Later, I wrote for Pustet my novel in four volumes "Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen" <In the Empire of the Silver Lion>. I had just reached the end of the second volume, when friends of mine among the editorial staff of other publishers sent me a advertising pamphlet from the "Hausschatz", the contents of which caused me to repeat my previous refusal. I telegraphed Pustet that I had to discontinue the work in progress and that I would write no further word for him. He even had to send the unprinted manuscript in his possession back to me, for which I returned the royalties to him he had payed for it. I would not have mentioned this with a single word, if not, a short time ago, I had received a threat, though only from a very irrelevant party, to reveal facts from that time. Therefore, I have used this opportunity to state the truth here. And at the same time, I furthermore state for a fact that I never stopped being on a personally friendly basis with Councillor of Commerce Pustet and that I felt an honest joy and satisfaction when, after about ten years had passed, he sent his present editor of the "Hausschatz", the Royal Genuine Councillor Dr. Otto Denk, to see me at Leinfelder's hotel in Munich, to persuade me to work for the "Hausschatz" again. I then proceeded to write the "Mir of Jinnistan" for him.
With this, I have jumped far ahead of Cardauns's accusations of "abysmal indecency" against me and am now turning back to them, to uncover the cause and the root of this matter. The cause is Münchmeyer, and the root is just the same. The facts which contributed to this affair form a chain of events, extending over more than thirty years, the links of which are intimately connected on the levels of logic, business, and the law. Most of it has been proven. Some of it is still hidden in the files, waiting to be exposed to the light of day. I am not willing to prejudge the pending lawsuits and will therefore only discuss those points which have been fully resolved.
I have already said that Münchmeyer knew about my prior convictions. He even knew all the lies which had been added to them. He wished very much that I would write a novel about this; but I rejected this most decisively. In the circle of his friends and acquaintances, I have not kept my past secret, but rather I have told them about it without any reservations and explained in detail my views on criminals and crimes, guilt, punishment, and the penal system. Not a single member of the Münchmeyer family has a right to pretend not to have known about this. The workers of the company found out about it, too, the typesetters, printers, and all others, as well as the authors, contributing to the publications. "May has been punished; he has been to prison", they said, sometimes quietly, sometimes louder, but soon spreading everywhere. Thus, it is fundamentally wrong to start talking about sudden "revelations" or even about my "unmasking", now. Whoever pretends that he had unmasked me, is lying.
It is an important fact that Münchmeyer had a rather pronounced preference for working with previously convicted people in particular, for certain business reasons. Going through the list of authors, both men and women, who have written for him, the percentage of those with a criminal record is rather significant. I already noticed this very soon after I had joined his company. Walter [a], his main factotum, to whom he assigned all the task nobody else was allowed to know about, had prior convictions as well. Very soon after I had taken over as editor, he brought in a former official of the postal services from Vienna, who had embezzled money, to be one of my co-workers. When similar cases occurred repeatedly and I asked him for his reasons, he answered: "An author who has been punished can be made to put up with anything, because he fears that his criminal record will be disclosed." "So, this also includes me?!" I exclaimed, astonished at such an honesty. "Nonsense!" he replied. "With you, the matter is entirely different. We are friends! And after all, you're no ordinary man, who would put up with anything! Even if I would not honestly care about you, any attempt to cross you would have to fail!" He tried his best to remove the mistrust which had arisen in me, but it could not be made to disappear entirely and was a contributing factor in my resignation, when I left my job as an editor on account of that proposal of marriage. Later, when after the time of six years I started to write the "Waldröschen" for him, these second thoughts against him resurfaced again in me. But the exceptional position, he granted me in his personal life and in his business, the exceptional royalties he payed me, and most of all the objections my wife made at every opportunity against my distrust, all of this influenced me so that I finally returned to my previous trust in him.
[a] August Walther (1827-1900). The misspelling of this name occurs throughout the original text with only one exception. (In German, a "th" is pronounced the same as a "t".)
That I did not receive any proof sheets to read and therefore also did not get my manuscripts of the novels I wrote for Münchmeyer back, I had already mentioned. Thus, I could not verify, whether the printed version matched my original manuscript. But honesty in this respect had been promised to me in such very certain terms that I did not consider any fraud possible. I also thought it impossible that Münchmeyer could later ever pretend that he had bought my novels with all rights not just up to the twenty thousandth subscriber, but forever, because, first of all, I had kept all of his letters, in which he repeated everything, we had (not) [a] put into a written agreement, one thing after another, and secondly I also had another fully valid proof in my hands, that he did not own the rights forever. This was that he had made, in writing, the attempt to obtain these rights later on. He had done so using a reciprocal bond, which he sent to me by means of this ex-convict factotum Walter, to have it signed by me. But I rejected this extraordinarily cunning messenger with his bond. This Walter was also the man who always assured me, in writing and orally, upon my inquiries that those twenty thousand had not been reached yet. Furthermore, I was not worried in the least, neither for my rights nor for my "fine gratification". I could be sure of my rights, and the Münchmeyers were now financially so well off, that they, as I thought, were more than just able to pay. That he lost again on poorly selling novels what he earned on the bestsellers, and that he had fallen in with bill-jobbers, causing a severe depletion of his available funds, about all of this I knew nothing. Thus, I was convinced that I could wait calmly and that I had no reason at all to pose premature, and therefore insulting, demands. Furthermore, my wife was thus completely against all forms of urging and pushing in business matters, that I now also had to fear for the outward peace of my home, if I had not been as forgiving towards Münchmeyer as she wished. The publishers of colportage also maintain that, for their bookkeeping, it would be much harder and require much more time than with other publishers to prove how many regular subscribers there are. All of the time, some of them are cancelling, and new ones are joining in, therfore I was patient.
[a] I guess, the word "nicht" <not> has been lost in the original text. Otherwise, it makes no sense.