We stole moments for joy along the way. First, of course, there was the
opera--grand opera at twenty-five cents a seat. How Wagner bored us at
first--except the parts here and there that we had known all our lives.
Neither of us had had any musical education to speak of; each of us got
great joy out of what we considered "good" music, but which was
evidently low-brow. And Wagner at first was too much for us. That night
in Leipzig we heard the "Walküre!"--utterly aghast and rather impatient
at so much non-understandable noise. Then we would drop down to
"Carmen," "La Bohême," Hoffman's "Erzäblung," and think, "This is life!"
Each night that we spared for a spree we sought out some beer-hall--as
unfrequented a one as possible, to get all the local color we could.

Once Carl decided that, as long as we had come so far, I must get a
glimpse of real European night-life--it might startle me a bit, but
would do no harm. So, after due deliberation, he led me to the Café
Bauer, the reputed wild and questionable resort of Leipzig night-life,
though the pension glanced ceiling-wards and sighed and shook their
heads. I do not know just what I did expect to see, but I know that what
I saw was countless stolid family parties--on all sides grandmas and
grandpas and sons and daughters, and the babies in high chairs beating
the tables with spoons. It was quite the most moral atmosphere we ever
found ourselves in. That is what you get for deliberately setting out to
see the wickedness of the world!

From Leipzig we went to Berlin. We did not want to go to Berlin--Jena
was the spot we had in mind. Just as a few months at Harvard showed us
that one year there would be but a mere start, so one semester in
Germany showed us that one year there would get us nowhere. We must stay
longer,--from one to two years longer,--but how, alas, how finance it?