GERMANY
I spent the Christmas holidays, after leaving Eton, at Membland. I had
had another little book of poems printed privately as a Christmas present
for my mother, and I was still making discoveries in English literature,
and of these the most important of all: Shakespeare and Milton’s
_Paradise Lost_. We travelled up in January to London, and it was settled
that I was to go to Germany to learn German. My father heard of a family
in Hanover where English boys were taken, but there was no room there.
Someone then gave him the address of a Dr. Timme who lived at Hildesheim,
near Hanover, and also took in Englishmen. It was settled that I was to
go there. I started at the end of the month, and at Victoria Station
I met Hubert Cornish, who was going to Dresden to learn German. We
travelled together to Hanover _via_ Flushing, and we were both of us
seasick, and both swore that we would never cross the Channel again. We
arrived at Hanover the next evening and stayed at Kasten’s Hotel. The
next morning we went on by the same train. I got out at Hildesheim, and
Hubert Cornish went on to Dresden. Hubert Cornish had just left Eton,
but he was older than I was, and I had only seen him in the distance,
and at his father’s house at picnics. We made great friends at once.
Hildesheim was a charming little old town. One part of it was really old,
and straight out of a fairy-tale, with houses with high gabled roofs, and
mediæval carvings on them, and there were many quaint and interesting
churches, including the old cathedral with its ravishingly beautiful
cloister behind it, and a rose-tree said to be a thousand years old. Dr.
Timme had a small house in the Weissenburger-Strasse on the edge of the
modern town. It was a two-storied, square, grey house with a flat roof,
looking out on to the street on one side, and on to a garden at the back.
I was received by Frau Doktor Timme. Her husband was a master at the
_Real Gymnasium_, and he was at school when I arrived. I could not speak
a word of German. It was a curious sensation to live with a family and
partake of their daily life and not to be able to understand a word they
said; to go out for walks and pretend to be joining in and following a
conversation when one had not the remotest idea of the drift of it. I
started lessons at once, and bought a small Heine, which I used to read
to myself, and I soon understood that. It was bitterly cold. There was
still snow on the ground.
There were three children in the house: a dear little girl called Aenna,
and a little boy called Kurt, and an older boy, about twelve, called
Atho. Dr. Timme had two spinster sisters who lived in a house not far off
with another old lady who was called _Die Alte Tante_, and Frau Timme
had a brother who was called Onkel Adolf, and who had fought in the
Franco-Prussian War, and her mother was alive.
I found life interesting in spite of not understanding the language.
In the early morning I used to go downstairs and have coffee and
_Apfelgelee_. We had _Mittagessen_ at one, and after that the household
indulged in a _Mittagschläfchen_. At four in the afternoon we again drank
coffee and ate _Apfelgelee_, and we had supper at half-past seven, at
which there would generally be some delicacy like _Bratkartoffel_ or
_Leberwurst_ or _Häringsalat_. Many English boys had been there before;
and Frau Timme told me that we English, as a rule, disliked German
dishes. The first German phrase I remember understanding was when Frau
Timme announced to one of the aunts a surprising fact about me that I ate
everything (“_Er isst alles_”). In the evening the aunts and other people
used to visit us, and sometimes we would go to a concert. The Timmes were
great friends with the family of Herr Musik-Direktor Nick, who was a
musician, and all his family played; they had entrancing musical evenings
of trios and duets for violin, pianoforte, and viola. Herr Musik-Direktor
Nick’s nephew, Wunnibald, gave me lessons on the pianoforte. I had German
lessons with Dr. Timme.
In the afternoon, I used to go for long walks with Dr. Timme and his
brother-in-law, and we walked to the Galgenberg, to the Steinberg, and
the Moritzberg, rather bleak hills of fir-trees, stopping as a rule at a
small _Wirtshaus_, where we used to drink beer or coffee. In the house
there was a small drawing-room downstairs, where the guest of honour
always sat on the sofa. A smart drawing-room or the _Gute Stube_, which
was only opened on rare and state occasions. Frau Timme told me one day
that she knew this room was a useless extravagance, but it gave her, she
said, such great pleasure that she could not sacrifice it. Upstairs,
Dr. Timme had a sitting-room, where I took my lessons with him, and I
had a sitting-room where I did my work. After about a month I could
understand what was being said, and in about two months’ time I could
make myself understood and carry on a conversation. I used sometimes to
go to the theatre at Hanover, coming back by train afterwards. The first
time I saw Schiller’s _Wallenstein’s Tod_ I did not understand a word
of it. One night I went to hear _Tannhäuser_. Wagner was only a name
to me, and meant something vaguely noisy. I had no idea he wrote about
interesting or romantic subjects. I had no idea of what _Tannhäuser_ was
about. I went expecting a tedious evening of dry and ultra-classical,
unintelligible music. As soon as the orchestra began the overture, I
was overwhelmed. I did not know that music was capable of so tremendous
an effect. The Venusberg music and the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” opened a new
world, and I was so excited afterwards that I could not sleep a wink.
I was stunned by these magnetic effects of sound. Curiously enough, I
left it at that, and made no further effort to go and hear any more
Wagner. I was almost afraid of repeating the experience for fear of
being disappointed, and the next time I went to the opera it was to hear
Verdi’s _Otello_.
