Untitled

A FEW CHOICE SPECIMENS 73
done in a drunken state, of course, so they can deny it afterwards. I
.Idmit it's often the girl's fault too of course, she can prevent it by
keeping a clear head, and that's not the case, they abandon themselves
10 sensual pleasure, because they think: now he can't let me go any
Illore, he has got to marry me; now I've got someone to provide for me,
as the saying goes.' What floats on the surface is more careless, though
- and if things go wrong they have it scraped out, as the saying goes.
The feeble resistance from below has no power over the normal
'veryday life of the mass of employees. Elements from the higher
regions too flow into it, but they barely affect it, much less really change
anything. In many offices the daughters of solid bourgeois families tap
away; for them it is simply a matter of any old occupation to bring in
pocket money. They may join in or they may keep to themselves -
either way they leave things just as they are. From the main body of
such higher bourgeois reinforcements, a type stands out that is quite
frequently to be met with particularly in Berlin and that can best be
described as salaried-bohemian: girls who come to the big city in search
of adventure and roam like comets through the world of salaried
·mployees. Their career is unpredictable and even the best astronomer
cannot determine whether they will end up on the street or in the
marriage bed. A perfect example of this genus is the nice manufactur­
T'S daughter from western Germany who often resides in the Romanische
Cafe. She likes it better there than with her family, from which
she ran away one fine day, in her beret with the little point on top.
Better too than in the big firm where she works at an adding machine
tor 150 Marks a month. What is one to do, if one wants to live, 'ally
live, and does not get the smallest allowance from home? To be sure,
she wants to get herself a higher position and will do so; but office work
for her is still always only the indispensable condition of the freedolll
she wants to enjoy. Mter closing time, at home in her fu rnished roOIll,
she first gulps down a strong coffee to freshen her up again, then it is
off and away into the midst of life, to the students and artist� with whom
there is chatter and smoking and canoeing. More than that probably
happens too. Mter a short while, she will disappear. But in the offices
her colleagues remain.