Latest / Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence / BERLIN—6 P.M. TO 7 P.M.

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BERLIN—6 P.M. TO 7 P.M. · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Section six of Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Around the Clock in Europe
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a Travel Sequence by Charles fish Howell, Berlin, six p m. Two
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seven p m. While the sun is still sinking behind the Potsdam Hills,
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the victorious old fighting Fritz love so Well and the hero himself astride his bronze
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charger in cloak and cocked hat. In the statue group on the Linden seems
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riding slowly home to his neighboring palace. With the lengthening shadows. The vast
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industrial army of the German capital issues in myriad units from its individual barracks and
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to bouches on the spacious squares and broad avenues in quest of the evening diversions.
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It is the lull hour, the long hard day's work over the amusements
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of the night are shortly to begin. In this pleasant interval, the bustling,
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aggressive city seems pervaded with a spirit of relaxation, and no more opportune
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moment presents for catching the Berliner off his guard and really seeing him as his
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intimates know him. This man, it should be born in mind, is
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a type unto himself. The light hearted Rhinelander, the solemn Bavarian, and
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the plodding, self reliant Saxon are only half brothers to the energetic, systematic,
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masterful Prussian, whose most boisterous and irrepressible development is the Berliner. He
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plays as hard as he works, yielding to none in the thoroughness of either.
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He has a strong individuality, but with something of coarseness in feeling.
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He is enormously self asserted, indefatigable, and patient. But scratch through his
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veneer of culture and you find a basis that is rude and often boorish.
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His optimism is sublime, and his spirits correspondingly high. At work he is
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engrossed and determined, but when it is laid aside for the day, he
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enters as eagerly upon his pastimes, and it is then one finds him witty
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and merry to a degree, but at times with the loudness and ostentation of
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a mischievous, unruly schoolboy. He is the sort of man that has a
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great time in the zoological gardens and goes picnicking in his best clothes. Intellectually,
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he is, still, as Buckle described him in the History of Civilization
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in Europe, the foremost man in the world when he is a scholar,
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and the most ordinary in the main. Europeans dub him a practical hedonist.
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In America, we should refer to him as rough and ready. As soon
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as supper is over, these joyous and virile people display their primitive scorn of
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roofs and flock into the open for fun and frolic. Yet supper itself has
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been one of gargantuan proportions at which an observer recalling Rebelais might well have trembled
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for palmers in the cabbage from the four quarters they gather in force to hang
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about the fountains in the roomy squares, or loaf on the linden benches until
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the call of the concert hall or the comfortable tree shaded beer garden. Allures
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to those bibulous indulgences that old Tassacus eighteen centuries ago noted as peculiarly their own.
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For silent now are the forges and furnaces of Spandau, the clothing fabrics
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of the northeastern suburbs, the factories of the East End, and all the
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skilled industries of the South. The artist's colony of Moabbitt may no longer complain
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of drilling regiments, and the mammoth business blocks they call Hofa have swelled.
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The throng of clerks on Friedrich and Leipsinger Strassen all have sucked, and merchant
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and laborer fare forth and familee to take the evening air with What heartiness and
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placidity does this multitude enjoy its ease? It is a trick. Your high
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strung peoples beyond the borders can never get the hang of it. Calms one
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merely to look on at the contentment and satisfaction with which they strolled slowly and
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merrily along, chattering animatedly in their deep guttural speech, and greeting friends with
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punctilious boughs and infinite hat raisings. With every other word. They bend their
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backs, and they bow their heads, like the celebrated care hector of Dorothy.
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There is an agreeable absence of rush and hurry, ponderous and massive,
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but with an erectness bread of military training. They wear their somber, loose
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fitting clothes with palpable relish for comfort and inconspicuousness are virtues of price. With
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the Teuton, the stately Gnetaga Frau treads heavily in rustling silk, The mincing
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frowline favors ribbons and flounces, and Minson is dapper in a tight suit,
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lavender gloves, and the indispensable little cane. Chaperones, of course abound,
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for if a young man were to walk abroad alone with an unmarried girl in
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Berlin, he would be consigning her at once to a plain with the painted
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nymph de pavet. The surroundings are animated. Motor cars roll sedately along with
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the least din possible, and with scrupulous regard for speed limits, and a
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prodigious assortment of cheap and comfortable Droshka cabs hovers expectantly about with their drivers decked
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out in long coats and patent leather hats. From time to time, an
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officer in brilliant uniform, or a diplomat in severe black with a row of
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orders across his breast posts passed hurriedly to dine out in formal state, and
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with knowledge of the terrifying discomfort of a German social function comes confidence that most
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of them look from their smart rooms with profound envy at the jovial, care
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free crowds that are so boisterously happy. Along the way. The visitor,
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who is struggling with an uncomfortable suspicion that he may be missing something in the
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other two rings of the circus, might do well to climb the Krutzberg and
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take the whole show in like a map. He has probably already learned that
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although the city lies prostrate on a level and sandy plain as guiltless of a
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hill as a billiard table, yet the indominable Berliner has repaired this oversight of
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nature by himself building a fine little mountain at a convenient spot due south.