I happened to mention casually that it was my birthday on 27th April,
and when I came down that morning I found in the drawing-room a
beautiful cake or _Apfeltorte_ with eighteen candles burning on it and
a present from every member of the family. I could talk German quite
fluently by this time. Frau Timme suggested that I should make the
acquaintance of some of the boys at the schools. There were two large
schools at Hildesheim, a Gymnasium, and a Real Gymnasium. The Real
Gymnasium concentrated on the modern. The Gymnasium was more classical
in its programme. For the purpose of getting to know the boys I was
introduced to a grown-up boy called Braun, who was, I think, a native
of Hildesheim. Most of the boys at both schools came from different
parts of Germany and lived _en pension_ in different families. The
boys from both schools used to meet in the evening before supper at a
restaurant called Hasse, where a special room was kept for them. Braun
was an earnest and extremely well-educated youth, a student of geology.
Before I was taken to Hasse, he said I must be instructed in the rules
of the _Bierkomment_,[6] that is to say, the rules for drinking beer in
company, which were, as I found out afterwards, the basis of the social
system. These rules were intricate, and when Braun explained them to me,
which he did with the utmost thoroughness, the explanation taking nearly
two hours, I did not know what it was all about. I did not know it had
anything to do with drinking beer. I afterwards learned, by the evidence
of my senses and by experience, the numerous and various points of this
complicated ritual, but the first evening I was introduced to Hasse I was
bewildered by finding a crowd of grown-up boys seated at a table; each
one introduced himself to me by standing to attention and saying his name
(“_Mein Name ist So-and-so_”). After which they sat down and seemed to be
engaged in a game of cross-purposes.
The main principles which underlay this form of social intercourse were
these. You first of all ordered a half-litre of beer, stating whether you
wanted light or dark beer (_dunkles_ or _helles_). It was given to you
in a glass mug with a metal top. This mug had to remain closed whatever
happened, otherwise the others put this mug on yours, and you had to
pay for every mug which was piled on your own. Having received your
beer, you must not drink it quietly by yourself, when you were thirsty;
but every single draught had to be taken with a purpose, and directed
towards someone else, and accompanied by a formula. The formula was an
opening, and called for the correct answer, which was either final and
ended the matter, or which was of a kind to provoke a counter-move, in
the form of a further formula, which, in its turn, necessitated a final
answer. You were, in fact, engaged in toasting each other according to
system. When you had a fresh mug, with foam on the top of it, that was
called _die Blume_, and you had to choose someone who was in the same
situation; someone who had a _Blume_. You then said his name, not his
real name but his beer name, which was generally a monosyllable like
_Pfiff_ (my beer name was Hash, pronounced Hush), and you said to him:
“_Prosit Blume_.” His answer to this was: “_Prosit_,” and you both drank.
To pretend to drink and not drink was an infringement of the rules. If
he had no beer at the time he would say so (“_Ich habe keinen Stoff_”),
but would be careful to return you your _Blume_ as soon as he received
it, saying: “_Ich komme die Blume nach_” (“I drink back to you your
_Blume_”). Then, perhaps, having disposed of the _Blume_, you singled out
someone else, or someone perhaps singled you out, and said: “_Ich komme
Ihnen Etwas_” (“I drink something to you”). When you got to know someone
well, he suggested that you should drink _Bruderschaft_ with him. This
you did by entwining your arm under his arm, draining a whole glass, and
then saying: “_Prosit Bruder_.” After that you called each other “_Du_.”
Very well. After having said “_Ich komme Ihnen_” or “_Ich komme Dir
etwas_,” he, in the space of three beer minutes, which were equivalent
to four ordinary minutes, was obliged to answer. He might either say:
“_Ich komme Dir nach_” or “_Ich komme nach_” (“I drink back”). That
settled that proceeding. Or he might prolong the interchange of toasts
by saying: “_Uebers Kreuz_,” in which case you had to wait a little and
say: “_Unters Kreuz_,” and every time the one said this, the other in
drinking had to say: “_Prosit_.” Then the person who had said “_Uebers
Kreuz_” had the last word, and had to say: “_Ich komme definitiv nach_”
(“I drink back to you finally”), and that ended the matter. If you had
very little beer left in your mug you chose someone else who was in the
same predicament, and said: “_Prosit Rest_.” It was uncivil if you had a
_rest_ to choose someone who had plenty of beer left. If you wanted to
honour someone or to pay him a compliment, you said “_Speziell_” after
your toast, which meant the other person was not obliged to drink back.
You could also say: “_Ich komme Dir einen halben_” (“I drink you a half
glass”), or even “_einen Ganzen_” (“a whole glass”). The other person
could then double you by saying: “_Prosit doppelt_.” In which case he
drank back a whole glass to you and you then drank back a whole glass to
him.
Any infringement of these rules, or any levity in the manner the ritual
was performed, was punished by your being told to “_Einsteigen_”[7]
(or by the words, “_In die Kanne_”), which meant you had to go on
drinking till the offended party said “_Geschenkt_.” If you disobeyed
this rule or did anything else equally grave, you were declared by
whoever was in authority to be in B.V., which meant in a state of _Beer
ostracism_. Nobody might then drink to you or talk to you. To emerge
from this state of exile, you had to stand up, and someone else stood
up and declared that “_Der in einfacher B.V. sich befindender_” (“The
in-simple-beer-banishment-finding-himself so-and-so”) will now drink
himself back into _Bierehrlichkeit_ (beer-honourability) once again.
