Read your request for marriage. To my regret I cannot supply capital. For my part I could do without the marriage, of which I have no need yet. I am by trade a woman. I am small (but wow!). I am tired of having boy friends and therefore am looking for a relationship with a steady man. If you find my proposal agreeable, please send me a photo of yourself. I remain your devoted
Ilka Leipke
When they had embraced and kissed enough, they made up games. Ilka Leipke showed great talent in showing the happily giggling Mechenmal how her friends would behave in corresponding positions. She bent herself into the most surprising positions. She grimaced comically. Mechenmal was able make up fictitious names by the hour, with which he could make reference to certain parts of her body in the presence of other people, without their being able to tell what he meant. So the evenings and the nights that Ilka Leipke had set aside for her friend went by. Often Mechenmal did not have the time to go home. Then she got up, if he was still asleep. Made coffee. In her slippers, dressed only in an old evening wrap, she went out and got pastry from a baker. She placed a white cloth on the table. She arranged everything in an appetizing manner. She prepared some sandwiches for him to take with him. She disappeared again into her bed, where she slept well into the afternoon. Mechenmal, however, somewhat sleepy and weary, but in a good mood, hurried off to his kiosk.
III
Late evening crept like a spider over the city. In the light of Kohn's little lamp the upper torso of Kuno Kohn was a bit bent over the table. On the sofa, breaking the circle of lamplight and stretching beyond it, lay Max Mechenmal, half in the dark. Windows glittered in lush, flowing black. Swollen and blurred objects rose up out of the darkness. The open bed shone with a whiteness. Kohn's hands held papers with writing on them. His voice sounded gentle, dreamy, singing with feeling. He often became hoarse, and coughed like someone who had read much. One could hear: "The old, splendid stories about God have been slaughtered. We must no longer believe in them. But the knowledge of misery drives us to need to believe—the longing for new, stronger belief. We are searching. We find nothing anywhere. We torment ourselves because
we have been helplessly abandoned. Why doesn't someone come, teach us non-believers, who thirst for God." Kohn was quiet, full of expectation. Mechenmal had secretly been amused during the lecture. Now he broke out. Then he said: "Don't take this wrong, little Kohn. But you certainly have funny ideas. This is really crazy." Kohn said: "You have no feeling. You are a superficial being. It is also certain that you are a psychopath." Max Mechenmal said: "what do you mean by that?" Kuno Kohn said: "You'll find that out soon enough." Max Mechenmal said merely, "Ah, so." He was angry that Kuno Kohn had called him superficial. He thought of Ilka Leipke.
Then Kuno Kohn said: "Death is an unbearable thought. For those of us who are without God. We are damned to live through it in advance hundreds of nights. And to find no way past it." He became very quiet. Mechenmal wanted to show his friend Kohn that he too could express himself about perverse problems. He thought it over, and said: I have different version, little Kuno, little Kohn. However, it is an emotional matter. I also tell myself thank God for those who have no God. God is nonsense. To waste a word on the topic is unworthy of a thinking man. But listen, I have no need of God—not in life, not in death. Death without God is very beautiful. It is my wish. I think it's wonderful simply to be dead. Without heaven. Without rebirth. Utterly dead. I'm can't wait. Life for me is too hard. Too stimulating.."
He wanted to speak further. There was a knocking at the door; Kohn opened it. Ilka Leipke quickly came in. She said: "Good evening Herr Kohn. Excuse me for disturbing you." She screamed at Mechenmal: "So, I catch you here. So, for this you have abandoned me. You're only using my body. You have never grasped my soul." She wept. She sobbed. Mechenmal tried to calm her down. That irritated her even more. She shouted: "To betray me with a crippled Kohn… I'll report you to the police, Mr. Kohn. You should be ashamed of yourselves, you swine…" She had a crying fit. Kuno Kohn was incapable of responding. Mechenmal pulled her up from the floor upon which she had thrown herself screaming. He said with a changed, stern voice, that her behavior was unseemly, that she had no grounds for jealousy, for after all, he had no obligations. Then Ilka Leipke looked at the hunch-backed Kohn humbly, like a beaten little dog. She was very quiet. She followed the angry Mechenmal out the door.
When Kohn was alone, he gradually became enraged. He thought: such a rude person… and at intervals: How upset the cow had become. How jealous she is of me. One of the few women who please me… and she goes and chooses the little animal Mechenmal. That is atrocious.
Early the next morning Kuno Kohn stood in Miss Leipke's drawing-room, trembling like an actor with stage fright, When the maid brought Kuno Kohn's card, Miss Leipke was reading the forbidden pamphlet, "The suicide of a fashionable lady. Or how a fashionable lady committed