Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/210

 scrofulous kiddies cried, '''Guten Tag! Guten Tag!''' like the quacking of ducks. 'After to-morrow,' she said, 'there will be no more milk for them. What can we do for them then, doctor? They will wither and die.' Those were her words, and I saw her sadness. I saw something else, presently. I saw her sway a little, and she fell like that girl Marthe on the door-step at Lille. 'For the love of Mike!' I said, and when she pulled round bullied her.

"'What did you have for breakfast?' I asked.

"'Ersatz coffee,' she said, laughing, 'and a bit of bread. A good Frühstuck, doctor.'

"'Good be hanged!' I said. 'What did you have for lunch?'

"'Cabbage-soup, and ein kleines Brödchen,' she says. 'After four years one gets used to it.'

"'What will you have for dinner?' said I, not liking the look of things.

"She laughed, as though she saw a funny joke.

"'Cabbage soup and turnips,' she said, 'and a regular feast.'

"'I thought your father was a Baron,' I remarked in my sarcastic way.

"'That's true,' she says, 'and an honest man he is, and therefore poor. It is only the profiteers who feed well in Germany. All through the war they waxed fat on the flesh-and-blood of the men who fought and died. Now they steal the food of the poor by bribing the peasants to sell their produce at any price. Schleichand-*lung is the word she used. That means 'smuggling.' It also means hell's torture, I hope, for those who do it So there you are. If Wickham Brand marries Elsa von Kreuzenach, he marries a girl whose health has been undermined by four years' semi-starvation. What do you think their children will be? Ricketty, tuber