Part 4

The greatest triumph of last season was Eugen d'Albert's new opera _Die toten Augen_, or "The Dead Eyes," and it was played several times a week. The music of the opera is lovely, entrancing, but what a strange theme--a blind woman who is married to a man she has never seen, prays unceasingly for her sight so that she can see her husband. At last her prayer is answered, and when her eyes are opened she beholds a beautiful man by her side whom she believes to be her husband. She makes love to him, and he loves her in return. The husband who was absent when his wife's sight was restored returns, and he finds his wife's lover. He challenges the man to a duel and kills him. The woman is distracted by grief. She no longer wishes to see, so she goes out and sits in the sun with her eyes wide open. She sits there until her very life is burned out. That is the end. D'Albert is a Belgian and either his fourth or fifth wife was Madame Carreño, the pianist, who died lately. His present wife is an English woman.

An American named Langswroth has written a very successful opera called "California." Perhaps it will be played in America. An old opera that was played frequently last winter in Berlin was Meyerbeer's opera "_Die Afrikanerin_." In spite of its age it was very popular.

The concerts are always well attended in Berlin; and Strauss, Nikisch and von Weingartner are very popular. Each conductor has his following. Last winter Lillie Lehmann gave a concert. She is sixty years old, and her voice is still very beautiful. She does not sing very often in public and spends most of her time writing songs and teaching a few chosen pupils.

One misses the great foreign stars who always came to Berlin each season, but still they have the great artists Joseph Schwartz, Conrad Ansorge, Clara Dux, Slezak, Emil Sauer, Karl Flesch, Arthur Schnabel and scores of others.

The character of the plays has more or less changed since the war, and while comic operas are still being given, the most popular shows are of a more serious character. The greatest favorites are Strindberg, Ibsen, Brieux, Björnsen, Shaw, Wedekind and Shakespeare. A German loves Shakespeare much more than an American or an Englishman does, and last winter, all winter long, Max Reinhardt gave Shakespeare at the Deutsches Theater. In spite of Shakespeare's English origin, the plays were very well attended, and yet I do not think the audience was like the German girl that Percival Pollard told about. He made her say, "What a pity that Shakespeare is not translated into English. I should think that they would like him in London."

The play that caused the greatest sensation in Germany last season was a tragedy called "_Liebe_," or "Love." It was a grewsome tale of two married people. It was full of the sordidness, the horrible actualities of life. I lived at the same boarding-house with the actress that took the part of the wife in the play, _Frau Anna_, the main role. She was quite a frivolous young German girl, but she splendidly managed the part of a woman that had been married nine years.

Moving picture shows are not as popular in Germany as in America because of the high prices. In Germany it costs as much to go to a "Kino"--that is what they call a "movie"--as it does to sit in the gallery at the opera. For shows no better than our five-cent shows we had to pay two marks, and one can sit in the gallery at the Charlottenburg Opera House for ninety pfennigs.

They have their "movie stars," and one of the greatest favorites is an American girl named Fern Andra. When I left Berlin her films were still drawing great crowds, America's entrance into the war having made no difference. They do not have Charlie Chaplin in Germany. They know him in Norway, but so far Germany has escaped. One German editor wrote, "_Gott sei Dank_, the war has prevented us from going Chaplin mad."

As a whole the German "movies" are not nearly so good as ours, they cannot compare with our wonderful productions. The only part that is better than ours is the music, and they always have fine orchestras of from ten to thirty men. Here in America we just drop into a "movie," but in Germany it makes a special evening's entertainment. Most of the "kinos" have restaurants attached, and in all "kinos" you must check your wraps. I often stayed away from shows just because I hated the idea of going to the _Garderobe_ and checking my wraps.

I saw a great number of fine art exhibitions in Germany. Germans consider an art exhibition as one of the necessities of life. Cubist art has rather gone out of date, and war art has taken its place. Such stirring pictures as these war artists have produced! Most of the best German artists have been to the front sketching, and the war productions of such artists as Fritz Erler and Walther Georgi are some of the most wonderful paintings I have ever seen. Weisgerber was another artist who has made blood-stirring war pictures. He was a German officer and was killed a year ago in France. He was very young, and his work was full of great promise. His work was much seen in _Die Jugend_.

I saw the great Berlin exhibition of art last fall. It was not nearly so interesting as the great international exhibitions that were held in Germany before the war. It was monotonous, and yet I have never seen an exhibit where so many pictures were sold. I saw hundreds and hundreds of pictures marked _Verkauft_.

