Exits and Entrances

by Eva Moore

I am reminded of so many holidays and small travels we took together—to the sea, to Switzerland, to Ireland, Scotland: holidays which stand out as lovely pictures, as days which were crowded with laughter and sunshine. Were there days when the rain poured down, and the skies were not blue?... I have forgotten them.

I remember one holiday in Scotland, when every evening we used to play bridge, the minister—who, as he expressed it, “just loved a game o’ cairds”—joining us. One Saturday evening he came, and declined to play because the next day was the “Sawbath”, and he did not think it right. He explained this at some length, and then turned to me with a smile: “I’ll just sit by your side, Mrs. Esmond,” he said, “and advise ye.” During that same visit we had with us two dogs—one a real Scotch terrier, the other—just a dog. As a matter of fact, he was the famous “Australian Linger” to which Harry was so devoted, and which has been mentioned elsewhere. One Sunday we all set out for the Kirk, to hear our “minister” friend preach, first locking both dogs in a shed near the hotel. We arrived at the Kirk—Ada (my sister, who has always been with Harry and myself in our joys, helping us in our troubles and often with heavy work, just a tower of strength and understanding); Charles Maitland Hallard, in the full glory of the kilt; and Harry and I. During the service we heard a noise at the door, and one of the party went to investigate. There were our two dogs, guarded by the minister’s own Aberdeen, lying with their three noses pressed against the crack of the door, waiting for the service to end. The Aberdeen, with a proper knowledge of what is right and proper during divine service, had evidently prevented our two dogs from entering. We found, on returning to the hotel, that they had gnawed a large hole in the door of the shed in which they had been locked, thus making their escape. It was on that particular Sunday that poor Charles Hallard had his knees so badly bitten by a horse-fly—or, from their appearance, a host of horse-flies—that the kilt could not be worn again during the holiday.

As I write this, my boxes are still standing waiting to be unpacked, for I have just returned from Berlin, where I have spent the past ten weeks. Berlin! What a city! Wonderful, wonderful trees everywhere; a city which one feels is almost too big, too vast! The enormous buildings, the colossal statues, it seems a city built not for men and women but for giants. Gradually you realise that the wide streets, sometimes with four avenues of trees, have a definite purpose; that the city was so planned that the air might reach all who lived within its boundaries. The Tiergarten, which is a joy to behold, until you reach the Sesarsalle, which ruins the beauty with its endless and often ugly statues. Houses, big and beautifully kept, with real lace curtains, spotlessly clean, in almost every window; the whole city planted out with a wealth of flowers, roses by the million, cactus plants, lilac and syringa. Every spare piece of ground planted and laid out to perfection. When I came back to England, and on my way home passed Buckingham Palace, I was struck with the beds laid out there. The three or four hundred geraniums seemed so poor and inadequate after the streets of Berlin! I wondered why some of the money spent on street decoration could not have been paid in “reparation”; for the Germans it would mean fewer flowers, less beauty in their streets, but something towards the payment of their just debts.

Numberless theatres, some very beautiful, others glaringly hideous both in design and colouring. All places of amusement—theatres, picture palaces, concerts, and dance-rooms—are literally packed out at every performance. The interest in music is wonderful, no matter if the performance is operetta, opera, or concert; it is an amazing sight to see the audience surge up to the platform at the end of a performance and storm it, offering applause and congratulation to the artist or artists. After Act 1 at the theatre, the audience rise as one man, and pour out into the vestibule, where they walk round and round, eating heartily of dark-brown bread sandwiches, drinking beer or wine which they buy from the buffet. To one unaccustomed to the country, it is an amusing sight and rather astonishing, but it is a wise practice, as most entertainments begin as early as 7 p.m., and the latest hour for a performance to begin is 7.30.

I, personally, saw no lack of anything. The hotels are full, not only with people who are staying in them, but with casual visitors who come in for 5 o’clock tea; this begins at 3, and continues until about 8 o’clock. The dining-rooms are never closed, and meals seem to go on all day long. “Men with corrugated backs to their necks”, as Sir Philip Gibbs so aptly describes them, sit for hours partaking of sugar cakes, ices, and liquors.

Only once during my stay did I see the slightest hint of poverty, and that was where some wooden houses had been built outside the city during the war for poor people with families. Here the children were of the real gypsy type, played round us as we worked (for I was playing in a film), rolling and tumbling in the sand.

I was taken over The Schloss by a soldier who had served under Hindenburg, and done much fighting in the infantry and later as a gunner. He described vividly to me the Riots, when the Palace was stormed by the sailors, who took possession and lived a life of riotous enjoyment there for a short time, dancing each evening on the wonderful floor of the ballroom where so many crowned heads had gathered in other days. The sailors were finally turned out after forty-eight hours’ heavy fighting. The man who was my guide told me that the rioters managed their firing badly, as they fired from both sides of the Palace, thus wounding many of their own men. He told me also that many soldiers held the belief that the riots had been permitted by the authorities in order to draw attention from the Staff, as the feeling at the time against the Army was so strong. I can only give this as his own opinion, and cannot vouch for its correctness.

One drenching day I visited Potsdam, which seemed to me a perfectly hideous place, both inside and out, so ornate that it hurt. The much-vaunted Mussel Hall, a large room entirely covered with shells, seemed to me ghastly and a place in which no one could bear to remain for long. The one perfect room was the Kabinet, delightful in colour-scheme and construction. The Theatre, a small, beautifully designed place with a delightful stage, seats about four hundred people, and it was here that the Kaiser witnessed the performance of his own works.

On an April day in June, with sunshine, heavy rain, and lovely clouds, I took a long motor drive down the famous track, which is twenty miles long, with fir trees on either side, past a great lake and many big houses with perfectly kept gardens, to Sans Souci. Perfect, with its lovely Kolonade in a semi-circle, and the Palace which looks down and up a grassy slope to a ruin on the summit, surrounded by trees. The ruin is an artificial one, copied from one in Rome, but the effect is quite charming. I saw the narrow Gallerie, the cedar-and-gold writing-room, which is round in formation, its door concealed by a bookcase, where Fredrick Rex used to sit and write, looking out on to a pergola which is French in design. The reception-room with its perfect green walls and rose-covered furniture—each room seemed more delightful than the last. Lovelier still, the garden, with its six wonderful terraces leading down to the large pond filled with goldfish, many of which are so old that they have become quite white; in the centre of the pond a fountain, which when playing throws a jet as high as the flagstaff, six terraces up. The whole place gave me a feeling of poetry and romance, quite different to anything I had experienced in Berlin. I visited the church where the two coffins of Fredrick the Great and Fredrick Rex lie side by side, covered with flags. The church is a small but impressive building, but spoilt by a huge Iron Cross on one wall, which is made of wood and almost entirely covered with nails: a similar idea to the Hindenburg statue (no longer to be seen) into which people knocked nails, paying money to be allowed to do so.

My guide on this occasion was an ex-soldier who was decorated with the Iron Cross. He told me many interesting facts. He had been in the Crown Prince’s regiment—the King’s Hussars—first on the Western Front, and later at Verdun. He told me that the Crown Prince never left headquarters, nor led his regiment; that this was always done by General Gneiseuan, who refused to allow his name to appear as having led the troops, as he considered it an insult to the Prince. He said that at Verdun in 1917 no less than 366 men were shot dead on the field for refusing to advance.