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That is one of the advantages in rearing your own hills. You can have
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them wherever you want them. In the sullen red of the dying day,
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one beholds from the battlements of the Kreutzberg's Gothic tower a monster plain twenty five
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miles in an irregular circle, smothered in housetops and barred and seamed with an
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intricate entanglement of carefully made streets. He sees parks and squares in surprising profusion
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and an abundance of foliage in spite of the sand. And there is a
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sluggish river winding a serpentine course, a ring bond encircling the suburbs, an
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elevated road that dives underground and becomes a subway, and surface lines without number.
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One could fancy a great cross in the center of the city, whose
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upright is the long friedrich Strass, and whose broad cross piece is the splendid
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unter den Linden. The last rays of the sun gild the roofs and spires
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of each of the town districts, which the Prussian Deet has recently merged into
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a greater Berlin of four million souls. Wilmersdorf, whose millionaire peasants became rich
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over night by selling their lands to speculators, Charlottenburg the pampered that has increased
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tenfold in thirty years, Ricksdorf the prosperous, and Scherneberg the renowned, which
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is well worth a sentimental journey to the graves of the brothers Grimm under the
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cypresses of Saint Matthew's Cemetery, if only out of gratitude for the familiar versions
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of Cinderella, Tom Thumb, Little Red riding Hood, and so many others
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of our childhood's companions. The sunset glory falls where glory is due on the
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region at our feet of ancient martial fame, the little village that knights Templar
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held for centuries, and the broad Tempelhoffer felled Prushi and drill ground for two
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hundred years. Whither all Berliners turn holiday faces when the Kaiser reviews the guards
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in spring and autumn, and journey caukishly homeward when the show is over,
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snapping their fingers at the Foemen's taunts. In every section that the Kurtzberg looks
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down upon, and still farther away under the fading western skies, pleasant signs
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of recreation abound the Linden overflows, the lesser streets are swollen streams, and
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every open square is a ruffled lake of leisurely humanity. A strong tide of
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loiterers sets through the most popular of Berlin's breathing spaces, the stately tier garden
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and ripples there about the bases of s statues and monuments, the marble settles
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of the sieges Ali, and the sculptured benches of the onlgin of the Brandenburg
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Gate. There is the usual deep eddy before the graceful statue of the adored
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Queen Louise, which is half buried in flowers by a grateful people every March
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tenth. The bridal paths teem with lines of aristocratic writers, with possibly the
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Kaiser himself among them. Indeed, no other part of the city may compare
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with a tier garden at this hour. So beautiful is it in turf and
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tree, and so delightful in heavy fragrance. No wonder that Berliners have so
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long regarded it as the best last glimpse of life, to fight duels in
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by dawn in other days, and to take their own lives in. Now
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all Berlin is now out of doors. The millionaires of the exclusive tier garden
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purlieus are cooling themselves in their villa gardens, and the middle class man is
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beaming at the band at the zoo, where the restaurant terraces are overflowing into
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the flowered walks. Among the trees. There is a boisterous code array of
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shouting children to every prim fountain in the prim squares out under the pines and
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cypresses of Grunewald. Crowds returning from the races are gazing admiringly at the pretty
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white villas that rim the verges of the placid forest lakes, and others are
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turning aside for the spectacular amusements of Luna Park at Steglitz. The bicycle races
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are ending, and merrymakers are swarming into the botanic gardens to marvel over the
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cacti and palms of the long hothouses. Capital boating is in progress on the
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Spree and sailing at the Wannasea and steamer trips all through the suburbs. Bands
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are crashing in the noisy penny shows of the tumultuous Zeltern. They are having
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beer and crowded wine hunts, Lungden chocolate and dainty Condetorian and much besides in
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the jolly vienna cafes that open out invitingly to the street. In every part
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of the city rise music and laughter and the sound of early revelry in pretty
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tree shaded summer gardens. It is an audible expression of the Berliner's joy of
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living their cherished Liebensfreude. Could we rise with Zeppelin? We should find it
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the same now at Charlettenburg, and over at Potsdam Charlottenburg, the prosperous is
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having its serene and dignified companies, sauntering in quiet evening talk along the broad,
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handsome streets, the gay or at the lively orangerie, the philosophic in
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the trim pert little parks, and the sentimental among the flaming roses and fragrant
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trellises of the charming palace garden. In solemn and conscious superiority, the great
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technical high School and famed Reichenstalt shroud their learned cornices in the gloaming of tree
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tops, And that chiefest mecca of all, the royal Mausoleum, embours its
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gleaming marble walls in heavy shrubbery at the bottom of its avenue of pines.
