FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]This has reference to the not uncommon habit in German households, especially those of officers and the higher classes, of keeping husband’s and wife’s exchequer strictly separate.—Tr.[2]“Wine tests.” In the wine-growing districts of Germany men possessed of a delicate “wine tongue” delight in attending public or private meetings where new vintages are sampled and their prices and marketable qualities determined.—Tr.[3]“My gracious lady”—“Gnädige Frau”—a term of politeness used to-day indiscriminately in Germany toward married women.—Tr.[4]“Blessed digestion”—“Gesegnete Mahlzeit”—is the universal greeting in Germany after meals.—Tr.[5]“Casino”; the military club houses are so called.—Ed.

[1]This has reference to the not uncommon habit in German households, especially those of officers and the higher classes, of keeping husband’s and wife’s exchequer strictly separate.—Tr.

[1]This has reference to the not uncommon habit in German households, especially those of officers and the higher classes, of keeping husband’s and wife’s exchequer strictly separate.—Tr.

[2]“Wine tests.” In the wine-growing districts of Germany men possessed of a delicate “wine tongue” delight in attending public or private meetings where new vintages are sampled and their prices and marketable qualities determined.—Tr.

[2]“Wine tests.” In the wine-growing districts of Germany men possessed of a delicate “wine tongue” delight in attending public or private meetings where new vintages are sampled and their prices and marketable qualities determined.—Tr.

[3]“My gracious lady”—“Gnädige Frau”—a term of politeness used to-day indiscriminately in Germany toward married women.—Tr.

[3]“My gracious lady”—“Gnädige Frau”—a term of politeness used to-day indiscriminately in Germany toward married women.—Tr.

[4]“Blessed digestion”—“Gesegnete Mahlzeit”—is the universal greeting in Germany after meals.—Tr.

[4]“Blessed digestion”—“Gesegnete Mahlzeit”—is the universal greeting in Germany after meals.—Tr.

[5]“Casino”; the military club houses are so called.—Ed.

[5]“Casino”; the military club houses are so called.—Ed.

“Corporal Meyer! Have all this cleared out of the stable! Instantly! What beastly filth is this? What? The stable guard is not present? Then do it yourself; it won’t hurt you. Forward, march! And then bring me the parole book!”

“At your orders, gracious lady!”

Frau Captain Stark strode with rattling steps up and down in the stable, followed by two ragged-looking dogs. She wore a badly fitting riding habit of slate-colored cloth, with a black derby that had seen better days. In her right hand she carried a whip with which now and then she cut the rank atmosphere in a reckless manner, so that the dogs slunk aside in affright. Her keen eye pierced everywhere. She scanned the black register boards nailed above the different partitions, and studied attentively the tableton which was marked in chalk theordre du jour. She came to a full stop behind two horses, the only ones left behind by the squadron which had gone off for drill to the parade grounds. Wrathfully she glanced at the poor old beasts, the bones sticking out of their wrinkled, badly groomed skin like those of a skeleton. Then she lifted the hind feet of the brown gelding and examined the hoofs. She drew a small note-book from her habit, and entered on the dated page: “Remus No. 37. Left hind iron.” Next she climbed the steep wooden stairs leading up to the hayloft. There they were, the culprits, two men of the stable guard, slumbering peacefully, and not even awakened by the entrance of the “squadron’s mother.” Quick as a flash her whip rained a shower of blows, while she cried:

“Down with you; attend to your work, you lazy scum! I shall have you reported to the colonel!”

And they flew down the stairs, and were at the feed-cutter as if the devil himself were after them. She met Corporal Meyer at the door, breathless from running, but handing her theparole book. He clapped his heels together before her so that the spurs jingled.

She pushed the greasy book aside.

“What does the idiot think?” she cried. “Hold it before my eyes while I read it. Here is an entry that the saddles and bridles are to be inspected to-morrow. Have your men everything in good shape?”

“I will go and inquire of the sergeant-major.”

“Away! Bring him here, but this very moment.”

The sergeant-major made a black face when Meyer had delivered his message, for the hours when the squadron was drilling or practising were his choicest during the day. He spent them, as a rule, in domestic bliss, having his cup of coffee before him and the wife of his bosom in close proximity. He was peacefully enjoying his morning cigar when Meyer reported to him the desire of the “gracious one.”

He cursed his luck, but lost no time in girding his loins with his sabre; shoved his cap on his bald brow, and went rattling down the stairs.

The gracious one received him very ungraciously.

“Sergeant-major, is everything in readiness for to-morrow?”

“I think so, but will once more examine to-night.”

“To-night? You are crazy. At once. Loafing must stop. And, mark you, I demand a more respectful tone from you, or I shall report your case to the colonel. Now bring me my horse!”

“Horse, my gracious lady? That is out with the rest of them. All horses were ordered out, except these two lame ones,” and he pointed at the two sorry steeds.

“What? My horse ordered out? What new insolence is this? Let it be brought to me instantly. One of the corporals can go on foot.”

But this moment she heard steps approaching, and seeing Borgert she called out to him in dulcet tones:

“Ah, what a pleasure, my dear First Lieutenant! So early out on duty? I was just about to give some sugar to my husband’s horses, but find them already gone. My dear husband is so excessively punctual in all that concerns the service.”

“Your interest for the squadron is most praiseworthy, my gracious lady,” said Borgert with a malicious twinkle in his eye. “I have often remarked you with secret admiration when issuing orders to the men about the stable.”

“Orders? Scarcely that, my dear Borgert. Once in a while I am the messenger of my dear husband when he has forgotten something. Of course, I take an interest in all that concerns him and the squadron.”

