Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
MY VISIT TO GERMANY
The train to Germany left so late in the evening that it was impossible for me to see devastated France even though we passed through a considerable portion of it. Our compartment on the train is very stuffy and smelly and the train service is atrocious, food and sanitary conditions being intolerable after American train service.
Again there is a crowd at the station to see me off, but I am rather enjoying it. A beautiful French girl presents me with a bouquet of flowers with a cute little speech, or at least I suppose it was, because she looked very cute delivering it, and the pouts that the language gave to her red lips were most provocative. She tells me in delicious broken English that I look tired and sad, and I find myself yielding without a struggle to her suggestion.
We arrive at Joumont near the Belgian frontier along about midnight, and, like a message from home, there is a gang of American soldier boys at the station to greet me. And they are not alone, for French, Belgian, and British troops are also waving and cheering. I wanted to talk to the Belgians, and we tried it, but it was no use. What a pity!
But one of them had a happy inspiration and saved the day.
“Glass of beer, Charlot?”
I nod, smiling. And to my surprise they bring me beer, which I lift to my lips for politeness, and then drink it to the last drop in pure pleasure. It is very good beer.
There is a group of charming little Belgian girls. They are smiling at me shyly and I so want to say something to them. But I can’t. Ah, the bouquet! Each little girl gets a rose and they are delighted.
“Merci, merci, monsieur.” And they keep “merciing” and bowing until the train pulls out of the station, which emboldens them to join the soldiers in a cheer.
Through an opening between the railroad structures I see a brilliant lighting display. It is universal, this sign. Here is a movie in this tiny village. What a wonderful medium, to reach such an obscure town.
On the train I am being told that my pictures have not played in Germany, hence I am practically unknown there. This rather pleases me because I feel that I can relax and be away from crowds.
Everyone on the train is nice and there is no trouble. Conductors struggle with English for my benefit, and the Customs officers make but little trouble. In fact, we cross the border at three in the morning and I am asleep.
Next morning I find a note from the Customs man saying; “Good luck, Charlie. You were sleeping so soundly that I did not have the heart to wake you for inspection.”
Germany is beautiful. Germany belies the war. There are people crowding the fields, tilling the soil, working feverishly all the time as our train rushes through. Men, women, and children are all at work. They are facing their problem and rebuilding. A great people, perverted for and by a few.
The different style of architecture here is interesting. Factories are being built everywhere. Surely this isn’t conquered territory. I do not see much live stock in the fields. This seems strange.
A dining-car has been put on the train and the waiter comes to our compartment to let us know that we may eat. Here is a novelty. A seven-course dinner, with wine, soup, meat, vegetables, salad, dessert, coffee, and bread for twenty-eight cents. This is made possible by the low rate of exchange.
We go to the Adlon Hotel in Berlin and find that hostelry jammed, owing to the auto races which are being run off at this time. A different atmosphere here. It seems hard for me to relax and get the normal reaction to meeting people. They don’t know me here. I have never been heard of. It interests me and I believe I resent it just a bit.
I notice how abrupt the Germans are to foreigners, and I detect a tinge of bitterness, too. I am wondering about my pictures making their début here. I question the power of my personality without its background of reputation.
I am feeling more restful under this disinterested treatment, but somehow I wish that my pictures had been shown here. The people at the hotel are very courteous. They have been told that I am the “white-headed boy and quite the guy in my home town.” Their reactions are amusing. I am not very impressive-looking and they are finding it hard to believe.
There is quite a crowd in the lobby and a number of Americans and English. They are not long in finding me, and a number of English, French, and American reporters start making a fuss over me. The Germans just stand and look on, bewildered.
Carl von Weigand comes forward with the offer of the use of his office while I am here. The Germans are impressed with all this, but they show no enthusiasm. I am accepted in an offhand way as some one of importance and they let it go at that.
The Scala Theatre, where I spent the evening, is most interesting, though I think a bit antiquated when compared with English and American theatrical progress along the same lines. It seats about five thousand, mostly on one floor, with a very small balcony. It is of the variety-music-hall type, showing mostly “dumb” acts. Acts that do not talk or sing, like comic jugglers, acrobats, and dancers.
