DURING the first ten days I saw considerable of German night-life, in company with Herr A., a stalwart Prussian who went out of his way to be nice to me. I cannot say that, after Paris and Monte Carlo, I was greatly impressed, although all that I saw in Berlin had this advantage, that it bore sharply the imprint1 of German nationality. The cafés were not especially noteworthy. I do not know what I can say about any of them which will indicate their individuality. “Piccadilly” was a great evening drinking-place near the Potsdamer Platz, which was all glass, gold, marble, glittering with lights and packed with the Germans, en famille, and young men and their girls.
“La Clou” was radically2 different. In a way it was an amazing place, catering3 to the moderately prosperous middle class. It seated, I should say, easily fifteen hundred people, if not more, on the ground floor; and every table, in the evening at least, was full. At either end of the great center aisle4 bisecting it was stationed a stringed orchestra and when one ceased the other immediately began, so that there was music without interruption. Father and mother and young Lena, the little Heine, and the two oldest girls or boys were all here. During the evening, up one aisle and down another, there walked a constant procession of boys and girls and young men and young women, making shy, conservative eyes at one another.
In Berlin every one drinks beer or the lighter5 wines—the children being present—and no harm seems to come475 from it. I presume drunkenness is not on the increase in Germany. And in Paris they sit at tables in front of cafés—men and women—and sip6 their liqueurs. It is a very pleasant way to enjoy your leisure. Outside of trade or the desire to be president, vice-president, or secretary of something, we in America have so often no real diversions.
In no sense could either of these restaurants be said to be smart. But Berlin, outside of one or two selected spots, does not run to smartness. The “Cabaret Linden” and the “Cabaret Arcadia” were, once more, of a different character. There was one woman at the Cabaret Linden who struck me as having real artistic8 talent of a strongly Teutonic variety. Claire Waldoff was her name, a hard, shock-headed tomboy of a girl, who sang in a harsh, guttural voice of soldiers, merchants, janitors9, and policemen—a really brilliant presentation of local German characteristics. It is curious how these little touches of character drawn10 from everyday life invariably win thunders of applause. How the world loves the homely11, the simple, the odd, the silly, the essentially12 true! Unlike the others at this place, there was not a suggestive thing about anything which this woman said or did; yet this noisy, driveling audience could not get enough of her. She was truly an artist.
One night we went to the Palais de Danse, admittedly Berlin’s greatest night-life achievement. For several days Herr A. had been saying: “Now to-morrow we must go to the Palais de Danse, then you will see something,” but every evening when we started out, something else had intervened. I was a little skeptical13 of his enthusiastic praise of this institution as being better than anything else of its kind in Europe. You had to take Herr A.’s vigorous Teutonic estimate of Berlin476 with a grain of salt, though I did think that a city that had put itself together in this wonderful way in not much more than a half-century had certainly considerable reason to boast.
“But what about the Café de Paris at Monte Carlo?” I suggested, remembering vividly14 the beauty and glitter of the place.
“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, with great emphasis—he had a habit of unconsciously making a fist when he was emphatic—“not in Monte Carlo, not in Paris, not anywhere.”
“Very good,” I replied, “this must be very fine. Lead on.”
So we went.
I think Herr A. was pleased to note how much of my skepticism melted after passing the sedate15 exterior16 of this astounding17 place.
“I want to tell you something,” said Herr A. as we climbed out of our taxi—a good, solid, reasonably priced, Berlin taxi—“if you come with your wife, your daughter, or your sister you buy a ticket for yourself—four marks—and walk in. Nothing is charged for your female companions and no notice is taken of them. If you come here with a demi-mondaine, you pay four marks for yourself and four for her, and you cannot get in without. They know. They have men at the door who are experts in this matter. They want you to bring such women, but you have to pay. If such a woman comes alone, she goes in free. How’s that?”
