Chapter 3

know how to defend himself against such simple-minded attacks, directed against himself by his own nation; he should have spoken out more forcefully against them. _Whatever_is_there,_this_is_ _mine,_ he should have said. _Whether_I_have_taken_it_from_real_ _life_or_from_a_book,_this_is_all_the_same;__the_only_thing_which_ _mattered_was_that_I_used_it_properly!_ Walter Scott needed a scene from my `Egmont', and he had a right to take it, _and_ _because_it_was_done_in_an_intelligent_manner,_he_is_to_be_ _praised._ Thus, he has also recreated my character of `Mignon' in one of his novels, but whether he has done it with just as much wisdom, is a different question. Lord Byron's `transformed devil' is an extended Mephistopheles, and this is right so. If he had wanted to avoid the similarity on an original whim, he would have had to achieve a worse result. Thus, my Mephistopheles sings a song written by Shakespeare, and why should he not do so? Why should I take the trouble of inventing a song of my own, while Shakespeare's was just right and said just what it was supposed to? Therefore, when the beginning of my `Faust' has some similarity with the one found in the book of `Job', this is again just right so, and I am rather to be praised than to be scolded for that.'"

This shall be the end of this short selection of famous names as references. What have out most famous authors done without having suffered such verbal abuse? And what have I done to be treated like the lowest of all cheaters and thieves? I have, without thinking much of it, decorated some of my small, Asian tales with entirely irrelevant geographical and ethnographical arabesques, which I found in books, which, for a long time, belong to the public. This is permissable. This is even my right. But what does Father Pöllmann say to this? He resorts to public name-calling, saying I was a _"pirate_in_the_field_of_literature,_ _for_all_eternity_the_prime_example_of_a_literary_thief!"_ Emerson, one of the most famous and most noble men of America, says: "The greatest genius is at the same time also the greatest borrower." And Goethe says: "Whatever is there, this is mine. Whether I have taken it from real life or from a book, this is all the same!" How would Father Pöllmann have to pass an analogous judgement on these two champions? To him, they would have to be "for all eternity, the worst among all literary fiends", exuding the stench of greedy rapacity and moral corruption! A criticism which is thus ignorant, thus inexperienced, thus self-promoting, and thus exceeding all limits, as this one, constitutes a danger not just to literature, but also to the entire people.

I have written my "traveller's tales" just the way I had originally planed to write them for the human soul, for the soul, and only for the soul. And only the soul alone, for which they have been written, shall read them, for it alone can understand and comprehend me. I do not pick up my pen for soulless readers. An exemplary author, writing exemplary stories for exemplary readers is not what I am or I ever would want to be or become. Once we will have reached this point that there are only exemplary authors, exemplary readers, and exemplary books, this will be the end! I am so bold to assert that we must not use the existing exemplary books, but rather the existing trash as examples, to model our own books after, if we wish to achieve what the true friends of the people seek to achieve. Let us not write like the boring ones, which are not read, let us rather write like the trashy authors, who know how to win a hundred thousands and millions of subscribers! But our topics shall be noble, as noble as our purposes and goals. Write for the great soul! Do not write for the tiny spirits, on whom your efforts will be waisted and dispersed, without them ever being grateful to you. Because however much effort you put into seeking their applause, they will still maintain that they were able to do it better, though they are not capable of anything at all! And do not write anything small, at least nothing earthly small. But rather raise your eyes up to how everything fits together on the big scale. Small things might also be found there, but behind and in these small things, the truly great thing live. And even if you should commit mistakes in the process, mistakes as many and as big as the ones Karl May has made, this will do no harm. It is better to occasionally stumble on the path which leads upwards and to finally reach the top regardless, than not to stumble on the path which leads downwards and to succumb to the depth. Or even to run round and round one's own equator, holding one's head up high and taking proud steps, always returning to oneself again and again, without having climbed over any higher ground. For mountains are what we must have, ideals, highly situated intermediate stops and final goals.

