CHAPTER XVII.

IN AND ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS.

I AM very glad that I have now received the appointment as checker which my friend in office promised me some time ago. I shall no longer have to be employed in the workshop. I only wish Franz had the same good luck, and could get away from his compositor’s desk. Not for one moment that we are above our trades, but I know that Franz feels exactly as I do, and the style in which work is now done in all workshops does not suit Franz and me a bit. One does not work merely for the sake of a bit of bread, and nothing more.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FAMILY MATTERS.

SUNDAY was such a Sunday as I had never spent before. My wife got permission at last to visit little Annie. It seems that the observance of order in the Children’s Homes necessitates the regulation that parents should only see their children in their due turn. How my wife had pictured to herself the meeting with her child! All sorts of cakes, and sweetmeats, and playthings had been got together to take to her. But to mother’s great distress she found she had to leave all these things behind her at the entrance.

CHAPTER XIX.

RECREATIONS OF THE PEOPLE.

OPEN-AIR concerts are continually being given in the various public squares of Berlin. The new Chancellor is going the right way to work to make himself popular. In all the theatres there are two performances on week-days, and three on Sundays, and these are all gratis. As a matter of course, the theatres which our busy, industrious Community inherited from the bourgeoisie have proved very inadequate in point of number and size. It has hence been found necessary to supplement them by the addition of various other large buildings.

CHAPTER XX.

DISAGREEABLE EXPERIENCES.

MY wife and Agnes sit up until far into the night, busy with their dressmaking in secret. The work in hand is a new dress for Agnes.

As checker, I ought by rights to denounce the pair of them to the proper authorities for over-production, and for exceeding the maximum hours of labour. Fortunately, however, they are not amongst the fifty persons forming the section which it is my business to control.

CHAPTER XXI.

FLIGHT.

WE have just passed through terrible days. On Sunday morning Franz arrived here unexpectedly on his way to Stettin, to which town, as I take it, he has been transferred. My wife appeared not the least surprised at his coming, but she showed all the more emotion at his going away again. She sobbed aloud, hung upon his neck, and seemed utterly incapable of bearing the separation from her son. Franz parted from me, too, as though it were a matter of never seeing each other more.

CHAPTER XXII.

ANOTHER NEW CHANCELLOR.

THE discontent in the country has now reached its culmination upon its becoming generally known that all concerts, and theatres, and other amusements in Berlin are free. The inhabitants of every little insignificant bit of a place demand that the national purse provide them with the same diversions that we have here; and they base their claim upon the acknowledged social equality of all, and upon the right of all to enjoy the same identical recompense for the same labours.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS.

THE entire navy left by the late Government is to be got ready for service with all possible speed. In addition to this, the standing army, which had already been increased to 500,000 men with a view the better to maintain order at home, and to keep a good watch on the frontiers, has been still further strengthened. These are amongst the first measures taken by the new Chancellor to avert dangers which menace us from abroad.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE ELECTION STIR.

THE general election is at last to take place, and next Sunday is fixed as the polling day. This choice of a day of rest and leisure deserves the highest commendation, as nowadays a hundred times more issues depend upon the result of an election than was formerly the case. Laws are everything in a socialistic State; the law has to prescribe to each separate individual how long he must labour, how much he has to eat and drink, how he must be dressed, housed and what not.

CHAPTER XXV.

SAD NEWS.

ANNIE, our dear, precious, little Annie, is dead! It seems impossible to actually realise that the pretty, little creature that used to frolic about, so full of life and joy, is now all at once cold and lifeless; that those young lips which prattled away so sweetly are now for ever dumb; that those laughing eyes that used to shine so brightly are now closed in the stillness of death.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE RESULT OF THE ELECTIONS.

WITH heaviness such as this in the heart, all political matters seem so immaterial and idle to one. The sorrows of the present moment make one regard all considerations for the future with indifference.