[From "Die Männerinsel" pp159/170]

[His dates are not specific but some can be determined from other records, he would appear to be in a group of 600 transferred from Alexandra Palace to Camp IV noted in the daily register under 11th October as arriving at 11.30am on 10th October 1915 comprising 272 Germans, 324 Austrians and 4 of other nationalities. - his allocated camp number is obviously mis-remembered, possibly 22248 would fit.]

The Massive Camp at Knockaloe 1915.

Finally, at about seven o'clock, the steep rocky coast of the 'Man-Island' arose from the waters, we saw the castle of the Dukes of Atholl, the former feudal kings. Giving no warning, the steamer's horn suddenly began to blare out dreadfully; this was the last straw for others and myself, so that we simply flopped over the deck railing, and had to gasp in palpitation almost to the point of becoming unconscious. Swarms of seagulls flew screeching past, very close to our heads. Finally, the ship was lying at the jetty. Volunteers were standing upfront, to bundle out the luggage. For two hours, we were not permitted to leave the ship. Checking and counting off in the pouring rain. Then soldiers as old as time took charge of us, surrounding us and leading us through Douglas (the capital town of the Isle of Man), up to the railway station. The Isle of Man had ceased to be a seaside resort, it had become an island of the imprisoned.

Then there was another railway journey. Once more, each compartment was allocated an armed soldier, then we travelled the full length of the island, out to the west. After an hour, the gigantic camp was already visible in the distance, the splendid goal of a splendid journey! In Peel, a small fishing port, it was a case of: "Out with you!' And the well-known game of 'counting-us-in' turned up again. The heavens wept. Rain crashed down on us in a whistling, raging deluge. Grey, wet gloom was all around us. Only Frida remained indomitable. Once again he had the cloche hat on his head, and shouted out, "God, oh God, what are they getting me into?" But a Tommy knocked the hat off with his bayonet, and kicked it into the mud. "God, oh God", Frida cried out in mock shock, "Oh no, it's these ogres on this disgusting island-place." Everybody laughed dolefully, but the farmer from Canada placed himself close to the Imitator in a shielding position, as the march now set off. Every half-an-hour, the whistle blew for "Halt", [p. 160] at which point between forty and seventy men flanked the roadside ditch, and performed their impression of the water features at Villa d'Este.ⁱ Frida always kept her eyes shut at times such as these. At last we arrived and beheld endless rows of black-tarred wooden huts, which were inhabited by twenty-five thousand civilian internees. Nevertheless, everything looked abandoned. The whole camp was split up into four lesser camps, each divided into seven compounds, and kept separate from the others by a triple layer of barbed wire, house-high and electrically charged. Everything here was on a purely military basis, just as in a prisoner-of-war camp. Each camp was governed by an English subcommandant, each compound, of one thousand men, by a sergeant. The principle of 'isolation' had been applied here to its very greatest extent.

We new arrivals are put in Camp IV, Compound 1. Two of the huts here were already occupied, so we rushed across to the other eight, which were still under construction. A frantic struggle began for the corner seats. Bohltsmann with his Bavarian strength managed to grab one for himself and one for me, then the scuffle continued for palliasses, which, however, smelt of damp seagrass;ⁱⁱ these were thrown down on the free spaces, and each man sat down as though on to well-earned laurel leaves. But there was no time for resting. Trumpet calls rang out, and we had to report to Sergeant Blockhead in order to write — as one would in a fine hotel — one's name into a list, for which one was given a number on tin plate. This number replaced one's actual name. For the future I was: Two thousand, two hundred and forty-eight! If only this label had immediately erased my inner feelings as well, and metamorphosed me!

