Читать книгу Schöne Aussicht: A Journal of Our Trip Abroad - Louise Spilker - Страница 8

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WE are in Berlin, magnificent Berlin: what can I say for it? better, what can’t I say for it? It seems to be a city where all requirements are met and filled; nothing being left undone that would gratify the taste of the most critical connoisseur. Here we see the best in art; royalty, your next-door neighbor, keeping a respectful distance, however. Beauty everywhere, stores laden with the choicest wares (reasonable, too), more soldiers than you could ever possibly look at; at every turn, nook, and corner, one of these uniform knights bobs up in sight; and wherever you read the word “Verboden” it means exactly that, and you quietly acquiesce. If it were not for some of these little differences you could scarcely realize you were anywhere else but in an American city. Berlin, like Paris and London, knows no night, as social evil is equally as great here as in these two other great cities. They are lax in their treatment of these night prowlers. You can’t help but think that its splendor will soon equal that of Rome, and its licentiousness not far behind. At the close of the Thirty Years’ War, 1648, Berlin had only a few hundred inhabitants. It is now one of the world’s great cities. The phenomenal rise of Prussia and its predominance in German affairs gave to its leading city immense influence and remarkable prosperity, Prussia making herself the leader of the movement that finally welded together the twenty-six states now constituting the German Empire, with the Prussian King as Kaiser. It is essentially modern, and, despite the disadvantages of its location, is without doubt one of the handsomest cities of Europe. Notable among its many fine buildings are the Royal Palace and that of the Emperor and Crown Prince, and the Royal Library, containing a million volumes. We visited the winter and summer homes (palaces) of the present king and queen, the Mausoleum at Charlottenburg, and the palace of Frederick the Great at Potsdam. We passed through the park, Sans Souci, with its great fountain, around whose basin stand eight marble figures, of which the Venus (Pigalle) is the most beautiful. Straight ahead we ascended a broad flight of steps, sixty-six feet high, broken by six terraces, edged by the most beautiful roses extending their vast length, then by the graves of Frederick the Great’s dogs. The Emperor himself wished to be buried here, that he might truly be sans souci. We now enter the palace of Sans Souci, consisting of only one story. The rooms are in the same order as Frederick left them. The most interesting apartment throughout was the room of Voltaire, with its curious wood-carving and painted walls, designed by Frederick to represent the character of the French—the peacock typifying his vanity, the ape his mimicry, the parrot his garrulity. The great infidel visited and died here, where he taught the king French, and at one time criticising the king’s efforts at bookmaking so severely that he was held in great disfavor by Frederick. We had an extra privilege in the new palace, the summer home of the present Emperor, he being absent on a visit to some of his fifty or more palaces. We were allowed entrée, the palace being closed to visitors from May till November. It contains two hundred apartments, the Imperial family residing in the north wing. The Shell salon is most beautiful, its entire ceiling and walls decorated with gorgeous shells and precious stones—souvenirs brought back by William II. from his travels. Some of the amethysts and topazes are as large as huge blocks of coal.

We listened to Sousa play at the Royal Garden (for one mark). This is a bewilderingly beautiful spot, lying adjacent to the Tier gardens, so enchanting in the twilight. As we came down the Grand Boulevard (which runs the full length of this wilderness of beauty), we saw groups (very close together) of the most illustrious statuary in pure white marble, standing the entire length of the wooded boulevard, like silent sentinels keeping watch over this beautiful domain. Some of these were not yet unveiled. All of them were the gift of the Kaiser. While lingering in this enchanted spot, sipping wine and listening to Sousa playing his inimitable “Washington Post,” we met at the same table a gentleman who spoke good English—the very first we had heard since we left home. We found him to be a celebrated musician, the head of the Conservatory of Music, and he had been fifteen years with Theodore Thomas in Cincinnati. He thoroughly enjoyed Sousa, and said “the Germans were perfectly delighted with Sousa’s rendition of Wagner.” What greater compliment could he expect?—their loved Wagner. We conjectured a great deal on why Berlin should be so great a city, lying away in the interior of the Empire, with no waterways; and why it should be selected as the nucleus of the modern world of art, with its grand institutions of learning, and constantly changing collections of all that is truly new and admirable. One finds here the most varied products of industrial art, such as bronze, brasswork, glass, porcelain, etchings, lithographs, and carbon prints, side by side with the most costly productions of modern art. If one only had the time, they would have but to walk in some of the large salons, where in rapid succession appear the works of both native and foreign artists, where they can be enjoyed at one’s ease. “Unter den Linden,” with its double rows of lime trees forming a fine avenue, is the finest Street in Berlin. We were domiciled at the corner of “Unter den Linden” and “Friedrich Strasse.” Around this street great numbers of celebrated buildings are erected, from the close of the seventeenth century up to the present, including the School of Arts and Sciences, royal stables, universities and palaces of Kaiser Wilhelm I; the old Museum, a beautiful building in Greek style, all abounding in collections of choice antiques, art, in the way of frescos, bronzes, gems, vases, pictures, stationery, and everything on earth to delight the eye of the connoisseur as well as to tire it; so that royalty and its environs lose half their interest when forced to gorge oneself day in and day out. To say that every school of art on earth, from early Italian to Dutch, Flemish, on down to modern art, is represented in a marked degree of excellence, would be putting it mildly. We were taken by the gentleman we met in the Royal Garden, after the concert, to the “Kaiser Keller,” the well-known Delmonico or Sherry of Berlin. The edifice calls for the admiration of all. “The Keller” is the corporation of an idea which has floated in Schönner’s fancy for many years. It is the expression in stone, iron, and wood of “Hauff’s Phantasy” in Brerner Raths Keller. The happy manner in which the architect has managed to clothe his conception renders a walk through the vault and its rooms (and a stop-over for a drink) very attractive.

For a few days we turn our heads away from the glitter and display of royalty, to drink of the famous Wiesbaden waters and rest our eyes, for a time at least. In Germany the average American, who rests so securely under his time-honored banner, the Stars and Stripes, enjoying all the comforts of modern civilization, cares very little about Germany’s standing army or navy; for he feels sure that Uncle Sam can, with a week’s notice or less, summon to his command an army or navy that could lick any army they could encounter, or sink any foreign fleet they decided upon. This large army of troops, ever in evidence, seems to be as much in earnest as though the enemy lay in camp about them. We see a little less of the military pomp and trappings in Wiesbaden than Berlin, but every few steps stands a soldier by the gaudy portal of his miniature home.