So then I got on with my playing, and just wondered in silence.
I ran against Frau Kloster in the passage as I was coming out, and
asked her if there was anything wrong, and she too said, "No, what
should there be wrong?"
"Because the Master's different," I said. "He won't talk."
And she said, "My dear Mees Chrees, these are great days we live in,
and one cannot be as usual."
"But the Master--" I said. "Just these great days--you'd think he'd be
pouring out streams of all the things that most need saying--"
And she shrugged her shoulders and merely repeated, "One is not as
usual."
So I came away, greatly puzzled. I had expected bread, and here I was
going off with nothing but an unaccountable stone. Kloster and Bernd
are the two solitary sane and wise people I know here in this place of
fever, the two I trust, to whom I say what I really think and feel, and
I went to Kloster yesterday athirst for wisdom, for that detached,
critical picking out one by one of the feathers of the imperial bird,
the Prussian eagle, that I find so wholesome, so balance-restoring, so
comforting, in what is now a very great isolation of spirit. And he
was dumb. I can't get over it.
I've not seen Bernd since, as he is frightfully busy and wasn't able to
come yesterday at all, but he's coming to lunch today, and perhaps
he'll be able to explain Kloster. I've been practising all the
morning,--it will seem to you an odd thing to have done while Rome is
burning, but I did it savagely, with a feeling of flinging defiance at
this topsy-turvy world, of slitting its ugliness in spite of itself
with bright spears of music, insisting on intruding loveliness on its
preoccupation, the loveliness created by its own brains in the days
before Prussia got the upper hand. All the morning I practised the
Beethoven violin concerto, and the naked, slender radiance of it
without the orchestra to muffle it up in a background, enchanted me
into forgetting.
The crowds down there are soberer since Friday, and I didn't have to go
into the bathroom to play. Now that war is upon them the women seem to
have started thinking a little what it may really mean, and the men
aren't quite so ready incoherently to roar. They keep on going to
church,--the churches have been having services at unaccustomed moments
throughout yesterday, of course by order, and are going on like that
today too, for the churches are very valuable to Authority in
nourishing the necessary emotions in the people at a time like this.
The people were told by the Kaiser to pray, and so they do pray. It is
useful to have them praying, it quiets them and gets them out of the
streets and helps the authorities. Berlin is really the most godless
place. Religion is the last thing anybody thinks of. Nobody dreams of
going to church unless there is going to be special music there or a
prince, and as for the country, my two Sundays there might have been
week-days except for the extra food. It is true on each of them I saw
a pastor, but each time he came to the family I was with, they didn't
go to him, to his church. Now there's suddenly this immense
recollection of God, turned on by Authority just as one turns on an
electric light switch and says "Let there be light," and there is
light. So I picture the Kaiser, running his finger down his list of
available assets and coming to God. Then he rings for an official, and
says, "Let there be God"; and there is God.
I'm not really being profane. It isn't really God at all I'm talking
about. It's what German Authority finds convenient to turn on and off,
according as it suits what it wishes to obtain. It isn't God. It's
just a tap.
_Later_.
Bernd came to lunch, but also unfortunately so did his chief. They
both arrived together after we had begun,--there's a tremendous _aller
et venir_ all day in the house, and sometimes the traffic on the stairs
to the drawingroom gets so congested that nothing but a London
policeman could deal with it. I could only say ordinary things to
Bernd, and he went away, swept off by his Colonel, directly afterwards.
He did manage to whisper he would try to come in to dinner tonight and
get here early, but he hasn't come yet and it's nearly half past seven.
The Graf was at lunch, and two other men who ate their food as if they
had to catch a train, and they talked so breathlessly while they ate
that I can't think why they didn't choke; and there was great triumph
and excitement because the Germans crossed into Luxembourg this morning
on their way to France, marching straight through the expostulations
and entreaties of the Grand Duchess, blowing her aside, I gather, like
so much rather amusing thistledown. It seemed to tickle the Graf, whom
I have not before seen tickled and hadn't imagined ever could be; but
this idea of a _junges Madchen_--("Sie soll ganz niedlich sein_," threw
in one of the gobbling men. "_Ja ganz appetitlich_," threw in the
other; "_Na, es geht_," said the Colonel with a shrug--)--motoring out
to bar the passage of a mighty army, trying to stop thousands of
bayonets by lifting up one little admonitory kitten's paw, shook him
out of his gravity into a weird, uncanny chuckling.