A huge, cruel-looking sailor, or whatever he is by profession, who had already been long interned in Knockaloe, now gave us the following encouraging words of welcome: "I welcome you to this beautiful place, fellow Fatherlanders, here you're going to see for the first time what war means. And somethin' else as well: [p. 161] we don't have no ranks here. Money don't mean nothin' here. God don't mean nothin'. Them Englanders, they'll soon show you what's what here. Anybody making bother here, gets carted off to the stone quarry, not half! And there's no treats for nobody. Stewed up bones every day. I'll tell you this, though, if there's any U-boats in that Irish Sea, you'll get nothin' to eat, and no post, neither. Do you know who lives in them tents over there? Them's lepers, we buried one of 'em a couple o' days ago. And if there's any of you don't like this-here paradise, and you clears off, there'll be some merry shooting that day, not half! Look at this, my left hand's bin shot off, too, that were when we'd set up an underground tunnel and were crawlin' through it one night, when someb'dy gidd us away. Them Englanders sent that bloke off to a diff'rent camp. And now, if you choose me fer Capt'n, we'll see how things go, I'm on right good terms wi' old Blockhead, I just thought I'd tell you that."ⁱⁱⁱ He watched us with a grin, to see what sort of impression his speech was making on us. In the meantime, it had turned black and foggy again. The lighting was still not working. One of two oil-lamps filled in as substitutes. In my hut there were a lot of Austrian Jews, speaking an awful double-Dutch. Their wet clothes put out a ghastly stink.

We had to have our big luggage poked through again, and I stored my diaries underneath my straw mattress. Finally I had time to think about Rodenhaus once more; where were his quarters? Fortunately I found out that he'd been put in the neighbouring compound. I hurried to the closed wooden gate, and true, he was standing on the other side of the barbed-wire entanglement, and waving. Shouting across is strictly forbidden. I gave the guard two shillings, and he gave us permission. Rodenhaus shouted across: "If we get shoved out on the meadow on Sunday, that's when we can have our first talk." I wrote something on a slip of paper, weighted it with a stone and threw it, but it didn't reach its target. The stone and the paper fell into the dirt. The guard [p. 162] made threats, and after this sad reunion, we left each other.

How did things look now, in the new 'holiday home'? Between the thirty straw-mattresses there's a table for the meals. Acrid clouds of smoke dim out the meagre lighting, but at least they block out the other horrible smells. Where can one get washed? Outside on the ploughed field, there's a pump with three taps for a thousand men. To get to the toilet, which has no roof, you have to find your way across small duckboards, and when you've done that, you'll find forty buckets next to each other with a sitting plank over them. Rain and cold air make sure that nobody stops in there for very long. Older 'guests' in this sanatorium resorted to little stilts to help them on their walk over the ploughed field, when they could no longer bear it in the huts.

Thus everything had been catered for. Human civilised behaviour had triumphed, and once more we could see how marvellously far forward it had brought things in the twentieth century. For the evening meal, we had herrings. Then we played 'My aunt, your aunt',^iv and you saw that money was the main business here; no nightclub would have been ashamed of the takings. All of a sudden, all playing cards had disappeared, banknotes had flown off into pockets; Sergeant Blockhead, armed with a baton, was out on his rounds; he thumped the tables and bellowed out: "Halloo, Halloo, Halloo, where are we? Lights out!" The gambling was over, and everyone crawled, most of them still in their day clothes, back into their straw beds.

How will things turn out, when the life of this place here really does get into your system? How dearly I should like to change souls with one of these more easily-pleased men. But all I can do is become a practical philosopher, go mad, or transform myself intellectually and physically into what people usually call perfection.

*

[p. 163]

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

I have to write by the light of a guttering oil lamp; outside the winds are howling away. Bohltsmann is practising on his violin. Hörns, a twenty-year-old volunteer from London, whom I had got to know more closely on the boat across, possesses the wonderful gift of being able to spread comfort with his air of calm and friendship, I could not have wished for a more pleasant comrade. One, two, three, and he is kitted up with everything you want, and finds the quickest ways to get anything that's not there. He neither moans nor groans, but is always calm and ready to help.

