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The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun, Kathie von Ankum, Maria M. Tatar

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3.0

fav quotes (love that she hates blond people so bad)

Help me, dear God - I promise to cut "dear God" deep into my skin with a knife so it'll draw blood - if you let me get to Berlin safely.
If a young woman from money marries an old man because of money and nothing else and makes love to him for hours and has this pious look on her face, she's called a German mother and a decent woman. If a young woman without money sleeps with a man with no money because he has smooth skin and she likes him, she's a whore and a bitch.
And so he asks me: "What do you look like?" That was really strange. I wanted to see myself from the outside, not like a man would usually describe me, which is always just half the truth anyway.
All I say to Tilli is: "You should know that it could have been any other woman instead of you. It's no different. And love is when you're drunk together and you want to do it and everything else is nonsense."
"Love is more than that," says Brenner.
"Love is a lot of different things," I say.
"Love is not business," he says.
"Pretty girls are business," I say, "and that has nothing to do with love. I know, I know - love so well - but I don't want to know it, I don't want to."
"The city isn't good and the city isn't happy and the city is sick," he says - "but you are good and I thank you for that." I don't want him to thank me. I just want him to like my Berlin.
She's shaking her head - we never want that sort of thing. There's something there that makes sure that what we lied about wanting, but didn't really want, happens. We cried for that creature. We smoked a cigarette and then we cried some more.
He was all closed up and there was no room for a thank-you in him. And it was then that I knew what it means to be lucky - lucky to have met a person during those three minutes of the day that he's good.
"Why do you let me stay here?" I ask him.
"Because I'm afraid to come home and there's nobody there who breathes - please stay."
This is complete craziness - now he's begging me to stay.
Withering nights! Lesbos! That gives you some insight into men and into Berlin as well.
There are bars with women wearing shirts with stiff necks and ties and they are terribly proud to be perverts, as if that weren't something nobody can do anything about. I always used to say to Therese: "I'm happy that I have such large eyes but they were given to me, that's why I can't be proud of them." But those perverts, they're proud of it. There's one of those bars in Marburger Strasse. Some men seem to like it. Is he that kind? And I didn't want to read that Van de Velde either when Therese gave me the book. When you write these things down, they become obscene.
Lesbos, island of - thank God there are no pictures.
And then you're with him at night - and love and all that - and at eight in the morning you're back in the office. And you're over 20 and your face is getting ruined from all that work and love, because people need to get sleep. But he loves you, which is why it doesn't really matter to you. '
"you have to hate anyone who can dismiss you, even if they're good to you, because you work for them and not with them."
If you're human, you have feelings. If you're human, you know what it means if you want someone and they don't want you. It's like an electrified waiting period. Nothing more, nothing less. But it's enough.
Could it be that noticing is love after all? When you're in love like this, you're no longer sure about yourself. And because you're so afraid to do something wrong, you're sure to be doing just about everything wrong. Or at least you're completely different from the way you want to be, because you're so full of love and anxiety - and you want to be a good person and the real you without any tricks or premeditation. And none of the usual bullshit, and you don't want to think, just be nice and kind. And nothing else. Can a man take that? I'm going to dare show my love though.
I - oh my God. I'll never see you again. I want to kill myself in front of your door tomorrow. Bullshit. Now I'm writing it all to you as in a letter
"I can't go on living like this - and a man with a stable income loves you, and whom you don't love too much, that's still the easiest way to live, and it's a nice thing too, if you can give someone pleasure."