A hot August evening in Cologne. A large crowd fills the Zoological Gardens, where an open-air concert is being held. Singers from Cologne and other opera houses have given us selections of German, French, and Italian music in a spirit entirely catholic. Equally catholic is their reception by the large and appreciative cosmopolitan crowd. In front of the open-air stage, Germans, French, English, and Americans sit side by side at little tables drinking beer or Rhine wine. The music is heard in complete silence, even Thomas Atkins compelled thereto by the _genius loci_. On the terrace of the neighbouring restaurant dinner is proceeding. Numerous German families, the girls in muslin frocks and summer hats, are out together for the evening. At a table next to ours a small group of men, unmistakably soldiers, are dining together. They are all in plain clothes, but two of them wear in their buttonholes the minute, scarcely visible black-and-white ribbon of the Iron Cross. The German prima-donna sings the well-known air from _La Bohème_. She is loudly applauded by all present, by no one more energetically than by a French officer sitting near me. As darkness comes on, illuminations add their gaiety to the scene, pink and white lights shining among the dark leaves. A peaceful, happy gathering, with laughter, and music, and beer--the music and the beer both of excellent quality. Forget for a moment that the uniforms are khaki, not grey, put back the clock five years, and who would suspect the tragic bonds of blood and strife in which the company are united? Is the war a dream or a nightmare? Is Europe white with the bones of the millions who have died; is Germany itself staggering on the edge of ruin and starvation? If so, how can this musical fête, this peaceful bourgeois gathering, be possible; the enemies of yesterday eating and drinking and applauding side by side as though nothing had happened? What does it all mean? What is one doing there oneself?...