On the stage a hunchback was walking about the Frankfort fair. People can’t be warned enough against sending merchandise to the fair from other towns. The fair is badly situated. Especially the crockery fair. “Ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed colleagues, all who were present at the Frankfort crockery fair last Sunday can bear me out, it’s asking too much of the public.” Gottlieb nudged Franz: “He’s talking about the Frankfort crockery fair. You’re not goin’ there anyway.” “What’s the odds, he’s a good man, that one, he knows what he wants.” “Anybody who’s been to the Magazinplatz in Frankfort will never go there again. That’s as sure as you’re alive. It was nothing but a filthy morass. Also I should like to state further that the municipal authorities of Frankfort took no steps till three days before the opening of the fair. Then they said: Magazinplatz for us, not Marktplatz, as it always was before. Why? I’d like my colleagues here to take a sniff at that: because the weekly market is held on the marketplace, and if we go there, it would cause traffic congestion. It’s an unheard of thing for the Frankfort authorities to do, it’s a smack in the face. Imagine giving an excuse like that. They now have market four half-days a week, and yet we are supposed to go? Why us, especially? Why not the vegetable-man and the butter-woman? Why doesn’t Frankfort build a covered market? The fruit, vegetable, and food dealers are treated just as badly by the municipal authorities as we are. We all suffer from the blunders of the authorities. But it has got to stop. The receipts on the Magazinplatz were small, practically nothing, nothing at all it didn’t pay. Nobody came in all that filth and rain. Most of our colleagues who were there didn’t even make enough dough to get away from the place with their wagons. Railroad fares, booth rent, parking charges, getting there, getting back. And then I would most distinctly submit and state to the entire public that the toilet conditions in Frankfort are indescribable. All those who were there can tell a tale or two about that. Such unhygienic conditions are unworthy of a big city, and the public should brand them, wherever it can. Such conditions will never attract visitors to Frankfort, and they do a lot of harm to the tradespeople. And then those narrow booths, like sardines in a can!”
After the discussion, in which the board of directors was also attacked for its inactivity up till now, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:
“The fair-merchants feel that the removal of the fair to the Magazinplatz is a slap in the face. The business results for the merchants fell considerably short of those of former fairs. The Magazinplatz as a fair-site is absolutely unsuitable, because it cannot possibly hold all the fair-visitors, and because in regard to sanitation it is a perfect disgrace to the city of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, without taking into consideration that, if a tire had broken out, the merchants themselves, as well as their wares, would have perished. The members assembled here demand that the municipal authorities remove the fair back to the Marktplatz, because only in this event can a guarantee be given for the holding of the fair. At the same time the members assembled strongly urge a reduction of the booth rent, since they are not in a position to fulfill even approximately their obligations under the given conditions, and may well become a charge upon the city’s charitable institutions.”
But Biberkopf was irresistibly attracted by the speaker. “Meck, that’s some orator, a man just made for the world.” “Go ahead and step on his toes, maybe something will fall your way, too.” “You can’t tell about that, Gottlieb. But you know, them Jews did give me a lift. I went from one courtyard to another singing the Watch on the Rhine, that’s how dizzy I was in my head. Then the two Jews fished me out and told me stories. Words are a good thing, too, Gottlieb, and what a man says.” “That story about Stefan the Polak. Franz, you’re still a little cracked.” The latter shrugged his shoulders: “Gottlieb, cracked or not cracked, put yourself in my place and then talk. That man up there, the little hunchbacked fellow, he’s all right. I tell you, he’s first-class, first-class.” “Well, have your way. You better begin to worry about business, Franz.” “We’ll get around to that; one thing at a time. Why, I don’t talk against business, do I?”
