BERLIN
Once upon a time a German got hold of Aladdin's lamp, and he summoned
the Djinn attendant on the lamp. "Build me a city of broad airy
streets," he bade him, "and where several streets meet see that there
is an open place set with trees and statues and fountains." All the
houses, even those that the poor inhabit, are to be big and white and
shining, like palaces; but the real palaces where princes shall live
may be plain and grey. There are to be pleasure grounds in the midst
of the city, but they are to be woods rather than parks, because even
you and the lamp cannot make grass grow in this soil and climate. In
the pleasure grounds, and especially on either side of one broad
avenue, there are to be sculptured figures of kings and heroes, larger
than life and as white as snow. The Djinn said it would be easy to
build the city in a night as the German desired, but that the
sculpture could not be hurried in this way, because artists would have
to make it, and artists were people who would not work to order or to
time. The German, however, said he was master of the lamp, and that
the city must be ready when he wanted it early next morning. So the
Djinn set to work and got the city ready in a night, sculpture and
all. But when he had finished he had not used half the figures and
garlands and other stone ornaments he had made. If he had been in
England he might have reduced them in size, and given them to an
Italian hawker to carry about on his head on a tray. But he knew that
hawkers would not be allowed in the city he had built. So, as he was
rather tired and anxious to be done, he quickly made one more long,
broad street stretching all the way from the pleasure ground in the
centre of the city to the forest that begins where the city ends; and
on every house in the street he put figures and garlands and gilded
balconies and ornamental turrets, as many as he could. The effect when
he had finished pleased him vastly, and he said it was the finest
street in the city, and should be called the _Kurfürstendamm_. His
master and all the Germans who came to live in it agreed with him.
They gave large rents for a flat in one of the houses, and when they
went to London and saw the smoky dwarfish houses there they came away
as quickly as possible and rubbed their hands and were happy, and said
to each other, "How beautiful is our _Kurfürstendamm_. We have as many
turrets as we have chimneys, and we have garlands on our balconies of
green or gilded iron, and some of us have angelic figures made of red
brick, so that the angelic faces are checked with white where the
bricks are joined together."
"But it does not become anyone from England to criticise the
architecture and sculpture of a foreign country," I said to the artist
who told me the story of the lamp. "Our own is notoriously bad."
"It is not you who will criticise ours," he answered. "By your own
confession, you know nothing whatever of architecture and sculpture,
and when people know nothing they should either keep silence or ask
for information in the best quarter. You have my authority for saying
that the architects and sculptors of Berlin would have been better
employed building dog-kennels."
"But I rather like your wide cheerful streets," I objected, "and your
tall clean houses. Our houses...."
"Your houses are little black boxes in which people eat and sleep.
They do not pretend to anything. Ours pretend to be beautiful, and are
ridiculous. Moreover, in England there are men who can build beautiful
houses. You do not employ them much. You prefer your ugly little
boxes. But they are there. I know their names and their work."
"But what do you think of our statues?" I asked him.
"I don't think of them," he said; "I prefer to think of something
pleasant. When I am in London I spend every hour I have at the docks."
"I like the _Sieges-Allee_," I said boldly,--"it is so clean and
cheerful."
"It was made for people who look at sculpture from that point of
view," said my friend.
I hardly know where an artist finds inspiration in the streets of
Berlin. It really makes the impression of a city that has sprung up in
a night, and that is kept clean by invisible forces. The great breadth
of the streets, the avenues of trees everywhere, and the many open
places make it pleasant; but you look in vain for the narrow lanes and
gabled houses still to be found in other German towns, and you are not
surprised when Americans compare it with Chicago, because it is so new
and busy. It is indeed the city of the modern German spirit, and what
it has of old tradition and old social life lies beneath the surface,
hidden from the eye of the stranger. There is Sans-Souci, to be sure,
and Frederick the Great, and the Grosser Kurfürst. There is the double
line of princes on either side of the _Sieges-Allee_. But modern
Berlin dates from 1870, and so do all good Berliners, whatever their
age may be. They are proud of their young empire and of their big
city, and of doing everything in the best possible way. There is
unceasing flux and growth in Berlin, so that descriptions written a
few years ago are as out of date as these impressions must be soon.
For instance, I had counted steadfastly on finding three things there
that I cannot find at home: first and second-class cabs, hordes of
soldiers everywhere, and policemen who would run a sword through you
if you looked at them; and of all these I was more or less
disappointed.
I did get hold of a second-class cab on my arrival in Berlin, but it
nearly came to pieces on the way, and I never saw another during my
stay there. The cabs are all provided with the taximeter now, so that
the fare knows to a fraction what is due to the driver; and the
drivers are of the first class, and wear white hats. Anyone who wished
to see a second-class cab would have to make inquiries, and find a
stand where some still languish, but before long the last of them will
probably be preserved in a museum. Cabs are not much used in Berlin,
because communication by the electric cars is so well organised. The
whole population travels by them, the whole city is possessed by them.
