The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp

Alas! And Bertha had brought her appetite along, the appetite of a growing, young, country lass from a food-worshipping household!

The ladies were dowdy, the gentlemen in ordinary uniform or dressed in abominable Berlin taste; over-loud music, with which the War Lord persistently found fault with both time and execution. The average Kapellmeister "had not the shadow of a perception" of the composer's artistic intentions. His views were "plebeian, necessarily – maybe his mother was a washerwoman, poor wench"; and, after all, the War Lord himself must conduct to "get proper results." Of course, everybody was "convinced" of that.