And he wended his way towards the hunchback. Respectfully he asked him for a piece of information. “What do you want?” “I should like to ask for some information.” “The debate is over now. Finished, this is the end. We get sick of it, too, sometimes, up to here.” The hunchback was venomous. “But what do you really want?” “Me? -They’ve been talking a lot about the Frankfort fair here, and you did your job wonderfully, first-class, sir. I wanted to tell you that, as coming from me. I’m entirely of your opinion.” “Glad of that, comrade, if I may ask, what’s your name?” “Franz Biberkopf. I saw with pleasure how you did your job and how you gave it to the Frankforters.” “The municipal authorities.” “First-class. That was a smooth ironing out. They won’t say boo after that. They’ll have to take a back seat now.” The little fellow collected his papers, stepped from the stage into the smoke-filled hall. “Fine, comrade, that’s great.” And Franz beamed, bowing and scraping behind him. “But didn’t you want some information? Are you a member of the association?” “No, sorry.” “You can get it from me right away. Come along and sit down at the table.” Thus Franz sat at the chairman’s table below, among the flushed laces, drank, saluted, got a ticket in his hand. The fees he promised to pay the first of next month. Handshake.
From a distance he started signaling to Meck with the sheet of paper: ‘‘I’m a member now, yes, sir! I’m a member of the Berlin local Group. There, read that, there it is: Berlin local Group, National Association, and what does it say here: of the Itinerant Tradesmen of Germany. Great, heh!” “And what are you, a dealer in textiles? Here it says textiles. But since when is that your line, Franz? What kind of textiles have you got?” “But I didn’t say textiles, I said stockings and aprons. He just would have it that way, textiles. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t have to pay till the first of the month.” “Well, old boy, first of all, suppose you should go in for china plates now, or kitchen pails, or let’s say you trade in animals, like these gentlemen here: gentlemen, isn’t it nonsense for a man to get himself a membership card for textiles when he might be going to deal in cattle?” “I advise you not to do anything in cattle. Cattle are low. You’d better go in for small live-stock.” “But he isn’t going in for anything at all, yet. That’s a fact. Gentlemen, this fellow’s only sitting around here and would like to do something. You might just as well tell him, yes, sir, Franz, go in for mouse-traps or plaster heads.” “If it’s necessary, Gottlieb, if you can make a living at it, why not? Not particularly mouse-traps, there’s already a strong competition on the part of the drug-stores with their patent poisons, but plaster heads, why shouldn’t a man take plaster heads into the small towns?” “You see, there you are: he gets himself a ticket for aprons and is going in for plaster heads.”
“Gottlieb, that’s not it; gentlemen, you’re right, but you mustn’t turn the thing around like that. You ought to explain a thing properly and show it in its proper light, like the hunchbacked chap did about that Frankfort business, when you weren’t listening.” “Because I got nothing to do with Frankfort. And these gentlemen ain’t either.” “All right, Gottlieb, that’s fine, gentlemen, don’t wanta reproach you, only I, for my part, in my humble way, I was listening, and it was great, the way he illustrated everything, so calmly, but forcefully too, although he had a weak voice, and the man has a weak chest, too, and the way everything was arranged in order and the way he led up to the resolution, every point clean-cut a fine thing, he’s got a good head on him, and accurate even to mentioning the toilets they didn’t like. Of course, I had that business with the Jews, you know, don’t you? Once, gentlemen, when I felt very low, two Jews helped me by telling me stories. They spoke to me, decent people, who didn’t know me, and then they told me about a Pole or somebody or other, and it was nothing but a story and still it was very good, a good lesson for me in the situation I was in. I thought: Cognac would have d
one the work, too. But who knows? Afterwards I was going good, and on my feet again.” One of the live-stock dealers puffed and grinned: “Before that you must have got a pretty big wallop in the neck?” “No joking, gentlemen. Besides, you are right. It was some wallop! Might happen to you, too, in life, that things come plopping down on your head and make your knees wobble. Might happen to anybody, a dirty break like that. What are you going to do with your wobbly knees afterwards? You run around the streets, Brunnenstrasse, Rosenthaler Tor, Alex. You run around sometimes and can’t even read the street signs. Clever people helped me then, they talked to me and told me a lotta things, people with heads on ‘em, and from that you learn this: You shouldn’t swear by money or cognac or the lousy pennies you pay in dues. The main thing is, head high, and see that you use it and that you know what’s goin’ on around you, so you don’t get knocked out before you know it. Then everything’s not half bad. That’s it, gentlemen. That’s how it strikes me.”
