Thereupon I went into an eating-house and ordered dinner and a jug of beer. For this I had to pay two groschen. Now, from the six that I had, four remained; on these I had to live for four days and they would last for two at the most. This reckoning made me lament sorely to my comrades. One of them, Cran by name, said to me laughing: "That'll teach you. But never mind, you have plenty of things you can sell. For a start, there's your servant's livery. Then you have two sets of weapons now, you can convert all that into ready money. And moreover bachelors like you often get an additional allowance for maintenance, you have only to apply to the Colonel." "Oh, oh, never will I do that again, as long as I live!", said I. "Damn it!" answered Cran, "you will have to get used to his roaring sooner or later. And as for your board, just watch carefully what the others do. You'll see three, four or five of them clubbing together to buy corn or peas or potatoes, to cook for themselves. Each morning they have a dreier's worth of spirits and a piece of bread from the ration, at midday, send to the inn for another dreier's worth of soup, and another piece of the bread-ration goes with it. In the evening kovent

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or small beer, two pence worth, and bread once again". - "But, by heaven, that's a wretched way to live", I rejoined, and he: "Yes, but that's how one gets by, no doubt about it. A soldier has to learn to get by, because there are all manner of other articles that he needs: pipeclay, powder

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, shoe-polish, oil, emery, soap and God knows what besides." I: "And all this has to come out of six groschen?" He: "Yes, and much more besides, for example the bill for your washing, for cleaning your weapons and so forth, if you can't do these things for yourself". With that we returned to our lodging, and I ordered my affairs as best I could.

Sometimes, too, I went walking by the river Spree, and there saw hundreds of soldiers busying themselves with loading and unloading merchandise, or at the timber-yards, there again were swarms of men of war at work everywhere. In the barracks also I again found everywhere more of the same, pursuing a hundred different employments, from joinery to spinning. When I visited the guard-house, there were some who were gambling and drinking and roistering, others quietly smoking their pipes and conversing, sometimes also one would be reading an edifying book and expounding it to the others. And in the eating-houses and beer-gardens it was the same. In short, among the military in Berlin (and indeed in all great cities everywhere, in my opinion), there were men from all corners of the earth, of all nations and religions, of all temperaments and of all professions by which a man can gain something to put with his crust of bread.

I too aspired to do likewise, as soon as I had the arms-drill firmly in my head. On the river, perhaps? O no! Too much noise and bustle there, but maybe in a timber-yard, since I already had some skill at that work. So I was all ready and eager to make fresh plans, notwithstanding that my former one had so shamefully miscarried. For even here, (with this thought I always lulled myself to sleep), even among the common soldiers there were plenty of men who had amassed pretty sums, and had their own businesses, engaged in trade, and so on. But then I was not aware

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A kind of small beer originally brewed in monasteries. (Schiel).

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The powder was for hairdressing, not for charging his weapon.

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The "Halle Gesangbuch" was a Lutheran hymn-book dating from the 17th century and published in Halle in northern Germany. (Brecht).

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