Berlin Alexanderplatz

by Alfred Doblin

  Cursed be the man, says Jeremiah, that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed, blessed, blessed, is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?

  Water in the dense black forest, black and terrible waters, you lie so dumb. In terrible repose you lie. Your surface does not move, when there is a storm in the forest and the flrs begin to bend, and the spider-webs are torn between the branches and there is a sound of splitting. Then you, black waters, lie there below in the hollow place; and the branches fall.

  The wind tears at the forest, to you the storm does not come. You have no dragons in your domain, the age of mammoths is gone, nothing is there to frighten anyone; the plants decay in you; in you move fish and snails. Nothing more. Yet, though this is so, although you are but water, awesome you are, black waters, and terrible in your repose.

  Sunday, April 8, 1928

  “Are we going to have snow? Perhaps we will see white again in April.” Franz Biberkopf sat at the window of his little place, his left arm on the window-sill and his head in his hand. It was in the afternoon, Sunday, warm and comfy in the room. Cilly had lighted the stove at noon, now she was sleeping back there in bed with her little cat. “Are we going to have snow? The air’s so gray. It would be nice.”

  And as Franz closed his eyes, he heard bells ringing. For several minutes he sat in silence, listened to them ringing: Boom, bim, bum, boom, bim, bam, bum, bum, bim. Then he raised his head from his hand and listened: Two deep bells and one shrill one. Then they stopped.

  Why are they ringing? he asked himself. Then all at once they started again, very loud, eager, roaring. A frightening crash. Then they stopped. Everything was suddenly quiet.

  Franz lifted his arm from the window-sill, stepped into the room. Cilly was sitting on the bed, a little mirror in her hand, her curl-pins between her lips, humming a friendly little tune, when Franz came up. “What’s on today, Cilly? Holiday?” She was busy with her hair. “Why, yes, Sunday.”

  “Not a holiday?” “Maybe a Catholic holiday, don’t know.” “Because the bells are ringing like mad.” “Where?” “Just now.” “Didn’t hear anything. Did you hear anything, Franz?” “Why yes. It was crashing and banging around here like anything! “ “You musta been dreaming.” I’m scared. “No, I wasn’t dreaming, I was sitting over there.” “Maybe you were dozing.” “Nope.” He stuck to it, felt all numb, moved slowly, sat down at his place at the table. “Funny the way a man dreams. But I heard it, all right.” He poured down a swallow of beer. The scared feeling didn’t leave him.

  He glanced towards Cilly, who was beginning to look tearful. “Who knows, Cilly, m’darlin’, if something didn’t happen to somebody just now.” Then he asked for the paper. She was able to laugh. “It didn’t come, never on Sundays, didn’t you know that?”

  He picked up the morning edition, looked at the head-lines. “Only small stuff. Nope, that’s all nothing. Nothing has happened.” “If you hear ringing, Franz, that means you’ll be going to church.” “Oh, leave me alone with them sky-pilots. Not for me. Only it’s funny: a fellow hears something and when you look around afterwards, there’s nothing.” He meditates on this, she stood beside him now, caressing him. ‘‘I’ll go down and get some air, Cilly. Just for an hour or so. Want to hear what’s happened. In the evening there’s the Welt or Montag Morgen . I’ll have to look into that.” “Oh, Franz, always speculating. It probably says in the papers: a garbage truck had a breakdown at the Prenzlauer Tor and all the garbage spilled out. Or, wait a minute: a paper-seller had to change some money and gave the right amount by mistake. “

  Franz laughed: “Well, I’m off. Bye-bye, Cilly.”

  “Bye-bye, Franzeken.”

  Then Franz went slowly down the four flights of stairs, and he never saw Cilly again.

  She waited in the room till five. When he didn’t come, she went out in the street and asked for him in the cafes as far as the Prenzlauer corner. He hadn’t been seen anywhere. But hadn’t he wanted to read in the paper about his silly story, she thought, that thing he had dreamed? He must have gone somewhere. At the Prenzlauer corner the proprietress said: “Nope, he hasn’t been here. But Herr Pums asked for him. So I told him where Herr Biberkopf lived, that’s probably where he went.” “Nope, nobody’s been to our home.” “Maybe he didn’t find the place.” “Perhaps.” “Or maybe he met him in front of the door.”