“And so, sir, I mean fellow-member, let’s drink something. To our organization!” “To our organization, here’s how, gentlemen. Here’s how, Gottlieb!” The latter laughed and laughed: “Boy, the only question that’s left now is how you’re goin’ to pay your dues the first of the month.” “And then see to it, young colleague, now that you got a membership card and you are a member of our organization, that the organization helps you to make some real money.” The live-stock dealers tried to outlaugh Gottlieb. One of the dealers: “You’d better go with that paper to Meiningen, next week is market week there. I’ll take my stand on the right-hand side. You can go on the other side, to the left, and I’ll watch how business goes with you. Let’s imagine it; Albert he has his card and is a member of the organization and is standing in his booth. line on my side they’re yelling: Hot dogs with real Meiningen crackers, and he yells opposite me: Right this way! First time here, member of the organization, the great sensation of the Zwick market of Meiningen. Tile people will come in droves. Say, Isaac, you make my eyes ache!” They beat on the table, Biberkopf along with them. Cautiously he shoved the paper into his breast-pocket: “If a man wants to walk, he simply buys himself a pair of shoes. I haven’t said anything yet about doing a fat lot of business. But I ain’t looney, either.” They got up.
Out in the street Meck got into a violent discussion with the two livestock dealers. Both expressed their views about a lawsuit one of them was engaged in. He had been trading cattle in the Province of the Mark, but had a trade permit for Berlin only. A competitor had then met him in a village and reported him to the police. Whereupon the two dealers, who were traveling together, played a deep game: the defendant testifies in court that he was only the other’s companion, and had acted according to his orders.
The cattle dealers were explaining: “We won’t foot the bill. We’ll take the oath. That is, we gotta take an oath in court. He’ll swear he was only my companion and that he’s done it of tell before, and we’ll swear to that and that’s all there is to it.”
Then Meck got quite excited, holding the two cattle dealers by their overcoats: “There you are, you’re crazy, why, you belong in Loonyville. Imagine taking an oath for a lousy thing like that, just to do that scoundrel a service, so that he can get you in trouble for good. It ought to be put in the papers that the law is giving its support to things like that, why, that’s not straight, those gents with their monocles. But now we’re talking justice.”
The second live-stock dealer insists: “I’ll swear, well, why not? Me - cough up, three appeals, and that crook getting a lot of fun out of it? No, sir. That guy’s green with envy. As far as I’m concerned, Nothin’ doin’, I won’t shell out.”
Meck tapped his forehead with his fist: “You fat-head, you deserve to lie in the gutter where you are.” They took leave of the cattle dealers, Franz took Meck by the arm and they bowled along through the Brunnenstrasse. Meck hurled a threat after the cattle dealers: “Funny birds. Got something on their conscience. The whole country’s got something on its conscience.” “What did you say, Gottlieb?” “They’re a lot o’ jellyfish, instead of showing their fists to the court, nothin’ but jellyfish, the whole country, business men, working men, the whole bunch of ‘em.”
Suddenly Meek stopped in his tracks and planted himself in front of Franz: “Franz, we gotta have a talk together. Otherwise I can’t let you come with me, nohow.” “Well, go ahead then.” “Franz, I gotta know who you are. Look me in the face. Tell me honestly and on your word of honor, you got a taste of it out there in Tegel, you know what’s right and just. And right is always right.” “That’s true, Gottlieb.” “Well then, Franz, honest and true, what did they do to you out there?” “Don’t you worry. You can believe me: if you got a fight to pick, just leave it outside. Out there they read books and learned shorthand and then they played chess, me, too.” “You know how to play chess, too?” “Well, don’t you worry, we’ll go on shuffling our little game of skat, Gottlieb. So you sit around, you haven’t got much gray matter to think with, with us transport workers it’s more the muscles and bones that count, so you say one day: Damn it all, don’t get yourself mixed up with people, go your own way. Hands off people! Gottlieb, what’s a man like us got to do with the law and police and politics? Out there we had a communist. he was bigger than me, he did his share in the ‘19 show in Berlin. They didn’t get him then, but afterwards he got reasonable, got to know a widow and went right into her business. A clever boy, you see!” “Well, how did he get out there?” “Probably tried some shady deal. Out there we always stuck together, and if one of us squealed, he got what was coming to him. But it’s better if you ain’t got nothin’ to do with the others. That’s suicide. Just let ‘em go their own way. Stay respectable and keep to yourself! That’s my idea.”
