of Detlev
von Liliencron as a terrible "Bruder Liederlich"
who can drink a lot. It can be assumed,
however, that he became solid over time,
otherwise the Hamburg city fathers would
certainly not have granted him a poet's
honorary salary.
His crush is music and his favorite
composition is Chopin's Nokturno in 6e8-6ur.
He claims that it is the only remedy for
seasickness and proved this to his fellow
passengers on the "Meteor" on the heights of
Algiers this spring. Now he wants to get a
patent on it.
He made his name as a lyric poet, arm in
arm with his friend Liliencron, with whom he
so often boldly challenged the world and all
philistines. He has a rich melodiousness of
verse and is a great artist, especially where he
observes subtle moods and creates very
intimate images of the weaving and flowing of
nature. He came late to prose and shows the
same merits here.
of Gustav Falke's works, the following
should be mentioned:
The poetry collections: Mynheer der Tod. Dance
and devotion. Between two nights. New
journey. With life High summer days. Happy
journey.
The novels: The children from Dhlsen's gang. From
the average. The man in the fog. Landing and
Stranding.
The fairy tale poems: From Muckimack's kingdom.
Puss in Boots. Putzi.
 Georg Birschfeld
(born ^873 in Berlin),
was the child prodigy among modern German poets,
no other poet had achieved such great success at such a
young age as he did with his first dramas.
Being a child prodigy is very nice, but you can't stay a
child prodigy; and being a child prodigy is very bad,
because then you have to start all over again later. Most
people can't do it and are then eaten up by the great
forgotten and are dead as a doornail. But Georg Pirschfeld
is not dead as a doornail at all and as a man he has
managed quite well to add others to the laurel wreath he
won as a boy.
But he has remained a child prodigy in two respects:
firstly, he is the only Berliner to live in Dachau, a place
far removed from Berlin, and secondly, he is the shyest
person in the world, as much a poet as he is in fairy tales.
of Georg Hirschfeld's works, the following should be
mentioned:
The plays: The mothers. Agnes Jordan, pauline. The young
Goldner. Side by side. At home.
The volumes of novellas: Dämon Kleist. The mountain lake.
Friendship
The novels: The green ribbon. The girl from Tille. The
innkeeper of veladuz. Hans from another world. The
Madonna in the eternal snow.
 Felix Dollaender (born ^868 in Leobschütz), can scold
women terribly, Schopenhauer is a little lamb in
comparison. He has little time to write books these days,
since he has become so completely addicted to the theater
devil and has to push thespian carts all over Germany,
France and America. So now he sees nothing but the
"Welt der Bretter" all week long, whereas he used to live
in the "Welt am Montag", which he founded.
He is currently writing a brochure with flaming
enthusiasm: "How can we recruit the Salvation Army with
our most talented actresses as quickly as possible?" In a
conference he held on October 25, ^09 with Generals
Booth and Oliphant, the "Salvation Army Theater" was
founded. The fees at this theater are said to be
extraordinarily high - unfortunately they are only paid in
exchange for the afterlife. What is certain, however, is that
no stage in the world will play such a brilliant comedy as
this Theater of the Salvationists.
Hollaender was the psychological messenger of the
German literary movement of the nineties, in all his works
it is the confrontation with some problem that appeals to
him; the psychology of his characters is always treated
with particular affection.
Of Felix Hollaender's works, the following should be
mentioned: The novels: Jesus and Judas. Magdalene
Dornis. Woman
Lllin blush. Storm wind in the west. The last happiness.
Redemption. The path of Thomas Truck. Dream and day.
Agnes Feustel's son.
The novella volumes: Pension Fratelli. The Widow.
 Gustav Meyrink (born J868 in Munich) is
unfortunately a great obstacle to the politics of the Triple
Alliance: he absolutely dislikes Austrian officers and
holds an unrivaled record in this respect. He was once an
inventor and, among other beautiful things, also
discovered the hanging gas light; but he soon realized that
his wild imagination could only really live out at his desk
and not in the world of things that are always bumping
into each other: so he became a poet. As such, he is the
Hanns Heinz Ewers of the brain, just as he is the Gustav
Meyrink of the nerves; both have made some mysterious
pact with evil to annoy people. But they often fall for it
and are then part of the force that always wants evil and
always creates good - at least that's what their readers
think. He has the same fondness for Holstein pastors as he
does for the black and yellow lieutenants, and both these
classes of people get free when they hear his name.
