> Dose 0 · Machine translation (Claude Opus 5.5, October 2026) of Gabriele Tergit's *Effingers*, Chapter 25, from the second study on after-babel.vercel.app; this branch read none of Sophie Duvernoy's English translation before translating. # Chapter 25 ## Spring What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887! What sweetness, at ten in the morning! Eugenie stood beside her lady’s maid, who was packing. The next day they were to leave for the Riviera, for Nice, for the Hotel Barblan. Along the Tiergartenstraße raced the horses. Beautiful women, veils fluttering round their top hats, and the gentlemen bareheaded or in bowlers. Along the Tiergartenstraße walked the officers in their undress frock coats, broad red stripes down their trousers, on their way to the Great General Staff. It was quiet. Now and then children’s laughter rang out from the gardens. “It’s really a shame to go away,” said Eugenie. “Berlin is so lovely in March. I’ve already told Kniep to put in more crocuses next year. We have rather too many snowdrops and spring snowflakes. Ah, and here comes Fräulein Winkel. Well, Fräulein, how are you? Yes, let’s try it on once more.” Eugenie stood in her casino gown. Fräulein Winkel knelt, her mouth full of pins, adjusting something at the hem. “I don’t like it at all, my girl, the way you always put the pins in your mouth. Frieda, bring Fräulein Winkel a pincushion. Fräulein Winkel, you look so wretched! What is it? Come, you can talk to me. A little higher up here, don’t you think? And this draping a little fuller. Temptations, now in the spring – or is it worries? Perhaps I can help you?” “Well, if you really want me to talk. But please stand still, or I’ll end up pricking Madam. I had a gentleman – Madam will understand – he was a handsome gentleman, and I could have told myself straight off that nothing would come of it. But you know how one is, one never believes it. And then he got married. Well, that’s just how it is, and I always imagined he loved me, and everyone knows how rich gentlemen marry – money and the same station, and then it’s all settled.” “Tell me, Fräulein Winkel – I don’t want to hurt your feelings – but doesn’t a woman compromise herself if she … well, how shall I put it … if she grants a man his rights even before marriage? I mean, she sinks in men’s esteem.” “Perhaps that’s so. You’re probably right.” “Don’t cry, Fräulein Winkel, dear child, just talk.” “So I made myself believe he’s bound to be unhappy, and the wife is very ugly, and he’s sure to be unfaithful to her.” “And now?” “And now I’ve run into him. And she’s so beautiful, you can’t begin to describe how beautiful she is, and there was a Spreewald nursemaid with them too, with a pram. And as they went past I just heard him say: ‘Ah, Annettchen, what happy people we are, all nature is smiling on us.’” “Annettchen, he said? Well, well. Yes, that is bitter. Is there no one, then, who loves you? We always want to do the loving ourselves, and we’re never grateful enough when someone loves us.” “Yes, I suppose that’s so. Now just one more stitch at the shoulder, if Madam pleases, and the clasp like this?” “No. Like this after all, don’t you think?” “Yes, like that. We’ve had a young man at the shop just lately, Lehmann, he keeps the books, he runs after me and he’s always goggling like this, and my friend Lischen and I, we always end up laughing when he twists his hat into a sausage while he’s talking to me.” “One should only ever marry men who goggle. I’ll take the dress off, and you can sew it right here. You know the Councillor, you know how clever and good he is, but handsome he has never been, and I know you think me very beautiful. You may sometimes have thought I married my husband for money. But I had no need to, none whatever. But I had been through a very great disappointment before. We in Russia are not as strict as they are here, where it’s frowned upon if a young girl so much as goes for a walk. At a great carnival ball I had met an officer of the Guards, as handsome as a picture. And we had the chance to meet alone, and he was in love and reckless, and, in short, he kissed me, and, as is only natural, I thought the earth must stand still. He took me in his arms and said: ‘What do I care for the world – and tomorrow’ – oh, I can hear it as if it were yesterday – ‘we shall meet.’ I went, and – in vain. All around me was snow and ice, and I kept thinking he was sure to come to the city woods. But he didn’t come. I went through every hell there is in that moment, and then I received a little letter: he didn’t know, and whether he could risk it, and responsibility – it was a very honest and decent letter – and would I see him once more. I wrote: ‘Yes’, and we went for a walk. I saw that he loved me, I felt it, but he said: ‘I think we’ll part now’, or: ‘Please, Fräulein, it’s clouding over, it might snow.’ He hadn’t the courage of his love. So I ran home, and at home sat my present husband. I couldn’t make up my mind straight away; it was the same for me as for you. I loved the other one. But then I let myself be loved, and I became very happy that way. When you are the one who loves, you’re always trembling and afraid and lonely, and you need women friends to pour your heart out to. But when you are loved, then you know, whatever happens, you have someone you can rely on – and now give some thought to Lehmann.” “Yes, madam, let’s try the dress on once more. But there’s this as well: when you’ve got nothing, it’s hard too. I’d like to set up on my own, and my former gentleman friend said I could always turn to him, but you don’t want that, do you, it’s embarrassing, to end up owing him something on top of everything.” “How much do you need to start, then?” “I’ve worked it out at about two thousand marks, but that’s a lot of money, and if I’m to pay such high interest straight off, it can’t be done at all, even if somebody does lend it to me.” Eugenie took two thousand-mark notes from her dressing table. “But that’s – what am I to say!” cried Käte Winkel. “Take it, and make money with it.” “Oh, such kindness, such kindness.” “My husband said: The childless woman has the most children, and one must provide for them, so I’ll always give you a bundle of thousands that we won’t talk about and won’t put in the accounts.” Eugenie looked in the mirror once more. “This fashion really is too silly. How much more padding are we supposed to strap on behind? And what does Frau Koller say? Long yellow gloves?” “Yes, I have them here.” “Very nice. Frieda, put them in the glove box straight away.” “Will Madam recommend customers to me when I set up on my own – or even come herself?” “But, my dear, I know what you can do. Of course, that goes without saying.” Käte Winkel collected a few winter things from the lady’s maid as well and went off, the boxes over her arm. What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887! What sweetness, at eleven in the morning! Sofie sat in her room at the small, wobbly writing desk, took up an agate penholder and wrote: “I love you. I dream of you. Why did you tell me that I am sweet. I have been sitting at the piano playing Schumann’s ‘Frauenlieb und -leben’; ‘Since first I saw you, blind I seem to be, always, as in dreaming, you alone I see.’ When will you come to us again? I don’t dare ask Theodor.” And then she addressed an envelope and asked white-armed, red-cheeked Anna to see the letter on its way. The letter went to Arnold Kramer. “You look so flushed, Sofie, don’t you feel well?” “Nothing, Papa, nothing at all. Perhaps I’ve played the piano a little too much.” “Don’t overdo things, my daughter, don’t overdo things; keep to a noble measure. Fräulein Kelchner, you will take the girl to the Tiergarten later.” What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887! What sweetness, at one in the afternoon! The changing of the guard! At a window of the University stood Privatdozent Waldemar Goldschmidt and saw the Opera House, the Linden, the curved Baroque façade of the Library, saw the guard, the lockstep, white summer trousers, blue tunics, gleaming buttons, red collars, white plumes, and the drummer out in front, “fifers and drummers, martial sound”. A crowd beyond counting. At his window stood the old Kaiser, as he did every day at noon for the changing of the guard. Popular enthusiasm, thought Waldemar – this time for the right man, tomorrow for the wrong one. The law? The law would have to be created entirely anew. The law of the Romans, cut to fit slaves and property, had many defects. How far would one be able to do without it in the new Civil Code? The door opened. “My dear colleague, what an honour!” “I heard at the library that you are using the very volume of the Monumenta that I need.” “It is, of course, at your disposal.” “You were just watching the popular enthusiasm?” “The very same phrase was going through my mind. Our universally revered and aged sovereign may deserve it. But you know where I stand on Bismarck. The greater the man, the greater the shadow.” “My young friend,” said the old historian, “I was recently in my native parts, to study Hessian folk expressions. It is good to refresh the memories of one’s boyhood in one’s own small homeland before they are entirely absorbed into the beautifully ordered Empire.” “I had no idea you were a federalist!” “I always have been. Centralism is utterly un-German. We are doing our utmost to forfeit a part of the freedom that Germany possessed before the war. It is a principle of history that the victors always become the cultural imitators of the vanquished.” “We have conquered our way into servitude. This legacy of the defeated