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.