Read Online The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun - Free Book Online

grease — I had secretly taken margarine from home — and the porter comes in and calls in front of the door. I was to come to see the director. I got margarine in my eyes — God, did I feel awful. So it had finally happened. Leo — pajamas with roses — the girls were looking at each other, imagining wild passion. But I knew better. I only had the strength to secretly take the white feather off the
Wallenstein
hat — it’s lying next to me now. I was hot with longing for Hubert, a man with a small indentation in his shoulder, where you can put your head and let the man be. You pay for that kind of longing. I knew it, but my feelings didn’t feel like knowing it. Nowthe Trapper has my sentence, and I can only hope that she’ll trip and fall when she dashes out of the tent. And so I packed up my little lump of margarine — why should that filthy theater get anything from me for free — and the eyeliners that were brand new.
    And I went to the cloakroom of the dress circle to see my mother, who sometimes, sometimes understands my situation. But you can’t understand another person when you’re not surrounded by the same aura as they are, which causes them to do what they do. But my mother wasn’t there — instead it was Frau Ellmann, the bitch, our neighbor. She was sitting there asleep, suffering, because she doesn’t have to and for no good reason. And there was this coat — such sweet, soft fur. So fine and gray and shy, I felt like kissing it, that’s how much I loved it. It spoke comfort to me, a guardian angel, protection from heaven. It was genuine squirrel. I quietly took off my rain coat and put on the fur coat, and started to feel guilty toward my abandoned rain thing, like a mother who doesn’t want her child because it’s ugly. But you should have seen me! And so I decided to present myself to Hubert like this, and put the coat back after the performance. But something inside me knew right away that I would never give it back again. And already I was too scared to come back to the theater later and having to talk to Leo and look at Frau Ellmann and hear her voice and all that.
    And the fur coat was attached to my skin like a magnet and they loved each other, and you don’t give up what you love, once you have it. But I was lying to myself all the way and truly believed that I would come back. The lining was crepe marocain, pure silk, hand embroidered. And so I went to
Küppers Café
. Hubert was sitting there with dark circles under the eyes, the size of
Continental
tires. He used to have skin like a baby — and it was all gone. And we said “du” to each other in such a formal way that it sounded like “Sie.” But my mouth was open to his kisses, because he was sad. He admired me, which didn’t make me feel good and didn’t make me proud. I was surrounded by my coat, which had more feelings for me than Hubert.
    And I knew right away that the true virgin had left him and that her father, the professor, hadn’t given him a job, and that he was in trouble. And he says: “Doris, you’re doing well, I can see. Therese told me about your career.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    And Leo was waiting — because of the pajamas — it was late — the Ellmanns — I had been torn away from the world — and my furious father — everything was screwed up — and Hubert became a dead memory and wasn’t really sitting there alive, in front of me — I tried to conjure up feelings for him, and it was like looking at his photograph when I’m drunk and wanted to believe that it was talking to me, and when I tried really hard I could sometimes make myself believe that it did.
    And then I went with him. And I slept with a photograph. It was very cold. And he asked about my income and wanted help. I don’t have anything. And I said Therese has some cold cuts, it’s not as fancy as it looks, and I was tempted to tell him it was all over.
    And I tried and said: “Hubert, you don’t have anything, I