Gustav Meyrink's strongest note is the grotesque, to
which he was the first in the: Lande der deutschen
Sprache a I^im created. He cultivates his own land and is
the undisputed master of his territory.
of Gustav Meyrink's works should be mentioned:
The hot soldier. Wax museum. Orchids. Jörn Uhl and
Hilligenlei (contra Gustav Frenssen).
 Gabriele Reuter(born ^859 in Alexandria), is a very
strange woman.She is very modern - and yet not a
suffragette; she is a German poet - and yet not a
bluestocking; she writes books but in such a way
that men can read them too. She is clever and does not
borrow foreign clichés and programs; she goes her own
way and looks at life with her own eyes. She shines a
sharp light into dark corners, tears open hidden doors with
a strong hand and lets the bright light of day fall through
murky mists into enchanted houses. She has the most
beautiful white hair in the world and some blonde and
black young ladies are so envious of it that they now want
to have theirs dyed white too. The hero of her novel "The
American" is a real nice guy, Dr. Gaston v. Dülfert, whom
he used as a model in some of his plays.
Don Gabriele Reuter's works should be mentioned:
The novels: Frau Bürgelin und ihre Söhne. From a good
family. Ellen v. d. weiden. Liselotte v. Reckling. The
American. The House of Tears.
The N o v e l l e n b ä n d e : The artist of life. Women's souls.
whimsical love.
Olga wohlbrück
(born ^873 in Gainfarn near Vienna)
or the beautiful woman without rest was
bounced around Europe like a tennis ball by the
fairy of fate. She began her theater career in
Berlin with Lautenburg, but soon went to Paris
and became the star of the Theatre de L'Odeon
as a French actress. She then became an
English actress, and later a Russian actress,
before finally returning to the German stage. In
between, she wrote books in four languages
and also got married, so it is fair to say that this
woman's life was not exactly a poor one. Her
only vice is that she smokes an awful lot of
cigarettes. Her apartment is a menagerie and a
terrarium with (at present) forty-seven two- and
four-legged creatures, and because of these
"special circumstances" she is not likely to be a
popular tenant with her landlord. For the sake
of literary accuracy, it should be mentioned for
art-historical readers that her "Golden Bed" is
not carved from the same wood as the so-called
"Monumental Bed" in the tenth chapter of the
novel of the XIIth edition.
 Don Olga wohlbrück the following works
should be mentioned:
Novels and novellas: Idmia. You shall be a man.
The Boyersen. In the dark. The golden bed.
Plays: The right to happiness. The foreign master.
For the sake of special circumstances. Line
hour. The moral Oskar.
Ernst Srh. v. wolzogen
(born J855 in Breslau),
was never content to live out his life in his poems, he
also turned his life into a colorful poem. - He is the
wandering Indian of German modernism and no other
chieftain of poetry has so many places in Germany where
his wigwam once stood as Bahr, Hollaender, Ewers,
Eulenberg, Bierbaum and the wohlbrück, so he pushed the
Thespis cart up and down through the German
countryside, sometimes as a beggar and sometimes as a
rich gentleman. The syndicate of German journals should
pay him an honorary salary; he is the most frequently
caricatured German poet. His friends call him Ritter Ernst,
the fertile one: as a father of many children, he brought an
incredible number of little cows into the world, which
were richly nourished by his theater inheritance.
Unfortunately, he had few fatherly pleasures. Now he
lives on his Tusculum again, plays the violin and writes
poetry. - He is married quite often.
Few names in Germany are as well-known as his; his
humor has opened doors for him everywhere that were
closed to many others. He is full of sparkling
temperament, clever and witty and has a fine feeling for
all the little weaknesses of his time.
Don L. v. wolzogen's works include the following:
'Romane und Erzählungen: Views and Prospects.
 Ecce Ego. The derailed. Experiences, eavesdropping,
lies. The red Franz. Stories of dear sweet girls. The Grand
Duchess a. D. Further and more. Verses about my life.
Grandson Gskar. TheRrafft-Mayr. The heir to the throne.
The poor sinner. The hereditary sneak. ' The cattle of the
Excellency. The cool blonde. The great Romteß.
The third sex. Dom Peperl and other rarities.
The cover drawing is by Ilna Lwers-Wunderwald.
Contents.
"A Convoy" by Detlev von
Liliencron . . ..
how the novel of the XII prelude was 59
created . . . :..................................... 1?
