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PARTISAN REVIEW
wide, almost ostentatious. On the pillow lay yellowish and red flowers. [n
front of the window stood a writing table on which there were some
books-perhaps Baudelaire, George, Rilke. Near it and on it lay sheets of
paper, which were apparently covered with finished and unfinished poems
and treatises. On a shelf at a window stood volumes of Goethe and
Shakespeare, a Bible, and a translation of Homer. On the table and chairs
lay perhaps newspapers and pieces of clothing. Somewhere lay yellowed
photos of old people and children. The locksmith looked at everything
with curiosity.
They soon sat down. The conversation, which was lively at first, grad–
ually faltered. Kuno Kohn turned the lamp down. Later he spoke softly and
imploringly to the locksmith. Then he offered him the bed. He himself
would sleep on the sofa. The locksmith agreed.
Kuno Kohn arranged for a subordinate position for his friend
Mechenmal at a newspaper publishing office. Mechenmal picked up his
new trade wi th surprising swiftness, and very soon obtained sufficient
knowledge of salesmanship. He changed positions and managed, by means
of energy and all kinds of dirty tricks, after a year and a few months, to
hold a position of trust as an independent manager of a newspaper kiosk.
Because he had a pleasant way of speaking as well as a face that looked like
that of an intelligent doll, the former locksmith soon had won a very large
number of steady customers, for the most part fenule. [n the morning a
dozen saleswomen from a nearby department store, having purposely
arrived too early, gathered around his kiosk to enjoy the dirty jokes and
cheerful conunents of Mr. Mechenmal. The bank officer Leopold
Lehmann, who always arrived punctually at eight o'clock to buy illustrat–
ed joke books and theological tracts, sometimes became impatient, because
the cheerful saleswomen disturbed him as he tried to make his selection.
And the schoolteacher Theo Tontod, who tirelessly and, as a rule, useless–
ly asked for the modern newspaper,
The Other A ,
often got to school too
late. Around noon, almost every day, the choral singer Mabel Meier came,
on the arm of an old man. She bought colorful, spicy newspapers, or sen–
timental ones, wi th long lyrical poems. The old man, who always had a
whining expression, sighed as he paid. She was reserved with Mechenmal.
At odd hours, Mieze Maier, a teenager,
also
came, and asked whether Herr
Tontod had been there. Once Mieze Maier remained longer; from that
time on she did it more frequently. Sometimes a fat, agreeable servant-girl
employed by the salesman Konrad Krause was at the kiosk. She said to
Mechenmal that he was good-looking, that he had passionately dark eyes
and a kissable mouth, and asked if he had time on Sundays to go dancing–
she liked him very much. Mechenmal answered that he would not object