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No loiterer, you may be sure, but thinks reverently of the recumbent,
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snowy effigies of the dead rulers that lie in the hushed gloom of that dim
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interior Potsdam, Germany's Versailles, steeped in the melancholy beauties of the havevelin pine
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forests, rendolent of old Frederick the Great and his dream of an earthly SANSUSI
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thinks nothing of drawing berliners twenty miles to its twilight peace and calm exuberance tempers
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to the dignity and beauty of those parks and palaces where the Kaiser has his
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favorite royal seat up the broad hopped veg. They stroll by hundreds and gladden
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their patriotic eyes with the colonnades, porticoes and statues of the vast new palace
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that proved the foes of defiant Old Fritz that the sturdy warrior was far from
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bankrupt despite the seven years war. Nor do they forget that it was here
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the late emperor beloved Unser Fritz learned how unto dying eyes. The casement slowly
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grows a glimmering square. The classic town palace of Potsdam is receiving its compliments
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as usual, and no less the artistic lustgarden opulent in marbles and fountains,
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and many will be wandering even out to the cool and spacious park that lies
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about the charming Bebelsburg Chateau. But Old Frederick remains the local hero, and
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there is sure to be a crowd at the venerable lime Tree where petitioners used
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to stand to catch the eye of the king, and a kind of procession
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will be pas reverently before the garrison church, where lie his remains in the
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vault, before which Napoleon outdid himself in eulogy while he pilfered the old warrior's
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sword. And the leaping column of the great Fountain will be the center of
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an admiring throng, and scores will be going up and down the vista of
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broad stairs and fruited terraces that lead to the long low palace of Sansusi.
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As to the latter, a stranger might be pardoned if he were to mistake
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it for a casino, which it strikingly resembles, with its flat domed entrance,
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line of carretids like pedestal busts, and the row of stone urns on
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the balustrated top of the facade. At this hour there is no admission,
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but one may peer through the low French windows, and in fancy people Voltaire's
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room with a miserly ghost of the crafty old philosopher, see him fraternizing and
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quarreling with the king. Imagine a royal soiree in progress with Frederick playing skillfully
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on the flute, Recall the brilliant talk of the round table, and think
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with pity of the cheerless, childless old soldier toiling wearily on those histories that
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Macaulay praised, and winding his big clock, and yearning all the while to
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lie buried among his dogs out on the terrace. Too many will come visions
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wrought from the extravagant fiction of Louise Molbach. What moral observations and theatrical posings
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fell to poor Frederick's lot in her Berlin, and Saint Susi sandwiched in among
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the woeful loves of Amelia and Baron Trenck, and of the dancer Barberina and
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the High Chancellor's son. But perhaps such literature helps one to understand the application
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to Frederick of the celebrated characterization a very different personage, the wisest, greatest,
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meanest of mankind. In Berlin proper, there are two fine squares that
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best serve the well advised as to start and finish places for the most interesting
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evening walk to be had in the city, the lust Garden before the Royal
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Palace and the Kernig's plots at the Tiergarden corner. By this notable route,
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one arrives within the smoking of two cigars, at something like an intelligent comprehension
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of Berlin and Berliner's. The gracious expanse of the Lustgarden is so appealing in
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the melancholy light of sunset that one almost feels, at the very beginning of
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the stroll like going no farther for fear of faring worse, but rather remaining
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where he is, among the trees and fountains and artistic shrubbery, and watching
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the children playing hush cater around the colossal granite basin or ringer ringer rosa at
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the marble stairs of Frederick Williams's lofty statue. Soft splashes of deep colors warm
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the long rows of blinking windows in the Royal Palace on the left, and
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flush the domes of the cathedral and the columns of the Old Museum's ionic portico.
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Hundreds of Berliners are idling along the asphalt walks that entice to the palace
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bridge that arches the Spree in a double line of marble groups, and so
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opens up the long tree shaded perspective of the Linden to see it at this
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hour, one would not guess that this fair lustgarden had once been a neglected
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palace close and even a dusty drill ground. No more than one could believe
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that the occasional decrepit church or twisting narrow street in the district in the rear
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is all that marks antiquity in the whole of the city. For the furious
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tempo of Berlin's development has swept everything before it. Three out of every four
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buildings all over town are garishly modern. Indeed, it is also utterly of
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the present moment that it is hard to believe that even a group of fishermen's
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huts could have stood here beside the Spree so long as seven hundred years ago.
