* In former times, one of the main Berlin railway stations, and close to the fleshpots of the West End of the city.

* ‘Red château’, jocular name for the police HQ on the Alexanderplatz, the third largest structure in Berlin when it was built in 1890.

* Properly Kuchuk Hanem, an Egyptian prostitute, his exploits with whom Flaubert proudly related to his friend Louise Colet in 1851. The exotic combination of bedbugs and sandalwood prompted Flaubert to the Baudelairean exclamation: ‘I want there to be a bitterness in everything …’

* A paddy-wagon, like the (in German) better-known grüne Minna.