We Sit Up With Our
Friends When They Are Dead; They Stay Up For Him Until They Are
Ready To Die Themselves.
As is well known Berlin abounds in pleasure palaces, so called.
Enormous places these are, where under one widespreading roof are
three or four separate restaurants of augmented size, not to mention
winecellars and beer-caves below-stairs, and a dancehall or so and
a Turkish bath, and a bar, and a skating rink, and a concert hall
- and any number of private dining rooms. The German mind invariably
associates size with enjoyment.
To these establishments, after his regular dinner, the Berliner
repairs with his family, his friend or his guest. There is one
especially popular resort, a combination of restaurant and vaudeville
theater, at which one eats an excellent dinner excellently served,
and between courses witnesses the turns of a first-rate variety
bill, always with the inevitable team of American coon shouters,
either in fast colors or of the burnt-cork variety, sandwiched
into the program somewhere.
In the Friedrichstrasse there is another place, called the
Admiralspalast, which is even more attractive. Here, inclosing a
big, oval-shaped ice arena, balcony after balcony rises circling
to the roof. On one of these balconies you sit, and while you
dine and after you have dined you look down on a most marvelous
series of skating stunts. In rapid and bewildering succession
there are ballets on skates, solo skating numbers, skating carnivals
and skating races. Finally scenery is slid in on runners and the
whole company, in costumes grotesque and beautiful, go through a
burlesque that keeps you laughing when you are not applauding, and
admiring when you are doing neither; while alternating lightwaves
from overhead electric devices flood the picture with shifting,
shimmering tides of color.
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