The battery has now dwindled to a mere handful – four batteries are amalgamated into one.
Moved quartered again – packed like sardines in a huge bare school-room, with one gigantic heating stove – no tables – no chairs.
Went again to the concert, and enjoyed it. King Lear Overture (Berlioz) – Piano, Poem (Chopin), Symphony (Tschaikowski).
I am now wearing a pair of boots at least two sizes too big, with inches of “no man’s land” between my big toes and their extremities; rather difficult to steer.
An issue of rum has filled the barracks with song and dance.
Got rid of more of our vehicles and harness today – nearer the end, I hope. Attended usual bi-weekly lecture – went to the Opera to find that the programme had been changed and instead of Hauffman, I re-heard what I must take to be Verdi’s masterpiece – the remarkable Aida.
Finished Adam Bede with many regrets at parting with him and his belongings – like the work of most great writers, the book grows upon you as you progress with it.
My day off. Went in the morning to Lindenthal. There a fair-sized lake is frozen over, and skating is in full swing. To me, a novel sight, the gliding inter-volving crowd, dotting intensely the dazzling surface of the ice, all crusted with the powdering from the steel skates. I stayed there for about an hour watching the trickery and turning of the expert, and the graceful appearance which this pastime gives to anyone of reasonable skill and good carriage. Two “flappers” waltzing made a particularly pretty picture, and the bright sweaters of many of the girls gave a welcome touch of colour to the sharp study in black and white.
Die Meistersingers took exactly five and a half hours.
First, I must remark on the astonishing vocal power of the man (one Frederich Schorr) who took the part of Hans Sachs. Throughout this great work his voice, a bass, is in almost constant use, yet at the end one could detect no sign of fatigue. (Footnote: Years later records of his voice became known on gramophones.)
Eva was one of the favourites (Wanda Achsel) – a graceful fair woman, with a pleasing voice, who does not strive for much effect in her acting, but “gets there” all the same.
It did not seem a bit too long – the music beautiful; the setting and acting splendid; it is permeated with a broad strain of cheerfulness, no darkening cloud of tragedy impending, no stupendous terror let loose, but something just as human and as vital, I think – an enlightening insight into folk-life and folk-lore of a nation once great and lovable.
A bit stiff after my long sojourn on the hard seats of the “Gods”, I walked the two miles back in the fresh moonlight, with the slightly exalted sensations of one who has added something to the treasury of the mind.
[Image: Skating at Cologne, 10 February 1919. IWM (Q 3595) Note the exact location of this photograph is unknown, but potentially it could be the lake at Lindenthal which Lincoln refers to]
[Image: Skating at Cologne, 10 February 1919. IWM (Q 3593) Note the scene photographed is not Lindenthal where Lincoln visited, but is in the heart of Cologne, on the Rhine]
[Image: Skating at Cologne, 10 February 1919. IWM (Q 3596)]
All day the Rhine has been chequered from bank to bank with patches of thin, floating ice, scintillating in the sun.
Out riding on a good horse, in charge of a sporty corporal who led us at a gallop, here, there, and everywhere.
Then to the Opernhaus – my Hun was there, and at an exorbitant figure I obtained tickets for both tomorrow and Friday. Then away to find my concert hall. It proved to be a stuccoed and gilded salon in one of the hotels, and there I passed an hour and a half of undiluted pleasure. The programme will reach you with this. The Beethoven Sonata was, of course, superlative. The four Schuman pieces all delightful but the last – the Brahms, Variation and Fugue on a theme of Handel! It growled, it joked, it became hilarious; it danced mazurkas, Maori Haakas; grew curiously inquisitive; insolently provocative; took a serious turn – chanted, sang, marked time, swam, flew, and executed hair-raising aerial experiments; then plunged down, down, into a maelstrom of warring harmonies, from which it leapt to an abrupt and pinnacle conclusion; as though startled to silence by the sudden solution of its own riddle. A plain black Bachstein piano, a less plain girl in a plain black dress, and there you have it. (The revellers have decided to “have a spoonful of honey each and go to bed” – so I shall too).
