Here I sit back, and words fail me. I see that year as a kaleidoscope of
one joyful day after another, each rushing by and leaving the memory
that we both always had, of the most perfect year that was ever given to
mortals on earth. I remember our eighth wedding anniversary in Berkeley.
We had been going night after night until we were tired of going
anywhere,--engagements seemed to have heaped up,--so we decided that the
very happiest way we could celebrate that most-to-be-celebrated of all
dates was just to stay at home, plug the telephone, pull down the
blinds, and have an evening by ourselves. Then we got out everything
that we kept as mementos of our European days, and went over them--all
the postcards, memory-books, theatre and opera programmes, etc., and,
lastly, read my diary--I had kept a record of every day in Europe. When
we came to that year in Heidelberg, we just could not believe our own
eyes. How had we ever managed to pack a year so full, and live to tell
the tale? I wish I could write a story of just that year. We swore an
oath in Berlin that we would make Heidelberg mean Germany to us--no
English-speaking, no Americans. As far as it lay in our power, we lived
up to it. Carl and I spoke only German to each other and to the
children, and we shunned our fellow countrymen as if they had had the
plague. And Carl, in the characteristic way he had, set out to fill our
lives with all the real German life we could get into them, not waiting
for that life to come of itself--which it might never have done.
One afternoon, on his way home from the University, he discovered in a
back alley the Weiser Boch, a little restaurant and beer-hall so full of
local color that it "hollered." No, it did not holler: it was too real
for that. It was sombre and carved up--it whispered. Carl made immediate
friends, in the way he had, with the portly Frau and Herr who ran the
Weiser Boch: they desired to meet me, they desired to see the Kinder,
and would not the Herr Student like to have the Weiser Boch lady mention
his name to some of the German students who dropped in? Carl left his
card, and wondered if anything would come of it.
The very next afternoon,--such a glowing account of the Amerikaner the
Weiser Boch lady must have given,--a real truly German student, in his
corps cap and ribbons, called at our home--the stiffest, most decorous
heel-clicking German student I ever was to see. His embarrassment was
great when he discovered that Carl was out, and I seemed to take it
quite for granted that he was to sit down for a moment and visit with
me. He fell over everything. But we visited, and I was able to gather
that his corps wished Herr Student Par-r-r-ker to have beer with them
the following evening. Then he bowed himself backwards and out, and
fled.
I could scarce wait for Carl to get home--it was too good to be true.
And that was but the beginning. Invitation after invitation came to
Carl, first from one corps, then from another; almost every Saturday
night he saw German student-life first hand somewhere, and at least one
day a week he was invited to the duels in the Hirsch Gasse. Little by
little we got the students to our Wohnung; then we got chummier and
chummier, till we would walk up Haupt Strasse saluting here, passing a
word there, invited to some student function one night, another affair
another night. The students who lived in Heidelberg had us meet their
families, and those who were batching in Heidelberg often had us come to
their rooms. We made friendships during that year that nothing could
ever mar.
It is two years now since we received the last letter from any
Heidelberg chum. Are they all killed, perhaps? And when we can
communicate again, after the war, think of what I must write them! Carl
was a revelation to most of them--they would talk about him to me, and
ask if all Americans were like him, so fresh in spirit, so clean, so
sincere, so full of fun, and, with it all, doing the finest work of all
of them but one in the University.
The economics students tried to think of some way of influencing Alfred
Weber to give another course of lectures at the University. He was in
retirement at Heidelberg, but still the adored of the students. Finally,
they decided that a committee of three should represent them and make a
personal appeal. Carl was one of the three chosen. The report soon flew
around, how, in Weber's august presence, the Amerikaner had stood with
his hands in his pockets--even sat for a few moments on the edge of
Weber's desk. The two Germans, posed like ramrods, expected to see such
informality shoved out bodily. Instead, when they took their leave, the
Herr Professor had actually patted the Amerikaner on the shoulder, and
said he guessed he would give the lectures.