The Colonel, who was as genial and hilarious as ever, rather more so
than ever, said all the Luxembourg railways would be in German hands by
tonight. "It works out as easily and inevitably as a simple
arithmetical problem," he laughed; and I heard him tell the Graf German
cavalry was already in France at several points.
"_Ja, ja_" he said, apparently addressing me, for he looked at me and
smiled, "when we Germans make war we do not wait till the next day.
Everything thought of; everything ready; plenty of oil in the machine;
_und dann los_."
He raised his glass. "Delightful young English lady," he said, "I
drink to your charming eyes."
There's dinner. I must leave off.
_Eleven p. m_.
You'll never believe it, but Kloster has been given the Order of the
Red Eagle 1st Class, and made a privy councillor and an excellency by
the Kaiser this very day. And his most intimate friends, the cleverest
talkers among his set, two or three who used to hold forth particularly
brilliantly in his rooms on Socialism and the slavish stupidity of
Germans, have each had an order and an advancement of some sort.
Kloster was at the palace this afternoon. He knew about it yesterday
when I was having my lesson. _Kloster_. Of all men. I feel sick.
Bernd didn't come to dinner, but was able to be with me for half an
hour afterwards, half an hour of comfort I badly needed, for where can
one's feet be set firmly and safely in this upheaving world? The
Colonel was at dinner; he comes to nearly every meal; and it was he who
started talking about Kloster's audience with Majestat this afternoon.
I jumped as though some one had hit me. "That _can't_ be true," I
exclaimed, exactly as one calls out quickly if one is suddenly struck.
They all looked at me. Somehow I saw that they had known about it
beforehand, and Bernd told me tonight it was the Graf who had drawn the
authorities' attention to the desirability of having tongues like
Kloster's on the side of the Hohenzollerns.
"Dear child," said the Grafin gently, "we Germans do not permit our
great to go unhonoured."
"But he would never--" I began; then remembered my lesson yesterday and
his silence. So that's what it was. He already had his command to
attend at the palace and be decorated in his pocket.
I sat staring straight before me. Kloster bought? Kloster for sale?
And the Government at such a crisis finding time to bother about him?
"_Ja, ja_," said the Colonel gaily, as though answering my
thoughts--and I found I had been staring, without seeing him, straight
into his eyes, "_ja, ja_, we think of everything here."
"Not," gently amended the Grafin, "that it was difficult to think of
honouring so great a genius as our dear Kloster. He has been in
Majestat's thoughts for years."
"I expect he has," I said; for Kloster has often told me how they hated
him at court, him and his friends, but that he was too well known all
over the world for them to be able to interfere with him; something
like, I expect, Tolstoi and the Russian court.
The Grafin looked at me quickly.
"And so has Majestat been in his," I continued.
"Kloster," said the Grafin very gently, "is a most amusing talker, and
sometimes cannot resist saying the witty things that occur to him,
however undesirable they may be. We all know they mean nothing. We
all understand and love our Kloster. And nobody, as you see, dear
child, more than Majestat, with his ever ready appreciation of genius."
I could only sit silent, staring at my plate. Kloster gone. Kloster
allowing himself to be gagged by a decoration. I wanted to push the
intolerable thought away from me and cry out, "No, it _can't_ be."
Why, who can one believe in now? Who is left? There's Bernd, my
beloved, my heart's own mate; and as I sat there dumb, and they all
triumphed on with their self-congratulations and satisfactions, and
Majestat this, and Deutschland that, for an awful moment my faith in
Bernd himself began to shake. Suppose he too, he with his Prussian
blood and upbringing, fell away and went over in spirit to the side of
life that decorates a man in return for the absolute control of his
thoughts, rewards him for the disposal of his soul? Kloster, that
freest of critics, had gone over, his German blood after all unable to
resist the call to slavery. I never could have believed it. I never
_would_ have believed it without actual proof. And Bernd? What about
Bernd? For I haven't more believed in Kloster than I do in Bernd. Oh,
little mother, I was cold with fear.
