The thing hiding in the alleys and shops of the world--the dark, furtive
hungers that Russia was thawing into life, emerged on a bright April day
in the streets of Munich. Working men with guns. A sweep of
spike-haired, deep-eyed troglodytes from the underworld of labor.
Factories, shops, and alleys vomited them forth. Farm hovels and
stinking bundles of houses sent them singing and roaring down the
forbidden avenues, past the forbidden sanctuaries of satrap and burgher.
From behind curtained windows the upper world looked on with amazement
and disgust. A topsy-turvy April morning. A Spring day gone mad. Here
were the masses celebrated in pamphlet and soap-box oration. An ungodly
spectacle, an overturning. Grinning earth faces, roaring earth voices
come swaggering into the hallowed precincts of civilization. Workingmen
with guns marching to take possession of the world. An old tableau
decked with new phrases--the underfed barbarian at the gate of the
grainary.
The singing and the roaring continued through the morning.
"_Es lebe die Welt Revolution!_ _Es lebe das Rate Republik!_ _Hoch!_
_die soviet von Bayern_ ... _Hoch!_ _Hoch!_"
From the twisting, blackened streets, "_Hoch!_" Men and women squeezing
aimlessly around corners. Closely packed drifts of bobbing heads. A
crack of rifles dropping punctuations into the scene. "_Hoch!_ _Hoch!_"
from faces clustered darkly about the grimacing, inaudible orators in
the squares.
Red flags, red placards like a swarm of confetti on the walls and in the
air. A holiday war.... The morning hours marched away.
With noon, a silence gradually darkened the scene. A silence of
shuffling feet and murmuring tongues. The revolution had sung its songs.
An end of songs and cheerings. Drifting, silent masses. An ominous,
enigmatic sweep of faces. Red placards under foot in cubist designs down
the streets.
The afternoon waned, the hundred thousands closed in. Darkness was
coming and the pack was welding itself together. Rifles were beginning.
Machine-guns were beginning. Holiday was over. Quieter streets. The
orators become audible. Still faces, raised and listening. The orators
had news to give.... One of the garrisons had gone over to the soviets.
Two garrisons had vanished. Treachery. A long murmur ... treachery. The
armies of General Hoffmann were marching upon Munich ... twenty
kilometers from Munich. They would arrive in the night. ... "We will
show them, comrades, whether the revolution has teeth to bite as well as
a song to sing."
A growl was running through the twilight.... _Es lebe das Rate
Republik!_ A fierce whisper of voices. Workingmen looking to their guns,
massing about the government buildings. A new war minister in the
uniform of a marine, speaking from a balcony. Workingmen with guns,
listening. Women drifting back to the hovels and stinking bundles of
houses. In the cafés, satraps and burghers eating amid a suppressed
clamor of whispers, plans. The foolishness was almost over. The armies
of General Hoffmann were coming ... Twenty kilometers out.... Arrive at
night. The corps students themselves would saber the swine out of the
city....
Night. Darkened streets. Tattered patrols hurrying through mysteriously
emptied highways, shouting, "Indoors! Inside, everybody!" Suddenly from
a distance the bay of artillery. Workingmen with guns were storming the
cannon of the artillery regiment outside the city. A haphazard
cross-fire of rifles began to spit from darkened windows ... an upper
world showing its teeth behind parlor barricades.
In the shadows of the massive government buildings an army was forming.
No ranks, no officers. Easy to drift through the sunny streets singing
the _Marseillaise_ and the International ... to mooch along through the
forbidden avenues dreaming in the daylight of a new world ... with red
flags proclaiming the new masters of earth. Hundred thousands, then. But
now, how many? Too dark to see, to count. An army, perhaps. Perhaps a
handful....
Feverish salutes in the shadows.... "_Gruss Gott, genosse!_"
Was it alive? Did the revolution live? What was happening in the empty
streets? Who was shooting? And the armies of Hoffmann? _Gruss Gott,
genosse._ Under Rupprecht the armies had lain four years in the
trenches. Great armies, swinging along like a single man, that had once
battered their way almost into Paris against the English, against the
French.
