Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (3 page)

“So we can go on talking. A lot can still be learned from other people. Young Zannovich was on this road, and so it went. I didn’t experience it, nor did my father experience it, but you can imagine it, can’t you? If I ask you, you, who call me a monkey-you should not despise any animal on God’s earth, they give us meat, and they show us many a kindness, think of a horse, a dog, singing birds; monkeys I only know from the county fair, they have to do tricks, on a chain, a hard lot, sure, no man has such a hard lot - now I’m going to ask you, I can’t call you by your name, because you won’t tell me your name: how did Zannovich get that far, both the young and the old man? You think because they had brains, they were clever. Other people were clever, too, and hadn’t got as far at eighty as Stefan was at twenty. But the main things about a man are his eyes and his feet. He should be able to see the world and go after it.

“Now listen to what Stefan Zannovich did, he who had seen men and who knew how little we should be afraid of them. Just look how they smooth your way, how they almost show the blind man his road. They wanted this from him: You’re Baron Warta. That’s nize, says he, then I’m Baron Warta. Later on that wasn’t enough for him, or not for them. If he was a Baron, why not be more? There’s a celebrity in Albania, who had been dead a long time, but they honor him like people honor heroes, his name was Skanderbeg. If Zannovich could have done it, he would have said: he himself is Skanderbeg. After Skanderbeg was dead, he said, so he did, I’m a descendant of Skanderbeg’s, and threw out his chest, he was called Prince Castriota of Albania, and he’s going to make Albania great again; his followers are waiting for him. They gave him money, so that he could live like a descendant of Skanderbeg’s should live. He did the people a lot of good. They go to the theater and hear a lot of cooked-up things that are agreeable to them, and they pay for it. They could pay for it, too, couldn’t they, if the agreeable things happened to them in the afternoon, or in the morning, and they themselves could play a part in them.”

And again the man in the tan summer topcoat sat up, his face wrinkled and gloomy; he looked down at the red-haired man, coughed, his voice was changed: “Say, listen, young feller, you’re cuckoo, heh? You’re off
your
noodle, ain’t you?” “Cuckoo, maybe. First I’m a monkey, then I’m
meschugge.”
“Say, listen here, you, what do you mean sitting here and giving me a lot of your bunk?” “Who’s sitting on the floor and don’t want to get up? Me? When there’s a sofa standing right behind me? Well if it bothers you, I’ll stop talking.”

Then the other man, who had been looking around the room at the same time, drew his legs from under him and sat down with his back to the sofa, resting his hands on the carpet. “That’s right, you can sit more comfortably this way.” “Well you might stop your blathering now.” “If you like. I’ve often told the story before, I don’t care, if you don’t care.” But after a moment of silence the other turned to him again: “Just go on with your story.” “Noo, you see, a man tells stories and talks with another man, time passes better that way. I only wanted to open your eyes. Stefan Zannovich, who you heard about, got money, a lot of it, and he traveled to Germany with it. They didn’t unmask him in Montenegro. What’s to be learnt from Stefan Zannovich is that he knew about himself and about people. He was innocent like a little bird that twitters. Look here, he was so little afraid of the world, the greatest and most powerful men of his time, men to be properly afraid of, were his friends: the Elector of Saxony, the Crown Prince of Prussia, who later became a great war hero, and before whom the Austrian Empress Theresa trembled on her throne. Zannovich didn’t tremble before them. And once when Stefan came to Vienna and got in with people who were prying around him, the Empress herself raised her hand and said: Leave the youngster alone.”

Completion of the Story in an unexpected Manner and the tonic Effect it has on the discharged Prisoner

The other chap sitting on the sofa began to laugh, he fairly neighed: “You’re a card. You should join the circus as a clown.” The redhead sniggered, too: “So you see how it was. But keep quiet, the old man’s grandchildren. Maybe we’d better sit down on the sofa, after all. What do you say?” The other laughed, crept up and raised himself slowly, sat down in one corner of the sofa, while the red-haired man sat in the other corner: “You sit softer that way, you don’t rumple your coat, either.” The man in the summer topcoat stared at the redhead from his corner: “You certainly are a funny bird - I haven’t seen the likes of you in ages.” The redhead, quietly: “Maybe you didn’t take a good look, there are some. You got your coat dirty, they don’t clean their shoes here.” The discharged prisoner, a man of about thirty, had merry eyes, his face was fresher: “Say, tell me, what are you selling anyway? You must be living on the moon.” “Well, that’s fine, let’s talk about the moon, now.”

