takes a long time, which is the whole point of it. Of course, the waiters don’t like it, because a cup of coffee only has a five-pfennig tip in it, which is very little for a chessy guest of seven hours. But it’s the cheapest occupation for the elite, because they’re not working and that’s why they’re keeping busy. And they are very literary, and the literary elite is incredibly busy with their coffee and chess and talking and all that intellect, so they won’t let on to themselves that they’re lazy. Some are from the theater too, and verycolorful girls that are very self-assured, and a couple of older men with trembling bodies that have something to do with math. And most of them are desperate to get published. And they criticize everything.
“That gave me a lot of material to work through. So I made myself a list of foreign words and wrote next to them what they meant. In some cases, I had to find out on my own. Those words make quite an impression when you use them. We artists were hanging out together — sometimes a few guys with beer bellies came walking by. They just look at us and they don’t belong. We look down on them. So I throw my head way back as they are talking and stare at the sky and don’t listen. And all of a sudden I press my lips together very tight and then I loosen them and blow smoke through my nose and full of nonchalance I throw a single foreign word at them. Foreign words used all by themselves are a symbol, I’ll have you know, and a symbol fits into any context. If you have enough self-confidence, nobody dares admit that they don’t understand. With a symbol you can never go wrong. But after a while I got tired of them anyway.”
“What else, what else?”
“And there’s a traffic light that changes from green to red and yellow — huge eyes and cars wait in front of it — I walk down the
Tauentzien
— and shops with pink corsets also sell green sweaters — why? And ties and a striped bathrobe for a man in the window — I see it — there arebrown shoes and a fast food restaurant with Wagnerian music and sandwiches aligned in the shape of a star — and there are delicacies in the kitchen that I’m ashamed to never have heard of. And at
Zuntz
, you can smell the coffee. It’s small and brown and lies in large flat baskets that look like the South. It’s all so wonderful — and there are wide tracks of rails and yellow trains. And people at the
KaDeWe
. It’s so big and with clothes and gold and many elegant little dogs on leashes at the door, waiting for ladies shopping inside — and enormously square — and a little
Wittenberg
Temple that has a train running in its belly — with a large lit-up U in front of it.
“And a blonde man with a monocle invites me — he has teeth like a mouse and a disgustingly small mouth that’s all shiny and makes the monocled man look naked. We’re drinking wine in a highly respectable restaurant. He’s in insurance and talking without end and loud without any inhibition and he’s an idiot and talking about his mother, to whom he gave a carpet as a gift — and someone sold him a cigarette lighter that didn’t work and then wouldn’t repair it for him for free — and 3 mark 80 is a lot of money — he doesn’t throw his money out the window, but he does have to have his three beers every night together with his friends. After that, he goes to see his mother — after the third beer, every night. There are some who don’t do that — he can’t stand to be ripped off, that really makes him mad, and then that thing withthe cigarette lighter — and I should come visit him, and that he knows restaurants where you can get a lot to eat for very little money, and you get seconds on potatoes and vegetables — and his foot is coming dangerously close to me — he just can’t get over that cigarette lighter — and he won’t give anything to the broken man with the pink bandaids, because what would happen if you started to
“That gave me a lot of material to work through. So I made myself a list of foreign words and wrote next to them what they meant. In some cases, I had to find out on my own. Those words make quite an impression when you use them. We artists were hanging out together — sometimes a few guys with beer bellies came walking by. They just look at us and they don’t belong. We look down on them. So I throw my head way back as they are talking and stare at the sky and don’t listen. And all of a sudden I press my lips together very tight and then I loosen them and blow smoke through my nose and full of nonchalance I throw a single foreign word at them. Foreign words used all by themselves are a symbol, I’ll have you know, and a symbol fits into any context. If you have enough self-confidence, nobody dares admit that they don’t understand. With a symbol you can never go wrong. But after a while I got tired of them anyway.”
“What else, what else?”
“And there’s a traffic light that changes from green to red and yellow — huge eyes and cars wait in front of it — I walk down the
Tauentzien
— and shops with pink corsets also sell green sweaters — why? And ties and a striped bathrobe for a man in the window — I see it — there arebrown shoes and a fast food restaurant with Wagnerian music and sandwiches aligned in the shape of a star — and there are delicacies in the kitchen that I’m ashamed to never have heard of. And at
Zuntz
, you can smell the coffee. It’s small and brown and lies in large flat baskets that look like the South. It’s all so wonderful — and there are wide tracks of rails and yellow trains. And people at the
KaDeWe
. It’s so big and with clothes and gold and many elegant little dogs on leashes at the door, waiting for ladies shopping inside — and enormously square — and a little
Wittenberg
Temple that has a train running in its belly — with a large lit-up U in front of it.
“And a blonde man with a monocle invites me — he has teeth like a mouse and a disgustingly small mouth that’s all shiny and makes the monocled man look naked. We’re drinking wine in a highly respectable restaurant. He’s in insurance and talking without end and loud without any inhibition and he’s an idiot and talking about his mother, to whom he gave a carpet as a gift — and someone sold him a cigarette lighter that didn’t work and then wouldn’t repair it for him for free — and 3 mark 80 is a lot of money — he doesn’t throw his money out the window, but he does have to have his three beers every night together with his friends. After that, he goes to see his mother — after the third beer, every night. There are some who don’t do that — he can’t stand to be ripped off, that really makes him mad, and then that thing withthe cigarette lighter — and I should come visit him, and that he knows restaurants where you can get a lot to eat for very little money, and you get seconds on potatoes and vegetables — and his foot is coming dangerously close to me — he just can’t get over that cigarette lighter — and he won’t give anything to the broken man with the pink bandaids, because what would happen if you started to
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