New-York tribune., 1922-12-10

|On, no, OuV d NlBhAt VI NvNi"'i ""N "
week. And, of course, the tax makes 1t
twice that"
After that we did not talk rents much.
Evidently providence was taking care OF
rs, but why herald it abroad! When ques-
toned as to what we paid our reply would
be a cryptic "Four hundred no length OF
time mentioned. Clearly the tourists
thought in terms Of days, why upset unim-
aginative minds by mentioning weeks?
However, we read the English weekly to
keep posted on the frequent rises in taxes
on foreigners, so as 10 be able 10 commits
crate with the tourists, unaware Of our
freedom from this irritation. These little
commiSeratiOns gave US considerable
pleasure.
For a full month at total of 81 week
for two, meals and all, we STEPPED our
selves in the Munich "gemuetlichkeit,"
that untranslatable atmosphere Of content
wherein a pretzel, a stein of beer and
brass band are the modern paraphrase
for Omar's 1oaf Of bread, jug Of wine
and thou beside me singing"
We did not buy our pretzels in the
nashy, fastidious cafes Of the big name
avenues. We found them cheap and
warmly fresh in the homely bakeries OF
the back streets, and took them ourselves
to some time-stained rathskeller, where a
much better orchestra discoursed Schu-
bert. or TO the enormous Lowenbrau-
keller where male chorus sang like
harmonic cyclone, and where at midnight,
when the floor was soaked with drippings
and the air was thick with smoke, we saw
1000 stalwart Germans climb on chairs
and tables and sing "Die Wacht am Rhein'
just as il French, American and British
sentries were not at that very moment
striding the bridgeheads at Mainz, Co
blenz and Cologne.
Seldom. in any such retreat of real Ger
man life, did we encounter any Of the
tourists who presumably had come over to
see what it might be like. They were all
slipping tea somewhere, happy IN the de-
fusion that they were seeing Germany,
after the war, when really they were just
a bit Of America transplanted, not seeking
the exotic but seeking one another.
The bulk of recent American tourists
have also failed TO meet the best Germans,
the ones least responsible for the war, who
are suffering the most for it now. These
Germans cannot afford 10 frequent what
may be called "dolar hotels" and dollar
restaurants" whose heavy foreign patron
age enables the proprietors to regulate
prices in accordance with the exchange,
using the dollar as their standard.
Speaking generally, the wealthy Ger
mans are those who made money out OF the
war, or who have speculated in their coun-
trys money, and their manners and ap-
pearance smack strongly Of "new-rich," in
season when no German ought to feel
comfortable about sudden riches. We pre-
ferred the vegetable aristocracy," who,
because they cannot afford TO eat meat,
but used 10 eat it, now avoid temptation
by going 10 vegetable restaurants.
In Munich we met many Of these "veg-
etable aristocrats" in the Ceres, a vegeta-
bic restaurant situated, rather ironically,
in the Lowengrube, the 'lion's den," a
street so-named because once the Princes
Of Wittelsbach kept there the beasts SYM
bolic Of their power. To us, bitter enough
at the Front, in France, and more so since
then, toward the Germans who willed the
war, there was additional reason for Bit
terness in the spectacle Of these Germans
who did not start Il. Old men or of mid