Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf by Alfred Döblin Page B
Authors: Alfred Döblin
Tags: General, Philosophy
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measure and between beer-mugs, they tittered and smirked, they hummed with the music. moved their arms in rhythm; Booze, booze, guzzle and booze. Leave all your trouble at home. Booze, booze, guzzle and booze, Leave all your trouble at home, Shun all trouble and shun all pain, Then life’s a happy refrain.
Charlie Chaplin was there in person, he whispered in northeastern German dialect, waddled about up there on the balustrade in his wide pants with the giant shoes, pinched the leg of a not too young lady, and raced with her down the coaster. Numerous families gobbled up food around a table, leaving a lot of dirt. You may buy a long stick with a paper tuft on top for 50 pfennigs and establish any connection with it you want, the neck is sensitive, so is the knee cap, afterwards you move your leg and turn around. Who is here anyway? Civilians of both sexes, then a handful of soldiers from the Reichswehr with feminine accompaniment: Drink, drink, brother, let’s drink, Leave all your worries at home.
The air is thick, full of clouds from pipes, cigars, and cigarettes, the whole huge hall is enveloped in fog. The smoke, when it finds it is getting too smoky. tries to escape upwards because of its light weight, and, as a matter of fact, finds slits, holes, and ventilators ready to push it along. But outside, outside it is dark night and cold. Then the smoke repents of its levity, resists its constitution, but it can’t find the way back, for the ventilators all turn to one side. Too late. It finds itself surrounded by physical laws. The smoke doesn’t know what’s happened, it grasps its brow, and has no brow, it wants to ponder-but in vain. The wind, the cold, the night have seized it; ‘twas never seen again.
At a table sit two couples, looking at the passers-by. The gentleman in the salt-and-pepper suit, his mustache bent over the prominent bosom of a dark, stout woman. Their tender hearts tremble, their noses sniffle, he leans over her bosom, she over the pomade-covered back of his head.
Beside them, a woman in a yellow-checked dress sits laughing. Her gentleman friend puts his arm around her chair. She has prominent teeth, a monocle, her open left eye seems blind, she smiles, puffs, shakes her head: “What funny questions you ask.” A young chicken with blond water-waves is sitting at the next table, or rather she covers, with her powerfully developed, though concealed backside, the iron seat of a low garden chair. She hums happily through her nose to the music, the after-effect of a beefsteak and three glasses of light beer. She chatters and babbles, lays her head on his neck, on the neck of the second fitter of a firm in Neukölln, this chicken being his fourth affair this year, while, on the other hand, he is her tenth, or rather eleventh this year, if we figure among them also her first cousin, who, be it said, is her official fiance. She opens her eyes suddenly, for Chaplin might fall down up there any moment. The fitter grabs with both hands after the coaster, where something seems to be happening sure enough. They order salted pretzels.
A gentleman, 36 years old, part-owner of a little provision business, buys himself six big balloons at 50 pfennigs each, lets one after another go up in the aisle in front of the band, by which means he succeeds, because of his lack of other charms, in attracting attention to himself from girls, women, virgins, widows, divorcees, adulteresses, and other unfaithful lassies, who are wandering about alone or in couples, and so he finds company without much difficulty. You pay 20 pfennigs in the adjoining gangway for weight-lifting. A glance into the future. You dab, with your finger well wetted, on the chemical preparation in the circle between the two hearts and then smear it a few times on the empty page above, whereupon the picture of the future sweetheart will appear. You have been on the right road since childhood. Your heart knows no deceit, but, nevertheless, with fine
Charlie Chaplin was there in person, he whispered in northeastern German dialect, waddled about up there on the balustrade in his wide pants with the giant shoes, pinched the leg of a not too young lady, and raced with her down the coaster. Numerous families gobbled up food around a table, leaving a lot of dirt. You may buy a long stick with a paper tuft on top for 50 pfennigs and establish any connection with it you want, the neck is sensitive, so is the knee cap, afterwards you move your leg and turn around. Who is here anyway? Civilians of both sexes, then a handful of soldiers from the Reichswehr with feminine accompaniment: Drink, drink, brother, let’s drink, Leave all your worries at home.
The air is thick, full of clouds from pipes, cigars, and cigarettes, the whole huge hall is enveloped in fog. The smoke, when it finds it is getting too smoky. tries to escape upwards because of its light weight, and, as a matter of fact, finds slits, holes, and ventilators ready to push it along. But outside, outside it is dark night and cold. Then the smoke repents of its levity, resists its constitution, but it can’t find the way back, for the ventilators all turn to one side. Too late. It finds itself surrounded by physical laws. The smoke doesn’t know what’s happened, it grasps its brow, and has no brow, it wants to ponder-but in vain. The wind, the cold, the night have seized it; ‘twas never seen again.
At a table sit two couples, looking at the passers-by. The gentleman in the salt-and-pepper suit, his mustache bent over the prominent bosom of a dark, stout woman. Their tender hearts tremble, their noses sniffle, he leans over her bosom, she over the pomade-covered back of his head.
Beside them, a woman in a yellow-checked dress sits laughing. Her gentleman friend puts his arm around her chair. She has prominent teeth, a monocle, her open left eye seems blind, she smiles, puffs, shakes her head: “What funny questions you ask.” A young chicken with blond water-waves is sitting at the next table, or rather she covers, with her powerfully developed, though concealed backside, the iron seat of a low garden chair. She hums happily through her nose to the music, the after-effect of a beefsteak and three glasses of light beer. She chatters and babbles, lays her head on his neck, on the neck of the second fitter of a firm in Neukölln, this chicken being his fourth affair this year, while, on the other hand, he is her tenth, or rather eleventh this year, if we figure among them also her first cousin, who, be it said, is her official fiance. She opens her eyes suddenly, for Chaplin might fall down up there any moment. The fitter grabs with both hands after the coaster, where something seems to be happening sure enough. They order salted pretzels.
A gentleman, 36 years old, part-owner of a little provision business, buys himself six big balloons at 50 pfennigs each, lets one after another go up in the aisle in front of the band, by which means he succeeds, because of his lack of other charms, in attracting attention to himself from girls, women, virgins, widows, divorcees, adulteresses, and other unfaithful lassies, who are wandering about alone or in couples, and so he finds company without much difficulty. You pay 20 pfennigs in the adjoining gangway for weight-lifting. A glance into the future. You dab, with your finger well wetted, on the chemical preparation in the circle between the two hearts and then smear it a few times on the empty page above, whereupon the picture of the future sweetheart will appear. You have been on the right road since childhood. Your heart knows no deceit, but, nevertheless, with fine
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