The wake-up trumpet sounds out at six o'clock in the morning. Sergeant Blockhead storms with his baton through the musty huts and pulls the horse blankets off the sleeping men, shouting out all the time "Halloo, halloo, where are we?" With faces ashen-grey with sleep, everybody staggers out shivering into the icy morning air, and moves across the mushy ploughed-up ground to the water pump. — In the assembly hut, the Commandant gave us a rasping speech, which was full of prohibitions and threats. The sharpest punishment was for those who made even the slightest complaint in their letters; he said they would be thrust without the slightest mercy into the stone quarry. Every soldier, he told us, was our superior, whom we had to salute and obey without question; if we didn't, we'd get no meals.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

The November storms and downpours of rain don't look as though they are going to stop. The clay soil has been softened up so much that we sink into it at roll call. As a sign for us to go inside, the sergeant raises his arms three times, and looks like a goose about to take flight. During the day, the palliasses have to be hung up on the hut wall. Hörns has hung ours over the suitcases so that we have a sofa. The [p. 164] food has to be brought in from far distance away, which is also the case with the warm water that we need for the obligatory swilling off of the tin cups and plates afterwards. The smells are horrible. In the afternoons there is a second roll call, which means that all our boots get dirtied up again, and the huts dirtied up with them. And then in the blinking of an eye, there's medical inspection. Wretched human frames came out on view, but the doctor gave everyone the same diagnosis: "Sound as a horse".

I made the acquaintance of Dr. H., a Hungarian, who up to three weeks before had had the privilege of managing the London branch of his father's bank. Since the English had up to that time hoped that Hungary would drop out of the War, if the Russians captured Galicia, they handled prominent Hungarians in a way appropriate to this possibility, but now of course even Laszlò,^v the favourite painter to all the Royal Courts of Europe, has been interned. Dr. H. has good connections to the banker, Sir E. Cassell,^vi and he will make sure that Dr. H. is transferred to the so-called privileged camp in Douglas. Dr. H. says that we, too, should apply to move in there. For the rest, Dr. H., a prior admirer of England, was altogether broken with everything he himself had experienced and heard about in the meantime. How could he have thought it possible that such circumstances as exist here were possible in an old country of culture? He told me that on his last visit, both Sir Ernest Cassell and Sir Frederick Ponsonby,^vii Keeper of the Royal Purse, had assured him: "We are not Huns, who torture helpless prisoners, as is usual, I'm sorry to say, in German civilian prison camps. We were only forced into the internment of civilians as a counter-measure to the suffering of our fellow-countrymen in Germany, but we are making life as easy for them as possible; only a short time ago our members of Parliament convinced themselves of this." Thereupon Dr. H. dictated requests to the subcommandant on behalf [p. 165] of myself, Höörns and Bohltsmann. We gave these to an Austrian, who is the sergeant's right-hand man, together with a handful of cigars, to make sure that Blockhead wouldn't throw these letters into the waste-paper bin. A ten-shilling note, in an open envelope, went with the letter.

Since we have no facilities for taking baths, we wash ourselves in the icy cold wind, in the dark, at the pump, where only one tap gives out any water.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

A week has gone by. We've had no newspapers; the letters that have been distributed are two months old. I read out Schopenhauer's essay on music to Hörns and Bohltsmann. At half-past ten, after waiting for hours at the wire mesh, our compound^viii was led through the squalid wooden alley, which goes through the camp, on to the large meadow. Officers with sabres drawn marched at the head of the column, soldiers to the right and left, and behind us as well. We were not permitted to sing, whistle or to speak loudly: a real funeral procession. Twelve thousand men were propelled in this way out onto the recreation field, it will be the turn of the other thirteen thousand tomorrow. I waited until Compound VI marched in and I could take Rodenhaus by the hand. What a reunion! We set off arm-in-arm, and first of all did not even know what we should talk about. I advised him quickly to apply for Douglas Camp. But already other old acquaintances were approaching from all sides, the discharged Top-Capt'n Bending, who suffers greatly from rheumatism; the student Lemmler; and Riechert, the former Assistant Purser on the Vaterland, who no longer looked by a long chalk as crisp as he used to, and also [p. 166] Herr von Laisz, my cabin mate on the Royal Edward (now sunk), sporting a great big full-beard. Caserta, too, the old sly-boots, hobbled up full of melancholy. All of them complained about the way they were being treated, and about their dismal life. But the whistle was already being blown shrilly for us to come back. — I'll have to stop: at my table, where Skat is being played, gamblers are starting to come to blows.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

