The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-23

must spend two years in the Ber- lin blackout some time when you have nothing else to do, and then go to Switzerland suddenly, if you want to love Peace the way Peace deserves to be loved. Berlin is the color of a cadaver I once saw pre- served in a big jar in medical school: grey, lifeless and sickening to look at. The moment you cross the Swiss border the atmosphere changes, as if by @ miracle. There was life, and there was color in everything. It was the life and color of normality, which I had forgotten. Peoples faces down. right beautiful. They would have been suppose, ordinary to any, body else, but to me they were lovely, tinted with the color show ing there was life going on inside of them. Color in cheeks and eyes. No red rims around the eyes. Facial muscles were relaxed and they smiled easily, as though there was no particular reason why they shouldn't smile. December 2 was just one more day in Switzerland,
 but it marked an epoch in my young life; the way eyes sparkled, not because people were happier today than yesterday, but just be- cause they were healthy, at peace, with clear conSciences and normal.
 I sat iny ythe BahnhOf restaurant in Basic gawking at things like a country visitor in the big city. have never had such a kick out of just looking at plain, ordinary peo-
 pie, and ordinary things. Abr c one whole side of the restaurala a there was an endless glass show case filled with things to eat, cakes with colored icing, chocolate, sand wiches, with large slices of ham in them, fish, lobster, and at the end three beer-tapS which flowed beer almost constantly. On the counter by the beer-taps were about three dozen bottles of all kinds of liuuor, including whiskey. The menu was filled to the margins with hors d'oeuvres,. entrees and desserts. There were exactly flfty-two en- trees. German menus offered one entree. I asked the waitress if it were all there for ordering, or was it only Attrapen to impress visi- tors. She said 1t was there to sell, and to test her I picked out the most unlikely dish I could find in the middle of the menu. And, sure- ly enough, 1t was brought to me in fifteen minutes on a big platter brimming over with luscious green peas, red carrots and potatoes, fried crisp and brown in good fat.
 IN BERNIE AT LAST;
 WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
 Tn Berne that night, the street. lights were on. Now that Is a sight to see. It made me feel naked in front of an audience, and down. right giggly, as a thirteen-year-old girl in her first two-piece bathing suit. It makes every street look like stage-setting. I walked the streets for hours. Not on the sidewalks, but in the streets, grin ming and happy.
 I had a room in the Schweizer HOf, across from the station. In the hotel bar, I met a couple of 7ewspapermen had known in Ber- lin. They treated me to welcome whiskeys, then we had dinner. I had 8 T-bone steak big as a ham and almost two inches thick, gar nished with six different vegetables. Afterwards had a bicarbonate of soda, and went to my room to be alone and think. I filled my pipe with good American tobacco I had bought, and turned out the light. I sat before the window, looking down on the streets outside and smoked a long time until the telephone rang. It was the P0rtier down. stairs whom I had asked to let me know if MT. Conger from Berlin should arrive in the next couple of days. He said he was only calling to tell me, because I might be in- terested to know, that MT. Conger was not coming. because ten min- utes ago the Japanese, Germany's Ally, had bombed Manila and Pearl Harbor, and no more Amer jeans could get out of Germany.