On the asphalt pavement dense throngs of people weary from their day’s labor, or else eager for the pleasures and excitement which the evening has still in store for them, are pressing forward at an even trot—an endless procession of men and women occupying every grade in the social scale,—elegantly attired women and girls, men dressed in stylish fashion, others clad poorly and with the dust of their hard toil still clinging to their garments, and, mingled with them all, half-grown children,—boys and girls, who had been busy at counter or workshop throughout the day.
It was like a miniature reflection of life itself,—life in a large city, with all its toil and its wealth, its misery and its luxury.
On the pavement cabs and busses rattled past in endless succession; and elegant carriages, drawn swiftly by spirited horses and carrying the princes of trade and of birth, and veiled ladies, who might be actresses or countesses, for all one could tell, rolled smoothly along.
Scurrying to and fro in zigzag line, and emitting those peculiar doleful notes invented for them, automobiles were mixed up in apparently inextricable confusion with all this hurly-burly of vehicles, while the trams clanged their bells, and passengers stood waiting on the edge of the sidewalks, desirous of boarding them, yet afraid to risk their lives in the turmoil and bustle of the intervening space. All this excitement of metropolitan life, this feverish haste, and this pitiless crush, bore the stamp of intense work performed in a human ant-hill, where every one of the countless inmates has to fulfil his duty unremittingly, so that combined toil will produce a harmonious whole.
An elegantly attired pair turned the corner into a poorly lighted side street, and then took their way along the middle of the road, picking their steps among all the scraps of paper and the refuse of every kind that covered it. They came to a halt before a house the exterior of which showed it to be inhabited by persons in straitened circumstances, and then they ascended the well-worn front steps leading to its main entrance. The doorkeeper peered out of his little lodge and merely nodded slightly to the two. They had come here only a few days before, after leaving the stylish and expensive Grand Hotel, and that fact had furnished the man with food for reflection. They were former First Lieutenant Borgert and Frau Leimann. They had turned their steps to the French capital, in the hope to be there secured against any possible police persecution, expecting to be able to earn a living in this city of millions, which furnishes daily bread to so many.
Their funds had rapidly been exhausted; for he who has not learned to husband his resources in the days of plenty will not be able to do so in the days of dire need.
And so Borgert had been obliged to look about him for some remunerative occupation. Hunger is a hard taskmaster, and hard as it seemed to this man who had been reared and had lived till then virtually in idleness, he had now to turn his hands to useful work; but the employment he had been able to secure had not lasted long. Without a word of warning, he had been dismissed as incapable of the work demanded, and he was just now returning from a last vain effort to obtain another place. They mounted the steep stairs and entered their little room, furnished without regard to even moderate ideas of comfort, and filled with an air which in the days gone by Borgert had never been able to endure.
He threw himself on the narrow sofa with a cry of despair and covered his face with his hands, while Frau Leimann cowered before the grate on a small stool.
With eyes hollow from much weeping and many sleepless nights, she gazed into the dying fire. This was all the warmth which they could expect that night, for their means were entirely exhausted.
Both of them kept silence for a while, and then Borgert spoke. The woman trembled at the sound of his voice, as if she were awaking from a fearful dream.