our “business man’s lunch.” The clients were wholesale merchants,
brokers, lawyers, and the like. In its furnishings the place was rather
sumptuous, but as much cannot be said of its food. My own luncheon
consisted of a turnip soup, roast veal (a mere shaving of it, as
tasteless as deteriorated rubber), with one potato, a “German
beefsteak,” some inedible mystery dubbed “lemon pudding,” and a small
bottle of water—beer was no longer served in this establishment. The
bill, including the customary forced tip, was nineteen mk. eighty, and
the scornful attitude of the waiter proved that it was considerably less
than the average. Even here the majority of the dishes were some species
of _Ersatz_, and the meat itself was so undernourished that it had
virtually no nourishment to pass on. Of ten pounds of it, according to
the wholesale butcher who sat opposite me, at least five disappeared in
the cooking. Finish such a meal at one and you were sure to be ragingly
hungry by three. Yet there was less evidence of “profiteering” in
establishments of this kind in Berlin than I had expected. The ice-cold
bottle of mineral water, for instance, cost forty-five pfennigs, a mere
four cents to foreigners. The German does not seem to go over his entire
stock daily and mark it higher in price irrespective of its cost to him,
as in Paris and, I fear, in our own beloved land.
But there was one restaurant in Berlin where a real meal, quite free
from _Ersatz_, could still be had, by those who could pay for it—the
famous Borchardt’s in Französischerstrasse. Situated in the heart of the
capital, in the very shadow of the government that issues those stern
decrees against “underground” traffic in foodstuffs, it was protected by
the rich and influential, and by the same government officials whose
legal duty it was to suppress it. Admittance was only by personal
introduction, as to a gambling club. The only laws this establishment
obeyed were in the serving of bread and the use of paper in place of
table linen. Meatless days meant nothing to its chefs; many articles
specifically forbidden in restaurants were openly served to its
fortunate guests. It depended, of course, entirely on _Schleichhandel_
for its supplies. Among the clients, on the evening in question, were
generals out of uniform, a noted dealer in munitions, a manufacturer of
army cloth, several high government officials, two or three Allied
correspondents, and Bernsdorff’s right-hand “man” in several of his
American trickeries—in a silky green gown that added to the snaky effect
of her serpent-like eyes. It was she who “fixed” so thoroughly the
proposed attack on us from Mexico during the early days of 1917.
Four of us dined together, and this is a translation of the bill:
Cover (tablecloth and napkins, or paper) 2.50 Marks
Two bottles of Yquem 90.
Wine tax on same 18.
Half-bottle Lafanta (ordinary wine) 13.50
Tax on same 2.60
Hors-d’œuvre (radishes, foie gras, etc.) 150.
Roast veal (very ordinary) 80.
Potatoes (cost, 1 mark in the market) 12.50
Asparagus (plentiful in Berlin) 54.
Charlotte (a tasteless dessert) 20.
Ice 6.
Bread (one very thin slice each—black) .60
Cigars (three horrible cabbages) 18.
Butter 4.
——————
471.20
10 per cent. for service 47.15
——————
Total 518.35
Thankfully received, May 8, 1919
FRITZ REICH.
At that day’s rate of exchange this amounted to something over forty
dollars; at the pre-war rate, which was still in force so far as the
German clients were concerned, it was about one hundred and twenty-five
dollars. Small wonder the clientèle was “select” and limited.
Before we end this round of restaurants let us settle with the waiters.
About the time of the revolution the majority of them refused to have
their income any longer subject to the whims of clients, a movement
which had spread through all the larger cities of unoccupied Germany. In
most eating-places a charge of “10 per cent. for service” was now added
to the bill; in a few cases it ran as high as 25 per cent. How soon they
will be demanding 100 per cent. is a question I cannot answer. There
were suggestions that before long they will expect to get free-will tips
in addition to the forced contribution, especially after the first flock
of American tourists descends upon the Fatherland. In many hotels the
bills were stamped “10 per cent. added” so faintly that the unsuspecting
new-comer was often overgenerous by mistake. At some establishments the
waiter was required to inform the guest that the service fee had been
included, but the majority labored under no such compulsion, and those
who did frequently whispered the information so hurriedly that only ears
sharpened by financial worries could catch it. Another favorite trick
was to find it so difficult to make change that the busy client finally
stalked out without it. The advantages to the customer of this system
were dubious; the waiters, on the whole, seem to like the new
arrangement. “We may not get any more,” I was assured in a wide variety
of cases, “or even as much; but at least we know what we are getting.”
