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!”