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Were one to see no more of Germany than its capital, he might
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very easily imagine a Chicago or two somewhere in the Empire, but certainly not
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a Nuremberg. Sunset imparts an air of cordiality to the ponderous Baroque seven hundred
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roomed royal Palace, whose four stories of regular window lines suggest an ornate and
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elaborate factory that had been diverted from its original purpose by the addition of a
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chapel dome on the west wing. However, for those who cross its slow
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terrace and enter the sculptured portals, there awaits a revelation of pomp and majesty,
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of throne room splendors and saloon magnificence that rivals the best of Versailles and
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Vienna. Unhappily, we cannot here see the windows of the royal family's apartments,
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for they are on the second floor of the opposite wing. Whence the
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Kaiser looks out on the neptune fountain of the Schlossplatz and the elaborate facade of
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the royal stables. When the purple banner that denotes his presence flies from the
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palace standard in the gloaming, the high portico columns, lion killer Amazon,
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and shadowy sculptured groups of the vestibule of the classic Old Museum gleam through the
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dark branches of the trees with charming grace and effectiveness. Not all the imposing
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galleries on museum island just beyond can displace the this well beloved old temple of
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the arts. In the affectionate regard of Berliner's the commanding dome or cathedral dominates
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the LuSE garden and all the city besides, but in the modest and inoffensive
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manner that is becoming in an architectural debutante of only six seasons, though that
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is quite long enough for a building to become passe. In Berlin, its
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granite walls, copper domes, high vaulted portals, elaborately carved cornices, and
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profusion of statuary stand out in beautiful relief against the darkness of the trees beyond.
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At this hour, the sturdy, be sculptured palace bridge is thronged with
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loiterers leaning over the broad balustrades to admire the festoons of Lichen on the opposite
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masonry embankment, or gaze down into the languid blue Spree. These waters have
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journeyed wearily all the way from distant Saxony, and with little enough to delight
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them along the road, excepting perhaps the scenes of the romantic and picturesque forest
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venice of Spree world, where the strange, wendish people in outlandish garb whole
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flat market barges through the labyrinth of canals and jabber to each other in a
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foreign tongue. Even on reaching the capital. The career of the spree continues
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uneventful and dejected, and shortly after clearing the city it gives up in discouragement
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and empties itself into the javel. At Spandau, one finds a pleasant evening
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life along its masonry banks. However, in spite of the personal indifference of
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the stream itself, and sometimes even of a brisk and important nature, thanks
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to the shipping from the canals. Beside these urban embankments, one sees here
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and there a narrow sidewalk between the walls in the houses that instantly recalls the
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delightful little rivas along the Venice canals. It is interesting to watch the swift,
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pert little streamers that dash up and down the stream, and to take
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note of the air of bravado with which they plunge under the low bridges.
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Then there are the soldiers washing their linen service uniforms on floating docks. But
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best of all are the canal boats. These invariably have a fat woman at
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the tiller and an excited dog dancing from end to end, while a sturdy
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husband propels a snail like passage by means of a long pole which he sets
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to his shoulder like a crutch, and inserts the other end into niches in
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the walls, and so plods the entire length of the deck, with the
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boat advancing slowly under his feet. Entering unter Linden from the Schlosbruca, an
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imposing array of splendid public buildings on either hand of the expanse vista suggests the
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middle of the street as the only adequate viewpoint, and the majority take it.
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In the evening, the visitor is bound speedily to conclude that, unless
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it be Vienna, no European city can boast a more beautiful or impressive double
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line of structures. They have dignity and solidity in appearance, richness and taste
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in decoration, and spaces to stand in of princely proportions. The agreeable effect
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of shade trees has been freely made use of, and on all sides one
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sees that profusion of sculpture and statuary, in which Berlin is as rich as
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London, for example, is poor. As if impressed with such surroundings,
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the evening crowds move along slowly and observantly, looking up admiringly at the dark
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gray fronts the statue set facade of the Arsenal, the stately palaces of Crown
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Prince and Crown Princess, the Opera House, the Rococo Royal Library, and
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the Palace of Old Emperor William the First, from whose famous corner window the
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conqueror of Sedan used to look out affectionately on the street life of his people
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with no less of satisfaction. Must the old Emperor have looked over the heads
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of the crowds at the university across the way, the proper toast of all
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Germany. One notes its open square and wide triple story, and thinks of
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the ripe scholarship suggested by the surrounding statues of its savants, Helmholtz, Momsen,
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Tritzka, and the Great William and Alexander von Humboldt, whose ashes lie
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at Tegel under Thorwaldsen's beautiful hope. Here six hundred teachers and ten thousand students
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work in the inspiring memory of such masters as these, and of such others
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as Fishta and Hegel and Shelling. From contemplations over the intellectual achievements of Prussia,
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one turns to martial glory in the form of rocks immortal equestrian statue of
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Frederick the Great, about which the crowds are now swarming, and observes the
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hero's head cocked in characteristic defiance, and his hand lightly resting on the hilt
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of his ready sword. Berliners make a great adio in studying and identifying the
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numerous eminent men of that period, whose reliefs are exquisitely executed on the four
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sides of the lofty pedestal. And now we pass under the limes and chestnuts
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of the five streeted Linden, keeping to the broad gravel promenade in the center,
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where the children play all day and their parents fill the benches half the
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night. On its outer streets one may see the finest hotels, theaters,
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cafes and shops of the city. It is amusing to watch the people at
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this hour in settling their arrangements for the evening cluster about the poster pillars that
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they call Litfasoylen and the newspaper kiosks scanning announcements and theater bills. Familiar to
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them but suggestive to a stranger are the iron standards at important street intersections,
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supporting placards of the Red Cross of the hospital boards to indicate the locations of
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emergency surgeons who are always on the spot. You may rest on a Linden
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bench a moment if you like, but expect thrifty Berlin to tax you for
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it. And read carefully the conspicuous placards so redolent of this systematic city to
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learn just where you may sit. For some are reserved for women, some
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for nurses with children, others for adults, and what remain or mere men.