“Frau Captain is quite right, and I can only congratulate you on the successful way in which your interest in the squadron and in the whole regiment takes concrete form.”

“You are always jesting. But I suppose I shall see you at the Casino to-night?”

“Assuredly, we are to meet at five to talk over some service matters.”

“Yes, you remind me. But that will not last long. It concerns only some trifling affairs.”

“Much obliged for the exact information.”

“Oh, of course, I take an interest in everything, as I said. I called the colonel’s attention to divers things, and I presume he will talk them over with you gentlemen.”

“I am curious to learn what they can be. But, pardon me, I see Captain König coming, with whom I have to transact some business. Good morning, my most gracious lady!”

“Good morning,mon cher!” And she held her hand up high to him,—a big hand, which was encased in a soiled, worn-out gauntlet of her husband’s.

Then she turned once more to the sergeant-major, while Borgert hastened to intercept König, who was on the point of turning into the big courtyard of the third squadron.

“Good morning, Herr Captain! I must beg you to excuse me if I interfere with your liberty for a moment, but a very pressing matter induces me to ask of you a great favor.”

“You astonish me. What is the matter? Is it anything of importance?” retorted the captain.

“This afternoon the colonel will doubtless mention the unpaid Casino bills, and it would be extremely painful to me, especially in the presence of the junior officers, to have my name spoken of in that connection.”

“My dear fellow,” said Captain König,“you’ll have to go elsewhere for the money. It was difficult enough for me to raise that hundred for you a week ago.”

“And if I repeat my request, nevertheless, Captain, it is because I find myself in a horribly embarrassing situation. For if I don’t succeed in procuring four hundred marks till this evening, I shall have to face the most annoying, possibly disastrous consequences.”

“All very well, but I simply haven’t the money,” said the captain, shrugging his shoulders.

For a moment or two there was silence, and each avoided looking at the other. Then Borgert murmured, hesitatingly:

“May I make a proposition, Herr Captain?”

“Well?”

“But I must ask you not to misunderstand me. Would it not be possible to borrow so small a sum from the funds of the squadron, since it would be only a question of a few days?”

Captain König looked startled.

“But, my dear fellow, how can you suggest such a thing to me! You can’t expect me to touch the treasury.”

“I do not think it would matter the least bit, since the Herr Captain alone is responsible for that fund, and since this would practically mean nothing but the transferring of four hundred marks from the public fund in your own keeping to private funds of your own, to be made good by you, without anybody being the wiser within a week or so.”

“No, no, that would never do,” again said the other.

“But, Captain, you cannot leave me in the lurch. It would simply place me in a beastly predicament,” wailed Borgert, glancing appealingly at his brother officer.

König began to think, twirling his moustache. On the whole, he reflected, it might be a wise thing to place under an obligation this man with the dangerously bitter tongue. Borgert’s influence on the younger officers was not to be underestimated, he knew, and a refusal would turn him into an enemy. The money itself he had, locked up in a drawer of his desk at home; but if he made Borgert believe that he had to “borrow” it from the squadron funds,—whose custodian he was,—it might be expected thatthe lieutenant would not so soon ask for another loan, mindful of the great difficulties this present one was causing. It was as the result of these cogitations that König resolved to lend Borgert the sum he required, but to leave him in the belief that to do so it was necessary to touch the funds in his care.

“All right, then,” he said; “you shall have your money. When will you pay it back without fail?”

“Within ten days, Captain. I give you my word on it.”

“Very well, come to my office at noon, and you shall have it.”

“Accept my most grateful thanks, Herr Captain!”

“Don’t mention it; but I trust it won’t occur again.”

They shook hands, and the captain mounted and trotted off in a lively tempo toward the parade grounds.

Borgert, elated and free of care, hastened home. His duties to-day did not begin until ten. He really felt kindly towards König for the moment. It was not the first time the captainhad helped him out of a dilemma. Ten days! Well, within ten days all sorts of things could happen. Why not his ability to repay the loan? And if not, bah! What is the use of speculating about the future? For the moment he was safe; that was the main thing.

Leimann meanwhile was awaiting the coming of his friend in the latter’s study, and when Borgert entered, serene of brow and humming an operatic tune, his face too brightened.

“Has he done it?” he shouted.

“Of course. Go to him at eleven, and he will do the same in your case, all the more as you need it less.”

And at noon, when the two friends met at the Casino over a bottle of fragrant Moselle, you could tell from Leimann’s exuberant gayety that his own request had not been refused.

Punctually at five all the officers of the regiment were assembled, with caps and sabres, in the reading-room of the Casino. And when the different squadron commanders had stepped up and reported “Everybody present,” the colonel at once let them know his mind.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in his most pompous manner, “I have commanded your presence in order to talk over a few matters. First: I must request that for the future, at balls and similar affairs, dancing spurs be worn, so as to avoid such unpleasant accidents as we had night before last. One gentleman, who shall be nameless,”—and as he said it he fixed a basilisk eye on Lieutenant von Meckelburg—“tore off with his spurs the whole edge on the robe of Frau Captain Stark. This must not occur again, gentlemen, and from now on I shall officially punish similar behavior. Furthermore, it is customary among persons of education not to be first in stretching out a hand to shake that of a lady. And if the lady herself offers her hand, good manners in our circles requires that the gentleman salute it with his lips. It was made evident to me by the complaints of one of the ladies of this regiment that some of you gentlemen stand greatly in need of further education on such points of etiquette.” This particular passage referred to the fact that Lieutenant Bleibtreu had omitted the customary hand-kiss the other day, when Frau Captain Stark hadthrust her hand under his nose, his reason being that she had worn an old pair of dogskin gloves, soiled and wet by the rain.

