Franz takes over Reinhold’s female companion

Franz takes over Reinhold’s female companion through a sequence of handoffs that begins with Fränze and leads to Cilly. The exchanges bring the men close again, but their comic rituals—especially the oversized boots—also make women’s lives look like pieces of property passed between friends. What Franz treats as a good turn becomes a recurring arrangement in which each woman’s wishes matter less than the men’s amusement and convenience.

Reinhold’s request

Franz has been visiting Reinhold more often on Prenzlauer Street. Reinhold, recognizable by his old army greatcoat, stammers so badly that speech takes time to force out; his large, pleading eyes make him seem especially vulnerable. The contrast amuses Franz: this is the young man who once nearly blew up a gasworks, yet now appears helpless in the face of a relationship he no longer wants.

Reinhold tells Franz that he has fallen out of love with the wife of a brewery delivery driver. She had already left her husband for Reinhold, but Reinhold says he has repeatedly tried to end the relationship and she cannot accept it. He presents the prospect of keeping her for life as an absurd burden. Franz laughs at the difficulty Reinhold makes of the situation, then agrees to take Fränze off his hands. The arrangement is framed as a favor, and both men are pleased with it.

The next day Fränze brings Franz a pair of stout boots Reinhold has sent. Franz privately imagines the boots as Reinhold’s payment, comparing the exchange to thirty pieces of silver. That evening he accompanies Fränze to look for Reinhold, who is absent as planned. Fränze is furious; Franz calms her in his room. The following morning she returns to Reinhold and says she no longer needs him because she has found someone else, while refusing to name that person. Franz then arrives at Reinhold’s wearing the new boots. Because they are too large, he has put on two pairs of wool socks. The men embrace and slap each other on the back, sealing the transfer as a joke between friends.

Fränze in Franz’s household

Fränze falls in love with Franz and moves in with him. He is pleased by her newly discovered capacity for affection and watches her settle into domestic routines, including mending his underpants and socks. Her care for the boots becomes the joke’s refrain: she cleans them in the morning, including Reinhold’s boots, which are still in Franz’s possession. Franz laughs that they are too large for one person and claims that both of them could fit inside. When they actually try to share one boot, they discover that his boast is an exaggeration.

The boots make the exchange tangible. Fränze has brought them at Reinhold’s request, but they become part of the household she establishes with Franz; at the same time, their size keeps the absent Reinhold present as an object of laughter. Franz’s ease in receiving the boots and the woman together turns a fraught change of partners into a domestic comedy. The humor belongs chiefly to the men, however: Fränze’s departure from her husband and Reinhold is treated as the starting point for their amusement rather than as a choice they explore on her terms.

From Fränze to Ede

Reinhold soon has another girlfriend, Cilly, and asks Franz whether he has got rid of Fränze yet. Franz denies having promised to do so. He says he likes Fränze and does not want to find another companion until spring; she has no summer clothes, and he cannot afford to buy her any. The exchange shows that Franz’s attachment is real enough to delay the next handoff, but his explanation still measures the relationship through practical arrangements and clothing.

Fränze eventually makes clear that she feels foolish beside Franz, is short of breath, and intends to find another man. Franz responds by going straight to Ede, a little hunchback, to ask whether he will take her. Ede sees an advantage in the arrangement: he plans to stop working, claim sick pay, and have Fränze do his shopping. He is explicit that he does not want to settle down with her.

The next day Franz and Fränze quarrel over something trivial. She erupts, and Franz shouts back gleefully. Within an hour the relationship is over: Ede helps Fränze pack, Franz leaves in a rage, and she moves in with Ede because she has nowhere else to go. Ede then goes to a doctor and gets himself signed off sick. That night the two complain about Franz. The episode’s quick resolution gives the handoff a material consequence: Ede expects Fränze’s labor and the benefit of her shopping, while she is left in the new household after the men have arranged their convenience.

Cilly and the returning joke

Cilly next arrives at Franz’s carrying a fur collar for him, sent by Reinhold. She innocently assumes that Franz is a close friend of Reinhold’s. Franz plays along, presenting the collar and the earlier boots as clothes Reinhold passes on when he has too many. He finds the boots Fränze left behind and asks Cilly to judge their size. The joke turns into physical play: Cilly puts her feet into the oversized boots, Franz slips one foot in behind her, and she tries to run while the two of them hop and topple together.

Cilly begs Franz not to tell Reinhold about what has happened between them. He agrees, and that night she arrives to stay. She brings a nearly new coat with a fur trim and dancing shoes, among other clothes Reinhold has given her on credit. The progression repeats the earlier pattern: Reinhold’s companion comes to Franz with clothing, Franz welcomes her, and the men’s friendship absorbs the change as a private joke. Cilly’s request for secrecy indicates that the transfer is not simply an openly agreed arrangement among all three.

Franz is delighted and admiring whenever he meets Reinhold, though he worries about the end of the month, when Reinhold may speak to him again. When Reinhold approaches him at the Alexanderplatz underground station near Landsberger Street and asks about his plans for the evening, Franz accepts the invitation. Reinhold proposes going to the Salvation Army meeting on Dresdener Straße to listen. Their walk together marks the immediate continuation of their renewed intimacy beyond the women’s exchanges. The episode leaves that closeness uneasy: the boots and clothes make the transfers funny to Franz and Reinhold, while the women are repeatedly expected to move between households shaped by male decisions.