Our own Teddy Roosevelt would not be born for many
centuries yet to come; so the idea must have occurred to King
Verboten spontaneously, as it were. Therefore he took counsel
with himself, saying:
"I shall now erect statues to myself. Dynasties change and wars
rage, and folks grow fickle and tear down statues. None of that
for your Uncle Dudley K. Verboten! No; this is what I shall do:
On every available site in the length and breadth of this my realm
I shall stick up my name; and, wherever possible, near to it I
shall engrave or paint the names of my two favorite sons, Ausgang
and Eingang - to the end that, come what may, we shall never be
forgotten in the land of our birth."
And then he went and did it; and it was a thorough job - so thorough
a job that, to this good year of our Lord you may still see the
name of that wise king everywhere displayed in Germany - on railroad
stations and in railroad trains; on castle walls and dead walls
and brewery walls, and the back fence of the Young Ladies' High
School. And nearly always, too, you will find hard by, over doors
and passageways, the names of his two sons, each accompanied or
underscored by the heraldic emblem of their house - a barbed and
feathered arrow pointing horizontally.
And so it was that King Verboten lived happily ever after and in
the fullness of time died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his
wives, his children and his courtiers; and all of them sorrowed
greatly and wept, but the royal signpainter sorrowed most of all.
I know that certain persons will contest the authenticity of this
passage of history; they will claim Verboten means in our tongue
Forbidden, and that Ausgang means Outgoing, and Eingang means
Incoming - or, in other words, Exit and Entrance; but surely this
could not be so. If so many things were forbidden, a man in Germany
would be privileged only to die - and probably not that, unless he
died according to a given formula; and certainly no human being
with the possible exception of the comedian who used to work the
revolving-door trick in Hanlon's Fantasma, could go out of and
come into a place so often without getting dizzy in the head. No
- the legend stands as stated.
Even as it is, there are rules enough in Germany, rules to regulate
all things and all persons. At first, to the stranger, this seems
an irksome arrangement - this posting of rules and orders and
directions and warnings everywhere - but he finds that everyone,
be he high or low, must obey or go to jail; there are no exceptions
and no evasions; so that what is a duty on all is a burden on none.
