were separated they ran together again. They reached the Castle, were driven back, and reached it again, silent and irresistible, like a river overflowing its banks. The traffic was blocked, the stream of pedestrians was banked up until it flowed over slowly into the flood which submerged the square; into this turbid, discoloured sea of poverty, rolling up in clammy waves, emitting subdued noises and throwing up, like the masts of sunken ships, poles bearing banners: "Bread! Work!" Here and there a more distinct rumbling broke out of the depths: "Bread! Work!" Swelling above the crowd it rolled off like a thunder-cloud: "Bread! Work!" The mounted police attack, the sea foams up and subsides, while women's voices shrilly cry like signals above the uproar: "Bread! Work!"
They are swept along, carrying with them the curious spectators standing on the Friederich monument. Their mouths are wide open; dust rises from the minor officials whose way to the office has been blocked, as if their clothes had been beaten. A distorted face, unknown to Diederich, shouts at him: "Here's something different! Now we are going for the Jews!"—and the face disappears before he remembers that it is Herr von Barnim. He tries to follow him, but in a big rush is thrown far across the road in front of a cafe, where he hears the crash of the broken windows and a workman shouting: "They fired me out of here lately with my thirty pfennig, because I had not got a silk hat on."—With him Diederich is forced in through the window, between the overturned tables and on to the floor, where they trip over broken glass, crushing against one another and howling. "No more in here! We must have air!" But still they clamber in. "The police are charging!" In the middle of the street, a free passage is miraculously made, as if for a triumphant procession. Then someone cries: "There goes Emperor William!"
Diederich found himself once more on the street. No one knew how it happened that they could suddenly move
