"I am glad there is here one sabbath in the year," was our inward comment, "even though it falls on a Friday." Easter was a day of gladness in the churches, though elaborate adornments of flowers and new spring bonnets were not so prominent as in American cities. The respectable church communicant, even if he goes to church on no other day in the year, usually takes the communion at Easter.
Easter Monday was one great gala-day. All Berlin seemed to be in the streets in holiday attire; and, to our eyes, no other day ever showed such universal gladness reflected in the faces and demeanor of the people. "Prayer Day," answering somewhat to the original New England Fast Day, was solemnly observed in May; and the holidays of Whitsuntide dress every house and market-stall and milk-cart with green boughs, and crowd the railways and the steamers with throngs of pleasure-seekers.
The few weeks before Easter is a favorite season for weddings, and these are invariably celebrated in church. Even people in moderate circumstances make much display at the church ceremony, with or without an additional celebration at home. We were invited to one at the Garrison Church, which the soldiers attend, and where most of the pews on the main floor are held by officers and their families. We entered the church fifteen minutes before the hour appointed,—four o'clock. An elderly usher in a fine suit, with swallow-tail coat and a decoration on his breast, politely gave us liberty to choose our seats, as the invitations were not numerous and the church is large. A few persons, mostly ladies, were there before us, and had already taken the best seats,—those running lengthwise of the church, and facing a wide central aisle. We joined them, and while waiting felt more at liberty to inspect the church than at the service on a previous Sunday. The Grecian interior was undecorated, except that a mass of green filled the space to the right and left of the altar, beginning on each side with tall oleanders succeeded by laurels and other evergreens, growing gradually less in height, until they reached the pews in the side aisles. A rich altar-cloth of purple velvet, embroidered with gold, fell below the crucifix and the massive candles on either side, which are always seen in the Lutheran churches; and in the aisle below the chancel stood a square altar, covered with another spread of purple velvet, heavy with gold fringe and embroidery. Two chairs were side by side just in front of the high altar, and facing it. Six chairs facing the audience were on the platform on each side of the altar, directly in front of the mass of green I have described. Below the steps to the chancel about twenty chairs were placed on each side of the central aisle, and facing the altar. In each chair was a printed slip containing a hymn to be sung after the ceremony. About four o'clock a maid came in with the little granddaughter who on Christmas eve had spoken the poem at the lighting of the family Christmas-tree. When they were seated, the handsome little face, with its white bonnet and cloak, was seen in a side pew very near the altar. It seemed so like a dream,—the announcement of the engagement of "the little Fräulein" at that Christmas party; and now the time has come when the bride is to belong to her mother and her home no more!
Ladies had long ceased looking impatiently at their watches, and were perhaps busy with their thoughts, as I was, when from the "mittel" door Court-preacher Frommel entered, his long white hair thrown back, and crossed through the transverse aisle to the robing-room opposite. Soon a signal given by an usher to the organist was the prelude to solemn music, which filled the church; and a stout clerical assistant, with a book under his arm, appeared at the rear door. Then Pastor Frommel, in his black robe and simple white muslin bands, took his place before the high altar and bowed in prayer, the two immense candles in tall candlesticks on either side the altar, now lighted, throwing their radiance on his silver hair. Meantime the bridal procession slowly moved down the side aisle toward the middle of the church, turned at the transverse aisle, crossed to the centre, turned again, now toward the altar, passing to it up the central aisle. The clerical personage with the service-book under his arm passed first. Then came the bride on the arm of the groom. There were a few orange-buds hidden here and there in the fluffy mass of her front hair; a veil of tulle was fastened behind them in a gathered coronet, and fell down over the folds of her white silk dress, whose train swept along the aisle to the length of a yard and a half. I saw no ornaments, save a wreath below the high, full, white ruche at the throat, perhaps of geranium leaves, and a full bouquet of pink rosebuds in the right hand. From my glance at the train of the bridal dress, I looked up to see six bridesmaids coming after, each on the arm of a groomsman. The first bridesmaid was a lovely sister of the bride, in a dress of cream-white silk without train, pink flowers in her hair, and carrying a large bouquet of full-blown cream and crimson roses. The second bridesmaid wore a dress of silk,—not ecru and not palest olive, but a shade between the two,—with a perfectly fitting corsage, likewise décolleté, and for ornaments a necklace of large pearls, a bouquet, and flowers in her hair. The first groomsman was in civilian's dress; but the second was in all the glory of full regimentals, with scarlet