We might follow the course of the wandering river over whose waters we now stand, and thus penetrate into the heart of the old city, but we should find little that was picturesque, and a great deal that was very unclean. Indeed, in spite of its general beauty, Berlin is lamentably deficient in the modern and common-place
article, sewerage. But even this will come; and in the meantime we may well ponder over the rapid growth of the city, since the brief space of time that has elapsed since it was the little town of Cologne upon the Spree, to distinguish it from the then greater one of Cologne upon the Rhine.
CHAPTER XI.
berlin.—police and people.
It may not appear correct to an English reader to couple the people and the police thus cavalierly together, but in Prussia, as in the rest of Germany, the police are so completely bound up in, and their services so entirely devoted to, the every-day existence, as well as any more prominent acts of the people, that it is impossible to proceed far with the one without falling into the company of the other. A few facts may serve to illustrate this point.
We (Alcibiade and I) are here duly received into the employment of Herr Stickl, Jeweller to the Court. This may appear a matter of no importance to any but ourselves; nevertheless the “Herr” is bound duly to notify the circumstance to the police, with date and certification, and must also instruct the Forsteher, or chief of the Guild of goldsmiths and jewellers, of the matter, that we may be properly registered by corporation and police. This is item number one. But I am still unhoused, and here my good friend and fellow-workman, Alcibiade Tourniquet, native of Argenteuil, stands me in good stead. Tourniquet claims to be a Parisian, and has lofty notions about style and appearances. He lives in Jerusalem Strasse in a grand house, with a porte cochère, and a wide, scrambling staircase. He offers me a share in his apartment, which is light and commodious; and as his landlady generously consents to provide an additional bed for my accommodation, on condition of doubling the rent, that matter is satisfactorily arranged. Alcibiade has experiences to relate, and this is one of them:
“Pense donc!” cries he. “I arrive in Berlin a perfect stranger. Without work and without friends, I find living at an hotel too expensive: Bon!—I look about me for some quiet little chambre
garni, and finding one to my liking, up a great many stairs, genteelly furnished, and not too dear, I move myself and my little baggage into it without further inquiry. Bon! Imagine me on the first night of residence, snugly coiled up between my two feather beds in true German fashion, dreaming of la belle France, and of the grapes at Argenteuil, when rap, rap, rap! comes a tantamarre at the chamber door, and I start up wide awake all at once, and hear a shuffling noise outside, and a rough voice which calls to be admitted. ‘Diable! qu’est que tu veux, donc?’ I inquire. But before I can make up my mind whether to admit them or not, crack! goes the door, and half a dozen Prussian police take my citadel by storm, and surround me in a moment. I complain indignantly, but it is of no use. I hurl at them—not my boots—but all the hard words I know of in their own abominable language, together with a considerable quantity of good French, but all of no avail; for they make me dress myself and carry me off bodily with bag and baggage to the police-bureau. And what was it all about, pense tu? Just this: they said I had got into a suspected house, and that it was for my own protection I was made a prisoner of! Nom de Dieu! that might be all very well, but there was no necessity to pull me out of bed to take care of me; and it was not till I had shown that my papers were all en regle, and threatened an appeal to the French Ambassador, that they gave me these soft words, and expressed their regret at my discomfiture. Du reste, what can you expect? they are only Prussians.” This is item number two.
I too have a little experience of the Prussian Police; let me relate it. Being regularly domiciled, it was necessary that I should inform them of my residence. I stand within the dingy little bureau, and hand over a certificate from my landlord in proof of my place of habitation. The liveried functionary casts it back to me, with the curt remark, “It is imperfect, the year is omitted.” And so it is; and I trudge back to my landlord to have this rather important omission rectified. Returning, in haste, I re-present my document, corrected and revised, for inspection. “This won’t do,” exclaims the irate registrar of apartments; “the day of the week should be mentioned.” Dull-headed landlord! unlucky lodger!—it should have been written, “Wednesday, the 19th of,” etc. This looks something like quibbling, however, and no doubt I express as much by my countenance as I leave the bureau, and race back to
Jerusalem Strasse once more. For the third time I offer my credentials. “This will do,” observes the official, with a ferocious calmness, “but I must have a duplicate of this, for the convenience of entry and reference.” Now, by all the gilded buttons on the best coat of the British Ambassador, this is too bad! and I say as much. “You have nothing of this sort in England, I suppose?” sneers the clerk-policeman. “No, thank Heaven!” I exclaim, as I rush home once more to obtain the copy of my certificate. This is item the third. To a Prussian, all this is a mere matter of course, yet to such a degree does this home interference extend, that the porte cochère of our grand house, and the door of every other house in Jerusalem Strasse, is officially closed at nine o’clock in the evening; and no man can enter his own residence after that hour without first applying to the police-watchman, who retains in his keeping, literally and in fact, the “key of the street.”