When I ran, after roll call, to the mesh gate to greet Rodenhaus, he wasn't there; instead an 'African' shouted across that Rodenhaus he was ill with terrible stomach pains. I spent the whole morning talking to Hörns about who could be bribed to take a letter over to him. But everything failed. So I sat worried on a camp chair, next to the 'clock', which consists of two pieces of railway track, against which a soldier bangs a hammer, to tell us what hour has arrived. Looking out from this position, you can the north coast of Ireland across the sea. In the evening, I got a strange letter from Rodenhaus, in which he asked me not to persuade him to apply for Douglas; our ideologies were not the same, that he had become sure. Hörns and Bohltsmann thought the letter had been written under influence of the Missionaries. It's enough to drive me crazy.

I can hear funeral music: everyone is coming out of the huts, a coffin is being carried from the 'hospital', which is a miserable shed with broken windows. Death has released a sick prisoner, who will now be buried in foreign soil. The sound of Chopin's funeral march, performed by four men on wind instruments, was ghastly.

*

[p. 167]

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man. November 1915"

Watched over in loyal care by Hörns, and visited by Dr. H., I have spent two nights and one day on my palliasse, suffering with violent headaches; the first indications of rheumatism were also coming into my neck and shoulders. And all this other disturbance into the bargain: sweeping out, ventilating, eating, washing up, arguments at cards, surveillance by the sergeant, who shouted at me: "Hospital case or quarry?", and as well as that, no chemist's shop or canteen to get anything from. The putrid air.

My first visit was to Rodenhaus. Hörns has found a factotum for me; he's a young cowboy rider, who was in films in Canada. He wears an armband, which has 'Camp Police' written on it, and he has a pass for all camps. The soldiers call him 'Scotty'. For large sums of money, he sees to all errands; he's in clover here. He takes letters, uncensored, into Peel to soldiers' wives, who send them on further, and he sells eggs, at sixpence each. Scotty was persuaded to bribe the sentries, in order to get me let into Camp VI, to meet up with Rodenhaus. Ten shillings was needed for this. The Golden Ass,^ix which clambers over every wall, is as immortal as Pegasus.^x I found Rodenhaus in his hut, looking wretched, having a conversation with Zeil, the Missionary. That's the chap who's scheming and plotting against me, and he began immediately to pull Schopenhauer to pieces, this dwarf against a giant, but rats are also thought to have eaten away the statue of Serapis in Alexandria.^xi I did not stay long under these circumstances. Sailors wanted a cigarette off me. I asked: "How on earth did you get here?" "We joined in with the fighting in Kiautschou; the Japanese took us prisoner, but soon released us. On the journey home, we fell into the hands of Englishmen." With my last cigarettes, I bailed myself out and went right back to my camp. Dr. H., wrapped in a silk dressing gown, with a green turban [p. 168] on his head, was smoking a long Turkish chibouk. He looked very odd indeed, amid these woeful surroundings; moreover he spoke about every possible personality you can think of in London society, some of whom I also knew: Lady Diana Manners, Miss Evelyn Trifusis, Countess Zanardi-Landi, who he said was a legitimate daughter of Franz Joseph of Austria and Empress Elizabeth. But perhaps Ludwig II of Bavaria had been the father. He spoke as though he were at a cocktail-party. An orchid in a vegetable plot.