“Is that so?” said Meek and looked at him severely. “Why then we might as well all shut up shop, that’s pretty wishy-washy of you, we’d all go to pieces that way.” “Let ‘em shut it, if they want to shut up shop, we’re not worrying about it.” “Franz, you’re a sap, no doubt about that. You’ll regret it some day, Franz.”
Franz Biberkopf is walking down the Invalidenstrasse, his new girl-friend, Polish Lina, is walking along with him. At the corner of the Chausseestrasse there is a newsstand in the hallway, a few people are standing there, gabbling and chattering. “Hey, don’t stand around here.” “Can’t a man look at the pictures?” “Why don’t you buy ‘em? Don’t block the passage-way.” “Dumbbell.”
Tourists’ Supplement. When in our cold North there comes that disagreeable season which lies between snow-glittering winter days and the first green of May, something draws us - an urge thousands of years old - to the sunny South beyond the Alps, to Italy. He who is so fortunate as to be able to follow this urge to roam. “Don’t get so excited about people. Just look here, how barbarous they’re getting; here’s a fellow who attacks a girl in the street-car, and beats her half dead for fifty marks.” “I’d do it too for that much.” “What?” “Why, do you know what fifty marks is? You don’t know anything about fifty marks. That’s a pile o’ money for a man in our position, a big pile, say. All right then, some day when you know what fifty marks is, I’ll talk to you again.”
Fatalistic speech made by Chancellor Marx: Whatever is to happen lies, in my opinion, in the hands of a Divine Providence, which has its special intentions for each people. Human accomplishment, on the other hand, will remain only fragmentary. All we can do is to continue to give our utmost effort, according to our convictions, and thus I shall have fulfilled, faithfully and honesty, the office I now hold. I conclude, gentlemen, with best wishes for a successful conclusion of your laborious and devoted activities in behalf of beautiful Bavaria. God speed your further efforts. So live, that when you die, hope you had a pleasant evening.
“Welt sir, are you through reading?” “Why?” “Shall I take the paper off the hook for you? There was a guy once, asked me for a chair so he could read in comfort.” “Guess you only
display your pictures so they-” “What I do with my pictures, that’s my affair. You’re not paying for my stand. But fellows that simply sponge, I don’t want ‘em around my stand, they only drive customers away.”
There he goes, he’d better have his shoes polished, probably camps out in that “Palme” flop-house on Frbbelstrasse, there he is taking the street-car, I bet he’s riding on a fake ticket or has picked up an old one, and is trying it out. When they catch him, then it just happens he lost the right one. Those sponges, here come two more now. I’ll have to put up a railing here, the next thing. Got to get some lunch now.
Franz Biberkopf comes marching along in a derby hat, plump Polish Lina on his arm. “Lina, eyes right, let’s get into the hallway. The weather’s not made for the unemployed. Let’s look at the pictures. Nice pictures, but there’s a draft here. Say, comrade, how’s business? Why, a fellow could freeze to death here.” “Well, it’s not meant for a Turkish bath.” “Lina, would you like to stay in a place like that?” “Come on, let’s go, that fellow’s got such a dirty grin.” “Say, Fraulein, I bet it gives the boys a thrill, when you stand in the hallway and sell papers. Service from dainty hands.”
Berlin Alexanderplatz Page 6
