[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

PROLOGUE

The weather was very lovely in Paris in the month of June 1914, and Parisians spent their night in open-air places such as Lunapark and Magic City, amusement parks which were then at the height of their glory. Included amongst Parisians were, of course, people from every corner of the universe who had made Paris their home and who had long forgotten that they possessed any nationality except the Parisian. They formed a world of their own, a cosmopolitan society composed of Russian, Austrian, Spanish aristocrats, many Sough Americans and few North Americans, artists, writers, musicians of all nationalities and a good many stray French. There were even some English, though the majority of the English living in Paris formed a colony of their own. That curious world stretching from slightly soiled royalty to slightly camouflaged adventurers has been very well described in a book called Trains de luxe, by Abel Hermant, who was at that time brilliantly amusing and is now deAcademie francaise. It was distinguished from after-war cosmopolitan sets by the fact that it did not worship money and its possessors, but amusement. It had no prejudices and admitted anyone who was clever, good-looking, entertaining or in any way remarkable, but not people who were dull or vulgar and happened to be millionaires. Nor did it care for people because they had magnificent titles, little as most of those of magnificent titles would have cared to belong to it. It was vaguely aware of living on a volcano, but it hated to be reminded of its existence ; it had in fact much of the charm which belongs to something about to pass, it was a new edition of the 18me before the Grande Revolution. The catastrophe it sometimes apprehended would probably be due to similar revolutions, likely to begin in Russia and to spread all over the continent. It certainly did not apprehend a European war ; that idea seemed absolutely preposterous to the people of this cosmopolitan and witty world of mine. If they had thought about it at all it would have appeared to them as incredible as a war of religion to the average bourgeois : such things were simply unthinkable in the twentieth century

The Paris season was as good as ended and I was going over to England in a few days to paint in the country as had been my habit for a good many years. I would return to my Paris flat in October and visit my people in Germany and Austria at Christmas-time. Meanwhile I had gone to spend the evening at Magic City, and one of the first people r met there was my friend, Count T. of Vienna.'You've heard the news, I suppose ? ' he said. I replied that I had heard none. 'Franz Ferdinand has been assassinated by the Serbs at Serajevo.' Franz Ferdinand was unpopular, his accession to the throne seemed none too desirable. A sad end, of course. 'What do you think is going to happen now?' I asked. ` Happen ? ' T. looked at me in sleepy surprise. 'Nothing. Why should anything happen ? ' True, things did not 'happen' in Austria. He added, however, as an afterthought : 'Le vieux crevera de joie, peut-etre." Le vieux was Franz Joseph. T.'s father held a very high position at Court, he was as intimate as anyone could be with the aged emperor - really : who should know if not T.? I worried no further about politics on that 28th of June.

Nor did they worry me the next few weeks in Devonshire where I was busy expressing red cliffs, seas, and sailing-boats in paint. The rival claims of impressionism, Cezanne, and cubism were very much nearer my heart than possible happenings in the Balkans. I read no newspapers. At the end of July I was doing to stay with some friends near Richmond, later in the wilds of Surrey, and I considered the possibility of going to stay with a Greek friend in Athens in September, if the journey was not too expensive. I got to Richmond at the end of July and found everyone extremely worried there would be war between Austria and Serbia and other powers aright join in, though certainly not England. I thought I knew better, but decided all the same to pay a visit to my bank, the Dresdner Bank. There they assured me that all this talk of a European war was pure nonsense, and so I left my money with them. When I wanted it a very few days later they were no longer allowed to make payments, and I was left with about £20 until their regular business in London should be resumed. It has not been resumed yet. War was declared between Germany and Austria on one side, France and Russia on the other. The incredible was happening. I decided to go to the German Consulate. It was situated in Bedford Square, and there was a huge crowd outside it so that it was quite impassible to enter it. Some official appeared on the doorsteps and told the crowd to go home. They had chartered two ships to convey to Germany the military reservists ; the others who had not served in the army should await events. The two ships were, by the way, held up by the British authorities and prevented from leaving. I went back to Richmond. England did not declare war till August 8.th. The suspense was almost intolerable, but in any case I had not the dimmest idea what I should do or what would happen to me. My flat and my belongings were in France, my relations in Austria and Germany, I myself with summer clothes, painting materials, and £10 in an England one could not leave. On August 4th England declared war ; on August 5th an order was published from which I discovered that I was now an 'enemy alien.' As such I was required to register at the nearest police station. There they were frankly puzzled by me. My usual place of residence was Paris I said.'But that is in France,' said they. ' The capital of that country,' I stated. So they sent me to Surbiton where large crowds were waiting to be registered and where finally someone inscribed my name and all sorts of particulars. I also had my passport stamped at the American Consulate, on the advice of some people I had spoken to while waiting in the queue at Surbiton - the first of very many queues I was to know. The Americans, being neutral, had taken over the handling of allied subjects in Germany and of Germans and Austrians in allied countries ; later on they were replaced by the Swiss. There was a negro at the American Consulate one had to deal with and he was not a particularly polite or pleasant negro ; this seemed to me rather symbolic of the suicidal tendencies of Europe at the time and has seemed very much more so since.

