We had forgotten our ration cards and the only nourishment we could get was oysters and liquor. We had oysters and Moselle wine for breakfast, oysters and wine for lunch, hot brandy or rum drinks to warm up in the afternoon. Supper did not matter, because by then we were so tipsy that we did not want to eat.
From Berlin we went on to Dresden, then returned to Vienna, both of us with a contract. Berthold had signed for three years with the Royal Saxonian Theater, provided he could be reclaimed by September 1918. (How unperturbed the monarchies still were and how unaware of the approaching debacle!) My contract was with the Kammerspiele in Munich. From the career point of view nothing better could have happened to us, but alas, Munich and Dresden were quite a distance apart.
My mother arrived in April, happy and excited. She had brought the complete wedding dinner from Wychylowka: ham cured and cooked by Niania, roast turkey, bread, butter and a small wedding cake. She was staying at Esther Mandl’s and the “reception” was to take place there. We all looked forward to the dinner which in itself made the marriage worthwhile.
A cab drawn by a white horse took us to the Seitenstaedter Temple. I sat between Mama and Edward, holding both their hands. “It’s lucky,” said Mama. “A white horse is very lucky.” We passed a chimney sweep with a ladder on his shoulder; this again meant good luck.
At the entrance to the synagogue, Berthold, his parents, his sister Paula, Dr. Mandl and Esther waited for us, with Poldi, Esther’s faithful housekeeper. Dissolving in tears she gave me good advice: “Step first on the rug in front of the altar” (she was a Catholic), “then you will always have the upperhand.”
Berthold and I stepped together on the rug. We were both awed and moved. The rabbi told Berthold to slip the ring on my finger and repeat the vows after him, which Berthold solemnly did. The Jewish bride is only permitted to say “yes.”
13
THE WINDOW WAS OPEN and the sweet fragrance of lilies of the valley filled our room. They stood in huge bunches on the table, the cabinets and even the floor. The room had a pale green ceiling and green walls and it was like waking up in a flower bed. Close to me Berthold was sound asleep. I was overcome by an enormous tenderness. I wanted a son who would have his dark eyes and the same thick, black lashes.
In Prague we moved into a room his sister Helene rented for us in the same house where she and her husband Willi Bruekner lived. From there our existence in furnished rooms, furnished apartments and furnished houses was launched. For many years to come, we would have to cope with other people’s ugly furniture, pretentious, middle class and mostly covered with dust sheets by the cautious owners. It depended on our financial condition whether I would muster up the courage to remove the dust sheets. The room in Prague had the advantage of proletarian simplicity, and was easy to keep clean, but to live in it with Berthold was like being in a place hit by a cyclone. I cooked breakfast on a small alcohol burner, the other meals we shared with Helene and Willi, who had a maid. Willi was a tenor under contract to the Stadtopera.
Helene was in the last months of pregnancy and her daily campaign to feed us was truly heroic. As the debacle of the Hapsburg monarchy became inevitable, the Czech antagonism against the German-speaking population of Prague was openly displayed. Their fertile country provided the Czechs with more produce than other lands of the monarchy, but they refused to sell to German-speaking people. Sometimes by addressing them in Polish, I succeeded in being waited on in the foodshops.
In June cherries appeared on the market in great abundance and though they did not appease our hunger, they enhanced the charm of the beautiful city. When I think of Prague, which I have not seen since, I see the stands bulging with baskets of cherries, their rich red against the old, gray, stone palaces and the green of the Hradchin.
As Berthold had to review the premières at the Stadt Theater all the actors were extremely friendly to us. But our greatest pleasure was in going to the opera, which under Alexander von Zemlinsky (Schoenberg’s brother-in-law) was of a remarkable excellence. The second conductor and the choir director were Dr. Heinrich Jalowetz and Anton von Webern, both Schoenberg’s pupils and close friends of Edward’s. We spent many evenings with them and their wives, talking about the war, the Russian Revolution and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the constant, most absorbing topic was where and how to get food. We were always hungry. The Weberns and Jalowetzes had small children and I remember Webern staring at sausages and a single can of sardines in the window of a foodstore, inaccessible to him because of the price and his ignorance of the Czech language.
