Free Iron Gustav by Hans Fallada

wealth, intoxicated her. Up and down stairs she went, as her fancy took her. It was
all the same whether she looked at dresses or china, at Thermos flasks or hats; she wasn’t so much carried away by the sight of any one object as by the profusion and rich magnificence – seven hundred pictures, hundreds of china services.
    Finally she wandered into less crowded regions, into the dimly lit Jewellery Department where the contents of showcases gleamed and sparkled. Catching her breath, she leaned over them. The glimmer of gold, the green and blue flashes of diamonds – oh, to possess such things! Rows of gold watches of delicate workmanship – and so tiny! Slender rings set with a single stone larger than a pea, and trays of silver – you could almost see how heavy they were. And she, with all her cunning, could only make twenty pfennigs at the most on the herrings. She sighed.
    ‘Well, Miss,’ said an impudent voice at her elbow. ‘Nice stuff, what?’
    She looked up with the rebuff instinctive to every girl in a large city when unexpectedly accosted. But at once she became uncertain. The young man with the black moustache standing beside her might be a salesman. He wore neither straw hat nor panama, and in 1914 all men wore a hat or at least carried one. ‘I’m not buying,’ she said distantly.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ asked the young man in his impudent voice, which repelled her but not altogether unpleasantly. ‘Costs nix to look and you get a kick out of it. Miss,’ he went on persuasively, ‘tell yourself I’m fat old Wertheim – course he’s fat – and you’re my intended. An’ I say ter you: “Choose, my darlin’, choose your heart’s desire.” What’d you choose then, me dear?’
    ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Eva. ‘How dare you speak to me?’
    ‘But, Miss, I told you I’m fat Wertheim an’ you’re me young lady. I’ve got to talk to me young lady.’
    ‘You must have drunk a lot of ginger beer to be gassing so much. What’s upset you?’
    ‘Me, upset? Not on your life. It’s the others who’ll be that. Well, Miss, what about some sparklers, a diamond necklace with a pendant and a diamond clasp?’
    ‘That’s for some old trout,’ said Eva, amused, although she sensed
there was something odd about this young man. ‘No, I’d like a diamond ring like that one in the case there.’ She walked past a salesman who, since it was clear that these two were not going to buy anything, was inspecting his fingers in a bored way. ‘See, a ring like that …’
    ‘Quite nice,’ agreed the young man patronizingly. ‘But, Miss, if you was my young lady I’d give you something better than that rubbish.’
    ‘Yes, you would,’ laughed Eva. ‘And you’d have to pay a fortune for it.’
    ‘Oh, would I? Lemme tell you, Miss, you know nothin’ about diamonds. That stone’s a dud, it’s paste. Get me?’
    ‘Don’t talk rot!’
    ‘I’ll show you the real goods, Miss. Look here, those are genuine in that case there. Look at this one, the yellow one I mean. When you look at it from the side it turns red. That’s seven carats all right and flawless! And this one here.’
    ‘Don’t get so het up about them,’ said Eva teasingly, but impressed by the young man’s enthusiasm.
    ‘And that one – Lord, Miss, if you an’ me could get our claws on what’s in this case …’
    ‘But we can’t. And we won’t either.’
    ‘Don’t be so sure of that, Miss. Things turn out quite diff’rent sometimes … You’ve got a nice shoppin’ bag, holds quite a lot, I see. And if you have to make a dash for it, you make it as hard as you can …’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Eva suspiciously. ‘I believe you’re tight.’
    ‘You see that salesman, Miss,’ asked the man quite hoarse with excitement. ‘He’ll drop off in a mo. Take a peep at the clock over his head. What’s the time by it? My peepers are a bit weak. No, plant yourself here if you want to see