ainst the window of the
Jew's clothing store. The air is dust-filled. An intermittent baking
gust from the river sends a cast-aside _Journal_ fluttering aloft. A
dirt-encrusted bum begs the price of a coffee. Another streetwalker,
appearing from the backwaters of Seventh Avenue, grins in the
drugstore's green light....

But to your eyes, Hulda, must be given no such picture. Yet such is the
New York I come from; such the New York, stunning by day in its New
World strength and splendour, loathsome by night in its hot, illumined
bawdry. Ah, city by the Hudson, forgetting Riverside Drive twinkling
amid the long tiara of trees, forgetting the still of the lake and cool
of the boulders that plead in Central Park, forgetting the superb
majesty of Cathedral Heights and the mighty peace of the
byways--forgetting these all for a Broadway!

But the symphony of the Berlin dawn is ours now, fraeulein, and have
done with intrusive memories, corroding reflections. What are my people
doing in Berlin at this hour? What are these prowling Al-Raschids about?
Do they know the sorcery of the virgin morning light of Berlin as it
falls upon the Siegesallee and gives life again to the marble heroes of
Germany? Have they ever stood with such as you, fraeulein, in the
coral-tipped hours of the dawning day before the image of Friedrich der
Grosse in that wonderful lane and felt, through this dead, cold thing,
the thrill of an empire's glory? Do they know the witchery of the
withering Berlin night as it plays out its wild fantasia in the leaves
of the Linden trees? Have they ever been with such as you, fraeulein, at
the base of the Pillar of Triumph in Koenigsplatz or sat with such as
you, fraeulein, near the Grotto Lake in the Tiergarten, or stood with
such as you, fraeulein, on one of the bridges arching the Spree in the
first trembling innuendo of morning?

Where are these, my people?

You will find them seeking the romance of Berlin's greying night amid
the Turkish cigarette smoke and stale wine smells of the half-breed
cabarets marshalled along the Jaegerstrasse, the Behrenstrasse and their
tributaries. You will find them up a flight of stairs in one of the
all-night Linden cafes, throwing celluloid balls at the weary, patient,
left-over women. You will find them sitting in the balcony of the
Pavilion Mascotte, blowing up toy balloons and hurling small cones of
coloured paper down at the benign harlotry. You will see them, hatless,
shoo