Free The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun

he had an uncle who owned a leather factory in Bielefeld. He looked like it too. But since I had Berlin ahead of me — why should I have bothered with a guy who travels third class and has second-class airs, just because of leather uncles. That never makes a good impression. Plus he had oily hair, full of dust and grease. And smoker’s fingers. And only an hour later, I knew of all the girls he’d had. Wild stuff, of course, and superwomen. Andhe broke their hearts, when he left them — and they’d throw themselves off church steeples, while taking poison and strangling themselves — so they would be dead for sure, and all that because of the leather guy. You know what men will tell you, if they’re trying to convince you that they’re not as miserable as they are. I, for one, don’t say anything anymore, and pretend to believe it all. If you want to strike it lucky with men, you have to let them think you’re stupid.
    So I arrived at
Friedrichstrasse
Station, where there’s an incredible hustle-bustle. And I found out that some great Frenchmen had arrived just before I did, and Berlin’s masses were there to greet them. They’re called Laval and Briand — and being a woman who frequently spends time waiting in restaurants, I’ve seen their picture in magazines. I was swept along
Friedrichstrasse
in a crowd of people, which was full of life and colorful and somehow it had a checkered feeling. There was so much excitement! So I immediately realized that this was an exception, because even the nerves of an enormous city like Berlin can’t stand such incredible tension every day. But I was swooning and I continued to be swept along — the air was full of excitement. And some people pulled me along, and so we came to stand in front of an elegant hotel that is called Adlon — and everything was covered with people and cops that were pushing and shoving. And then the politicians arrived on the balcony like soft black spots. Andeverything turned into a scream and the masses swept me over the cops onto the sidewalk and they wanted those politicians to throw peace down to them from the balcony. And I was shouting with them, because so many voices pierced through my body that they came back out of my mouth. And I had this idiotic crying fit, because I was so moved. And so I immediately belonged to Berlin, being right in the middle of it — that pleased me enormously. And the politicians lowered their heads in a statesmanly fashion, and so, in a way, they were greeting me too.
    And we were all shouting for peace — I thought to myself that that was good and you have to do it, because otherwise there’s going to be a war — and Arthur Grönland once explained to me that the next war would be fought with stinky gas which makes you turn green and all puffed up. And I certainly don’t want that. So I too was shouting to the politicians up there.
    Then people were starting to disperse and I felt the strong urge to find out about politics and what those officials wanted and so on. Because I find newspapers boring and I don’t really understand them. I needed someone who would explain things to me, and as part of the overall deflation of enthusiasm luck swept a man over to my side of the street. And there was still something of a bell jar of fraternization covering us and we decided to go to a café. He was pale and wearing a navy blue suit and was looking like New Year’s Eve — as if he had just handedout his last cent to the mailman and the chimneysweep. But that was not the case. He was working for the city and was married. I had coffee and three pieces of hazelnut torte — one with whipped cream, because I was starving — and I was filled with a desire for political knowledge. So I asked the navy-blue married man what the politicians had come here for. And in turn he told me that his wife was five years older than him. I asked why people were shouting for peace, since we have peace or at least no war. Him: