Besides, how was he to find the street where Max lived? It was certainly far away, a couple of hours away. He could no longer make it today with his tired feet.

He would like to sleep now. Should he return to the train station? He had seen hotels there. But there must be hotels in other regions of Berlin.

He began to pay attention to the signs on buildings. It was not long before he read over the door of an old and narrow building: “Guest House.” In the doorway stood a man in shirtsleeves and an apron. The boy approached hesitantly.

“Could I perhaps sleep here?”

“Sleep? Well, why not? You have money then, kid?” the man replied.

“Yes, I have money.”

“ How much?”

Then, as he gave no answer, the man said with a watchful side glance, “Can you pay five marks?”

It startled him at first—five marks! But then he nodded yes.

“Well, just come along then.”

He was led two flights up to a tiny hole where, except for a wobbly bed and chair, there was only a kind of washbasin made of sheet metal. He put a five-mark bill in the landlord’s red, dirty fist, and was left alone.

Dead tired now from the long and exciting day, he stripped off his jacket, pants, and boots, and fell immediately asleep in the unclean bed before he had the time to reflect clearly about the shameless fleecing he had just taken from the beast of an innkeeper.

2

That same day and—as chance would have it—almost at the same hour, at another train station in Berlin, the Potsdam Train Station, a another traveler arrived from far in the south of Ger-many—a young man, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three years old. He, too, was coming here for the first time. But he had become familiar with the major streets and squares of the capital from books and maps, so he quickly and surely found his way around. After he had washed and changed clothes in the Furstenhof, where he had taken a small room on the top floor, almost everything seemed to him, as he slowly walked along, to be recognizable, even familiar—the lively square, the unique construction of the department store on Leipziger Strasse (in front of which he stood for a long time), the Tiergarten, and of course, the splendid gate with the row of trees and buildings—Unter den Linden. He was in no hurry to enter it. He sat for a while, not wearily—though the trip was indeed long, it had been comfortable—on one of the chairs at the nearby lake, enjoying the afternoon hour of this already warm spring day. The first, tender green of the trees, the mild sweetness of the air, the happy feeling of at last being in the great city, for which he had secretly yearned for so long—without being able to say exactly why—all of this filled him with an inner cheerfulness that was usually almost foreign to his serious nature.

After an hour he rose, strode through the gate, and gazed down the broad street. Unter den Linden lay before him in its entire length. It charmed him with its newly fresh garment of trees, even though he had imagined the trees and the buildings would be taller and more majestic. Joyful as always at the sight of something beautiful, he strode down it.

The human and vehicular traffic was lively, but not overpowering. One flower shop looked magnificent with its profuse splendor of blooms, and beside it a quite tiny one for a single kind of perfume was thoroughly in the best taste.

He stopped before them, but preferred to keep to the middle where there was more elbow room and he could better survey the lovely street on both sides, all the way to its far end.

After a stroll that seemed short to him, he saw the long, narrow street that cut across the width of Unter den Linden, and he knew immediately that he had reached Friedrichstrasse. He felt not the least desire to plunge into its thick and loud traffic. Instead he sat down, somewhat apart, on a folding rental chair and let the traffic just pass by him.

He would probably have remained seated longer, if the behavior of those sitting next to him had not driven him off. Young boys and girls were laughing loudly and shrieking as if they were alone here. Their words and gestures were so frankly vulgar that he soon got up again, disgusted.

As he did so, his glance fell on a opening in the buildings opposite, and he needed no confirmation as he told himself that this must be the “Passage.”

*

He had read about it too. In other books. It was the notorious Passage, the meeting place of a certain segment of the Berlin population at all times of day and night. He was not curious, for he knew he would not find there what he was seeking—and wanted to seek until he found it. Yet he wondered about it and, walking over, was not surprised to find the entrance populated by young chaps in age from seventeen to twenty. With a cursory glance he scanned their faces, which seemed to him partly worn-out and greedy, partly crude and common. He noticed that his glance immediately received an understanding response from some of them. Without concerning himself further with their invitations, he walked into the hall and was surrounded by a mass of humanity.

The hall, though high, appeared to him neither beautiful nor light. The window goods were mostly shabby compared with those he had just seen. These windows were full of cheap trifles and had no elegance.