He always wore a black cut-away suit of dubious vintage. Apparently he could never spare enough money to buy a new suit, although I learned one day that at fairly regular intervals he received comparatively large sums – from one to several thousand marks – through the simple expedient of marrying, and shortly after, divorcing, some lady who craved the distinction of his noble name and was willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, when he received his reward, it was usually far exceeded by the amount of the debts he had accumulated since his last divorce. Evil tongues had it that the number of the ladies involved in these brief marital interludes had grown so alarmingly that they could easily have made up a Sultan's harem.〔Lasker, Edward (1951). ''Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters'', pp 20-21, in the section on Curt von Bardeleben. New York, 1951. Retrieved from http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter55.html.〕