Max Brod, Franz Kafka and a witty Viennese journalist, Anton Kuh, came sometimes for supper. I remember that once the main dish was spinach and that I could not grasp the witticisms of Anton Kuh, who made political jokes about it. Kafka was tall, dark and handsome. Although we saw him quite often, mostly at Max Brod’s house, I was too awed and too shy to talk to him. He was very quiet. It was hard to believe that he had tuberculosis, he looked so brown and healthy.
In July we traveled to Wychylowka. It had been a rainy summer and the meadows near the Dnjester were flooded. A gypsy camp was marooned very close to our field and the caravans stuck deeply in the muddy water. Berthold and I went to take a look at the gypsies and see if we could help. There was a mother with a sick child who aroused our sympathy and we spent more time than was good near her wagon. A few days later Berthold had a high temperature and the doctor said he had caught scarlet fever from the gypsy. He was quarantined in our room and I took care of him. I have never known anybody as indifferent to physical pain. It was in direct contradiction to his extraordinary sensitiveness, his acuteness to the slightest nuances in people’s attitudes. Even though running a high temperature, he would dictate essays and articles and poems to me. I loved our total seclusion, although when the quarantine was over the greater part of our vacation was gone.
The weather had improved and we watched little Viktoria, now eighteen months old, toddling around in the garden when my father was in his office. Her incognito presence in the laundry room continued. Loginoff was still taking loving care of her, but was restless and worried about his legitimate family in Russia. Marynia knew that he would leave as soon as war prisoners were exchanged. He said he would come back after he had reassured himself about his wife and children. But while the fighting continued he could not think of going, and I am sure Marynia wished that the war with Russia would go on for ever.
Shortly before our departure, Papa came home after an unpleasant session with the magistrate and, worn out, ordered his supper brought to his bed. Niania asked me to take it to him. The simple meal contained the first corn on the cob from our garden. The door to the bedroom stood open and Papa was in bed, reading. When I came in with the tray, he looked over his glasses, his eyes fixed on something behind me. I turned my head and saw Viktoria standing in the door, her thumb in her mouth, staring attentively at my father. They had both the same scrutinizing expression. I put the tray down and waited for the thunderstorm.
Silently my father beckoned to the child and, sucking her thumb, she approached fearlessly. He motioned her to come closer and immediately she took the thumb out of her mouth and climbed on the bed, encouragingly pointing to his tray. My father began to loosen the kernels from the corncob and offered them to her on his palm. Like a bird she picked them up with her mouth; then both smiled at each other. I left them alone, not wanting to intrude upon the beginning of a great love. It lasted until my father’s death.
None of us ever found out whether Papa had known the truth all the time. Loginoff went back to Russia, Marynia married a widower, but Viktoria remained a member of our family, spoiled by Papa as he had spoiled Dusko and later his grandchildren. Nothing could melt this severe, aloof man as easily as a child’s hand reaching out for his.
Berthold accompanied me to Munich and after a few lovely, but much too short days, he left for Dresden. The season started with rehearsals for an Andreyev play of whic
h I only remember that I was a Russian student and had to play a guitar and sing.
The war seemed endless; the cold and hunger had become unbearable, and I wondered how long people would stand it.
In the first week of November my sister Rose, who was in a play in Nuremberg, had a few days free and came to visit me. In the evening the “extras” appeared with headlines that the sailors in Luebeck, Bremen and Cuxhaven had revolted. They were converging on Berlin in crowded trains to overthrow the Kaiser’s government.
Rose and I wanted to see what was happening in the streets. We were nearing the Heldenplatz when we met thousands of people marching, among them soldiers and sailors, obviously just back from the front. They were singing the Internationale. Detachments of police appeared, and everybody was running and shouting. There were some shots and people ducked into side streets and doorways. We started to run. A man called to us to go home, as there would be more shooting.