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But the well advised will break the walk when they reach the corner of
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Friedrichstrass for a few minutes of refreshments at the celebrated Cafe Bower, where open
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house is held for all the world, and where you may take your ease
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under the frescoes of Anton Werner or at a balcony table, look down on
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the cosmopolitan congestion of the streets, and observe ladies having ices across the way
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at Cransler's after the fatigue of shopping at Tideses or Ertheim's. The animated scenes
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of the Cafe Bower are those of busy restaurants the world over, with the
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possible difference that Berliners make more of cafe life than many others, as being
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an institution essential to temperaments that crave social diversion, simple enjoyment and friendliness.
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So we hear much laughter and find the air vital. With a vociferous rumbling
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thunder of this deep lunged speech, and with continual explosions of so and hach
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and javol and bitta and enschuldigen and vanderschoen and especially prost. There is an
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incessant clamoring for waiters by hand claps and shouts of kellner, to which those
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distracted functionaries respond with augenblick in a wink of the eye, and dash off
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in haste to return at leisure. The gold that falls in trink gild passes
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belief, but tipping is like breathing. All over Berlin, it is said
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that the head waiters pay handsomely for the positions. You will see few people
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in the cafe bower unaccompanied, for sociability is a national characteristic. The man
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in the corner reading the Plyagenda Blatter or illustrious Zeitunk, or any other of
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the eleven thousand publications of the city will shortly be joined by some friend for
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whom he is waiting, and raise his voice in the general prost chorus.
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Should you address the waiter in English, you will be answered at once in
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that language, as you would for that matter, in any Berlin business house.
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The formality on every hand, the bowing and eternal thanking, is of
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the Berliner Berlinesque. It is a trick that is soon picked up, and
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it is no time at all before you can enter a store with the best
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of them. Remove your hat and wish the clerk malzite, remain uncovered until
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your purchase is made again, Bow and say malsite. Replace your hat,
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and go about your business. From a balcony table. At the bower,
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you may study as you elect the diners within or the crowds without. If
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it be the latter, you doubtless observe at once the extensive presence of the
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military element that so pre eminently dominates the empire. There goes a stiff backed,
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narrow waisted, tight coated officer, jangling his sword and fussing at his
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gloves. His chin is tilted at a supercilious angle, and his mustachios are
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trained to look fierce like the kaiser's. As he approaches a brother officer,
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he begins a salute a quarter block away and keeps it up as far again
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after passing he would perish before he would unbend in public to give the most
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unofficial of winks at the pretty bare armed nursemaid who is tripping demurely by.
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Yet it is whispered that in private de vac amrhine is not the only song
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he knows. And lo the humble man of the ranks, facetiously dubbed sand
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haassa, who is salute and goose stepping to some superior or other. The
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greater part of the time you perceive him now to be roaming about with evident
32:07
relish, and a familiar bit of local color is the dark blue tunic and
32:13
gray trousers, and the brass bedecked leather helmet with its pickle hauba top spike.
32:20
You learn to distinguish the core in time by the color of the shoulder
32:24
knots. Parenthetically, it will be remembered that these husky fellows are paid just
32:30
nine cents a day, and out of that go two and a half cents
32:36
for dinner. Their only free rations are coffee and the famous black bread.
32:42
They carry their cash balance suspended about the neck in a bag, and any
32:47
time an officer wishes to make sure the sand rabbit has not been squandering his
32:52
money too fast. He opens the bag at morning inspection and examines the contents.