He does it. At the words, “_Er thut es_,” you set a glass to your lips
and drank it all. The other man then said: “_So-and-so ist wieder
bierehrlich_” (“So-and-so is once more beer honourable”). Any dispute on
a point of ritual was settled by what was called a _Bierjunge_. An umpire
was appointed, and three glasses of beer were brought. The umpire saw
that the quantity in each of the glasses was exactly equal, pouring a
little beer perhaps from one or the other into his own glass. A word was
then chosen, for choice a long and difficult word. The umpire then said:
“_Stosst an_,” and on these words the rivals clinked glasses; he then
said: “_Setzt an_,” and they set the glasses to their lips. He then said:
“_Loss_,” and the rivals drained the glasses as fast as they could, and
the man who finished first said: “_Bierjunge_,” or whatever word had been
chosen. The umpire then declared the winner. All these proceedings, as
can be imagined, would be a little difficult to understand if one didn’t
know that they involved drinking beer. Such had been my plight when
the ritual was explained to me by Mr. Braun. I found the first evening
extremely bewildering, but I soon became an expert in the ritual, and
took much pleasure in raising difficult points.
These gatherings used to happen every evening. If you wished to celebrate
a special occasion you ordered what was called a _Tunnemann_, which was a
huge glass as big as a small barrel which was circulated round the table,
everyone drinking in turn as out of a loving-cup. A record was kept
of these ceremonies in a book. The boys who attended these gatherings
were mostly eighteen or nineteen years old, and belonged to the first
two classes of the school, the _Prima_ and the _Secunda_. They belonged
to a _Turnverein_, a gymnastic association, and were divided into two
classes—the juniors who were called _Füchse_ and the seniors who were
not. The _Füchse_ had to obey the others.
Another thing which I found more difficult than the _Bierkomment_ was
a card game which Dr. Timme tried to teach me. It was the game of Skat,
and was played by three people, one against two, with a possible fourth
person cutting in, but only by three at a time. When Dr. Timme first
explained it to me I understood German imperfectly, and I could not make
head or tail of the game. This disgusted Dr. Timme, who said: “_Herr
Baring hat kein Interesse dafür_.” But at the end of five years, after
repeated visits to Germany, and with the help of an English book on the
subject, I ended by mastering the principles of the game. I think it is
the best game of cards ever invented, and by far the most difficult. I
will not attempt to explain it, but it is a mixture of “Solo-whist,”
“Préférence,” and “Misery,” with a dash of “Picquet” in it. Everybody
plays for his own hand and you have no partner; so you are responsible to
yourself alone. I did not learn the game until several years later.
In the meantime, Hubert Cornish had left Dresden and was established at
Professor Ihne’s at the Villa Felseck, Heidelberg. Professor Ihne, who
knew my cousins, invited me to go there. I set out, and after travelling
all day I arrived at one in the morning and found not only Hubert but an
American called Mr. Hazlitt Alva Cuppy, who was studying German, and who
had come to the station in case I should want help with my luggage. The
next morning I woke up and went to the window, and beheld one of the most
beautiful sights it is possible to see: Heidelberg Castle and the hills
of the Neckar in spring. It was the beginning of May. It was fine and
hot; the trees had just put on their most brilliant green; the lilac and
laburnum were out. The fields, yellow with buttercups and scarlet with
poppies, were like impressionist pictures of the newest school. After
the slow spring and the bleak fir-tree-clad country of the north it was
like coming suddenly into another world. At breakfast I was introduced
to Professor Ihne, a large, comfortable Professor with white hair and
spectacles. I had met him once before at the Norman Tower. The two other
inmates of the house besides Hubert were Mr. Hazlitt Alva Cuppy and Mr.
Otto Kuhn, an Austrian; both of them were attending the lectures of the
University. The Villa Felseck was half-way up a hill covered with vines,
and Professor Ihne made his own wine. In the garden there was a pergola
under which we worked outdoors at a table. Then a most blissful epoch
began. In the morning we went to lectures in the University and strolled
about the town, and in the afternoons we went for walks in the woods or
for expeditions on the river.
Heidelberg was full of students, and our ambition was to get to know some
of them, but we did not know how to set about doing this. We were too shy
to take any steps, and every day we settled we would take a step, but the
day passed, and nothing had been done. We confided our hesitations to
a lady—a kind, motherly lady who kept a _Wirtshaus_, and she said that
the matter was simple. What she did I do not know, but that very day we
received a visit from the representatives of a _Burschenschaft_ called
the _Franconia_, who asked us to visit their clubhouse with a view to
our being received as guests. We went there the next morning, and the
conditions under which we could be either _Konkneipante_ or _Kneipgäste_
of the Germania were read out to us.
A _Konkneipant_ was a kind of unofficial member, a _Kneipgas_ was simply
a guest with certain obligations. The former, the _Konkneipant_, seemed
to be liable to many alarming possibilities and conditions, and he had
to be prepared to fight duels, even if he did not do so, so we chose the
latter status, and were enrolled as _Kneipgäste_.