In any case, he continued, the Empress gave birth to the child in 1880, secretly, in a castle in Normandy, and, in order to have it brought up naturally and far away from the Court, she entrusted it, until it came of age, to a middle-class family by the name of Kaiser. As proof of identity, he said, the family had at the same time also been given the carbuncle stone which every grand-duchess receives. She was just about to be introduced officially to the Court, when her mother was murdered. Prince Montenuovo then took the matter in hand, and quickly married off the disclaimed archduchess to a high royal official. Completely in accordance with the wish made on high, this official dissipated his wife's inherited fortune, and then left her. When she had become penniless, and therefore harmless, the Queen of Naples had given her money, with which she travelled to America, where she opened a small sweet-shop in Seattle, in order to support herself and her two children. There she made the acquaintance of Count Zanardi-Landi, and married him. She returned to Europe, and was now in a position to begin litigation against Emperor Franz Joseph. A large sum in settlement was offered, but refused. The memoirs of what happened to her were confiscated from her in Austria and Italy. Now, he told us, she was living in London in top-class society, and hoped that after the War was over, she would gain redress.^xii Dr. H. further vouched [p. 169] for the fact that mother and daughter of Empress Elizabeth were as facially alike as two peas in a pod; while her son was deceptively similar to Ludwig II in his younger years.

I had to tie two cans of preserves under my boots and paper round my trousers, to get to the 'Dardanelles', as the lavatory here is known. In the evening, the professional gamblers opened up their tables once more, and played Faro. The pound-notes^xiii and ten-shilling notes flew backwards and forwards like this, but every now and again patrols of guards came along, destroyed things: part and parcel of the game. I myself risked shilling, and promptly lost it.

Just now a new guest has arrived and introduced himself as Herr Ur…, and brother-in-law of Dr. Liebknecht,^xiv the infamous Reichstag Representative. He had been caught in Douglas Camp playing Hasard,^xv and dispatched in punishment straightaway to Knockaloe without being allowed to take his toothbrush — that was the height of moral duty, don't you think? I simply can't carry on with my writing: without the slightest embarrassment, the men just read what I enter in; and on top of that, there's creaking and groaning from the saw of Herr Isaak Klein, the Egyptian-cotton dealer, who is now wood-working away at dolls' furniture for his children in Cairo. I shall prefer to go with Hörns to the lecture by Professor Moll, who's going to speak on his experiences in Central Africa.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

Sergeant Blockhead has been using a hefty baton again to get the men out of bed; when he was just about to tear my horse-blanket off me too, I wouldn't let him, and he threatened me with the stone quarry. I read in the Times that another spy has been shot in the Tower of London, the name [p. 170] was not given…^xvi The rumour is going around that on the fifteenth of November, all prisoners will be going to Holland. I was in extremely high spirits. Professor Moll, who is also Entertainments Commissioner, gave me a pass to the boxing matches that were being put on in Camp VIII. The huts were full to bursting, clouds of smoke swirled around the lamps, a wind orchestra was howling away. Following all the rules of their art, six pairs of boxers beat themselves bloody, one fell over the ropes of the platform directly into the lap of the subcommandant. Gales of laughter, of course.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

The sun was shining a bit today, so hut-to-hut washing was hung out to dry. That's how, I thought to myself, the gold prospectors' huts in the Klondike must have looked. Schleuzer, a former cavalry officer, who had fallen from his horse and received a bang to his brain, has become completely mad; he jostled the subcommandant at the parade, who gave him a blow with his whip, and then had him tied up and taken away. Incidentally, we are now free of Sergeant Blockhead; he was found yesterday, lying completely drunk in the mud, and was immediately relieved of his post. His successor is more mannerly; he gave me a new number straightaway, because I had lost the first tin-plate number, and for this reason could not collect any money, any post, or anything else.