Then he came. My dear one came for a blessed half hour. And because
we, thank God, are betrothed, and so have the right to be alone
together, we got rid of those smug triumphant others; and if he had
happened not to be able to come, and I had had to wait till tomorrow,
all night long thinking of Kloster, I believe I'd have gone mad. For
you see one believes so utterly in a person one _does_ believe in. At
least, I do. I can't manage caution in belief, I can't give prudently,
carefully, holding back part, as I'm told a woman does if she is really
clever, in either faith or love. And how is one to get on without
faith and love? Bernd comforted me. And he comforted me most by my
finding how greatly he needed to be comforted himself. He was every
bit as profoundly shaken and shocked as I was. Oh, the relief of
discovering that!
We clung to each other, and comforted each other like two hurt
children. Kloster has been so much to us both. More, perhaps, here in
this place of hypocrisy and self-deceptions, than he would have been
anywhere else. He stood for fearlessness, for freedom, for beauty, for
all the great things. And now he has gone; silent, choked by the _Rote
Adler Orden Erste Klasse_. It is an order with three classes. We
wondered bitterly whether he couldn't have been had cheaper,--whether
second, or even third class, wouldn't have done it. He is now a
_Wirkliche Geheimrath mit dem Pradikat Excellenz_. God rest his soul.
Chris.
_Berlin, Monday, August 3rd, 1914_.
Darling own mother,
It's only a matter of hours now before Bernd will have to go, and when
he goes I'm coming back to you.
Your Chris.
_Berlin, Monday August 3rd, evening_.
Precious mother,
I want to come back to you--directly Bernd has gone I'm coming back to
you, and if he doesn't go soon but is used in Berlin at the Staff Head
Quarters, as he says now perhaps he may be for a while, I won't stay
with the Koseritzes, but go back to Frau Berg's for as long as Bernd is
in Berlin, and the day he leaves I start for Switzerland.
I don't know what is happening, but the Koseritzes have suddenly turned
different to me. They're making me feel more and more uncomfortable
and strange. And there's a gloom about them and the people who have
been here today that sets me wondering whether their war plans after
all are rolling along quite as smoothly as they thought. I never did
quite believe the Koseritzes liked me, any of them, and now I'm sure
they don't. Tonight at dinner the Graf's face was a thunder-cloud, and
actually the Colonel, who hasn't been all day but came in late for
dinner and went again immediately, didn't speak to me once. Hardly
looked at me when he bowed, and his bow was the stiffest thing. I
can't ask anybody if there is bad news for Germany, for it would be a
most dreadful insult even to suggest there _could_ be bad news.
Besides, I feel as if I somehow were mixed up in whatever it is. Bernd
hasn't been since this morning. I shall go round to Frau Berg tomorrow
and ask her if I can have my old room. But oh, little beloved mother,
I feel torn in two! I want so dreadfully to get away, to go back to
you, and the thought of being at Frau Berg's, just waiting, waiting for
the tiny scraps of moments Bernd can come to me, fills me with horror.
And yet how can I leave him? I love him so. And once he has gone,
shall I ever see him again? If it weren't for him I'd have started for
Switzerland yesterday, the moment I heard about Kloster, for the whole
reason for my being in Berlin was only Kloster,
And now Kloster says he isn't going to teach me any more. Darling
mother, I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but it's true. He sent
round a note this evening saying he regretted he couldn't continue the
lessons. Just that. Not another word. I can't make anything out any
more. I've got nobody but Bernd to ask, and I only see him in briefest
snatches. Of course I knew the lessons would be strange and painful
now, but I thought we could manage, Kloster and I, by excluding
everything but the bare teaching and learning, to go on and finish what
we've begun. He knows how important it is to me. He knows what this
journey here has meant to us, to you and me, the difficulty of it, the
sacrifice. I'm very unhappy tonight, darling mother, and selfishly
crying out to you. I feel almost like leaving Bernd, and starting for
Glion tomorrow. And then when I think of him without me--He's as
spiritually alone in this welter as I am. I'm the only one he has, the
only human being who understands. Today he said, holding me in his
arms--you should see how we cling to each other now as if we were
drowning--"When this is over, Chris, when I've paid off my bill of duty
and settled with them here to the last farthing of me that I've
promised them, we'll go away for ever. We'll never come back. We'll
never be caught again."
_Berlin, Tuesday, August 4th, 1914_.