It is surprising the number of art works of all kinds that are being bought in Germany. I often used to go to Lep's Auction Rooms where all kinds of art works were sold, at auction. The place was always crowded with bidders, and the bidding was fast and high. I went one day to a stein sale and saw 119 steins sold for nearly 4000 marks. I am no judge of porcelain, but it seemed like spending a lot of money. Another day I went with a man I knew, a German. For 100 marks he bought three odd tea-pot lids. He thought he had a great bargain, but I could not see it.

Germany has always been the land of _Ausstellungen_, or "exhibitions," and the war has only served to increase the number. In every city I was in during the two years I saw dozens of _Kriegs-Ausstellungen_ advertised. Every city has had exhibitions of artificial arms and legs with demonstrators showing how they work. Then they have displays of uniforms, guns, aeroplanes, ships and photographs. In Berlin they had an exhibition of the forts around Verdun. It was wonderfully made--everything in proportion, with tiny soldiers, wagons, wire entanglements etc. The greatest show they had when I was there was the "Booty Exhibition" in which all kinds of captured war material were displayed.

The Germans are very fond of walking, and the war has not decreased the pleasure which they find in this pursuit. Before the war the walkers did not carry their lunch with them, but now they must if they want to get anything to eat; and every afternoon you can see crowds of people starting out, each with a little package of lunch. The Berliners like to go to the Grunewald where they stop at a little inn and order a cup of _Kaffee-Ersatz_, eat their sandwiches, and feel they are having a very nice time.

Sitting in a café with a cup of cold coffee before them, always has been and always will be the favorite amusement of the German people. Here they can read the magazines and papers and look around. Most Germans do not entertain their friends at home but meet them at a café, and each person pays for what he orders.

All through the war they have boat and track races, and these sports are very popular. Before the war they had aeroplane exhibitions, but these are not held any more. All the hospitals have concerts and moving picture shows for the wounded soldiers.

The main amusement of the people now is talking about things to eat. A man I know in Dresden meets eight of his cronies at a _Stammtisch_ every Saturday night. Before the war they discussed politics, art, music, literature and science, but he says now they talk only about eating. In March and April when we had that awful run of a vegetable called _Kohlrüben_, the man I know said his _Stammtisch_ was going to get out a cook-book for _Kohlrüben_, for they knew twenty-five different ways to cook them!

THE CLOTHES TICKET.

It has been said that the sign _Verboten_ was the most seen sign in Germany, but now that sign has a rival in _Ohne Bezugsschein_, which means "without a clothes ticket." All the store windows are decorated with these cards and merchants are pushing forward these articles because they are more expensive than the articles which require a card, and most people would rather pay a few marks more than go to the trouble of getting a card.

Along in May, 1916, there were rumors of a ticket for clothes, but the people only laughed, "How could there be a ticket for clothes?" they asked and "What will we do if our clothes wear out and we can't get a ticket for any more?"

On the 10th of June the ordinance was published, and it went into effect on the 1st of August. Now the ticket is in full swing, and one must have a ticket to get all the articles of wearing apparel and household things that are not marked _Ohne Bezugsschein_.

The _Bezugsschein_ was not originated to make things uncomfortable for people in general, but to protect the people who are poor and to keep the rich people from buying up the cheap useful articles that poorer people must have for winter. At first it was only cheap useful articles that were on the card, and articles of clothing that were over a set price could be bought without a card, but now many expensive things are on a card as well, and no matter what the price is, a man or a woman can have only two woolen suits a year.

The following list is from the ordinance of June 10, and it tells what things can be bought without a card. The prices quoted are the lowest prices of articles without a ticket. The first list is of articles which require no ticket at any price.

1. Silk or art cloth. 2. Half silk cloth. 3. Silk or half silk stockings for men or women. 4. Ladies' cotton stockings of which a dozen pairs weigh less than 750 grams. 5. Men's cotton stockings of which a dozen pairs weigh less than 450 grams. (This is to keep the coarser stockings for the poor.) 6. Silk or half silk gloves for men or women. 7. Cotton gloves made from number 80 thread or finer. 8. Ribbon, cord and bobbin. 9. Suspenders, or garters for men or women. 10. Lace tulle or curtains. 11. Tapestry and all kinds of cloth for furniture. 12. Caps, hats and veils. 13. Umbrellas. 14. Woolen cloth for ladies' dresses or suits which is not over 130 centimeters wide and retails at at least 10 marks a meter. 15. Colored or flowered stuff of cotton material which is not more than 50 centimeters wide and retails for not less than 3 marks a meter. 16. Cotton goods as used for aprons etc., which is not over 90 centimeters wide and retails for not less than 2 marks a meter. 17. Printed cotton goods which is not over 90 centimeters wide and retails for not less than 2 marks a meter. 18. Unwashable white goods. 19. Corsets. 20. Wash goods not more than 80 centimeters wide which retails at not less than 3 marks a meter. 21. Linen not more than 80 centimeters wide which retails at not less than 3 marks a meter. 22. Pure linen bed covers which retail at 30 marks or over. 23. Handkerchiefs. 24. Colored aprons which retail at 2 marks and over. 25. White aprons which retail at 2 marks and over. 26. Satin shoes.

