in a box at our right
from the stage. His one reputable passion was music. He had at that time
an affair with a Dutch woman, who had been handsome and distinguee--she
was pitifully his slave. Going to the theatre one evening we saw her
approaching from one direction in the big court in front of the theatre,
as he approached from another. She smiled infatuatedly at him but he
passed her without a look--perhaps his idea of a tribute to my sister
and me. I felt sorry for her as the joy left her face.

Several years after, while touring in Holland, in a charming little
place where we went to pass a free afternoon, we saw this same woman.
She had found the strength to shake off her German master, had married a
countryman and looked prosperous and happy.

Neither Marjorie nor I ever received an offensive word or look from an
officer. They used sometimes to send me postcards after a _Carmen_ or
_Amneris_ night, closely scribbled over with signatures and greetings
and phrases of admiration, all highly respectful. It always pleased me
very much to receive these cards.

The _Genossenschaft_ members of most theatres organize a _fete_ every
year for the benefit of their society, and that spring we had a fancy
dress ball. A lady is chosen at these balls by popular vote to be Rose
Queen. I was chosen that time and had to parade around the room on the
arm of a portly Major, who often sent me flowers and books of his own
poems. I wore my _Carmen_ dress of black satin, with gold flowers, and
my scarlet Spanish shawl. There was much cheap champagne drunk to the
popular toast of "General Quenousamong." This was originally "_Que nous
aimons_" (To those we love), and the "general" meant that every one was
to join in. The French touch was considered elegant, just as _Couzank_
was the polite word for cousin, and _Satank_ for satin. Balls of this
kind are highly popular and a great contrast to the usually simple lives
of these small-town people.

One form of simplicity I never adopted was the quite general one of
eating their evening supper, consisting usually of a bit of sausage, and
black bread and butter, out of bits of paper casually put down amongst
the objects on the table in their bedrooms. When you had finished, you
simply rolled up and threw away the greasy papers and the thing was
over.

Sometimes a meal may be captured free. One of our "comics" in Metz had
to fish at the back of the stage in an operetta. He was always furnishe