She laughed with tormented scorn, and went on: “I met Mesecke when I was discharged from the hospital. I had no one then. Before that I’d been in jail three weeks on account of a scamp named Max. He was bad enough, but he was a sweet innocent compared to Mesecke. A young man happened to turn up in the café, a college student or something like that. He treated us to one bottle of champagne after another, day in and day out. You knew right away that there was something rotten about it. And he always wanted me, just me, and he made the money fly. So one day Mesecke took him aside, and said to him right out: ‘That money comes out of your father’s safe. You stole it.’ The boy owned right up, and his knees just shook. So Mesecke got his claws into him, and showed him how to get more. And he and a skunk named Woldemar promised to take him to an opium den that was, they told him, just like heaven on earth. That night, when the boy was with me, he began to cry and whine like everything. I felt sorry for him, ’cause I knew he’d come to a bad end; and I told him so, and told him straight and rough. Then he emptied his pockets, and I’d never seen that much money in my life; and it was all stolen money. I got kind of dizzy, and told him to take it and put it back; but he wanted me to have it and buy myself something for it. I trembled all over, and told him for God’s sake to take it home; but he cried and fell on his knees and hugged me, and suddenly Mesecke was in the room. He’d been hidden and heard everything, and I hadn’t had an idea. But the boy’s face turned as grey as a piece of pumice stone; he looked at me and at Mesecke, and of course he thought it was a plot. I was glad when Mesecke crashed his fist into my temple, so that the air seemed to be full of fire and blood, and then kicked me into a corner. That must have made the boy see I was innocent. Then Mesecke took hold of Adalbert--that was his name--and went off with him. Adalbert said nothing, and just followed. He didn’t turn up the next day nor the next nor the day after that, so I asked Mesecke: ‘What did you do to Adalbert?’ And he said: ‘I put him on board a ship that was going overseas.’ Yes, I thought to myself, that’s a likely story. So I asked him again; and this time he said if I didn’t hold my tongue he’d scatter my bones for me. Well, I kept still. Maybe Adalbert did take passage on a ship; it’s possible. We didn’t ever hear no more about him. And I didn’t care so much, for there was something else every day. I had to be careful of my own skin, and get through the night somehow, and through the day. And it was always the same, always the same.”