ed with such integral and valid elements of Berlin
"night life" as "_der cake walk_," "_der can-can_" and "_die
matschiche--getanzt von original importierten Mexikanerinnen_." So, too,
is one removed from the garish demi-women of the so-called "Quartier
Latin" near the Oranienburger Tor and from the spurious deviltries of
the Rothenburger Krug and the Staffelstein, with their "property"
students, cheeks scarred with red ink, singing "Heidelberg" (from "The
Prince of Pilsen") for the edification and impression of foreign
visitors, and fiercely and frequently challenging other prop. students
to immediate duel. The girls, alas, in these places are not unlovely.
Well do I remember the dainty Elsa of the Hopfenbluethe, she of face
kissed by the Prussian dawn, and employed at sixteen marks the week to
wink dramatically at the old roues and give the resort "an air." Well
does memory repeat to me the loveliness of delicate little Anna, she
with hair like the waving golden grass in the fields that skirt the
roadways from Targon to Villandraut, and paid so much the month to laugh
uproariously every time the hands of the clock point the quarter-hour.
And Rika and Dessa and Julia and Paulina--all sweet of look, all
professional actresses; Bernhardts of Fun (inc.), Duses of Pleasure
(ltd.). Not the girls in whose hearts Berlin is beating, not the girls
in whose _elan_ Berlin lives and laughs. Leave behind all places such as
these, seeker after the soul of Berlin. Leave behind the Tingel-Tangel
with its uniformed bouncer at the gate, with its threadbare piano, with
its "_na kleener Dicker_" smirked by soiled _decolletes_, its doleful
near-naughty ditties--"_Ich lass mich nicht verfuehren, dazu bin ich zu
schlau, ich kenne die Manieren der Maenner ganz genau_"--"I won't be led
astray, I am too slick for that, I know the ways of mankind, I've got
them all down pat." Leave behind the Berlin of the Al-Raschids and keep
to the Berlin of the Germans.

Just as the worst of Paris came from America, so has the worst of
Berlin come from America by way of Paris. The maquereau spirit of
Montmartre, with its dollar lust and its poisoned blood, has not yet the
throat of this German night city full in its fists; but the fists are
tightening slowly--and the voice behind them speaks not French, but the
jargon of Broadway. And yet, when finally the fingers work closer,
closer still, around that throat, when finally the death gurgle of
spontaneous plea