is. I don't expect we ever would have got there
if it hadn't been that a cousin of the Grafin's, a very smart young
officer in the Guards, saw us in the taxi as it was vainly trying to
cross the Friedrichstrasse, and flicking the obstructing policemen on
one side with a sort of little kick of his spur, came up all amazement
and salutes to inquire of his most gracious cousin what in the world
she was doing in a taxi. He said it was hopeless to try to get to the
Schlossplatz in it, but if we would allow him to escort us on foot he
would be proud--the gracious cousin would permit him to offer her his
arm, and the young ladies would keep very close behind him.

So we set out, and it was surprising the way he got us through. If the
crowd didn't fall apart instantly of itself at his approach, an
obsequious policeman--one of those same Berlin policemen who are so
rude to one if one is alone and really in need of help--sprang up from
nowhere and made it. It's as far from the Friedrichstrasse to the
Schlossplatz as it is from here to the Friedrichstrasse, but we did it
very much quicker than we did the first half in the taxi, and when we
reached it there they all were, the drunken crowds--that's the word
that most exactly describes them--yelling, swaying, cursing the ones in
their way or who trod on their feet, shouting hurrahs and bits of
patriotic songs, every one of them decently dressed, obviously
respectable people in ordinary times. That's what is so constantly
strange to me,--these solid burghers and their families behaving like
drunken hooligans. Somehow a spectacled professor with a golden chain
across his blackwaistcoated and impressive front, just roaring
incoherently, just opening his mouth and hurling any sort of noise out
of it till the veins on his neck and forehead look as though they would
burst, is the strangest sight in the world to me. I can imagine
nothing stranger, nothing that makes one more uncomfortable and
ashamed. It is what will always jump up before my eyes in the future
at the words German patriotism. And to see a stout elderly lady, who
ought to be presiding with slow dignity in some ordered home, hoarse
with shouting, tear the feathered hat she otherwise only uses tenderly
on Sundays off her respectable grey head and wave it frantically,
screaming _hochs_ every time a prince is seen or a general or one of
the ministers, makes one want to cry with shame at the indignity put
upon poor human