For the exceedingly moderate outlay of one lira - Italian
- or twenty cents - American - I secured this combination, to wit, as
follows:
In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, fallen angel, wearing
his plumy, fumy halo of sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle
distance the Bay of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest in it
triple-plated with silvern glory pilfered from a splendid moon;
on the left the riding lights of a visiting squadron of American
warships; on the right the myriad slanted sails of the coral-fishers'
boats, beating out toward Capri, with the curlew-calls of the
fishermen floating back in shrill snatches to meet a jangle of
bell and bugle from the fleet; in the immediate foreground a
competent and accomplished family troupe of six Neapolitan troubadours
- men, women and children - some of them playing guitars and all
six of them, with fine mellow voices and tremendous dramatic effect,
singing - the words being Italian but the air good American - John
Brown's Body Lies a-Moldering in the Grave!
I defy you to get more than that for twenty cents anywhere in the
world!
Chapter XII
Night Life - with the Life Part Missing
In our consideration of this topic we come first to the night life
of the English. They have none.
Passing along to the next subject under the same heading, which
is the night life of Paris, we find here so much night life, of
such a delightfully transparent and counterfeit character; so much
made-to-measure deviltry; so many members of the Madcaps' Union
engaged on piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish derring-do,
all carefully stage-managed and expertly timed for the benefit of
North and South American spenders, to the end that the deliriousness
shall abate automatically in exact proportion as the spenders quit
spending - in short, so much of what is typically Parisian that,
really Paris, on its merits, is entitled to a couple of chapters
of its own.
All of which naturally brings us to the two remaining great cities
of Mid-Europe - Berlin and Vienna - and leads us to the inevitable
conclusion that the Europeans, in common with all other peoples
on the earth, only succeed - when they try to be desperately wicked
- in being desperately dull; whereas when they seek their pleasures
in a natural manner they present racial slants and angles that are
very interesting to observe and very pleasant to have a hand in.
Take the Germans now: No less astute a world traveler than Samuel
G. Blythe is sponsor for the assertion that the Berliners follow
the night-life route because the Kaiser found his capital did not
attract the tourist types to the extent he had hoped, and so decreed
that his faithful and devoted subjects, leaving their cozy hearths
and inglenooks, should go forth at the hour when graveyards yawn
- and who could blame them? - to spend the dragging time until dawn
in being merry and bright. So saying His Majesty went to bed,
leaving them to work while he slept.
After viewing the situation at first hand the present writer is
of the opinion that Mr. Blythe was quite right in his statements.
Certainly nothing is more soothing to the eye of the onlooker,
nothing more restful to his soul, than to behold a group of Germans
enjoying themselves in a normal manner. And absolutely nothing
is quite so ghastly sad as the sight of those same well-flushed,
well-fleshed Germans cavorting about between the hours of two and
four-thirty A.M., trying, with all the pachydermic ponderosity of
Barnum's Elephant Quadrille, to be professionally gay and cutuppish.
The Prussians must love their Kaiser dearly. 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. It is like seeing a Christmas pantomime
under an aurora borealis. In America we could not do these things
- at least we never have done them. Either the performance would
be poor or the provender would be highly expensive, or both.
