Читать книгу What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime онлайн

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When one wishes to obtain, during a short visit, as true and as many impressions as possible of a town, the best thing to do is to sit in a café where the literary-journalistic element resorts. In the large room of the Café Royal in London, or under the deer-heads of the Bauer in Berlin, on the horrid yellow velvet sofas of Aragno in Rome, or on the verandah of the Ianni in Constantinople, the people talk freely. In such places the opinions of the different classes are reduced to a common denomination—public opinion; tongues wag more freely, loosened by the favourite drink, be it whisky and soda, beer, coffee, or sherbet.

London is decidedly optimistic; there is certainly a little apprehension on the score of Zeppelins, and the probability of a lengthy war; but every Briton knows that England will ultimately come out on top.

Amsterdam is, at the present moment, the town of half words and of compromises of all kinds. "We want to please England, our friends, but we wish to avoid trouble with Germany ..." is a sentence one often hears there.