The theater had closed, the telephone was cut off, I could not call Berthold, and my sister and I sat hungry and desperate in my cold room. Next day, after some street fighting, all the public buildings were occupied by the revolutionaries. The Regent had abdicated and Kurt Eisner proclaimed the Republic of Bavaria. He had been put in prison for his pacifism and had broken with his party, the Social Democrats, when they voted the war funds. He became Prime Minister three days later when the Armistice was declared. In defeated Germany the bells did not ring and though relieved, people did not rejoice.
At last I had a letter from Berthold. The revolution had taken place more sedately in the Saxonian capital than in Berlin and Munich. The King made his famous pronouncement: “Macht Euch Euren Dreck alleene” (something like: “Now you take care of your own filth”), and left. Count Seebach resigned and a collective of five: three actors, one director (Berthold) and the dramaturg, Dr. Karl Wolff, took over the Schauspielhaus. The three actors were old, prominent Hofschauspieler, much bewildered to say the least, at having to head a revolutionary regime. But Berthold and Dr. Wolff steered the theater on an artistic course, for which it was soon to become renowned.
Meanwhile in Munich the Rate (soviets) of soldiers, workers and artists were formed. In all the theaters the actors organized, to fight for the long overdue reforms of their standard contract, and the Genossenschaft (Actors’ Equity) came into existence. Each theater sent its representative to discuss the new constitution at a general meeting. The ensemble of the Kammerspiele elected the young, fiery Erwin Faber, me, and another actor, whose name I don’t remember. Besides playing Paulina in Winter’s Tale and rehearsing the evil Queen in Strindberg’s Snow-white, I attended meetings and reported everything in long letters to Berthold.
I was busy and hungry and expected to be cold and lonely at Christmas, but Berthold surprised me by suddenly arriving and I was beside myself with joy. For two months we had not even been able to telephone—it was incredible to be together again! However our happiness was dampened by my falling ill with the Spanish flu. I almost died, as starvation had weakened my resistance. Desperate, Berthold went to look for some food which would sustain my failing strength. A colleague told him that one could still buy a piece of meat at the truckdrivers’ canteens. He returned home triumphantly with a big chunk of roast goose wrapped in greasy newspaper. We ate it with our fingers, right out of the paper, and I am sure it saved my life.
One morning the bell rang and opening the door I recognized Rainer Maria Rilke, who silently handed me a letter, then quickly turned and ran away. The letter, on blue stationery, expressed the hope that Berthold and I would be able to come for tea the next afternoon. I was baffled by why he was so mysterious about handing it to me. Berthold thought that Rilke had not expected me to open the door myself. I never found out, as I did not mention it when we went to see him. He was extremely correct in his manners, charming and gentlemanly, showing great warmth toward Berthold. He talked a great deal about his visit to Tolstoy. He had been so awed by the old giant, that he did not dare to lift his eyes to his face, and when they took a long walk together, he looked only at the big hand with the bluish veins, which Tolstoy kept stuck into his belt.
The separations from Berthold were now harder to bear. I could not visit him in Dresden, because I was playing every night. Meanwhile Kurt Eisner’s government was fighting for its existence. The general misery and starvation had increased. In Berlin the “Spartakists,” Karl Liebknecht’s and Rosa Luxemburg’s socialist party, were gaining power. The returning soldiers multiplied the ranks of the unemployed. A letter from Mama, which took months to reach me, said that Dusko had come back from the Italian Front and was now in the Polish army. Loginoff had left; masses of people were dying from the Spanish flu and the war in Poland went on endlessly.
In Munich the actors’ meetings were bitter and acrimonious. I participated in the discussion about a new Equity contract. The old one had, among other obsolete articles, an atrocious paragraph granting the director the right to dismiss immediately, without financial compensation, any actor who had tuberculosis or syphilis. In the case of tuberculosis all my colleagues agreed that it should be treated like any other affliction, with a paid leave for so-and-so many weeks, etc., etc., but syphilis was a disgraceful sickness, acquired from an immoral life and therefore not deserving any benefits. I had so far refrained from making any speeches, but this time I got up. It was the first and only speech I ever made at a public gathering, but it made an impression and immediately labeled me a Bolshevik, although I only said that syphilis was a sickness like any other, that the war had increased its danger of spreading, that it happened in the best families (the Brieux play had made me an expert on that topic). There were interruptions and heckling. Faber tried to support me but the chairman closed the meeting before the vote.