Some of the clan seemed to do their best, in their quiet, phlegmatic
way; others took full advantage of the fact that, like physicians, they
got their fees, anyway, no matter how poor the service. As is the
tendency among the laboring class the world over, the fellows were
inclined greatly to overrate their importance in these new days of
“democracy.” Formerly they were quite content to be addressed as
“_Kellner_,” and their chief answered with alacrity to the call of
“_Ober Kellner_.” To-day the wise diner summons the most humble of the
serving personnel with a respectful, gently modulated “_Herr Ober_.”
The question of _Schleichhandel_, or food trickery, had grown disturbing
all over Germany, particularly so in Berlin. It is undeniable that those
with plenty of money could still get enough to eat, irrespective both of
the law and of the general supply, though by so doing they abetted
profiteering, hoarding, smuggling, and several other species of
rascality. Perhaps it was not worth while for the government to expend
its energies in combating the illegal traffic in foodstuffs, which,
compared with the whole problem, was a minor matter and might involve a
struggle with the most influential citizens. More likely the higher
officials feared that an honest inquiry would disclose their own
bedraggled skirts. The newspapers of the capital teemed with such
paragraphs as the following:
SCHLEICHHANDEL WITH POTATOES
In the past two months not only has underhand dealing become far
more prevalent, but the prices of articles affected by it have
greatly increased. We now have the common circumstance that wares in
no way to be had legally are offered openly for sale in
_Schleichhandel_, so that the expression “_Schleich_” (slippery,
underground) is no longer true. For instance, every one knows to-day
the price of butter in _Schleichhandel_, but very few know the
official price. The government has sent out the following notice:
“The _Schleichhandel_ in potatoes has taken on an impulse that makes
the furnishing of the absolutely necessary potatoes, officially,
very seriously threatened. From many communities, especially in the
neighborhood of large cities, thousands of hundredweight of potatoes
are carried away daily by ‘hamsterers.’ At present the authorities
are chiefly contenting themselves with confiscating the improperly
purchased wares, without taking action against the improper
purchasers. A bettering of the situation can only be hoped for
through a sharper enforcement of the laws and decrees concerning
food. The potato-protective law of July 18, 1918, calls for a
punishment of a year’s imprisonment and 10,000 marks fine, or both.
For all illegal carrying off of food—and in this, of course, all
_Schleichhandel_ is included—the fine must equal twenty times the
value of the articles.”
Yet for all these threats Borchardt’s and similar establishments went
serenely on, often feeding, in all probability, the very men who issued
these notices.
Of ordinary thievery Germany also had her full share. Every better-class
hotel within the Empire displayed the following placard in a prominent
position in all rooms:
The honorable guests are warned, on account of the constantly
increasing thefts of clothing and footwear, not to leave these
articles outside the room, as was formerly the custom, for cleaning,
but to hand them over personally for that purpose directly to the
employees charged with that service, since otherwise the hotel
declines any responsibility for the loss of such articles.
VEREIN OF HOTEL OWNERS.
As to foodstuffs, thefts were constant and attended with every species
of trickery, some of them typically German in their complications.
Thieves and smugglers on the large scale were particularly fond of using
the waterways about the capital. One night the boat-watch on the Spree
detected a vessel loaded with fifty hundredweight of sugar slipping
along in the shadow of the shore. The two brothers on board, a waiter
and a druggist, announced that they had bought their cargo from a ship,
and had paid five thousand marks for it, but they were unable to explain
how the ship had reached Berlin. They planned to dispose of the sugar
privately, “because it would cause fewer complications.”
