Berlin Alexanderplatz

by Alfred Doblin

  Franz succeeds in getting his arm free, and he breaks loose. She runs after him, Franz turns around at once and strikes her in the face, so ·that she reels back, he pummels her shoulder and she falls, he’s over her now, hitting her with his one hand wherever he can. She whimpers, writhes, oh, oh, he’s beating me, he’s beating me, she tosses about. first on her belly, then on her face. He stops to take a breathing-spell, the room is whirling around him, now she turns around, pulls herself up. “Don’t take a stick, Franzeken, that’s enough, don’t take a stick.”

  She sits there, her blouse all torn, one eye shut, with blood streaming from her nose, smearing her left cheek and chin.

  But Franz Biberkopf-Peeperkopf, Sleeperkopf. he’s got no name-the room’s turning round, the beds are over there, now he clings to one of the beds. And there’s Reinhold, the big bozo, there he lies, with his boots on, dirt yin’ up a fellow’s bed. What’s he want here? Hasn’t he got his own room? I’ll git ‘im out. I’ll kick ‘im out. that’s what I’ll do, d. o. do, o as in shoe. So Franz Biberkopf. Heebiekopf, Jeebiekopf, Sleepykopf, hops on the bed, grabs the fellow under the cover by the head, he makes a move, the cover flies high, and Reinhold sits up.

  “Well, Reinhold, git out now, git out, take a look at her and then gitout.”

  Mieze’s mouth is wide open. Earthquakes, lightning, thunder, the tracks are rent asunder, twisted, the station, signal cabin, in ruins; there’s a roaring, rolling, fuming, smoking, clouds, nothing to be seen, everything gone, gone, blown away, vertically, horizontally.

  “What’s the matter. what’s hit this place?”

  She’s screaming, screams keep coming from her mouth, agonizing screams against the thing behind the smoke on the bed, a scream-wall, scream-lances hurled against that thing, higher and higher, scream-stones.

  “Hold your trap, what’s hit her, stop, the house is comin’ down.” Screams welling up, scream-masses, against that thing, no time, no hour, no year, everything’s gone.

  And already Franz is being swept by the scream-wave into raving, ravening, raging madness. He stands by the bed and swings a chair in the air, it falls and crashes out of his hand. Then he bends over Mieze, who is still sitting up, yelling away, yelling and shrieking and shrieking; he puts his hands over her mouth from behind, flings her on her back, kneels over her, then lies chest-down against her face. I’ll – kill - her.

  The screams stop, she tries to struggle up with her legs. Reinhold wrenches Franz aside: “Heh, you’ll choke her.” “Get away, you!” “Get up now, get up.” He succeeds in dragging Franz off her, the girl is lying on the floor on her belly, she turns her head, whimpering, gasping, and lashes about with her arms. Franz stammers: “Take a look at the bitch, the bitch! Who do you want to hit, you bitch, you?” “Now you beat it, Franz, put your coat on and come back when you’re cooled down again.” Mieze lies whimpering on the floor, she opens her eyes, her right lid is red and swollen. “Beat it, feller, you’ll kill her yet. Put your coat on. There.”

  Franz pants and puffs; he lets Reinhold help him on with his coat.

  Then Mieze gets up, spits out phlegm and tries to talk; she straightens herself a bit, then sits down and mutters with a rattle in her throat: “Franz.” He has his coat on. “Here’s your hat.”

  “Franz ...” she is not screaming now, her voice has gone queer, she spits. “I ... I ... I’ll - I’ll go along with you.” “No, just stay here, Fraulein, I’ll help you afterwards.” “Franzeken, wait, I-I’ll go with you .”

  He stands there, fools with his hat, sucks his gums, pants, spits, and goes towards the door. Bang. Shut.

  Mieze moans, gets up, and, pushing Reinhold aside, feels her way towards the door. At the door into the hallway, she can’t go any farther, Franz is gone, downstairs already. Reinhold carries her back into the room. After he has laid her panting on the bed, she sits up without help, clambers out, spits blood, and pushes her way towards the door. “Lemme get out, lemme get out!” She keeps on saying: “Lemme out, lemme out! “ One glassy eye on him all the time. Her legs are limp. What a lotta slobber! It makes him sick the way she slobbers, I won’t stay here any longer, people might come along, and then it’s me who fixed her up like that. What the hell do I care about it. Good-bye, Fraulein, lid on, exit center.

