Felix Salten: The Memoirs of Josephine Mutzenbacher

When you stop to think that there are 365 days in the year, and I probably have had intercourse with at least three and four men each day. That means eleven hundred men in a year! In thirty years-the time that I have followed my career-that would mean thirty-three thousand men-a good-sized army! You would hardly expect or wish me to give an account of each one of these shafts which I have “served.” The adventures in my late years, I am sure, would not be as interesting, or teach the lessons that I want to demonstrate by recounting the adventures of my childhood. Taking everything into consideration, love is a foolish nonsense. The woman likes her shaft, the man likes his grotto. He lies on top and she lies underneath, or vice versa. They do the pushing, and we are being pushed-that is the only difference. But life still goes on. “He still denies the whole thing, and with the most pigheaded insolence!” The Prince-Regent smiled. “He has a right to. I should do the same in his place.”

“Certainly, Your Highness,” answered the Prime Minister, “the accused has the right to deny his crime; but to be insolent?” He ended on a note of inquiry. The Prince-Regent smiled a second time. “I think I should be insolent, too-or what you gentlemen on the bench call insolent. You see, my dear Count, the importance of this case is being exaggerated. Just the same, I am sorry about the police lieutenant. How is he?” “I am sorry to inform Your Highness that he is still hovering between Me and death. And if he lives, he will hover between sanity and insanity.” The Prince-Regent's lean, thoughtful face clouded “Too bad. I will visit him tomorrow or the next day. Do you think he will recognize me?” “That's out of the question. But it will make the deepest impression on the police force, on the population of the whole country, when it becomes known that Your Highness was gracious enough to visit the sick-bed of this wounded man.” “Good,” said the Prince-Regent. “It shall be done, tomorrow or the day after.” “I offer the humble suggestion that Your Highness arrange your most gracious visit for tomorrow.” The Prince raised his eye-brow and the Prime Minister hastened to explain: “The final hearing is set for the day after tomorrow. It would do much to uphold justice if Your Highness had been the day before-” The Prince-Regent interrupted him. “I do not like upholding justice. Justice which needs to be upheld must have weak legs to stand on.”

“But this time,” insisted the Prime Minister, “there is need for a counter-weight to balance the demagogic insolence of the accused.”

“Demagogic?” “Insolence in a court-room has a demagogic effect, almost always. Conrad Brodler is no professional law-breaker. He is an educated man; a student of chemistry; on the point of getting his doctor's degree. A criminal disposition, of course. But so far without any record against him. That means that in the eyes of the public he is an honest man. So that when he behaves in court as he has been doing-” “The insolence of this little student is the one thing which interests me about the whole affair.” The Prince-Regent began smiling again. “One man standing alone-that takes courage. I find your predicament amusing, and I must confess a certain sympathy for our would-be chemist.” “It must be kept in mind that this kind of fellow easily attracts imitators and followers. An excited mob is a serious thing-” The Prince raised his hand to ward off such notions. “I have no fear of that, Count Werder-” “There is something more effective than fear, Your Highness. Prudence! Forethought! To my mind, that is one of the sacred responsibilities of a ruler. Conrad Brodler's lawless act occurred during a hunger riot. Moreover, the riot came about after some demonstrations staged by the unemployed. I must beg to remind you of that. We have no mere crime here; we have crime in the midst of outrages that were beaten down only with difficulty.” “While our poor police lieutenant was beaten down with no difficulty at all?” The Prince-Regent's tone was dissatisfied and the glance with which he measured the Prime Minister was cold and brief. “That will show Your Highness how violent this Brodler can be,” the Prime Minister argued. “We are dealing with a regular savage who is incapable of conscience or remorse; a dangerous wild beast who must be put out of harm's way. The police proceeded very carefully and humanely. That is what I meant when I said that it had taken a great deal of trouble to suppress the disturbance. Now a precedent had better be established.” “Go ahead and establish it,” said the Prince-Regent, as if he had had enough of the discussion. He rose from his chair and began walking up and down past the four windows of his room, finally pausing in front of one and staring through the transparent curtains at the park. Then he turned abruptly towards Count Werder. “We have other things to talk over,” he said rather grimly, “more important things.” He came back to his desk and sank back in his chair. Count Werder sighed audibly. “Yes, indeed, our little country has a great deal to suffer from the results of the World War. It did not help us much to stay neutral. The economic distress everywhere, not only in Europe-” He went on talking about finance, loans, bills of exchange. In the meanwhile the Prince-Regent scrutinized the Count's compact little figure; his attractive, round, cheerful face, now striving to look apprehensive; his healthy crop of grey hair; his lively, clear blue eyes. He understood nothing whatever about finance, this Prince-Regent, and still less about loans and bills of exchange. And he was quite right in supposing that the Prime Minister knew even less. Anyway, there was scarcely anything that could be done for their little country, since not one of the larger ones had found a way out either. Why wrack one's brains? What must come, must come. Thus, the two distinguished gentlemen sat there exchanging words, as though they seriously believed that their consultations might lead to something significant. The most they could do would be to maintain the status quo for the longest possible time. But neither of them had the courage to acknowledge this even to himself, much less to speak of it openly to his companion… The Prime Minister stopped speaking. His peroration was finished. He dabbed his brow with a handkerchief and somewhat elaborately fastened his brief-case. “Anything more today?” inquired the Prince-Regent. “Nothing more, Your Highness.” There ensued a moment of silence. Count Werder was waiting for a gesture of dismissal. But the Prince-Regent made no move of any sort; he stared at the ceiling as if in deep thought. At last he said: “To them it seems so simple. It is not as easy as they think.”

“Who does Your Highness mean?” wondered Count Werder. “Well, people like this young Brodler.” The Prince-Regent's thin lips parted in a disparaging smile. “If he were in my place and had really to face the problem, had really to wrack his brain to procure bread and work and prosperity he would learn a new concept of what it means to improve the world.” “True,” sighed Count Werder. “It all depends on one's station in life.” “And I believe,” the Prince-Regent continued, “I believe that I am right in assuming that one can see further from an elevated station than from below, jammed together in the crowd.” “But down there one would have a more intimate contact with poverty,” remarked the Prime Minister. “One would feel it in one's own body.” “But does rioting do away with poverty? When a poor police officer gets his head split open, does any one get more to eat?” The Prince-Regent spoke quietly, as if his own mind had long since been made up. He added: “That is why I say that people think it much too simple.” Then he smiled again. “Thank you very much, my dear Count.” The Prime Minister departed.