The Button Collection
By Hanns Heinz Ewers
(Die Knopfsammlung 1916)
Translation by Joe E. Bandel 2009
Copyright 2009 by Joe E. Bandel
Protected under United States Copyright Law as a derivative work of a foreign Author originally published prior to 1923 and now in the Public Domain.
Mimi Hatzeforn made a mighty career for herself. She started out as a waitress in a mediocre café and worked there for a year. She didn’t make very good tips and needed to sew on the side to earn a few extra pennies. Her customers were mostly students and actors and had damned few pennies of their own!
Then came a bit of luck. A lieutenant on the premises made a big scene and in a fit of jealous rage shot her with a revolver. When he realized what he had done he put a second bullet through his own head. It was not honorably done but Mimi only received a little wound in her arm. She had the right instincts though and threw herself wailing on the corpse of the lieutenant whom she had at one time madly loved. Later she accompanied the corpse to the train station. As it was taken away, Mimi stood there sobbing in an attractive black dress of mourning that she had made. She was very talented and didn’t have long to wait for a comforter.
The handsome Baron Hohenthal II, Charge of Franconia, quickly took her away from the train station on a little honeymoon trip. The Baron soon returned but it was three years before Mimi came back to Munich and then her name wasn’t Mimi Hatzeforn any more. It was Mia Bienavant. She didn’t come alone either. She had an aunt, a French Chambermaid and a large purse full of money.
She had been to Baden-Baden, Interlaken and Nizza. From there she had made a delightful trip to Paris with a lady friend. Mia had it made and grasped with phenomenal insight the intricacies and duties of her trade. The little lady from Munich was perpetually sought after by the English and American women for her fashion designs. After three months she was seen riding around the Bois de Boulogne in her touring car. Jealous eyes coveted the new hat she had designed. She wanted to continue up the Isar but found a German attaché waiting with word that she must finally return to Munich and her worthy patron.
Mia Bienavant lived in a charming villa on Keith Street. She had huge receptions with officers, artists, jurists and writers always coming and going, but not any more students. Mia was delightful. She patronized the young artists, had literary and musical evenings in her home. She set the finest wine in front of her guests and because of that always had plenty of guests.
Women from Paris or New York were always coming to see her. Her portrait was in the finest style of the modern art movement; her auto was the fastest in all of Bavaria. Since the days of Lola Montez no Lady in Munich had ever been so talked about. Every street urchin spoke of her travels, every beauty on Kaufinger Street knew what she wore, every waitress told stories and jokes about Mia and everyone in Munich knew the corner and the villa where she lived.
But there is something about her that no one else knows, only I alone. It is why I am not so passionate about this lady from Munich as the others. Let me quickly explain. Mia has a button collection.
I knew a courtesan in Florence that cut off a lock of hair from all of her lovers. She had brown, black, blonde and even snow-white locks of hair. Another beauty that lived in Berlin had a large box full of coins from all lands and each one had initials engraved in it. The dark Ellen Brunkhorst that now owns the large music hall in Amsterdam has an enormous wardrobe full of handkerchiefs, large ones of sackcloth and soft ones of linen and silk. Many are embroidered with Initials, some have a coat of arms and others have crowns on them, beautiful seven and nine pointed crowns.
Mia didn’t collect locks of hair, coins or handkerchiefs. She had a button collection. None of her lovers knew about it. She never asked for the buttons. She stole them secretly, when-
Earlier, she took them herself, now she had Susan, her chambermaid take them. I learned about her secret from Susan. She had been born on the Montmartre and I knew her when she was a child. I bought violet bouquets from her for our cabaret. Of all the guests in Mia’s house I am the only one she has told this secret to. This is how it happened.
Yesterday I wanted to have tea at Mia’s but I was delayed and everyone had already left for the Octoberfest by the time I got there. I was very annoyed and complained.
That’s when Susan called out, “If you are nice I’ll tell you something.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s a secret, a secret!”
Then she pulled me into the Boudoir of her mistress. She opened the wardrobe, pulled out a drawer and took a little chest out of it.
“My Lady has forgotten the key, would you like to see?”
She shook with laughter. I opened it. Inside lay a large assortment of round pieces of cardboard all covered in red, blue, yellow and green velvet. Each one had a trouser button carefully sewn onto it.
I took out a button. It said “For Gentlemen” on it. That certainly belonged to a waiter. The second had W.f.A.u.M.G.o.V on it. Aha, Warehouse for Army and Marine, German Officer, probably the Lieutenant’s. The next was a horn button that had most certainly been something else before it became a trouser button. It must have belonged to a student! Another said, “Gabriel Schöllhorn”, he was the finest tailor in Munich so it belonged to a banker as well! A tarnished brass button had “Fritz Blasberg, Master Tailor” on it. That belonged to a rich Manor owner, a Baron perhaps, not quite as good as the crown of Ellen Brunkhorst but still notable. Another read, “Made in Germany”. That most certainly once belonged to a true son of Scotland.
There was one other button that I recognized right away-
“Look there!” Susan laughed.
Brr. I was ashamed of my own poor button among so many others. I will not be indiscrete. I will not tell how many there were, but-
