I noticed that the few shops of English firms in Berlin were closed, as were also the agencies of British ship companies.
The first night of a great military drama was announced for the evening, and curious little carriages covered by a sort of large square box with the sandwich man completely concealed inside, showed large posters with scenes of the drama. One exhibited a wonderful allegoric picture with a bulldog, a bear, and a cock transfixed by the large sword with which they had been killed. Needless to say, on the top of it was a large Prussian eagle.
The crowd of shoppers and idlers was going mostly towards the Schloss-Brücke, and having nothing better to do I followed the current of the people.
In the Lustgarten a large crowd was waiting with an expectant air, gazing at the central balcony overhanging the main entrance of the Schloss. Before I had time to ask the reason of the excitement, one of the French windows was opened by valets, and a tall lady, accompanied by three children, dressed in white, came out and bowed smilingly to the crowd.
An enormous cheer received the Kronprinzessin. After remaining on the balcony for a few minutes, during which she repeatedly bowed and kissed the fair head of her eldest son, she retired, loud cheers being again raised.
I asked the reason of the demonstration, shivering at the idea that a big success had been obtained by the German and that this was the way the Berlin population expressed loyalty to its rulers.
"Why, she appears every afternoon!" I was told. "A crowd comes here every day at four o'clock. It has been so since the beginning of the war."
"Even when the war news was not very good?" I asked.
"The news has always been very good," said my informant in a contemptuous tone, and away he walked, disgusted at my disrespectful remark.
The crowd had now melted away slowly, and the Lustgarten had resumed its air of aristocratic calm. In front of me was the huge mass of the Imperial Palace, with the large bronze groups given to the Hohenzollern family fifty years ago by the grandfather of the present Tsar.
The balustrade of the balcony on which the Kronprinzessin had just appeared is "decorated," to use the complimentary word of my Baedeker, with the statues of German emperors and empresses in mythological attire. Wilhelm II. is dreaming, I am sure, of putting there in a few years his own effigy, of which he seems so extremely fond. What disguise he will choose I cannot imagine; possibly he will dress as Janus, the god of peace, Kaiser Frederich having already taken the armour and shield of Mars.