  Cilly sat there till late in the evening. The cafe began to fill up. She kept looking towards the door. Once she went home and came back again. Meck was the only one who came, he consoled her and entertained her with jokes for a quarter of an hour. He said: “He’ll come back, that boy is used to his three squares. Don’t you worry, Cilly.” But while he was saying this, he remembered how Lina had once come and sat beside him, and she had been looking for Franz, too, that time, when he had the trouble with Lüders and the shoe-laces. And he almost went along with Cilly when she went out into the dark muddy street again, but he really didn’t want to make her afraid, it was probably a lot of bunk anyway.

  Cilly suddenly got furious and went to look for Reinhold; maybe he had talked Franz into getting another jane and simply giving her the go-by. Reinhold’s place was locked, not a soul there, not even Trude.

  She went slowly back to the cafe, Prenzlauer corner, back again into the cafe. It was snowing, but the snow had begun to melt. On the Alex the newsboys were calling Montag Morgen and Welt am Mittag. She bought a paper from a strange boy, even looked at it. Wonder if anything has happened, if he was right this afternoon.

  Oh well, a railroad accident in the United States, in Ohio; a clash between communists and swastika-men, nope, that’s not Franz’s idea of a fight, big damage by fire in Wilmersdorf. What do I care. She sauntered past Tietz’s bright store-front, crossed towards the gloomy Prenzlauer Strasse. She had no umbrella and got soaked to the skin. In Prenzlauer Strasse in front of the little confectionery shop, a group of street-girls stood under umbrellas, barring the passage. Right behind them a fat man with no hat approached her, as he stepped out of the hallway of a house. She walked quickly past him. I’ll take on the next one, what’s that boy thinking about anyway. That was the meanest Irick anybody had ever played on her.

  It was a quarter past nine. A terrible Sunday. At that hour Franz was already lying on the ground in another section of the city, his head in the gutter. his legs Oil the pavement.

  Franz goes down the stairs. One step, another step, another step, step, step, step, four flights, always down, down, down, and still down. A fellow gets dizzy, all dopy in the head. Y’cook soup, Fraulein Stein, got a spoon Fraulein Stein-got a spoon, Fraulein Stein cook soup, Fraulein Stein.... Nope, nothing doing in that line; how I sweated with that tart. Gotta get some air. Banisters, no decent lighting arrangements here, could hurt yourself on a nail.

  A door opens on the second floor and a man waddles heavily along behind him. He must have some belly, to puff like that, and walking downstairs, too. Franz Biberkopf stands in front of the door, the air is soft and gray, it’ll soon be snowing. The man from the staircase puffs beside him, a flabby little man with a bloated white face wearing a green felt hat. “A bit out of breath, neighbour?” “Yes, it’s because I’m so fat, and then walking up and down the steps like that.” They walk down the street together. The man with the short breath is puffing away. “Been up and down four flights of stairs five times today. Just figure out for yourself: twenty flights, with an average of thirty steps each, winding stairs are shorter,
but it’s harder to walk up, so we’ll count thirty steps, five flights make a hundred and fifty steps. Up. And down.” “As a matter of fact, it’s three hundred. Because I see you use up a lot of strength walking down, too.” “You’re right, going down as well.” “If I was you, I’d look for another job.”

  Heavy flakes of snow are now falling. They turn around, it’s a pretty sight. “Yes, I follow the ads, and I’ve got to keep at it. There’s no weekday and Sunday about it. Sunday even more than weekdays. Most people advertise on Sundays, they expect better results that way.” “Yes, because people have time to read the paper. I understand that blindfolded. That’s in my line.” “You in advertising, too?” “Nope, I only sell papers. Now I’m goin’ to read one myself.” “Well, I’ve read ‘em all. What weather! Did ye ever see anything like it?” “April, yesterday it was still nice. I tell you tomorrow it’ll be all white again. What you bet?” He begins to puff again, the street-lamps are lighted already, under a lamp he takes out a little notebook without a cover, holds it far away from him, reads. Franz surmises: “You’ll get your book wet.” The other does not hear him and puts the book back, the conversation is finished, Franz thinks, I’ll be off. At that moment the little man looks at him from under his green hat: “Listen, neighbor, what do you live on?” “Why do you ask, I’m a newsvender, a free-lance newsvender.” “That so. And that’s how you earn your money?” “Well, I manage it somehow.” What’s he want anyway, funny bird. “Yep. Look here, I‘ve always wanted to do something like that. earn my money on my own. Must really be nice, a man does what he wants and if you’re good at it. you earn enough .” “Sometimes you don’t. But you run around just about enough already, neighbor. Today being Sunday, and in such weather, there ain’t many running around like that.” “Right you are, right you are. I’ve been dashing around half the day. And there ain’t nothin’ comin’ in, nothin’ comin’ in. People are hard up these · days.” “Whatcha trading in, neighbor, if I may ask?” “I got a little pension. Y’see I wanted to be a free man; work and earn my money. Well, I’ve had my pension for three years now, was in the postal service before, and now I do nothing but hoof it all the time. Y’see it’s like this: I read the paper and then I go there and take a look at what people advertise.” “Furniture, perhaps?” “Anything, second-hand office fixtures, Bechstein grands, old Persian rugs, pianolas, stamp collections, coins, clothes left by dead people.” “Lot’s of people die?” “By the truck-loads. Well, then I go up and look at the stuff, and sometimes I buy something.” “And then you sell it again, I getcha.”

