: In and Around Berlin by Norton Minerva Brace - Berlin (Germany) Description and travel Germany

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ight colors. Under this one always sleeps. Over the bed, from low head-board to foot-board, is stretched by day the uppermost covering. Ours was of maroon cotton flannel, bordered in front by a flounce intended to be ornamental. The custom is to furnish clean cases and pillow-slips once a month, and it is difficult to secure more frequent changes of bed-linen.

Ventilation is something of which the Germans are particularly afraid. The impure air of schools, halls, churches, and other places of assemblage is dreadful, and a draught is regarded as the messenger of death. When our landlady found that we were in the habit of sleeping with our windows open, most emphatic remonstrance was made, with the assurance that this would never do in Berlin. However, like the drinking of water, against which also warnings are customary, the breathing of fresh air was to us followed by no harmful results.

These differences in habits and customs of household life, like the sounds of a strange language, affect the traveller unpleasantly at first. But differences in national customs are natural and inevitable, and one gradually becomes accustomed to them, and enabled to live a happy life in spite of them, as appreciation grows when acquaintance has made one familiar with many interesting and excellent aspects of existence here.

FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE.

Holidays and birthdays are more scrupulously and formally observed in Germany than with us. There are cakes and lighted candles and flowers for the one whose birthday makes him for the time the most important personage in the family, and who sits in holiday dress in the reception-room, to receive the calls and congratulations of friends. Those who cannot call send letters and presents, which are displayed, with those received from the family, on a table devoted to the purpose; and the array is often quite extensive. The presents are seldom extravagant, consisting largely of the ornamental handiwork of friends and of useful articles of clothing for common use.

Private hospitality is kind and open, but so far as our observation went, conducted within certain specified limits seldom overstepped. Order of precedence is carefully observed, and more honor is shown to age than with us. The best seat in the drawing-room is the sofa. A single guest would never be offered any other place, and among a number the eldest or the most honored would be invariably conducted there. Hence no one would venture to take this place of honor uninvited. Sometimes one is secretly glad of not being invited to crowd behind the table which usually stands, covered with a spread, inconveniently close before the sofa, and of having instead a chair, with a better support for the back.

One is expected to bow to the hostess and to each guest on coming to the table, and also on leaving it. Odd as this seems at first, it soon becomes a habit rather pleasant than burdensome, and one grows insensibly to admire the outward politeness of this German custom. Greetings and farewells are more ceremonious, even between intimate friends, than with us; and to omit a ceremonious leave-taking or to substitute a light bow and "good day" would not make a pleasant impression on a German hostess. Americans, especially young ladies, are much criticised for their independence and lack of courtesy. A German friend told me that a young American lady who had formerly been an inmate of her family called to bid her good-by before leaving Berlin. "I was amazed," she said, "at such politeness." It is not alone in matters of courtesy that young American ladies shock the Germans. Though a young lady has more freedom in Germany than in France and Italy, she is expected to conform carefully to the custom of going out in the evening or travelling only in company with a relative if a gentleman, or with an older lady. It is true that American girls are forgiven some liberties which no German girl would think of taking, on the ground of American customs; and a careful, well-bred young lady, from our side the water will seldom fall into serious trouble if she observes the rule of not going out unattended. But young ladies from America in Europe hold largely the honor of their country in their hands, and they ought to recognize this responsibility.

German politeness has also a reverse side. Perhaps the general absence of higher education among German women leaves them an especial prey to idle curiosity and gossip. Not only is one questioned freely as to the cost of any article of dress by comparative strangers, but questions as to one's family and private affairs are common, almost customary. Conversation which does not turn upon such things, or on others equally trivial and irrelevant, is the exception. The recital on their part, however, of personal and family history has a charming good-nature and simplicity, and often a touch of the homely and pathetic, which reach the heart of the listener. There were few tables where the conversation was not too loud for our comfort. No one seemed particularly to care for quiet talk with his neighbor, but the conversation at a long table was a rattling sharpshooting or a heavy cannonade from one end to the other, mingled with hearty laughter, while "Attic salt" was sparing. Table-manners, even among otherwise charming people, were often shocking to the taste of Americans. What we should call the first principles of good-breeding were freely contravened. The nicety and daintiness which in some favored American and English homes make of the family board a visible and tangible poem, were very rare in our German experience. And yet there are charming German tables and well-bred German ladies and gentlemen. One custom which we have been taught to regard as vulgar and profane is that of constantly using the names of the Deity by way of exclamation and emphasis in the most ordinary conversation. Being on sufficiently intimate terms with a German lady, we one day ventured to inquire deprecatingly about this habit. "Everybody does it," was her candid reply; and this was the only reason we ever heard.

"George Eliot" long ago complained of the inconvenience of perambulating Berlin streets, where you are pushed off the sidewalks and are in constant danger of involuntary surgical experience through contact with the military swords that clank and clatter in the crowd. There is still room for improvement in this respect. The owners of sabres often seem to take it for granted that the right of way belongs first of all to them and their weapons, and if any one is thus inconvenienced that is the business of the unlucky party. The streets and sidewalks are much wider and less crowded than those in Boston; but a collision on a Boston sidewalk is rare, while a half-dozen rude ones in an hour is a daily expectation in Berlin. A Berlin pedestrian "to the manner born," in blind momentum and disregard of all obstacles, has no equal in our experience.

It was told me that if you are run over by the swiftly driven horses in the streets, you must pay a fine for obstructing the way. Remembering that many regulations are relics of the times when laws were made for the good of the aristocracy who ride, and not for the vulgar crowd who walk, we did not try the experiment. Mounted policemen are to be seen, like equestrian statues, at the intersection of the more crowded thoroughfares, as Unter den Linden and Friedrich Strasse, and with a little care there is seldom need of delay in crossing. I heard of one poor cab-driver who was fined and cast into prison for injuring a lady who suddenly changed her mind and took a new tack while just in front of his horses. Regard for foot-passengers seems thus to have an existence in some cases.

Regard for women is not a thing to which German men are trained. A gentleman may not carry a small parcel through the street, but his delicate wife may take a heavier one to save the disgrace of her husband's bearing it. Among the middle classes, those couples who go out for a walk with the baby-carriage invariably regard the management of it as the wife's privilege, leaving to the father the custody of his pipe or cigar alone. If the baby is to be carried in arms, it is always the wife, not the husband, who bears the burden. Women in the humbler classes wear no bonnets in the street, although sometimes in cold weather they tie a little shawl or a handkerchief about the head. Their usual habit is, however, to go out in all weathers with the head as unprotected as the face, even for long distances. A maid follows her mistress to market, with a basket on her arm, often covered with an embroidered cloth, in which are placed the purchases of the careful housemother.

A huckster is frequently accompanied by a dog, both being harnessed to the little cart which holds the wares. Often the man will be free, while the woman and the dog side by side drag the cart to which they are tied, the woman usually knitting even when the air is cold enough to benumb her fingers. Women knit constantly in the streets about their other work, whether bowed down under huge bundles of fagots on their backs, serving milk at the houses, or doing many other things with which we should regard knitting as incompatible.

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