Caesar is, in my eyes, the greatest crime he committed against mankind. I could forgive Napoleon the Second of December – but not the German reaction after the victory!” Waldemar stood with his back to the Linden, where the military marches were still sounding. In the lofty room, full of the black leather backs of books, the world-famous scholar sat facing him in the radiance of long, snow-white hair. “I am surprised, my young friend, that you see France like that. After all, I know you are related to all sorts of people over there.” “That has never prevented me from seeing France more clearly than people who spend just a few blissful weeks in Paris.” “In France, where centralisation was carried to so high a degree, no one was promoted who did not swear in verba magistri. Our political fragmentation has so far, fortunately, protected us from the general effect of such pernicious influences, which reached down into the smallest matters. With us in Germany it is precisely the reverse. If we have some outstanding man, our first concern is to show ourselves independent of his influence, and every one of us, however insignificant he may otherwise be, piques himself on choosing his own direction, even an admittedly inferior one, merely to demonstrate that independence in fact. I am speaking,” he said, suddenly more animated, “in the present tense, but I ought to be speaking in the past. I tell you here, on 16 March 1887: if things go on like this in the new German Empire, clinics and libraries will be turned back into barracks. The mind is in danger; it is being devoured by the State and by machines. And what about you? When are you to become a full professor?” Waldemar shrugged. “The faculty wishes it, so I heard.” “Oh, hardly,” said Waldemar. “If I had myself baptised, they would let me into the hallowed circle. But I am suspect on other counts too. Whoever wants to blow the dust away and abolish privileges does not find favour with the great. Besides, one may have oneself baptised because one considers Christianity a further development of the old religion of the prophets, a milder, gentler ethic – one, after all, centuries younger. But all such considerations must give way the moment baptism brings advantages. It is repugnant, surely, when an act arising from the finest stirrings of conscience, from reflections of the most personal kind, leads to a post. A premium on spinelessness.” “You are right.” The great man left the room. Goldschmidt took hat, coat and stick. Let the commentary stew, and let § 1378 of the draft of a new Civil Code wait a while yet for its final wording. He was already a few steps down the Linden when a coupé drew up right beside him. “Waldemar.” “O Susanna, life is lovely after all.” “Will you get in?” “No – on the contrary, you get out. I have a fancy to introduce a beautiful woman to the spring. Let’s lunch together at Hiller’s. Agreed?” “Agreed. What do you say to my success?” “The Count? It won’t hold.” “Why not?” “Because you are an artist, not a mistress.” “But a faithful lover.” “Perhaps.” Ah, what sweetness there was on this March day! Soft was the red carpet, soft the sofa that received Susanna Widerklee, soft the armchair in which Waldemar sat. There was scarcely a seat to be had. Officers sat there, beautiful women, a few landowners, Junkers up from the provinces. “Back there sits ancient Count Perponcher, and over there Count Waldersee, a coming man, a court general,” said Waldemar. “Lobster, then rump steak, I think – or what else, Susanna?” “I’m as hungry as a bear, but that suits me.” “And what shall we drink? Moselle?” “No, I’d rather have a Rhine wine.” “It’s heavy, Susanna,” and he looked into her eyes. “And if that’s what I want?” “Suits me.” An hour later. “Shall we have our coffee here, or at your place?” “At mine, I think.” “Good, Susanna, good.” Susanna had the curtains drawn and the lamp lit. Waldemar sat down at the grand piano and played the “Magic Fire Music”. “The Count,” she said, “is very charming.” “And I, Susanna?” He stood up, caught the woman to him, kissed her mouth. They knew each other. Susanna longed for him. He led her the few steps to the bedroom. Ah, how she loved him, this swift storm, this deep indifference to reluctance and resistance, this contempt for all untruth! “Oh, don’t, please don’t,” said Susanna. “Why do you say no when what you feel is yes?” She sensed that he did not like that. “Shame on you for being ashamed!” What a blessing, thought Susanna, as she lay with him, to be allowed to be honestly sensual! “Waldemar, are you cross when I kiss you like this?” “But Susanna! Are there men who are cross about that?” “Not cross, but disappointed. They want the pure woman.” “Oxen – in the true sense of the word. Hence this silly idolising of the young girl.” The fire was burning in the grate. “Our coffee’s