"Yes," I said, "the system is very wrong, but--"
"But the authorities, you need not say it, I have heard it all before, the authorities, always the authorities. Why should men always be the authorities? Why do we mothers of Berlin have no rights? Why are we not consulted in these matters? Why must we always submit?"
Then suddenly, and very much to my surprise, she placed her hands upon my shoulders and said hoarsely: "Tell me about the Free Level. Are the women there more beautiful than I?"
"No," I said, "very few of them are beautiful, and those of the labour groups are most gross and stupid."
"Then why," wailed Frau Augusta, "was I not allowed to go? Why was I penned up here and made to bear children when others revel in the delights of love and song and laughter?"
"But," I said, shocked at this unexpected revelation of character, "yours is the more honourable, more virtuous life. You were chosen for motherhood because you are a woman of superior intelligence."
"It's a lie," cried Frau Augusta. "I have no intelligence. I want none. But I am as beautiful as they. But no, they would not let me go. They penned me up here with these saintly mothers and these angelic children. Children, children everywhere, millions and millions of them, and not a man but doctors, and you elected fathers who are sent here to bring us pain and sorrow. You say nothing of love--your eyes are cold. The last one said he loved me--the brute! He came but thrice, when my child was born he sent me a flower. But that is the official rule. And I hate him, and hate his child that has his lying eyes."
The distraught woman covered her face with her hands and burst into violent weeping.
When she had ceased her sobs I tried to explain to her the philosophy of contentment with life's lot. I told her of the seamy side of the gown that cloaks licentiousness and of the sorrows and bitterness of the ashes of burned out love. With the most iridescent words at my command I painted for her the halo of the madonna's glory, and translated for her the English verse that informs us that there is not a flower in any land, nor a pearl in any sea, that is as beautiful and lovely as any child on any mother's knee.
But I do not think I altogether consoled Frau Augusta for my German vocabulary was essentially scientific, not poetic. But I made a noble effort and when I left her I felt very much the preacher, for the function of the preacher, not unlike death, is to make us cling to those ills we have when we would fly to others that we know not of.