WHAT A BERLIN CHILD ENJOYED ON THE SPREE AND AT HIS GRANDMOTHER'S
IN DRESDEN.
In the summer we were all frequently taken to the new Zoological Garden,
where we were especially delighted with the drollery of the monkeys.
Even then I felt a certain pity for the deer and does in confinement,
and for the wild beasts in their cages, and this so grew upon me that
many a visit to a zoological garden has been spoiled by it. Once in
Keilhau I caught a fawn in the wood and was delighted with my beautiful
prize. I meant to bring it up with our rabbits, and had already carried
it quite a distance, when suddenly I began to be sorry for it, and
thought how its mother would grieve, upon which I took it back to the
spot where I had found it and returned to the institution as fast as I
could, but said nothing at first about my "stupidity," for I was ashamed
of it.
Excursions into the country were the most delightful pleasures of the
summer. The shorter ones took us to the suburbs of the capital, and
sometimes to Charlottenburg, where several of our acquaintances lived,
and our guardian, Alexander Mendelssohn, had a country house with a
beautiful garden, where there was never any lack of the owner's children
and grandchildren for playmates. Sometimes we were allowed to go there
with other boys. We then had a few Groschen to get something at a
restaurant, and were generally brought home in a Kremser carriage. These
carriages were to be found in a long row by the wall outside of the
Brandenburg Gate or at the Palace in Charlottenburg or by the "Turkish
tent"--for at that time there were no omnibuses running to the decidedly
rural neighbouring city. Even when the carriages were arranged to carry
ten or twelve persons there was but one horse, and it was these
Rosinantes which probably gave rise to the following rhyme:
"A Spandau wind,
A child of Berlin,
A Charlottenburg horse,
Are all not worth a pin."
The Berlin children were, on the whole, better than their reputation, but
not so the Charlottenburg horses. The Kremser carriages were named from
the man who owned most of them. The business was carried on by an
association. A single individual rarely hired one; either a family took
possession of it, or you got in and waited patiently till enough persons
had collected for the driver to think it worth while to take his whip and
say, "Well, get up!"
But this same Herr Kremser also had nice carriages for excursions into
the country, drawn by two or four horses, as might be required. For the
four-horse Kremser chariots there was even a driver in jockey costume,
who rode the saddle-horse.
Other excursions took us to the beautiful Humboldt's Tegel, to the Muggel
and Schlachten Lakes, to Franzosisch Buchholz, Treptow, and Stralau. We
were, unfortunately, never allowed to attend the celebrated fishing
festival at Stralau.
But the crowning expedition of all was on our mother's birthday, either
to the Pichelsbergen, wooded hills mirrored in ponds where fish abounded,
or to the Pfaueninsel at Potsdam.
The country around Berlin is considered hopelessly ugly, but with great
injustice. I have convinced myself since that I do not look back as
fondly on the Pichelsbergen and the Havelufer at Potsdam, where it was
granted us to pass such happy hours in the springtime of life, because
the force of imagination has clothed them with fancied charms. No, these
places have indeed a singularly peaceful attractiveness, and if I prefer
them, as a child of the century, to real mountains, there was a time when
the artist's eye would have given them the preference over the grand
landscapes of the Alpine world.
At the beginning of the last century the latter were considered
repelling. They oppressed the soul by their immensity. No painter then
undertook to depict giant mountains with eternal snow upon summits which
towered above the clouds. A Salvator Rosa or Poussin, or even the great
Ruysdael, would have preferred to set up his easel at the Pichelsbergen
or in the country about Potsdam, rather than at the foot of Mont Blanc,
the Kunigssee, or the Eibsee, in which the rocks of the Zugspitze--my
vis-a-vis at Tutzingen--are magnificently reflected.
There is nothing more beautiful than the moderate, finely rounded heights
at these peaceful spots rich in vegetation and in water, when gilded by
the fading light of a lovely summer evening or illumined by the rosy
tinge of the afterglow. Many of our later German painters have learned
to value the charm of such a subject, while of our writers Fontane has
seized and very happily rendered all their witchery. At my brother
Ludo's manorhouse on the banks of the Dahme, at his place Dolgenbrodt, in
Mark Brandenburg, Fontane experienced all the attraction of the plain,
which I have never felt more deeply than in that very spot and on a
certain evening at Potsdam when the bells of the little church of Sakrow
seemed to bid farewell to the sinking sun and invite him to return.
In the East I have seen the day-star set more brilliantly, but never met
with a more harmonious and lovely splendour of colour than on summer
evenings in the Mark, except in Holland on the shore of the North Sea.
Can I ever forget those festal days when, after saying our little
congratulatory verses to our mother, and admiring her birthday table,
which her friends always loaded with flowers, we awaited the carriages
that were to take us into the country? Besides a great excursion wagon,
there were generally some other coaches which conveyed us and the
families of our nearest friends on our jaunt.
How the young faces beamed, and how happy the old ones looked, and what
big baskets there were full of good things beside the coachman and behind
the carriage!
