ALFRED LICHTENSTEIN
469
Maria Mondmilch was a student in the big city at a girls' high school.
She was not among the best students. Sometimes she used her time dili–
gently. She was accused of having instigated all kinds of dirty tricks that
took place. When it became known that the head of the institution had
met her in the evening on a disreputable street, it was expected that she
would be dismissed from school. In the proceedings against a teacher of
li
terature at the high school who, in spi te of being accused of having com–
nutted several sexual crimes, had to be acquitted, she was the most
important witness.
The young girl preferred to spend the night in the notorious section
of the city. Maria Mondn"lilch allowed every possible kind of riff-raff to
speak to her, but she ran away from most of the men. She was not yet fif–
teen years old when she pern1itted a peddler, whose acquaintance she had
made one filthy evening in a foul alley on a bridge, under neglected,
ancient gas lamps, to photograph her naked in indecent poses. When she
was sixteen years old, she spent Christmas vacation with a handsome elec–
trician, who was a complete stranger to her, named Hans Hampelmann, in
a run-down hotel, posing as husband and wife. Given her erotic needs, it
was not difficult to explain her decision to study medicine after graduating.
The hungry actor Schwertschwanz-an intelligent and worn-out-Iooking
person, who stank of cheap chocolate--moved with aimless longing through
the nocturnal, glittering, noisy streets of the city in which Maria Mondlich
studied medicine. He met her while she was returning sadly from a lecture on
human sexual diseases and male disorders. For fun-pretty much-he spoke to
her. Together they went into a cheap saloon.
Before speaking to the student, the actor Schwertschwanz had been
thinking about what could most readily explain the doubt he had had for
many years: the ultimate unimportance of all events, or only the happen–
stance that important people often must croak because of a lack of
appropriate nourishment and medicine... the inadequacy of women...the
incurable nature of tabes, the symptoms of which he believed he detected
in himself. ...When Maria Mondnulch named her profession, he lit up.
Syphilis and its consequences were mentioned. Miss Mondn1ilch told of
frightening cases. Mr. Schwertschwanz listened, shocked and carried away.
He was fascinated when she, coquettishly stressing that she unfortunately
could maintain only professional relationships with men, as though unin–
tentionally revealed a well-shaped but austere leg, which was encased in an
exci ting, ordinary, half-silk stocking.
The student did not hide her liking for the actor. His shabby appear–
ance filled her with confidence. The area around his (internally) almost
rotted, true-hearted blue eyes, worn out, as she imagined, by makeup and
hopelessness, by excessive whorings or masturbation, gripped her soul. His
