BERLIN FORGETS THE WAR.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16608, 4 December 1919, Page 3

BERLIN FORGETS THE WAR.

LAZARUS AT THE FEAST. BERLIN, Sept. 29. The hand of Autumn is- already upon Berlin. One notices the earlier falling shadows, the occasional curious opalescence of the atmosphere, and, above all, the yellowing leaves which collect, in little heaps beneath the trees in Unter don Linden and lie untidily on the grass plots of the Pariser Platz. Even the geraniums, -which, until now have kept up an unflagging brilliance, are beginning to look a little tired, like society beauties at the end of a trying season. Yes, autumn has certainly arrived, and with it the end of an epoch. For everyone in Germany is now beginning to feel that the war is a thing of the past. Great as are the changes in Berlin, there arc times and places when one would hardly know that a war had ever been fought. As you pass, for example, by the Adlon Hotel, your eye is caught by the window of a fashionable florist, where superb mauve and heliotrope orchids in gilded 1 baskets and tied with broad ribbons of the richest silk made a magnificent show. You could not sec anything finer in the Rue de la Paix or in Regent Street. Next door is an equally fashionable jeweller’s —and so you may pass from one of Dives’ caterers to another, forgetful altogether of Lazarus until you almost stumble over him where he lies on the pavement at the door of the restaurant at which you are going to dine. _ Poor Lazarus, who has been a in the war, now appears in the altered character of a skeleton at the feast. “It really is too bad that the man should bo allowed to make such an exhibition of himself!” you hear someone murmur as you pass; but “In Germany everything is allowed to-day,” is the explanation which, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. The revolving glass doors of the restaurant turn on thoir pivot and you enter a luxurious establishment. A row of attendants stands ready to receive you, with an obsequiousness dating from the old regime. You are shepherded into tho dining-room, where a majestic head-waiter does the honours of the house. With . quite an okhworld courtesy he bows you to a table. It is past eight, and the restaurant is filling up. The appointments leave nothing to bo desired. _ The glass, cutlery and plate are unimpeachable, and the flowers upon the table give an admirable finish to the whole. A band plays in the corner, not so loud as to disturb tho conversation, hut so well that one wonders whether it is not a concert orchestra. The waiter brings the bill of fare, from which you learn that it is a meatless day. Possibly it is a shade of disappointment on the face of the guest that leads to the hastily-whispered reassurance that, though there, is no meat on the menu, there is meat in the house, and youare forthwith given a choice cf as many as eight meat dishes, including beef, mutton, veal and pork. The wine-list is a catalogue of red and white, almost all Gorman except a few red wines of France. Most conspicuous among the sparkling wines nro Kupforhevg Gold and Rheingold, both at 86 marks a bottle. Tile guests are fashionable and animated, and by degrees the brouhaha of conversation fills the room and almost drowns tho music of the band 1 , only now and then subsiding for a little, as when a particularly fine rendering of Gounod’s “Avo Maria” by tho first violin compels attention. For tho rest, tho company is young, gay, and niondaine. At a table near at hand is seated a very pretty girl, dressed in a dream of tulle and pearls. Her companion, evidently an officer en civil, sports the single eyeglass—to tho proletarian the hated badge of arrogance and' caste-rand wear? At with an air. It is_ quite evident the war- is not the subject of the conversation of the youthful pair, any more than that of the other guests around you. Waiters glide hither and thither bearing delicate dishes. Delicious melons, choice grapes and other fruits, fpllowed by fragrant coffee with liqueurs complete the banquet. You notice tliat the pretty girl has taken out her jewelled cigarette case and is tapping the end of her cigarette on a fllberty thumbnail preparatory to lighting up, Tho music rises and falls—now it is Lohengrin, now Rigolotto, now a waltz by Strauss, and anon tho “Jewel Song” from Faust or tho Largo of Handel. And this is taking place nightly in a score of first-class Berlin restaurants, to say nothing of tho countless smaller places where the scene is reproduced on a more modest scale. As one _ watches it one is almost led into believing that the war is a figment of the brain. Rut, on leaving, you observe poor Lazarus still trembling from shell-shock on the pavement, and are once more* brought up with a sharp turn to tho ugly realities of life. Such is Berlin to-day. Will it ever be otherwise, you ask —and when?