  Whereupon the asthmatic man grew silent and hunched himself into his coat, as they sauntered along through the soft snow. At the next streetlamp he took a package of post-cards out of his pocket, looked sadly at Franz and pressed two into his hands. “Read this, neighbor.” On the card was written: “Sir (or Madam), Dated as per post-mark. I regret to state that I am obliged to cancel the agreement made with you yesterday on account of untoward circumstances. Respectfully yours, Bernard Kauer.” “So Kauer’s your name?” “Yep, that’s me. That’s done with a copying machine which lance bought. It’s the only thing I ever did buy. I do my own copying with it. Can do up to fifty an hour.” “Ye don’t say so? Well, what’s it all about?” The fellow’s not right in his upper story and then he cocks his eyes so funny, too. “Why don’tcha read it: cancel ... on account of untoward circumstances. I buy something and then maybe I can’t pay for it. People won’t let you have it without payment. Can’t blame ‘em, can ye? So I keep rushing up all the time and buy the stuff and make an agreement and I’m glad, and the others are glad, too, because the business went off so smoothly, and I think to myself, I’m a lucky fool I am, there are so many nice things in this world, magnificent coin collections, I could tell you a thing or two about it, people who suddenly got no money: so then I come up, take a look at everything, and they tell me right away what’s up. What misery people do have, if they could only get hold of a few pennies. Bought something in your house, too, they need it that badly, I tell you, a washing machine and a little ice-box, they’re glad to get rid of ‘em. And then I go downstairs, I’d really like to buy everything, but downstairs I get to worrying a lot: no money and still no money.” “But then you get somebody to take the stuff off your hands, don’t you?” “Never mind that. That’s why I bought that copying-machine, I pull off the post-cards with it. Each post-card costs me five pfennigs; that goes on the expense account, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Franz opened his eyes wide. “Well, I’ll be doggoned, neighbor. You don’t mean it.” “The expenses, well, I manage to reduce them sometimes, I save five pfennigs by throwing my card in the people’s letter-box just as I go out.” “And you run your legs off and get all out of breath, but what for?”

  They had reached Alexanderplatz.

  There they saw a crowd gathered, they went near it. The small man looked furiously up at Franz. “Suppose you try to live on eighty-five marks a month and can’t make both ends meet?” “But listen, man, you gotta look out for your sales. If you want me to, I’ll inquire among my acquaintances.” “Rot, did I ask you to do this, I do my business alone, I won’t go into partnership.” They were right in the midst of the crowd, it was a common brawl. Franz looked around for the little man, he was gone, vanished. To think of his running around like that! Franz wondered at it, amazed, you could knock me down with a feather. Now where did that trouble of mine really happen? He stepped into a little cafe, took a Kümmel, thumbed the pages of the Vorwärts and the Lokalanzeiger. Not much more in ‘em than in the Mottenpost, there’s a big horse-race on in England, Paris, too; they probably had to shell out a lot of dough for that. May mean a big stroke of luck, when your ears ring like that.

  He is about to go home and make a right-about-face. But he can’t help crossing the street to see what’s happening in the crowd. Try our big bock sausage with salad! Here you are, young man, the great and only bock sausage! Montag Morgen, Die Welt, Die Welt am Montag.

