On the table in a glass case stood a large stuffed dog. It was Tutti. I recognized him right away even though he was pathetically stuffed. Little Tutti, the favorite of my aunts, this fat horrible animal that I hated, that poisoned my childhood. He was always barking at me, glaring at me with angry eyes. Oh, I didn’t dare enter any room if he was in it. I was afraid. I was afraid of him.
Now this room belonged to him alone, stuffed little Tutti in his glass case and I had intruded. He glared at me with his huge yellow eyes with the same stupid, poisonous hatred of old times. I had never done anything to anger this fat dog but his glass eyes still said, “I will never forgive you!”
I was afraid. Again I was afraid of this fat poorly stuffed Tutti in his glass case, of this dead repulsive glass eyed dog that stared out at me, that had always hated me and still hated me. I couldn’t meet his gaze. I turned back around toward the window.
There she was standing by the window. She tore both curtains wide open and pushed the shutters back.
“Fanny,” she cried down into the yard below. “Fanny! Come up here immediately and clean this room. It is terrible how the dust lies over everything!
Then she was gone. Again I stood at the table but the window was wide open. Soon Fanny came through the door with a dust broom. I quickly ran past her.
* *
*
Page 1012 In the hand of the Baron
I sit at my writing desk. The newspaper lies in front of me. It says 16 September, but my travel calendar shows 5 August. It’s been that long—six weeks! I have not been here at all. I am only visiting in this world, in this castle that now belongs to her.
But I will not go peacefully, will not leave the place to her in this manner. I have already lost, only in battle do I still have a chance. So be it—
* *
*
On the same page in the hand of the Baron
I was in her rooms. I have thrown out all of her dresses and things. Kochfisch is building a huge funeral pyre down in the courtyard. I have rummaged through her things and torn up everything that belongs to her. I had everything put into a huge pile and set fire to it myself.
Kochfisch stood nearby, a tear ran down his cheek. I don’t know if he was in pain but I saw that something was on his heart and I asked him about it.
“Is it true Baron,” he said. “Is it really true! Are you really back for good?”
He reached out his hand and I shook it. It was like a promise. Oh, heaven. If only I can keep it! I’ve dismissed the lady’s maid. I had Kochfisch give her a half years salary if she would leave at once. Tomorrow I will travel. I don’t like the damned effeminate air around here.
Page 1013 In the hand of the Lady
You will not be traveling dear Baron! But I will be traveling in your men’s clothing. I am going to travel to Vienna and buy a new wardrobe. My lady’s maid travels with me. Watch out dear Sir. I am not playing around any more!
Page 1014 In the hand of the Baron
I awoke in my bed. I rang and Kochfisch came. He didn’t say anything but I knew well enough what he was thinking. It was a pleasant surprise to see me once again but there was also a hopeless resignation that it would not be for long!
I had breakfast. I went through all the rooms. They were all different. Everything had been cleaned and freshly scrubbed. The new furniture and paintings were all atrocious. I wanted to go riding and went to the stable but my horse wasn’t there anymore. It had been sold.
Three Isabellan mares stood there, beautiful long tailed lady’s horses. I had been deposed. She had stolen everything. There were only two rooms left for me, my bedroom and the library where I worked. I read what she wrote on the last page-
Watch out dear Sir. I am not playing around any more!
I already knew that and I wasn’t playing around either. I stuck my Browning in my pocket. I had seen her twice already—that time in the group of people and then in Aunt Christine’s room. I would find her a third time and it would most certainly be the last time.
The same page continued in the hand of the Lady
So my dear Sir, the Browning is stuck in your pocket? No, I have laid it down again on the writing desk, leave it there! By the way, if you want to have a little fun I have a couple of small revolvers only half the size of yours. They will serve just as well. I have no fear, my dear Baron, my gallant courageous Baron that is still afraid of auntie’s stuffed little Tutti!
Grr, grr. The dead dog will jump out of its glass case and get you! Crawl under the bed Sir Baron!
Page 1015 Diagonal across the entire page in the hand of the Baron
You slut, you dastardly contemptible slut!
* *
*
Page 1016 In the hand of the Lady
You fool, you fool. You cowardly fool!
* *
*
That was the last entry in the large black book. On the evening of 4 October Kochfisch heard a shot ring out from the bathing room. He hurried inside and found the naked corpse clothed only in a bathrobe lying over the divan.
It most certainly can not be called a suicide. It was much truer that he, Baron Jesus Maria von Friedel shot the Baroness Jesus Maria von Friedel or the other way around, that she killed him. I don’t know which. They both wanted the other one dead but wanted to live themselves. One of them wanted the other one dead and did it.
The Button Collection
Mimi Hatzeforn made a mighty career for herself. She started out as a waitress in a mediocre café and worked there for a year. She didn’t make very good tips and needed to sew on the side to earn a few extra pennies. Her customers were mostly students and actors that had damned few pennies of their own.
Then came a bit of luck. A lieutenant on the premises made a big scene and in a fit of jealous rage shot her with a revolver. When he realized what he had done he put a second bullet through his own head. It was not honorably done but Mimi only received a little wound in her arm. She had the right instincts though and threw herself wailing on the corpse of the lieutenant whom she had at one time madly loved. Later she accompanied the corpse to the train station. As it was taken away, Mimi stood there sobbing in an attractive black dress of mourning that she had made. She was very talented and didn’t have long to wait for a comforter.
The handsome Baron Hohenthal II, Charge of Franconia, quickly took her away from the train station on a little honeymoon trip. The Baron soon returned but it was three years before Mimi came back to Munich and then her name wasn’t Mimi Hatzeforn any more. It was Mia Bienavant. She didn’t come alone either. She had an aunt, a French Chambermaid and a large purse full of money.
She had been to Baden-Baden, Interlaken and Nizza. From there she had made a delightful trip to Paris with a lady friend. Mia had it made and grasped with phenomenal insight the intricacies and duties of her trade. The little lady from Munich was perpetually sought after by the English and American women for her fashion designs. After three months she was seen riding around the Bois de Boulogne in her touring car. Jealous eyes coveted the new hat she had designed. She wanted to continue up the Isar but found a German attaché waiting with word that she must finally return to Munich and her worthy patron.
Mia Bienavant lived in a charming villa on Keith Street. She had huge receptions with officers, artists, jurists and writers always coming and going, but not any more students. Mia was delightful. She patronized the young artists, had literary and musical evenings in her home. She set the finest wine in front of her guests and because of that always had plenty of guests.
Women from Paris or New York were always coming to see her. Her portrait was in the finest style of the modern art movement; her auto was the fastest in all of Bavaria. Since the days of Lola Montez no Lady in Munich had ever been so talked about. Every street urchin spoke of her travels, every beauty on Kaufinger Street knew what she wore, every waitress told stories and jokes about Mia and everyone in Munich knew the corner and the villa where she lived.
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But there is something about her that no one else knows, only I alone. It is why I am not so passionate about this lady from Munich as the others. Let me quickly explain. Mia has a button collection.
I knew a courtesan in Florence that cut off a lock of hair from all of her lovers. She had brown, black, blonde and even snow-white locks of hair. Another beauty that lived in Berlin had a large box full of coins from all lands and each one had initials engraved in it. The dark Ellen Brunkhorst that now owns the large music hall in Amsterdam has an enormous wardrobe full of handkerchiefs, large ones of sackcloth and soft ones of linen and silk. Many are embroidered with Initials, some have a coat of arms and others have crowns on them, beautiful seven and nine pointed crowns.
Mia didn’t collect locks of hair, coins or handkerchiefs. She had a button collection. None of her lovers knew about it. She never asked for the buttons. She stole them secretly, when—
Earlier, she took them herself, now she had Susan, her chambermaid take them. I learned about her secret from Susan. She had been born on the Montmartre and I knew her when she was a child. I bought violet bouquets from her for our cabaret. Of all the guests in Mia’s house I am the only one she has told this secret to. This is how it happened.
Yesterday I wanted to have tea at Mia’s but I was delayed and everyone had already left for the Octoberfest by the time I got there. I was very annoyed and complained.
That’s when Susan called out, “If you are nice I’ll tell you something.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s a secret, a secret!”
Then she pulled me into the boudoir of her mistress. She opened the wardrobe, pulled out a drawer and took a little chest out of it.
“My Lady has forgotten the key, would you like to see?”
She shook with laughter. I opened it. Inside lay a large assortment of round pieces of cardboard all covered in red, blue, yellow and green velvet. Each one had a trouser button carefully sewn onto it.
I took out a button. It said “For Gentlemen” on it. That certainly belonged to a waiter. The second had W.f.A.u.M.G.o.V on it. Aha, Warehouse for Army and Marine, German Officer, probably the lieutenant’s. The next was a horn button that had most certainly been something else before it became a trouser button. It must have belonged to a student! Another said, “Gabriel Schöllhorn”, he was the finest tailor in Munich so it belonged to a banker as well! A tarnished brass button had “Fritz Blasberg, Master Tailor” on it. That belonged to a rich Manor owner, a Baron perhaps, not quite as good as the crown of Ellen Brunkhorst but still notable. Another read, “Made in Germany”. That most certainly once belonged to a true son of Scotland.
There was one other button that I recognized right away—
“Look there!” Susan laughed.
Brr. I was ashamed of my own poor button among so many others. I will not be indiscrete. I will not tell how many there were, but—
Bible Billy
I wandered for long hours through Browery, through Chinatown, across the ghetto, through Macaroni Street and then back to the East Side aimlessly through the endless streets. I felt like a small grain of sand driven by the wind through this immense bustle, this noisy, rushing world of iron, stone and flesh.
I am a dreamer in this giant machine of Manhattan. When my eyes become tired of the flowing, constantly changing scenery, when my ears can no longer endure the colorful noises of thousand of rushing people, I escape for awhile, go to a movie theater. There is one on every street corner.
The black and white movies are good for me. I dream and laugh over the foolish scenes, the inventive childish pranks. The movies are from Paris or from the United States. The French ones are always funny and refreshing. The American ones are always brainless, crude or narrow mindedly sentimental.
On the street was a musical band of six blonde sausages in red band uniforms. They played unbelievably bad but the crowd that pressed around them was completely indifferent. Negroes, Chinese, Slovakians, Italians, Russian Jews and Greeks stood around listening to the sounds with open mouths. A few German sailors in their Hapag uniforms proudly bellowed out the words to the song.
“You are my entire life. I kiss the ground you walk on—”
One of the uniformed sausages had his trumpet hanging on his back and was handing out red, yellow and green tickets. He was shouting in a loud abominable Yankee slang with bits of Italian and Czech mixed in. The sailors were talking to him in German.
“Walk right in! The greatest attractions in the world! Step right up, only ten cents a ticket! The greatest shows in the world! Now showing in #1, The sudden attack on the railroad at Galveston. Now showing in #2, The Adventures of Muesio Fanfardou in Paris! After that The Dream of the Flower Queen! Ten numbers in every show! One show after another all day long and open all night!
Following each show is a performance by Bible Billy, the famous world-renowned Bible Billy! The greatest attraction of the century!”
I paid my ten cents and another five cents for the smoking section. I saw once again the last #, a movie from Paris where ten girls pursued a man. Dressed in top hat, frock coat, monocle and cane with a flower in his buttonhole, he breathlessly fled away from the sweet girls as they pursued him through streets and meadows, through forests and mountains. The chase went on through a brook and the girls were enchanting.
He climbed over walls and hedges and ran behind a nearby haystack where he ran into a chubby cheeked girl. She was the last, fell down, stood up again, tore her dress on thorns, lost her hat, but breathlessly chased after him, her clothes in shambles.
The lights came on in the theater. Someone played a hymn on the piano by the podium. A bald headed man dressed like an usher pressed through the rows handing out bibles, thick, dirty black bibles. The fellow sneezed incessantly on the bibles, unintentionally leaving traces of his own upon them.
A man stumbled up to the podium. He was smooth shaven but with stubble and pimples on his bloated face. Long strands of gray hair fell over his ears. He wore the unbecoming black garb of a non-traditional preacher. Only the ruddy nose was right. The filthy flesh was a bright spot in the colorless gray and black that overshadowed everything else.
“Bible Billy! Hello Bible Billy! Three cheers for Bible Billy!” A few fans in the audience called out.
Bible Billy took a few moments to reflect and deliberate before beginning his talk. He explained where, when and how he had been brought into this world by God fearing parents, how he had been baptized, had been the most devout in Sunday school and never took the opportunity to miss church.
For those reasons God, Blessed be his name! God had bestowed upon him the skill, power, perseverance and patience to learn his holy book by heart. He was prepared to offer a demonstration of this skill. God, The Father, The Son and Holy Ghost, had given him this ability to bring Christians together and help them to believe. He asked that after the demonstration the audience give a little donation or some pocket change. He closed his talk with a fervent prayer. Then he sat in a creaky easy chair and asked the audience to search out a favorite spot in their Bibles and call it out to him.
One called out, “4 Deuteronomy Chapter 26 verse 12.”
Bible Billy closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and after awhile began:
“The sons of Simeon after their families: of Nemuel, the family of the Nemuelites: of Jamin, the family of the Jaminites: of Jachin, the family of the Jachinites:
Of Zerah, the family of the Zarhites: of Shaul, the family of the Shaulites.
These are the families of the Simeonites, twenty and two thousand and two hundred.
The children of Gad after their families: of Zephon, the family of—”
Bible Billy didn’t move, only the swollen gray lips moved underneath the ruddy nose as a small stream of dry words spilled out.
“Of Jashub, the family of the Jashubites: of Shimron, the family of the Shimronites.
These are the families of Issachar according to those that w
ere numbered of them, threescore and four thousand and—”
Men and women sat speechless in the theater, almost crushed to death by this overwhelming fruitful family geneology.
“Of the sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites: and Machir begat Gilead: of Gilead come the family of the Gileadites.
These are the sons of Gilead: of Jeezer, the family of the Jeezerites: of Helek, the family—”
Everyone was staring into their bibles and following along with their fingers on the lines. It was all correct, word for word, all of the families and all of the numbers. There was not the slightest mistake in the names of Israel.
The audience listened along curiously until one of the sailors eagerly searched through his Bible and called out:
“2 Samuel Chapter 11 verse 2!”
It was as if he had pushed an electric switch. Bible Billy became quiet a moment and then immediately began:
“And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”
Aha, this was the famous story of the woman, Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, the Hittite! I was curious whether this modest son of America would tell this story to his delicate audience. It appeared that the indecencies in the Bible were the only ones they were permitted to enjoy.
Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers) Page 12