But that didn't worry her.
She used her husband as other folk do the Bible—for quotations.
And the longer he was dead the harder she worked him.
He now had something for all occasions—just like the Bible.
I was busy preparing my room.
I had rung up Patricia Hollmann during the afternoon.
She had been sick and I had not seen her for almost a week.
Now we had a date for eight o'clock and I had suggested we should have supper at my place and afterwaTds go to the cinema.
The brocade armchairs and the carpet looked superb; but the lighting was dreadful.
So I knocked next door at the Hasses' to borrow a table lamp.
Frau Hasse was sitting wearily by the window.
Her husband was not in yet.
He worked voluntarily two hours overtime every day merely not to get dismissed.
The woman reminded one of a sick bird.
In her spongy, ageing features was still discernible the small face of a child—a disappointed sad child.
I made my request.
She brightened at once and got me the lamp.
"Ach, yes," said she with a sigh. "When I think now . . ."
I knew the history.
It was about the prospects she might have had, had she not accepted Hasse.
I knew the same story, but from Hasse's angle.
There it was of the prospects he might have had, had he stayed a bachelor.
It was probably the commonest story in the world.
And the most futile.
I listened awhile, uttered a few platitudes, and went on to Erna Bonig to get her gramophone.
Frau Hasse referred to Erna only as "the person next door."
She despised her because she envied her.
I quite liked her.
She made no complaints against life and knew that one must make the best of it if one is to get even a little bit of what is called happiness.
She knew too that one must pay for it twice and three times over.
Happiness is the most uncertain thing in the world and has the highest price.
Erna knelt down in front of her box and picked out for me a number of records.
"Do you want any foxtrots?"
"No," I replied. "I can't dance."
She looked up in amazement.
"You can't dance?
Whatever do you do then, when you go out?"
"I dance with my gullet.
That's quite good too."
She shook her head.
"A husband of mine who couldn't dance would get the sack."
"You have strict principles," I replied. "But you have got other records.
Only the other day you were playing a very lovely one—it was a woman's voice with a sort of Hawaiian accompaniment—"
"Ah, that is marvellous.
'How could I live without thee?' —wasn't it?"
"That's right.
What things these song writers do think of!
I guess they're the only romantics left."
She laughed.
"But why not?