You have not yet finished your Anmeldung if you keep a dog, for he must be registered, too, and you pay highly for the luxury. The Polizei decides when you may and may not play on your piano or sing. Before nine in the morning, after nine at night, all musical instruments are taboo. The sacred sleeping hour after dinner, from two to four, must also be observed in silence in Berlin. Nothing dare interfere with the after-dinner nap; even the banks are closed from one to two, or even three. You write to the Polizei in Germany where the Englishman writes to the Times. I remember a perfect avalanche of anonymous cards in Darmstadt because a child in our house would practise with her windows open and neighbours thought it was the Hofopernsaengerin Howard.
The intricacies of paying your taxes take some study. Foreigners must pay taxes on money earned in the country; town and county taxes are payable every three months, on alternate months, in two different parts of the town. You arrive at the Staedtische Halle to pay your town taxes, and you are very lucky if, after picking out the right month, you succeed in hitting the day when the place is open. A small sign on the locked door may greet you: "Closed on the ninth and fifteenth of every month." If day and month are right, you may easily strike the wrong hour, for town taxes are payable, say, from eight to ten A. M., and two to five P. M., while county ones are from nine to twelve, and four to seven. There are church taxes besides, very small if you are Catholic and larger if you are Evangelical. I succeeded in getting out of these by declaring myself neither. Unfortunately I did not know the word for undenominational and so had to say that we were "heathen." My sister was asked in a rasping official voice, filled with the large contempt for women which a certain type of German official always reeks with, "Sind Sie ledig?" She, poor dear, had never heard "ledig" before, and stammered "Was?" The question was rapped out again, and she said, "Ich—weiss nicht." When she got home and looked up ledig, she found the man had been asking if she were married or single. What he made of her answer we never knew.
All these little things are very amusing in Germany. The way everything seems verboten, at first is annoying, but later amusing. The paths in the Tiergarten in Berlin always used to tempt me to be bad. I always wanted to walk on the path reserved for bicyclists, or horses, or sit on the benches reserved for children only. The letter boxes say to you, "Aufschrift und Marke nicht vergessen!" ("Address and stamp not to be forgotten!") The door mat shrieks at you, "Bitte, Fuesse Reinigen!" ("Please wipe your feet.") Towels, brushes, etc., all say "Bitte" at you. I believe one could travel all through Germany with just "Bitte," and get an insight into the different phases of German character through the intonations of this word.
A rather annoying custom in Darmstadt was the way the bakers over-celebrated every holiday. They had usually the "Erster, Zweiter, und Dritter Feiertag"—first, second and third holiday, and they toiled not on those three days. All the bread you could get, if you had neglected to provide enough, was square pretzels, baked exceptionally large and hard. This may have been a Darmstadt custom only, as they vary so all over Germany, that what holds good in the north may be quite unknown in the south. For instance, cream is Sahne in Berlin, Rahm in Darmstadt, and has even a third name in other parts of Germany, which I have forgotten. You can get a wonderful Sandtorte—a firm, delicious cake, in Berlin, but I never succeeded in getting it just right in Southern or Middle Germany.
A quaint old custom in Darmstadt was always observed on the first Sunday in Advent. The Grand Duke always did his shopping for Christmas on that day, and the country people thronged into the town. A band used to play before the shop in which the Grand Duke was, and move as he moved. We gave an extra long performance at the opera, "Goetterdaemmerung," or some such serious business, but the Grand Duke never could honour us with his presence, as every one in town would have felt cheated if he had.
The shopping in Darmstadt was really quite remarkable. We always thought it an excellent thing that after eleven o'clock in the morning not a scrap of meat was visible in the white-tiled butcher shops, everything being put away on ice.
Food is taken very seriously, of course, and asparagus is honoured above any other vegetable by having its own subscription season. That is, you subscribe at the beginning of the season, so much a day, and asparagus is delivered to you daily while it lasts at that price, the sum not varying with the fluctuations of the market.
The old market place was a delight on full market days. The grumpy old women would sit in the middle of their piles of fruit and vegetables, while you threaded your way along the uneven cobblestone lanes they had left in between their stalls. Brilliant awning umbrellas have been adopted and glow in the sun, against the darkly moist, old walls of the frowning castle just behind. The old Dames call out to you, "Well, Madamsche', nothing from me today? Aren't my things good enough for you?" "Madamsche'" is a left-over from ancient French times, and the final "n" is left off, as are all "n's" in Hessen dialect.
This dialect also lacks "r's." They tell a tale of the Railroad conductors calling out "Station Daaaaamstadt!" so loudly and persistently as to annoy Grand Ducal ears, and they were ordered to pay more attention to their "r's." Now they call out in a superior tone "Starrrr-rtion—Damstadt!" and feel sure every one is satisfied.
We had exceptional opportunities of knowing Germans of all classes, from the cleaning women in the theatre to royalty. The military types are most varied, ranging from the Prussian Junker to the gemuetlicher Bayer, with his easy South German ways. We met many officers and their families, both in Metz and Darmstadt. In Metz, during the last year, we grew to know and be fond of a young Bavarian lieutenant. With him we drove and picnicked in the lovely Metz country. It was early spring, and we would take the train to some little village near by, and have our tea in the woods or at one of the thousands of Gasthäuse that dot Germany. I remember one Sunday afternoon in a still, steep-sided ravine, the walls of it rising sharply on either side, thickly wooded with giant beeches; the sun-flecked grass aquiver with myriads of white ethereal wind-flowers. A shrine, with a blue-robed Virgin looked down on us, and the wood-hush was only broken by the songs of birds, twittering and gurgling high above us in the branches. Suddenly far off the sound of singing; and slowly a procession of children came into view, singing in well-harmonized parts as they walked. They all genuflected before the Virgin and wound off into the woods, their voices dying away in the distance.