Up to that time a passport had always appeared to me a superfluous and rather absurd document. I had acquired one since once in Italy they had refused to let me have a registered letter without my producing one ; but passports were things only Russians required when they travelled, as they were not allowed to leave or enter their country without one, a fact about which they were much chaffed by 'Europeans.' Well, apparently Europe was now obsolete, and passports really more essential than the people they belonged to.[9] I was told of a dear old lady who came to the Russian Consulate and asked for a new passport, but when they looked at hers they found it was a German passport. 'Of course it is,' she said when this was pointed out to her, 'that is exactly why I want it changed. People are so nasty to me about it' She was very disgusted when they refused to do so, and the Consul who told this story to some friends of mine regarded it as a great joke, but I really thought the idea most sensible. People were really, as she said, beginning to be 'nasty about it,' and the people they were nasty to were mostly quite helpless. On the second day of the war I read in the papers that an old waiter had committed suicide and, though this was a very minor incident indeed of the Great War, I have never been able to forget it. He had been employed at the Cafe Royal for countless years, but on the outbreak of war it was discovered, apparently to his own surprise, that he was German by birth. So he was dismissed, and turned on the gas, but he noted his impressions in a diary right to the end. The last few were :' No more Napoleon stories now ' (had one threatened his country with a new Napoleon ?)- I feel very weak '-' 2sh. 3d. to the w:asherwoman ' and 'I feel cold and I can no longer see the light.' Almost the last words of Goethe. Temporarily insane, no doubt - as suicides nearly always are supposed to be in England ; I expect temporary insanity might also serve to explain the suicide of Europe which had just begun. One bought papers, papers, and more papers, hoping to see it had all been a mistake. Pessimists said the war would go on, might not end before Christmas, but that was, of course, absurd. Posters appeared stating that Lord Kitchener wanted 100,000 men and people were aghast at the figure, though it was perhaps better to be on the safe side. [10]The streets seemed curiously dark at night and there were murmurs of a Zeppelin having approached London. I did not believe it ; I had already begun disbelieving things I heard and still more things I read. I could not even bring myself to believe that people themselves believed what they wrote or repeated. Did they really believe that all the Germans in England, most of whom were ruined by the war, were spies ? That every concrete floor was built to serve as a gun-platform ? The papers gave a vivid account of thousands of German soldiers lying heaped together, killed by a wonderful French gas called Turpinite after its inventor. That would, it appeared, soon end the war. Did they believe this, and did they not consider this invention an unspeakable abomination ? There was no end of their credulity as it seemed, and the new invention appeared to please them. One read absolutely similar accounts from other countries, the symptoms seem to have been tie same everywhere and they were repeated in exactly the same manner whenever a new country entered the war, down to 1917 and the U.S.A. On August1st, 1914., mass-hysteria had broken out - and it is latent even at the present time. Everybody felt something extraordinary was expected from him, but no one - except the soldiers - quite knew what to do in order to show his devoted patriotism. It was at that time the Government of Mr. Asquith issued that famous proclamation, that excellent advice : 'Business as usual.' To me at any rate the idea appealed very strongly, and I very much regretted being prevented from going about my business as usual ; I had no longer any business, and landscape-painting was hardly advisable under the circumstances. At the end of August I was going to stay with friends of mine in Surrey who had very urgently repeated their pre-war invitation which I was only too glad to accept.[11] I would like to say that my English friends were very kind to me as long as it was in their power to be so ; there were exceptions, but they were formed by those of foreign extraction, German or otherwise, who felt none too sure of their own position, I suppose, and were fanatics as all recent converts are apt to be. I had to go to the police and inform them of my change of address, and that interview again was very remarkable. ` This is quite impossible,' they said, ` you cannot travel about, this is war.' I told them I could not go on staying indefinitely with my present hostess. She was anxious to get rid of me, I explained. This they were prepared to believe! 'Where is your registration card ? ' they proceeded. I told them I did not even know what a registration card waqs:. It turned out that they had forgotten to give me one when I had visited them before, and incidentally that in the meantime I had broken every rule printed on it, in all innocence of heart. I don't know what would have happened to me if I had been caught transgressing and whether anyone would have believed my explanation. I was then informed I should have to have the permission of the Lord-Lieutenant of the county ; fortunately that was the very man with whom I was going to stay, which I.facilitated matters at once and seemed to reassure the police considerably.