The New Year began with the threat of civil war and Friedrich Ebert, the President of the new German Republic, appointed Gustav Noske, a Social Democrat, as minister of the Reichswehr. Noske recruited his soldiers from the hungry, jobless masses and put them under the command of the former officers of the Imperial Army. They did not hesitate to shoot at the demonstrating workers.
Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered in the Hotel Eden by officers of the Guards. Shortly afterward Kurt Eisner was assassinated. As I feared to be cut off from Berthold by political events, and was expecting a child, I begged Director Falkenberg to release me from my commitment. He admitted a force majeure and kindly let me go.
14
IN DRESDEN I felt as though we were among a hostile tribe, in the alien world of Hoftheater employees, who mourned the disappearance of their king and the representatives of the Saxonian society, who sat in their boxes, the men with their Iron Crosses, the ladies with bird’s nest chignons, fans and long fur pieces around their necks.
We lived in a hotel near the theater, expensive and uncomfortable and full of demobilized officers, aggressively and noisily expressing their anti-revolutionary sentiments. At night, when they were passing our door, they woke us by their drunken shouting and anti-semitic remarks, and I was in constant fear that Berthold would rush out and get into a fight.
But the theater was marvelous, equipped with the most modern devices. The lighting had been installed by a technical genius who could realize the most capricious directorial dreams. Berthold’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Walter Hasenclever’s Jenseits (The Beyond) achieved sensational effects. Many expressionistic plays, which had flopped elsewhere, had a surprising success in Dresden. Berthold was accused of propagating the “expressionistic style,” but his style was his own and his great contribution to contemporary theater was to strengthen the play dramaturgically and to make it lucid where the author seemed vague. The Dresden Schauspielhaus became as vital and interesting as the best Berlin theaters, and critics from all the big German cities came to see performances of the new plays. The impact of Berthold’s personality was undeniable and the new leadership was proud of their “revolutionary” achievements.<
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We lived quite alone and had only a few friends: a young actress, Olga Fuchs, whose kindness, warmth and practical advice helped me in the difficulties of daily life and Paul Wiecke, who regretted that he could not keep me in Dresden, as the constitution of the State Theaters forbade the employment of husband and wife. I had signed with the Volksbuehne in Leipzig, one of the new “People’s Theaters” which had mushroomed after the revolution. They were financed by the Workers’ Union and subscriptions. The Volksbuehne in Leipzig was an enormous theater, seating two thousand people. It also had a smaller auditorium for intimate plays and there I had played Strindberg’s Father with Paul Wegener. Although my child was due in two months I had joined him in a short, very successful tour.
One day Berthold and I ran into Oscar Kokoschka, who invited us to lunch. Entering his studio I noticed a blond woman reclining on the couch, which in my short-sightedness I believed to be another guest, but which was a life-sized doll, the replica of a lady he had been in love with, and which always traveled with him. We ignored her presence and had a wonderful meal with a fascinating host.
The summer came and we were anxious to leave the city. I was at the beginning of my seventh month and before then we had to find a place to live. But at the very sight of me the landladies slammed the door with a horrified: “Oh, no, we don’t want any babies here.” The writer Camil Hoffmann and his family lived in Hellerau—an artist colony on the outskirts of Dresden—and suggested that we move there. The Greek buildings, which the wealthy brothers Wolf and Harold Dohrn had built for Jacques Dalcroze—father of eurhythmics, whom the war had forced to leave Germany—stood empty. There was a theater in which Dalcroze dancing and Paul Claudel plays had been staged, and spacious houses for Dalcroze’s numerous pupils.
The Kindness of Strangers Page 13