A few days later the papers announced:
The police of Berlin report that not only native foodstuffs, but our
foreign imports, are being stolen. American flour disappears in
startling quantities. Many arrests of drivers and their helpers show
where much of it goes. It is stolen, and later most of it comes into
_Schleichhandel_. The drivers who take the flour from the boats to
the bakers are too seldom given a guardsman, and even when they are
they find friends to act as such and help them in the stealing. Even
in the finest weather the driver puts a tarpaulin over the load, and
his accomplice hides himself under it. There he fills an empty bag
he has brought along by pawing a few handfuls out of each sack of
flour and sewing them up again. Then he slips into some tavern along
the way. The number of sacks remains the same, and as our bakers are
not familiar with the fullness of American flour sacks, hundreds of
hundredweight of flour are lost this way daily. In spite of many
arrests the stealing continues.
The wildest rumors on the subject of food were current in Berlin. One of
the yellow sheets of the capital, for instance, appeared one evening
with the blatant head-line, “GOAT SAUSAGE OF CHILD FLESH!” asserting
that many Berliners were unconsciously indulging in cannibalism.
“Where,” shrieked the frenzied article, “are those one hundred and
sixty-five children who have disappeared from their homes in Berlin
during the past month, and of whom the police have found no trace? Ask
the sausage-makers of one of our worst sections of town, or taste more
carefully the next ‘goat sausage’ you buy so cheaply in some of our less
reputable shops and restaurants....” To my astonishment, I found no
small number of the populace taking this tale seriously.
I have it from several officers of the American shipping board that
affairs were still worse along the Kiel Canal and in the northern ports
than in Berlin. At Emden, where there were even “vinegar tickets,” and
along the canal the inhabitants were ready to sell anything,
particularly nautical instruments, for which Germany has now so little
use, for food—though not for money. Even the seagulls were said to
abandon their other activities to follow the American flag when a
food-ship came into port. Stevedores sent down into the hold broke open
the boxes and ate flour and lard by the handful, washing it down with
condensed milk. If German guards were placed over them, the only
difference was that the guards ate and drank also. Set American sentries
over them and the stevedores would strike and possibly shoot. What
remained under the circumstances but to let them battle with their share
of the national hunger in their own indigestible manner?
VIII
FAMILY LIFE IN MECHLENBURG
Two or three days after my arrival in Berlin I might have been detected
one morning in the act of stepping out of a wabbly-kneed _Droschke_ at
the Stettiner Bahnhof soon after sunrise. In the northernmost corner of
the Empire there lived—or had lived, at least, before the war—a family
distantly related to my own. I had paid them a hurried visit ten years
before. Now I proposed to renew the acquaintance, not only for personal
reasons, but out of selfish professional motives. The exact degree of
war suffering would be more easily measured in familiar scenes and
faces; moreover, the German point of view would be laid before me
frankly, without any mask of “propaganda” or suspicion.
Memories of France had suggested the possible wisdom of reaching the
station well before train-time. I might, to be sure, have purchased my
ticket in leisurely comfort at the Adlon, but for once I proposed to
take pot-luck with the rank and file. First-hand information is always
much more satisfactory than hearsay or the dilettante observation of the
mere spectator—once the bruises of the experience have disappeared. The
first glimpse of the station interior all but wrecked my resolution.
Early as I was, there were already several hundred would-be travelers
before me. From both ticket-windows lines four deep of disheveled
Germans of both sexes and all ages curved away into the farther ends of
the station wings. Boy soldiers with fixed bayonets paraded the edges of
the columns, attempting languidly and not always successfully to prevent
selfish new-comers from “butting in” out of their turn. I attached
myself to the end of the queue that seemed by a few inches the shorter.
In less than a minute I was jammed into a throng that quickly stretched
in S-shape back into the central hall of the station.
We moved steadily but almost imperceptibly forward, shuffling our feet
an inch at a time. The majority of my companions in discomfort were
plainly city people of the poorer classes, bound short distances into
the country on foraging expeditions. They bore every species of
receptacle in which to carry away their possible spoils—hand-bags,
hampers, baskets, grain-sacks, knapsacks, even buckets and toy wagons.
