A man returned from the war in the form of a hinge — invalid with shattered spine — moves almost inexplicably through Kärntner Strasse, selling newspapers. A dog sits on his back.
A clever, well-trained dog, riding on his own master, and making sure he doesn’t lose a single paper. A modern fairy-tale being, combination of man and dog, thrown up by the war and set down in the misery of Kärntner Strasse.
A sign of the times, in which dogs ride men, to protect them from other men. A memory of those great times when men were trained like dogs and were barked at as “Schweinehunde” and so forth, by others who were themselves bloodhounds (though heaven help you if you called them that).
An outcome of patriotism that makes the upright likenesses of the Creator dependent on four-footed creatures who lacked the spiritual distinction to become heroes or cannon-fodder, and at the most did odd jobs in the ambulance service. On the invalid’s chest dangles an Emperor Karl Troop Cross. On the neck of the dog a mere dog-tag.
The bearer of the Troop Cross is a victim. The one with the dog-tag is active. He guards the suffering of the invalid. He keeps the man from further harm. His Fatherland and fellow-beings could only hurt him. He has them to thank for being watched over by a dog. Sign of the times! Once there were sheepdogs who watched herds of sheep, and guard-dogs that guarded houses. Today there are mandogs who watch invalids, mandogs the logical consequence of submissive men. The scene struck me with the force of a revelation: a dog seated on a man. When he remembers what happened when he relied on other men, a man is happy to put his trust in a dog. Is there anything so sad as this sight, which seems so emblematic? All around stroll the war-profiteers with their X-ray vision, and in the midst of everything a mounted dog. The human race has lost, all hail to the animal. We have been through the war that was the last hurrah of cavalry, and at the end of it dogs ride around on men.
Der Neue Tag, 1 August 1919
3. Millionaire for an Hour
Every so often, I like to spend a little time in the lobby of the big hotel where visitors from hard-currency nations come to stay. The coffered ceiling consists of so many gorgeous panels, and in the middle of each one sprouts an electric light. The lamps look like glass flowers, shaded by golden leaves.
The ceiling is low but expansive, the furniture likewise. Everything here tends to breadth and luxury. The low ceiling murmurs: Don’t get up! The broad armchairs say: Kick your shoes off!
I kick off one of my shoes and look with a deal of satisfaction at the crease of my trouser-leg (my only pair, but let that go). I also take pride in the state of my toe caps, which have just had a good shine from the soft flannel cloth of the man on Unter den Linden.
After just a quarter of an hour of sitting like that, and feeling flush and expansive, I start to think I am someone from a hard-currency country, and am staying at the hotel.
The messenger boy who is delivering a letter gives my shiny toecaps a wide berth. The messenger boy has no idea I don’t live here. When I call him, he comes to a stop outside the charmed hard-currency nimbus in whose centre I am sitting, and doffs his brown cap to me with an angular movement of his well-trained arm. He has big blue eyes and gives me his best awestruck stare. He has whole magazines of respect in his eyes. He is apple-cheeked and smells pleasantly of milk, like a clean baby. He has been studying deference to his hard-currency elders for all of two years now.
The white napkin of the waiter starts to twitch respectfully at about ten paces. The hotel manager, striding across the tasteful ornaments of his Smyrna carpet with the dignity of a Grand Vizier, inclines his head when I look at him.
After a while, I shift my focus to my brother millionaires. They are very well dressed. The men smell of new leather luggage and English shaving cream and coal. The women disperse gentle hints of a Russian scent across the room. The bittersweet aroma tickles my nostrils, only to disappear again.
The millionaires are gifted poseurs. The younger ones wear belted lemon-lime raincoats with discreet matte buckles. Their hats are for the most part dove-grey and have a hint of a dent at the top (that might almost be an accident). Their gloves are white, their shoes are brown or tan, and when the young millionaires sit down, they give their trousers a little tweak at the knees to show off their silk socks.
The old millionaires seem generally unaware of the season. It’s not the state of the mercury but the state of the market that matters. The old millionaires sit there in their winter wool coats and padded gloves, and they keep a freshly guillotined cigar clenched so expectantly between their teeth that a waiter leaps by with tails aflutter, in mid-air striking a match on the emery board so as to have it ready when he alights.
I get to know people here: a man with whiskers who looks like a Hamburg senator (and he has the thick ‘s’ to match). Protracted negotiations with a belted youth. The subject is petroleum. The youth seems to be from Poland. He has a piece of paper in his top pocket. Every so often he gives it a meaningful tap. Each time the bewhiskered oldster falls silent and looks wistfully at the youth.
Behind a column, a mulatto leans back in a rattan chair. He is smoking a dense Turkish cigarette and is negotiating with a spiv of an uncertain age who fancies himself a matinee idol. He has a pair of canary-yellow gloves. You can practically hear them cheeping away. He is wearing the right one, the left is lying casually and emptily on the marble table top. Abruptly the spiv bestirs himself, gets to his feet, and gives the mulatto a friendly wave with his empty glove, as though his train were just pulling out. It’s my sense that he’s got one over on the mulatto. Men in canary-yellow gloves should be treated with suspicion.
In the lobby cocaine, sugar, political systems, revolutions and women are on offer. A Russian count ponders the advisability of a move for the naval base of Kronstadt. A carpet dealer discusses terms with an only recently “made” man. A lawyer takes receipt of half a dozen passports from a Russian family. “We’ll get it done,” his eyes seem to blink. He jabs his pince-nez against the bridge of his nose, and with sudden resolve clacks his briefcase shut. As he reverses out of the door he bows three times to the Russian head of household, who waves avuncularly.
At five the band launch into the Peer Gynt Suite. The millionaires turn away from their business and towards their womenfolk. The millionairesses drink mocha and eat ice cream and nibble little cakes and make sure their right pinkie is always extended, as though it were an especially holy thing that mustn’t ever touch the side of a cup.
When I leave the hotel the porter stands beside the revolving door, primed to greet me, like a talking fork. His owner’s monogram decorates him heart and head. A chauffeur asks me whether I would like a ride somewhere.
I would not. I am no longer a millionaire.
Neue Berliner Zeitung—12 Uhr-Blatt, 1 April 1921
4. The Umbrella
It was raining the day before yesterday. The asphalt of the Kurfürstendamm was slippery, and a woman with an open umbrella ran into a moving car, slipped, and was run over. Her umbrella was lying on the pavement. People rushed over, the woman was picked up; she was badly shaken, nothing more — all this had to be established in a nearby café. But before it could be established, and while she was still lying in the road, covered with blood in the imagination of all the passers-by who had witnessed the accident, and possibly with severed limbs, a man had the presence of mind to pick up the lady’s umbrella and walk off with it.
I had never supposed that people’s decency was a match for their self-interest. But that their meanness was even greater than their curiosity, that was brought home to me by this incident, which shows that it isn’t difficult to strip the pillow off someone’s deathbed, and sell the feathers at the next street corner.