A Tramp's Wallet Part 8

The Museum stands on the left-hand, gracefully shaded by young trees.

Traversing this miniature grove, which guards its entrance, and pa.s.sing by the lofty fountain scattering its spray upon the leaves, we come upon an elegant vase of gigantic proportions, sculptured from a solid ma.s.s of native granite. Ascending into the body of the building by a sombre stone staircase, we reach the Gallery of Antiquities and the Museum of Paintings. The latter, though no doubt very valuable, appeals unsatisfactorily to me (not presuming to be a critic), and is of a peculiarly rigid, ecclesiastical character, of the early school; certainly one of its chief features is a crowd of martyred St.

Sebastians.

The portion of the Museum appropriated to painting, unlike the National Gallery of London, and the Pinakothek at Munich, receives a lateral light. Imagine a long gallery divided into small cabinets by part.i.tions, which advance only so far from the outer wall as to leave a commodious pa.s.sage along its entire extent; imagine also that each of these cabinets has a lofty window, and that on its side walls (the part.i.tions) are suspended the paintings for exhibition,-and you will form something like a notion of the general arrangement. An effective _ensemble_ is out of the question; but, on the other hand, every painting is well lighted, and a better opportunity is afforded for quiet observation and study.

We descend into the "Platz," and proceed towards the palace, a huge rectangular building, striped with columns, dotted with windows, and blackened as few continental edifices are.

The palace of the kings of Prussia-few as they have been-has surely its thrilling historical records. Doubtless; and through them all the spirit of the _one_ king, "Der Alter Fritz," s.h.i.+nes, all but visible. Here did he hold his councils, here sit in private study; this was his favourite promenade, here did he take his rest. These details light up the imagination; but when we have traversed the echoing galleries, admired the gilt mouldings and the costly hangings, the quaint furniture and beautiful pictures: when we have, in short, become wrought into enthusiasm by the cl.u.s.tering memories of a great monarch, by traits and traditions which fill the very air, what do we see next? We are ushered into a private chamber, and called upon to express our especial reverence for a miserable figure, dressed up in the Great Frederick's "own clothes;" seated in his own chair, stuck into his identical boots; his own redoubtable stick dangling from its splayed fingers, and the whole contemptible effigy crowned by the very three-cornered hat and crisp wig he last wore! The spirit of mountebankism overshadows the spirit of the mighty man, and his very relics are rendered ridiculous.

We turn from this puppet-show to contemplate with a melancholy wonder the truly iron records of the almost life-imprisonment of Baron von Trenck.

For here, a silent memorial of at least one bad act of the Prussian monarch, are iron cups and utensils engraved with scrolls and legends; the work, not of the skilled artisan with tempered and well-prepared gravers, but of the patient hands of a state prisoner with a mere nail sharpened on the stony walls of his dungeon, and the painful result of long and weary years. A strange contrast! the waxen image of the jailer, tricked out in his last garments; the solitary labours of his captive.

Thinking more of the soldier and less of the king, we quit the palace and turn on the left hand once more towards the waters of the Spree. Here is one other monument we must not forget in our hasty ramble through the main artery of the Prussian capital. In the centre of the Lange Brucke (the Long Bridge) stands the bronze figure of the last Elector and Duke of Brandenburg, Frederick William, the grandfather of Frederick the Great. It is a well-executed equestrian statue, but to my mind the four figures cl.u.s.tered round the pediment, on whose hands still hang the broken chains of slavery, are better works of art, as well as admirable emblems of the energetic materials-the oppressed but spirited inhabitants of a few small states-of which the now powerful kingdom of Prussia was originally formed.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Stra.s.se in a grand house, with a _porte cochere_, 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 quant.i.ty 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 Amba.s.sador, 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 doc.u.ment, 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 Stra.s.se 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 b.u.t.tons on the best coat of the British Amba.s.sador, 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 cochere_ of our grand house, and the door of every other house in Jerusalem Stra.s.se, 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."

While on my way to Berlin, I had been frequently warned by Germans, natives of other states, of the boastful and deceptive character of the Prussians. Such was the general opinion expressed; and although I never found them deceptive, the epithet of boastful seemed only too truthfully bestowed. A Prussian is naturally a swaggerer; but then, unfortunately for other Germans, who are swaggerers too, the Prussian has something to boast of. He feels and thinks differently to those around him; for, by the very impetus of his nature, he stands on a higher position. It is because Prussia has progressed like a giant, while the rest of Germany has been lagging behind, or actually losing ground, that every individual in her now large area seems personally to have aided in the work, and acts and speaks as if the whole ultimate result depended upon his own exertions. This naturally leads to exaggeration, both in words and actions, and your true Berliner figures as a sort of Ancient Pistol, with more words than he knows properly what to do with, and more pretensions than he is able to maintain. One striking characteristic of the people of Berlin is the Franco-mania, which prevails among all cla.s.ses. This may be the result of the decided leaning towards France and its literature, which was evinced by their almost idolised king, Frederick the Great; but one would think that the events of the last war with Napoleon must have effectually obliterated that. But, no; in their language, their literature, their places of public amus.e.m.e.nt, their shops, and promenades, French words sound in your ears, or meet your eye at every turn; while the sometimes ridiculous mimicry of French habits forces itself upon your attention. There would be nothing so very remarkable in this, if the opinion generally expressed of the French people were consonant with it; but while the Berliner apes the Parisian in language and manners, he never fails to express his derision, and even contempt, for the whole French nation on every convenient opportunity. I suspect, however, that these remarks might not inaptly apply to the inhabitants of the British capital, as well as those of Berlin.

CHAPTER XII.

KREUTZBERG.-A PRUSSIAN SUPPER AND CAROUSE.

Herr Kupferkram the elder, I have done thee wrong. I have set thee down as a mere vender of sausages, and lo! thou holdest tavern and eating-house; dispensing prandial portions of savoury delicacies in flesh and vegetable, at the charge of six silver groschens the meal. I beg a thousand pardons; and as a sincere mark of contrition, will consent to swallow thy dinners for a while.

"Will the Herrn Tourniquet and Tuci," said the Frau Kupferkram one morning, with a duck and a smirk, "do us the honour of supping with us this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the 'nahmenstag'

of our dear Gottlob, now in England."

"Liebe Frau Kupferkram, we shall be delighted!"

I ought, perhaps, to observe, that in Prussia, although a Protestant country, the Catholic custom of commemorating the "saint" rather than the "birth-day," is almost universal. The former is called the "nahmenstag,"

or name-day.

But the day is yet "so young," that nothing short of the most inveterate gluttony could bend the mind at present upon the evening's festivity; and moreover, the Berlin races have called us from the workshop and the cares of labour, and our very souls are in the stirrups, eagerly panting for the sport. My dear reader, how can I describe what I never saw? Did we not expend two silver groschens in a programme of the races, and gloat over the spirited engraving of a "flying" something, which was its appropriate heading, and which you would swear was executed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holywell Street, Strand? Did we not grow hotter than even the hot sun could make us, in ploughing through the sand, and commit some careless uncivilities in struggling among the crowd that hemmed the course as with a wall? See? Of course not! n.o.body at the Berlin races ever does see anything but the mounted police and the dust.

Yes, sir, lay out two dollars in a "card" for the grand stand, and fix it in your hat-band like a turnpike ticket, and you may saunter through the whole police-military cordon; but be one of the crowd, and trust to no other aid than is afforded by your own eyes, and the said cordon will be the extent of your vision.

A fig for the races! we will go and see the Kreutzberg instead. Our way lies through the Halle gate-Halle, a town that belonged to the Saxons before the French invasion, but lost through their adherence to Napoleon, is now the seat of a Prussian university-and by the Place of the Belle Alliance. What "alliance?" The alliance of sovereigns against destruction, or of people against tyranny? One and both; but while the union of the former has triumphed over the common leveller, the latter, by whose aid it was effected, still drag their unrelenting chains. The Kreutzberg is consecrated to the same magniloquent union, and bears upon its head a military monument ill.u.s.trative of the triumph of a roused and indignant people against a great oppression; but alas! it does not record the emanc.i.p.ation of that same people from intestine slavery. But that is their business and not ours.