Men's ready made clothes without a ticket at the following prices and over.

Suits 75 marks. Coats 47 " Jackets 32 " Vests 11 " Pants 18 "

All things for military use can be bought without a ticket.

Women's ready made clothes without a ticket at the following prices and over.

Woolen suits 80 marks. Coats 60 " Wash suits 40 " Woolen waists 11 " Wash skirts 20 " Woolen skirts 30 " Trimmed woolen dresses 100 " Night gowns 10 " Combination suits 6 " Drawers 10 " Corset covers 5 " Dressing sacks 10 " Wash petticoats 12 "

For every article of wearing apparel or cloth that is not in this list and is cheaper than the set price, one must procure a _Schein_ in order to buy the article. This means that all the cheaper waists, dresses, aprons, pants, stockings, underwear and skirts require a ticket, also all the cheaper cloth by the meter. One cannot buy a yard of flannel, a wash rag or a dusting rag without a ticket. Nearly everything for children requires a ticket.

It is very troublesome to get a ticket, but if you know what you want before you go to the store, you can procure your ticket first, and this saves time. The _Bezugsscheinstellen_ are scattered all over the city. Each district has a place, and you must get your ticket from the district in which you live. They have on file all the _Scheine_ you have procured, so you can't get more than your allowance, and if you have moved from one place to another you must wait until they investigate what you have had in the other district before they will give you a _Schein_. You must show your passport or your police registration.

The clothes ticket is a large piece of paper with a place for your name, address and occupation. The clerks write on the paper the article you wish and how many of each article. For every kind of an article a separate _Schein_ is needed. On the back of the ticket it tells that it is not transferable and that the misuse of it makes you liable to six months imprisonment or a fine of 15,000 marks. It also says that it is good only in the German Empire. This is not supposed to be a joke.

If anything happens to a person's clothes, like loss by fire, new clothes can be procured if the person can prove that the fire was an accident. An American I knew had all his clothes stolen except the suit he was wearing. He went to the police and explained his case, and after a few weeks he got a permit to get some more clothes.

When a man gets a new suit he has to turn in his old suit. These old suits are repaired and are put away for the soldiers when they come home from the war. Germany forgets no details.

The limit of things that a person can buy is rather indefinite, for some people require more clothes than others. Some men get twelve shirts a year, and others get only six. Two woolen suits are allowed and six pairs of stockings.

Since April, 1917, a ticket has been required for shoes, and each person is allowed two pairs of shoes a year. This is really the hardest restriction of the whole war, for the leather is so poor that hardly the best would last six months. Shoes for men are not as bad as the shoes for women, and the soldiers have very good shoes, but when I left Berlin the only kind of shoes that a woman could buy was fancy patent leather with cloth tops, the soles of which were like paper. What the German women are going to do for shoes this winter I do not know. I could not get any shoes at all. In the summer of 1916 I had a pair made for sixty marks, but the next summer they wouldn't make any to order, and I wear so small a size that I could not get any shoes to fit me in Berlin.

When I left for Denmark I was very shabby looking. I had a nice silk suit and a pretty hat, but that was the extent of my wardrobe. The girls in the boarding-house where I lived bought nearly everything I had. They were just wild to buy my things, and I sold what they could wear because I knew I could get more and they could not. It was a pity that I am so small, because they could hardly get into what they bought. The daughter of the boarding-house keeper with whom I lived was going to have her winter suit made out of a portière that she had dyed a nice brown color. She had used up all her tickets and couldn't buy any woolen material. As I was going away I let the girls get tickets in my name. This was very nice of me, for I had to go and get the tickets myself, and I had to wait in line to get them.

The ticket is very hard on girls about to be married, as a German girl must furnish the house and have at least two dozen sets of sheets and pillow cases and about one hundred towels. As one person can get only two sheets a year on the ticket, it would at that rate take a girl twelve years before she could be properly married. So the scheming of getting things without a ticket was as great as the scheming of getting food without a card, and the government cannot prevent it.