getting cold,” said Susanna. They fetched the coffee from the next room, crouched down before the embers, drank the mocha. Susanna slipped on a dressing gown, went to the piano and sang: “The lotus flower is fearful …” Waldemar dressed. What was singing there was love, was passion. Susanna loved him. But he had had bad experiences with her once before. Not to go through all that again. There was no holding her. He always believed that one day it would work after all, but it never did. What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887! What sweetness, at five in the afternoon! End of the working day in the Chausseestraße. Children hopped on chalk lines or played marbles in the hollow between four paving stones. Father strung twine along the balcony for the Virginia creeper or tinkered with the dovecote. Mother sewed. “I’m just goin’ round to the Fresh Mutton for a beer, just the one beer.” “Paule, do you have to?” “Aw, leave it, I’ll be back in no time.” “He’ll drink away another week’s wages, he will!” “If I had a little woman like you, somethin’ steady, I wouldn’t go near no pub,” said the bed lodger. “Here, you, what d’you think you’re playin’ at! You never rented me along with the bed, mister – let go!” “I only mean, seein’ as your man keeps you so short, love. You could do better with me.” “Don’t you say nothin’ against my husband – it’s only ’cause we’ve just got the one room. That’s the only reason.” The freckled apprentice announced Mayer, the insurance agent, to Paul. “Ah, good afternoon, Herr Mayer.” “Good afternoon, Herr Effinger. I thought I’d come myself for once. Things are easier to discuss when people know each other in person. In writing, misunderstandings generally creep in.” “Well, here is the insurance policy. There were several points in it I wanted to query.” “You have built up a fine works here, Herr Effinger. As for me, I’m a wreck.” “But Herr Mayer, how can you say such a thing! You look splendid!” “Ah, I’m an old man, Herr Effinger, and no one sang it over my cradle, either, that I would end up as an insurance agent.” “Such is life!” said Paul. “How right you are. If I still had the sarcasm of my youth, I would say it is mainly because the profession of insurance agent was still quite unknown in the year I was born. I was born in 1822. I have known the world. I knew the Paris of the Second Empire. Whoever did not know it does not know what life means. The sixties in Paris – that was one long cancan, of the mind as well. You are still young, Herr Effinger, but I feel you have some understanding for a man who has failed. I owned the banking house of Mayer, Lamprecht & Co.” “Oh!” said Paul, full of admiring surprise. “Yes, you know what that meant. We handled the issue of the Sardinian war loan in ’59. I financed the Luxembourg railway.” “Well, well – a great firm, a wealthy house.” “All gone. My father built Emmanuel Oppner’s house. I don’t want to say anything against Oppner & Goldschmidt, but in those days they were small people. It breaks my heart when I go past it now and then. During the alterations I went and looked at it in secret, old fool that I am. It isn’t my house any more. They’ve painted it all wrong. And over the bright paintings, of such enchanting lightness, those barbarians have pasted dark leather wallpaper. Unbelievable, really.” “I don’t understand much about that, Herr Mayer.” “No, no, and I don’t want to bore you, either. I am an aesthete, yes, I do understand something about art.” Paul thought: He did go bankrupt, after all. “The Gotthard Tunnel has me on its conscience.” “A lot of money was lost on that.” “I know that song all too well, but apart from 10 per cent I have no debts left. I’m still paying it off. I owe that to my name and to my daughter. She is just coming to fetch me – the poor girl gives piano lessons. Won’t you walk a little way with us?” What a spring day, this Saturday in March 1887, at six in the evening! What a teeming throng in the Chausseestraße! “You don’t have an easy time of it, Fräulein Mayer,” said Paul. “No, no – but at least I’m earning.” “That is hard for a young girl. The other day a young girl came to me about copying letters. But young girls in the office – that’s no good. A woman is best off at home.” “But what if she has no one to offer her a home?” “Then of course it is dreadful. But mostly the womenfolk are needed in the family, after all. There’s a child to be brought up, an invalid to be nursed.” “But what if a girl doesn’t want that?” “Then she’s overstrung.” “Do you think so?” “In my opinion, yes.” “Papa, you’re falling right behind. We’ll lose each other. And in this neighbourhood, too.” Broad Friedrichstraße at the Weidendammer Brücke. Railway over the river, little omnibus with its little horse, one-legged man who calls: “Wax matches, wax matches”, and whores who