My beloved mother,
The atmosphere in this house really is intolerable, and I'm going back
to Frau Berg's tomorrow morning. I've settled it with her by
telephone, and I can have my old room. However lonely I am in it
without my lessons and Kloster, without the reason there was for being
there before, I won't have this horrid feeling of being in a place full
of sudden and unaccountable hostility. Bernd came this morning, and
the Grafin told him I was out, and he went away again. She couldn't
have thought I was out, for I always tell her when I'm going, so she
wants to separate us. But why? Why? And oh, it means so much to me
to see him, it was so cruel to find out by accident that he had been!
A woman who was at lunch happened to say she had met him coming out of
the front door as she came in.
"What--was Bernd here?" I exclaimed, half getting up on a sort of
impulse to run after him and try and catch him in the street.
"Helena thought you had gone out," said the Grafin.
"But you _knew_ I hadn't," I said, turning on Helena.
"Helena knew nothing of the sort," said the Grafin severely. "She said
what she believed to be true. I must request you, Christine, not to
cast doubts on her word. We Germans do not lie."
And the Graf muttered, "_Peinlich, peinlich_" and pushed hack his chair
and left the room.
"You have spoilt my husband's lunch," said the Grafin sternly.
"I am very sorry," I said; and tried to go on with my own, but couldn't
see it because I was blinded by tears.
After this there was nothing for it but Frau Berg. I waited till the
Grafin was alone, and then went and told her I thought it better I
should go back to the Lutzowstrasse, and would like, if she didn't
mind, to go tomorrow. It was very _peinlich_, as they say; for however
much people want to get rid of you they're always angry if you want to
go. I said all I could that was grateful, and there was quite a lot I
could say by blotting out the last two days from my remembrance. I
did, being greatly at sea and perplexed, ask what it was that I had
done to offend her; though of course she didn't tell me, and was only
still more offended at being asked.
I'm going to pack now, and write a letter to Bernd telling him about
it, in case Helena should have a second unfortunate conviction that I'm
not at home when he comes next. And I do try to be cheerful, little
mother, and keep my soul from getting hurt, and when I'm at Frau Berg's
I shall feel more normal again I expect. But one has such fears--oh,
more than just fears, terrors--Well, I won't go on writing in this
mood. I'll pack.
Your own Chris.
_At Frau Berg's, August 4th, 1914, very late_.
Precious mother,
I'm coming back to you. Don't be unhappy about me. Don't think I'm
coming back mangled, a bleeding thing, because you see, I still have
Bernd. I still believe in him--oh, with my whole being. And as long
as I do that how can I be anything but happy? It's strange how, now
that the catastrophe has come, I'm quite calm, sitting here at Frau
Berg's in my old room in the middle of the night writing to you. I
think it's because the whole thing is so great that I'm like this, like
somebody who has had a mortal blow, and because it's mortal doesn't
feel. But this isn't mortal. I've got Bernd and you,--only now I must
have great patience. Till I see him again. Till war is over and he
comes for me, and I shall be with him always.
I'm coming to you, dear mother. It's finished here. I'm going to
describe it all quite calmly to you. I'm not going to be unworthy of
Bernd, I won't have less of dignity and patience than he has. If you'd
seen him tonight saying good-bye to me, and stopped by the Colonel!
His look as he obeyed--I shan't forget it. When next I'm weak and base
I shall remember it, and it will save me.
At dinner there were only the Grafin and Helena and me, and they didn't
speak a word, not only not to me but not to each other, and in the
middle a servant brought in a note for the Grafin from the Graf, he
said, and when she had looked at it she got up and went out. We
finished our dinner in dead silence, and I was going up to my room when
the Grafin's maid came after me and said would I go to her mistress.
She was alone in the drawingroom, sitting at her writing table, though
she wasn't writing, and when I came in she said, without turning round,
that she must ask me to leave her house at once, that very evening.
She said that apart from her private feelings, which were all in favour
of my going--she would be quite frank, she said--there were serious
political reasons why I shouldn't stay even as long as till tomorrow.
The Graf's career, his position in the ministry, their social position,
Majestat,--I really don't remember all she said, and it matters so
little, so little. I listened, trying to understand, trying to give
all my attention to it and disentangle it, while my heart was thumping
so because of Bernd. For I was being turned out in disgrace, and I am
his betrothed, and so I am his honour, and whatever of shame there is
for me there is of shame for him.
