He was greatly moved when they came to the street and said, softly and lovingly:
“Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you
before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?—notice how
still it is; and remember this is noonday—noonday. It is but one
block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in
the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet
unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately
thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And——”
“This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others.
They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin.”
“Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of
the nobility. What they want——”
“The nobility? Do they live in——”
“In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke
of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke
first moved in here he——”
“Does he live in this street?”
“Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over
there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his
house.”
“The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep
boarders?”
“What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand
marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good.”
“Well, what does he have that sign up for?”
The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light
beaming in his eye:
“Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by
your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine
aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities,
eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they
are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board
there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated
by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count
five, a duke fifteen——”
“Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup——”
“Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not
the present Duke, but the last but one, he——”
“Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?”
“No, the one farther along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is
chewing the door-mat——”
“But all the yellow cats are chewing the door-mats.”
“Yes, but I mean the eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind;
there's a lot more come. I'll get you another mark. Let me see—-”
They could not remain permanently in Komerstrasse, but they stuck it out till the end of December—about two months. Then they made such settlement with the agent as they could—that is to say, they paid the rest of their year's rent—and established themselves in a handsome apartment at the Hotel Royal, Unter den Linden. There was no need to be ashamed of this address, for it was one of the best in Berlin.
As for Komerstrasse, it is cleaner now. It is still not aristocratic, but it is eminently respectable. There is a new post-office that takes in Number 7, where one may post mail and send telegrams and use the Fernsprecher—which is to say the telephone—and be politely treated by uniformed officials, who have all heard of Mark Twain, but have no knowledge of his former occupation of their premises.
CLXXVIII. A WINTER IN BERLIN
Clemens, meantime, had been trying to establish himself in his work, but his rheumatism racked him occasionally and was always a menace. Closing a letter to Hall, he said:
“I must stop-my arm is howling.”
He put in a good deal of time devising publishing schemes, principal among them being a plan for various cheap editions of his books, pamphlets, and such like, to sell for a few cents. These projects appear never to have been really undertaken, Hall very likely fearing that a flood of cheap issues would interfere with the more important trade. It seemed dangerous to trifle with an apparently increasing prosperity, and Clemens was willing enough to agree with this view.
Clemens had still another letter to write for Laffan and McClure, and he made a pretty careful study of Berlin with that end in view. But his arm kept him from any regular work. He made notes, however. Once he wrote: