"You tell her that she's the loveliest thing I've seen in Europe." These compliments keep up for some time, and then I ask Kaufman how to say, "I think you are divine" in German. He tells me something in German and I repeat it to her.
She's startled and looks up and slaps my hand.
"Naughty boy," she says.
The table roars. I sense that I have been double-crossed by Kaufman. What have I said? But Pola joins in the joke, and there is no casualty. I learn later that I have said, "I think you are terrible." I decided to go home and learn German.
As I am going out the proprietor approaches and very formally addresses me: "I beg pardon, sir. I understand that you are a great man in the United States. Accept my apologies for not knowing, and the gates here are always open to you." I accept them formally, though through it all I feel very comic opera. I didn't like the proprietor.
I want to go through the German slums. I mention such a trip to a German newspaper man. I am told that I am just like every Londoner and New-Yorker who comes to Berlin for the first time; that I want the Whitechapel district, the Bowery of Berlin, and that there is no such district. Once upon a time there were hovels in Berlin, but they have long since disappeared.
This to me is a real step toward civilisation.
My newspaper friend tells me that he will give me the next best thing to the slums, and we go to Krogel. What a picture could be made here! I am fascinated as I wander through houses mounted on shaky stilts and courts ancient but cleanly.
Then we drove to Acker Street and gazed into courts and basements. In a café we talked to men and women and drank beer. I almost launched a new war when, wishing to pay a charge of one hundred and eighty marks, I pulled from my pocket a roll of fifty one-thousand-mark notes.
My friend paid the check quickly with small change and hustled me out, telling me of the hard faces and criminal types who were watching. He's probably right, but I love those poor, humble people.