My wife remained like one petrified, and it was long before she could somewhat recover herself. The official was meantime very patient and civil, and did all he could to reconcile her to the necessity of the step.
“My good lady,” he said, “where in the world are we otherwise to get such a quantity of furniture together as will be required for the many State establishments for the education of children, the care of old people, the nursing of the sick, the providing the people with meals, and so on?”
“Then why not go to rich people,” my wife asked, “to people who have great big mansions stuffed as full as they can hold with the most beautiful furniture?”
“We do that as well,” he replied, smirkingly. “In Zoological Gardens St., Victoria St., Regent St., and that district there is quite a procession of furniture-vans. All traffic for other vehicles than these has been stopped for the present. No one is to retain more than a couple of beds, and as much other furniture as he can stow away in two or three good-sized rooms. But even then we have not a sufficiency. Only just imagine, we have here alone over 900,000 persons below the age of twenty-one who have to be housed in Children’s Homes and in schools. Then you have another 100,000 persons over sixty-five who have to be provided for at the Refuges. In addition to all this, there are to be ten times as many beds as heretofore in all the hospitals. Now tell me where are we to get all these things from, and not steal. And tell me further, what would be the good of all these beds, tables, and cabinets to you when granny yonder, the young gentleman here, and the little girl are no longer inmates of the house?”
My wife wanted, at least, to know what we should do when they all came to visit us.
“Well, you will still have six chairs left,” was the reply.
“Yes, but I mean when they stay overnight?” my wife asked.
“There will be some difficulty about that, as you will find very little room at the new place!” he answered.
It now came out that my good wife had suffered her imagination to lead her into supposing that at the new distribution of residences we should, at the very least, receive a neat little villa somewhere at the West End, and be then able to furnish one or two spare rooms for our friends. I must say, though, that Paula never had any grounds for letting her imagination take these lofty flights, inasmuch as Bebel always taught that domestic affairs should be on as small and frugal a scale as possible.
Paula tried to find comfort in the thought that grandfather and the children would at least sleep in their own old beds at their new places. She had fully meant, in any case, to send the cosy easy-chair to the Refuge for her father’s use.