"_Gruss Gott, genosse._ _Hoffmann kommt_ ... _Ja wohl, Gruss Gott!_"
Now twenty kilometers away and coming down the highroad against
Munich--against the drifting little clusters of lonely men whispering in
the shadows--the great armies of the Kaiser, an iron monster clicking
down the road toward Munich. Would there be artillery to meet them?
_Gruss Gott, genosse, wer shusst dort?_ No, they had only guns, old guns
that might not shoot. Old knives at their belts.... Darkness and
rifle-spattered silences. Where was the revolution? The shadows
whispered, "_Gruss Gott...._"
The shadows began to stir. A voice was talking in the night. High up
from a window. Egelhofer, the communist. No, Levine. Who? A light in
the window.... Egelhofer, thin-faced, tall, black-haired. Egelhofer, the
new war minister. 'Shh! what was he saying?... "_Vorwaerts, der
Banhoff...._"
Yes, the armies of Hoffmann had come. The shadows stirred wildly.
Forward ... _es lebe die Welt Revolution!_ This time a battle-cry,
hoarse, shaking. Men were running. Workingmen with guns, guns that would
shoot ... _"Der Banhoff ... der Banhoff...."_
The shadows were emptying themselves. A pack was running. Two abreast,
three abreast, in broken strings of men. Groups, solitary figures,
hatless, bellowing. The revolution was moving. The empty streets filled.
An army? A handful? Let God show in the morning. Workingmen with guns
were running through the night. Munich was shaking.... "_Der Banhoff,
genosse, vorwaerts!_"
The revolution was emptying itself into the great square fronting the
station. Little lights twinkling outside the ancient weinstubes began to
explode. There must be darkness. Pop!... pop!... a rattle of glass. A
blaze of shooting. The railroad station was firing now.
"_Es lebe das Rate Republik!_" from the darkness in the streets. A sweep
of figures across the open square. Arms twisting, leaping in sudden
glares of flame. The revolution hurled itself with a long cry upon the
barricades of thundering lead.
In the single lighted window of the government buildings a face still
spoke ... _"Ich bin Egelhofer, ihr Krieg's minister ... Ich komm...."_
Waving a rifle over his head, the war minister rushed from the building.
A marine from Kiel. A new pack loosened itself from the shadows. A war
minister was leading.
Moving swiftly through the streets, Dorn hurried to the seat of the new
government--the Wittelbacher Palais. Von Stinnes was waiting there. He
had been delayed in joining the Baron by the sudden upheaval about the
hotel.
The wave had passed. Almost safe now to skirt the scene of battle and
make a try for the Palais. As he darted out of the darkened hotel
entrance, the thing seemed for a moment under his nose. An oppressive
intimacy of tumult.
"They're at the station," he thought. "I'll have to hurry in case they
fall back."
He ran quickly in an opposite direction followed by the leap of firing.
Several blocks, and he paused. Here was safety. The revolution a good
half-mile off. He walked slowly, recovering breath. The street was
lighted. Shop windows blinked out upon the pavements. A few stragglers
walked like himself, intent upon destinations made serious by the near
sound of firing. An interesting evening, thus far. A stout, red-faced
man with a heavily ornamented vest followed the figure of a woman. Dorn
smiled. Biology versus politics.... "Excuse me, pretty one, you look
lonely...." A charwoman. Black, sagging clothes. Dorn passed and heard
her exclaim, "Who, me? You ask me to go with you? Dear God, he asks me!
I am an honest workingwoman. Run along with you!" The woman, walking
swiftly, drew alongside. She was chuckling and muttering to herself, a
curious pride in her voice, "He asked me, dear God--me!"
The abrupt sound of rifle-fire around the corner startled her. Dorn
halted. The woman turned toward him, puzzled.
"They are shooting a whole lot to-night," she spoke in German.
"Quite a lot," he answered.
She looked back at the red-faced man who had remained where she had left
him.
"What do you think of that dunce?" she whispered, and hurried on.
Dorn followed leisurely in the direction of the Palais.