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. As for his son, everybody will agree that Mercury would be a suitable _rôle_. Mercury was considered in old Rome the protector of the thieves. * * * The most astonishing thing I heard during my trip was that the price of beer is going up steadily, and that maybe the classical types of German beer--Pilsener and Münchener--will have to give place to other drinks to make which oats are not required. Most of the oats supply is imported, I learn, from South Russia and America, and the importation, of course, is now completely stopped. I can easily fancy Berlin without the Linden, or the Sieges-Säule, the most insolent monument I have ever seen--even without the Kaiser, but not without plenty of beer. I am trying to think what the Berlin cafés will look like at night without the national drink. Probably they will get as dull as the teetotal London night clubs in war-time! I found myself walking down the Gendarmen Market, perhaps the only fine square in Berlin. Here is the Schauspielhaus in which during one of my former visits Moissi, an Italian who is one of Germany's best tragic actors, was appearing in _Hamlet_ and _Othello_. I remember an old German professor telling me of his almost exclusive love for the Shakespearean theatre, and comparing it with the old and modern German theatre to the total disadvantage of his countrymen. I wonder if the Chauvinistic influence of the war has made him love Hauptmann and detest Shakespeare! Here is also the old French church, spoiled by recent restoration. Till the outbreak of the war there used to be here a daily French service and a Sunday sermon. Now the church is closed, most of the priests have gone back to France, and one of them is said to be fighting against Germany. Only an old French lady and the sacristan are there in a small house at the back of the church. I knock for some time at the door, and finally I am admitted to an old-world sitting-room, furnished with quite a number of plasters, bronzes, and prints of all the saints who have blossomed during the past centuries on the fertile soil of France. It takes me quite a time to persuade the good old lady that I am not German, and not there to find out anything, but I finally get all her confidence when I offer to carry a letter for her son, one of the French church priests now in France. She tells me that they had inquisitions over inquisitions by the military authorities since the beginning of the war.