33:00
Pay is small all the way up. A second lieutenant, with heavy
33:05
and unavoidable social obligations, receives twenty dollars a month, like an American sergeant.
33:13
Higher officers must live in town and keep their horses merry. Money becomes
33:19
the first requirement of the Silent Manual. But Germany's exposed borders must be lined
33:25
with bayonets, and she has not forgotten that the French War cost her a
33:30
hundred thousand men in killed and wounded. So she maintains an army of a
33:37
peace footing strength of six hundred thousand, at a cost of one hundred and
33:40
seventy five million dollars a year. The defenders of the fatherland become, in
33:46
consequence, the pets of the court and the social arbiters of the Empire.
33:52
On leaving the bower, it is amusing to dip for a few moments into
33:57
the tumult of rip roaring friedrich Strasse and sweep, along with the merchants,
34:01
government clerks, shop girls, artists, soldiers and all the rest of the
34:07
jovial motley company out in the middle of the street. Students go rushing by,
34:13
oisterously, inviting trouble and waving their hats and the husky bludgeons they call
34:19
canes. Conveyances of all descriptions are coming and going, droutchkin stages, double
34:25
decked omnibuses, motor cars, and all the rest. The corner of Leipziger
34:31
Strassa is a whirlpool through which traffic moves like so much drifting pack ice.
34:38
Trolley cars pass gingerly by to come to a stop at the iron posts marked
34:44
Haltistelen. One notes that the little isles of safety in the middle of the
34:50
street have each its representative of the omnipresent police, dressed up like major generals
34:57
in military long coats and nickel pointed helmets. They could tell you that Leipziger
35:04
Strassa is just as crowded all the way to the tumultuous Potsdam Gate, where
35:09
on each sharp corner of the five radiating streets, ponderous hotels project into the
35:15
Maelstrom like pieces of toast on spits. I say the policemen could tell you
35:22
that if they wanted to, But the probability is they would only wave excited
35:28
hands and shout verboten. And that makes you realize that about everything you want
35:34
to do in Berlin is forbidden for some reason or other. No yarn of
35:39
the Mormons ever conveyed an idea of such perpetual, unwinking vigilance as is the
35:46
second nature to this police force. Soon after arriving, you become uncomfortably conscious
35:53
of being secretly and unremittingly watched. But while this rankles were while, you
36:00
eventually become agglimated, as it were, and pass into a hardened stage of
36:06
moral irresponsibility, where you are scrupulously circumspect and not a little sly. Since
36:14
the police have elected to play the role of your conscience, you determined to
36:19
go about without one, like Peter Schlevel in his shadow in the bomby confidence
36:24
that whatever you are up to must be all right, or the authorities would
36:30
have notified you that it was verboten and had you up at headquarters for one
36:35
of those myriad finds that range from two cents up. Parenthetically, again,
36:42
it is the people's fault. They are government mad, intoxicated with bureaucracy.
36:50
Not for all the Gold Reserve at Spandau. Would they abate one jot of
36:53
this supervision? There is a law for everything. Some one has said that
37:00
for every fenning the German pays in taxes, he expects and receives a fenningsworth
37:07
of government. You see it on every hand. Each bus and car is
37:13
plac hearted to announce its exact seating capacity, as well as the precise amount
37:19
of standing room on the platforms. Once that space is occupied, it would
37:23
not stop for you, though you go on your knees. Have you ever
37:29
taken notice of the little metallic racks at each end of a Berlin street car.
37:34
That is where you leave the cigar you may be smoking when you enter.
37:38
Putting it anywhere else is absolutely their boten. It is the spirit of
37:44
the time. Berlin is a touch the button town, a machine made community
37:50
of deadly rote and rule system is the thing. Street numbers have arrows indicating
37:57
which way they run. Buxes are cleared every fifteen minutes. A letter goes
38:02
by the pneumatic roar post with the speed of a telegram. Packages are sent
38:08
by the parcel Delivery more quickly and more cheaply than by express. Hotels have
38:15
electric elevators, and vacuum cleaning. It is so all over Germany. Whoever
38:22
sees a picture of Dusseldorff these days without a Zeppelin airship in the background,
38:28
how eloquent it is of the thoroughness of this people, whose boastful made in
38:34
Germany is expressive of the rankest materialism, that their warlike capital should be distinguished
38:40
for the quality and quantity of its artistic feeling and excel besides in usefulness,
38:47
as exemplified in scores of museums that are admittedly the most instructive of any in
38:54
the world. As the last of daylight disappears, friedrich Strassa's shops blaze out
39:01
brilliantly in every guise of electricity the present pet scientific rage. The window dressings
39:08
are highly attractive, but seldom the interiors behind them. Americans are finding home
39:15
products in the Kodak and sewing machine stores in Penny, in the slot establishments,
39:22
and at alleged American soda fountains and bars, all displayed for sale in
39:28
business buildings that are better built than the battlements of Jericho. People need not
39:34
go out of a single block on Friedrichstrassa to secure every comfort they require.
