The evening meal was a special time: It began promptly at 6 o'clock, as we took our customary places upon Sweitzer's arrival and the hanging of his hat on the wall of the dining room.
We silently sad, full that our hands of his signal, and about our heads for his saying of his simple Grace: "we think the Lord for he is good, and his loving kindness endures forever." It was said with a commanding and convincing and humbling note of Thanksgiving and confidence. We then eat the meal according to a rotating menu: Thursdays it was a spaghetti with Ethan in a meatless tomato sauce, with plain bread and no butter, and for dessert there was an artificial apple sauce made from a local fruit. On Saturdays the evening meal the special: Coco, salami, camembert cheese, confiture , bread, and butter. It was a favorite meal.
After the meal each evening, if the tables were cleared away except for the dazzlingly white clause and the green shaded kerosene lamps, giving a warm, bridge, glowing light.Schweitzer would announce the numbers of two hymns. He then shuffled over to the piano and played: first an improvisation and then the hymn, which we saying from the old German handles, the 1914 edition. Although he had the music before him always, he never looked at it but played with his head bowed, his eyes closed, and with his feet moving beneath the keyboard over the Orkin petals, which for a moment he had forgotten were not there. He then returned to the table where he shared his thoughts with us on what he had read and then student said, "So," after which we returned to our rooms.
Saturday nights were different: we were treated to an after dinner concert. It was occasionally a performance by staff or guests, but on most evenings it was from one of the records in our little library of recordings. The phonograph was battery operated and had all of the fidelity of a telephone receiver, but it was beautiful, and all of us sat in silence attention, Schweitzer with his head bowed in concentration.One evening a new photograph had been brought in and was placed front and center at the accustomed moment. The performance was wonderful to nearly all of us, they decided improvement. At the intermission (Record change), However, Schweitzer stood and announced that it was about to rain, and we should all go to our rooms before the storm. The storm never came, nor did the second half of the concert. The phonograph disappeared.as a comment about the concerts, the intensity with which the records were listened to was all-absorbing and independent of the low quality of the apparatus. Enjoyment would not have been enhanced by anything short of life performance.
A word about the reading of the Bible: it was always in German, except on those nights when there were friends guest present. Then, a French Bible was used. The readings were usually in series and some logical unit, such as the life of David the king. It is difficult to apply the term Victorian correctly to one who has never lived in England or America, but some sense of propriety in Schweitzers mind never permitted him to read aloud or pronounce certain inappropriate words such as "harlot", "whore", "knew", and "luster after". In the reading of the story of David, for example, the day that David tarried in Jerusalem was abruptly interrupted and followed by the account of some sort of disagreement with Uriah the Hittite, with no mention of David's seeing Bathsheba bathing on the nearby rooftop, his lusting after her, his affair with her, and is unsuccessful efforts of having her ensuing pregnancy accredited to Uriah, Bathsheba's husband and David's general. The story scarcely made sense with these omissions. After the reading of the Bible, their followed the reading of the Lords prayer in German. It was read, and not apparently quoted, although there were minor variations in the wording from night tonight. Afterwards there was a brief commentary on what had been read.
The dining room was a special place to the hospital family. It was truly a family with Schweitzer seated on one side at the center of the table, "Last Supper style". You trust us as"my children"and treated us in every sense so. Even when he was somewhat patronizing, we returned the spirit of the words to him and we're proud to be considered his children, excepting his fatherly Council and the spirit in which it was offered.
He always had a special set of remarks to each of us on our birthday, revealing to us that he had noted much about us that we felt it going unseen and unappreciated. Birthdays are special days, beginning with the assembling of the entire workforce outside the bedroom of the birthday person, who, on completion of a hymn, seemed to have awakened and dressed rather quickly and greeted the singers with much surprise. Personal handmade gifts were opened up the table from much reused and salvaged wrapping paper. There was a special piece of raffia cloth, embellished with a drawling and signed by each member of the staff with Schweitzer's hand written greeting at the top.
Tabletalk was always interesting. The topics ranged from what might under other circumstances have seemed trivial to deep theological or philosophical concepts. If there were guests present, classic stories might be told.