We attended a _Kneipe_ that night, I think. All the rules of the
_Bierkomment_, which I have already described, obtained. You sat at a
table, and endless mugs of beer were brought in, and toasts were drunk,
according to ritual, but the evening was enlivened by the singing of
songs in chorus. Someone accompanied the songs, everyone had a song-book,
and the entertainment led off with Goethe’s song, “Ergo Bibamus”; after
that a song was sung about every quarter of an hour: “Der Mai ist
gekommen,” “Es hatten drei Gesellen ein fein Collegium,” or “Es zogen
drei Burschen wohl über den Rhein.”
The entertainment went on till about one in the morning. There was an
official _Kneipe_ three nights a week (_offiziell_), and an unofficial
_Kneipe_ (_offizieuse_) on the other nights. Besides this, the members of
the _Burschenschaft_ met in the morning for _Frühschoppen_ in the castle
gardens, or elsewhere, and in the afternoon went expeditions together. In
the morning they had fencing lessons. They never went to lectures. When
they wanted to work they went for a term to another university, and did
nothing but work there. One morning Hubert and I attended a lecture on
_Philosophie_, that is to say, history, and curiously enough the lecture
was about England. The lecturer went through the gifts which different
nations had bequeathed to the world as a legacy; how Greece had given the
arts to the world, and the Romans had given it law; England’s gift to the
world, he said, was _Freedom_, and as he said the word _Freiheit_, his
voice rang, and we felt all of a tremble.
The country round Heidelberg was at this time of year at its most
glorious. The fields were sheets of the brightest yellow. At night
choruses of nightingales sang; the air was heavy with the smell of the
lilacs. Sometimes we would go up the river and to the little town of
Neckarsteinar, which is like a toy city on the top of a green hill,
with a wall round it, and is exactly what I imagined the “green hill
far away” to be when I was a child, except that it had a wall. One
evening—but this was later in the summer when I went back a second time
to Heidelberg—we had a _Kneipe_ in Dr. Ihne’s garden and invited the
Germania _Burschenschaft_. Professor Ihne came and made a speech and then
left us; songs were sung, and I made a speech in German, and we sang:
“Alt Heidelberg du Feine.”
Besides all these events, Hubert and I spent a good deal of time reading
and discussing theories of life. We were intoxicated by Swinburne,
spellbound by Kipling, and great devotees of Meredith and Hardy. We also
read a certain amount of German, and I remember reading Lewes’ _Life of
Goethe_. I had already read a certain amount of Goethe and Schiller with
Dr. Timme, including _Hermann und Dorothea_, _Iphegenie auf Tauris_, and
_Tasso_. _Faust_ and the lyrics I had read by myself as soon as I could
spell out the letters. Professor Ihne used to discuss books with us. He
admired Byron enormously. He had no patience with the German infatuation
for Tennyson, especially for “Enoch Arden,” which he thought a childish
poem. Byron, he used to say, was a giant; Tennyson a dwarf. Shelley, he
admitted, had written a fine philosophical poem: “Prometheus Unbound,”
and Swinburne could _schöne Versen machen_. He could not abide the German
cult for Shakespeare. It was not that he did not admire Shakespeare as a
dramatist and a poet, but the German searching for meanings in the plays,
and the philosophical theories deduced from them and spun round his work,
made him impatient. This was a sound point of view, for he approached
Shakespeare in much the same spirit as Dryden and Dr. Johnson did. Hamlet
annoyed him. Why, he used to ask, did Hamlet presume to think he was
born to set the world aright? Nobody had asked him to do so. Othello, he
said, was stupid: _ein dummer Kerl_. The tragedies hurt him too much. He
preferred Schiller.
He had no great love for Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ either; he thought
there was a lot of tautology in the English language. He said the phrase,
“Assemble and meet together,” in the Prayer Book was an instance of
this. He said the modern English writers used unnecessarily long Latin
words. He had actually seen the word to _pullulate_ in a _Times_ leading
article. Swarm would have meant the same thing and been a thousand times
better. He was broad-minded in politics and the contrary of a Chauvinist.
He had a hearty dislike of Bismarck. There was something refreshingly
Johnsonian about him, and when Mr. Cuppy read him the thesis which he
destined to show up to the Heidelberg examiners for his degree, Professor
Ihne repeated the first sentence, which ran thus: “Ever since my earliest
years I determined to be a great man,” and said: “Pooh, pooh, you can’t
say that _here_.” “But it’s true,” said Mr. Cuppy.
Mr. Cuppy was a charming character. He had been in about twenty-five
professions before arriving at Heidelberg, and he had been in a circus
troop, a stoker in the railway, a clerk, a journalist, a farmer, and
I don’t know how many other things, and he was now working hard for
his degree. He was the kindest man I have ever met, and there was no
trouble he would not take to do one a service, and there was no atom of
selfishness in his composition.
The students took us to the _Mensur_ to see the duels. The students
fought with sharp rapiers, as sharp as a razor on one side, which they
held high over their heads, all the fighting being done by the strength
of the wrist; you could only, from the position that the rapier was held
in, wound your adversary on the top of his head or on the side of his
cheek, but lest your rapier should go astray, and wound some other vital
part the duellists wore a padded jacket, and a protection for the neck.