King George V has had an embarrassing accident, where he fell from his horse in France, in full sight of the assembled military review; he was transported back, wounded, to England.^xvii

When we were let out on to the big meadow today, thousands of seagulls, screeching and flapping, rose up into the air, causing a draft, and blacking out the sun. [p. 171] Rodenhaus was his old self again, but we avoided every religious topic. The air was so transparent and lucid that you could clearly see the Irish and the Scottish coast as if through a prism. Then we turned our attention to a football match, in which the players got spattered from head to toe in mud. When we came back, we found a new regulation waiting for us. Tally boards were nailed to all huts, and everyone had to have hung his number up on them by five o'clock. Only when all of the one thousand men had done this, will there be tea! This one and that one was of course missing at the required time, and two roll calls were carried out, then, at half-past nine, a third one. Making life as uncomfortable as possible for people has in this place been raised into an art form.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

Early this morning I made the acquaintance of an interesting elderly gentleman who is Capt'n of Hut 1, where the so-called 'Elite' reside. He was the husband of a rich Englishwoman, owner of a villa, built by Inigo Jones, and of a painting and art collection, and is said to be persona grata with the subcommandant, and has a passe-partout. I had a word with Herr von Beyerheim, as to whether we might be able to get away soon from this place. He invited me to supper, which was also attended by a Count Z. and Professor Werdow. It was prettily laid out, and a student by the name of Kosel from Berlin served the meal, which he himself had prepared.

After Count Z. had expatiated on the cult of the belly-button in India, we got round to talking about the state of the War, of which Herr von Beyerheim was a very pessimistic judge, [p. 172] which greatly depressed my mood. We all then went to the entertainments hut, where a 'colourful evening'^xviii of mixed acts turned us to other thoughts. Herr Spiro sang 'Handsome Max of Funkelstein',^xix Kaiser, the artist, showed himself to be an all-round virtuoso, which as such he had already appeared in all the great variety theatres of the world, where he played both the double-bass and the midget violin. 'Frida' sang the 'Kiss-Song' from Kálmán's The Gay Hussars and "I was a good little girl, till I met you".^xx Band Master Heber conducted La Source, Ballet music by Delibes. Because of a cloud burst with showers of hail, we had to go back home over the ploughed field, and almost fell over.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

We found out today whose the recent burial was. It was a young married man, who was already very ill when he was interned. They didn't want to transfer him to the German Hospital in London. Finally his wife, who is expecting a child, got permission for a thirty-minute visit. In the meantime, the man died. Yesterday his wife arrived in Knockaloe, after a stormy crossing, not knowing that she had become a widow, because when she showed her 'permit' on arrival, she was told: "Is there something else that you wanted, your husband has already been buried." The poor, wretched woman, who had gone mad, was carted off early today on the transport. — But what are we supposed to think, when the Times printed the following notice from a German newspaper under the heading of "Champagne for Civilian Internees": "Last week a Berlin Society lady was given six weeks' imprisonment for having put on nightime champagne-drinking bouts in her flat for various English civilian internees [p. 173] who were on temporary transfer from Ruhleben Camp to a sanatorium. The English prisoners had got away from the sanatorium at night, only to return there from their high jinks in the early morning."

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

Little iron stoves have been placed in every hut. They are intended to be heated by wood, which we have to chop up ourselves, but since there is no shed for keeping things dry, what are we supposed to do with wet firewood? It is just about the time for wood, now that we've reached the beginning of November. The windows are so leaky, some panes are even missing, with the result that last night the storm the lashed rain on to my bed, and I was almost frozen to death underneath my damp horse-blanket.

The American Embassy, which was supposed to be set to administer German interests, is, however, being informed, according to London, from C-in-C Internment Camp Command, that: "The civilian internees are being well treated; they are receiving ample food, they have central heating, and electric light. To keep them occupied and entertained, we (?) have laid out sports areas for them and encouraged theatrical and orchestral societies to be established. All this is happening in agreement with our humane principles, which are that the prisoners, although enemy aliens, must be treated by us as 'guests of the nation'."

