being
elderly.[1] After long waiting among Jews, Infidels, and Turks, I at
last got entrance to the Chief of Police's office, had my passport
taken, paid one mark fifty, and was told to come back on Thursday,
when it would be returned from Berlin. The Chief was a gruff,
disagreeable old man, who, to my amiable "Guten Tag" and "Adieu"
vouchsafed no reply.

[Footnote 1: This we were told at the time.]

_August 18th._--A dreadful blow! We English are forbidden to go to
Holland, and told that our destination is to be Denmark. Imagine
crossing that mined sea now! For reasons of their own German
authorities will not allow any of us to go by or near the Rhine.

_August 19th._--The German Press is to me a revelation of bombast,
self-righteousness, falsehood, and hypocrisy. What shocks one most is
the familiar and perpetual calling upon God to witness that He alone
has led the Germans to victory and blessed their cause. I read a poem
yesterday, which began "Du Gott der Deutschen," as if indeed the Deity
were the especial property of the German Nation! Massacre, pillage,
destruction, violation of territory, everything wicked God is supposed
to bless! What hideously distorted minds, and where is the sane, if
prosaic Teuton of one's imaginings! I wake often in the morning and
wonder if all that has happened here has not been a horrible
nightmare--if it can be possible in the twentieth century that I, a
woman, am a prisoner, and for no sin that one has committed. I cannot
order an Einspaenner and drive to the station without a challenge and
danger. I cannot possibly get away without my passport. If I attempted
to drive to the Rhine my fate might be that of the poor Russians who
were shot the other day. In any case I could not leave Germany without
my passport nor enter Dutch territory without permission from the
Netherlands Consul at Frankfort. It seems all hopeless and
heartbreaking.

_August 20th._--Another terrific blow! Fraulein S---- came into my
room this morning and said: "Kein Englaender, kein Auslaender, kann
Deutschland verlassen" (no Englishman, no foreigner can leave
Germany). I rushed off immediately to the Polizei Amt and found it
only too terribly true. Worse! Mr. W---- and Mr. S----, who tried to
arrange for a steamer on the Rhine to take us away, have been
arrested, and are being tried on a trumped-up charge of _forgery_, and
the Company who were the go-betweens demand 3,000 marks because the
boat came a