  Look at those two guys; they’ve been at each other for half an hour now, beating the stuffing out of each other, and for no reason at all. Say, I’m goin’ to stick around here till tomorrow. Heh, you, maybe you think you’ve subscribed to a standing-room ticket-you need a lot of room, don’t you? Nope, when you’re a flea, you don’t need so much. Ouch, what a whack, look at ‘im, he’s knockin’ ‘im for a goal.

  And when Franz has pushed his way through the crowd, till he gets up in front, who do you think is fighting there with whom? Two lads, why, he knows ‘em, they’re Pums’s boys. Now what do ye think o’ that! Bang, the tall fellow’s got the other in a stranglehold; bing, he’s got him eating dirt. Boy, you lei that fellow kick you around like that; why, you’re no good. What’s this pushin’ here, heh there! Oh baby, the cops, the bulls. Cheese it, the cops, the cops, beat it. Two coppers in their rain-capes are making their way through the crowd. Wow! one of the pugilists is on his feet, in the crowd, off he flies. The other one, the tall chap, he can’t get up right away, he’s got a punch in the ribs, and a good one, too. At that moment Franz pushes himself through, right to the front. Why, we can’t leave that man lying around here, what a bunch of boobs, nobody touches ‘im! So Franz takes him under his arms, and walks right into the crowd. The cops are looking around. “What’s the matter here?” “Two guys’ve been fighting.” “Get a move on, now, beat it!” They’re always bawling and just the same they’re always a day too late. Move on, we’re going all right, sergeant, only don’t get yourself all worked up.

  Franz is sitting with the tall lad in a badly lighted hallway in Prenzlauer 5trasse; only two numbers farther down is the house from which some four hours later a fat man without a hat will step out and try to pick up (illy; she walks on, she’ll certainly take on the next man, he’s a scoundrel Franz is, that was a mean trick.

  Franz sits in the hallway trying to rouse the lazy Emil. “Well now, my lad, get a hold of yourself, we gotta get along to
the cafe. Don’t carryon so, can’t you stand a little punch, brush yourself up, why, you’re carrying half the pavement along with you!” They cross the street. “Now I’m going to leave you in the first good cafe we go into, Emil. I gotta go home, my girl’s waiting for me.” Franz shakes hands, then the other fellow turns towards him again. “You might do me a favor, Franz, I’m supposed to go fetch some goods with Pums today. Go ahead and stop at his house, it’s just a few steps from here, on the same street. Go ahead now.” “How can I, man, I ain’t got no time.” “Just tell him, I can’t today, he’ll wait. He won’t be able to do anything today.”

  At which Franz curses, goes off, what weather, go along, old boy, I wanta get home. I can’t let Cilly sit around and wait, can r. He’s a reg’lar monkey, I guess I didn’t steal my time. He starts running. Beside a street lamp there stands a little man, reading in a notebook. Who is that anyway, why, I know him. At that moment the other man looks up, walks towards Franz. “Heh, neighbor. You’re the one from the house where the washing machine and the ice-box were, aren’t you. Yes. Here, you might leave this card there later, when you go home, it’ll save me postage. “ He presses the post-card into his hand, cancel on account of untoward circumstances. Whereupon Franz Biberkopf wanders quietly on, he’ll show the card to Cilly, no hurry about it. He is happy about that crazy fellow, the little mail hound, who’s always running around buying things and has no money, but he’s got a dickey bird in his belfry, and no common ordinary birdie either, that’s a big grown chicken that a whole family could live off of.

  “Evenin’, Herr Pums, even’. Maybe you’re wondering what I’ve come for. Wait a minute-what’s that I’m supposed to tell you? I was walkin’ across the Alex. There’s a fight goin’ on on Landsberger Strasse. Thinks I to myself, well, let’s go see. And who’s fightin’ there? Guess. Your Emil, the tall fellow, with a little chap, got a name like me, Franz, you know who I mean.” Pums answers: he’d been thinking about Franz Biberkopf anyway, he’d already noticed at noon that there was something up between those two. “So big old Emil isn’t coming. You’ll help me out, won’t you, Biberkopf.” “What d’you want me to do?” “It’s around six now. We’ve gotta fetch that stuff at nine, today’s Sunday, Biberkopf, you’ve got nothing to do, anyway, I’ll pay your expenses and then some more-well, let’s say, five marks an hour.” Franz hesitates: “Five marks?” “Well, I’m up against it, those two left me ditched.” “The little fellow’s goin’ to show up.” “All right, shake, five marks and your expenses, all right, make it five-fifty, what do I care!”