Casting a big tear, which had meanwhile gathered in his left eye, several yards away, where it glittered in the sunshine, the commander continued:

“Next, gentlemen, I formally forbid you to visit another town without first obtaining leave of absence. Whoever will visit the neighboring town must ask my formal permission first, no matter if the distance is inconsiderable. You all remember that two of the gentlemen of this regiment were forced to retire under peculiarly distressing circumstances, because of large debts contracted in the adjoining town.”

“Will the Herr Colonel permit me a question?” interrupted Captain König.

“If you please, Herr Captain!”

“Is this order intended to apply to married officers as far as invitations to social entertainments, the theatre, concerts,et cetera, are concerned?”

“Most assuredly; I must retain exact control of the movements of every one of you gentlemenas often as he leaves the garrison. Infringements I shall punish severely, in exact accordance with the military penal code. Such infringements I shall regard not as mere breaches of discipline, but as direct disobedience to my explicit orders.”

There was a pause, the colonel whisking his big bandanna out of the breast pocket of his uniform coat, and carefully wiping his left eye. This done, he looked about and saw disgust plainly printed on every face around him.

Indeed there was disgust. Because two offenders in the past had got themselves into trouble, the whole corps of officers in town was to suffer vicariously, forced to remain shut up, even during their leisure hours, in a place offering absolutely no intellectual and worthy relaxation. The elder officers more especially felt all the insulting tyranny that lay in this new order; but iron-clad military discipline forbade even a murmur.

“And now, gentlemen,” resumed the colonel, after scanning the clouded faces around him for another minute, “let us proceed to the election of president of the Casino management, forthe term has just elapsed. You, Captain Kahle, filled that position for a year past, and I rejoice to say that the manner in which you have done so has found my full approval. Indeed, gentlemen, all of us are indebted to Captain Kahle, for he has done his best, by devoting the larger portion of his leisure hours to the task, in improving the management of our Casino. He has enlarged our funds, and has introduced a number of well-considered and highly welcome ameliorations. It is for this, I think, we cannot do better than to beg Captain Kahle to remain in an office which he has administered so much to our joint benefit. If, however, there should be among you, gentlemen, somebody to propose another man, let him speak up, for in that case we must ballot in the regular manner.”

A unanimous murmur of approval, such as never before had greeted utterances by the colonel, ran through the assembly, and Kahle issued as the choice of everybody from the oral election. His office of dictator of the Casino was one which involved much gratuitous labor and frequent abuse, but was of the greatest importance to his fellows, since it concernedso closely the most sensitive portion of a soldier’s anatomy—his stomach.

“It is not necessary to inspect the books,” continued the colonel; “for I feel quite sure that everything is in the best of order. But one more thing, gentlemen! I cannot permit Casino bills to grow in this avalanche fashion, such as has been the case for months past. It is true that the two highest accounts have been settled to-day; but I warn you that henceforth I shall proceed without leniency, if all the outstanding bills are not settled by the first of next month. Consider well what I have said! Thank you, gentlemen!”

Thus dismissed, most of the poor lieutenants felt and looked decidedly blue. For some of them it meant another loan in Berlin or Cologne at usurious interest, with no prospect of ever discharging the principal, which meant nothing less than ultimate ruin and disgrace. For others, less reckless or with less credit because of more modest family connections, it meant the paying off in monthly instalments of their debts, which always led to a black mark against their names in the regimental list of conduct,minimizing their chances of promotion when the list would reach the eyes of the commanding general and, finally, those of the Kaiser and of his military cabinet. At best it meant a tussle with the pater. But golden youth does not long indulge in such gloomy reflections. That is its privilege. Thus, then, after exchanging melancholy views, the younger swarm broke and fled into the garden or into the cool veranda.

Meanwhile the ladies of the regiment convened in the reading-room, and with them were two young civilian gentlemen who had not been able to withstand their combined blandishments, and who had declared themselves ready to join the tennis club. The main business of the evening was to be transacted; namely, the election of a board for the tennis club and the fixing of certain days for play in the courts near the Casino building.

Frau König alone had not come, and her husband had had formally to excuse her. The truth was, she avoided as much as she could to meet the wives and sisters of her husband’s comrades, for she was not fond of the malicious, evil gossip that formed their chief pleasure in life.This natural inclination on her part had become stronger since her recent evening party, when she had heard how even most of the officers themselves did not scruple to retail disgusting bits of scandal. Of course, she was made to suffer for this exclusive taste—or distaste rather—and she knew perfectly well that the scandal-mongers were only awaiting the slightest opportunity to besmirch her own name and that of Captain König; but even so, she preferred her own way.

The negotiations in the reading-room lasted some time, for each one of the ladies had a wish or an idea of her own to defend. Moreover, it required the encouraging words of the elected club officers to induce a number of newly arrived gentlemen to become candidates for admission. Of course they knew, these sirens, that nearly all of these candidates would never show up at the tennis courts; but at any rate the initiation and membership fees were thus substantially increased, and the ladies, of course, paid no dues.

At last, however, the folding-doors of the dining-room were thrown open. A substantialbut not very elaborate supper was to be served there. The acrimonious and strident voice of the Frau Colonel floated above all this babel of feminine noises. In the corners stood, in little groups, a number of the younger and older officers, discussing, in subdued accents, the latest decrees of their superior officer. They were still vibrating with suppressed indignation.