The wounds on the top of the head were formidable, and directly after a
fight they were sewn up. The _Mensur_ reeked with iodoform. After the
entertainment was over _Maibowle_ was drunk, a delicious sort of cup in
which wild strawberries floated. Hubert used to have fencing lessons and
found the exercise difficult.
The time came when I had to go back to Hildesheim. Shortly after I
arrived there the Timmes invited Hubert Cornish to come and stay with
them, and he stayed with us for about ten days. During his visit we
went for a short walking tour in the Harz Mountains and climbed up the
Brocken, a disappointing mountain, as, so far from meeting Mephistopheles
and the witches, you walk up a broad and intensely civilised and tidy
road, with a plentiful array of notice-boards, till you get to the top,
where it is uncomfortably cold. After he left us, it was settled, at my
earnest request, that I should go to the school, the Real Gymnasium, and
take part in some of the lessons. I was to be an _Oberprimaner_: in the
first class, that is to say; and to attend not all the lessons, but the
English, German, and History classes. Before entering upon this school
career, Frau Doktor Timme told me that I must make an official visit
to all the masters with gloves. So I bought a pair of shiny _glacé_
gloves and paid an official visit to the Headmaster and the various
undermasters. The first class I attended was a mathematical lesson, given
by the Headmaster. I sat next to a boy called Schwerin, whom I met years
later as the director of one of the Berlin theatres. I was not meant
to go to this lesson, and I went there by accident, but the Headmaster
told me I might stay and listen to it if I liked. It was so far above my
head that I did not even know what it was about. At the English lesson I
was more at home, and I was asked to give the English dictation. I did
this, but the boys at once complained, as I did not read out the English
with the German pronunciation, which they were accustomed to, and they
could not understand me. The master said they were quite right, and that
it was plain I did not know how to pronounce English. The lessons in
German literature and in history were interesting. Every week the boys
had to write a German essay on the topic that was being discussed, or
rather on the book that was being read and diagnosed. This essay was the
main feature of the week’s work, just as Latin verses were at Eton. The
writing of this essay took an enormous amount of time and trouble. I only
wrote one, on Schiller’s _Braut von Messina_. It had to be neatly copied
out, on paper folded in a special way, and the subject had to be divided
into sections. The history master was fond of drawing parallels between
ancient and modern history, and when he discussed the Punic wars, he laid
stress on the fact that sea power had been beaten by land power. That
was, he said, the universal lesson of history, and let England lay this
matter to heart. The Napoleonic Wars seemed to have escaped him.
After I had been at Hildesheim a little time, Frau Timme told me one
day that perhaps I was unaware how greatly Englishmen were disliked in
Germany. This was a complete surprise to me, as I had always thought the
relations between the two countries were supposed to be good, and that
in a kind of way the Germans were supposed to be our cousins. “No,” said
Frau Timme; “there is a real prejudice against English people,” and Timme
added: “There had always been _ein gewisser Neid_,” a certain envy of
the English. They knew, they said, that individual Englishmen were often
admirable, but politically and collectively the English were disliked.
One grievance was we supplied, they said, the French with coal during the
Franco-Prussian War: another, the behaviour of the Empress Frederick, who
was accused of redecorating Frederick the Great’s rooms at Potsdam. I
found afterwards the Empress Frederick’s doings were a universal topic,
wherever I went in Germany. Frau Timme’s brother, Onkel Adolph, deplored
the relations between Great Britain and Germany, which he said could not
well be worse, although looking back on that time they were supposed
then, I think, to be good. The Timmes were Hanoverians, and used still to
reckon in _Thalers_ and speak of the Prussians with dislike; in spite of
this they were whole-hearted admirers of Bismarck. I enjoyed my little
bit of school life at Hildesheim immensely. I used to get up at half-past
six, walk to school and be there by seven, wear a red cap, take part
in the few classes I attended, and then come back for luncheon. In the
afternoon, I used to go for walks or bathe in the little river which ran
through Hildesheim, called the Innerste. In the evenings before supper we
met at Hasse’s, and sometimes we used to walk to a distant village and
hold a _Kneipe_, after which the boys used to dance to the strains of
_Donauwellen_. It was difficult to believe that one had ever lived any
other kind of life.
Domestic life in the Timme family was full of infinite charm and many
amusing little incidents. Dr. Timme grew a melon, which he kept in a
cucumber frame. It was not a satisfactory melon, for it never grew to be
larger than a tennis ball. It was hard and green. Nevertheless, one day
Dr. Timme made the announcement that the melon would be ready for eating
in a fortnight’s time. “_In vierzehn Tagen wird die Melone gegessen_,”
were his actual words. Frau Doktor looked sceptical. When the fortnight
had elapsed Timme brought in the melon, which was still no bigger and
no softer, and said, “_Heute essen wir die Melone_” (“To-day the melon
will be eaten”), and he cut it with difficulty into twelve bits. Frau
Doktor said it was unripe, and not fit to be eaten, and that it was quite
hard and green. “No,” said Timme, “_Dass ist die Sorte, sie bleibt immer
grün_” (“It is that kind of melon: an evergreen”). He added later, “_Man
sollte immer unreifes Obst essen. Die Thiere suchen sich immer unreifes
Obst aus_” (“One ought always to eat unripe fruit. Animals eat unripe
fruit for choice”).
