Berlin Stories Read Online Free PDF

will get on well here, he can live, no one’s stopping him. Anyone who does not insist on particularly heartfelt shows of warmth can still have a heart here, he is allowed that much.
    1907

Berlin W
    It seems that everyone here knows what is proper, and this produces a certain frostiness, and it furthermore seems that everyone here is able to stand his ground from within his own person, and this produces the equanimity that newcomers admire. Poverty appears to have been banished to the districts that border the open fields, or else packed away in the somber, dark interiors of tenements that are blocked from view by the stately residences facing the street as if by massive bodies. It seems as if humanity has stopped heaving sighs here and has begun once and for all to rejoice in its own existence and life. Appearances are deceiving, though: all this elegance and splendor are but a dream. But perhaps the squalor too is only illusory. As for the elegance of Berlin’s western districts, it would appear to be characterized by liveliness, though this liveliness is somewhat spoiled because it cannot be cultivated in peace. Everything here, by the way, is caught up in an endless process of cultivation and change. The men are just as modest as they are unchivalrous, and this is something one can feel quite happy about, for chivalry is always three-quarters inappropriate. Gallantry is exceptionally idiotic and impertinent. Accordingly, one seldom witnesses maudlin scenes hereabouts, and when some delicate adventure unfolds, you never even notice, which after all is what constitutes its gentility. Nowadays the world of men is a world of commerce, and a person who is obliged to earn money has little or no time for flamboyantly refined behavior. This explains the brusque tone of voice one often hears. Generally speaking, there is much to be amused by in Berlin West; here you find the most delightfully, sweetly laughable lives you might dream of. Take for example the dame arriviste , a feminine force of nature, naïve as a small child. I personally esteem her greatly because she is both so voluptuous and so droll. Or the “little girl from the Kurfürstendamm.” She resembles a chamois, and there is much in her that is sweet and good. And here we have the worldly graybeard. Only a very few specimens of this caliber, well versed in savoir vivre, are still sauntering about. The type is dying out, and I find this a tremendous pity. Recently I saw just such a gentleman, and he looked to me like a vision from a vanished age. And here we have something quite different: the rural homesteader who’s made good. He hasn’t yet divested himself of the habit of gaping as though he were astonished at himself and the good fortune he’s plopped down in. He behaves in much too decorous a way, as though he were afraid of revealing his origins. And then we have the very, very severe madam from the age of Bismarck. I am an admirer of severe faces and good manners that have left their mark on the very essence of a person. In general I am moved by age, both in buildings and human beings; by the same token, I find things that are fresh, new, and young no less enlivening; and there’s plenty of youthfulness to be found here, and the West does seem to me quite healthy. Must a certain portion of health preclude a certain portion of beauty? By no means! The lively, in the end, is the most beautiful. Well, hmm, perhaps I shall now do a bit of tail-wagging and scraping and flattering; for example with the following sentence: The local women are beautiful and charming! The gardens are tidy, the architecture errs perhaps on the side of the drastic, but what of it? After all, everyone these days is convinced that we are bunglers when it comes to the grandiose, stylish, and monumental, and probably this is because the desire is all too alive within us to possess or produce style, grandeur, and monumentality. Desires are terrible things.