At first it was delightful.to be in a nice old country house and far removed from all war activities. My host was more than charming to me, both his son and his son-in-law were very intimate friends of mine and they were both present. Mr. D. regretted bitterly being deprived of his yearly visit to the Austrian Tyrol. His was one of the great families who have cousins and relattives in all countries and are therefore incapable of the prejudices oaf people whose family and experience are limited to their own country. [12]Their greater knowledge and their international relations made the present situation all the more trying for them, however. They were in the same position as the Royal families, the higher aristocrats of all countries and the great Jewish families. I don't suppose that the Queen of Roumania, née Coburg, really loathed the Coburg King of Bulgaria or that the Rothschilds of Vienna wanted their Paris cousins destroyed by bombs, but even very highly-placed persons had now to be very careful in what they did or said. Of all the liberties only that of thought remained - thus I was with people who could sympathize with my situation and feelings, as their own were in some ways similar. The country was lovely, the weather perfect, the people delightful.

And yet it was all very awkward. Again I had to be registered, as 'a lodger ' ; the village police thought they'd better have my thumb-print ; we all pretended to think the proceedings a great joke, but we all felt un­comfortable and vaguely ashamed. We all showed a lot of tact, many subjects were avoided; in spite of all efforts there was an incessant strain. One evening I walked with Tommy, the son of the house, to some ponds amongst the heather. We stood still, looking at the reflections of the sunset clouds in the still water : ` Looks peaceful enough here,' said Tommy, and I nodded. ' I am going to enlist to-morrow,' he continued in a casual voice. I never knew a boy less like a soldier ; he was small with a delicate face, he looked about seventeen ; he loved art and artists and was studying architecture. A few months later he was an officer and a few weeks after that he was killed in Flanders. Nearly all the male servants had enlisted ; then my other friend, Tommy's brother-in-law, also enlisted, though his young wife tried to keep him. He was a poet, a rather brooding and dissatisfied man, but of singular charm. [13]He wrote in one of the advanced reviews even when already an officer ; I remember reading his reflections while inspecting his men's rifles, briefly they were : ' I can't think why they don't shoot me.' He was killed very shorty after Tommy - by the legitimate enemy, however. It was quite impossible to stay on there. They said they wanted me to and made me promise to come back very soon. I promised and knew I never would and knew that they also knew. There was nowhere for me to go to except London. I had arranged a loan with friends by that time so that I could afford to live there, but I dreaded the solitude.