hitch up their skirts, many ruffles rustling. Gentleman with monocle, and carriages driving to the theatre. “We turn off here. Perhaps we’ll see you at our house one day.” “With pleasure, Herr Mayer, though I always have a great deal to do.” “Adieu.” “Adieu.” “Adieu.” “Nice fellow, Amalie, isn’t he?” “A bit dry.” “You mustn’t always find fault with young men.” “I’m only saying. Mother’s had her outwork rates cut again. Twenty pfennigs to sew a skirt. That’s maybe ten marks a week. And that’s not counting the lamp oil, or the thread.” “Amalie, you’re breaking my heart.” “But Papa, I’m only telling you how it is. The middleman, a nasty piece of work, says the firm squeezes him too. I’d like to know who he delivers to. He won’t say. Which proves he gets a lot more for a skirt than he lets on.” Wool market in the Klosterstraße. The Königstraße between Alexanderplatz and the Palace is choked with covered wagons. In the ancient castle of the Margraves of Brandenburg the wool is stored. Next to it is the Grey Cloister, Bismarck’s school. “No getting through, as usual.” “You daft goat, somebody ought to stretch them mutton legs of yours, so you can see there’s a horse standin’ here!” “My good man, don’t swear like that!” “Don’t you talk at me with that fancy gob of yours!” “Amalie, come along, leave the rabble be.” “Heavens, Papa, if I could talk to the middleman like that, perhaps he’d give fifteen pfennigs more a skirt.” “My child, don’t forget who you are.” Dear, innocent Papa! thought Amalie. How the hallway stank! How nasty the flat smelled, of all the woollens, of the tenants! If only one could at least have had it repapered before moving in! What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887, at eight in the evening! Widerklee was singing the page in “Figaro”. Theodor was waiting outside the Opera House. For a year and a half he had been going almost daily to the Charlottenstraße, where she had an enchanting three-room flat near the Opera. Here, in an elegant dressing gown and elegant little slippers, she received her friends. One evening Waldemar had found Theodor at her flat. Theodor was crouched on a tabouret at her side, kissing her drooping hand over and over. Theodor waited. Waiting with him at the stage door were several admirers. But waiting with him, too, was a coupé lined with white silk, on whose box footman and coachman sat motionless. What he had feared came to pass. Theodor saw Widerklee, in her evening cloak, step quickly into the coupé. Theodor was almost out of his mind with jealousy. He had never thought about this affair, never considered the end. He loved – not platonically, like most of his friends, but like a man. Now he stood, cast out, forsaken, without explanation, under the lindens in the rain, in the dark. What now? Wait outside Widerklee’s house? But she was surely driving to the other man. Who was it? And if he knew, what then? Shoot him down? Challenge him? Kill himself? He walked on, on and on, to and fro, this way and that. A brazen girl accosted him and drew him into a little shop with curtained windows, in front of which a red lantern was burning. The wine parlour of Erna Schmidt. The girl was very young, barely seventeen. She took Theodor into a back room, lay down without more ado on the red woollen chaise longue, drew a curtain across. The girl, who turned out to be very beautiful, delighted him. She comforted him. Her brazenness, her depravity, gave way for a little while. Her name was Wanda, and she had no parents. Shoved about among foster parents, she had been seduced by a bed lodger when she was barely fourteen. She had worked, too. But this way was easier. Only the madam exploited her. On the grimy sofa a gentle compassion blossomed in Theodor for this child, who was as dainty and velvet-skinned as a doe. “Will I see you again?” “I don’t know,” said Theodor, and began to cry. The girl crouched down beside him. “Why are you crying, sir?” she asked. She stroked him. Here, with this strange street girl, he poured out his heart; here he could say how forsaken he was, that he loved a clever, beautiful and remarkable woman, a great artist, that he was being deceived. The girl said: “Nah, no killin’ – you might get life for that. You mustn’t take it so hard.” “But I can’t live without her.” “Well, maybe you’ll get her back.” All this in a shop with a red lantern in the east of Berlin, Erna Schmidt’s wine parlour. The girl got dressed. “Are you going out again?” asked Theodor. The girl nodded. Theodor handed her a gold piece. “But don’t go out again tonight,” he said. “Get some rest.” He gave her a kiss. The ninny! she thought, and waited until he was out of sight. Twenty marks was a lot of money, but how long did one stay young? What a spring day, this Saturday in March of the year 1887! What sweetness at three in the morning!