The occasional soldier met in the streets looked shabbier in the shabby surroundings of the East.  The German uniform, which once evoked unstinted praise, is suffering sadly to-day owing to lack of raw materials.  I was in a Social Democratic district, but the men in uniform who were home on leave were probably “good” Social Democrats, since it is notorious that the regular variety are denied this privilege.

The faces of the soldiers were like the rest of the faces I saw that day.  There was not the least trace of the cheerful, confident expression of the days when all believed that the Kaiser’s armies would hammer their way to an early peace—­“in three months,” as people used to say during the first year and a quarter of the war.  Verdun had been promised them as a certain key to early peace, and Admiral Scheer was deified as the immortal who tore loose the British clutch from the German throat.  But Verdun and Jutland faded in succeeding months before the terrible first-hand evidence that the constant diminution of food made life a struggle day after day and week after week.  The news from Rumania, though good, would bring them no cheer until it was followed by plenty of food.

In the vicinity of the Schlesischer Bahnhof occurred a trifling incident which gave me an opportunity to see the inside of a poor German home that day.  A soldier in faded field-grey, home on leave, asked me for a match.  During the conversation which followed I said that I was an American, but to my surprise he did not make the usual German reply that the war would have been ended long ago if it had not been for American ammunition.  On the contrary, he showed an interest in my country, as he had a brother there, and finally asked me if I would step into his home and explain a few things to him with the aid of a map.

Though I was in a district of poverty the room I entered was commendably clean.  An old picture of William I. hung on one wall; opposite was Bismarck.  Over the low door was an unframed portrait of “unser Kaiser,” while Hindenburg completed the collection.  Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege, Maubeuge, and Antwerp, recalled the days when German hearts were light and German tongues were full of brag.

A girl of ten entered the room.  She hated the war because she had to rush every day at noon from school to the People’s Kitchen to fetch the family stew.  In the afternoon she had to look after the younger children while her mother stood in the long lines before the shops where food was sold.  The family were growing tired of stew day after day.  They missed the good German sausage and unlimited amount of bread and butter.