being ridden, or driven in private
carriages; but the miserable beasts in cabs and carts force the most
ignorant person to observe and pity them. They look as if they were on
their way to the knacker's yard, and very often as if they must sink
beneath the load they are compelled to carry. It is comforting to
reflect that horses will doubtless soon be too old-fashioned for
Berlin, and that all the cabs and vans of the future will be motors.
The cars run early enough in the morning for the workmen, and late
enough at night for people who have had supper at a popular restaurant
after the theatre or a glass of beer at one of the _Zelten_, the
garden restaurants that in the time of Frederick the Great were really
tents, and where the Berliners flocked then as they do now to hear a
band, look at the trees of the Tiergarten, and enjoy light
refreshments. When you get back to your house from such gaieties you
find it locked and in darkness, but though there is a "portier" you do
not disturb him by calling out your name as you would in Paris. In
modern houses there is electric light outside each floor that you
switch on for yourself, and you have a race with it that you lose
unless you are active; but you soon learn to feel your way up to the
next light when you are left in darkness. The Berlin "portier" is not
as much in evidence as the Paris concierge. He opens the door to
strangers, but if you stay or live in the house you are expected to
carry two heavy keys about with you, one for the street door and one
for the flat. The modern doors have some machinery by which they shut
themselves noiselessly after you. You hear a great deal more said
about "nerves" in Germany than in England, and yet Germans seem to be
amazingly indifferent to noise. They will not tolerate the brass bands
and barrel-organs that pester us, but that is because they are fond of
music. Screaming voices, banging doors, and the clatter of kitchens
and business premises seem not to trouble them at all. Most houses in
Berlin are five or six storeys high, and are built round the four
sides of a small paved court. No one who has not lived in such a
house, and in a room giving on the court, can understand how every
sound increases and reverberates. Footsteps at dawn sound as if the
seven-leagued boots had come, and were shod with iron. You whisper
that the kitchen on a lower floor in an opposite corner looks well
kept, and the maid hears what you say and looks at y