In the beginning Marian had received a letter from Daniel every now and
then. These letters became rarer. During the second year he wrote only
once--a few lines at Christmas.
At the time when he was leaving his last place of employment he wrote
her on a postcard that he was changing his residence again. But he did
not tell her that he was going to Nuremberg. So spring passed and
summer. Then her soul, which was wavering between fear and hope, was
rudely jolted out of its dim state by a letter from Jason Philip.
He wrote that Daniel was loafing about in Nuremberg. Quite by accident
he had met him a few days before near the fair booths on Schuett Island.
His appearance was indescribable. He had tried to question him, but
Daniel had disappeared. What had brought him to the city he, Jason
Philip, could not see. But he was willing to wager that at the bottom of
it was some shady trick, for the fellow had not looked like one who
earns an honest living. So he proposed to Marian that she should come to
Nuremberg and help in a raid on the vagabond, in order to prevent the
unblemished name he bore from being permanently disgraced before it was
too late. As a contribution to her travelling expenses he enclosed five
marks in stamps.
Marian had received the letter at noon. She had at once locked up her
house and shop. At two o'clock she had reached the station at Ansbach;
at four she arrived in Nuremberg. Carrying her hand-bag, she asked her
way to Plobenhof Street at every corner.
Theresa sat at the cashier's desk. Her brown hair on her square
peasant's skull was smoothly combed. Zwanziger, the freckled
shop-assistant, was busy unpacking books. Theresa greeted her sister
with apparent friendliness, but she did not leave her place. She
stretched out her hand across the ink-stand, and observed Marian's
shabby appearance--the worn shawl, the old-fashioned little cloth bonnet
with its black velvet ribbands meeting in a bow under the chin.
"Go upstairs for a bit," she said, "and let the children entertain you.
Rieke will bring up your bag."
"Where is your husband?" asked Marian.
"At an electors' meeting," Theresa answered morosely. "They couldn't
meet properly, according to him, if he isn't there."
At that moment a man in a workingman's blouse entered the shop and began
to talk to Theresa urgently in a soft but excited voice. "I bought the
set of books and they're my property," said the man. "Suppose I did skip
a payment. That's no reason to lose my property. I call that sharp
practice, Frau Schimmelweis, that's what I call it."
"What did Herr Wachsmuth buy of us?" Theresa turned to the
shop-assistant.
"Schlosser's 'History of the World,'" was the prompt answer.
"Then you'd better read your contract," Theresa said to the workingman.
"The terms are all fixed there."
"That's sharp practice, Frau Schimmelweis, sharp practice," the man
repeated, as though this phrase summed up all he could express in the
way of withering condemnation. "A fellow like me wants to get on and
wants to learn something. All right. So I think I'll buy me a book and
get a step ahead in knowledge. So where do I go? To a party member, to
Comrade Schimmelweis, thinking natural-like I'm safe in his hands. I pay
sixty marks--hard earned money--for a history of the world, and manage
to squeeze the payments out o' my wages, and then, all of a sudden, when
half the price is paid, I'm to have my property taken from me without so
much as a by your leave just because I'm two payments in arrears."
"Read your contract," said Theresa. "Every point is stipulated."
"No wonder people get rich," the man went on. His voice grew louder and
louder, and he glanced angrily at Jason Philip, who at that moment
rushed into the shop with his hat crushed and his trousers sprinkled
with mud. "No wonder that people can buy houses and speculate in real
estate. Yes, Schimmelweis, I call such things sharp practice, and I
don't give a damn for your contract. Everybody knows by this time what
kind of business is done here--more like a man-trap--and that these here
instalments are just a scheme to squeeze the workingman dry. First you
talk to him about education, and then you suck his blood. It's hell!"
"Pull yourself together, Wachsmuth!" Jason Philip cried sternly.
Wachsmuth picked up his cap, and slammed the shopdoor behind him.
Marian Nothafft's eyes passed mechanically over the titles of a row of
fiercely red pamphlets spread out on a table. She read: "The Battle that
Decides," "Modern Slaveholders," "The Rights of the Poor," "Christianity
and Capitalism," "The Crimes of the Bourgeoisie." Although these
catch-words meant nothing to her, she felt in her heart once more her
old, long forgotten hatred against machines.