In most cases there were two or three of these to the person, and as no
one dreamed of risking the precious things out of his own possession,
the struggle forward suggested the writhing of a miscellaneous
scrap-heap. Women were in the majority—sallow, bony-faced creatures in
patched and faded garments that hung about their emaciated forms as from
hat-racks. The men were little less miserable of aspect, their
deep-sunk, watery eyes testifying to long malnutrition; the children who
now and then shrilled protests at being trodden underfoot were gaunt and
colorless as corpses. Not that healthy individuals were lacking, but
they were just that—individuals, in a throng which as a whole was
patently weak and anemic. The evidence of the scarcity of soap was all
but overpowering. Seven women and at least three children either fainted
or toppled over from fatigue during the two hours in which we moved a
few yards forward, and they were buffeted out of the line with what
seemed to be the malicious joy of their competitors behind. I found my
own head swimming long before I had succeeded in turning the corner that
cut off our view of the pandemonium at the ticket-window.
At eight-thirty this was suddenly closed, amid weak-voiced shrieks of
protest from the struggling column. The train did not leave until nine,
but it was already packed to the doors. Soldiers, and civilians with
military papers, were served at a supplementary window up to the last
minute before the departure. The disappointed throng attempted to storm
this wicket, only to be driven back at the point of bayonets, and at
length formed in column again to await the reopening of the public
guichets at noon.
The conversation during that three-hour delay was incessantly on the
subject of food. Some of it was good-natured; the overwhelming majority
harped on it in a dreary, hopeless grumble. Many of the women, it turned
out, were there to buy tickets for their husbands, who were still at
work. Some had spent the previous day there in vain. I attempted to ease
my wearying legs by sitting on my hamper, but querulous protests
assailed me from the rear. The gloomy seekers after food seemed to
resent every inch that separated them from their goal, even when this
was temporarily unattainable. One would have supposed that the
order-loving Germans might have arranged some system of numbered checks
that would spare such multitudes the necessity of squandering the day at
unproductive waiting in line, but the railway authorities seemed to be
overwhelmed by the “crisis of transportation.”
From noon until one the struggle raged with double fury. The boy
soldiers asserted their authority in vain. A mere bayonet-prick in the
leg was apparently nothing compared with the gnawing of continual
hunger. Individual fights developed and often threatened to become
general. Those who got tickets could not escape from the crushing
maelstrom behind them. Women were dragged unconscious from the fray,
often feet first, their skirts about their heads. The rear of the column
formed a flying wedge and precipitated a free-for-all fracas that
swirled vainly about the window. When this closed again I was still ten
feet away. I concluded that I had my fill of pot-luck, and, buffeting my
way to the outer air, purchased a ticket for the following morning at
the Adlon.
A little episode at my departure suggested that the ever-obedient German
of Kaiser days was changing in character. The second-class coach was
already filled when I entered it, except that at one end there was an
empty compartment, on the windows of which had been pasted the word
“_Bestellt_.” In the olden days the mere announcement that it was
“engaged” would have protected it as easily as bolts and bars. I decided
to test the new democracy. Crowding my way past a dozen men standing
obediently in the corridor, I entered the forbidden compartment and sat
down. In a minute or two a seatless passenger put his head in at the
door and inquired with humble courtesy whether it was I who had engaged
the section. I shook my head, and a moment later he was seated beside
me. Others followed, until the compartment was crowded with passengers
and baggage. One of my companions angrily tore the posters from the
windows and tossed them outside.
“_Bestellt_ indeed!” he cried, sneeringly. “Perhaps by the Soldiers’
Council, eh? I thought we had done away with those old favoritisms!”
A few minutes later a station porter, in his major’s uniform, appeared
at the door with his arms full of baggage and followed by two
pompous-looking men in silk hats. At sight of the throng inside he began
to bellow in the familiar old before-the-war style.
“This compartment is _bestellt_,” he vociferated, in a crown-princely
voice, “and it remains _bestellt_! You will all get out of there at
once!”
No one moved; on the other hand, no one answered back. The porter fumed
a bit, led his charges farther down the train, and perhaps found them
another compartment; at any rate, he never returned. “Democracy” had
won. Yet through it all I could not shake off the feeling that if any
one with a genuinely bold, commanding manner, an old army officer, for
instance, decorated with all the thingamabobs of his rank, had ordered
the compartment vacated, the occupants would have filed out of it as
silently and meekly as lambs.