The Grafin got more and more unsteady in her voice as she went on. She
was trying hard to keep calm, but she was evidently feeling so acutely,
so violently, that it was distressing to, have to watch her. I was so
sorry. I wanted to put my arms round her and tell her not to mind so
much, that of course I'd go, but if only she wouldn't mind so much
whatever it was. Then at last she began to lose her hold on herself,
and got up and walked about the room saying things about England. So
then I knew. And I knew the answer to everything that has been
perplexing me. They'd been afraid of it the last two days, and now
they knew it. England isn't going to fold her arms and look on. Oh,
how I loved England then! Standing in that Berlin drawingroom in the
heart of the Junker-military-official set, all by myself in what I
think and feel,--how I loved her! My heart was thumping five minutes
before for fear of shame, now it thumped so that I couldn't have said
anything if I'd wanted to for gladness and pride. I was a bit of
England. I think to know how much one loves England one has to be in
Germany. I forgot Bernd for a moment, my heart was so full of that
other love, that proud love for one's country when it takes its stand
on the side of righteousness. And presently the Grafin said it all,
tumbled it all out,--that England was going to declare war, and under
circumstances so shameful, so full of the well-known revolting
hypocrisy, that it made an honest German sick. "Belgium!" she cried,
"What is Belgium? An excuse, a pretence, one more of the sickening,
whining phrases with which you conceal your gluttonous opportunism--"
And so she continued, while I stood silent.
Oh well, all that doesn't matter now,--I'm in a hurry, I want to get
this letter off to you tonight. Luckily there's a letter-box a few
yards away, so I won't have to face much of those awful streets that
are yelling now for England's blood.
I went up and got my things together. I knew Bernd would get the
letter I posted to him this morning telling him I was going to Frau
Berg's tomorrow, so I felt safe about seeing him, even if he didn't
come in to the Koseritzes before I left. But he did come in. He came
just as I was going downstairs carrying my violin-case--how foolish and
outside of life that music business seems now--and he seized my hand
and took me into the drawingroom.
"Not in here, not in here!" cried the Grafin, getting up excitedly.
"Not again, not ever again does an Englishwoman come into my
drawingroom--"
Bernd went to her and drew her hand through his arm and led her
politely to the door, which he shut after her. Then he came back to
me. "You know, Chris," he said, "about England?"
"Of course--just listen," I answered, for in the street newsboys were
yelling _Kriegserklarung Englands_, and there was a great dull roaring
as of a multitude of wild beasts who have been wounded.
"You must go to your mother at once--tomorrow," he said. "Before
you're noticed, before there's been time to make your going difficult."
I told him the Grafin had asked me to leave, and I was coming here
tonight. He wasted no words on the Koseritzes, but was anxious lest
Frau Berg mightn't wish to take me in now. He said he would come with
me and see that she did, and place me under her care as part of
himself. "And tomorrow you run. You run to Switzerland, without
telling Frau Berg or a soul where you are going," he said. "You just
go out, and don't come back. I'll settle with Frau Berg afterwards.
You go to the Anhalter station--on your feet, Chris, as though you were
going for a walk--and get into the first train for Geneva, Zurich,
Lausanne, anywhere as long as it's Switzerland. You'll want all your
intelligence. Have you money enough?"
"Yes, yes," I said, feeling every second was precious and shouldn't be
wasted; but he opened my violin-case and put a lot of banknotes into it.
"And have you courage enough?" he asked, taking my face in his hands
and looking into my eyes.
Oh the blessedness, the blessedness of being near him, of hearing and
seeing him. What couldn't I and wouldn't I be and do for Bernd?
I told him I had courage enough, for I had him, and I wouldn't fail in
it, nor in patience.
"We shall want both, my Chris," he said, his face against mine, "oh, my
Chris--!"
And then the Colonel walked in.
"Herr Leutnant?" he said, in a raucous voice, as though he were
ordering troops about.
At the sound of it Bernd instantly became rigid and stood at
attention,--the perfect automaton, except that I was hanging on his arm.
"_Zur Befehl_, Herr Oberst," he said.
"Take that woman's hand off your arm, Herr Leutnant," said the Colonel
sharply.
Bernd gently put my hand off, and I put it back again.