Perhaps, I have just too many ideals and goals and am therefore running the risk not to achieve a single one of them; but I do not fear that this might be so. I have already said what I want and what goals I am seeking; I do not need to repeat it. And I have already had to overcome so many steep heights, that I cannot possibly regard myself as one of those poor devils who never leave the plane of their own equator. There are some people who recommend my style as an example for others; there are different people who say that I had no style; and thirdly, there are people who maintain that did have a style, but that it was an extraordinarily bad one. The truth is that I do not pay any attention to my style at all. I write whatever comes from my soul, and I write it the way I hear it inside of me. I never change anything, and never improve anything. Thus, my style is my soul, and not my "style", but my soul shall talk to the readers. I also do not employ any so-called artistic form. My literary garments have not been cut to size, sewn, or even ironed by any tailor. It is natural cloth. I wrap myself in it, drape it as I need it or according to the mood I am in when I write. Therefore, what I write has such a direct effect and not an effect which would be achieved by pretty outward appearances, which possess no internal value. I do not want to capture the reader, not grasp him externally, but rather I want to enter in his inner self, I want to access his soul, his heart, his emotions. There I will stay, for there I can and may stay, because I neither come with distracting forms nor distracting garments and am just the way the soul wants me to be. That this is the right thing, decades of beautiful experiences have confirmed to me. I must, can, and may take the liberty of displaying this honest and natural quality, because solely by these means, I am able to effectuate what I want to achieve, because I do not ask my readers to conform to a different or even higher artistic standard than I ask from myself, and because the time has not come, yet, when I will have to give my work also an external form, which is on an aesthetically higher level. Now, I still make my sketches, and sketches are commonly accepted as they are.

In my entire work, not including the humorous short stories and village-tales from the Ore Mountains, there is not a single character which was fully developed and perfected by me, not even Winnetou and Hadji Halef Omar, those two about whom I have written more than about any other characters. After all, I am not finished with my own development yet, I am still changing. Inside of me, everything is still moving ahead, and of the characters within me, all of my topics are moving along with me. I know my goal; but until I will have reached it, I am still travelling, and all of my thoughts are still travelling. Naturally, none of our poets and artists, and mainly none of our great classics, have postponed their work, until they have grown mentally mature enough, but I am to be regarded as an outsider in this respect as well, am even described by many as an outlaw or outcast, and therefore, I may not even by a long shot take those liberties which others take for granted. What is regarded as the most natural thing in the world with others, is in me either regarded as bad or ridiculous, and things which are accepted as an excuse, a reason for forgiveness, for others are being ignored in my case. One single time, I have intended to write something of artistic value, my "Babel and Bible". What was the consequence? It has been described as a "miserable fabrication", and so much mockery and sneering has been heaped up on it, as if it had been written by a harlequin or an ape. Such an experience makes a person stand back and await his time. And this time will come for sure. Literary buffoons can very well be swept off the scene, but spiritual movements cannot be suppressed, for they are invincible. I would not think of making accusations, since nothing would come out of it, anyhow. Nevertheless, I must not fail to give one example to illustrate the fact I touched upon here, one single example which says it all thus clearly that I can easily forgo all other evidence. This example concerns an organisation, which has been founded for the purpose of establishing libraries for the people and making books more readily available, and which has distributed, until now, several thousands of my volumes each year. Suddenly, they stopped this, and being asked about it, the central office of this organisation issued the following statement, which had been published by several newspapers: "On our part, we do refrain from the further distribution of May's writings and no longer offer these books through our catalogues, but we do not intent to express by this that the contents of May's traveller's tales would be objectionable, and we also to not ask the boards of our organisations to go through the trouble of removing these books from the libraries for that matter. Our current disapproving position is not directed against the _writings,_ but against the _personage_ of the author. _Thus,_you_can_continue_to_ _allow_these_volumes_to_be_checked_out_without_any_need_for_ _concern."_ This is surely enough! My books are beyond reproach; but I as a person am publicly condemned! Why? Due to this "scheme" I already talk about earlier. Therefore, do not think that the "Karl-May-persecution" or, to put it a bit more decently, the "Karl-May-problem" was a matter of literature. Here are, by no means, literary or even ethical reasons at play, but it is, to call it by its proper name, a solely personal butchering for the morally lowest reasons pertaining to my lawsuits. What they say in this context about moral and journalistic necessities is nothing but a bombastic show, to conceal the truth. If someone would want to write a novel about this, this could become the most sensational one of all colportage novels, and the main characters would be the following: The former chief editor Dr. Hermann Cardauns in Bonn, the former colporteuse Pauline Münchmeyer in Dresden, the Franciscan monk Dr. Expeditus Schmidt in Munich, the former social democrat Rudolf Lebius in Charlottenburg, who has seceded from the Christian church, the Benedictine Father Ansgar Pöllmann in Beuron, and the lawyer of the colporteuse Münchmeyer, Dr. Gerlach in Niederlößnitz near Dresden. This novel would be most important for the purpose of shedding some light on the present legislation and would also cast surprising side-lights on other conditions, conditions of society, business, and the psyche. There, we would get to see much filth, very much filth, which is anything but tasteful, and thus, I want, since I have to mention and demonstrate this filth here as well, to try my best to get this over with as quickly as possible.

