Petersburg. In the various rooms various committees were meeting. Mrs. Hölthohne, Lotte Hoyser, and Dr. Scholsdorff constituted what they called the Finance Committee, whose job it was to examine the extent of Leni’s financial plight, records of seized articles, notices of eviction, etc. With the cooperation of the Helzens, Mehmet the Turk, and Pinto the Portuguese, it had been possible to get hold of letters, etc., that Leni had wickedly hidden, unopened, in the drawer of her bedside table and later, when that was full, in the lower section of her bedside table. Pelzer was attached to this triumvirate as a kind of general chief of staff. Schirtenstein’s function, together with Hans Helzen, Grundtsch, and Bogakov (who had been brought along by Lotte in a taxi), was to deal with “social action.” M.v.D. had taken on the catering, which meant preparing sandwiches, potato salad, hard-boiled eggs, and tea. Like so many samovar-laymen she was under the impression that tea is actually made in a samovar, but Bogakov familiarized her with the functions of a samovar, a giant apparatus that had been delivered to Schirtenstein’s apartment, so he told them, by an unknown donor, with a typed note saying: “For the many thousands of times you have played ‘Lili Marleen.’ From someone you know.”
What do You think about Group Portrait With Lady (2011)?
