"In six months."
"You are wrong, it will be over in four months. The war cannot last more than that; the Tribunal of Brunswick having to call a witness in a case, and the witness being at the front, decided that the witness being detained by an engagement of uncertain duration, the cause should be called again in four months. Evidently the war cannot last longer than that."
Everybody laughed at this typically German joke, but I am afraid the Brunswick magistrate will have to adjourn the case for many a four months, even if the Court has not to renounce the witness completely.
The night life of Berlin, which had struck me so much ten weeks ago, may be considered now as dead. The cabarets are closed, not by the police, but from the lack of male customers. Of the theatres only the Lessing, the Schiller, and the Neues Schauspielhaus are still open; the music-halls have reduced their prices and are arranging special patriotic shows to attract the public, but their efforts do not seem to have succeeded, and almost every week some of them close to reopen no more.
The great amusement of Berlin is the cinema, where really wonderful pictures are shown. Most of the pictures are faked; but they are so cleverly done that the public does not doubt for a second that it is seeing real battles, and tries to pick out relatives amongst the soldiers in the pictures represented as fighting at the front.
There are wonderful dramas full of English and French spies, traitors, and rascals, and of German heroes—all very much appreciated.
The show is generally closed by slides showing, under the title "What We Have Achieved," photos of Brussels occupied by the Germans, of the ruins of French and Belgian towns, of destroyed bridges and shelled cathedrals. The audience cheer loudly at each picture.
* * *
"Ist Gott neutral?" I read this astonishing question printed in red letters half a foot high on numerous posters stuck on the walls all over Berlin just as if it was the most ordinary question, such as "Is Holland neutral?"
At first I took it for one of those complicated swear-words one so often hears in Southern Italy. I looked naturally for the answer.