  Downstairs he wipes the blood off his left hand, a lotta drool, he laughs out loud. So this is what he took me upstairs for, some show the boob gave me. So he put me in his bed with my boots on for this. The boob’s mad enough to pop. He got a good wallop on the chin, wonder where he’s at, now.

  He ambles off. Enamel signs, enamel ware of all kinds. It was very nice up there, very nice! What a boob he is, did a fine job, my son, much obliged, just keep on that way! I have to laugh myself sick!

  And so Bornemann was in jail again in Stettin. They fetched his wife, the real one. Chief, you might leave my wife alone, what she swore is true, if I get another two years, I don’t care.

  And it’s a great evening in Franz’s room. They laugh. They lie in each other’s arms, they kiss each other, silly as lovebirds. “Why, I almost killed ye, Mieze, I certainly fixed you up, sweetie.” “That don’t matter s’long as you came back.” “Did Reinhold go right away?” “Yes.” “Ain’t you gonna ask me, Mieze, why he was here?” “No.” “Dontcha wanta know?” “No.” “But, Mieze.” “No. It ain’t true, anyhow.” “What ain’t true?” “You wanted to palm me off on him.” “What?” “That ain’t true?” “Say, Miezeken.” “1 know all about it, and it’s all right.” “He’s my friend, Mieze, but he’s certainly filthy-minded with the girls. I just wanted to show him what a respectable girl’s like. That’s what I wanted him to see.” “Well, all right.” “Ye still love me? Or only that other feller?” ‘‘I’m all yourn, Franz.”

  Wednesday, August 29th

  And she keeps her gentleman-friend waiting two whole days, which she spends entirely with her beloved Franz, riding out with him to Erkner and Potsdam, and being generally nice to him. She now has her secret with him, now more than ever in fact, the little devil, and she is not a bit afraid as to what her beloved is up to with that Pums gang; she’s going to start something herself. She’s going to look around on her own and see who’s there in the dance-hall or the bowling-alley. Anyhow, Franz doesn’t take her along with him, Herbert takes his Eva along, but Franz says: that’s no place for you, I don’t want you to go with such hell-cats.

  But little Sonia, Miezeken, wants to do something for Franz, our little kitten wants to do something for him that’s nicer than earning money. She’s going to ferret everything out and protect him.

  And when the next ball comes off, and the Pums mob and their friends go out to Rahnsdorf, it’s a private party, there’s a girl with them nobody knows, the tinner brought her along as his girl, she wears a mask, and once she even dances with Franz, but only once, afterwards he’d smell her perfume. That’s in Müggelhort, at night they hang paper lanterns in the garden, an excursion steamer leaves for home, full to the gunwale, the band sounds a flourish of farewell as it leaves, but they’re still dancing and drinking inside till after three.

  Thus Miezeken floats around with her tinner, who brags and shows off what a fine gal he has. She sees Pums and her Grace, his lady, and Reinhold looking very gloomy - he’s always in the dumps-and the classy go-between. Around two she decamps in an automobile with the tinner; she lets him kiss her wildly in the car, why not? She knows more now than she did before, it won’t do her any harm. What does Miezeken know? How all the Pums boys look, that’s why he can love her up, she’ll always be Franz’s girl anyway, they ride on into the night, on just such a night these blokes had thrown her Franz out of the car. and now he’s after this fellow, and he certainly knows who he is, and they’re all afraid of him, else why did Reinhold come up to Franz’s place, that’s certainly a fresh feller, my Franz, he’s a darling boy, I could die kissing this tinner, that’s how much I love my Franz. Yes, go ahead and love me up, I’ll bite your tongue of
f, baby, the way that fellow drives he’ll get us into a ditch yet. hurray, it sure was heavenly with you boys tonight, shall I turn to the right or the left now, drive any way you want, you’re one sweet little duck, Mieze, well, do I taste right to you, Karl, you’ll take me out again, wontcha, wow, the dumbbell’s tight, he’ll drive us into the Spree yet.

  No, that’s not possible, then I’d have to drown, and I have lots to do yet, I’ve got to follow my dear Franz, I don’t know what he wants to do, he doesn’t know what I want, it must be kept between us as long as he wants to and I want to, we both want the same thing, the same thing do we both want, oh, but it’s hot, kiss me some more, there, hold me tight now, Karl, I’m melting away, baby, I’m melting away.

