After he had been fitted, I watched her ease the broken apologies for boots back on to the swollen flesh. She was very tender. She knew how much it hurt, for her own feet were no better. She had auburn hair, which hung in ringlets, and kind gray eyes. She took his hand and helped him off the bench. Away they trudged through the bitter cold and slush, dreaming of Christmas when for once their feet will be protected. My eyes followed them. My eyes followed them so much that that afternoon I did a round of the homes from which these children come. I wanted to find out about the parents—whether this condition of affairs is their fault, due to uncurable shiftlessness. I procured my list from the Society of Friends, who are doing a fine work in house to house visitation. From the homes which I visited, I select two examples which vividly illustrate the child need not only of Vienna, but of the whole of Central Europe.
The first home belonged to a man named Klier. He had a wife and three children, the youngest of which was two and a half and the oldest fourteen. Before the war he had been a silversmith and comfortably settled. Today in Austria there is no work for silversmiths and will not be for many years to come. He had served in the army on the Italian front—he still wore his uniform—had been captured and had been a prisoner. During his absence, his wife had had to commence selling the furniture piece by piece to keep the home going. On his return he could not get employment. By the time I saw him every solitary possession which he had had, had gone except two single beds and a pile of rags for coverings. One of those beds he rented to a lodger, the other his wife, self and children slept in by turns through the night, trying to keep themselves warm. Despite this abject poverty, the floor was speckless and had been recently scrubbed. A little gray-faced tot in a solitary garment—a crimson velvet frock donated by the Red Cross—stood stoically by, while her father talked to me. He had at last got a job on a paper, he said, which would bring him in 1600 crowns a month. 1600 crowns are a little over two dollars in American money, out of which he had to pay his rent and lighting. How was it to be done? He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and spread his hands abroad. And again I asked a question—did he hope that things would be better in the future? He made no reply, but grabbed the child's hand more protectingly and stared forlornly at the blank wall.
The second home belonged to a man named Lutowsky.
He had been a repairer of street-pavements; pavements are taking care of themselves at present. His household consisted of a grandmother, aged 71, a wife in consumption, due to starvation, and five consumptive children. In painting the picture which I have to paint, I feel ashamed at having pried on such a depth of sorrow. The home consisted of two rooms. In the first the grandmother was washing clothes. She explained that she earned thirty crowns a day for it—less than five cents in American money; but that after a day's work she was always laid up for a week from exhaustion. Before the war she had been in receipt of a pension of twenty-four crowns a month, which would be about five dollars. Since the fall in money values her pension had been raised to fifty crowns, which at present rates of exchange represented less than eight cents a month. How did she exist on it?
In the inner room I found the rest of the family—the son, his wife and the five children. The youngest child was over two years of age and was still at the breast—there was nothing else on which to feed it. The mother was scarcely clad above the waist. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head and burnt with the fever of famine. About her neck a horrid rag was knotted, for her throat was puffed with tubercular glands. She spoke in a hoarse voice, panting with the effort. Her man stood stonily beside her and made no comment. They had five children, yes. They were nearly naked, as we could see. They were all consumptive and always starved. It hadn't been like this always. Probably they would die soon—she supposed that would be better. Had they any money? Yes, there was her man's unemployment payment, which amounted to a cent and a half a day, American money. The world didn't want them. She coughed. The children commenced to sob, but the man still stared at us stolidly. There was no furniture in the room, save again one bed with a few rags flung over. it. The last of a candle guttered in a socket; when that went out, they would be utterly in the dark. By its light, as I turned to go, I noticed that yet another unwanted baby was expected. They had once been self-respecting and happy. And this home was typical of the several million homes in which the five million children of Europe are starving.
In the outer room, as I departed, the old Grannie was again busy at her washing, earning those coveted thirty crowns which would exhaust her. Over her head a motto was pinned against the wall—the only decoration remaining from a former affluence. I asked my interpreter how it read and he translated, “May the Christmas-man bring you good luck from near and far.”
CHAPTER III—A DAY OF REST AND GLADNESS
Today being Sunday, a day of rest and gladness when even prisoners do not work, I visited the central gaol of Vienna. Permission is not often granted; in order to obtain it, it was necessary to gain the consent of the President of the Austrian Republic. My object in going was to see for myself to what extent starvation is making criminals out of children and so adding one more grim touch, by destroying characters as well as bodies, to the monstrous sum of Europe's child tragedy.