These were our only feasible ways of escape at Carlsruhe. A bird might flutter past the window of my chamber with a sharp little flight of song. At once I was out and away with it, not necessarily to the magnificences and splendours, but perhaps to almost penurious patches and spaces on the outskirts of the dour old town of my nativity, where pavement and grass-plot touch, and where, amid the lamp-posts and the telegraph poles, there are familiar trees to be recognized and loved--where, indeed, one may lift to the lips and kiss the hem of Nature’s somewhat bedraggled skirt. And still--“You can’t get out!” said the starling.
One morning, lying alongside him in my cot, I remarked to a fellow-prisoner, “You look very happy.” To which, being well versed in the Scriptures, he immediately retorted, “I am happy in all things _saving these bonds_!”
It is not good for man to be alone, but doubtless _Gefangenen_ had a little too much of the gregarious--one felt a recurring need for some seclusion deeper than the common captivity. Such a place of retirement I ultimately discovered, not in the chapel, but in the more mundane environment of our tiny theatre, crawling mouse-like into a crevice between one of the sidewings and the wall. Here I was safe from even those who made their casual entrances and exits. Here also could I read to the plaintive accompaniment of M. Calvi’s violin busy on a Vieuxtemps “Air Varié,” or of M. Lazarri rehearsing a vocal number for Saturday evening’s concert--could indeed afford time to cheer and encourage these kindly artistes at the close of each piece by muffled applause from a hidden but not entirely anonymous audience.
At one corner of my narrow cell was a portion of a window giving on to the quadrangle, so that by raising an occasional eye I could see how our little world was wagging. To the rear was part of a set scene showing a lurid and blood-red sun setting over the waters, even in which primitive art there was the suggestion of many sunsets that I have seen; many that I yet hope to see.
Even in this quiet retreat, however, one could not count on being entirely free from faction and fight. On an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon, an English aviator at the piano and a French officer with a violin have fallen into feud over a matter of musical precedence, and within a few feet of each other are playing at the same time entirely different tunes, and that with vehemence and vindictiveness. The pianist, firmly planted on the piano stool, where he has spent most of the day, passes without pause or punctuation from Chopin to ragtime and from ragtime to absolute incoherence.