Where should I stay ? Where could I stay ? I went to a hotel I had stayed at before and found them willing to take me in. I would look for rooms later, as the hotel was too expensive for me really. I had to register, and they asked many questions. I felt worried and full of unrest ; we were in November ; the end did not seem in sight, it might go on till even after Christmas ; how could I last out ? How did people live through a war if they were in my situation? There was a lot in the papers about the internment of enemy aliens. At the very beginning of the war I had read that they had interned all those they considered suspicious characters. Very intelligible. But I was not a suspicious characterand did not feel one. What was internment? I remembered that for the first time in history concentration camps for civilians had come into being during the South African War and were considered a cruel expedient.But at present no doubt internment meant something quite different. The papers had never described what really took place, but they, or some of them, seemed very eager to see all Germans interned. After the battle of the Marne a speedy termination of the whad appeared probable, but now that hope had vanished. [14]People were in an irritated mood, the spy-mania reappeared (as it seems to have done in all belligerent countries whenever things went wrong). The police had been very anxious to know if I had no financial difficulties, a friend of mine explained this to me ; they were interning all enemy aliens who had no means of subsistence, and as nearly all those who worked for their living had meanwhile been dismissed, that meant a gradual round-up. I tried to get permission to go to America as I heard that had been granted to same people, but failed to obtain it ; that had, it appeared, been stopped. I began to look for rooms and took rather a perverse joy in stating my nationality on these occasions. Not one person objected, as I discovered, and it was interesting to see how calm and sensible the people were as compared to the ravings of the journalists. I took some rooms in a Bloomsbury square, and there I passed some of the most unhappy months of my life. Once more registration, and now one was definitely treated as a suspect, humiliating questions were put, references demanded, Statements doubted. I had ceased to see people, my friends were in the army, some families already in mourning ; they could not really want to see me even if they were polite enough to say so. The streets were pitch dark after nightfall, though at that time they tried the experiment of suddenly lighting up a number of streets in varying quarters by way of misleading the Zeppelins if they should come. But those evenings of exceptional brilliancy could hardly be called cheerful occasions Bather. The Zeppelins did come, the public got incensed, the papers fanned the agitation, the first deeds of violence against people or shops German or supposedly so took place.[15] Life had become intolerable, I could not work, I had nowhere to go and nothing to go out for, I had been insulted in the street both as a foreigner (once) and for not being in the army (more than once), I could not sleep, I had had no news from my people since the war began, I was really 'worried to death' I did not dice, but I had a nervous breakdown, I saw a doctor and he ordered me to a nursing home.

I was comparatively happy at that home, at any rata, calmer. I had but one wish, to see nobody, and that could be satisfied there. For months I hardly left the house, and I got much better. And then something strange and unexpected happened and I found myself suddenly back in the world and with work on hand. A Russian friend came and asked me if I would care to design the costumes for operas for which he was designing the scenery. I was overjoyed if rather nervous : I had never done stage work before, and what about the obstacle of my nationality? He took some sketches ofI mine ; he explained all about me to the people, and they liked the sketches and were supremely uninterested i n my extraction. So that was settled and I threw my all into my work with almost hysterical ardour - I had never before known what a supreme blessing work couldbe.

This was a rebirth, a new life, a new career, a new enthusiasm, and it meant an income at last. The operatic enterprise I now belonged to was a war-product. I t was international, the director being a Russian singer, while the others were Belgian (refugees from the Brussels opera)y French, Rumanian, English - anything. They had taken the London Opera House and they were: most enthusiastic and all most anxious to make a success at this enterprise on which their livelihood depcnclccl. They lived only for and in the theatre ; those who were not rehearsing were watching rehearsals ; the war was a very secondary consideration to them. [16]The first opera I designed for was Lakme, to be sung in French. The scene is laid in India, but there are Englishmen and women in it. It is a very old-fashioned opera and modern European dress seemed absurd to me (it was really too far removed from 1914 !), so I decided on crinolines and the dress of 1860. There was a large chorus to be provided with Indian garments and I decided on a glowing colour-scheme for the big market-scene. Quite plain and simple materials, but shading from ultramarine via purple, deep crimson, scarlet, orange to golden­yellow. The cool colour of the European soldiers' white uniforms and the women's light dresses was to form an expressive contrast. An Indian orchestra had been engaged for the performance, under the leadership of Inayat Khan. He was a very handsome bearded oriental, poet and musician at that time, but later, as I was told, a religious 'saviour ' with a large following of more or less hysterical women. He was certainly a good business man, as I discovered when I went with him to an Indian warehouse in the City to buy the material for the Indian costumes. He and the owner of the place bargained for hours, possibly about the percentage due to the poet. He also showed me specimens of Indian art, the worst type of modern chromos they seemed to me.

