The aspect of the people too, at the stations and in the towns we passed, puzzled me. There were no uniforms, no soldiers. But I was amazed at the number of commercial travellers, Lutheran ministers, photographers, and so forth, and the odd resemblance they presented, in spite of their innocent costumes, to the arrogant and ubiquitous military officers whom I had observed on my former visit.
But I was too anxious to reach Berlin to pay much attention to the details of my journey.
Even when I at last reached the capital, I arrived as I had feared, too late.
"Your Excellency," said a courteous official at the railway station, to whom my naval uniform acted as a sufficient passport. "The Revolution of which you speak is over. Its leaders were arrested yesterday. But you shall not be disappointed. There is a better one. It is called the Comrades' Revolution of the Bolsheviks. The chief Executive was installed yesterday."
"Would it be possible for me to see him?" I asked.
"Nothing simpler, Excellency," he continued as a tear rose in his eye. "My four sons,—"
"I know," I said; "your four sons are in the German Navy. It is enough. Can you take me to the Leader?"
"I can and will," said the official. "He is sitting now in the Free Palace of all the German People, once usurped by the Hohenzollern Tyrant. The doors are guarded by machine guns. But I can take you direct from here through a back way. Come."
We passed out from the station, across a street and through a maze of little stairways, and passages into the heart of the great building that had been the offices of the Imperial Government.
"Enter this room. Do not knock," said my guide. "Good bye."