trimmings and showy buttons. The third bridesmaid wore pink silk, with a bouquet at the centre of the heart-shaped corsage; but unlike the others, she had no flowers in her hair. Of the following bridesmaids, one wore pink silk of a paler shade, one was in lemon-color, and the last in palest mauve, with trimmings of garnet velvet. The bridesmaids filed to the right, and the groomsmen to the left, as they reached the altar, before which Pastor Frommel now stood. As the bride and groom approached, they remained a moment standing with bowed heads in silent prayer, as the custom is on entering a German church, and then took the two chairs which had been placed for them, facing the minister. I had been struck by the beauty of the widowed mother, as she followed the bridesmaids, leaning on the arm of her brother,—a fine-looking, dignified officer from Potsdam, in full uniform, with broad silver epaulettes. The black hair of the mother—dressed high and gracefully on the crown of her uncovered head, set off by a fine white marguerite and a yellow one—and her dark eyes and complexion were in strong contrast to the fair hair and light German complexion of the younger ladies. She was in a dress of garnet silk, fitting perfectly her tall and graceful form. The bridesmaids took the six chairs on the right of the altar, facing the audience and before the mass of greenery, which made an effective background for so much youth, beauty, and elegance; and the groomsmen took the corresponding chairs on the left. The mother and uncle parted at the steps below the altar, she taking the first chair on the right, and he on the left, with the central aisle between them. Next came two elderly ladies, in dark silk with long trains, with uncovered and ornamented hair, and white shoulder-shawls of silk or wool, each with a gentleman; and they were seated to the right and left respectively. The bride's eldest married sister came next, in a splendid robe of blue satin, with a long train, looking very young and distingué. She and her husband filed to the right and left, as the others had done. The second married sister of the bride followed, in a similar dress of pink satin; and her very handsome husband, in his full military suit, was a decided addition to the courtly-looking assemblage. These five ladies filled the front row of chairs on one side, as did the gentlemen accompanying them on the other side. Eight other ladies, all in full dress,—one wearing an ermine cape,—followed, each with a gentleman; and these were seated in the second row.
When for a few brief moments I first caught sight of all this elegance, I felt as though I were in a dream; then came a rush of emotion, because I loved the fair young bride, and was touched at the thought of the solemn place in which she stood,—forsaking home and friends and native land to go to what seems to these home-dwelling Germans a far, strange country, all for the sake of a young man whom a year ago she had never seen. I was as sorry for the mother, too, as I could be for one so handsome and so dignified. How fast one feels and thinks in such a time! Before the hush which followed the procession and the temporary change while all were finding their appropriate seats, the feeling of sympathy had given place to one of stimulated imagination, and this dim old soldiers' church, with the majestic music filling all its spaces, seemed merely the setting for some scene at a royal court in the olden time, where beauty and brilliance and grandeur were a matter of course.
The music ceased, all present rose, while Pastor Frommel read a brief service from the book, and said "Amen." Then we sat down again, and the pastor preached the wedding sermon, which we were told is a matter of course at a German marriage. The sermon over, the bride and groom stood up before him, and he looked down with a fatherly glance upon the bride whom he took into his own house to prepare for confirmation only a few short years ago, and whom he is now to send with his marriage benediction across the sea. In a sweet, calm voice he addressed them; then the bride hands her bouquet to her sister bridesmaid sitting near, and removes her own glove; the groom takes from his pocket a ring, and gives it to the minister, who places it on the bride's finger, speaking a few solemn sentences, of which only the last reaches my ears: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." For the first time in the service, the bride and groom kneel before him who bends over them; then follows a prayer, and it is finished. They rise, and are seated an instant; then rise again as the pastor gives his hand in congratulation to the groom; and when he places his hand with a few words in that of the bride, she bends low over it and kisses it in a pathetic farewell. The pastor goes first. The bride and groom bow in silent devotion before the altar until the time seems a little long, then turn and come down the aisle, followed by their retinue as they went in, but twain no more. The mother wiped away a tear quietly once or twice during the service, the unmarried sister bridesmaid looked as sweet and calm as always she does at home, but the bride, silently taking farewell of friends and native land, was deeply moved. No one had any voice for the printed hymn, and the organ alone supplied its music. The newly married couple went in the first carriage which rolled homewards, the others followed without observing precedence, and a small and quiet home reception closed the day.