The minority still ruled in more ways than one. A placard on the wall,
forbidding the opening of a window without the unanimous consent of the
passengers within the compartment, was strictly obeyed. The curtains had
long since disappeared, as had the leather straps with which one raised
or lowered the sash, which must now be manipulated by hand. As in the
occupied zone, the seats had been stripped of their velvety coverings,
suggesting that this had been no special affront to the Allies, but
merely a sign of the scarcity of cloth for ladies’ blouses. It was a
cloudless Sunday, and railway employees along the way were taking
advantage of it to work in their little vegetable gardens, tucked into
every available corner. They did not neglect their official duties,
however, for all that. At every grade crossing the uniformed guard stood
stiffly at attention, his furled red flag held like a rifle at his side,
until the last coach had passed.
At Spandau there lay acre upon acre of war material of every species,
reddening with rust and overgrowing with grass and weeds. The sight of
it aroused a few murmurs of discontent from my companions. But they soon
fell back again into that apathetic silence that had reigned since our
departure. A few had read awhile the morning papers, without a sign of
feeling, though the head-lines must have been startling to a German,
then laid them languidly aside. Apparently the lack of nourishing food
left them too sleepy to talk. The deadly apathy of the compartment was
quite the antithesis of what it would have been in France; a cargo of
frozen meat could not have been more uncommunicative.
The train showed a singular languor, due perhaps to its _Ersatz_ coal.
It got there eventually, but it seemed to have no reserve strength to
give it vigorous spells. The station we should have passed at noon was
not reached until one-thirty. Passengers tumbled off _en masse_ and
besieged the platform lunch-room. There were _Ersatz_ coffee, _Ersatz_
cheese, watery beer, and war-bread for sale, the last only “against
tickets.” I had not yet been supplied with bread-coupons, but a
fellow-passenger tossed me a pair of them and replied to my thanks with
a silent nod. The nauseating stuff seemed to give the traveler a bit of
surplus energy. They talked a little for the next few miles, though in
dreary, apathetic tones. One had recently journeyed through the occupied
area, and reported “every one is being treated fairly enough there,
especially by the Americans.” A languid discussion of the Allies ensued,
but though it was evident that no one suspected my nationality, there
was not a harsh word toward the enemy. Another advanced the wisdom of
“seeing Germany first,” insisting that the sons of the Fatherland had
been too much given to running about foreign lands, to the neglect of
their own. Those who carried lunches ate them without the suggestion of
an offer to share them with their hungry companions, without even the
apologetic pseudo-invitation of the Spaniard. Then one by one they
drifted back to sleep again.
The engine, too, seemed to pick up after lunch—or to strike a
down-grade—and the thatched Gothic roofs of Mechlenburg soon began to
dot the flat landscape. More people were working in the fields; cattle
and sheep were grazing here and there. Groups of women came down to the
stations to parade homeward with their returning soldier sons and
brothers. Yet after the first greeting the unsuccessful warriors seemed
to tire of the welcome and strode half proudly, half defiantly ahead,
while the women dropped sadly to the rear.
Where I changed cars, four fellow-travelers reached the station
lunch-room before me and every edible thing was _bestellt_ when my turn
came. With three hours to wait I set out along the broad, well-kept
highway. A village hotel served me a huge _Pfannkuchen_ made of real
eggs, a few cold potatoes, and some species of preserved fruit, but
declined to repeat the order. The bill reached the lofty heights of
eight marks. Children playing along the way, and frequently groups of
Sunday strollers, testified that there was more energy for unnecessary
exertion here in the country than in Berlin. The flat, well-plowed land,
broken only by dark masses of forest, was already giving promise of a
plentiful harvest.
The two women in the compartment I entered at a station farther on gave
only one sign of life during the journey. A railway coach on a siding
bore a placard reading, “_Übergabe Wagen an die Entente_.” The women
gazed at it with pained expressions on their gaunt faces.
“It’s a fine new car, too,” sighed one of them, at last, “with real
leather and window-curtains. _We_ don’t get any such to ride in—and to
think of giving it to _England_! _Ach!_ These are sad times!”
The sun was still above the horizon when I reached Schwerin, though it
was nearly nine. There was a significant sign of the times in the
dilapidated coach which drove me to my destination for five marks. In
the olden days one mark would have been considered a generous reward for
the same journey in a spick-and-span outfit. The middle-aged woman who
met me at the door was by no means the buxom matron she had been ten
years before. But her welcome was none the less hearty.