3 - The Family Gathers Its Experiences, and Pitt Does Not Understand How to Steer His Ship through the Inflation

Summary

PITT DEUTSCH REVERED HIS KAISER as much as ever. Could it be that he was not getting much information on the Kaiser's doings? As always, he was either poorly informed or totally uninformed about contemporary politics. Even when some things didn't add up in his head, his reverent heart could always find reasons to excuse the Kaiser. For one thing, the republic had not yet done much good for him.

At the very beginning of the revolution, the “Reds” shot out a couple of his factory windows. Pitt couldn't closely analyze the concept “the Reds” because he never put forth the effort to consider the thinking of others. Thus he lumped together the Social Democrats, Communists, Bolsheviks, even the Democrats, in short, every group that didn't love the good old days as much as he did. He had no idea who gave the order to shoot at his factory or who told his workers to stop their “murderous” activities. There were no fatalities.

Things didn't improve with the rest of his business, either. The market for LACAID collapsed just as he ordered new machinery to produce it. And his machine tool division, which had already seemed to be asleep for the last two years of the war, showed no interest in coming back to life.

At the same time, it's fair to say, the years hadn't been kind to his wife. Hard as it may be to believe, she had a series of hysterical episodes. Just think about how much more right to these episodes other women had, women who had been through much more and had more at stake in the war. Fair enough, she had given birth to seven children, but, then again, so had Germany's empress. But with Martha the situation was really not so pretty anymore. She cried at every opportunity, and had these strange attacks. She watched her children slowly starve.

And the three little ones are such sweet children, not in the least rude or wild. Susi is a little cuddle bug. Jürgen is, it's true, a bit absent minded. And Helmut, the little “mistake,” is a bit puny. He's so small and pale; he just won't grow.