Do these things suggest the German sense of self-sufficiency and ability? They are the commonest of the commonplaces.
During the short time that I was in Berlin I was a frequent witness of quite human but purely Teutonic bursts of temper—that rapid, fiery mounting of choler which verges apparently on a physical explosion,—the bursting of a blood vessel. I was going home one night late, with Herr A., from the Potsdamer Bahnhof, when we were the witnesses of an absolutely magnificent and spectacular fight between two Germans—so Teutonic and temperamental as to be decidedly worth while. It occurred between a German escorting a lady and carrying a grip at the same time, and another German somewhat more slender and somewhat taller, wearing a high hat and carrying a walking-stick. This was on one of the most exclusive suburban lines operating out of Berlin.
Teutonic bursts of temper
It appears that the gentleman with the high hat and cane, in running to catch his train along with many others, severely jostled the gentleman with the lady and the portmanteau. On the instant, an absolutely terrific explosion! To my astonishment—and, for the moment, I can say my horror—I saw these two very fiercely attack each other, the one striking wildly with his large portmanteau, the other replying with lusty blows of his stick, a club-like affair which fell with hard whacks on his rival’s head. Hats were knocked off, shirt-fronts marked and torn; blood began to flow where heads and faces were cut severely, and almost pandemonium broke loose in the surrounding crowd.
Fighting always produces an atmosphere of intensity in any nationality, but this German company seemed fairly to coruscate with anguish, wrath, rage, blood-thirsty excitement. The crowd surged to and fro as the combatants moved here and there. A large German officer, his brass helmet a welcome shield in such an affair, was brought from somewhere. Such noble German epithets as “Swine-hound!” “Hundsknochen!” (dog’s bone), “Schafskopf!” (sheep’s head), “Schafsgesicht!” (sheep-face), and even more untranslatable words filled the air. The station platform was fairly boiling with excitement. Husbands drove their wives back, wives pulled their husbands away, or tried to, and men immediately took sides as men will. Finally the magnificent representative of law and order, large and impregnable as Gibraltar, interposed his great bulk between the two. Comparative order was restored. Each contestant was led away in an opposite direction. Some names and addresses were taken by the policeman. In so far as I could see no arrests were made; and finally both combatants, cut and bleeding as they were, were allowed to enter separate cars and go their way. That was Berlin to the life. The air of the city, of Germany almost, was ever rife with contentious elements and emotions.
I should like to relate one more incident, and concerning quite another angle of Teutonism. This relates to German sentiment, which is as close to the German surface as German rage and vanity. It occurred in the outskirts of Berlin—one of those interesting regions where solid blocks of gold- and silver-balconied apartment houses march up to the edge of streetless, sewerless, lightless green fields and stop. Beyond lie endless areas of truck gardens or open common yet to be developed. Cityward lie miles on miles of electric-lighted, vacuum-cleaned, dumb-waitered and elevator-served apartments, and, of course, street cars.
I had been investigating a large section of land devoted to free (or practically free) municipal gardens for the poor, one of those socialistic experiments of Germany which, as is always the way, benefit the capable and leave the incapable just where they were before. As I emerged from a large area of such land divided into very small garden plots, I came across a little graveyard adjoining a small, neat, white concrete church where a German burial service was in progress. The burial ground was not significant or pretentious—a poor man’s graveyard, that was plain. The little church was too small and too sectarian in its mood, standing out in the wind and rain of an open common, to be of any social significance. Lutheran, I fancied. As I came up a little group of pall-bearers, very black and very solemn, were carrying a white satin-covered coffin down a bare gravel path leading from the church door, the minister following, bareheaded, and after him the usual company of mourners in solemn high hats or thick black veils, the foremost—a mother and a remaining daughter I took them to be—sobbing bitterly. Just then six choristers in black frock coats and high hats, standing to one side of the gravel path like six blackbirds ranged on a fence, began to sing a German parting-song to the melody of “Home Sweet Home.” The little white coffin, containing presumably the body of a young girl, was put down by the grave while the song was completed and the minister made a few consolatory remarks.
I have never been able, quite, to straighten out for myself the magic of what followed—its stirring effect. Into the hole of very yellow earth, cut through dead brown grass, the white coffin was lowered and then the minister stood by and held out first to the father and then to the mother and then to each of the others as they passed a small, white, ribbon-threaded basket containing broken bits of the yellow earth intermixed with masses of pink and red rose-leaves. As each sobbing person came forward he, or she, took a handful of earth and rose leaves and let them sift through his fingers to the coffin below. A lump rose in my throat and I hurried away.