We were soon out of the city, and the birds by the wayside could not have
twittered and sung in May more gaily than we during these drives.
Once we let the horses rest, and took luncheon at Stimming near the
Wannsee, where Heinrich von Kleist with the beloved of his heart put an
end to his sad life. Before we stopped we met a troop of travelling
journeymen, and our mother, in the gratitude of her heart, threw them a
thaler, and said "Drink to my happiness; to-day is my birthday."
When we had rested and gone on quite a distance we found the journeymen
ranged beside the road, and as they threw into the carriage an immense
bouquet of field flowers which they had gathered, one of them exclaimed:
"Long live the birthday-child! And health and happiness to the
beautiful, kind lady!" The others, and we, too, joined with all our
might in a "Hurrah!"
We felt like pagan Romans, who on starting out had perceived the happiest
omens in earth and sky.
And at the Pfaueninsel!
Frau Friedrich, the wife of the man in charge of the fountains, kept a
neat inn, in which, however, she by no means dished up to all persons
what they would like. But our mother knew her through Lenne, by whom her
husband was employed, and she took good care of us. How attractive to us
children was the choice yet large collection she possessed! Most of the
members of the royal house had often been her guests, and had increased
it to a little museum which contained countless milk and cream jugs of
every sort and metal, even the most precious, and of porcelain and glass
of every age. Many would have been rare and welcome ornaments to any
trades-museum. Our mother had contributed a remarkably handsome Japanese
jug which her brother had sent her.
After the banquet we young ones ran races, while the older people rested
till coffee and punch were served. Whether dancing was allowed at the
Pfaueninsel I no longer remember, but at the Pichelsbergen it certainly
was, and there were even three musicians to play.
And how delightful it was in the wood; how pleasant the rowing on the
water, during which, when the joy of existence was at its height, the
saddest songs were sung! Oh, I could relate a hundred things of those
birthdays in the country, but I have completely forgotten how we got
home. I only know that we waked the next morning full of happy
recollections.
In the summer holidays we often took journeys--generally to Dresden,
where our father's mother with her daughter, our aunt Sophie, had gone to
live, the latter having married Baron Adolf von Brandenstein, an officer
in the Saxon Guard, who, after laying aside the bearskin cap and red
coat, the becoming uniform of that time, was at the head of the Dresden
post office.
I remember these visits with pleasure, and the days when our grandmother
and aunt came to Berlin. I was fond of both of them, especially my
lively aunt, who was always ready for a joke, and my affection was
returned. But these, our nearest relatives, in early childhood only
passed through our lives like brilliant meteors; the visits we exchanged
lasted only a few days; and when they came to Berlin, in spite of my
mother's pressing invitations, they never stayed at our house, but in
a hotel. I cannot imagine, either, that our grandmother would ever have
consented to visit any one. There was a peculiar exclusiveness about
her, I might almost say a cool reserve, which, although proofs of her
cordial love were not wanting, prevented her from caressing us or playing
with us as grandmothers do. She belonged to another age, and our mother
taught us, when greeting her, to kiss her little white hand, which was
always covered up to the fingers with waving lace, and to treat her with
the utmost deference. There was an air of aristocratic quiet in her
surroundings which caused a feeling of constraint. I can still see the
suite of spacious rooms she occupied, where silence reigned except when
Coco, the parrot, raised his shrill voice. Her companion, Fraulein
Raffius, always lowered her voice in her presence, though when out
of it she could play with us very merrily. The elderly servant, who,
singularly enough, was of noble family--his real name was Von Wurmkessel
--did his duty as noiselessly as a shadow. Then there was a faint
perfume of mignonette in most of the rooms, which makes me think of them
whenever I see the pretty flower, for, as is well known, smell is the
most powerful of all the senses in awakening memory.
I never sat in my grandmother's lap. When we wished to talk with her we
had to sit beside her; and if we kept still she would question us
searchingly about everything--our play, our friends, our school.
This silence, which always struck us children at first with astonishment,
was interrupted very gaily by our aunt, whose liveliness broke in upon it
like the sound of a horn amid the stillness of a forest. Her cheerful
voice was audible even in the hall, and when she crossed the threshold we
flew to her, and the spell was broken. For she, the only daughter, put
no restraint on herself in the reserved presence of her mother. She
kissed her boisterously, asked how she was, as if she were the mother,
the other the child. Indeed, she took the liberty sometimes of calling
the old lady "Henrietta"--that was her name--or even "Hetty." Then, when
grandmother pointed to us and exclaimed reproachfully, "Why, Sophie!"
our aunt could always disarm her with gay jests.
Though the two were generally at a distance, their existence made itself
felt again and again either through letters or presents or by their
coming to Berlin, which always brought holidays for us.
