Carl von Weigand comes forward with the offer of the use of his office while I am here. The Germans are impressed with all this, but they show no enthusiasm. I am accepted in an offhand way as some one of importance and they let it go at that.
The Scala Theatre, where I spent the evening, is most interesting, though I think a bit antiquated when compared with English and American theatrical progress along the same lines. It seats about five thousand, mostly on one floor, with a very small balcony. It is of the variety-music-hall type, showing mostly "dumb" acts. Acts that do not talk or sing, like comic jugglers, acrobats, and dancers.
I am amused by a German comedian singing a song of about twenty verses, but the audience is enthused and voices its approval at every verse. During the intermission we have frankfurters and beer, which are served in the theatre. I notice the crowds. They go to the theatre there as a family. It is just that type of an affair.
I notice the different types of beauty, though beauty is not very much in evidence here. Here and there are a few pretty girls, but not many. It is interesting to watch the people strolling during the intermission, drinking lager and eating all sorts of food.
Leaving the theatre, we visit the Scala Café, a sort of impressionistic casino. The Scala is one of the largest cafés in Berlin, where the modernist style in architecture has been carried out fully.
The walls are deep mottled sea green, shading into light verdigris and emerald, leaning outward at an angle, thereby producing an effect of collapse and forward motion. The junction of the walls and the ceiling is broken into irregular slabs of stone, like the strata of a cave. Behind these the lights are hidden, the whole system of illumination being based on reflection.
The immense dislocation of the planes and angles of the vault-like ceiling is focused on the central point, the huge silver star or crystal bursting like an exploding bomb through the roof. The whole effect is weird, almost ominous. The shape of the room in its ground plan is itself irregular—the impression is that of a frozen catastrophe. Yet this feeling seems to be in accord with the mood of revellers in Germany to-day.
From there to the Palais Heinroth, the most expensive place in Berlin and the high spot of night life. It is conspicuous in its brilliance, because Berlin as a city is so badly lighted. At night the streets are dark and gloomy, and it is then that one gets the effect of war and defeat.
At the Heinroth everybody was in evening dress. We weren't. My appearance did not cause any excitement. We check our hats and coats and ask for a table. The manager shrugs his shoulders. There is one in the back, a most obscure part of the room. This brings home forcibly the absence of my reputation. It nettled me. Well, I wanted rest. This was it.
We are about to accept humbly the isolated table, when I hear a shriek and I am slapped on the back and there's a yell: