the
bread.' 'But that, by Jove, is a cursed life,' I answered; he said,
'Yes! thus one gets on, and not otherwise. A soldier must learn this;
for many other things are necessary: pipeclay, powder, blacking, oil,
emery, and soap, and a hundred other things.' I: 'And that is all to be
paid for out of six groschen?' He: 'Yes! and still more; as for
example, the pay for washing, for cleaning the weapons and so forth, if
you cannot do those things yourself.' Thereupon we went to our
quarters, and I got on as well as I could.

"During the first week I still had a holiday; I went about the town to
all the places of drill, and saw how the officers inspected and flogged
the soldiers, so that beforehand for very fear, great drops of sweat
broke out on my brow. I therefore begged of Zittermann to show me at
home how to handle my weapons. 'You will learn that by-and-by,' said
he, 'but if you are dexterous you will get on like lightning.'
Meanwhile he was so good as really to show me everything, how to keep
my weapon clean, how to squeeze myself into my uniform, and to dress my
hair in a soldierly style, and so forth. After Eran's counsel, I sold
my boots, and bought with the money a wooden chest to hold my linen. In
quarters I practised myself in exercising, read the Halle hymn-book or
prayed. Then I walked by the Spree and saw there hundreds of soldiers
employed in lading and unlading merchants' wares; the timber yard also
was full of soldiers at work. Another time I went to the barracks and
so forth; I found everywhere the like, a hundred sorts of business
carried on, from works of art to the distaff. If I came to the
guard-house, I there found those who played, drank, and jested; others
who quietly smoked their pipes and conversed, some few who read an
edifying book and explained it to the others. In the cook-shops and
breweries, things went on after the same fashion. In Berlin we had
among the military--as I think indeed is the case in all great
cities--people from all the four quarters of the world, of all nations
and religions, of all characters and of every profession by which men
can earn their bread.

"The second week I had to attend every day on the parade-ground, where
I unexpectedly found three of my country-people. Shaerer, Bachmann, and
Gaestli, who were all in the same regiment with me--Itzenplitz--both
were in the company called Luederitz. At first I had to learn to march
under a crabbed corporal, with a crooked