77
THE FREEDOMSEEKER Chapter Seven The Seeker
THIS TIME, TOO, THERE WAS NO DOUBT in his mind as to where he
must go. It could only be to a big city, with all the possibilities open to one
of his profession, and where there were a great many people. He had learned
to love big cities, with their easy intercourse and their free and easy way of
life.
So he went to Berlin. His first impression was that the town was small and its life almost quiet by comparison with mighty London and lively Paris, but he soon found that it was quite extensive and that here, too, he would be able to go his own way as he wished. During the next two years he found no reason to alter his feelings about the town. It was not a town which one could hate as one could hate London; nor was it a town which one must love as one must love Paris. The best thing about Berlin was that it was a big town. A sober atmosphere lay over the whole city, just as a feeling of oppression lay over its people, as though they were under a constraint which did not allow them to live or to breathe freely; and the colours of the country, black and white, merged into a muddy and dirty grey. Nevertheless, he liked it here, and even if he could not come to love the town he learned to love the environs, the quiet lakes surrounded with white sand and the sober pine forests which seemed to be the right setting for the town. |