VIII. My Lawsuits

Jørgensen [a], whom my readers will probably know, says in his parable "The Shadow" to the poet: "You do not know what you are doing, when you are sitting and writing here and your soul is filled by the power of the wine and the night. You do not know how many people's fate is reshaped, created, changed by a single line of yours on the white paper. You do not know how many a human joy you are killing, how many a death sentence you are signing, here, in your quiet solitude, by the peaceful lamp, between the flowery glasses and the bottle of burgundy. Consider, _that_we_others_act_out_what_you_poets_write._ We are as you have shaped us. The youth of this realm repeats your creation like shadows. We are as chaste as you are; we are as immoral as you want us to be. The young men believe according to your belief in or denial of any faith. The young girls are as decent or frivolous as the women are your glorify."

[a] Jens Johannes Jørgensen (1866-1956)

In this, Jørgensen is perfectly right. His opinion coincides exactly with my own. Yes, I will even go far beyond his. Poets and novelists have a much greater, creative or destructive, purifying or soiling influence than most people suspect. If it is true what the newer psychology says, that "a person is not a single being, but an entire drama", then an author's work might possibly be even regarded as more akin to a divine creation than to a creation of human labour. Because I am very much aware of this, I am also aware of the immense responsibility which every one of us writers has, as soon as we take up the pen. Whenever I do so, I do it with the honest intention, to create only something good, but never something evil. Thus, you can imagine how astonished I was, when I found out that I had been said to have written "abysmally indecent" books for the publishing company of H.G. Münchmeyer. The expression "abysmally indecent" was invented by Cardauns, who is known for having the peculiarity to indulge in the most exaggerated harshness whenever he opposes someone. Then, in his articles, all things are not just proven, but "evidently proven", not made up, but "cunningly made up", not distorted, but "distorted beyond recognition". Therefore, in describing these Münchmeyer novels, because the were said to be written by me, the simple word "indecent" was not enough, but it was the most natural thing in the world that they had to be even "abysmally indecent".

The first trace of these "indecencies" of mine was discovered over in the United States. Councillor of Commerce Pustet, who owns branch offices there, wrote to me about this rumour and wished me to respond to this. I did so. I answered him that I did not know anything about any indecencies and that I would investigate the matter, if necessary even in court. I would then inform him of the results. This settled the matter for him. He was an honourable gentleman, a man with a keen mind and a good heart, who would never have even considered to go about anything in a clandestine manner. We liked each other. He is with absolute certainty not even in the slightest degree to blame for the indescribably filthy and disgustingly passionate agitation persecuting me. Because the rumour came from America, I had to investigate there first. This required a long time, and I was unable to obtain any specific information. I only knew that the rumour was about those novels I had written for Münchmeyer, but I found no one who would have been able to name the chapters and the passages to me where this indecency would be contained. And to laboriously search through all five novels, this are about eight hundred printed sheets, on account of a mere, vague rumour, without even knowing what to look for, was something for which I did not have any time to waste, and this also would have been asking too much of me, anyhow. Whoever had the guts to accuse me would be required to know these indecent passages precisely and had the duty to name them to me. I waited for this to happen. But no one came forward, who would have done this. Pustet did not do it either. Probably, he knew just as little about those supposed indecencies as I. Unfortunately, I had been forced, some time later, to stop working for his magazine for a second time. The first time I had done something like this was when Heinrich Keiter was still alive. He had rather significantly shorted one of my works, without asking me for my permission. I have never put up with any corrections or abridgments. The readers are to get to know me as I am, with all faults and shortcoming, but not as an editor cuts me down to size. Therefore, I informed Pustet that he could not expect any further manuscripts from me. He tried to change my mind by means of letters, but in vain. Then he, the old gentleman, came personally to Radebeul. This was moving, but equally unsuccessful. Then, he sent his nephews, quite naturally with the same negative result, because after all, neither of them had been the one who had violated my rights. Then, the right man came, Heinrich Keiter in person. He promised me that it should never happen again, and on account of this, I retracted my refusal. Certain people are still holding this against me. They expressed it like this: "Heinrich Keiter had to make a kotow [a] before Karl May." I possess letters on this topic, written to me by no ordinary person. But he had only himself to blame, not me. I have respected Heinrich Keiter, as everyone respected him. I recognise all of his merits and still feel sorry for having been compelled, at this time, to show that I had a backbone. There was no other way. I had to have the hard cover edition of my "traveller's tales" printed on the basis of the texts of the "Hausschatz" magazine, and therefore, I could not permit that my manuscripts were changed in any way.

