AN HOTEL OF MYSTERY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2669, 14 January 1916, Page 9

AN HOTEL OF MYSTERY

NEST OF DIPLOMATS AT DEPiK";S. Berne, the capital of Switzerland, has, by one of tho most curious accidents of the war, becomo a diplomatic city of great importance. It is the subject of an article iu tho Italian journal, "Corriere della Sera," from the pen of its corespondent, Signor Eilippo t'acchi. Tho writer says:— ' Berne is, abovo all, a diplomats' nest. For months past all the foreign Legations have been working at high pressure. 0110 needs only watch their staffs in order to realise that something etxtraordinnry is going on. These staffs are increasing daily. Every day new faces appear at the' desks of the young Attaches. One sees there English youths fresh from Eton, and one see Austrians still smelling of Thcresian]im. What are they all doing here? For one thing, they chat, and watch, for Berne has become in these days 110 focus of diplomatic rumours. Keports, surmises, supicions, alul news—ailscits of things bubble in this political saucepan. Hound the Legations th'ere moves about in twilight a swarm of enigmatical figures whose mysterious activity can only be surmised, but not proved. They are the great Unknown who come up and again disappear, and whose importance can only be inferred from their fleeting contact with this or that wellknowii high personage. Life here is a mutual game of observation, a secret mutual espionage, a mining warfare. Berne, in short, lias become a sort of diplomatic clearing-house where values are quoted by mere signs. . . . The centre of all tins .activity is tlie hotel. Its cold luxury, its indifferent comfort, its spaciousness, which permit two men to live for months under one roof, without ever hearing one another's voice, make it a neutral ground which facilitates the meeting and parting and jostling of hostile elements. There one can 6ee a remarkable society, the members of which do not look "at each other and yet are watching one another, and are maintaining an intercourse among themselves without speaking to one another. At tho same time the party divisions are very strict. The parties of the Quadruple Entente are sitting at separate tables, and so are tliose of the Central Powers. They form . separate groups, admitting of 110 mutual contact. But 0110 sees clearly liow 'unostentatiously the individual members find their way so as- to meet one another in certain rooms at certain hours. At tlie same time the intercourse is dominated by a negative etiquette. .It consists in not greeting and net speaking to 0110 another as far as it is possible. The ladies accentuate the differences by their different styles of elegance. But this society which pretends not to know one another 'is full of attention and watchfulness. It does not escape its notice that on a given day. the attitude of the' Attache X towards the Attache Y has shown a certain cooiness, and that tlie Minister A B was one evening in high spirits. Tho habit of watching for the imperceptible sharpens the eye extraordinarily, and people becomo experts in solving riddles. One talks and thinks only in semitones. In tlie corridors, whore the soft carpets deaden the sound of the stops; in tho rooms, where .words cannot be overheard through the double doors; in the large saloons, svhere luxurious sofas in all the corners seem to invito confidential con-, versations.; in the.spacious marble lobbies which seem to say, "Speak; we do not betray"—everywhere in the hotel thero is a fine web of observations and exchanges of view being spun, again dissolved, and again spun every hour, every minuto of the day. • In conclusion, Signor Sacclii ventures the prediction that the future peaco will be associated with the name of the Swiss capital, and considers the establish-, ment there of new Legations, such as the. Swedish, Turkish, and Bulgarmn, as evidence of such a possibility.