Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf by Alfred Döblin

noticed these things before, but now it has to be, ah, it’s really marvelous. “You’re my sunshine, you’re my darling.” And the lad is so gentle. To think that such things exist: “Come on, let’s go to a little hotel. You can give me five marks, or ten. I’m quite broke.” “Anything you want, my sunshine.” He gave him his whole pocketbook. To think that such things exist. That’s the nicest part of it all.

But in the room the door has peep-holes. The hotel-keeper sees something and calls his wife; she, too, sees something. And afterwards they say they won’t allow such things in their hotel, they saw it all right and he can’t deny it. And they would never permit such things, and he ought to be ashamed to seduce young boys like that, they are going to report him to the police. The porter and the chambermaid also come and grin. Next day the baldpate buys himself two bottles of champagne: Asbach Uralt, and leaves on a business trip. He wants to go to Heligoland, to end it all by drowning while plastered. He gets drunk all right, and takes a boat, but comes back two days later to the old girl; at home nothing has happened.
    Nothing at all happens throughout the month, the whole year. Just one thing: he inherits $3,000 from an American uncle and is able to treat himself a bit. Then one day, while he’s off at the seashore, a court summons arrives which the old lady has to sign for him. She opens it, and everything’s there about those peep-holes and that pocketbook and the dear little boy. And when baldpate gets back from his holiday, they’re all weeping around him, the old lady and his two grown daughters. He reads the summons, why, that’s all dead and buried, that’s bureaucracy and a lot of red tape dating back to Charlemagne, and now it has got to him, but it’s true, all right. “What have I done, Judge? Why, I didn’t offend anybody’s feelings. I went to a room, locked myself in. Is it my fault if they have those peep-holes? Nothing illegal really happened.” The boy confirms his story. “Now what is it I’ve done?” Baldpate weeps into his fur coat: “Did I steal anything? Did I commit a burglary? I only broke into a dear boy’s heart. I said to him: my sunshine. And so he was.”
    He is acquitted. At home the family all keep on crying.
    “Magic Flute,” dance-hall, with an American Dance-Hall on the ground floor. The Oriental Casino available for private entertainments. What Christmas gift shall I give my best girl? Inverts: after many years of experiment I have at last found a radical antidote against the growth of the beard. Every part of the body can be depilated. Furthermore I have discovered the means of developing a truly feminine breast within an astonishingly short time. No medicines, absolutely safe and harmless. As proof: myself. Liberty for Love all along the front.
    A star-clear sky looked down upon the dark realms of mankind. The castle of Kerkauen lay in deep nocturnal quiet. But a fair-haired woman buried her head in the pillows and found no sleep. Tomorrow, tomorrow, her love, the dear love of her heart, would leave her. A whisper went (ran) through the sable, impenetrable (dark) night: Gisa, stay with me, stay with me (don’t go away, don’t go off on a voyage, don’t fall down, take a seat please). Forsake me not. But the cheerless silence had neither ear nor heart (nor foot nor nose). And yonder, separated only by a few walls, there lay a pale slender woman with wide open eyes. Her dark, heavy hair lay in confusion on the silk of the bed (Castle Kerkauen is famous for its silk beds). A shiver of cold shook her. Her teeth chattered, as though she were deeply chilled, full stop. But she did not move, comma, she did not pull the coverlet closer over herself, full stop. Motionless her slender, ice-cold hands lay (as if deeply chilled, cold-shuddering, a slender woman with wide open eyes, famous silk bed) on it, full stop. Her luminous eyes roamed blazing through