  Li’l Karl, my dear li’l Karl, my joy, you’re my best and dearest boy, along the road the black oak trees whizz by, I’ll give you 128 days out of the year, each one with its morning, noon, and night.

  There came two cops all dressed in blue along to the graveyard, hallee, halloo. They sat down on a tombstone fine and inquired of the people who came by, after a certain Kasimir Brodowicz, had they seen him? He did something thirty years ago, they don’t know quite what, and as likely something’ll happen again, you never can tell with those lads, so now we want to take his fingerprints, and measure his length, and best of all, to catch him first, bring him along, tralee, trala.

  Reinhold pulls up his trousers and strides back and forth in his room, this tranquil life and so much money don’t agree with him. He’s sent his last girl away now, he’s tired of the classy jane anyhow.

  A fellow has got to do something else occasionally. He’d like to start something with Franz. That jackass is going around again now, beaming, and bragging about his girl. As if it amounted to anything. I might take her away from him, yet. She gave me the creeps the other day with her slobbering.

  The tinner, whose name is Matter, but he’s known to the police under the name of Oskar Fischer, looks astonished when Reinhold asks him about Sonia. Just like that he asks about Sonia, and Matter confesses without further ado, well, if you know it, then you know it, that’s all. So Reinhold puts his arm around Matter’s waist, and asks if Matter could let him have her for a little party. Then it develops that Sonia belongs to Franz and not to Matter. Well, then, Matter might get the girl to join him in an automobile ride out to Freienwalde, some time.

  “Then you gotta ask Franz and not me.” “I can’t ask Franz, he’s got something against me, dating from the old days, and besides I don’t think she falls for me, I noticed that.” “I won’t have nothin’ to do with that. Suppose I want her for myself.” “Ah, go ahead. Just for a ride.” “As far as I’m concerned, you can have all the dames you want, Reinhold, her, too, but how can I get hold of her?” “Well, don’t she run around with you? Listen, Karl, suppose I letcha have a coupla brownbacks.” “Hand ‘em over!”

  Two cops in blue sat on a stone, questioned everybody who passed by, and held up all the automobiles, had they seen a fellow with a yellowish face and black hair? They’re looking for him. They don’t know what he’s done or will do, that’s in the police records. But nobody has seen him, or rather nobody wants to admit having seen him. So the two cops have to go farther along the road, and two dicks join up with them.

  On Wednesday, August 29, 1928, after this year has already lost 248 days and hasn’t many more to lose - and they are irrevocably gone, what with a ride to Magdeburg, a restoration and a recovery, Reinhold’s adjustment to liquor, Mieze’s emergence, and now they commit their first burglary this year, and Franz is again the picture of beaming tranquillity and complete peacefulness - the tinner shoots off with little Mieze into the landscape. She told him, Franz, that is, that she was going out with her gentleman-friend. Why she takes the ride, she doesn’t know. She only wants to help Franz, but just how, she doesn’t know. In the night she had dreamed that her and Franzeken’s beds were under the lamp in their landlady’s living-room, the curtain in front of the door moves, and something gray, a kind of ghost, emerges slowly from it and comes into the room. Help, she cried, and sat up in bed with Franz fast asleep beside her. I’ll help him, nothing shall happen to him, and then she lay down again, it’s funny how our beds roll forward into the living-room.

  Bang, they are out in Freienwalde, it’s nice in Freienwalde, a bathing resort, with its pretty Kurgarten and yellow gravel, and lots of people walking about. Whom will they meet now, just after they have eaten their lunch on a terrace next to the Kurgarten?

  Earthquake, lightning, lightning, thunder, tracks torn up, the station in ruins, rolling, fuming, smoking, clouds, everything gone, clouds of vapor, nothing to be seen, clouds of vapor, screams up-welling.... I’m yourn, yours forever!

  Let him come, let him take a seat, I’m not afraid of him, not that one, I’ll look him straight in the face. “This is Fraulein Mieze, you know her, don’t you, Reinhold?” “Slightly. Glad to meetcha, Fraulein.”

  And so they sit in the Kurgarten at Freienwalde; somebody in the place is playing the piano very nicely. I’m sitting here in Freienwalde, and he’s sitting opposite me.

