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.