A man with a curly, brown beard had been standing at the door for about five minutes. He went to the table, sat down in a chair. He was young, wore a black plush hat like the other. He described a circle in the air with his hand, then began in his shrill voice: “Who’s that? What are you doing with him?” “And what are you doing here, Eliser? I don’t know him, he won’t tell his name.” “You’ve been telling him stories.” “Well, what’s it to you?” The brownbeard to the convict: “Did he tell you stories, that one?” “He don’t talk. He just walks around and sings in the courtyards.” “Then let him go.” “It’s none of your business what I’m doing.” “But I overheard what happened at the door. You told him about Zannovich. What else would you do but tell stories and stories?” Then the stranger, who had been staring at the brownbeard, grumbled: “Who are you and how’d you get in here, anyway? What do you want to mix in his affair for?” “Did he tell you about Zannovich, or not? He’s been tellin’ you stories. Nachum, my brother-in-law, goes around everywhere telling stories and stories and can’t do anything for himself.” “Did I ever ask you to help me? Don’t you see he’s feeling bad, you low-life?” “What of it, if he’s not feeling well? You didn’t get an order from God, just look at him, God waited till he came along. Alone God wasn’t able to help.” “Low-life.” “Keep away from that man, I tell you. He probably told you how Zannovich or some other feller got up in the world.” “You better get out of here soon!” “Just listen to the swindler, the charily hound. Wants to talk to me. Is it his house? Noo, what did you tell him again about your Zannovich, and how a man can learn from him? You should o’ become one of our Rebbes. We would o’ fattened you up, sure enough.” “I don’t need your charity.” The brownbeard shouted again: “And we don’t need any sponges around here always hanging on to a man’s coal-tails. Did he also tell you what happened to his Zannovich finally, in the end?” “You rascaL you low-life.” “Did he tell you that?” The prisoner blinked wearily at the red-haired chap who shook his fist and walked towards the door, he growled after the red-haired man: “Hey, there, don’t run away; don’t get excited, let him shoot his bull.”

The brown-bearded fellow was already talking violently to him, fidgeting with his hands, shifting back and forth, clucking, and jerking his head, with a different expression every moment, turning now to the stranger, now to the redhead: “He makes people
meschugge.
Let him tell you what kind of an end his Stefan Zannovich came to. He don’t tell it, why don’t he tell it, why, I ask you?” “Because you are a low-life, Eliser.” “A better man than you are. They” (the brownbeard lifted both hands disgustedly, making terrible goggle-eyes) “chased his Zannovich out of Florence like a thief. Why? Because they found him out.” The red-haired fellow placed himself menacingly before him, the brownbeard brushed him aside: “It’s my turn to talk now. He wrote letters to princes, a prince gets lots of letters, you can’t tell from the handwriting what a man is. Then he stuck out his chest and went to Brussels as a Prince of Albania and mixed up in high politics. It was his bad angel told him to do that. He goes to the government, just imagine Stefan Zannovich, the youngster, and promises to give them a hundred thousand men or two hundred, it don’t matter, for a war, with somebody or other. The government writes a little letter, thank you very much, they’re not interested in uncertain enterprises. Then his bad angel told Stefan Zannovich, take the letter and get a loan on it. Didn’t you have the letter from the minister with the address, To His Royal Highness the Prince of Albania on it? They loaned him money, and that was the end of the swindler. How old did he get to be? Thirty years, he didn’t get to be any older than that as a punishment for his evil-doing. He couldn’t pay the money back, they reported him to the authorities in Brussels and that’s how everything came out. Your hero, Nachum! Did you tell about his black end in prison where he opened his veins? And after he was dead - a fine life, a fine end, go on and tell it-the executioner came, then the knacker with a wagon for dead dogs and horses and cats, and loaded him on the wagon, Stefan Zannovich himself, yes, sir, and chucked him out by the gallows and dumped garbage from the town all over him.”

The man in the summer topcoat was standing with his mouth open: “That’s true?” (A sick mouse can groan, too.) The red-haired fellow had counted every word his brother-in-law had been shouting. He waited with his index finger lifted in the face of the brownbeard as though for a cue, then touched him lightly on the chest and spat before him on the ground, peh, peh: “That’s for you. So you are one of those fellows. My brother-in-law.” The brownbeard sprawled towards the window: “Now you go ahead and talk, and say it isn’t true.”