  Earthquake, lightning, clouds of vapor, everything gone, but it’s nice we met him, I’ll sound him out about everything that happened with Pums, and what Franz does, I’ll make him hot, that’ll do the trick; keep him on tenterhooks, then he’ll come around, Mieze dreams now of how fortune will favor her. The pianist sings: Answer oui, that’s French, my baby, Answer ja, or in Chinese, maybe, As you wish, it doesn’t matter, Love’s an international chatter, Say it under the rose, Or through the nose, Say it ecstatically, Or emphatically, Answer oui, Say ja, or yes, And anything else you want, I guess.

  A few glasses of liquor are brought and they all treat themselves to a wee little nip. Mieze betrays the fact that she was at the ball, which gives rise to a splendid conversation. The conductor at the piano plays by general request: In Switzerland and Tyrol, words by Fritz Roller and Otto Stransky, Music by Anton Profes. - In Switzerland and on Tyrol’s height, One feels so well by day and night, In Tyrol the milk comes warm from the cow, In Switzerland there’s the tall Jungfrau. But here, we’ll honestly admit, Life isn’t such a grand old hit, And that’s why I think it’s simply grand, In Tyrol and in Switzerland, Yipiaddyi. -On sale in all music stores. Yipiaddyi, Miezeken laughs, my darlin’ Franz thinks I’m with my old man now, but it’s with himself I am, and he don’t notice it.

  Then, afterwards, we’ll drive around in the neighborhood with that there car. That’s what Karl, Reinhold, and Mieze want, backwards it’s Mieze, Reinhold, and Karl, or Reinhold, Karl, and Mieze, they want it all together. Just at that moment, the telephone has to ring and a waiter calls: Herr Matter wanted on the telephone, didn’tcha give the high sign, Reinhold, young man, well, we won’t say anything, Mieze smiles, too, if neither of you got anything against it, looks as if it would develop into a pleasant afternoon. And now little Karl is back again, oh, Karl, my boy, Karl, my boy, you’re my love and you’re my joy, somethin’ hurtin’ my baby, nope, gotta rush back to Berlin, you stay, Mieze, I gotta go, you never can tell. He gives Mieze another WI kiss, and don’t say nothin’, Karl, you know me, honey, for every man, if he can, everywhere, likes a little change of air, so long, Reinhold, happy Easter, merry Xmas. Hat off the hook, and he’s gone.

  Well, here we are. “Now whatcha say to that?” “Well, Fraulein, there wasn’t any use in yellin’ like that the other day, now was there?” “That was just because I was afraid.” “Of me?” “A person gets used to people.” “Very flatterful.” How the little tart rolls her eyes, a sweet, nice little baggage! Let’s bet I’ll get her today; you just wait a bit, m’boy, I’m just gonna keep ye flopping around a little, and then you’ll tell me everything you know. Gosh, he certainly looks funny. He musta drunk a whole bottle of vinegar.

  The pianist has sung himself out and the piano is tired, it would like to go to sleep, too; Reinhold and Mieze wander up the hill together, and stroll into the wood. They
talk of this and that, walking arm-in-arm, he’s not such a bad sort. And when, around six, they come back to the Kurgarten again, Karl is there waiting for them, he’s already back with the car. Are we going home so soon, it’s full moon tonight, let’s go into the woods together, it’s so nice there, all right let’s go. So at eight the three of them wander into the woods together, and Karl has to hurry back to the hotel to reserve rooms, and see about the car. We’ll meet in the Kurgarten later on.

  There are many trees in this wood, and many people walking arm-in-arm together, there are lonely paths as well. They walk dreamily side by side. Mieze would like to ask something, but she doesn’t know what, it’s ever so nice walking arm-in-arm with this man, oh, I’ll ask him another time, it’s such a nice evening. Lord, what must Franz think of me? I must soon get out of the woods, it’s so nice walking here. Reinhold has taken her arm, he’s got a right arm, he walks on my left side, Franz is always on my right, strange to walk like this, he has a strong, vigorous arm, what a great big fellow he is! They walk between the trees, the ground is soft, Franz has good taste. I’ll get her away from him, and she’ll belong to me one month, then he can do about it as he pleases. If he starts anything he’ll get it in the neck on our next trip so he’ll forget to get up again, she’s a nice jane, a frisky jane, too, and she’s true to him.

  They walk and talk of this and that. It is getting darker. It’s better if they talk, Mieze sighs, it’s so dangerous to walk without talking, and only just feel the fellow beside you. She’s always looking at the road, wants to see where it goes. I don’t know what I want with him; oh, my God, what do I want with him anyway? They walk around in a circle. Without his noticing anything, Mieze leads him back to the road. Open your eyes, here we are back again!