This report will find its way to the German Foreign Office in Berlin — and be put away with a sigh of contentment into their files. But I have to point out time and time again in my diary that time and time again that the German Government allowed itself to become guilty of a sin of omission, when following the outbreak of war, [p. 174] it gave the rich and therefore influential Englishmen every opportunity to make a bolt from Germany, whereas England even before the outbreak of war was permitting no one to leave the British Isles. Now, while a few thousand (?) impecunious and therefore unimportant Englishmen remain captives in Ruhleben, here by contrast some sixty thousand men, from fisherman's boys and dock workers to millionaires and plantation owners, who have been gathered together from all corners of the world, remain the victims of despotic political action. Nor is the deplorable failure German representation abroad, in peace and war, any more to be forgotten, so that at some future day it can be improved (?). All countries of the world have been having the same bad experiences of these German high-government departments. If a German needed help from one of these "representatives" of his homeland, and if he was unable to produce any identity papers, then the representatives turned him brusquely away, and he mostly found the help he was seeking much more freely and willingly available from the English or the American Consul. My own experiences are in accord with this. The General Consuls in London and Manchester have certainly failed in their duty. The letter which I received from the German Ambassador in Madrid is incomprehensible.^xxi Thus the general exasperation of all German nationals living abroad, especially that of those from the German colonies, who like stepchildren were left in the lurch by their Fatherland, is only too justified. Herr Ur…, Liebknecht's brother-in-law thinks this War will bring about a great cleansing at home.

Otherwise I have also experienced a surprise from a different quarter, and one which I want record for myself in writing. I received a reply from Boston to my letter to my cousin, Grace Roosevelt,^xxii the daughter-in-law of the former American president.^xxiii Her brother Dunbar St. John Lockwood [p. 175] wrote these exact words: "We cannot comprehend that a member of our old family could so much deny his Scottish blood that he has not risen up against the destroyers of Rheims Cathedral, or against the villains who sank the Lusitania and the Arabia…"^xxiv What frame of mind is apparent from this impertinence? Is America neutral or not? What's happening over there? Dr. H. knew that Mr. Schwab, the successor of Carnegie in the Bethlehem Steel Works, said that he had had a conversation with Kitchener about vast amounts of munitions supplied to the Entente Powers.

In the meantime, Nisch,^xxv the old capital of Serbia and the birthplace of Constantine the Great, has fallen, King Peter with the Bloody Crown^xxvi has retreated on horseback into the [Albanian] mountains.

This was the first time in the last six months that I've been alone with a person. Herr von Beyerheim has divided up his room with big sheets, so that you could be on your own, and this pleasant feeling brought me to realise just how much we have already come to being used to going without.

*

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

Last night I had a wonderfully clear dream image. I saw Alberta, Rodenhaus and myself on a white sailing yacht, which glided along silently on a calm sea under the stars in heaven, the moon went down, and the sun in radiance rose over Sicily. I woke up and continued to experience the dream further in my thoughts. Neither the noisy snoring around me nor the squeaking of the window shutters in the wind [p. 176] disturbed me. In the end I drew out my diary from beneath the mattress, found a pencil in my coat pocket, and dream and thoughts consolidated themselves into verses, which I scribbled down in the dark on to paper, and which not until this morning I was able to read, elaborate, and then recite to Hörns; he thought it was by Schiller.

"Let reality disappear,
Which is a slave to the law of gravity,
It shall not bind us in fetters,
Let us live, where it is worthwhile.
See, there sways the galley,
Which brings us to Utopia,
Where fairest Kytherea
Beckons us sweetly to land.

Zephyr gently swells our sails,
Phantasy grasps the lyre,
Sings of a more beautiful world.
Already sinks on the horizon
The rocky shore of the day-to-day world,
Which took, could give nothing,
Retains mortal things…

Through the stars' night glimmering
Glides Luna's silver barge;
Let us follow the glimmer
On the sea's purple path.
The Nereids too harken to
The Tritons' melody
Of love, of peace,
Of the harmony of the spheres! —
Thus the ship furrows through the waves,
Played beauteously round by dolphins.