Captains König and Hagemann made sport of Frau Stark, but in such manner that she never suspected it. Lieutenant Pommer never quitted the immediate vicinity of Captain Kahle’s spouse.

Supper over, nearly all the men present had the lively desire to escape from this promiscuous gathering, into which they had been inveigled under pretence of an official matter. But such was not the intention of Frau Stark, who cried out to the colonel in her domineering way:

“How about this, Colonel; cannot we make a good use of this favorable occasion and arrange a hop? Nobody, I suppose, would have any objection? I myself would think it charming,—simply delicious.”

The colonel took just one minute to ruminate;then he declared himself equally delighted with the lady’s idea. For her wish had indeed become his law—dura lex sed lex.

The men were in a rage. What folly to dance, with the thermometer so high! Much more sensible to sit down quietly on the veranda and drink cool, frothy beer! Lieutenant Specht felt particularly enraged, for he was to meet his flame at the train about ten. He exploded his anger, saying to Borgert:

“The old woman is crazy, with her eternal dancing; but let us keep her in perpetual motion to-night, just to teach her a lesson, until she herself gives in!”

While the ballroom was being cleared of chairs and got ready for the hop, couples were promenading in the garden. The golden sickle of the moon shed dim rays over the landscape and made the towers and steeples of the town, standing out at some distance, appear like misty silhouettes. In the deep green of the bushes a nightingale pealed forth his liquid plaint into the balmy night air, while from the ballroom inside the tuning of violins mingled inharmoniously. From the town gusts of warm windcarried snatches of a martial song, ground out on the barrel-organ of a carrousel. All these noises rose in a confused mass into the still air, mingling with the laughter of the women and the calls of the servants and musicians.

Meanwhile Borgert gave agratisperformance to a number of his younger comrades. He had gathered them around him in the tennis courts, where he strikingly imitated Frau Stark in the rôle of a tennis player. He showed how she attempted to meet the balls with a racquet, and how she picked them up, until these young men were fairly dying with hilarity. He was too funny, they said, and played his improvised part really to perfection. At last, however, Borgert tired of this “manly” sport, and his audience dropped off, one by one, joining the dancers inside. Borgert, though, enjoying the mild night air, lit a fresh cigar and strolled about the garden, his habitual cat-like tread barely audible on the soft ground. Puffing the fragrant weed, he suddenly spied, in the uncertain glimmer of the moon, the sheen of a white summer robe.

“Oho! A little intrigue,” he thought tohimself. “Maybe something of interest. Let’s reconnoitre!”

He glided like a shadow among the flowering lilacs, heavy with perfume, and when a few paces from the figure in white, crouched and hid himself behind one of the bushes. He could not distinguish the outlines of the two figures clearly, but he heard whispering. First, in low tones, he made out the voice of Frau Kahle, cooing like a turtle, and next it was thebasso profundoof Lieutenant Pommer, vainly endeavoring to compress its volume into a murmur.

“Amazing! Has this coarse elephant turned into a Romeo, sighing like a furnace?” he said to himself, and listened with all his might.

The syllables and now and then the broken words that he was able to understand from his point of vantage seemed to afford him the greatest delight. When the couple at last rose and disappeared down the path leading to the side entrance of the Casino, he left his hiding-place and slowly followed in their footsteps. An unholy smile played around his thin lips. “Two more in my power!” he whispered.

All this time the dancers inside were devoting themselves, without interruption, to Terpsichorean pleasures,—mostly waltzes, they being the special delight of Frau Stark. When Borgert entered the ballroom the band struck up the latest waltz,—“Over the Waves,”—and he noticed Frau Stark, flaming like a peony, perspiration streaming down her rubicund face, being handed, true to his programme, by Lieutenant Specht to his smiling comrade, von Meckelburg. Frau Stark just took the time to gulp a glass of lemonade, and then was off again, breathing hard, but still in the ring. The atmosphere in the room was stifling, but all the ladies, at least, seemed to enjoy themselves. Officers’ wives are proverbially insatiable dancers.

After two rounds of the room von Meckelburg was seen steering his victim towards a chair near the open window. Frau Stark sank into it, literally exhausted. She looked indeed dripping. The young lieutenants had had their revenge. She had “given in.”

Borgert meanwhile had taken his stand in a corner, where he bent over Frau Leimann, whowas seated and fanning herself with her handkerchief. Although fatigued from heat and dancing, she looked most seductive in her pale blue tulle, whose filmy lace clouds around throat and bosom heightened the effects of her charms. Borgert, bending over her, sniffed with sensual delight a faint perfume, while he carried on a whispered conversation in monosyllables with her—a conversation which seemed to have meaning but for these two.

In the reading-room the orderlies were busy filling tulip glasses with that fragrant mixture, a May bowl, so grateful in its delicious iced condition, and yet so deceptive. Around a plain table in the small side room, away from the throng and undisturbed, several of the captains, the colonel, and two of the younger officers were playing “skat” at a penny the point. One of the lieutenants, to judge from his heated face and the anxious look on it, must be losing heavily. Had this “little game” been arranged to encourage the men under him in the economies Colonel von Kronau had but now so strongly recommended to them?

Lieutenant Specht just then was taking Frenchleave. It was necessary for him to run to the station and meet the young lady—a lovesick, pretty little milliner from Cologne—who for the time being dwelt in his unstable heart.

