I
Benno Jordan was now a senior in the _gymnasium_ and had begun to play
mischievous pranks. He also declared that he was no longer minded to
tolerate the tyranny of the school, and that he had not the slightest
desire to enter the university. He was a wilful, obstinate boy with a
marked tendency to sociability. He paid a great deal of attention to his
clothes, and was proud of his handsome face.
After repeated conversations with the seventeen-year-old boy, Jordan
decided to get him a job as a clerk in the offices of the Prudentia. He
discussed the situation with the general agent, and Alfons Diruf gave
his consent. Benno began his work at fifty marks a month.
When Jordan would come home of an evening, the first thing he would hear
from Eleanore was that Benno had an engagement with some of his friends,
and that they were in the Alfas Garden, or in the Wolf's Glen, or in
Cafe Merkur, where the orchestrion, then a new invention, was being
played for the first time.
"Lord, what is to become of the next generation?" said Jordan, quite
worried. "All they think about is having a good time. Why, I never in my
whole life thought of merely amusing myself."
Anxious about Benno's behaviour, Jordan called on the chief of the
clerical department. The little man with the waxened, weazened, face
expressed himself as quite satisfied with the new employe. Jordan took
him by the hand; it was his way of displaying gratitude. And he was
grateful, though it was hard for him to subdue a feeling of solicitude.
He recognised the boy's external amiability, but felt convinced that
this merely covered and concealed a decayed soul.
Alfons Diruf was obese and gloomy. His clothes were made in Paris, and
on the ring finger of his left hand was a brilliant diamond.
Since the Prudentia had introduced the so-called workmen's insurance,
the number of clerks on its payroll had been increased by about
twenty-five thousand. Of these eighty-four were under Diruf's direct
supervision. They were located in three rooms of a house in Fuerther
Street. They were pale and they were silent. Diruf himself had a private
office which resembled the boudoirs of a woman of the world. The
curtains were of blue silk, a bathing nymph by Thumann hung on the wall,
and the whole place smelled of musk.
Three times a day he would leave his fair retreat, and, with the mien of
disgust, make the rounds of the clerks' quarters. When they saw him
coming, heads ducked, hands scurried across the books, feet stopped
scraping, and all whispering died out.
He gave the impression of a man who hated his job, but in reality he
loved it. He liked the clerks because of their servile docility and
their famished faces. He liked them because they came promptly every
morning and went away every evening tired as tired could be, and because
day after day, year in and year out, they sat there and wrote, wrote,
wrote.
He liked the inspectors because day after day, year in and year out,
they did a great deal of work for a very little money. He liked the
agents and sub-agents who made it possible for the company to issue
hundreds of new policies every day. He liked their dirty clothes and
tattered boots, their hungry looks, their misleading but effective line
of talk, and their sad faces.
The special bait of the workmen's insurance was the small premium,
carrying with it a small policy. In this way the man of small means was
to be educated in thrift. As a rule, however, the small man realised,
when it was too late, that the agent had promised more than the company
could do. He became distrustful; his weekly savings were so scant that
it was impossible for him to pay his premiums regularly; with the
expiration of each week it became increasingly difficult to make up the
back payments, and, before he knew precisely what had happened, his
policy had been declared void, and the money he had paid in on it
confiscated.
In this way the company made millions. It was the pfennigs of the
poorest classes that constituted these millions, made the dividends rise
higher and higher, increased the army of clerks, and filled the pockets
of the agents.
These agents were recruited from the scum of human society. They were
made up of bankrupts, decadent students, gamblers, topers, and beggars.
They came from the ranks of those who had been pursued by misfortune
and who bore the marks of crime. No one was too small or too bad.
Alfons Diruf, however, saw that it would vastly improve the credit of
the company if to this list of outcasts he would add a few eminently
respectable citizens. He consequently went out on his own
responsibility, and looked for help. His quest brought him to Jason
Philip Schimmelweis.
"It's a gold mine," he said; "you work for an ideal, and you get
something out of it for yourself. Ideals, incidentally, that are not
profitable are idiotic." With that he blew the smoke of his Havana cigar
through his nose.
Jason Philip understood. It was not necessary to flatter the leader and
politician that was admittedly in him. He nearly ran his legs off
working for the company. Alfons Diruf loved this socialist bookkeeper,
after a fashion.
Inspector Jordan saw however that the countless brokers were encroaching
on his territory and stirring up distrust on the part of his better
clients. He lost his interest. The directors felt obliged to send Alfons
Diruf a critical memorandum explaining Jordan's case, and showing that
he was no longer as efficient as he used to be.