In life they are exploited and then shoved aside.
Hasse raised his hands.
"Think of it, two more dismissals at the office.
I'll be next, you see if I'm not."
From one pay day to the next he lived in this fear.
I poured him out a schnapps.
His whole body was trembling.
One day he would collapse, you could see that.
He had not much resistance left.
"And always these reproaches," he whispered.
His wife had been blaming him, apparently, for the life she had to lead.
She was forty-two, a bit spongy and faded, but of course not quite so used-up as the husband.
She was suffering from eleventh-hour panic.
It was no use mixing in.
"Look, Hasse," said I, "you stay quietly here as long as you like.
I must be going, there's cognac in the wardrobe if you prefer it.
That's rum there.
Here are some newspapers.
Then this afternoon take your wife out for a walk, anywhere, but out of the building.
Go to the movies.
It costs no more than a couple of hours at a Cafe and you have something for it afterwards.
Forget is the word to-day, not brood." I patted him on the shoulder, but with a poor conscience.
Anyhow, the movies are always good.
Everyone can dream something there.
The door of their room stood open.
The woman was sobbing.
I wandered down the passage.
The next door was ajar.
Listening.
A cloud of scent issued from it.
Erna Bonig, private secretary, lived there.
Much too elegant for her salary; but then once a week her boss used to dictate letters to her until morning.
And next day she would be in a foul temper.
To compensate she went dancing every evening.
When she couldn't dance any more she wouldn't want to live any more, she explained.
She had two friends.
One loved her and brought her flowers.
The other she loved and gave money.
Next to her was Count Orlov, the riding master, a Russian emigre, waiter, film extra and gigolo, with grey side-whiskers.
A virtuoso on the guitar.
Every night he prayed to Our Lady of Kasan that he might get a job as receiving-clerk in a first-class hotel; and he was prone to weep when he got drunk.
Next door. Frau Bender. Nurse at a foundling hospital.
Fifty years of age; husband killed in the war; two children died of underfeeding in 1918.
Keeps a tabby cat.
The only one on the floor.
Next—Muller, retired accountant, editor of the magazine of some philatelist society.
A walking stamp collection, nothing more.
A happy man.
On the last door I knocked.
"Well, Georg," said I, "still nothing?"