Lieutenant Bleibtreu sat in a brown study, a few feet away from the players, deep in his melancholy thoughts. The army, his military career, intercourse with his brother officers and their ladies—it was all a grave disappointment to him. His illusions were gone, though it was but a couple of years since he had donned the bright, showy, glittering dragoon uniform, so attractive to the neophyte. He was thinking of home, of his dear, patient, loving mother, whose constant preoccupation he was; of his lovely, self-denying sisters, whose dowry was fast going while he was himself enjoying himself in the “king’s service.” Was he? Was he “enjoying” himself? Was this—this hollow, stupid round of the coarsest pleasures and the equally coarse and stupid round of duties—really what he had looked forward to?

The young man sighed. The absence of the wife of his captain, Frau König, rendered him still more melancholy. Bah, it was disgusting.And to think that this was the profession most highly honored, most envied in the fatherland! To think that it had always been drummed in his ears, ever since early childhood, that to “wear the king’s coat” would exalt him high above his fellow mortals!

Comradeship! What a fine word when it bears out its full meaning, thought Lieutenant Bleibtreu. But what was it here? What had he found the practical construction of the term? To follow, day by day, step by step, in the same treadmill of dull routine, only relieved by occasional but all too brief glimpses of the freedom that lay beyond “the service”—that was the meaning of comradeship. There was none of that unselfish intimacy, that ready sympathy and help between the members of the caste into which he had risen on the proud day he first read his name among the Kaiser’s appointments in theArmee-Verordnŭngsblatt. Dead sea fruit! Ashes that taste bitter on the tongue.

Certainly there were exceptions. He himself had heard of some such cases of comradeship as he had dreamed of when still a slim little cadet in the military academy: cases where onecomrade lifted the other, the younger and less experienced, up to his higher level; cases where one comrade sacrificed himself for the other. But these must be very rare, he thought, for he had never seen such a case himself. What he had seen was the casting into one stiff, unchanging form of so many individualities not suited to each other. It was the hollow mockery of the thing that palled so on him. And what would be the end?

Though young in the service, he had seen men meant for better things broken as a reed on the wheel of military formalism; he had seen them retiring when but in the prime of life, broken in spirit, unfit for any new career, impaired in health, perfectly useless—victims of the conventional ideas that rule supreme in the army. Others he had seen forced to resign, overloaded with a burden of debt, ruined financially, physically, morally bankrupt,—all due to the tinsel and glitter, to the ceaseless temptations thrown into the path of the German army officer. A young civilian, even when the son of wealthy parents, is not coaxed and wheedled into a network of useless expenditure, as is theyoungest army officer, waylaid everywhere by the detestable gang of “army usurers,” who follow him to the bitter end, knowing that to repudiate even the shadiest debt means disgrace and dismissal from the army to every officer, no matter if his follies have been committed at an age when other young boys are still subject to closest supervision.

Deep lines had formed on Bleibtreu’s smooth forehead, and he was visibly startled when the cheery, round voice of his squadron commander, Captain König, recalled him to his surroundings.

“And that’s what they call pleasure,” said he, sitting down on the sofa beside his young lieutenant, for whom he felt something like paternal affection. “If such entertainments were at least arranged beforehand, with the consent or at the instance of the juniors themselves,—for I will say nothing about us older men,—but no! Frau Stark commands, and the whole regiment, from the colonel down to the youngest cornet, has simply to obey. Disgraceful, I say. Why, we cannot even choose our own tipple on such occasions. The colonel simply orders that a May bowl be composed, and we have to brew it,drink it, and—pay for it. This evening will cost us a pretty penny again. A glass of apollinaris would be far more palatable, and certainly much cheaper and appropriate at this temperature than this confounded sweetish stuff, which gives one a headache fit to split the skull next morning.”

“Quite true, Captain,” replied the young man. “This form of quasi-official pressure, even in one’s private expenditures, is one of the worst curses of our profession. It has indirectly caused the ruin of many a promising young officer, I’ve been told.”

“Yes, my boy, you are quite right,” answered König. “It is amazing how many officers have been forced into retirement of recent years, solely because of unpaid and unpayable debts. Things in this respect cannot go on much longer. For the ruin of thousands of these young officers means also the ruin of their families, and among them many of the oldest and best in the Empire. An unhealthy craze for luxurious living has seized upon the army, and God alone knows how it will end some day. It is a thing which will and must frightenevery true patriot, and I wish our most gracious sovereign would take up this matter more earnestly.”

“Yes, H. M. does not attach enough importance to this chapter.”

“And yet the remedy would be such a simple one,” remarked the captain. “If H. M. would simply issue a decree to the effect that no debts of army officers up to captain’s rank shall be recoverable in court, that would be the end of army usury, and with it would be removed the worst cancer of which the whole army suffers. Once the certainty that ultimately they are sure of their money would be gone, these leeches would no longer trouble the gay and shiftless young officer whom they now pursue with the persistence of bloodhounds. But what is the use of saying this? H. M. himself is not without blame in these things. As long as his personal example all tells the other way, how can we expect the army to become prudent and economical?”

“However, Captain, that is not the sole trouble. I think as long as we as a class—or caste—are taught that we are something betterthan the civilian population, so long as we are guided by another code of ethics, erecting an insurmountable barrier around us, there can be no real reform. Such prejudices, or rather such systematic teaching, must inevitably lead to sharp separation between the professional soldier class and the rest of the people. Good heavens, this is the twentieth century, and no longer the middle ages, we’re living in. Caste and exclusive privileges must go, else—”

“Sh! Sh! Lower your voice, my dear boy—the colonel is looking our way, and over there stands Müller, the adjutant, always ready for tale-bearing. Let us get up and take a stroll in the moonlight, or, better still, let us go home.”

The lieutenant accompanied his superior officer as far as the door of his dwelling, and on the way spoke in tones of real concern of the fact that the cleavage between the private soldier and his superiors was so great.

“After all,” he remarked, “many of these poor devils are every bit as well educated as we,—some of them even better,—and as long as this is supposed to be a ‘nation in arms,’ and not, as in the eighteenth century, an army ofmercenaries, no such strict difference, socially, ought to be made. Do you know, I often think the Socialists are not so wrong in some things they urge.”

“For goodness’ sake, my dear Lieutenant, don’t let any such remarks escape you anywhere else,” said Captain König, in a scared voice. But they had reached the captain’s door, and so they shook hands and parted.

Bleibtreu lived at the other end of the straggling little town. In walking leisurely home, he followed his train of thought. The systematic brutality shown the common soldier—even the noncom. (though not in so pronounced a manner)—by his fellow-officers had from the start been very much against his taste. “They don’t see the defender of the fatherland in him,” thought he, “but merely the green man, unused to strict discipline and to the narrowly bound round of dull duties, the clumsy, ungainly recruit, or the smarter, but even more unsympathetic private of some experience whose drill is an unpleasant task for them, and who, they know, hates and abominates them in his heart.” And he remembered scenes of such brutality,the unwilling witness of which he had been. Such cruelty and abuse of power, he felt, was playing into the hands of the Socialist Party. “These young men, fresh from the plough or the workshop,” he mused, “cannot help losing all their love for the army. So long as they serve in it, of course, they will not risk those punishments for expressing their real thoughts which the military law metes out with such draconic severity; they will prefer suffering in silence the injustice, cruelty, and inhuman treatment to which, at one time or another, nearly every one of them is subjected during their period of active service. But once dismissed to the reserve, how many, many thousands of them will naturally turn to the only political party with us which dares to oppose with courage militarism and all its fearful excrescences! And all this,” he continued inwardly, “is the natural result of a long period of deadening, enervating peace. Oh! If there were but a war! All this dross would then glide off us, and the true metal underneath would once more shine forth.”

He went to bed with these ideas still humming in his brain.

Borgert had been enjoying himself meanwhile. His kind always does. He had, for a few moments, tried to listen to the arguments of Captain König and Lieutenant Bleibtreu, while they were seated on the sofa; but, pshaw! how absurd to philosophize about these things, he thought. Far better to take life as it comes. And so he had joined the party at the gaming-table, where one of the winners was just then standing treat for a battery of Veuve Clicquot, and as he slowly sipped the delicious beverage, the bubbles rising like rosy pearls from the depths of his chalice, he smiled with self-satisfaction.

But at last he, too, left the house and directed his steps toward the far end of the garden, where a small gate led directly into the street at the end of which he dwelt. There! Again Frau Kahle and uncouth, elephantine Lieutenant Pommer! The May bowl, he thought, has been too strong for his addled brain. And he stepped silently aside on the velvety sward, under the clump of lilacs. The nightingale, from the centre of a thicket a score of paces away, still fluted and trilled a song of passion.And something like it, he made sure, big Pommer was also pouring into the tiny ear of that conquering flirt, the volatile spouse of Captain Kahle. Having ascertained this, First Lieutenant Borgert rapidly strode toward the interesting pair, clinking his spurs and drawling forth an accented “G-o-o-d evening!” as he came up to them before they had had a chance to rise. Pommer looked indescribably much like an idiot in returning the salute; but the little woman, with the ready wit of her sex, assumed the air of an immaculate dove.

The players were the last to leave the Casino,—all of them with heavy heads and some of them with much lighter purse. Among the latter was Leimann.

Nextmorning the garrison—that is, the officers of it—was slower and later in awakening than usual. That cursed May bowl! It was precisely as Captain König had said: terrific headaches paid for indulgence in its seductive potency. Pommer, poor Pommer, although waked by his servant at the usual time, was still so much under the influence of the fumes that had mounted to his silly head the night before, that the only answer he was able to make to the shoutings of his Masovian[6]man was an unintelligible grunt. Then he turned over on the other side and settled down to a solid sleep.

At eleven he was still peacefully snoring, when his man stepped up to his bed once more, and undertook such violent and persistent manipulations with the extremities of his master thatthe latter finally opened his eyes far enough to let a little daylight and some sense into his dazed brain. The bulky lieutenant stretched himself, yawned, and at last remembered his doings of the night before. With both mighty fists he hammered his thick skull in disgust and despair.

“Holy smoke—that— —— May bowl!” he groaned, and then sat down in the chair beside his couch to feel of his head, which seemed a gigantic bass drum, hollow and reverberating. Like a flash his desperate flirtation with the wife of his own squadron chief came back to his muddled consciousness.

Vaclav, his man,—whom he, for short, called Watz,—brought in his morning coffee, and after dressing with a great running commentary of grunts and groans, he sat down to drink a mouthful of the reviving decoction. But his brain was still in a whirl, and the scenes of a few hours ago passed rapidly, but in nebulous form, before his clouded inner vision.

Dimly he felt ashamed of himself. He knew he had not behaved like a gentleman, and he thought he remembered that somebody had witnessed the spectacle he had made of himself.Specht? Meckelburg? Or Müller? No—he thought not. But Borgert? Yes, he thought it was Borgert. No, no. But who? He gave it up with another groan, and took a mouthful of the cold coffee.

Anyway, he had behaved in a beastly fashion. That he did know. But stop! Had she not told him how badly she was treated by her husband—how neglected—had she not appealed to his gallantry and friendship? He felt uncertain. All he knew with certainty was that he had been a brute.

He buried his head in his brawny hands.

How had it been possible for him so to forget himself?

He knew:—champagne luncheon with that fellow Borgert,—a fellow whose powers of consumption had never been ascertained. Then, at dinner, that heavy “Turk’s blood”[7]to which Müller had to treat because of a lost bet. And then, worst of all, that thrice-condemned May bowl! And hadn’t they noticed it, the otherfellows, and hadn’t they filled him up notwithstanding, or rather because, they saw that he couldn’t carry any more liquid conveniently? His big fist slammed the table.

There was a knock at the door.

The man with the sore conscience and the sorer head bade the unknown enter.

It was First Lieutenant Borgert, helmet in hand. He pretended astonishment at the evident condition of his comrade, but eyed him sharply, and then said:

“Pardon me if I come inopportunely, but a rather delicate matter induces me to see you this morning.”

“Officially or privately?” grunted Pommer.

“Both, if you wish it,” answered the other.

“If a private matter I beg you will postpone it,” said Pommer. “Let us talk about it some other day.”

“I regret to say that Imustinsist on discussing the matter now,” retorted Borgert, stiffly. “You are aware, of course, that as the elder man in the service I have the right, even the duty, to remonstrate with you if I see occasion for it.”

Pommer reflected a moment. In years he was the other man’s senior, and he had also visited a university for a triennium before joining the army, while the other had simply completed the easy curriculum of the military academy. But, true, Borgert was a twelvemonth ahead of him in actual service. So he silently submitted.

“All right, then; to what matter do you refer, sir?”

Borgert assumed the air of a grand inquisitor.

“Accident made me, last night, witness to a scene which I am sorry to say, Herr Comrade, I cannot otherwise describe than shocking. It was in the most secluded spot of the grounds near the Casino. The lady in question—”

“You need proceed no further, Herr Comrade. I know perfectly well that I am to blame.”

“May I ask you for an explanation?”

“I was intoxicated. That is the sole explanation I can offer.”

“A strange one. Why, if you cannot drink without losing your senses,—why, then, do you drink at all?”

“The fact that I was intoxicated was due inlarge measure to the very gentleman I am now addressing, who would not—”

“You need not go into such details,” Borgert interrupted him. “You do not seem to understand the gravity of your offence, and it seems necessary that I should enlighten you as a younger comrade on that point.”

Pommer felt indignant at this hypocritical lecture, but before he could reply to it Borgert continued:

“Your offence is the most serious against comradeship which can be conceived. Really, it would be my duty to call the attention of the lady’s husband to it if I did not trust in your sense of honor to rectify the matter before any more mischief is done. If you will promise me to go at once and ask the lady’s pardon, and to do all in your power to avoid any further cause for scandal, I will on my part forbear to mention what I saw. You must know, of course, that to tell Captain Kahle would mean a challenge, a duel, your enforced resignation from the army, and maybe your death,—for he is a good shot.”

Borgert was very dramatic as he said this. The rôle of an austere prophet, calling a sinnerto repentance and amends, had all the spice of novelty for him. Inwardly he smiled at himself, but outwardly he drew up his tall, sinewy frame to its full height, and cast a hypnotizing stare at the man before him, now slowly recovering his usual sober frame of mind. And as the sense of his wrong-doing began to overpower poor Pommer, he bowed his towzled head in misery. Two big tears crept slowly down his tanned cheeks.

Borgert went on:

“It is, of course, your duty to go at once to the outraged husband as well, and to confess your guilt. As I know Captain Kahle, he is not the man to withstand a direct appeal to his clemency if couched in appropriately contrite terms. If you will pledge me your word of honor to do as requested and to obtain the pardon of husband and wife, you may count on my silence.”

Pommer glanced up. Tumultuous feelings were surging in his breast, and so rapid had been the revulsion from his first sentiments when Borgert had opened the conversation, that what was now uppermost in his mind was gratitude for this discreet and wise friend. He rose, andwith a pathetic gesture stretched forth his great paw.

“Here is my hand,” he said, with a hitch in his voice. “I promise.”

Borgert clasped it a moment.

“Thanks, many thanks, for your sympathy and aid in this sorry business,” the junior mumbled, and surreptitiously wiped a briny drop out of the corner of his eye.

Borgert left, very much satisfied with himself. He had now among the younger officers of the regiment another one who would henceforth swear by him. He noisily clanked down the shaky wooden stairs of the humble house wherein Pommer occupied narrow quarters. And Frau Kahle, too, was now in his power, he gleefully reflected. Besides all that, there was something positively piquant about the little adventure,—something which would frequently hereafter furnish him with pleasant innuendoes and hints, understood only by those immediately concerned, and which would supply him, Borgert, with an endless fund of amusement. He intensely enjoyed this propitious ending to his machinations.

Humming a tune, and feeling in the best of spirits, he went home, gave his servant sabre, cloak, and helmet, and mounted the stairs leading up to Frau Leimann’s apartments.

She was not alone. The adjutant was present. Müller, in fact, had shirked his duties to-day, the colonel being off on a hunting trip in the adjacent extensive forest, having been invited thereto by the royal head forester commanding that district. Frau Leimann greeted Borgert warmly, and while the latter and the adjutant stepped to the window, looking at the wife of Captain König and Lieutenant Bleibtreu, who were riding past the house on horseback, Borgert seized the opportunity and deftly appropriated the pretty woman’s hands, which he kissed passionately.

Then he told them of his interview with Pommer,—told it in such droll terms and with such an abundance of mimicry, that his two hearers could not help laughing immoderately. The picture of ungainly, rough Pommer being in the sentimental stage and a prey to a lacerated conscience was too exquisitely ludicrous.

