A sort of feverish growth had sprung up in Berlin, an excitement and
ferment which filled the villas in the west end, and the poor
lodging-houses of the other end of the town: was found too in
councilors' drawing-rooms, and in suburban taverns. New streets
seemed to spring up during the night. Where the hoe and rake of
kitchen-gardens were at work yesterday, to-day was the noise of
hammers and saws, and in the middle of the open fields hundreds of
houses raised their walls and roofs to the sky. It seemed as if the
increasing town expected between to-day and to-morrow a hundred
thousand new inhabitants, and were forced to build houses in
breathless haste to shelter them.
And as a matter of fact the expected throng arrived. Even in the
most distant provinces a curious but powerful attraction drew people
to the capital; artisans and cottages, village shopkeepers, and
merchants from small towns, all rushed there like the inflowing
tide. It made one think of a number of moths blindly fluttering
round a candle, or of the magnetic rock of Eastern fairy tales,
irresistibly attracting ships to wreck themselves. It recalled to
one the stories of California at the time of the gold fever.
People's excited imaginations saw a veritable gold-mine in Berlin.
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