The walls no longer existed. A small room with a hanging lamp, two Jews running around, one with brown hair and one with red hair, both wearing black plush hats, quarreling with each other. He pursued his red-haired friend: “Say, listen to me, is that true, what he told about the man, how he went to pieces and how they killed him?” The brownbeard yelled: “Killed, did I say killed? He killed himself.” The redbeard: “Well, then, he killed himself.” The ex-convict: “And what did they do, the others?” The redbeard: “Who, who?” “Well, there probably were others like him, like Stefan. Most likely they weren’t all ministers and knackers and bankers.” The red and the brown fellow exchanged glances. The redhead: “Well, what could they do? They looked on.”

The discharged prisoner in the tan summer topcoat, the big fellow, stepped from behind the sofa, took up his hat, brushed it, and put it on the table; then he threw his coat back, and without saying a word, unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Here, take a look at my pants. I was that stout and now they stand out, two thick fists, one on top of the other, that’s from short victuals. All gone. The whole caboodle gone to the devil. That’s how you go to pieces, because you weren’t always the way you should have been. I don’t know as the others are much better. Nope. Don’t believe it. They just try to drive a man crazy.”

The brownbeard whispered to the redbeard: “There you got it.” “What have I got?” “Well, a convict.” “What of it?” The discharged prisoner: “Then they say: you are discharged and back you go, right back into the dirt, and it’s the same dirt as before. It’s no laughing matter.” He buttoned his waistcoat again: “You can see from that, the way they do. They take the dead man out of his hole, the lousy fool with the dog wagon comes and dumps a dead man, who killed himself, on the wagon, the damned stinking swine-why didn’t they knock his brains out? Sinning against a human being like that, and it don’t matter who it is.” The red-haired man sadly: “What can you do about it?” “Yes, sir, arewe nothing, just because we did something once? Everybody who has been in jail can get back on his feet again and it don’t matter what he did.” (To repent! A fellow’s got to have air! Hit outl Then everything will lie behind us, then everything’ll be over, fear and everything.) “I just wanted to show you: Don’t you listen to everything my brother-in-law tells you. You can’t always do everything you want to, sometimes it works just as well another way.” “That’s no justice to throw a fellow on the dungheap like a cur and then dump garbage on top of him, and that’s the justice they give a dead man. Ough, hell. But now I’ve got to leave you. Give me your paw. You mean well and you, too, (he pressed the red-haired fellow’s hand). My name’s Biberkopf, Franz. Was nice of you to take me in. My dicky-bird has already sung its bit in the courtyard. Well, here’s how, merry business, it’ll soon be over.” The two Jews shook hands with him and smiled. The redhead held his hand for a long time, beamed: “Now you’re all right. And I’ll be glad if you have time and can come around one day.” “Thanks, we’ll fix that up, we’ll find time all right, only no money. And give the old gentleman who was there my regards. That boy’s got strength in that hand of his, say, he musta been a butcher once. Ow, we’ll have to put the rug straight, it’s all crumpled up. No, let’s do it all ourselves, and the table, like this.” He worked on the floor, laughed over his shoulder to the redhead: “Well, here we sat and told each other a lot. A good place to sit down, askin’ your pardon.”

They accompanied him to the door, the red-haired fellow was still worried: “Will you be able to walk alone?” The brownbeard nudged him: “Don’t call him back.” The ex-convict, walking erect, shook his head, pushed the air from him with both arms (we must get air, air, air, and that’s all). “Don’t bother about it. You can let me run along. Didn’t you talk about feet and eyes? I’ve still got them all right. Nobody’s chopped ‘em off for me yet. Bye-bye, gents.”

And across the narrow, obstructed courtyard he went; the two men looked down the stairs after him. He had his stiff hat down over his face, mumbled, as he stepped over a puddle of gasoline: “Lotta poison. Now for a cognac. The first man who comes along gets one in the jaw. Let’s see, where can I get a cognac?”

Market dull, later Bears very active, Hamburg depressed, London weaker

It was raining. To the left in Munzstrasse signs sparkled in front of the movies. At the corner he was unable to pass, the people were standing in front of a fence, then it got very steep, the street-car tracks ran on planks laid across the space, a car was just riding slowly over them. Look here, they are building a subway station, must be work to be had in Berlin. Another movie. Children under seventeen not allowed. On the huge poster a beet-red gentleman was standing on a staircase, while a peach of a young girl embraced his legs, she lay on the stairs, and he stood up above with a leering expression on his face. Underneath was written: No Parents, Fate of an Orphaned Child, in Six Reels. Yes, sir, I’ll take a look at that. The orchestrion was banging away. Price sixty pfennigs.