Our conductor let me have a candle that burned above the coffin. I thought of the time when Napoleon stood in this little dark chamber by the body of one as great in Germany as he himself was in France. But both the great men did their countries more harm than good.
Mr. Sargent gave one or two large dinners while we were at his house. There was little talk of interest, but plenty of good music, and plenty of good wine, which in a German company, might have stimulated to notable sayings. Perhaps there were too many American teetotalers present for a good time. I notice a few turn their glasses upside down, in a sort of “I am better than you” fashion. Had they quietly allowed their glasses to be filled, nobody would have asked why they did not empty them. I have noticed always at German and Swiss dinners how the talk sparkled with the wine, and how the witty things said were in some way a test of the quality of the stuff in the decanter.
We went with the Sargents to the circus and saw the Crown Prince Frederick and his boys and girls in a box. The Prince had a singular and delicate way of applauding softly, with the palm of one gloved hand on the back of the other. His children were all glee at the antics of the performers, and expressed their joy in a much more boisterous way.
An enormous closed cage of wild lions was hauled into the arena, and when the boards were let down and they saw the blinding lights and the crowds of people their roaring was terrific.
A big African armed with a shotgun was let into the cage from an iron hood suspended against the doors. There was the greatest excitement. Many people instantly rose and left, fearing to see the man killed before their eyes. We kept our seats. There was no performing with the lions; it was simply a dare-devil venture to go among them, for they were absolutely untamed. The African had serious difficulty in getting back into his hood. It was his last act but one; the next night he was torn in pieces.
In one of the public halls of Berlin, we recognized to our surprise a party of American Indians performing war dances. They were the same Indians who had been at Zurich and whom I had helped out of serious difficulties, as their manager, it was claimed, had broken his contract and left the poor barbarians stranded. They said then they would never forget me. On seeing my wife and myself in the Berlin hall, they suddenly stopped their dancing and to the astonishment of the assembled spectators leaped from the platform, grasped me by the hand and called to each other: “It is Mr. Byers! It is Mr. Byers!” They were overjoyed at seeing some one in all Europe who had been kind to them.
A little later, in March, these Indians took passage home on the steamer from Bremen. The vessel was wrecked, still in sight of land, and every soul of them drowned. I, too, had engaged passage on the steamer, but business detained me in Zurich till the next boat.
On Sunday morning we went to the Zoölogical Gardens, where one of the keepers pleased my wife by raking a baby tiger and a baby lion out of their cages and giving them to her to hold in her arms. The lion was a chubby, woolly little fellow, the size of a cat and very cunning. While we had it in our hands, the mother stood perfectly quiet and glared at us as much as to say: “Hurt it, and these iron bars won’t hold me a moment.” She manifested great joy when the little fellow was passed back into the cage. The action of the tiger mother was not different, except that she gave a revengeful growl when she got her baby back.
Several times in going to the city, I passed the home of Bismarck. It was an unpretentious place, but armed sentinels walked up and down the pavement in front of it.
At noon one day, I noticed hundreds of people standing in front of the Emperor’s palace. I stopped to see what was the matter. The increasing crowd stood there in the rain. “There he is,” I heard some one cry out, and there was a doffing of hats. “There’s who?” I asked of a man near me. “Why, don’t you see him at the window?” he answered. It was the old Emperor standing there, smiling.