an to see gold everywhere; red streaks of gold
shone through the window-panes, instead of the warm spring sun; they
heard murmuring chinking streams of gold flowing behind the walls of
their houses, under the pavements of the streets, and every one
hastened to fill their hands, and thirsted for their share in the
subterranean gold whose stream was concealed from their eyes. While
their lips were being moistened by the stream of gold, they were, as a
matter of fact, drinking the transformed flesh and blood of the heroes
who had sacrificed themselves on the French battlefields, and in this
infamous travesty of the Christian mystery of the Lord's Supper the
devil himself took part and possession of them. They followed new
customs, new views of life, other ideals. The motto of their noisy and
obtrusive life seemed to be, "Get rich as quickly and with as little
trouble as possible, and make as much as possible of your riches when
you have secured them, even by illegitimate means." So the splendid
houses rose up in an overloaded gaudy irregular style of architecture,
and the smart carriages with india-rubber tires rolled by, yielding
soft and soothing riding to their occupants.

Berlin, the sober economical town, the home of honorable families,
extolled for respectability almost to affectation, now learned the
disorderly ways of noisy cafes, the luxury of champagne suppers, in
over-decorated restaurants, became intimately acquainted with the
theaters--gaining doubtful introductions to expensive mistresses. Mere
upstarts set the fashion in dress, in extravagance, and all who would
be elegant, followed, leading the way to barbaric vices. The
old-established inhabitants were many of them weak or silly enough to
try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their
patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The
intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this
bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now
grown uncomfortable, their houses were too small, their bread too dry,
their beer too common and their views of life began to climb upward in
a measure which, whether they were willing or equal in talent to it,
forced from them harder work and more dogged perseverance. Political
economists and statisticians were drawn into excitement by their
knowledge of figures. They extolled the sudden crisis in the money
market, the easy returns, the great dev