"We are going to be married," I said to the Colonel, "and perhaps I may
not see Bernd for a long while after tonight."
"No German officer marries an alien enemy," snapped out the Colonel.
"Remove the woman's hand, Herr Leutnant."
Again Bernd gently took my hand, but I held on. "This is good-bye,
then?" I said, looking up at him and clinging to him.
He was facing the Colonel, rigid, his profile to me; but he did at that
turn his head and look at me. "Remember--" he breathed.
"I forbid all talking, Herr Leutnant," snapped the Colonel.
"Never mind him," I whispered. "What does _he_ matter? Remember what,
my Bernd, my own beloved?"
"Remember courage--patience--" he murmured quickly, under his breath.
"Silence!" shouted the Colonel. "Take that woman's hand off your arm,
Herr Leutnant. _Kreutzhimmeldonnerwetter nochmal_. Instantly."
Bernd took my hand, and raising it to his face kissed it slowly and
looked at me. I shall not forget that look.
The Colonel, who was very red and more like an infuriated machine than
a human being, stepped on one side and pointed to the door. "Precede
me," he said. "On the instant. March."
And Bernd went out as if on parade.
When shall we see each other again? Only a fortnight, one fortnight
and two days, have we been lovers. But such things can't be measured
by time. They are of eternity. They are for always. If he is killed,
and the rest of my years are empty, we still will have had the whole of
life.
And now there's tomorrow, and my getting away. You won't be anxious,
dear mother. You'll wait quietly and patiently till I come. I'll
write to you on the way if I can. It may take several days to get to
Switzerland, and it may be difficult to get out of Germany. I think I
shall say I'm an American. Frau Berg, poor thing, will be relieved to
find me gone. She only took me in tonight because of Bernd. While she
was demurring on the threshold, when at last I got to her after a
terrifying walk through the crowds,--for I was afraid they would notice
me and see, as they always do, that I'm English,--his soldier servant
brought her a note from him which just turned the scale for me. I'm
afraid humanity wouldn't have done it, nor pity, for patriotism and
pity don't go well together here.
I wonder if you'll believe how calmly I'm going to bed and to sleep
tonight, on the night of what might seem to be the ruin of my
happiness. I'm glad I've written everything down that has happened
this evening. It has got it so clear to me. I don't want ever to
forget one word or look of Bernd's tonight. I don't want ever to
forget his patience, his dear look of untouchable dignity, when the
Colonel, because he is in authority and can be cruel, at such a moment
in the lives of two poor human beings was so unkind.
God bless and keep you, my mother,--my dear sweet mother.
Your Chris.
_Halle, Wednesday night, August 5th, 1914_.
I've got as far as this, and hope to get on in an hour or two. We've
been stopped to let troop trains pass. They go rushing by one after
the other, packed with waving, shouting soldiers, all of them with
flowers stuck about them, in their buttonholes and caps. I've been
watching them. There's no end to them. And the enthusiasm of the
crowds on the platform as they go by never slackens. I'm making for
Zurich. I tried for Bale. but couldn't get into Switzerland that
way,--it is _abgesperrt_. I hadn't much difficulty getting a ticket in
Berlin. There was such confusion and such a rush at the ticket office
that the man just asked me why I wanted to go; and I said I was
American and rejoining my mother, and he flung me the ticket, only too
glad to get rid of me. Don't expect me till you see me, for we shall
be held up lots of times, I'm sure.
I'm all right, mother darling. It was fearfully hot all day, squeezed
tight in a third class carriage--no other class to be had. It's cold
and draughty in this station by comparison, and I wish I had my coat.
I've brought nothing away with me, except my fiddle and what would go
into its case, which was handkerchiefs. Bernd will see that my things
get sent on, I expect. I locked everything up in my trunk,--your
letters, and all my precious things. An official came along the train
at Wittenberg, and after eyeing us all in my compartment suddenly held
out his hand to me and said, "_Ihre Papiere_." As I haven't got any I
told him about being an American, and as much family history not till
then known to me as I could put into German. The other passengers
listened eagerly, but not unfriendly. I think if you're a woman, not
being old helps one in Germany.
Now I'm going to get some hot coffee, for it has turned cold, I think,
and post this. The one thing in life now that seems of desperate
importance is to get to you. Oh, little mother, the moment when I
reach you! It will be like getting to heaven, like getting at last,
after many wanderings, and batterings, to the feet of God.