39:39
For in so small a space one finds fashionable hotels, hotel's garnee pensions,
39:47
or the exemplary hospices affected by ladies traveling alone, where also you may dine
39:54
at establishments to suit your purse at extravagant cost, or on the lightest of
40:00
repasts at a condottore, or on a heavy seven course dinner at a popular
40:07
restaurant for twenty cents with the glass of beer in the bargain. One finds
40:13
the dance halls largely supported by foreigners and tourists, of which Latter America sends
40:19
fully forty thousand annually. It is also speedily apparent that the undertow of the
40:25
feverish stream brings its wreckage to the surface, where the rouged cheek and carmined
40:32
lip betrayed the presence of fiercer kinds of questing beasties than ever were recorded in
40:39
the Morte Darthur. Out again, under the rustling trees of the Linden,
40:45
one strolls on in increasing delight in the growing zest of the evening. The
40:51
prosperous crowds toss bennings to the begging old Linden angels and patronize the flower vendors
40:58
and newsboys the Linden's Fivefold Boulevard. The outer streets are rumbling with heavy wagons
41:05
and cabs, the drive with carriages, The bridle path is lively with belated
41:09
riders, and the broad middle promenade is overflowing with pedestrians. Good Americans,
41:16
on passing the United States Embassy headquarters at the corner of Shadow Strasa, raise
41:22
their hats in a sudden welling of patriotic reverence, and very likely with a
41:29
wistful sympathy for the himwich that must frequently oppress the two thousand members of the
41:35
American colony that tarry in the pleasant environs of Victoria Louise. Plots diplomats are
41:42
coming and going on aristocratic Wilhelmstrasa, which sweeps southward at this point, and
41:47
where the lights are beginning to sparkle before the double line of government department buildings,
41:52
royal palaces and foreign embassy houses. The famous Palace of Mellow gray Stone,
42:00
in which the Iron Chancellor lived and held court like a king in the
42:04
heyday of his power, shrouds itself proudly in the deep green of its garden
42:09
of thick shrubbery, But all this fails to hold the stroller's attention when he
42:15
glances about and sees he is at the end of the Linden, and that
42:20
a dozen steps will carry him to a sudden widening into stately parizer plots,
42:25
at the bottom of which, flanked by fountain, lateral lawns, and light
42:30
flecked in the twilight blur rises one of Berlin's chiefest features, the famed Brandenburg
42:37
Gate. When the Berlin exile is homesick, this is the picture he always
42:43
sees. The imposing five arched gateway, creamy against the misty deep green of
42:49
the tier garden tree tops, the dignified fronts of surrounding embassy houses, flowered
42:54
grass plots on either hand, leaping fountains, the long line of trees of
43:00
the Linden, and through the gateway portals glimpses of colonnades and white statues in
43:07
the cool, dusky alleys of the park. It is an inspiring spot.
43:13
The classic grace of Greece is present in the gate itself, a copy of
43:17
the Athenian Propalia, and the eventualities of warfare are suggested in shadows bronze quadriga
43:25
above it, which the envious Napoleon carried off to his Paris. These old
43:31
trees of the Linden know much of the turning of the wheel of fortune.
43:36
They shook to the tread of the conquering legions of Napoleon the Great after Yana,
43:40
when Queen Louise and her little ten year old son fled in want and
43:45
humiliation, But they also rocked threescore, and five years later to the shouting
43:52
of the armies of a united and triumphant Germany, when that same little boy
43:58
become Emperor William the First returned from the annihilation of Napoleon the little Any German
44:06
student adequately inspired will tell the legend of the quadriga, how the Goddess of
44:12
Victory each New Year's eve drives her chariot and four up the Linden, pays
44:19
her respects to Frederick the Great on his bronze horse, and is back in
44:23
her place by one a m. And that is the night, by the
44:28
way that the Great Elector rides his charger all over the city, taking note
44:34
of the year's changes, and returns to his position on the Kerfurst and Brucca
44:39
before the stroke of one out of the same nebelungan Land comes the legend of
44:45
the white lady that goes moaning through the Royal Palace when a hoenzoleern is about
44:52
to die. Now we are on Berlin traditions, it may be said that
44:57
there is more agreeable flesh and blood to the custom of receiving bouquets from the
45:01
witches of the blocksburg on Walpurgis Knocht may first and an altogether human foundation for
45:09
the ancient torch dances at Hohen's o learned weddings of which Carlyle has given so
45:15
enthusiastic a description. Beyond the gate we face a beautiful picture. The sweeping
45:22
arc of the Onlagen, rimmed with marble benches, balustrades and statues, is
45:29
spirited with pleasure seekers, and its thick lines of lights are all glowing brightly,
45:34
and carriages and cabs are speeding noiselessly across it. An attractive dilemma presents
45:40
as to whether we choose to reach the adjoining Kernig's plots by the embowered and
45:45
vernal path of peace the tree arched Frieden's Aalee through this corner of the tier
45:52
garden, or by the celebrated war way the sieges Ali Between the double lines
45:58
of the thirty two marble groups portraying the rulers of the House of Brandenburg.
