Georg Block shook his head.
He was a college student in his fourth semester.
To enable himself to complete the course he had worked for two years in a mine.
And now the money he had saved was almost gone; he had enough left to live only for two months.
He could not take up mining again—there were too many miners out of work.
He had tried every way to earn a little money.
One whole week he spent delivering bills for a margarine concern, and then the concern went bankrupt.
Shortly afterwards he got a job as a paper-boy and breathed again.
Three days later he was set upon by two licensed vendors who took his papers from him and tore them up and warned him not to let them catch him plying a trade where he had no business.
They had enough unemployed of their own.
He went out again next morning as before, notwithstanding he had had to pay for the papers that had been destroyed.
A motorcyclist ran into him, and the papers were scattered in the mud.
That cost another two marks.
He tried a third time, only to return with his coat in ribbons and his face battered.
Then he gave it up.
Now he just sat in his room all day in despair, studying like mad, as if it could serve any useful purpose.
He ate but once a day.
Yet it was of no possible consequence whether he finished the course or not—even if he did pass, it would be at least ten years before he could reckon on getting a post.
I passed him a packet of cigarettes.
"Why not chuck it, Georgie?
I did, you know.
One can always take it up again later." '
He shook his head.
"No, unless one sticks at it one loses the knack. I found that out mining. I couldn't do it a second time."
The pale face, the protruding ears, the short-sighted eyes; the gaunt figure, the flat chest—my God!
"Well, good luck to you, Georgie." And next the kitchen.
A stuffed boar's head—souvenir of the late Zalewski.
The telephone.
Semi-darkness.
An odour of gas and rancid fat.
The door to the passage, with several visiting cards affixed beside the bell-button.
My own among them: Robert Lohkamp, stud, phil., two long rings.
The card was dirty and yellow with age.
"Stud, phil." That's the stuff!
A long time ago, that was.
I set off down the stairs, to the Cafe International.
The International was a long, dark, smoky hole with several back rooms.
Near the door by the bar was the piano.
It was sadly out of tune, several of the wires were sprung, and the ivory was missing from some of the keys. But I was fond of it for all that.
It was a game old crock, and had shared at least one year of my life with me, for it was here that I had been employed as pianist.
In the back rooms the cattlemen used to forgather from time to time, as did also the people from the amusement park.
The pros'titutes used to sit near the door.
The barroom itself was empty, except for Alois, the flat-footed waiter, behind the counter.
"The usual?" he asked.
I nodded.
He brought me a glass of rum.
I sat down at a table and stared vacantly into space.
A grey band of light entered obliquely through an upper window, and was reflected in the schnapps bottles on the rack.
The cherry brandy glowed like ruby.
Alois resumed his occupation of rinsing glasses.