We _ought_ to be at Waldshut, on the frontier, tomorrow morning, but
nobody can say for certain, because we may be held up for hours
anywhere on the way.
Your Chris.
It's a good thing being too tired to think.
_Wursburg, Thursday, August 6th, 1914, 4 p. m_.
I've only got as far as this. I was held up this time, not the train.
It went on without me. Well, it doesn't matter really; it only keeps
me a little longer from you.
We stopped here about ten o'clock this morning, and I was so tired and
stiff after the long night wedged in tight in the railway carriage that
I got out to get some air and unstiffen myself, instinctively clutching
my fiddle-case; and a Bavarian officer on the platform, watching the
train with some soldiers, saw me and came over to me at once and
demanded to see my papers.
"You are English," he said; and when I said I was American he made a
sound like Tcha.
I can't tell you how horrid he was. He kept me standing for two hours
in the blazing sun. You can imagine what I felt like when I saw my
train going away without me. I asked if I mightn't go into the shade,
into the waiting-room, anywhere out of the terrible sun, for I was
positively dripping after the first half hour of it, and his answer to
that and to anything else I said in protest was always the same:
"_Krieg ist Krieg. Mund halten_."
There was no _reason_ why I shouldn't be in the shade, except that he
had power to prevent it. Well, he was very young, and I don't suppose
had ever had so much power before, so I suppose it was natural, he
being German. But it was a most ridiculous position. I tried to see
it from that side and be amused, but I wasn't amused. While he went
and telephoned to his superiors for instructions he put a soldier to
guard me, and of course the people waiting on the platform for trains
crowded to look. They decided that I was no doubt a spy, and certainly
and manifestly one of the swinish English, they said. I wished then I
couldn't understand German. I stood there doing my best to think it
was all very funny, but I was too tired to succeed, and hadn't had any
breakfast, and they were too rude. Then I tried to think it was just a
silly dream, and that I had really got to Glion, and would wake up in a
minute in a cool bedroom with the light coming through green shutters,
and there'd be the lake, and the mountains opposite with snow on them,
and you, my blessed, blessed little mother, calling me to breakfast.
But it was too hot and distinct and horribly consistent to be a dream.
And my clothes were getting wetter and wetter with the heat, and
sticking to me.
I want to get to you. That's all I think of now. There isn't a train
till tonight, and then only as far as Stuttgart. I expect this letter
will get to you long before I do, because I may be kept at Stuttgart.
Another officer, higher up than the first one, let me go. He was more
decent. He came and questioned me, and said that as he couldn't prove
I wasn't American he preferred to risk believing that I was, rather
than inconvenience a lady belonging to a friendly nation, or something
like that. I don't know what he said really, for by that time I was
stupid because of the sun beating down so. But he let me go, and I
came here to the restaurant to get something to drink. He came after
me, to see that I was not further inconvenienced, he said, so I thought
I'd tell him I was going to marry one of his fellow-officers. He
changed completely then, when I told him Bernd's name and regiment, and
was really polite and really saw that I wasn't further inconvenienced.
Dear Bernd! Even just his name saves me.
I went to sleep on the bench in the waiting room after I had drunk a
great deal of iced milk. My fiddle-case was the pillow. Poor fiddle.
It seems such a useless, futile thing now.
It was so nice lying down flat, and not having to do anything. The
waiter says there's a place I can wash in, and I suppose I'd better go
and wash after I've posted this, but I don't want to particularly. I
don't want to do anything, particularly, except shut my eyes and wait
till I get to you. But I think I'll go out into the sun and warm
myself up again, for it's cold in here. Dear mother, I'm a great deal
nearer to you than I've been for weeks. Won't you borrow a map, and
see where Wurzburg is?
Your Chris.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note: The following is my attempt to convert the music
found earlier in this book into Lilypond format.
Search for "G minor Bach".
{
\clef treble \key b \major \time 4/4
r8 d8 d8[ d8]
\bar "|"
d8[ c8[ b16]] c8[ a8]
\bar "|"
b8
}
This was produced by a combination of examining
other Lilypond files and on-line research. I
know little of music reading or theory, so any
errors are mine. I have made no attempt to
create any Lilypond "wrapper" components that
may be required.