A week before I left Berlin, a printed card was hung up in my room at the boarding-house. It said, "After August 1 people coming to this boarding-house for an extended stay must bring their own bedding with them. The washing will be done every four weeks." It was signed "The Boarding-House Union." I was glad that the washing was to be done every four weeks, because I was seven weeks at that boarding-house, and I never once had clean sheets. After three weeks the sheets got a kind of gray color, and then they never seemed to get any dirtier. Special provisions are made at hotels where each guest must be furnished with a clean sheet.

The clothes _Schein_ is especially designed to limit the sale of woolen goods, and many German women who had never worn silk before in their lives are wearing it now, because wool is so expensive. The ticket is very hard on the dry-goods merchants, the tailors and the men's furnishers, and they complain that their business is frightful, but Germany doesn't care for the individuals, she is looking out for the country as a whole.

MY TYPEWRITER.

It is not only clothes that are getting scarce in Germany, but every kind of manufactured articles as well. Many articles of furniture cannot be bought at all now, even second-hand, and the prices for things still in stock are enormous. A German girl I know was going to be married, and she wanted twin brass beds. She tried all over Dresden but could not get two single brass beds alike. She could not even order them, because she was told by the merchants that they were not being made any more. A perfectly plain brass bed, single size, was 390 marks.

All the old stock of manufactured articles, furniture, cooking utensils, goods by the yard, tablecloths, towels and sheets are being bought up by the people, because they say that the new stock which will be manufactured after the war will be of an inferior quality, and it will be years before they can get the good grade of goods again.

Just to illustrate the scarcity of manufactured articles I will tell the story about my typewriter. When I first went to Germany I rented a Smith Premier for three months for thirty marks. Every one said that this was a great bargain. When the three months were over I sent the typewriter firm a check in payment for three months more. I didn't hear anything from them for about a month, when one day a young man called on me and said that he had come for the typewriter, that his firm was not renting typewriters any more, but that I could buy it if I wished, for 390 marks. Reckoning a mark as a quarter as the Germans do, that meant nearly one hundred dollars for a very old rattle-trap typewriter that any one could buy in America for fifteen dollars.

I told the young man that I would not be threatened into buying his typewriter, and that if he took it away he would have to give me back my entire thirty marks even though I had had it a month. We argued for about an hour, and then he went away. The next day I got a letter saying that I could keep the typewriter the remaining two months, but that at the end of that time I must either give it up or buy it. At the end of the two months I sent another check for thirty marks, but the next day a girl messenger dressed as a boy appeared, handed me back my check, took my typewriter under her arm and disappeared. I hoped carrying it would make her good and tired.

I did not want to lay out 400 or 500 marks for a typewriter, and I had an awful time. It was absolutely impossible to rent a typewriter anywhere in Berlin, and I went everywhere. I put an advertisement in the paper and I got only six answers and upon going to all of these six places, I found that at each place the typewriter was a "Mignon," a little toy machine where you had to turn a wheel whenever you struck a letter.

After spending four days hunting, I finally bought a "Pittsburg Visible." I paid sixty-five marks for it, and it wasn't like any typewriter I have seen before--or since. It was very curious to look at--a long, thin affair with very weak prongs that were always getting twisted around each other. It must have been twenty-five or thirty years old. I was always in terror for fear something would happen to it, and whenever we had a guest I yelled, "Be careful and don't bump the typewriter," or "Don't lay your hat on the typewriter." When I first used it, it had the bad habit of getting stuck in the middle of a line, but after I had had it a year, it worked pretty well and I became very much attached to my little "Pittsburg Visible."

During the year I had my typewriter, typewriters became scarcer and dearer than ever, indeed it was impossible to buy any kind of a second-hand visible typewriter, and the new ones were about 600 marks. New correspondents coming over had an awful time and most of them had to borrow typewriters from friends. As most of the typewriters were of American make, it was hard to get a typewriter repaired, as the parts came from America. Ribbons and carbon paper were very expensive, and although typewriter paper doubled its price, it was cheaper than the paper here in America.

At the time I sold my little Pittsburg Visible in June 1917, I was living in a German boarding-house in Berlin. I believe in advertising, so I put an "ad" in the "Lokal-Anzeiger" which read: "For sale--cheap, visible typewriter, Pension Kostermann, Savigny-Platz 5." I thought that it was a very nice "ad" and it cost me one mark ninety pfennigs.

I will never forget the day my "ad" came out. Before I was up at seven A. M. the maid knocked at my door and said that I was wanted at the telephone. It was some one about the typewriter. That was the beginning. The phone rang all day long, and all the next day. People came in droves, and they would not go away even after the typewriter was sold. They wanted to know what kind it was, and they left cursing themselves that they had not come earlier.