I used often to visit the two aunts, Dr. Timme’s sisters. They had a
charming little house and a conservatory. Little Aenchen said one day
that many people in the summer went to Switzerland or to Italy, but
_die Tante_ did no such thing—she merely moved into the conservatory.
(_Sie zieht nur in die Blumenstube._) One of the aunts had a passion for
the opera, and knew the plot of every opera ever written, and kept the
programmes, and was a mine of information on the subject. I once said
something rather disparaging about Switzerland to her, and she could not
get over this, and for ever afterwards she would say that whenever she
looked at her album of Swiss photographs she used to say: “_Gott! nein!
dass Herr Baring das nicht mag!_” (“To think of Mr. Baring not liking
that!”)
Sometimes she would invite us to tea, and we would have an _Apfeltorte_
in the garden, and if it was fine the “_Alte Tante_” used to come down.
Kurt’s future used to be discussed, and the army was mentioned as a
possible career. “No,” cried the _Alte Tante_; “an officer’s life is
a brilliant misery” (“_Ein glänzendes Elend_”). I said that in other
professions you had the _Elend_ without the _Glanz_, the misery without
the brilliance, and she was delighted with this _mot_.
My father, who finished his education in Germany, at Gotha (after having
gone to school at Bath at the age of six in a stage-coach), used always
to say that there was nothing in the world for simplicity and charm to
compare with the life in a small unpretentious household in the Germany
of old days. He used to tell a story of some Coburg royal lady whom he
met at Gotha saying to him after Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince
Albert, “_Wenn Sie nach England kommen, suchen Sie meinen Vetter Albrecht
aus and grüssen Sie ihn von mir_” (“When you go back to England, look up
my Cousin Albert and give him my love”).
The simplicity and the charm he described were to be found in the Timme
household at Hildesheim. In the cosy winter evenings, in the little
drawing-room with its warm stove, when the lamp used to be put on the
table opposite the place of honour, the sofa, against the wall at the
end of the room, a bottle of beer and glasses would be brought, and
Dr. Timme would light his cigar and suggest a game of Skat, and Onkel
Adolph would stroll behind my chair and say: “_Nein, Herr Baring, das
dürfen Sie nicht spielen._” Then perhaps Frau Timme’s mother would look
in and occupy the place of honour, and perhaps Tante Agnes (who was an
unappreciated poetess) or Tante Emile (the opera lover), and perhaps a
neighbour, Fräulein Schultzen, who received English girls in her house,
or Frau Ober-Förster. Then Frau Doktor’s mother would take out her
knitting and the children would be discussed. “_Nächsten Monat_,” someone
would say: “_Bekomme Ich neue Mädchen._” Onkel Adolph and Dr. Timme would
talk mild politics, and faintly deprecate the present state of things;
perhaps Herr Wunibald Nick would be there and sing a song—“_Es liegt eine
Krone im tiefen Rhein_”—and deplore the amount of operas by well-known
composers which were never performed. “_Wird nicht gegeben_,” he would
exclaim, after every item of his long list, or would almost weep from
enthusiasm for the second act of _Tristan_, although no Wagnerite he.
While this talk went on in the major key, in a subdued minor the aunts
and Frau Doktor and Frau Ober-Förster would tell the latest developments
of a neighbour’s illness, and the climax of the tale would be reached by
someone saying: “_Dann liess sie den Arzt rufen_” (“Then she sent for
the doctor”). There would be a pause, and someone else would inevitably
ask, “_Welchen Arzt?_” (“Which doctor?”), as there were many doctors
in Hildesheim, and opinions were sharply divided on their merits. The
answer would perhaps be: “Brandes,” and then there would be a sigh of
relief from some, a resigned shrug from others, as if to say: “Poor
things, they knew no better.”
And the conversation would be _vernünftig_, and the old people would say
that the big towns were spoiling everything, that life was a hustle and
a rush, that Fräulein So-and-so was _ein unverschämtes Wesen_, and would
bewail, as in Heine’s lovely poem, that everything had been better in
their time:
“Wie Lieb’ und Treu’ und Glauben
Verschwunden aus der Welt,
Und wie so teuer der Kaffee,
Und wie so rar das Geld!”
And over all this scene, and through this talk, there would hang an
indefinable wrapping of cosiness and warmth and _Gemüthlichkeit_, and
one had the same sense of utter simplicity and intimate comfort that
a fairy-tale of Grimm gives one. I wonder whether the charm and the
simplicity have disappeared from Germany, and whether, in spite of
Imperialism, the war, frightfulness, or anything else, the same thing
goes on in the same way, in hundreds of houses and families!
In any case, whether it exists now or not, it existed then; and I was
privileged to experience it, to enjoy it to the full, and to look back
on it now, after so many years and when so much that is irreparable has
come between it and me, with undying affection and gratitude, and with an
infinitely sad regret.