I am amused by a German comedian singing a song of about twenty verses, but the audience is enthused and voices its approval at every verse. During the intermission we have frankfurters and beer, which are served in the theatre. I notice the crowds. They go to the theatre there as a family. It is just that type of an affair.
I notice the different types of beauty, though beauty is not very much in evidence here. Here and there are a few pretty girls, but not many. It is interesting to watch the people strolling during the intermission, drinking lager and eating all sorts of food.
Leaving the theatre, we visit the Scala Café, a sort of impressionistic casino. The Scala is one of the largest cafés in Berlin, where the modernist style in architecture has been carried out fully.
The walls are deep mottled sea green, shading into light verdigris and emerald, leaning outward at an angle, thereby producing an effect of collapse and forward motion. The junction of the walls and the ceiling is broken into irregular slabs of stone, like the strata of a cave. Behind these the lights are hidden, the whole system of illumination being based on reflection.
The immense dislocation of the planes and angles of the vault-like ceiling is focused on the central point, the huge silver star or crystal bursting like an exploding bomb through the roof. The whole effect is weird, almost ominous. The shape of the room in its ground plan is itself irregular—the impression is that of a frozen catastrophe. Yet this feeling seems to be in accord with the mood of revellers in Germany to-day.
From there to the Palais Heinroth, the most expensive place in Berlin and the high spot of night life. It is conspicuous in its brilliance, because Berlin as a city is so badly lighted. At night the streets are dark and gloomy, and it is then that one gets the effect of war and defeat.
At the Heinroth everybody was in evening dress. We weren’t. My appearance did not cause any excitement. We check our hats and coats and ask for a table. The manager shrugs his shoulders. There is one in the back, a most obscure part of the room. This brings home forcibly the absence of my reputation. It nettled me. Well, I wanted rest. This was it.
We are about to accept humbly the isolated table, when I hear a shriek and I am slapped on the back and there’s a yell:
“Charlie!”
It is Al Kaufman of the Lasky Corporation and manager of the Famous Players studio in Berlin.
“Come over to our table. Pola Negri wants to meet you.”
Again I come into my own. The Germans look on, wondering. I have created attention at last. I discover that there is an American jazz band in the place. In the middle of a number they stop playing and shout:
“Hooray for Charlie Chaplin!”
The proprietor shrugs his shoulders and the band resumes playing. I learn that the musicians are former American doughboys. I feel rather pleased that I have impressed the Germans in the place.
In our party were Rita Kaufman, wife of Al, Pola Negri, Carl Robinson, and myself.
Pola Negri is really beautiful. She is Polish and really true to the type. Beautiful jet-black hair, white, even teeth and wonderful coloring. I think it such a pity that such coloring does not register on the screen.
She is the centre of attraction here. I am introduced. What a voice she has! Her mouth speaks so prettily the German language. Her voice has a soft, mellow quality, with charming inflections. Offered a drink, she clinks my glass and offers her only English words, “Jazz boy Charlie.”
Language again stumps me. What a pity! But with the aid of a third party we get along famously. Kaufman whispers: “Charlie, you’ve made a hit. She just told me that you are charming.”
“You tell her that she’s the loveliest thing I’ve seen in Europe.” These compliments keep up for some time, and then I ask Kaufman how to say, “I think you are divine” in German. He tells me something in German and I repeat it to her.
She’s startled and looks up and slaps my hand.
“Naughty boy,” she says.
The table roars. I sense that I have been double-crossed by Kaufman. What have I said? But Pola joins in the joke, and there is no casualty. I learn later that I have said, “I think you are terrible.” I decided to go home and learn German.
As I am going out the proprietor approaches and very formally addresses me: “I beg pardon, sir. I understand that you are a great man in the United States. Accept my apologies for not knowing, and the gates here are always open to you.” I accept them formally, though through it all I feel very comic opera. I didn’t like the proprietor.