;. Chapter.A reunion. Don 39
2 . " In the women's club.From 9
3. " Sehnsucht. from 3
4 . " The man of action. by ? . . ? 12
5. " Hopes and fears, from ..?. 9
6 . " e mobile. from . ? . . (55
7 . " The eternally feminine.by ? . . ? (77
8 . " Music. from . . 20
9 . " Knocked off. from ? . ? . 7
tO . ". from . ? . . 24
(( . " All kinds of revelations ? . . ? 3
from .. 28
(2 . " The secret emperor von 7
Final................................................. 3(3
56(
39
9
Silhouettes of the XU.
Chapter 40
Hermann Bahr (^author of .... ).. 8
M
Otto Julius Bierbauin " ') . . O
Otto Ernst " ) . . M2
Herbert Lulenberg " ) . - 41
 4
" . 41
Hanns Heinz Ewers " ... ).. 6
"
Gustav Falke " .. .) . . W
42
Georg Hirschfeld " ■) - . 0
42
Felix Hollaender " ., - 2
42
Gustav Meyrink " ,/ 4
" 42
Gabriele Reuter " ---- .) . . 6
" . 42
Olga wohlbrück " ... -) - . 8
43
Ernst v. wolzogen " ).. 0
*) For later handwritten completion by the owner
of the book.
M my Nugen-
A new bannsbeinz Ewers
475 Soaps * Elegant brofch.
4.50 m---
Journeys through the Latin
With
with artistic cover drawing
Eleg.bound
6m
"Banns ßeinz Ewers matures a lot and he knows how to
mature. This is evidenced by his fine stories and colorful
drawings full of movement. As a mocker and philosopher,
Ewers knows how to entertain the reader!"
Ragni (W Lottes Wegen) ^mörnri-rne mörn;"", 2nd hoof! 352
pages. Elegant brofch. 5 M. Elegant bound 6 M. "This novel is
one of the most beautiful works of the great Horweger."
The Polish danger and other humoresques
by Peter Robinson.
168 soaps. ITlif initials of Max Biedermann.
Konrafl Ä.Meeklendurg vorm.Ricbter'scber Verlag, Berlin 01. ro.
The PreLeau letter.
 The names of the authors of the "Novel of the XII"
are only given in alphabetical ^orm on the title page.
However, anyone familiar with our modern literature
will be able to identify the authors of the individual
chapters from the spelling.
Following an amusing thought of Baron Ernst von
Wol- zogen, the undersigned publishing house now sets
out to properly research the authors of the individual
chapters and for an overall assessment of the company
itself.
60 Prices
from.
Everyone is invited to take part in this literary
competition, even if they are not a buyer of the book,
by sending a stamped postcard to the
UerlagsdnchharrdUmg Korirad M. Mecklenburg Berlin
^v. 30, Ulotzstraße 77
The author must state the names of the authors of the
individual chapters and at the same time express his
opinion of the company in a concise and appealing
verse, which must not be longer than 8 lines.
For the award to be recognized, the correct
identification of the twelve authors is the first criterion,
and the quality of the lines of verse the second.
The decision on this is subject to a jury, whose
membership has been graciously accepted by: .
the writers Vr. Heinrich Tonrad, Steglitz-Berlin,
Dr. Hanns Heinz Ewers, Lharlottenburg, Paul
Scheerbart, Friedenau-Berlin.
 The results of the competition will be published on
February 18, 19(0 in the following newspapers:
Zörsenblatt für den deutschen Zuchhandel and Wiener
neue freie Dresse, as well as in Ur.8 der Woche and
Ur.11 of the Literarische Echo, and the 60
prizewinners will also be notified individually of
which prize they have received.
Direct inquiries about the result of the competition
can currently only be considered if a self-addressed,
stamped reply slip is enclosed with the inquiry.
As the competition promotes the knowledge of our
German
Promote literature foll, so will the
prices:
a first prize of roo Marks, a second prize from iso Mark,
a third " " iso " a fourth " " 70 "
a fifth " " so " a sixth " " 40 >,
" 25
a seventh " " ro " an eighth " "
a ninth " " ro " a tenth " " is "
and fifty further prizes of IO marks each,
The prizes are not paid out to the prizewinners in cash,
but rather transferred to the assortment booksellers to
be named by them to the publisher, from whom the
prizewinners can then select books free of charge at
retail prices equivalent to the value of the prize
transferred. (The publisher does not deliver the prizes
directly).
If, as is to be expected, the awarding of the prize
will encourage readers to immerse themselves even
more than before in the other creations of the latest
literature, then the general literary interest that will
arise of its own accord should provide readers with a
wealth of intellectual pleasures and our modern
literature with many new friends.
Derim W. 30,
Wotzstrasse 77.