That he could ride there still did not occur to him.

Dead tired, he finally arrived in late afternoon—down street after street and always new ones—at the Stettin Train Station. He was about to go up the stairs when the thought came to him to eat his fill first. He still had enough money for that.

This time he found a decent pub and a seat in a corner, where no one paid attention to him. After several sandwiches and a glass of beer his situation no longer seemed quite so desperate. While paying, he saw that he still had a good deal of money, more than twenty marks. He immediately ordered another glass of beer and remained seated.

He thought the situation over. He had enough for another couple of days. If forced to return home after all, then he at least wanted first to see more of Berlin. And maybe he would find Max yet. Berlin was big, but not so big that you might not find someone you were looking for in two days.

For today, however, he had to sleep again, tired as he was from the long walk and even more from the unaccustomed beer.

So he walked up to the train station, fetched his box, and then searched the side streets for a hotel. One stood beside another. He only had to choose.

He then also found a room, a small and narrow one in which there was not much more than a bed, but it cost only one mark fifty for the night, which an old waiter in a black, greasy tailcoat immediately took.

Again the boy sank at once into the deep and dreamless sleep of his healthy youth.

*

Why had he come to Berlin from his village? For he had come into the world in a village: as the child of a mother who had made off soon after his birth and was roaming the world (if she was still alive) and of a father, who—one of many guests on the estate where his mother was employed—had taken her, then thrown her aside (but otherwise was supposed to have been a distinguished gentleman).

Grandparents had to rear him as well as they could. He grew, attended the village school, and became apprenticed to a merchant. The whole day he emptied sacks, filled bags, weighed, and sold them—presumably for four years as an apprentice and then also for the rest of his life.

He never left the village, and so his life had passed uneventfully up to the day of Max Friedrichsen’s return. Max was another village boy with whom he sat on the same school bench, with whom he was later confirmed. One day, all of a sudden, Max vanished from the village. Then, just as unexpectedly, Max reappeared around Christmas and by his appearance set the village boys into a state of astonishment, wonder, and giddy delight.

For the Max who returned was entirely different from the Max who had run away a year before. He was an entirely different Max, wearing new duds—a tight-fitting jacket, pants with cuffs, yellow gloves, a ring on his finger, a wristwatch, and a walking stick in hands that were now at any rate always washed. And he had money—so much money that he invited them all on a Sunday afternoon to the neighboring village, so as to get them all drunk there—from beer and schnapps and grog, but above all also from his tales of Berlin.

Of this Berlin with its theaters and lounges; its cinemas, where there always were seats for not less than five thousand people; its circus, which played every day (not just Sundays); its cafes and fine restaurants without number—this Berlin, where money just lay in the street, so that you only had to pick it up.

They sat around him with open ears and jaws, elbows propped on the table, listening, and when someone tried to question or object he cut them off with a grand wave of his hand: “None of you have any idea of it!” (“You yokels!”—to himself.)

In the evening, staggering home arm in arm with Max, he asked if it were all true, what he had said, and if you could really make so much money there and how. Max stopped, looked him over from top to bottom, and said:

“Such a good-looking boy like you! If you don’t believe it, just come there!” Then he reached into his pocket and drew out his billfold—a real billfold with monogram and corners covered with silver. From the billfold he drew a calling card with his name in printed letters. Under the name, in pencil, was his exact address.

“Just come there! You’ll soon see.”

He had pressed the card into his hand and promised, “I’ll help you.”

On the next day Max, who had so unexpectedly popped up, vanished again, since things had became too hot for him, but his card had been kept and preserved like a sacred possession.

It burned in his breast. He felt transformed. Again and again he secretly repeated to himself the words he had heard, and each time a decision was growing in him: he, too, must go to Berlin! To Berlin and to Max!

He knew going would not be easy. He would never receive permission to go, neither from his grandparents, nor from his guardian. So, he also had to run away.

And when spring arrived, lovely and careless spring which arouses so many wishes—some of which come true—he could no longer be held.

One evening, when everyone was sleeping, he donned his Sunday suit, packed some underwear and personal possessions into a box, emptied his savings bank, and crept out of the humble house.

He left a note saying not to worry about him. He promised to write when he found work and to return once things were going well for him.

He walked half the night, all the way to a train station other than the one in his village. He bought a ticket there to one of the next stations, so as not even there to give away where he meant to go, and only from there on to Berlin.

Everything went well. No one spoke to him or stopped him. The trip had lasted the remainder of that night and into the next afternoon.

Now he was already in his second day in the city of his longing.

When he awoke on the third day, earlier than the day before, he thought less than he had the evening before about returning.