Once during the war, I had luncheon with one of the R.F.C. Squadron
Messes, where I met a pilot who had learnt German at the Timmes’. We
talked of them, of Atho and of Kurt, whom he had known grown-up, and at
the end of luncheon that pilot, who was just off to fight the Germans in
the air, and who was so soon to meet with death in the air fighting the
Germans, said to me: “_Prosit Timmes._”
In the summer, we would have tea in a little arbour in the garden, and in
the mornings, both in winter and in the summer, towards eleven o’clock,
when I was hungry, I would go and tell Frau Doktor, and she would take me
to the kitchen and fry me herself some _Spiegeleier_ and _Speck_. Towards
the beginning of my first summer at Hildesheim a new lodger arrived in
the shape of a German boy called Hans Wippern, the son of a neighbouring
landowner, who had a large farm just outside Hildesheim. Hans was at the
school and was always hungry. One day he had a slight bilious attack
and didn’t come down to _Mittagessen_, although he was much better. Frau
Doktor said she thought Hans might fancy a pigeon. “_Nein_,” said Timme,
“_Er soll hungern_” (“He must fast”). But Frau Doktor surreptitiously
sent up three pigeons to his bedroom. The food was delicious at the
Timmes’, and the great days were when we had _Kartoffeln-puffer_ for
_Mittagessen_, a sort of pancake made of potatoes, or as a great
treat “_Gänzebraten_.” I used to go to the market in the lovely old
_Markt-platz_ with Frau Doktor on the days when she would buy a goose,
and on the way back we would stop at Frau Brandes’ confectionery and have
a slice of _Apfeltorte_. Frau Brandes was a warm, welcoming saleswoman,
and her confectionery was perfect.
When the long holidays began it was settled that I would do best to go
on a _Rundreise_ and see what I could of Germany. Dr. Timme arranged my
itinerary and I took a _Rundreise Billet_. I was to go to Frankfort,
Nuremberg, Dresden, Leipzig, and perhaps Berlin, and so home again. I
went back to Heidelberg first and found Hubert Cornish had become an
expert fencer. We attended many a _Kneipe_ and saw a lot of the students,
and once more I stayed with Professor Ihne.
My recollections of this second visit to Heidelberg are merged with those
of my first visit, and I cannot distinguish between the two. Hubert
Cornish had to go home, and we settled to go to Cologne by steamer down
the Rhine. We went past Bingen and Coblenz and Bonn and the rocks of
the Lorelei, and we stayed a night at Cologne. There Hubert left me and
went home, and I went back by train to Frankfort. Hubert had fired me
with the desire to hear Wagner. He had heard many operas at Dresden. The
result of his talk was that I decided to go to Bayreuth. We went one
night to Mannheim to the opera, but I cannot recollect what we saw. At
Frankfort I heard the _Mikado_, and the _Cavalleria Rusticana_, which I
had already heard at Hanover. From Frankfort I went to Nuremberg, and
from Nuremberg to Bayreuth. I had tickets for one series of performances
of the Bayreuth Festival, but when I arrived I found that there was a
performance of the _Meistersinger_ that very day, and I got a ticket for
it at the station. I took lodgings in a little room in the town. I went
off to the theatre, and the first notes of the orchestra enlarged one’s
conception of what an orchestra could be. It was a wonderful experience
to hear these operas for the first time, at the age of eighteen before
hearing any discussions about them, before knowing what they were
about, when every note of the music and every scene of the drama were
a revelation and a surprise. I heard the _Meistersinger_, _Parsifal_,
_Tristan und Isolda_, and _Tannhäuser_. After the _Meistersinger_ and
_Tristan_, _Tannhäuser_ seemed tawdry and thin. These operas were all of
them magnificently performed that year. Scheidemantel, Malten, Materna,
and other stars from Vienna and Dresden were taking part in the Festival,
but even then I thought the scenery ugly, especially the garden scene in
_Parsifal_, which was made of crude vermilion and yellow tulips; in the
other operas, _Tristan_ and the _Meistersinger_, the scenery was sober
and adequate, and the lighting effects were wonderfully well managed, but
all that was lost sight of in the orchestra conducted by Mottl. I do not
suppose there has ever been any finer orchestra playing in the world than
that which I heard when _Tristan_ was performed that year. It seemed a
pity the curtain ever went up, for Tristan, although he sang well, was
an old man (Heinrich Vogt), and Isolda (Rose Sucher) was a little too
massive. At Bayreuth, during the first series I attended, there were
some people I knew, and during that series and the others I made friends
with many other people whom I had never seen before. One day, during the
entr’acte, the crowd automatically divided as two people passed by—a
lady and her husband—and a space was made round them. The lady had a
small, flowerlike head, and the dividing crowd near her looked, as she
passed, more commonplace and commoner than it did already. On one of the
off-days I saw the same lady again sitting at a table in a restaurant
garden and reading aloud out of a Tauchnitz novel. At my table there were
a Frenchman and his wife. “Dieu qu’elle est belle,” said the Frenchman,
staring. “Je ne dis pas qu’elle ne soit pas jolie,” said the French lady,
rather nettled. My best friend at Bayreuth was one of the second violins
in the orchestra. He thought the operas were far too long, especially the
second act of _Tristan and Isolda_, which he said was for the players
more than flesh and blood could bear. He said it would be no offence to
Wagner to cut it, and after the performance he used to come out from the
theatre terribly exhausted. We often had dinner together, and he told me
a great deal about musical life in Germany. I also made friends with
an English musician who lived at Sydenham, and we spent the off-days in
the country together. I think I must have stayed for three series of
performances, and I heard each of these operas three times. I went after
this to Dresden, where I enjoyed the picture gallery, and so back to
Hildesheim. In September I received a letter from Professor Ihne asking
me to go back there. The Duke of York was with him, learning German,
so I went once more to Heidelberg and stayed there over a fortnight.