I want to go through the German slums. I mention such a trip to a German newspaper man. I am told that I am just like every Londoner and New-Yorker who comes to Berlin for the first time; that I want the Whitechapel district, the Bowery of Berlin, and that there is no such district. Once upon a time there were hovels in Berlin, but they have long since disappeared.
This to me is a real step toward civilisation.
My newspaper friend tells me that he will give me the next best thing to the slums, and we go to Krogel. What a picture could be made here! I am fascinated as I wander through houses mounted on shaky stilts and courts ancient but cleanly.
Then we drove to Acker Street and gazed into courts and basements. In a café we talked to men and women and drank beer. I almost launched a new war when, wishing to pay a charge of one hundred and eighty marks, I pulled from my pocket a roll of fifty one-thousand-mark notes.
My friend paid the check quickly with small change and hustled me out, telling me of the hard faces and criminal types who were watching. He’s probably right, but I love those poor, humble people.
We drove to the arbor colonies in the northern part of the city, stopping at some of the arbors to talk to the people. I feel that I would like to eat dinner here among these people, but I haven’t sufficient courage to persuade my companion, who wouldn’t think of it. Passing through the northern part of Berlin, I found many beauties which, my friend let me know, were not considered beautiful at all.
He even suggested that he show me something in contrast with all I had seen. I told him no, that it would spoil my whole viewpoint.
It has been rather a restful experience, going through the whole town without being recognised, but even as I am thinking it a fashionable lady and her young daughter pass, and by their smiles I know that I am again discovered.
And then we meet Fritz Kreisler and his wife, who are just leaving for Munich. We have quite a chat and then make tentative engagements to be carried out in Los Angeles on his next trip there.
I notice that the Germans seem to be scrupulously honest, or maybe this was all the more noticeable to me because of genial and unsuspicious treatment by a taxi driver. We left the cab many times and were gone as long as half an hour at a time, and out of sight, yet he always waited and never suggested that he be paid beforehand.
In the business section we pass many cripples with embittered, sullen looks on their faces. They look as though they had paid for something which they hadn’t received.
We are approached by a legless soldier beggar in a faded German uniform. Here was the War’s mark. These sights you will find on every side in Berlin.
I am presented with a police card to the Berliner Club, which is evidently a technicality by which the law is circumvented. Berlin is full of such night-life clubs. They are somewhat like the gatherings that Prohibition has brought to America.
There are no signs, however, from the outside of any activity, and you are compelled to go up dark passages and suddenly come upon gaily lit rooms very similar to Parisian cafés.
Dancing and popping corks are the first impression as I enter. We are taken in hand by two girls and they order drinks for us. The girls are very nervous. In fact, the whole night-life of this town seems to be nervous, neurotic, over-done.
The girls dance, but very badly. They do not seem to enjoy it and treat it as part of the job. They are very much interested in my friend, who seems to have the money for the party. On these occasions my secretary always carries the family roll, and they are paying much attention to him.
I sit here rather moody and quiet, though one of the girls works hard to cheer me up. I hear her asking Robinson what is the matter with me. I smile and become courteous. But, her duty done, she turns again to Robinson.
I am piqued. Where is that personality of mine? I have been told many times that I have it. But here it is convincingly shown that personality has no chance against “pursenality.”
But I am beginning to get so much attention from my friends that one of the girls is noticing me. She senses that I am some one important, but she can’t quite make it out.
“Who is this guy, an English diplomat?” she whispers to Robinson. He whispers back that I am a man of considerable importance in the diplomatic service. I smile benevolently and they become more interested.
I am treating her rather paternally and am feeling philosophical. I ask about her life. What is she doing with it? What ambitions? She is a great reader, she tells me, and likes Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. But she shrugs her shoulders in an indifferent and tragic manner and says, “What does it matter about life?”
“You make it what it is,” she says. “In your brain alone it exists and effort is only necessary for physical comfort.” We are becoming closer friends as she tells me this.
But she must have some objective, there must be some dreams of the future still alive within her. I am very anxious to know what she really thinks.
