In and Around Berlin | Page 2

which ensued
before we reached our destination. Once I was toiling up the four
flights which led to the residence of a cultivated German lady, in
company with the hostess. "Oh," I said breathlessly, "would there were
elevators in Germany!"
"Yes," courteously responded the lady; adding, with a resigned sigh,
the conclusive words which indicated contentment with her lot, "but it
is not ze custom."
It was late in the season, and our lodgings were not engaged in advance.
Americans in increasing numbers make Berlin a winter residence, and
by October the most desirable pensions generally have their rooms
engaged. By the kind offices of our friend, our famishing party were
provided with the rolls and coffee which compose the continental
breakfast, and a fortunate entrance was, after much seeking, obtained
for us to a most desirable boarding-house. Our own apartment was a
large corner room, with immense windows looking north and east, and,
like nearly all rooms in Berlin houses, connected by double doors with
the apartments on either side. A fire was built before we took
possession, but it was two days before we ceased to shiver. We looked
for the stove of which we had heard. More than one of the five senses
were called into requisition to determine which article of furniture was
entitled to that designation. Across one corner of the room stood a tall
white monument composed of glazed tiles laid in mortar, built into the
room as a chimney might have been, with a hidden flue in the rear
connecting it with the wall. A drab cornice and plaster ornaments of the
same color set off the four or five feet above the mantel which

surrounded it, and a brass door, about ten inches by twelve, was in the
middle front of the part below. On the mantel were disposed sundry
ornaments, including vases of dried grasses, and the hand could always
be held upon the tiles against which they stood. In a small fireplace
within this unique mass of tiles and mortar, the housemaid would place
a dozen pieces of coal-cake once or at most twice a day, and after
allowing a few minutes for the kindling to set it aglow, would close and
lock the triple door, and the fire was made for twenty-four hours. In
two or three hours after the lighting of the fire, the temperature of the
room, if other conditions were favorable, might be slightly raised. To
raise it five to ten degrees would require from six to ten hours.
In response to our request to the landlady for an addition of cold meat
or steak to the coffee and rolls of the breakfast, and for more warmth in
the room, accompanied by an expression of willingness to make
additional payment for the same, the reply, given in a courteous manner,
was that Americans lived in rooms much too warm, and ate too much
meat, and that it would be for their health in Germany to conform to the
German customs. However, some spasmodic efforts were made, for a
season, to comply with the requests, which before long were wholly
discontinued; and the strangers learned the wisdom of accommodating
themselves "in Rome" to the ways of the Romans. This, however, was
not accomplished without continued suffering. The meagre "first
breakfast," served about half-past eight o'clock, was supplemented by a
"second breakfast" of a cup of chocolate or beef tea, at about eleven, to
those who were then in the house and made known their desire for it.
But the days were short. Berlin is about six hundred miles nearer the
north pole than New York, in the latitude of Labrador and the southern
part of Hudson's Bay. The climate is milder only because the Gulf
Stream kindly sends its warmth over all Europe, which lies in much
higher latitudes than we are wont to think. Consequently the days in
winter are much shorter than ours, as in summer they are longer. All the
mid-winter daylight of Berlin is between the hours of eight A.M. and
four P.M. With dinner at two o'clock, from which we rose about three,
there was too little light remaining for visits to museums and other
places of interest, so that the chief sightseeing of the day must be put
into the hours between nine and two o'clock, often far from residence

or restaurants; so the work of the day must be done on insufficient food,
and the prevailing physical sensation was that of being an animated
empty cask. We thus reached a settled conviction that however well the
continental breakfast may serve the needs of Germans, with their slow
ways of working, and their heavy suppers of sausage, black bread, and
beer, late at night, an American home for Americans temporarily in
Berlin is