Drawn through night of wonders,
The world shows her true portrait. —

[p. 177]

Heaven, Earth, Sea lie
Like ghosts in the twilight.
The faces of the stars grow pale
In the incorporeal void.

Only a breeze brings us news,
That Hemeria^xxvii now awakes,
That the holy hour now draws nigh
Which makes creation visible.

An unending lovely blossoming,
In the distance on the rim of the world
Rosy scatterings and incandescence,
Which gently illuminates the sky.

There, transfigured by gossamer-fine weaving,
Cloudlets floating before her,
Aurora^xxviii brings new life,
Heralds her brother.

Golden lances travel flashing
Up high on the canopy of heaven,
Glows bubble, flames dance,
Nature holds its breath.

Brilliant on the sun-chariot,
Drawn by the sacred steeds,
Helios is borne up on high,
Choirs of joy welcome him.

Before us, bathed in light, lies
Elysium^xxix our goal,
Which invites only such children in,
As see in life a game.

However, the Island of Bliss remains unreachable,
To all those who, eternally deaf to reason
Wish to swing up on the wheel of time."

*

[p. 178

"Knockaloe, Isle of Man, November 1915"

Herr von Beyerheim asked me whether I would like to have my portrait painted by one Herr von Ramenz for the latter's gallery. It was so cold at the sitting that I kept my winter overcoat on. The artist with his wild red beard has the appearance, however, of a gentle street-barricader or a Nazarene^xxx of the last century; he places his feet at right angles, screws up his eyes and bends his body backwards and forwards like a long, thin pole, whenever he takes stock of a new stroke of the brush. Herr von Beyerheim by contrast with his long drawn-out features, his eyes of steely grey, smart grey-flecked beard and guarded gestures, was a man of the world, who confronts every situation with the demeanour of a superior, without making others feel uncomfortable. He used to be a lieutenant in the Chevauxlegers.^xxxi During the sitting he also related the following anecdote concerning the Empress Frederick,^xxxii which he himself had heard from Lenbach.^xxxiii Firstly, this lady regularly forgot to pay for pictures she had commissioned, around thirty Lenbachs are still lying in crates at Cronberg Castle.^xxxiv Just as Lenbach was unpacking a splendid Etruscan vase, which he had acquired for twenty thousand marks, he saw the Empress driving up in her carriage. As quickly as he could, he tried to save the vase by hiding it; too late, the Empress entered his atelier. To see the vase and the ask him to present it to her, were one and the same thing. As her gift in return, she promised to send Lenbach a wonderful Old Master. She took the vase back with her into her carriage, and she was gone like a beautiful dream. Months later the gift in return arrived, "an old piece of trash, of which I kept only the frame, the copy of an Italian work, value one hundred and fifty marks."

I had a pass, and visited Rodenhaus: he, too, had had a dream, in which he proposed marriage to Elisabeth Breuer in Stuttgart: she, however, had answered him coolly: [p. 179] "Let us wait a while." He considers that to be an evil omen. Armed with a cheese, which he had given to me, I went back into my quarters.

*

"November 1915"

Last day in Knockaloe! Our applications had arrived, Herr von Beyerheim had pushed it through. Now we had to pack once more, Hörns, Bohltsmann, and Dr. H. coming with us. I made farewell visits to Bending and Lemmler, then to Rodenhaus, to whom I gave a silver vesta case as a memento. We both understood each other. I told him that here in Knockaloe I would deteriorate, slowly but surely, in body and mind, and that, because I belonged to those who don't take life lightly, I had to pay at least some attention to my exterior needs. It would serve nobody well, I argued, if I increased the number of the malcontents here. As soon as I had set myself up in the new camp, I hoped that he would follow me there. I was so very much upset, and that is why we shook hands in farewell at the mesh gate.^xxxv

xxxv Dunbar-von Kalckreuth adds the note in German (p.179, fn.1) 'they never saw each other again'.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor © G Newton , 2019