[a] Kotow (Chinese): Kneeling and knocking one's head on the floor as a gesture of homage. Here, the term is, of course, used figuratively, meaning to be forced to humiliate oneself.

Later, I wrote for Pustet my novel in four volumes "Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen" . I had just reached the end of the second volume, when friends of mine among the editorial staff of other publishers sent me a advertising pamphlet from the "Hausschatz", the contents of which caused me to repeat my previous refusal. I telegraphed Pustet that I had to discontinue the work in progress and that I would write no further word for him. He even had to send the unprinted manuscript in his possession back to me, for which I returned the royalties to him he had payed for it. I would not have mentioned this with a single word, if not, a short time ago, I had received a threat, though only from a very irrelevant party, to reveal facts from that time. Therefore, I have used this opportunity to state the truth here. And at the same time, I furthermore state for a fact that I never stopped being on a personally friendly basis with Councillor of Commerce Pustet and that I felt an honest joy and satisfaction when, after about ten years had passed, he sent his present editor of the "Hausschatz", the Royal Genuine Councillor Dr. Otto Denk, to see me at Leinfelder's hotel in Munich, to persuade me to work for the "Hausschatz" again. I then proceeded to write the "Mir of Jinnistan" for him.

With this, I have jumped far ahead of Cardauns's accusations of "abysmal indecency" against me and am now turning back to them, to uncover the cause and the root of this matter. The cause is Münchmeyer, and the root is just the same. The facts which contributed to this affair form a chain of events, extending over more than thirty years, the links of which are intimately connected on the levels of logic, business, and the law. Most of it has been proven. Some of it is still hidden in the files, waiting to be exposed to the light of day. I am not willing to prejudge the pending lawsuits and will therefore only discuss those points which have been fully resolved.

I have already said that Münchmeyer knew about my prior convictions. He even knew all the lies which had been added to them. He wished very much that I would write a novel about this; but I rejected this most decisively. In the circle of his friends and acquaintances, I have not kept my past secret, but rather I have told them about it without any reservations and explained in detail my views on criminals and crimes, guilt, punishment, and the penal system. Not a single member of the Münchmeyer family has a right to pretend not to have known about this. The workers of the company found out about it, too, the typesetters, printers, and all others, as well as the authors, contributing to the publications. "May has been punished; he has been to prison", they said, sometimes quietly, sometimes louder, but soon spreading everywhere. Thus, it is fundamentally wrong to start talking about sudden "revelations" or even about my "unmasking", now. Whoever pretends that he had unmasked me, is lying.

It is an important fact that Münchmeyer had a rather pronounced preference for working with previously convicted people in particular, for certain business reasons. Going through the list of authors, both men and women, who have written for him, the percentage of those with a criminal record is rather significant. I already noticed this very soon after I had joined his company. Walter [a], his main factotum, to whom he assigned all the task nobody else was allowed to know about, had prior convictions as well. Very soon after I had taken over as editor, he brought in a former official of the postal services from Vienna, who had embezzled money, to be one of my co-workers. When similar cases occurred repeatedly and I asked him for his reasons, he answered: "An author who has been punished can be made to put up with anything, because he fears that his criminal record will be disclosed." "So, this also includes me?!" I exclaimed, astonished at such an honesty. "Nonsense!" he replied. "With you, the matter is entirely different. We are friends! And after all, you're no ordinary man, who would put up with anything! Even if I would not honestly care about you, any attempt to cross you would have to fail!" He tried his best to remove the mistrust which had arisen in me, but it could not be made to disappear entirely and was a contributing factor in my resignation, when I left my job as an editor on account of that proposal of marriage. Later, when after the time of six years I started to write the "Waldröschen" for him, these second thoughts against him resurfaced again in me. But the exceptional position, he granted me in his personal life and in his business, the exceptional royalties he payed me, and most of all the objections my wife made at every opportunity against my distrust, all of this influenced me so that I finally returned to my previous trust in him.