In a family where we found a home we were once asked, with other temporary residents, to attend a small evening gathering. At the usual hour of half-past eight we were led out to supper by the hostess. The table was very handsome with its fine linen and an elaborately embroidered lunch cloth extending through the whole length of a board at which fourteen were seated. I counted ten tall wine bottles, and at every plate except two, wine-glasses were standing. Several of the European ladies drank off three or four glasses as they might have done so much water. "You are temperance?" said a young lady from Stockholm at my left, in her broken English. I said, Yes; and on inquiry found she knew something of the great temperance movement in her own country, of which she told me over her wine. She said she thought a glass would do me good. I said, "No, it would flush my face and do me harm;" to which, without any intention of discourtesy, she replied simply, "I do not believe it." Five plates of various sizes were piled before each individual. The smallest was of glass, for preserved fruit and sweet pickles, four kinds of which were passed, all to be deposited, if one partook of all, on the same plate. The other plates and the whole service were of beautiful old Berlin china, white, with a line of dark blue and another of gilt around the edge of each piece, and the monogram of the grandmother to whom it originally belonged in the centre of each piece in blue letters. The first course was excellent chicken broth, served to each guest in a china cup, with a roll. The second course was cold roast beef and hot potatoes, served in three different ways, with rolls and plenty of wine. The third course was offered to me first by a handsome serving-maid lately from the country, with a clear face, bright dark eyes, dark hair, and rosy cheeks. Admiring her, I cast only a brief and doubtful glance on the large plate she bore, at one side of which were two lifelike sheep three or four inches high, with little red ribbons around their necks and standing in the midst of greenery. "This is confectionery," I thought, "and these are sugar sheep for ornament." Disposed on other parts of the plate were sundry rounds and triangles which looked peculiar; but my custom was, at German tables, "to prove all things" and "hold fast that which is good." So I decided on a creamy-looking segment, covered with silver-paper, and showing at the sides a half-inch thickness of what I hoped was custard-cake. The plate was next passed to a lady at my right, who cut a little piece off a white substance; and I thought, "She has ice-cream." Before I had touched my portion, a suspicious odor diverted my attention from the conversation. I found that the course was cheese and radishes, that my neighbor had "Dutch cheese," that the sheep were the butter and I had none for my roll, and that I had possessed myself of perhaps the whole of one variety of European cheese in tin-foil, the peculiar aroma of which was anything but agreeable to my cheese-hating sense. I begged a German Fräulein who sat near and who was intensely enjoying the situation to relieve me, when she kindly took about one third of my delicacy, leaving the rest in solitary state until the end of that course. Fortunately, the non-winedrinkers were offered a cup of tea just here, and I ate my roll with it in thankfulness. My American friend laughingly made a remark to her German neighbor,—a tall and dignified lady, but very vivacious. She turned her head, saying in hesitating English, "Speak on this side; I am dumb in that ear." Meanwhile the conversation, not as at American tables a low hum, but rather the rattle of artillery, fires away, across the table, along its whole length, anywhere and everywhere, much sounding, little meaning, amid infinite ado of demonstration and gesticulation. The next course was the nearest approach to pie I saw at any German table,—apfeltochter,—a browned and frosted crust, nearly eighteen inches in diameter, between the parts of which was cooked and sweetened apple.
I noted the different nationalities at the table,—the mother and her daughters, Germans of the Germans; a buxom young girl from the country, a fine singer; the tall German, and the young Swedish lady of whom I have spoken; another Swedish lady from Gothenburg, tall, very dignified, with gray eyes and dark hair, an exquisite singer. Then there was Herr G——, also from Sweden, and Fräulein von K——, a young Polish lady, with striking black eyes and hair and a laughing face. Other guests were two Norwegian gentlemen. One of them, tall, dark, and with the dress and bearing of a gentleman, said to my American friend, "Yes, I speak English very well" which we found to be the case. As I had mentally completed this summary, my friend said to me in a low "aside," "The young lady at your left is a free-thinker, the Polish lady is a Roman Catholic, Herr G——is a Jew; the rest Lutherans, except you and me." And one of us at home was of "Andover," and the other "straight Orthodox"!
Later, we adjourned to the drawing-room, spacious and handsome after the German fashion. I asked one of the daughters of the house, who I knew had spent some years in Russia, if the portrait of a middle-aged gentleman hanging near me, much decorated and with a gilded crown at the top of the frame, were not that of the late Czar (Alexander II.), when she replied, "It is our Emperor!" And I had seen his Majesty at least half a dozen times! But he was a much older man now. One of the Norwegian gentlemen sat down at the piano and played portions of a recent opera, and a game of questions and answers followed. Oranges and little cakes were served before the company broke up at the early hour of half-past eleven.
Concerts and even the opera and theatre begin early in Germany. Doors are open usually about half-past five, and the performance seldom begins later than six or seven. This interferes with the time of the usual evening meal, so that refreshments at these places are always in order. One of the most characteristic evenings maybe spent at the Philharmonie, where the best music is given at popular prices several times each week. Tickets seldom cost more than fifteen or eighteen cents, and may be bought by the package for much less. This is a favorite place with the music-loving Germans, and for many Americans as well. Nearly all the German ladies take their knitting or fancy-work. The large and fine hall is filled on these occasions with chairs clustered around small tables accommodating from two to six. Here families and friends gather, chat in the intervals, and listen to the music, quietly sipping their beer or chocolate, and supper is served in the intermission to those who order it. Smoking is forbidden, but seldom is the hour after supper free from fumes of smokers who quietly venture to light their cigars unrebuked unless the room gets too blue. Many entire families seem to make nightly rendezvous at these concerts, enjoying the music as only Germans do, and setting many a pretty picture in the minds of strangers. The concerts are over by nine or ten o'clock, but the performances at theatre and opera are frequently not concluded before half-past ten or eleven, and an after-supper at a café or at home is a consequent necessity. In one aspect of behavior at concerts, American audiences may well imitate our German friends. The beginning of every piece of music is the signal for instantaneous cessation from conversation. I do not remember ever having been annoyed during the performance of music, either in public or private, while in Germany, by the talking of any except Americans or other foreigners. To the music-loving Germans this is among the greatest of social sins.