[Image: Three New Zealand soldiers, foreground, look towards the Hohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine in Cologne, Germany, following World War I. Tram cars are on the bridge. Ice floats on the river. Also shows Cologne Cathedral in the background. Photograph taken January 1919 by Henry Armytage Sanders. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Ref: 1/1-002098-G]
The afternoon consumed by a lecture on land tenure in N.Z. (introducing a series on “Economics” – save the Mark!). Went off after tea (a vile stew, but I mustn’t growl because we had steak for breakfast) to my concert. The Debussy was an intricate tricksome affair, not easy to grasp at one hearing. I enjoyed the Frank Sonata much more; the lady pianist being very brilliant. The Hayden quartet was, to my mind, the pleasantest. You would have been amused by the four instrumentalists, all old, short, and queer-looking, but masterly old geysers. A Digger who had, like me, stayed there, showed me a ticket he had obtained for a piano concert tomorrow. After the concert I obtained one. This will be the third concert hall I have nosed out.
The scene from the bridge tonight was enchanting. A slight mist lent an air of mystery to the glassy river, in which the reflex of the hundred lights on the suspension bridge higher up stream plunged downward like pillars of fire.
[Image: Unidentified New Zealand World War I soldiers in a classroom, Mulheim, Germany, circa March 1919. A graph on the left blackboard is titled ‘Seasonal’. Information on the right blackboard is titled ‘Unemployment’. Photograph taken by Henry Armytage Sanders. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Ref: 1/1-002111-G]
After tea I crossed over into the city and sat out the latter half of that queer Chinese affair – Turnadot.
We are now having the bright cold season. Each morning a red sun rises above the buildings and smoke stacks of Deutz, and each evening ruddily sinks behind the forked apex of the “Dom”. There is no wind. The bare trees stand motionless, firmly outlined against the clear sky.
During our nocturnal prowl on “Town Picquet” we encountered numerous tipsy denizens of the demi monde, male and female, squeaking, giggling, and reeling about. For this they were born, reared, educated, and prepared for life!
I hanker for the throbbing of propellers – single, twin – any old kind: so long as they revolve and push across the intervening brine something that will remain afloat.
“Chum” leaves me tonight. She put up a record performance this morning; shied at nothing, shot out her colossal heels in discouragement of any rear attack, and set out at an elephantine gallop homewards. Dick was shot some time ago – his foot wouldn’t heal. So he swells the unprinted Roll of Honour – worked to death winning the War – a gentle and patient chap throughout.
We have heaps of fuel, the best being a form of briquette.
Supper last night – bits of bred and bacon saved from mess, and cornflour made in a leaky cake tin. Also made some jelly, but upset it on the floor.
9 p.m. To Madame Butterfly, presented with perfect scenery; and long familiarity with the music delightfully reminiscent. Excellent performers, though, by a perversity of chance, they were of gigantic stature, and hardly adaptable to the Japanese toddle.
Now for the criminal side of my career. I obtained entrance by two bribes – 2 m. for a ferret-eyed flunkey, and 1 m. for Madame of the Garderobe. My old Hun informed me he had seen Tanhauser between 200 and 300 times, roaring some of it in my ear.
Last night’s bibulous effects decidedly humorous. One by one the delinquents returned in various stages of liquordom. After assisting same to partially undress and roll up in an assortment of one another’s blankets, I took to my bunk, when the flute-worshipper and his mates returned with the helmet and a large humorous notice with which they decorated one of the unconscious beauties; then went into prolonged ecstasies of laughter, lasting until late into the night. Their victim lay throughout, motionless, stern; like the body of the Duke of Wellington lying in state. Before his final lapse into statuesque coma, the Duke had helped manfully with his “cobber”, whom we skinned of his nether garments, socks and all, as you skin a rabbit. When today he found he had been robbed of all his money and his watch, he simply said “It serves me right”. Things like that show character.
I like my present company, real “hard doers”, who don’t ‘whip the cat’, are loyal, and get fun out of their misfortunes. One (the Duke) I would give much to have provided with a good education. He has a natural gift of fantastic and humours expression. The quaintest analogies suggest themselves to his mind, and his attitude towards the military environment is inimitable. He is now about to “get his razor into trip to do a little chaff-cutting” – his battered looking-glass being “the old range-finder”. His spare donk he has taught to follow him like a big dog, and it is as good as a play to watch him galloping up and down, followed by that frolicsome satellite. A much damaged plate of false teeth, his only valued possession, is a source of endless jocularity. He procrastinates: discussed from every point of view the problem of where and when he should get his hair cut. After harping on the idea for over a week, he entered an elaborate saloon in the city – cast one terrified glance at the rows of bowing and unctuous attendants, and bolted! My eternal gratitude to him, although he did drink most of our bucket of washing water this morning.
Just been out to midnight “hay-up”. The tapering twin towers of that mighty Cathedral probing (dark blue against pale blue) the wintry sky.
Am reading Adam Bede.
Walk March 