If it is to convey a true impression, a description of Berlin should
run to the moan of them as they glide everlastingly to and fro. You
can hardly escape their noise, and not for long their sight. Even the
Tiergarten, the Hyde Park of Berlin, is traversed by them, which is as
it should be in a municipal republic. This is what the Germans call
their city, for they are not conscious themselves of living under an
autocracy or of being in any sense of the word less free than, let us
say, the English, a point of view most puzzling to an English person,
who is conscious from the moment he crosses the German frontier of
being governed for his good. But it is pleasant on a summer morning
to be carried through the shady avenues of the Tiergarten in an open
car, whether it is an autocracy or a republic that arranges it for
you; and you reflect that in this and a thousand other ways Germany is
an agreeable country even if it is not a free one; especially for "the
people" who have small means, and are able to drive through the chief
pleasure ground of their city for a penny. The conductors of the cars
are obliged to announce the name of the next halting-place, so that
passengers alighting may get up in time and step off directly, but on
no account before the car stops. Nothing is left to chance or muddle
in Berlin, and unless you are a born fool you cannot go astray. If you
are a born fool you ask a policeman, as you would at home, and find
another dear illusion shattered. He does not draw his sword, he is
neither gruff nor disobliging. He greets you with the military salute,
and calls you gracious lady. Then he answers your question if he can.
If not he gets out the little guide book he carries, and patiently
hunts up the street or the building you want. He is usually a
good-natured rosy faced young man with a fair moustache, and he will
do anything in the world for you except control the traffic. That with
the best will in the world he cannot do. So he stands in the midst of
it and smiles. Sometimes he sits amidst it on a horse and looks
solemn. But he never impresses himself on it. There is a story of a
policeman who went to London to learn from our men what to do, and who
bemoaned his fate when he got back. "I hold up my hand in just the
same way," he said, "and then the people run and the horses run, and
there's a smash and I get put in prison." The Berliners themselves say
that they are not accustomed yet, as we have been for years, to regard
the police as their well-liked and trusted servants, and to obey
their directions willingly. However this may be, there is at present
only one safe way of getting to the opposite side of a busy street in
Berlin, and that is to wait till a crowd gathers and charges across it
in a bunch like a swarm of bees.
Berlin is never asleep, and it is as light by night as by day. It is
much pleasanter for a woman without escort to come out of the theatre
there than in London. She will find crowds of respectable people with
her, and they will not depart in their own cabs and carriages. They
will crowd into the electric cars, and she must know which car she
wants and crowd with them. The worst that can happen to her will be to
find her car over-crowded, and in that case she must not expect a man
to give her his seat. I have seen a young German lady make an old lady
take her place, but I have never known men yield their seats to women.
You do not see as many private carriages in Berlin in a week as you do
in some parts of London in an hour. Even in front of the Opera House
very few will be in waiting; and there is no fashionable hour for
riding and driving in the Tiergarten. I know too little about horses
to judge of those that were being ridden, or driven in private
carriages; but the miserable beasts in cabs and carts force the most
ignorant person to observe and pity them. They look as if they were on
their way to the knacker's yard, and very often as if they must sink
beneath the load they are compelled to carry. It is comforting to
reflect that horses will doubtless soon be too old-fashioned for
Berlin, and that all the cabs and vans of the future will be motors.
The cars run early enough in the morning for the workmen, and late
enough at night for people who have had supper at a popular restaurant
after the theatre or a glass of beer at one of the _Zelten_, the
garden restaurants that in the time of Frederick the Great were really
tents, and where the Berliners flocked then as they do now to hear a
band, look at the trees of the Tiergarten, and enjoy light
refreshments. When you get back to your house from such gaieties you
find it locked and in darkness, but though there is a "portier" you do
not disturb him by calling out your name as you would in Paris. In
modern houses there is electric light outside each floor that you
switch on for yourself, and you have a race with it that you lose
unless you are active; but you soon learn to feel your way up to the
next light when you are left in darkness. The Berlin "portier" is not
as much in evidence as the Paris concierge. He opens the door to
strangers, but if you stay or live in the house you are expected to
carry two heavy keys about with you, one for the street door and one
for the flat. The modern doors have some machinery by which they shut
themselves noiselessly after you. You hear a great deal more said
about "nerves" in Germany than in England, and yet Germans seem to be
amazingly indifferent to noise. They will not tolerate the brass bands
and barrel-organs that pester us, but that is because they are fond of
music. Screaming voices, banging doors, and the clatter of kitchens
and business premises seem not to trouble them at all. Most houses in
Berlin are five or six storeys high, and are built round the four
sides of a small paved court. No one who has not lived in such a
house, and in a room giving on the court, can understand how every
sound increases and reverberates. Footsteps at dawn sound as if the
seven-leagued boots had come, and were shod with iron. You whisper
that the kitchen on a lower floor in an opposite corner looks well
kept, and the maid hears what you say and looks at you smiling. I
knew that the back premises of these big German hives might harbour
any social grade and almost any industry, and for a long time I vowed
that some one must live in our court whose business it was to hammer
tin, and that he hammered it most late at night and early in the
morning. I had not heard anything like the noise since I had lived in
a high narrow German street paved with cobble-stones, and occupied
just opposite my windows by a brewer whose vans returned to him at
daybreak and tumbled empty casks at his door. But I never discovered
my tin merchant in Berlin, and in time I had to admit that my hosts
were right. The noise I complained of was made by the cook washing up
in the opposite kitchen. I should not have noticed it if I had been a
sensible person, and slept with my curtains drawn and my double
windows tight shut.
Of course, there are some quiet streets in Berlin, and there are
charming homes in the "garden-houses." Some of the quadrangles are
built round a garden instead of a paved yard, and then you can get a
quiet pleasant flat with a balcony that looks on a garden instead of a
street. The traditional plan of a Berlin flat is most inconvenient and
unpractical. In old-fashioned houses, and even in houses built sixteen
years ago or less, you find that one of the chief rooms is the only
thoroughfare between the bedrooms near the kitchen premises and the
rooms near the front door. Anyone occupying one of these back rooms,
which are often good ones, can only get to the front door by way of
this thoroughfare, where he will usually find the family gathered
together; the maid, too, must pass through every time the door bell
rings, and when she goes about her business in the front regions her
brooms and pails must pass through with her. The window of this room,
which is known as a _Berliner Zimmer_, is always in one corner and
lights it insufficiently. The Berliners themselves recognise its
disadvantages, but I like to describe it, because I observe amongst the
Germans of to-day a fierce determination to destroy and deny everything
a foreigner might call a little absurd, even if it is characteristic;
so I feel sure that if I go to Berlin a few years hence there will not
be a _Berliner Zimmer_ left in the city, and no Berliner will ever have
seen or heard of one; nor will the flat doors have the quaint little
peepholes through which the maid's eye may be seen appraising you
before she lets you in. The newest houses, those in the
_Kurfürstendamm_, for instance, have every "improvement"--central
heating, lifts, gas cooking stoves, sinks for washing up, and bathrooms
that are a reality and not a mere appearance. These bathrooms, I am
assured, can be used without several hours' notice and the anxious
superintendence of the only person, the head of the family as a rule,
who understands the heating apparatus. Berlin, like Mr. Barrie's
Admirable Crichton, has found out how to lay on hot and cold. It has
found out about electric light too, and it might teach London how to
use the telephone. Berlin talks to its friends by telephone as a matter
of course, asks them how they are, if they enjoyed the _Fest_ last
night, whether if you call on Tuesday they will be at home. Perhaps
when Mr. Wells goes to Berlin he will forsee a reaction, a revolt
against the incessant insistent bell that respects no occupation and
allows no undisturbed rest. It is a hurried generation that uses the
telephone so much, for the letter boxes are emptied eighteen times in
twenty-four hours, and if the post is not quick enough or a telegram
too expensive for all you want to say you can send a card by the tube
post.
Berlin is not the city of soldiers that the English fancy pictures it.
English people, English little boys, for instance, who would like to
see all their lead soldiers come to life, must go to one of the
smaller garrison towns, where in every street and every square they
will watch men on the march and at drill. In those quarters of Berlin
not occupied by barracks the population is civilian. You see the grey
and the dark blue uniforms everywhere, but not in masses and not at
work. The people rush like children to follow the guard changed at the
Schloss every day; just as they might in London, where soldiers are a
rare spectacle. In a smaller town the army is more evidently in
possession. It fills the restaurants, occupies the front row of the
stalls at the opera, prevails in public gardens, and holds the
pavement against the world. But Berlin to all appearances belongs to
its citizens, and provides for their profit and convenience. They fill
its multitude of houses. They say they make its laws and order its
progress. At any rate they live in an agreeable, well-managed city,
full of air and light, and kept so clean that most other cities seem
slovenly and grimy by comparison. To go suddenly from Berlin to
Hamburg, for instance, gives you a shock; though Hamburg is
incomparably more attractive and delightful. But in Hamburg you may
see bits of paper lying about, and dust on the pavement. In Berlin
there is no dust, and no one has ever seen an untidy bit of paper
there. It is to be hoped that no one ever travels direct from Berlin
to London. What would he think of Covent Garden Market? There are
markets in Berlin, at least a dozen of them, but by midday they are
swept and garnished. You would not find a leaf of parsley or an end of
string to tell you where one had been.