I ask her about the defeat of Germany. She becomes discreet at once. Blames it on the Kaiser. She hates war and militarism. That’s all I can get out of her, and it is getting late and we must leave. Her future intrigues me, but does not seem to worry her.
On the way home we step in at Kaufman’s apartment and have quite a chat about pictures and things back in Los Angeles. Los Angeles seems very far away.
I am invited to a formal dinner party for the next evening at the home of Herr Werthauer, one of the most prominent lawyers in all Europe and a chief of the Kaiser during the war. The occasion for the dinner was to celebrate the announcement of Werthauer’s engagement to his third wife.
His is a wonderful home in the finest section of Berlin. At the party there are a number of his personal friends, Pola Negri, Al Kaufman, Mrs. Kaufman, Robinson, and myself.
There is a Russian band playing native music all through the dinner and jazz music is also being dispensed by two orchestras made up of American doughboys who have been discharged, but have stayed on in Germany.
For no reason at all, I think of the story of Rasputin. This seems the sort of house for elaborate murders. Perhaps it is the Russian music that is having this effect on me. There is a huge marble staircase whose cold austereness suggests all sorts of things designed to send chills up the spine. The servants are so impressive and the meal such a ceremony that I feel that I am in a palace. The Russian folk-songs that are being dreamily whined from the strings of their peculiar instruments have a very weird effect and I find food and dining the least interesting things here.
There is a touch of mystery, of the exotic, something so foreign though intangible, that I find myself searching everything and everybody, trying to delve deeper into this atmosphere.
We are all introduced, but there are too many people for me to try to remember names. There are herrs, fräuleins, and fraus galore, and I find it hard to keep even their sex salutations correct. Some one is making a long, formal speech in German, and everybody is watching him attentively.
The host arises and offers a toast to his bride-to-be. Everyone rises and drinks to their happiness. The party is very formal and I can make nothing from the talk going on all about me. The host is talking and then all get up again with their glasses. Why, I don’t know, but I get up with them.
At this there is general laughter, and I wonder what calamity has befallen me. I wonder if my clothes are all right.
Then I understand. The host is about to toast me. He does it in very bad English, though his gestures and tone make it most graceful. He is inclined to be somewhat pedantic and whenever he cannot think of the proper English word he uses its German equivalent.
As the various courses come the toasts are many. I am always about two bites late in getting to my feet with my glass. After I have been toasted about four times, Mrs. Kaufman leans over and whispers, “You should toast back again to the host and say something nice about his bride-to-be.”
I am almost gagged with the stage fright that grips me. It is the custom to toast back to the host and here I have been gulping down all kinds of toasts without a word. And he had been sitting there waiting for me.
I rise and hesitate. “Mr.—”
I feel a kick on the shins and I hear Mrs. Kaufman whisper hoarsely:
“Herr.”
I think she means the bride-to-be. “Mrs.—” No, she isn’t that yet. Heavens! this is terrible.
I plunge in fast and furious. “My very best respects to your future wife.” As I speak I look at a young girl at the head of the table whom I thought was the lucky woman. I am all wrong. I sit, conscious of some horrible mistake.
He bows and thanks me. Mrs. Kaufman scowls and says: “That’s not the woman. It’s the one on the other side.”
I have a suppressed convulsion and almost die, and as she points out the real bride-to-be I find myself laughing hysterically into my soup. Rita Kaufman is laughing with me. Thank heaven for a sense of humour.
I am so weak and nervous that I am almost tempted to leave at once. The bride-to-be is reaching for her glass to return my salute, though unless she thinks I am cross-eyed I don’t see how she knows I said anything nice to her.
But she gets no chance to speak. There is launched a long-winded pedantic speech from the host, who says that on such rare occasions as this it is customary to uncork the best in the cellar. This point gets over in great shape and everybody is smiling.
I even feel myself growing radiant. I was under the impression that the best had already been served. Didn’t know he was holding back anything. With the promise of better wine I am tempted to try another toast to the bride-to-be.