Rules of My Table
Rules of My TableRESERVED TABLE
A reserved table is a table at which in the evening the rudeness, impudence, and egoism of your fellow men reach immeasurable proportions! A slop-spout for everything that burdens the busy machine of life during the day and irritates it!
I have, therefore, adopted, for the sake of some eventual relief, a small tanif for my favors.
Anecdotes from the nursery and wonderful experiences with one's children: 70 hellers!
Attempts by a man to make a fool out of' mock, or present his spouse or sweetheart as a "dumbbell": 1 crown 20! Revenge by both sexes for something that upset them during the day: 80 hellers! The ostentatious attempt on the part of a gentleman to justity all the stupidities a lady might say: 1 crown 40! Conversations concerning hygiene that do not comply with my Prodomos: 90 hellers!'
Attempts at conquering a soul which, like all souls, belongs to me, 3 crowns 80! For sitting next to a woman who appeals to me: 5 crowns! On the first evening my tariff was introduced,
Herr T. paid:
70 hellers
1 crown, 20 hellers
80 hellers
1 crown, 40 hellers
90 hellers
3 crowns, 80 hellers
5 crowns - hellers
13 crowns, 80 hellers
"Stammtisch," 1913. Original text in Fechsung, 3d and 4th ed. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1915), 60 1. AItenberg's idiosyncratic book about hygiene and diet, published in 1906.
RESERVED TABLE
All his friends want to make Peter jealous. Friends? Ha ha. Something special should happen, therefore, not the insipid commonplace.
Is anybody to blame, after all?
You sit united, hence really disunited, at the table from 9 at night until 12.
Art, politics, literature are quickly disposed of.
What then? People try to lure Peter's lady friend, of the moment, away from him!
Also a kind of diverting game of (lice, or lotto, or dominoes.
Only one wasn't playing along.
He paid too close heed to the feelings of Peter and of her who was the object of this psychic trade.
Then Peter said: "You, my dear friend, are much more dangerous than all the idiots we see engrossed in their cards. See to it that you make a timely disappearance from my table! The others can play at the dreary insipid game of favor!"
"Stammtisch," 1918. Original text in Vita Ipsa, 8th-lOth ed. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919), 97-98.
THE RESERVED TABLE
Herr Peter left his third mug of "Löwenbrau" standing, quit his table earlier than usual. To her, to her, to her!
"Oh Peter, what do you get out of it? She has a natty young husband and maybe somebody else as well. What do you get out of it?"
What I get out of it is the driving force 'within myself to be able to leave something I enjoy, my reserved table and beer!
To make a church out of a woman! What good did it do me to reduce the stone ~c of the cathedral, the candles tall as lampposts, the scent of consecration fumes to her essence?!? There is only one true impotence, and that is to be able no longer to endow things 'with the richness of one's own soul!
"Der Stammtisch," 1918. Original text in Mein Lebensabend, 1st-8th ed. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919), 186-87.
RULES FOR MY RESERVED TABLE
Cutting fingernails at the table is forbidden, even 'with a proper set of scissors of the old type carried on one's person. But especially no cutting of fingernails with the modern clipper, since the sharply clipped nails can then easily fly into the beer glasses, and fishing them out is fraught with difficulty!
The word "butt" or the like should be avoided if possible. But if that proves to be impossible, then it should be brought forth more or less in a whisper!
Conversations of an entirely private nature, concerning personal ambition, vanity, delusions of grandeur, and "putting on airs," should not run more than three hours. Otherwise the perpetrator 'will have to stand a French champagne! Each glass extends the time limit of the conversation until the glass is empty!
Reports of personal indigestion together with detailed descriptions lacking any universal point of' view must he transmitted to those seated nearby in short, terse phrases. Moreover, the sympathy of the listener must be discreetly conveyed in such a way as to repress his natural happiness over a friend's misfortune!
Political conversations must not go beyond the phrase: "I think things are stirring in America!"
Conversations about Goethe must not degenerate into a horrible baiting of Hugo von Hofmannsthal!
Ladies at our table who have to go "somewhere" from time to time must demand 20 hellers from their husbands or lovers loudly and clearly, since this transaction at least pleasantly reminds us of the "girls for sale!"
It is improper to test match heads for any length of time on a porcelain rubbing surface, since it is irrelevant to the question of the "development of mankind," to which everything at this table, after all, is subservient!
Young waiters must be defended against all their impudent remarks only by the person who can prove that he really is "homosexual!"
Conversations of a general nature must possess a perfidious hidden point against somebody at our table. It's like condiments in food; they help you digest it better!
Romantic couples must come to our table, for that is an infallible indication that they do not 'wish to spend at least the~e hours 'with each other alone. A defeat, thus, coram publico [in the eyes of the public]. Besides, perhaps the lady can be enticed away!
"Regeln fur meinen Stammtisch," 1919. Original text in Mein Lebensabend, 1st-8th ed. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919), 44-45.