Formalities had hereby been concluded and a certain cheerfulness, of which by the way there had been no dearth from the beginning, could now more sustainedly assume its rightful place. To be sure there was still an important and at the same time difficult toast in sight, the one which had to deal with Dubslav and the unfortunate outcome of the election. Who should propose that? All preoccupied themselves with a certain amount of concern with this question and were actually relieved when all at once it was said that Gundermann would speak.
[ . . . ]
Gundermann now stepped behind his chair and began, while sticking his left hand in his pants pocket with affected nonchalance, “Gentlemen. When I was studying in Berlin so and so many years ago (“well, well”), “when I was studying in Berlin some years ago, one day there was ’n execution ....”
“Damnation, he sure knows how to start off well.”
“.... one day there was ‘n execution, because a fat plumber’s madamm, after she fell in love with her apprentice, went and poisoned her husband, a respectable master plumber. And the lad himself was only seventeen. Yes sir, gentlemen, one thing I’ve got to say, even in those days some pretty wild things happened. And I, because I knew the prison director, I got admitted to the execution. And around me were standing nothing but assistant judges and civil service clerks, real young fellows, most of’m with a pince-nez. They had pince-nez back then already, y’know. And then came the widow, if that’s what you could call her. And she looked downright stout and almost portly because, everybody talked about it at the time, she had a goiter, so that the block had to be especially prepared. With a decolleté, so to speak.”
“With a decolleté .... Pretty good, Gundermann.”
“And when she, the criminal, I mean, saw all those young clerks, her apprentice probably crossed her mind ...”
“Lets have no making fun of our clerks ...“
“... her apprentice probably crossed her mind, and she walked right over next to the edge of the scaffold and nodded to us – I’m saying ‘us’ because she was Iooking at me too – and said, ‘Yes sir, you young gents, dat’s wot comes of it . . . .’ And you see, gentlemen, this very remark, even if emanating from a criminal, I’ve never ever forgotten since that day. And whenever I go through something like today, then such a remark absolutely has to occur to you, and so I say, just like that old girl did back then, ‘Yes sir, gentlemen, dat’s wot comes of it.’ And what does it come of? From the Social Democrats. And what do the Social Democrats come from?”
“From progress. Old story. We know that. Give us something new!”
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