Then his report in Gothein's Seminar, which went so well that I fairly
burst with pride. He had worked day and night on that. I was to meet him
at eight after it had been given, and we were to have a celebration. I
was standing by the entrance to the University building when out came an
enthused group of jabbering German students, Carl in their midst. They
were patting him on the back, shaking his hands furiously; and when they
saw me, they rushed to tell me of Carl's success and how Gothein had
said before all that it had been the best paper presented that semester.
I find myself smiling as I write this--I was too happy that night to
eat.
The Sunday trips we made up the Neckar: each morning early we would take
the train and ride to where we had walked the Sunday previous; then we
would tramp as far as we could,--meaning until dark,--have lunch at some
untouristed inn along the road, or perhaps eat a picnic lunch of our own
in some old castle ruin, and then ride home. Oh, those Sundays! I tell
you no two people in all this world, since people were, have ever had
_one_ day like those Sundays. And we had them almost every week. It
would have been worth going to Germany for just one of those days.
There was the gay, glad party that the Economic students gave, out in
Handschusheim at the "zum Bachlenz"; first, the banquet, with a big
roomful of jovial young Germans; then the play, in which Carl and I both
took part. Carl appeared in a mixture of his Idaho outfit and a German
peasant's costume, beating a large drum. He represented "Materialindex,"
and called out loudly, "Ich bitte mich nicht zu vergessen. Ich bin auch
da." I was "Methode," which nobody wanted to claim; whereat I wept. I am
looking at the flashlight picture of us all at this moment. Then came
the dancing, and then at about four o'clock the walk home in the
moonlight, by the old castle ruin in Handschusheim, singing the German
student-songs.
There was Carnival season, with its masque balls and frivolity, and
Faschings Dienstag, when Hauptstrasse was given over to merriment all
afternoon, every one trailing up and down the middle of the street
masked, and in fantastic costume, throwing confetti and tooting horns,
Carl and I tooting with the rest.
As time went on, we came to have one little group of nine students whom
we were with more than any others. As each of the men took his degree,
he gave a party to the rest of us to celebrate it, every one trying to
outdo the other in fun. Besides these most important degree
celebrations, there were less dazzling affairs, such as birthday
parties, dinners, or afternoon coffee in honor of visiting German
parents, or merely meeting together in our favorite café after a
Socialist lecture or a Max Reger concert. In addition to such functions,
Carl and I had our Wednesday night spree just by ourselves, when every
week we met after his seminar. Our budget allowed just twelve and a half
cents an evening for both of us. I put up a supper at home, and in good
weather we ate down by the river or in some park. When it rained and was
cold, we sat in a corner of the third-class waiting-room by the stove,
watching the people coming and going in the station. Then, for dessert,
we went every Wednesday to Tante's Conditorei, where, for two and a half
cents apiece, we got a large slice of a special brand of the most divine
cake ever baked. Then, for two and a half cents, we saw the movies--at a
reduced rate because we presented a certain number of street-car
transfers along with the cash, and then had to sit in the first three
rows. But you see, we used to remark, we have to sit so far away at the
opera, it's good to get up close at something! Those were real
movies--no danger of running into a night-long Robert W. Chambers
scenario. It was in the days before such developments. Then across the
street was an "Automat," and there, for a cent and a quarter apiece, we
could hold a glass under a little spigot, press a button, and
get--refreshments. Then we walked home.
O Heidelberg--I love your every tree, every stone, every blade of grass!
But at last our year came to an end. We left the town in a bower of
fruit-blossoms, as we had found it. Our dear, most faithful friends,
the Kecks, gave us a farewell luncheon; and with babies, bundles, and
baggage, we were off.
Heidelberg was the only spot I ever wept at leaving. I loved it then,
and I love it now, as I love no other place on earth and Carl felt the
same way. We were mournful, indeed, as that train pulled out.