The Kreutzberg stands about a mile and a half from the city gates, and rears its grey height like a mountain amid the general level, commanding a prospect of thirty miles around. Berlin, half garden, half palace, lies at your feet, rising majestically from the sandy plain, and irregularly divided by the winding Spree. The surrounding country, by its luxuriance, gives evidence of the energy of an industrious race struggling against a naturally barren soil. Turning our eyes upwards upon the military monument which graces the summit of the hill, we cannot repress our gratification at its beauty. A terrace eighty feet in diameter rises from the bare ground, and in its centre, upon a substructure of stone, towers an iron temple or shrine in the turreted Gothic style, divided into twelve chapels or niches. In each recess stands a figure, life size, emblematical of the princ.i.p.al battles (defeats included) fought in the campaigns of 1813, 1814, and 1815. A n.o.ble cl.u.s.ter of idealised military heroism they stand; some in the stubborn att.i.tude of resistance, others in the eager impetuosity of attack, all wonderfully spirited. When you have warmed your imagination into a glow by the sight of these effigies of war, read and ponder over this inscription:-

"The Sovereign to his People, who at his summons magnanimously poured forth their Blood and Treasure for the Country. In Memory of the Fallen, in Grat.i.tude to the Living, as an Incitement to every future Generation."

One is tempted to add, "and of sacred promises still unfulfilled." There is a beautiful garden and saloon called the Tivoli, close at hand, and from our heroics we soon slide into the peaceful enjoyment of a "baisser"

and a cup of coffee; lounging luxuriantly among the flowers till the hour approaches for our departure.

We are a snug little party of a dozen, not including Herr Kupferkram and the Frau, who will insist upon waiting on us. There is the smug master-butcher from round the corner, who has a very becoming sense of his own position in society; two mild-spoken bookseller's clerks, who scarcely find their voices till the evening is far advanced; my friend and fellow-tramp the glovemaker; a spruce little model of a man, with the crispest hair, and the fullest and best trimmed moustache in the world, and who is no doubt a great man somewhere; a tremendous fellow of a student, who talks of cannon-boots, rapiers, and Berliner Weiss Bier; and an individual whose only distinguis.h.i.+ng feature is his nose, and that is an insult to polite society. The rest have no characteristics at all.

But ah! shall I forget thee, the beautiful Louise!-the affianced of Gottlob, the blonde, the coquettish, and the gay! Have you not asked me, in half confidence (Alcibiade being present), whether the German "_geliebte_," is not changed in English into "_susses herz_,"

"sweet-heart," as Gottlob had told you in his last letter from London?

And you think the sentiment "so pretty and poetical!" And so it is; but we dunderheads in England have used the word so often that we have half forgotten its meaning.

Down we sit to supper; commencing with a delicate gravy soup and liver fritters; following up with breaded pork-chops and red saurkraut; continuing upon baked veal and prunes; not forgetting the _entremets_ of green pease and finely-sliced carrots stewed in b.u.t.ter together; going on with a well-made sallad; and winding up with a syllabub and preserves.

Hah! Bread unlimited, and beer without discretion. How can we sing after all that and yet we do, and talk unceasingly. The tables are cleared; and, accompanied by a beautiful tinkling of tiny bell-shaped gla.s.ses, the china punch-bowl, odorous with its steaming orange fluid, is placed at the head of the table. How the meek bookseller's clerks s.h.i.+ne out! They are all voice now. And we drink a "Lebe hoch!" to Gottlob far away; and to Gottlob's mother, and to Gottlob's father, c.h.i.n.king our gla.s.ses merrily every time, and draining them after each draught on our thumb nails, to show how faithfully we have honoured the toasts. We shout "Vivat h-o-o-o;" till the old German oven quakes again.

"Sing, fair Louise, I prithee sing!" Louise is troubled with a cold, of course; and, after due persuasion, lisps and murmurs some incoherent tremblings; exceedingly pretty, no doubt, if we could only make out what they meant. Then the student, who, although diminutive, has the voice of a giant, shouts a university song with the Latin chorus:-

"Edite, bebite, collegiales, Post multa saecula procula nulla!"

"Eat ye then, drink ye then, social companions, Centuries hence and your cups are no more!"

The mildest of the clerks comes out well with Kotzebue's philosophical song:-

"Es kann ja nicht immer so bleiben, Hier unter den wechselnden Mond; Es bluht eine Zeit und verwelket, Was mit uns die Erde bewhont."

"It cannot remain thus for ever, Here under the changeable moon; For earthly things bloom but a season, And wither away all too soon."

The spruce gentleman with the crisp hair throws back his head, and with closed eyes warbles melodiously:-

"Einsich bin ich nicht allein."

"Alone I'm not in solitude."