UNTER DEN LINDEN
The Berlin of the late eighties was a very different city from the Berlin of to-day. There is probably no other Continental city which has undergone so many changes in the same period of time. When I wandered into the place nearly twenty years ago there were no electric cars—horses were still the exclusive motive power in the business streets; there was no rational direction of traffic—there isn't to-day in some parts; there were no automobiles that I can remember having seen; there were no great department stores such as now vie with those of New York; there was no such street lighting as there is to-day; and there were by no means so many Germans leaning on window sills and on the streets. Like Moscow, the place resembled a great overgrown village more than it did the capital of a great country. The people were provincial, the military upstarts often acted as if they thought the city had been built and was kept up for their exclusive entertainment, and strangers, particularly Americans, who ventured to dress as they do at home—white dresses in summer for ladies, for instance—were stared at as if they were a new species of human beings. In one particular, however, the city has not changed, and probably never will, i.e., in the amount of noise the Berliners are equal to when they are turned loose in the streets, afoot, in trains or in Drosckken. If it be true that the word German, philologically dissected, means a shouter in battle, then the word Berliner means two shouters talking about a battle. The incessant ya-yaing and nein-neining in the streets, the perspiring and nervous self-consciousness that comes to a large-boned populace suddenly advanced to Welt-Stadt significance, the reckless driving of the cabbies, the screams of the cabbies' victims, these all contribute to the present provinciality of the metropolis, in spite of the modern trolleys, automobiles, half-Londonized policemen, and taxameter cabs. Indeed, these very appurtenances of cosmopolitan, the crunching trolley, for instance, and the puffing "auto," accentuate very strikingly the undue emphasis which the town puts in noises, and are indicative of its lust for more. Twenty years ago the shouting and buzzing were not so bad, but the city is now making up for any silences that may have been observed at that time.
Part of the street roar and clamor is due to the unusual amount of small traffic in the streets, to the thousands and thousands of cabs, "commercial" tricycles and pushbarrows, all of which claim the right to play their part in the city's roar and bustle. But a much more conspicuous cause, if not the main one, is the fact that Berlin has grown up to Welt-Stadt prominence, overnight, as it were, and the good Berliners have not yet untangled their feet sufficiently to keep an orderly pace under the new order of things. Two-thirds of them are still living under the old horse-car régime, and when they come to congested corners, where the trolley's clang and the automobile's "toff-toff" prevail, they very willingly lend a hand in increasing the general confusion.
At least this is the way the town impressed me a year or two ago, as compared with the easy-going city I first entered as a coal-passer, with honorable discharge papers in my pocket, and very little else. But far be it from me to dwell on this subject, for if there is any city in the world to which I ought to be grateful, it is Berlin. If it pleases the Berliners to shout their World City distinction from the housetops, as if fearful that it might otherwise escape notice, well and good; the noise sounds funny, that is all—particularly after London and New York.
I began my career in the town in a very "Dutch" ready-made suit of clothes, high-heeled shoes that could be pulled on at one tug like the "Romeo" slipper, a ready-made fly-necktie, and a hat the style of which may be seen at its best in this country in the neighborhood of Ellis Island; it was local color hatified indeed. While I lay asleep on the sofa in my mother's library, making up for the loss of sleep at sea, my mother went out and kindly made these purchases. Washed, dressed and fed, I may have looked "Dutch," but I was clean at least, and there was no dusky fireman about to order me to hurry "further mit de coals."
The family physician, a gentleman who has since come on to great things and is one of Berlin's most famous medical men, for some reason best known to himself examined me carefully to see how I had stood the journey. All that he could find out of the way was a considerably quickened heart action, which did not give him great concern, however. At that time the good man was just beginning to pick up English, and at our first meeting made me listen to his rendering of "Early to bed, early to rise," etc. A few weeks later, when making a professional visit on an American young lady, a new neighbor of ours, he was emboldened to give some advice in English—to compose an original sentence. He wanted the young lady to take more exercise, and this is how he told her to get it.
"Traw a teep inspiration, take t'ree pig shteeps across te floor, and ten expire." She pulled through her ailment splendidly.
In those days, the late eighties and early nineties, the American colony, as it was called, lived mainly in the western part of the city, in the neighborhood of the Zoological Gardens. The doctor, or professor, as he is now called, was for years the colony's physician, and many were the regrets when he gave up visiting us. We were still privileged to call at his office, but hospital work and Imperial patients made it impossible for him to call on us, although he kindly made neighborly visits in my mother's home as long as he remained in our street. He is now getting old and gray, but I found him as friendly and hospitable on my last visit to Berlin, in spite of his fine villa, lackeys and carriages, as when he examined me for broken bones and twisted muscles after the coal-passing experience. I told him that I was on my way to Russia to study the heavily-advertised revolution. His face became grave, as of old when studying a case. "Be careful, my son," he cautioned me; "be very careful in Poland." The fatherly warning and the friendly interest brought back to my mind memories of the Berlin that I had known and in a way loved, the town that took me in and truly gave me another chance.
Nearly all American colonies abroad are but little more than camps. The campers tarry a while, for one reason or another—culture is what most of them claim to be seeking—and then fold their tents and pass on, those who remain behind having to get acquainted afresh with the new set of "culturists" who are sure to arrive in due time. In Venice there is an Anglo-Saxon camp which lays claim to ancient privileges and rights. In 1894-95 I spent four unforgettable months in the place, and got well acquainted with many of the campers.