Free Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada

and into the Tivoli. The treasurer of the Harmony Club wanted a mark entrance fee, but she only replied: ‘Do you want a slap?’
    The treasurer did not pursue it.
    She stood in the dance-hall, a little constrained at first, looking around from behind a pillar, then exploding into rage. For there was her still handsome Emil, with his large golden beard, dancing with a little dark creature whom she didn’t even know, if you could call that dancing, more like a drunken stagger. The master of ceremonies said: ‘Madam! Please, Madam!’
    Then he realized that this was a force of nature, a tornado, a volcanic eruption, against which human beings were powerless. And he stepped back. A path cleared through the dancing couples; she advanced between the walls of people towards the unsuspecting pair, as they stumbled and fumbled round the floor, the only couple who weren’t in the know.
    First came a rapid blow. He cried out ‘Oh my sweetie!’ without yet realizing. Then he realized …
    She knew it was time to leave with dignity, with reserve. She gave him her arm: ‘It’s time, Emil. Come now.’
    And he went with her. He trotted, humiliated, on her arm out of the hall; as undignified as a large dog who has just been beaten, he glanced back one more time at his nice little, gentle little dark girl, who worked in the frame factory in Stossel, who hadn’t had much happiness in her life, and had been exceedingly pleased with her generous and dashing dancing-partner. He went away; she went away. And outside a car had suddenly appeared; the management of the Harmony Club knew enough to realize that on these occasions the best thing is to phone for a car as quickly as possible.
    Emil Kleinholz fell asleep on the journey and he didn’t wakeup when his wife and the driver carried him indoors and put him to bed, in the hated marriage bed he had abandoned so full of the spirit of adventure exactly two hours before. He slept. And his wife put out the light and lay for a while in darkness, and then she put the light on again, and contemplated her husband, her handsome, dissipated, golden-blond husband. And she saw, through the livid bloated face, the face of long ago when he was courting her, always up to so many tricks, so full of fun and cheek, forever ready to make a grab at her breasts, but just as ready to have his ears boxed for it.
    And in so far as her foolish little brain could think, she thought of the road from there to here: two children, a plain daughter and a bad-tempered ugly son. A business half in ruins, a husband gone to seed, and her? What about her?
    Well, in the end all you can do is cry, which can be done in the dark, and that at least, when so much is going downhill, saves money on light. And then she thought of how much he must have squandered—yet again—in those two hours, and she put on the light and searched in his wallet and counted and reckoned. And once again in the darkness she resolved to be nice to him from now on, and she groaned, self-pitying: ‘But it won’t help. I’ll just have to keep him on an even shorter lead!’
    And then she cried again, and finally she went to sleep, as we always do finally go to sleep, after a toothache or childbirth, after a blazing row or after one of life’s rare great joys.
    Then came the first awakening at five o’clock, to quickly give the stableman the key to the oats bin; and then the second at six, when the girl knocked for the key to the larder. One more hour of sleep! One more hour of rest! And then the third, final awakening at quarter to seven, when the boy had to go to school. Her husband was still asleep. When she looked into the bedroom again at quarter to eight, he was awake and feeling sick.
    ‘Serve you right for boozing,’ she said and went away again.Then he came to the table for coffee, sombre, speechless, devastated. ‘A herring, Marie,’ was all he said.
    ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Father,’ said Marie tartly, before fetching