“atrocious” peace terms for more than a sentence or two before he also drifted back to the subject of food—how hungry he had been for months; how he had suffered from lack of proper nourishment during a recent convalescence; how he had been forced to resort to _Schleichhandel_ to keep himself and his sick daughter alive. Loose-fitting clothing, thin, sallow faces, prominent cheekbones, were the rule among Berliners; the rosy complexions and the fine teeth of former days were conspicuous by their scarcity. The prevailing facial tint in the city was a grayish-yellow. “Why, how thin you are!” had become taboo in social circles. Old acquaintance meeting old friend was almost sure to find his collar grown too large for him. Old friend, perhaps, did not realize that sartorial change in his own appearance, his mirror pictured it so gradually, but he was quick to note a similar uncouthness in the garb of old acquaintance. In the schoolroom there were not red cheeks enough to make one pre-war pair, unless the face of a child recently returned from the country, shining like a new moon in a fog, trebled the pasty average. Every row included pitiful cases of arrested development, while watery eyes turned the solemn, listless gaze of premature old age on the visitor from every side. The newspapers of Berlin were full of complaints that pupils were still required to attend as many hours and otherwise strive to attain pre-war standards. It was “undemocratic,” protested many parents, for it gave the few children of those wealthy enough to indulge in _Schleichhandel_ an unfair advantage over the underfed youngsters of the masses. Even adults condoled with one another that their desire and ability to work had sunk to an incredibly low level. “Three hours in my office,” moaned one contributor, “and my head is swirling so dizzily that I am forced to stretch out on my divan, dropping most pressing affairs. Yet before the war I worked twelve and fourteen hours a day at high pressure, and strode home laughing at the idea of fatigue.”