Once inside we surveyed a brilliant spectacle—far more ornate than the Café l’Abbaye or the Café Maxim18, though by no means so enticing19. Paris is Paris and Berlin is Berlin and the Germans cannot do as do the French. They haven’t the air—the temperament20. Everywhere in Germany you feel that—that strange477 solidity of soul which cannot be gay as the French are gay. Nevertheless the scene inside was brilliant. Brilliant was the word. I would not have believed, until I saw it, that the German temperament or the German sense of thrift21 would have permitted it and yet after seeing the marvelous German officer, why not?
The main chamber22—very large—consisted of a small, central, highly polished dancing floor, canopied23 far above by a circular dome24 of colored glass, glittering white or peach-pink by turns, and surrounded on all sides by an elevated platform or floor, two or three feet above it, crowded with tables ranged in circles on ascending25 steps, so that all might see. Beyond the tables again was a wide, level, semi-circular promenade26, flanked by ornate walls and divans27 and set with palms, marbles and intricate gilt28 curio cases. The general effect was one of intense light, pale, diaphanous29 silks of creams and lemon hues30, white-and-gold walls, white tables,—a perfect glitter of glass mirrors, and picturesque31 paneling. Beyond the dancing-floor was a giant, gold-tinted32, rococo33 organ, and within a recess34 in this, under the tinted pipes, a stringed orchestra. The place was crowded with women of the half-world, for the most part Germans—unusually slender, in the majority of cases delicately featured, as the best of these women are, and beautifully dressed. I say beautifully. Qualify it any way you want to. Put it dazzlingly, ravishingly, showily, outrageously—any way you choose. No respectable woman might come so garbed35. Many of these women were unbelievably attractive, carried themselves with a grand air, pea-fowl wise, and lent an atmosphere of color and life of a very showy kind. The place was also crowded, I need not add, with young men in evening clothes. Only champagne36 was served to drink—champagne at twenty marks the bottle. Champagne at478 twenty marks the bottle in Berlin is high. You can get a fine suit of clothes for seventy or eighty marks.
The principal diversions here were dining, dancing, drinking. As at Monte Carlo and in Paris, you saw here that peculiarly suggestive dancing of the habitués and the more skilled performances of those especially hired for the occasion. The Spanish and Russian dancers, as in Paris, the Turkish and Tyrolese specimens37, gathered from Heaven knows where, were here. There were a number of handsome young officers present who occasionally danced with the women they were escorting. When the dancing began the lights in the dome turned pink. When it ceased, the lights in the dome were a glittering white. The place is, I fancy, a rather quick development for Berlin. We drank champagne, waved away charmers, and finally left, at two or three o’clock, when the law apparently38 compelled the closing of this great central chamber; though after that hour all the patrons who desired might adjourn39 to an inner sanctum, quite as large, not so showy, but full of brilliant, strolling, dining, drinking life where, I was informed, one could stay till eight in the morning if one chose. There was some drunkenness here, but not much, and an air of heavy gaiety. I left thinking to myself, “Once is enough for a place like this.”
I went one day to Potsdam and saw the Imperial Palace and grounds and the Royal Parade. The Emperor had just left for Venice. As a seat of royalty40 it did not interest me at all. It was a mere41 imitation of the grounds and palace at Versailles, but as a river valley it was excellent. Very dull, indeed, were the state apartments. I tried to be interested in the glass ballrooms42, picture galleries, royal auditoriums44 and the like. But alas45! The servitors, by the way, were just as anxious for tips as any American waiters. Potsdam did479 not impress me. From there I went to Grunewald and strolled in the wonderful forest for an enchanted46 three hours. That was worth while.
The rivers of every city have their individuality and to me the Spree and its canals seem eminently47 suited to Berlin. The water effects—and they are always artistically48 important and charming—are plentiful49.
The most pleasing portions of Berlin to me were those which related to the branches of the Spree—its canals and the lakes about it. Always there were wild ducks flying over the housetops, over offices and factories; ducks passing from one bit of water to another, their long necks protruding50 before them, their metallic51 colors gleaming in the sun.
You see quaint52 things in Berlin, such as you will not see elsewhere—the Spreewald nurses, for instance, in the Thiergarten with their short, scarlet53, balloon skirt emphasized by a white apron54, their triangular55 white linen56 head-dress, very
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