I started my work feverishly, but as soon as I got beyond the stage of design to that of execution my troubles began. Not with the firm which was making the costumes ; that was represented by a good-natured, elderly man of the Jewish persuasion, who was so delighted with my work that he offered me a contract to design for his firm. Thus I might have become a permanent professional designer if fate had not decreed otherwise. It was the actors I now had to deal with, win not only did not zn th,e feast resemble my beautiful figurines, but who found fault with what they were to wear. [17The women were bad, the men worse and much vainer still. The women would not wear crinolines, but by adroit flattery they could be convinced that they looked too lovely in them, and there was one nice stout woman who thought it a great joke. Lakme herself thought I had overdressed her and insisted on larger and better decolletes ; the chorus ladies, on the other hand, refused to appear ' barefooted. Still they were more accessible to flattery (if not to reason) than the males. Lakme's father, the priest, was an irate Belgian who insisted on wearing the costume he had always been used to. 'J'ai chante ce role depuis trente ans,' he said grimly, and he threatened to resign if he was forced to abandon his pseudo-oriental drapery. As his appearance-he was short and stout-did not correspond to my vision I thought I had better give in. But I was firm about the uniform of Lakme's lover, the young British officer. He was a Rumanian, handsome and, of course, a tenor. He had to wear white and a sun-helmet ; he wished, however, to appear in a highland kilt. He agreed to the white ducks after much persuasion, but a sun-helmet - no, never ! It would catch his voice, he explained, and I said that in that case he could take it off when warbling. He did in the end wear it the first night, but later it vanished.

In spite of these difficulties I managed, however, to get my things ready in time, and the director approved of what had been done. But my troubles were by no means over. Any theatrical production is a complicated business ; an opera is infinitely worse than a play ; an opera improvised out of nothing is unimaginably terrific. The different leaders were for ever disagreeing violently in all sorts of languages ; director, conductors, choir leaders, sopranos and tenors and basses and baritones were constantly threatening to throw up their job ; and everybody was making everybody else responsible for everything. [18]This is, I imagine, quite a normal stage atmosphere, but it was new to me and I found it trying, though it certainly made me forget the war. When at one of the last rehearsals the stage was filled with my resplendently colourful crowd, subtly shaded from ultra­marine to yellow the conductor upset everything sopranos left, high sopranos centre, etc.'Colour-scheme be damned,' he said, 'how do you expect me to conduct ? ' And that meant giving up my scheme which I refused to do or making the women change dresses and altering some of these, which was at last agreed to amongst many maledictions.

