It was good to have someone to think for one.
It was good to believe.
Koster gave me a prod. Lenz wasn't there. He signed with his head toward the exit.
I nodded and we went.
The ushers followed us with suspicious, evil looks.
In the anteroom was a band ready to march into the hall, behind them a forest of banners and symbols.
"Well done, eh?" asked Koster when we were outside.
"First rate.
As an old propaganda merchant I'm a judge of that."
We drove on a few streets farther. Here was the'second political meeting.
Other banners, other uniforms, another hall; but for the rest identical.
On the faces the same expression of undefined hope and credulous vacancy.
The white-covered committee table faced the rows of chairs; at it the party secretaries, the committee, a few zealous old spinsters.
The speaker, an official type, was feebler than the last.
He talked paper German, adduced statistics, proofs; all that he said was true, but for all that he was not so convincing as the other, who proved nothing but merely made statements.
Wearily the party secretaries at the committee table gazed sleepily ahead; they had hundreds of such meetings behind them.
"Come on," said Koster after a while. "He's not here either.
I hardly expected it anyway."
We drove on.
The air was cold and fresh after the used-up atmosphere of the over-full halls.
The car shot through the streets. We came along by the canal.
The street lamps cast only oily yellow reflections on the dark water that lapped softly on the concrete bank.
A barge moved, black and slow, across.
The tug had red and green signal lights out.
A dog barked, then a man passed in front of the light and disappeared into a hatchway which shone out golden for an instant.
On the far side of the canal the houses of the West End lay brilliantly lighted.
The arch of a bridge swung from them to the other side.
Unceasingly cars, buses and electric trains passed back and forth across it.
It looked like a shining, coloured snake over the sluggish black water.
"I think we'll leave the car here and go the last bit on foot," said Koster after a while. "It will be less conspicuous."
We halted Karl under a lamp outside a pub.
A white cat moved silently off as we got out.
A bit farther along some pros'titutes with aprons were standing in an archway and ceased talking as we passed.
Against a house corner an organ-grinder was leaning asleep.
An old woman was rummaging in the garbage on the edge of the street.
We came to a gigantic, grimy apartment house with numerous blocks behind and courtyards and passages.
On the lower floor were shops, a bakery, and a receiving depot for old clothes and iron.
On the street in front of the first passage were two lorries with police.
In a corner of the first courtyard was a stand built of planks of wood, and from it hung several large star charts.
In front of a table with papers stood a chap in a turban on a little platform.
Above his head there hung a signboard:
Astrology, Palmistry, Fortunetelling—Your Horoscope for 50 Pfennigs.
A swarm of people surrounded him.
The harsh light of the carbide lamp fell on his yellow, wrinkled face.
He was addressing the spectators, who were looking up at him in silence—with the same lost, absent, miracle-desiring look as, a while ago, that of the audiences of the various mass-meetings with their banners and bands.
"Otto," said I to Koster, who was walking in front of me, "I know now what those people are wanting.
They don't want politics at all.
They want substitute religion."
He looked around.
"Of course.