[a] August Walther (1827-1900). The misspelling of this name occurs throughout the original text with only one exception. (In German, a "th" is pronounced the same as a "t".)

That I did not receive any proof sheets to read and therefore also did not get my manuscripts of the novels I wrote for Münchmeyer back, I had already mentioned. Thus, I could not verify, whether the printed version matched my original manuscript. But honesty in this respect had been promised to me in such very certain terms that I did not consider any fraud possible. I also thought it impossible that Münchmeyer could later ever pretend that he had bought my novels with all rights not just up to the twenty thousandth subscriber, but forever, because, first of all, I had kept all of his letters, in which he repeated everything, we had (not) [a] put into a written agreement, one thing after another, and secondly I also had another fully valid proof in my hands, that he did not own the rights forever. This was that he had made, in writing, the attempt to obtain these rights later on. He had done so using a reciprocal bond, which he sent to me by means of this ex-convict factotum Walter, to have it signed by me. But I rejected this extraordinarily cunning messenger with his bond. This Walter was also the man who always assured me, in writing and orally, upon my inquiries that those twenty thousand had not been reached yet. Furthermore, I was not worried in the least, neither for my rights nor for my "fine gratification". I could be sure of my rights, and the Münchmeyers were now financially so well off, that they, as I thought, were more than just able to pay. That he lost again on poorly selling novels what he earned on the bestsellers, and that he had fallen in with bill-jobbers, causing a severe depletion of his available funds, about all of this I knew nothing. Thus, I was convinced that I could wait calmly and that I had no reason at all to pose premature, and therefore insulting, demands. Furthermore, my wife was thus completely against all forms of urging and pushing in business matters, that I now also had to fear for the outward peace of my home, if I had not been as forgiving towards Münchmeyer as she wished. The publishers of colportage also maintain that, for their bookkeeping, it would be much harder and require much more time than with other publishers to prove how many regular subscribers there are. All of the time, some of them are cancelling, and new ones are joining in, therfore I was patient.

[a] I guess, the word "nicht" has been lost in the original text. Otherwise, it makes no sense.

In the year 1891, I made the acquaintance of my current publisher F.E. Fehsenfeld from Freiburg, Breisgau. I left it up to him to publish in the form of books those works which had previously been published by Pustet in Regensburg and made an agreement with him that he would thereafter also publish those written for Münchmeyer. He instantly tackled those first ones, and they sold excellently. We were both convinced that we would not be less successful with the Münchmeyer novels, but postponed the latter, until the Pustet series would be complete. Each of the two series was supposed to consist of thirty volumes. Wherever my past work fell short of filling these volumes, I had to write more. For the Pustet series, this turned out to be about ten volumes, which I still had to deliver. This work left me no time to worry about my Münchmeyer stuff right now. It was also because of this that the unexpected news that Münchmeyer had suddenly died had to be, as far as the business was concerned, entirely indifferent to me. I only inquired who his legal successor was, and when I heard that his widow continued the business with authorisation of the other heirs, I for my part saw no reason to worry.

Then, something surprising happened. Mrs. Pauline Münchmeyer sent me a messenger, who had been instructed to draw out of me, whether I might be inclined to write a new novel for her. This messenger was also an "ex-convict". I sent him away, without allowing him to successfully complete his task, not giving any special though to the reason for his errant. At this time, I did not know what I found out only much later, which was that Münchmeyers were not as splendidly to do as I thought. A family meeting had been held, and the decision had been reached that the situation should be improved by a new novel by Karl May. I had neither the time nor the inclination to write it, but decided, in case the attempt would be repeated, to enter into negotiations regardless, to find out something definite about the success of my previous novels. And the repetition of the attempt came. Mrs. Münchmeyer herself called on us in person. She visited us repeatedly. She made her request. She even offered to pay the royalties in advance. She also sent Walter, the factotum, and had him write letters. I informed them that I would not be able to deliver anything new, before the issue of the older novels was not full resolved. First of all, I simply had to know the current number of subscribers of my five novels; there had to be much more than twenty thousand by now. Mrs. Münchmeyer promised to inform me. She invited me and my wife for dinner at her place, in order to give me this information there. We came. She confessed that those twenty thousand had been reached, and even for all novels, not just one of them; but a precise calculation would have to be done first, and this would be so immensely difficult and time consuming in the colportage business. So, I should be patient. As far as my rights were concerned, they were hereby mine again, I could now fully use these novels for my own purposes. Then, I asked her to send me my manuscripts, based on which I would have them typeset and printed. She said they had been burnt; in their place, she would send me the printed novels and would have them, as a special favour for me, bound in leather, first. This was done. A short time later, the books came in the mail; I was again in control of my works - - - so I thought! Of course, it had been impossible for me to publish them right away, since those written for Pustet had to come out first. So, I put these books aside for the time being, without being able to devote any time to an examination of their contents. I had reached my purpose, and writing a new novel was no longer up for discussion. Nothing was heard from Mrs. Münchmeyer any more. I attributed this to the fact that now those "fine gratifications" were due, the payment of which she was trying to avoid by keeping silent about it. But I did not force the issue; I had more work to do and could do without the money, if need be. I do not want to omit the fact that my wife, during all of this time, made every effort to keep me from being strict in my business affairs against Mrs. Münchmeyer. This preference of hers for Münchmeyer and his widow constitutes the main reason for the otherwise incomprehensible forbearance I practised.