The great night came, Lakme was a great success, and the costumes and scenery were much lauded in the papers. But I was not there to witness the performance, for on the previous night an order had appeared obliging enemy aliens to be in their homes after 9 p.m. That was the first warning of menace to my new-found security, it interfered with my work as rehearsals went on to all hours of the morning, the director said some uncomplimentary things about police and politics in general (always interfering with really important work), but he kept me on. At that time they were rehearsing Mme Butterfly, and after that came Carmen with my costumes. While working for Carmen I attended the Butterfly rehearsals and they were most interesting. That short­lived operatic enterprise which ended in a small financial disaster is long forgotten, but I certainly have never seen Butterfly as charmingly done before or after. The leading lady was a delightful little Japanese soprano, her singing was perfect and she was obviously the only actress who ever looked the part. Scenery and costumes were due to a Japanese painter and they were exquisitely simple and effective. He also advised the European singers who represented Japanese characters and I shall never forget how he taught the 'Prince ' good manners. That prince visits Mme Butterfly, and when the actor came in in a very princely, that is haughty, manner to see this lady of doubtful calling the little Japanese painter shouted excitedly: 'No, no, no, nat at all ! ' He rushed an to the stage and explained : ' In Japan people polite, great people very polite, very great people very, very, very polite ! ' and showed how the prince should approach the lady with a series of deep obeisances. I thought it a pity that his teaching was confined to the stage. Meanwhile I was working on Carmen and working very hard. I love Spain and everything Spanish, and the trumpery fashion in which I had always seen Carmen staged made me wish to show how it really should be done. I think those designs were really good ; I had set my heart on them, but I was never to see their execution. I was really living in Spain at that time and the actual circumstances did not seem too bad. I had received the visit of a Dutch lady who - with the permission of the authorities of three countries - had brought me both good news from my people and money ; I had very exciting work, fairly well paid, and prospects of lots more work ; spring had come, and really the war could not last much longer now-surely both sides would see reason. Things in May 1915 looked better than they had done since that terrible August 4th, as far as my personal fate went, at any rate.

And then came the Lusitania incident. In a day the whole situation was changed. There was a frenzied outcry from all the cheap press for internment of all enemy aliens=enemies of humanity: there were riots and disorders, and a few days later Mr. Asquith announced amid great applause that the Government had decided 'to intern or segregate all enemy aliens for their own safety.' [20]Mr. Asquith had once more managed to make the crowd clamour for a measure long decided on by the Government as he had done when conscription was ordered, for, as I learnt later, the large concentration camp for civilians-large enough to hold all enemy civilians when finished-was at that time in a very advanced state. Probably internment was to have gone on more gradually and in a more orderly manner, but it must have been decided on long befare popular clamour appeared to bring it about.

That decision was announced on May 13th - it would be a 13th, of course ! But was it such a disaster? Would it really affect me, and if it did, would that be worse than liberty ' as it had now become ? 'To be interned or segregated.' 'Segregated ' meant no doubt that one would be sent to live in some specified district. That had, I knew, been done in France, where people had been sent to places in the south of the country. A friend of mine offered to inquire from 'the authorities ' what my fate was likely to be, and brought the reassuring reply that at present, at any rate, nothing was likely to happen to me. That seemed hopeful, but I could not reconquer my peace of mind, and I was not sure whether it would not be better to be segregated somewhere in the depths of the country and have done with it. Carmen was shaping well ; most of the designs had been delivered ; I was working on the last few. I still possess them ; the others were executed by some firm or other. I never saw them again and, needless to say, was never paid for them, but what I minded most was that I never saw what my Carmen looked like on the stage.

One evening, it was May 24th, I believe, a detective called on me : I was to appear at the police station at 10 o'clock next morning. 'Why ? I asked.'To be interned,' he replied. I asked him whether he was sure there was no mistake and he showed me the written order. [21]I had not the slightest idea of what internment meant. ` What shall I pack, what shall I take with me? ' I asked him. He smiled amiably - he was very amiable throughout that interview - 'I would pack as if you were going for a holiday.' It was to be a protracted holiday. . . ,

I followed his good advice and as a result found myself with plenty of white flannels, bathing things, evening dress, etc., but without a towel or anything else most needed. Having finished my packing, I went to see the only intimate friend I had left, and she tried to calm me, was sure there had been some mistake, and promised to try to find out about it. She also accompanied me on the following morning in the taxi which unloaded my luggage at the police station. Then I said good-bye to her and to the world. A heavy gate closed behind me. I found myself in a large courtyard shut in by high brick walls, :and full of men.

He who beholds in action inaaction and in inaction action is the man of understanding among mortals he is the Rule a doer of perfect action' BAGAVAD GITA,

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