Achmed Abdullah

“ All that autumn Berlin danced. Berlin flirted. Berlin laughed. Berlin spent money like water. And the clique in the Wilhelm Strasse, the rulers of Germany, helped it along. They realized their own danger. They decided that there should be no national, wholesale awakening to the fact that the huge business colossus of modern Germany had feet of clay, a heart that was hollow, and empty pockets, that over-speculation had drained the imperial exchequer and that the most gigantic national failure and bankruptcy was imminent. ”

“ In the meantime, until the blow was struck, swiftly and successfully, the people of Germany must be kept in good humor.
On with the dance!—was the dictum of the Wilhelm Strasse. Sing and drink and shout! Spend money! Buy, buy, buy!
On with the whirl of gayety! ... Lest the people see the misery, the terrible threat of failure and bankruptcy that yawned at their feet like an abyss of Fate, lest they see beneath the pomp and circumstance of glittering uniforms and recognize the grinning skeletons ... ”

“ He felt an almost boyish delight, tempered with whimsical humor, in his growing power to comport himself correctly towards the élite of Berlin—and his correctness spelled simplicity, manliness, the natural, good-humored dignity of the free man of the plains.
As such he was accepted by the young officers and, if the truth be told, really liked.
Bertha, too, liked him, had always liked him, occasional tiffs apart, with unquestioning fondness. But rather with the sort of fondness one has for a beloved and thoroughly satisfying domestic animal.
But love? Real flesh-and-blood love? ”