It’s not easy with authors:
if you don’t review their works at all, they are angry, if you criticize, them they are offended, and if you praise them, they don’t pay you for it. S. J.[1] told me that only one attempt was ever made to bribe him, and they offered him seventy-five marks. He often complained about that. Luckily, there are some exceptions, I once earned a hundred marks, and the name of the generous donor, Walter Mehring, is engraved in the drawer of my bed-side table.
Mehring Songworks A. G. Groß-Stötteritz
Propaganda X. B. 12543
Confidential
Dear Sir,
in receipt of your valued review, we take the liberty of enclosing the token of our recognition, calculated as follows:
Epitheta ornantia[2]:
37 medium 26 Mark
2 earned 0 Mark 35
115 exaggerated 50 Mark 65
Comparisons with Theobald Tiger 68 Mark 20
ditto George Grosz 35 Mark 00
ditto Villjon 1 Mark 80
11 Cries from the heart @ 0 Mark 50: 0 Mark 22
_____________________
Total 182 Mark 22
As, on the other hand, we were forced to acknowledge the absence of the terms ‘modern’, ‘immortal’, ‘fundamental’, and ‘skilfully’, the above total is reduced to 100 marks.
Please indicate your acceptance forthwith, to avoid consequences (jurisdiction District Court Berlin Mitte I).
Yours Faithfully,
Signed Arnolt Lax,
General Secretary
And enclosed was a brand old hundred mark note. From the inflation time (bitter): Thanks from the House of Habsburg!
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Jacobsohn
[2] Words of praise
Published in: Tucholsky Panter, Tiger & Co.