These journeys were accomplished under difficulties. Our aunt had always
used an open carriage, and was really convinced that she would stifle in
a closed railway compartment. But as she would not forego the benefit of
rapid transit, our grandmother was obliged, even after her daughter's
marriage, to hire an open truck for her, on which, with her faithful maid
Minna, and one of her dogs, or sometimes with her husband or a friend as
a companion, she established herself comfortably in an armchair of her
own, with various other conveniences about her. The railway officials
knew her, and no doubt shrugged their shoulders, but the warmheartedness
shining in her eyes and her unvarying cheerfulness carried everything
before them, so that her eccentricity was readily overlooked. And she
had plenty of similar caprices. I was visiting her once in the Christmas
holidays, when I was a schoolboy in the upper class, and we had retired
for the night. At one o'clock my aunt suddenly appeared at my bedside,
waked me, and told me to get up. The first snow had fallen, and she had
had the horses harnessed for us to go sleighing, which she particularly
enjoyed.
Resistance was useless, and the swift flight over the snow by moonlight
proved to be very enjoyable. Between four and five o'clock in the
morning we were at home again.
Winter brought many other amusements. I remember with particular
pleasure the Christmas fair, which now, as I learn to my regret, is no
longer held. And yet, what a source of delight it once was to children!
What rich food it offered to their minds! The Christmas trees and
pyramids at the Stechbahn, the various wares, the gingerbread and toys in
the booths, offered by no means the greatest charm. A still stronger
attraction were the boys with the humming "baboons," the rattles and
flags, for from them purchases had always to be made, with jokes thrown
into the bargain--bad ones, which are invariably the most amusing; and
what a pleasure it was to twirl the "baboon" with one's own little hand,
and, if the hand got cold during the process, one did not feel it, for it
seemed like midsummer with a swarm of flies buzzing about one!
But most enjoyable of all was probably the throng of people, great and
small, and all there was to hear and see among them and to answer. It
seemed as if the Christmas joy of the city was concentrated there, and
filled the not over-clear atmosphere like the pungent odour of Christmas
trees.
Put there were other things to experience as well as mere gaiety--the
pale child in the corner, with its little bare feet, holding in its cold,
red hands the six little sheep of snow-white wool on a tiny green board;
and that other yonder, with the little man made of prunes spitted on tiny
sticks.
How small and pale the child is! And how eloquently the blue eyes invite
a purchaser, for it is only with looks that the wares are extolled! I
still see them both before me! The threepenny pieces they get are to
help their starving mother to heat the attic room in those winter days
which, cold though they are, may warm the heart. Looking at them our
mother told us how hunger hurts, and how painful want and misery are to
bear, and we never left the Christmas fair without buying a few sheep or
a prune man, though all we could do with them was to give them away
again. When I wrote my fairy-tale, The Nuts, I had the Christmas fair at
Berlin in my mind's eye, and I seemed to see the wretched little girl
who, among all the happy folk, had found nothing but cold, pain, anguish,
and a handful of nuts, and who afterward fared so happily--not, indeed,
among men, but with the most beautiful angels in heaven.
Why are the Berlin children defrauded of this bright and innocent
pleasure, and their hearts denied the practice of exercising charity?
Turning my thoughts backward, it seems to me as if almost too much beauty
and pleasure were crowded together at Christmas, richly provided with
presents as we were besides, for over and above the Christmas fair there
was Kroll's Christmas exhibition, where clever heads and skilful hands
transformed a series of great halls, at one time into the domain of
winter, at another into the kingdom of the fairies. There was nothing to
do but look.
Imagination came to a standstill, for what could it add to these wonders?
Yet the fairyland of which Ludo and I had dreamed was more beautiful and
more real than this palpable magnificence of tin and pasteboard; which
is, perhaps, one reason why the overexcited imagination of a city child
shrinks back and tries to find in reality what a boy brought up in the
quiet of the country can conjure up before his mind himself.
Then, too, there were delightful sights in the Gropius panorama and
Fuchs's confectioner's shop--in the one place entertaining things, in the
other instructive. At the panorama half the world was spread out before
us in splendid pictures, so presented and exhibited as to give the most
vivid impression of reality.
From the letters of our mother's brothers, who were Dutch officials in
Java and Japan, as well as from books of travel which had been read to
us, we had already heard much of the wonders of the Orient; and at the
Gropius panorama the inner call that I had often seemed to hear--"Away!
to the East"--only grew the stronger. It has never been wholly silent
since, but at that time I formed the resolution to sail around the world,
or--probably from reading some book--to be a noble pirate. Nor should I
have been dissatisfied with the fate of Robinson Crusoe. The Christmas
exhibition at Fuchs's, Unter den Linden, was merely entertaining--Berlin
jokes in pictures mainly of a political or satirical order. Most
distinctly of all I remember the sentimental lady of rank who orders her
servant to catch a fly on a tea-tray and put it carefully out of the
window. The obedient Thomas gets hold of the insect, takes it to the
window, and with the remark, "Your ladyship, it is pouring, the poor
thing might take cold," brings it back again to the tea-tray.
There was plenty of such entertainment in winter, and we had our part in
much of it. Rellstab, the well-known editor of Voss's journal, made a
clever collection of such jokes in his Christmas Wanderings. We could
read, and whatever was offered by that literary St. Nicholas and highly
respected musical critic for cultivated Berlin our mother was quite
willing we should enjoy.