I was just about to begin a long journey to the Orient, when I found out that Mrs. Münchmeyer wanted to sell her business. Right away, I wrote her a letter, warning her against selling my novels along with it. I explained to her everything relating to this and started my journey in upper Egypt. After I had returned from there to Cairo, I found letters awaiting me there, from which I found out that the sale had gone through in spite of my warning; the buyer's [a] name was Fischer. I did not hesitate to write to this gentleman. He answered me in a colporteur's tone that he had bought the Münchmeyer business only on account of the novels by Karl May. All the rest would not be worth anything. He would exploit this work of mine as much as he possibly could and sue me for damages, if I would obstruct him in doing so. This tone caught my attention. This was a style which is usually only used on very worthless individuals. Probably, I had been described to this Mr. Fischer, who was perfectly unknown to me, in a way which caused him to be thus disrespectful. I wrote to my wife that she should, instantly and in as much detail as possible, give me an report about this case. For this purpose, I gave her the precise route of my journey. For six weeks, I waited in Cairo, fourteen days in Beirut, several weeks in Jerusalem. I wrote and telegraphed, but in vain; no report came. Finally, I received a few lines, in which she told me that she had been to Paris, but nothing further. When in Massawa, the capitol of Eritrea by the Red Sea, my Arabian servant brought me the mail, I was confronted with a huge pile of German newspapers, from which I, not having suspected a thing, learnt what had taken place at home in the meantime against me. Fischer had taken advantage of my absence by starting an illustrated edition of my Münchmeyer novels, and in doing so he sounded the trumpets of advertisement in such a manner that everyone's attention had to be drawn towards this project. My name had been given, though I had written these novels under pseudonym, with only one exception, and had imposed the obligation on Münchmeyer, not to disclose this pseudonym under any circumstances. At the same time, it turned out that the novels were supposed to be published in revised versions. I became terribly scared. I wrote home and instructed a friend there, whom I could trust completely, to seek the assistance of a lawyer and to conduct my case until I would return home, if necessary even in court.

[a] The original book reads "Verkäufer" instead of "Käufer" . This must be a misprint.

This friend's name was Richard Plöhn, and he was the owner of the "Sächsische Verbandstoffabrik" in Radebeul, which he had founded. You will soon understand why I am going to talk about him for a while. He had an extraordinarily happy marriage. His family only consisted of him, his wife, and his mother-in-law. We were such close friends, that we called each other "Du" [a] and, in an manner of speaking, formed one single family. But to call not just me, but also my wife "Du", was something Plöhn simply could not bring himself to do. He assured me that this would be impossible for him. Mrs. Plöhn is now my wife. Therfore, I am not permitted to talk about her characteristics or even her outstanding qualities. The latter ones were purely pertaining to her soul. My first wife had never read any of my books. The purpose and contents of my writings was just as unknown and indifferent to her as my goals and ideals in general. But Mrs. Plöhn was an enthusiastic reader of mine and had a very solemn and deep understanding for all of my hopes, wishes, and intentions. Her husband was happy about this. He saw my struggle, my tireless work, often up to three times a week all night long, no helping hand, no warm glance, no encouraging word; my soul was alone, alone, alone as always and at all times. This pained him. Through his wife, he tried to persuade mine, to at least take care of the disrupting task of answering the mail, but in vain. Then, he asked me to permit his wife to do this; this would be a great joy for her and him. I permitted these two, good people to do so. From this time on, my correspondence was in the hands of Mrs. Plöhn. Thousands of readers received answers signed "Emma May", without knowing that it had not been my wife, but a sisterly helper, who had eased my burden. More and more, she worked herself into the world of my thoughts and my mail, so that finally, I could, with every confidence, leave the entire correspondence up to her. Her husband was proud of it. Almost even prouder was her mother a very hard working, down to earth woman, accustomed to a simple life, who would have liked so very much to lend a hand, if it had been possible, for she also possessed a soul which would not want to stay in the lower reaches, but was seeking to rise upwards.