I went back to Hildesheim, and I had not been there long when I got a
telegram telling me to come home at once. I knew my mother was ill, but
a letter giving me details just missed me, as it went to Heidelberg. I
found my brother-in-law, Bobby Spencer, in London. He took a special
to Bristol, as we had missed the ordinary night train, and we got to
Membland next morning. Never had Membland looked more beautiful. The
days were cloudless and breathless; the foliage was intact but turned to
gold, and bathed in the quiet October sunshine. I arrived just in time.
A specialist came down from London, but there was nothing to be done.
Chérie came down from Hampshire, and D., who had married Mr. Crosbie,
came back and stayed in the house, but it was only for a few days.
I went to London and stayed a day or two in Charles Street with my
brother John. I spent a night at King’s College, Cambridge, and then I
went to Hildesheim on my way to Berlin, where it was settled I was to go.
I was only a day or two at Hildesheim. Nothing could have been kinder
than the Timmes were to me then, and Onkel Adolph, when he heard I had
lost my coat, said: “_Wenn alle Menschen so harmlos wie Sie wären, Herr
Baring, so würde die Welt ein reines Paradies sein, aber! aber!_”
In Berlin I stayed at first at an hotel, and then I took two rooms on
the top floor of a house in the Unter den Linden. I knew no one in the
town at first, but a few days after I was settled in my rooms I met
my cousin, Arthur Ponsonby, who was learning German there too, and
who was staying at a pension in the Potsdamer Strasse. Although I had
seen him all my life I had not known him before, and we gradually made
each other’s acquaintance. As we were both fond of the theatre we went
to plays together and saw a great many interesting things. Ibsen’s
_Doll’s House_, which was admirably played at the Berliner Theater, and
Sudermann’s _Die Ehre_, some Shakespeare performances, in which Ludwig
Barnay played, and many plays translated from the French. At the Residenz
Theater there was an excellent comic actor called Alexander. One night
we went to see _Faust_, Goethe’s _Faust_, not Gounod’s, performed at
the _Schauspielhaus_, and when the opening speech, “_Habe nun, ach,
philosophie_,” was declaimed the effect was tremendous. The scenes which
followed were less effective on the stage, except those where Gretchen
appears. One day we heard that a famous Italian actress was to perform
in Berlin. Her name was Eleonora Duse. We had never heard her name
mentioned, but the man who sold theatre tickets said she was a rival of
Sarah Bernhardt. She was to open in the _Dame aux Camélias_. We took
tickets, read the play beforehand in German, as we neither of us knew
Italian, and we went on the first night. To see a play in a language you
do not understand, however well you know the story, takes away half the
pleasure, but we never had a doubt about the quality of her art. The
beauty and pathos of her death scene were so great as to be independent
of words and speech. Had she been acting in Chinese the effect would have
been just as great. We saw her afterwards in the _Doll’s House_, in which
she was equally remarkable, and the scathing irony with which she lashed
Helmer, the husband, was unforgettable.
We also went to concerts, and once or twice to the opera, but the opera
in Berlin was not a good one.
I knew hardly any Germans while I was at Berlin. I had a letter of
introduction to a Frau von Arnim, and one night I had dinner at her
house. There were five or six officers present, all in uniform, and one
of them described a day’s hunting in England, and said that the meet was
crowded with _bildschöne Frauen_. The Ambassador at Berlin was Sir Edward
Mallet, and he asked us to dinner sometimes.
It had been my intention to attend the lectures of the Berlin University,
and I was formally enrolled as a student. I matriculated at the
University, but the formalities before this was accomplished were so
long, that by the time they were finished, I had little time left for a
University career. However, I received a card which placed me outside
the jurisdiction of the Berlin police and under the jurisdiction of the
University authorities, but I only went to one lecture. I had private
lessons in German throughout my stay.
I read a good many miscellaneous books during my stay in Berlin, and
Arthur Ponsonby introduced me to many new things, and opened many doors
for me, especially in French literature. He gave me Tolstoy and Loti to
read, and we both had a passion for Ibsen. I, on the other hand, plied
him with Pater, Stevenson, and Swinburne. I was just at the age when one
can digest anything in the way of books, and the sweeter it is the more
one enjoys it. Afterwards much of the stuff I was greedily devouring
then was to seem like the almond paste on the top of a wedding-cake. But
in those days nothing was too luscious or too sweet. Arthur’s taste was
already more sober and grown-up; the drama appealed to both of us, and we
would spend hours discussing plays and players, and deploring the state
of the English stage.
At the end of December I went back to England and spent the last
Christmas but one at Membland I was ever to spend there.