The eleventh commandment: Don’t let ’em fool you

The eleventh commandment, “Don’t let ’em fool you,” names Franz Biberkopf’s resolve to guard himself from further demands. In the passage, the slogan turns suspicion and exhaustion into a private rule: he will not be drawn in, and he will give no more.

The Phrase and Its Form

The commandment is introduced as a deliberately informal maxim: “The 11th commandment says: Don’t let ’em fool you.” Calling it a commandment lends the warning the sound of an absolute rule, while the colloquial “’em” keeps it rooted in Franz Biberkopf’s own blunt idiom. The phrase is not presented as an established religious teaching; it is his improvised addition to the commandments, a compact formula for mistrust.

The Decision Behind the Rule

The maxim accompanies a decision not to get involved with the people whose faces Franz Biberkopf has been looking into as he smiles, asks questions, and replies. He remains seated on the sofa, but internally draws a line between courteous participation and actual involvement. His insistence that he has done all he can makes the commandment a boundary against further obligation, not merely a general warning about deception.

Exhaustion and Refusal

The passage places the rule beside the claim that a person can give no more and is not a machine. A pump stuck in the sand supplies the image of effort continuing without result: others may keep working at it, but Franz Biberkopf declares that no more work will be done. The repeated insistence on going to bed, whether one has a bed or not, brings the refusal down to bodily limits and bare necessity.

The Unresolved Accounting

Franz Biberkopf’s thought about drawing retirement pay without having a pension complicates the maxim’s appeal to self-protection. He notices the contradiction slyly, but the passage does not explain it. Set beside his refusal to give more, this odd accounting leaves the commandment suspended between a clear decision to withdraw and a logic that remains unresolved.