[a] See my footnote in chapter V. "Du" is the informal German word for "you", which is only used to address close friends, relatives, and children. Using it against anybody else would be a sign of disrespect and an insult.

So, it was this friend whom I instructed to take my affairs as forcefully as possible into his hands, and he did it as well as he could. He hired a lawyer from Dresden to conduct the lawsuit and informed the entire German press that I was momentarily in Asia, but would not hesitate, after my return home, to defend myself against the intended gross violation of my rights. More could not be done for the moment, because it had been impossible for me to abort my journey. From my wife, I received no news. She was incapable of dealing with such serious business matters. But the Plöhns wrote, though those letters only caught up with me in Padang, on the island of Sumatra. They contained alarming news. The press had started to write about my Münchmeyer novels, and had done this in a manner which was unfavourable for me. Rumours were spread about me, which were partially ridiculous, partially unscrupulous. The newspapers wrote that I was not in the Orient at all, but that I was hiding, on account of a malignant disease, in the iodine resort Bad Tölz, in upper Bavaria. If I had suspected that this would go on in this deceitful, hateful, and vicious manner for an entire decade, I would have interrupted my journey after all and would have returned home as quickly as possible. If I had done this, I would have been spared all this inhumane torture and pains, which I have suffered during this long time. But unfortunately, I did not know yet at this time what had happened to my novels and what had been the guiding ideas concerning me, which were going around in Münchmeyer's business and are still going around today. I believed that I could still settle the matter from afar and thought that I needed to do nothing more than to get precise information, from which the steps to be taken would have to result. Thus, I wrote home that my wife should come to Egypt with the Plöhns, where I would meet them in Cairo. They came, though much later than planned, because Plöhn had become ill on the way. What I found out from them did not sound favourable at all, and it furthermore struck me as very unspecific. The lawyer was still in the earliest stages of preparing the case. Fischer had declared that he would fight back with all possible means; he had bought my novels from Mrs. Münchmeyer; they were his righteously purchased property, payed for in cash, with which he could do whatever he wanted. The newspapers were biased against me. My Münchmeyer novels were described as trashy. I realised that a lawsuit against the Münchmeyers was unavoidable, and asked my wife for the documents I would need for this.

I have already said that I had kept Münchmeyer's letters. Their contents had constituted such strong evidence in a lawsuit against Münchmeyer that I simply had to win it. These letters were, together with other thing of equal importance, kept in a specific drawer of my desk. Before my departure, I had especially informed my wife about this drawer and its contents, I had especially explained the purpose of the letters and had instructed her to make sure that not even the smallest piece of paper would get lost. When I now in Cairo asked her about these documents, she reassured me that they were still lying there just as I had entrusted them to her. Nobody had touched them. This calmed me down, because it meant a sure victory in the lawsuit. When my wife assured me of this, Mrs. Plöhn was with us and heard it. She gave her an astonished look, but said nothing. At this time, I did not particularly notice this; but later, remembering this astonished, wide-eyed, disapproving look, I knew just too well what it was meant to say. What had happened was that one evening my wife had come to Mrs. Plöhn and had told her that she had just burnt our marriage certificate, on account of the omen it constituted. And some time later, she had told her in the same laughing manner that she had now also taken the documents from the desk drawer and had burnt them; by this, she wanted to prevent me from suing the Münchmeyers. Mrs. Plöhn had been horrified by this, but was unable to change the fait accompli. Now, when she had to listen to this assurance of my wife that the letters still existed untouched, the first rupture of that internal split occurred in her, which did not become externally evident until nothing could be kept secret any more. We travelled to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and returned home via Constantinople, Greece, and Italy. During this time, my wife had, upon repeated questions, always stuck to her story that the documents were still lying, perfectly unharmed, in the drawer in question. She finally became angry and refused to permit any further mentioning of the subject. But when I came home and the first thing I did was to go to desk, I found the drawer - - - empty! Being held responsible for this, she declared that she had indeed burnt and destroyed the letters. She had always been a friend of the Münchmeyers and still was their friend today. Though she knew that I was right, she would not stand for me suing the Münchmeyers. Therefore, she had burnt the papers. You can imagine how I felt, but I controlled myself and did what I was already in the habit of doing for many years in such cases: I was quiet, took my hat, and left.