46:04
There are advantages to either. The first is shorter and supremely Sylvan, but
46:09
the second presents an opportunity of settling for oneself the violent difference of opinion as
46:15
to the artistic merits of this elaborate gift of the Kaiser to his capital.
46:22
Each of the groups of the latter has a heroic statue of a Prussian ruler,
46:28
half encircled by a marble bench whose ends are hermes busts of eminent men
46:32
of that period. We are entitled to an opinion. Some pronounce it incomparable,
46:39
others think it pompous and insipid, and very much like a stonecutter's yard.
46:45
In either event, one soon reaches the Kernig's plots and beholds envisioned the
46:52
power and glory of the fatherland. At no hour does it appear to such
46:57
advantage as at twilight. The dusky shadows lie heavy about the great circular field
47:02
of trees and shrubbery, shrouding the sculptured mass of the vast reichstad building until
47:09
its huge glass dome looms like a colossal moon in a lake of emerald.
47:15
Bismarck and Bonoca rise above their statue groups like demigods of bronze, and the
47:22
lofty column of Victory, studded with captured cannon, rears its brisk and lightly
47:28
poised angel to acclaim the glories of Germany to an invisible world among the skies.
47:35
Kroll's neighbouring summer garden is gay in hundreds of colored lights that glow in
47:40
the grass plots and dim arbours, and hang like pendant fruit from the branches
47:45
of the trees. The dusk deepens into gloom, and twilight plays whistler tricks
47:52
with fountain spray and statue. Distant domes pass in night wizardry for ghostly war
47:59
tents on multka Faint vapors steel among the trees of the lower levels, and
48:05
the dark of dim retreats is deeper for the brilliance of groups of lights that
48:09
fade surrounding foliage into shades of pale Olive. Music drifts softly over from Krolls,
48:16
and the subdued hum of engulfing Berlin conveys a pleasant sense of companionship,
48:22
and a feeling of admiration and affection. In the vivid appreciation of all we
48:28
have just been seeing, one thinks in amazement, what a people harveized against
48:35
everything but progress. They are bending their tremendous energy to the enormous task of
48:40
transforming Berlin from the capital of a kingdom into the capital of an empire.
48:46
To see what they are accomplishing is to whip one's wasteful forces and holy stone
48:52
his resolution. Here is energy and power of a kind to move mountains.
48:59
Foreign critics blight their nails in envy and decry Berlin as a parvenu among capitals.
49:06
They say it lacks distinction, is solemnly conscious of its new dignity,
49:12
is big without being cosmopolitan, and imposing without being impressive. That it is
49:17
garishly modern is true enough, as in the light of its sudden apotheosis,
49:23
it could not have been otherwise, and its own people are the first to
49:29
admit grave errors in artistic taste. But taken all in all, a fairer,
49:35
more substantial, or more worthy city has never before been reared in the
49:39
same length of time in the history of mankind. Nor is the end yet
49:45
the soaring impetus of the capital waxes with its own effort, gathers strength with
49:52
each fresh achievement. Germany may be pardoned for taking pride in having risen as
49:58
a world power to the very van of the nations, with her war lord
50:02
one of the foremost figures of the era. That his capital is his special
50:07
pride is well known, and there are many who feel that he has gone
50:12
far to realizing his expressed determination to make Berlin the most beautiful city of Europe.
50:20
One rests in the Kernig's plots at the foot of Bismarck's statue and regards
50:24
with wonder the stern features of that man of blood and iron, to whose
50:30
preciens an indomitable resolution. These vast results are so largely due the best of
50:37
Bismarck is not dead, but lives and increases in the activities of his countrymen.
50:45
As was said of another, would you see his monument? Look around
50:49
you. The destiny Germany is working out is the one he bequeathed her.
50:54
All this fair fruition is the flower of his seeding. The Kaiser may continue
51:01
his idolatry of his grandfather by sowing the empire with statues of the war Emperor.
51:07
But the people do not for a moment forget that the man who provisioned
51:13
and compelled these results was he at the feet of whose grim statue we uncover
51:19
in deep respect in the evening calm of the Kernig's plots. The hand was
51:23
the hand of Bismarck. End of section six, recorded by Deborah pH Giordano