Strive as I might I could think of no comments to make, but the mother came to the rescue. Unfastening the binding of the loose leaf album she hastily shuffled the sheets and brought into an orderly array on the table before me ten photographs all taken at the age of one year. "That is the only fair way to view them," she said, "for of course one cannot compare the picture of a boy of fifteen with an infant of one year. But at an equal age the comparison is fair to all and now you can surely tell me which is the most intelligent."
I gazed hopelessly at the infantile portraits which, despite their varied paternity, looked as alike as a row of peas in a pod.
"Oh, well," said Frau Augusta, "after all is it fair to ask you, since the twins are your cousins?"
Desperately I wondered which were the twins.
"They resemble you quite remarkably, don't you think so? Except that your hair is quite dark for an Armstadt." Frau Augusta turned and glanced furtively at my identification folder. "Of course! your mother. I had almost forgotten who your mother was, but now I remember, she had most remarkably dark hair. It will probably prove a dominant characteristic and your children will also be dark haired. Now I should like that by way of a change."
I became alarmed at this turn of the conversation toward the more specific function of my visit, and resolved to make my exit with all possible speed "consistent with dignity and propriety."
Meanwhile, as she reassembled the scattered sheets of the portrait album, the official mother chattered on concerning her children's attributes, while I shifted uneasily in my chair and looked about the room for my hat--forgetting in my embarrassment that I was dwelling in a sunless, rainless city and possessed no hat.
At last there was a lull in the monologue and I arose and said I must be going.
Frau Augusta looked pained and I recalled that I had not yet complimented her upon her intelligence and fitness to be the mother of coming generations of chemical scientists, but I stubbornly resolved not to resume my seat.
"You are young," said Frau Augusta, who had risen and shifted her position till she stood between me and the door. "Surely you have not yet made many calls on the maternity level." Then she sighed, "I do not see why they assign a man only three names to select from. Surely they could be more liberal." She paused and her face hardened. "And to think that you men are permitted to call as often as you like upon those degenerate hussies who have been forbidden the sacred duties of motherhood. It is a very wicked institution, that level of lust--some day we women--we mothers of Berlin--will rise in our wrath and see that they are banished to the mines, for they produce nothing but sin and misery in this man-made world."