In the meantime, the attacks in the press against me had been getting more and more numerous and direct. I was accused of having written piously and indecently at the same time. I had a look at the novels, which Mrs. Münchmeyer had bound for me, and found that they diverged from my original manuscripts, they had been changed. So, that was why the manuscripts had been burnt, instead of being preserved for me! I was not supposed to be able to prove the changes! The first thing I did was that I informed the press of this and asked them to wait for the decision of the court. Then, I most quickly filed the complaint. I did not want to pursue the matter in a civil, but rather a criminal trial, but met with such an opposition from my wife in this that I gave it up. I sought advice from several lawyers, not just in Dresden, but also in Berlin and elsewhere. I would have like so much to sue them directly on account of the "abysmal indecencies", I had been accused of, but I was assured unanimously that this was impossible. A suit could not be concerned with abstract concepts, but would have to be based on material reason. Most of all, I would have to prove that I was the legitimate owner of the novels concerned, and that I therefore had the right to sue. The best thing would be to sue for a "rendering of the account". This was done.

It was about at this time that the buyer of Münchmeyer's business, Mr. Fischer, called on me. I had no reasonable reason for sending him away; he was allowed to enter. The conversation was highly interesting, from a psychological point of view as well as concerning the lawsuit. Fischer did not at all conceal the fact that he knew that I had been to prison. He remarked that whoever had such a skeleton in his closet would do very well to refrain from going to court, otherwise the matter might very easily come out differently than one might think. My novels would now be his property. They had already been changed before, and now he would have them rewritten once more, just as it would please him. If I would conduct a lawsuit against him, this could take more than ten years; but until then, I would be long since ruined. But he had come to extend his hand to me, to avoid all this trouble. I was supposed to pay him seventy thousand marks, then he would give my novels up and surrender them to me with all rights included. Then, it would be easy for me to silence the entire excitement of the press against me with a single stroke. He would be offering me his help in this. He would know more than I would suspect. He knew the entire Münchmeyer business. He had been told everything. But he could not give the rights up for less than seventy thousand marks, since he had payed one hundred and seventy-five thousand marks.

It goes without saying that I did not go along with this suggestion. I made clear to him that I would not give a single pfennig and that I was firmly resolved to sue. So, he wanted to know whom I would sue, him or Münchmeyer's widow. He would advise me to do the latter, because, in this case, he could probably testify in my favour, for he was not at all satisfied with this woman, but was rather constantly arguing with her. After this, he left with the warning that I should be so very careful concerning my prior convictions.

I was willing to sue Mrs. Münchmeyer. But my wife and, probably as a consequence of this, my lawyer also urged me to refrain from this. Thus, Fischer was sued. But as it seemed, the widow did not feel like having herself excluded from this legal action. She joined in as a co-intervener [a] and has remained my opponent up to this day. I succeeded in obtaining an injunction against Fischer, which prohibited him from continuing to print my novels. He was only allowed to complete the series. Being in this situation, which was very critical for him, he came to talk to my lawyer and complained about the loss he was going to suffer on account of this; it would already amount to forty thousand marks. If this would not stop, he would even have to use very different means to defend himself than he had used up to now, and he would have to destroy me in the eyes of all of Germany by publishing my prior convictions in all the newspapers. When my lawyer informed me of this threat, it all became so very clear to me; I started to comprehend and felt obliged to probe this terrain. A meeting between Fischer and myself was arranged, in a private room of a wine-tavern, just the two of us. There, he talked openly. He told me everything he had found out from the Münchmeyers about me and my novels during the negotiation of the sale. I found out about their entire battle plan, of which I did not have a clue before. He had been let to believe that I had been to prison for having had intimate contact with schoolgirls as a teacher. This would fit perfectly with the allegations in the newspapers that I had written indecent novels. This only had to be published, then I would be destroyed forever. Now, I was a famous man and would have to avoid such publications; they knew this just as well I