Meanwhile Pommer sat at his desk, laboriouslyinditing a letter to his mother, to whom he opened his whole heart, as in duty bound. Several of the strongest passages in his letter were panegyrics on his new-won friend, Borgert, whom he limned in colors so brilliant that the original would indeed have had great trouble in recognizing himself in the portrait.

The lieutenant had by this time calmed down a good deal, and the blurred images of the past evening resolved themselves, one after another, into sane recollections. He now distinctly recalled the part in the ugly intrigue played by the woman; how she had skilfully led him on to make advances; how she had smiled encouragingly at his terms of endearment; how she had “fished” for dubious compliments, and how she had, above all, so alluringly made the most intimate confidences to him as to her marital troubles and as to her status of afemme incomprise. Really, he thought after quiet reflection, he himself was not so much to blame in this affair, disgraceful as it doubtless was when all was said and done. For the woman herself, a change of feeling took place simultaneously. The tender pity he had felt for her in his maudlincondition made room for something akin to contempt and dislike. She certainly could not be a pure woman, a faithful wife and mother, he thought, thus to invite, almost provoke, the passionate regard of a man much younger and less experienced than herself,—a man, too, whom she had known but slightly and conventionally hitherto. In his inmost consciousness he had almost absolved himself from guilt in the matter. And as to writing to her husband, or confronting him with the raw tale of her and his indiscretion, as Borgert had suggested, why, the more he thought of it, the less advisable a step it seemed to him, from every point of view. However, a promise was a promise, and he would keep it.

He donned his full regimentals, and issued forth at the right time for a visit of the kind.

He did not find Kahle himself in, he being still away at squadron drill. But his wife flew to meet him as soon as the parlor door had closed behind the announcing servant, and her reception was indeed such an affectionate and even enthusiastic one that the words of penitence perforce died on his lips. She drew himtoward her on the low lounge, and exuberantly babbled on about the comfort, the delight his confidence had brought her. There was not the slightest word said by her to show that she had disapproved his approaches now that the glamour of the moment, the enervating effects of close communion in the warm air of a spring night, were gone. Coquettishly she plied all her wiles to captivate poor Pommer anew. His pulses hammered, his senses were aflame; but he remained master of himself, and sternly he resolved to sever these equivocal relations with a woman whom he could no longer respect. The weak, purblind man had been steeled against further temptation by seeing a few hours ago the abyss yawning at his feet, in which an illicit love had threatened to engulf him forever. The image of his mother, noble type of womanhood, rose before his mind, and he remained strong.

Frau Kahle, on her part, at last becoming convinced that all her arts were thrown away on this iceberg, suddenly changed her tactics, and dismissed her visitor in somewhat abrupt fashion. She swept from the room, leaving himto find his way out. Only the intoxicating perfume which she used by preference lingered a moment longer in the close air of the room as the lieutenant sought his way out; but despite a curious feeling of defeat which he could not help instinctively feeling, there was subdued exultation in his heart. His brow was serene as, at the next crossing of the street, he encountered Borgert, who hailed him:

“Well, Pommer,” he shouted satirically, “how is your headache? And how did you find things at Kahle’s?—everything forgiven?”

“Oh, yes, everything forgiven,” answered Pommer, demurely, without going into any further details.

“Excellent. Was a wise thing for you to do to take counsel with an elder comrade, my dear fellow. Well, I am glad for your sake everything ended well.”

“Yes, thanks to you,” said Pommer; and the two shook hands and parted.

Pommer went home, well satisfied with himself.

He fancied that all was now over between him and Frau Kahle. His acquaintance withwomen of her stamp had never been extensive, and to read the soul of one so utterly false and grossly sensual as this inveterate coquette, was quite beyond the ability of Lieutenant Pommer, analysis of his own or anybody else’s character not being his strong point.

He had, however, miscalculated Frau Kahle’s fascinations over his unsophisticated self, and decidedly underestimated her craving for admiration. He was made aware of this when he next met her, on the day following. She greeted him with a smile so bewitching and a half-expressed sense of intimacy so flattering to hisamour propre, that he was unable to resist. Soon these two became the talk of the little town. No matter if Pommer, looking at his inner self within the quiet retreat of his own bachelor quarters, bitterly bewailed his renewed fall from grace, her influence over the coarser fibre in his being easily triumphed over his qualms of conscience.

He frequently met Borgert during this period, but the latter, far from training once more on him the battery of his eloquence, contented himself with some facetious remark or with a Mephistopheliangrin. And for Kahle himself, he was probably the only one in the garrison—as is the fate of husbands too often in such cases—who was not in the slightest aware of the “goings-on” of his nominal partner in the joys and sorrows of life. And, besides, his tasks as chairman of the Casino’s house committee kept him, together with his official duties, practically away from home all day long, and frequently far into the night.

Pommer was, as we have seen, not precisely of delicate stuff, either bodily or in his psychic makeup. But the chains he was wearing nevertheless galled him, and he not seldom manœuvred with his charmer to obtain release; but all in vain. More than once he thought seriously of writing to Captain Kahle himself, confessing his guilt, glossing over her own share of it, and offering all the reparation in his power. That would mean, of course, exposing his own precious life to the unerring bullet of the captain; but even that outlook appeared to him preferable to his present life of deceit. He now regretted that he had not followed, the morning after the Casino hop, his first impulse of makinga clean breast of it to Captain Kahle. Thus weeks dragged on, and there was no prospect of a change in a situation which gradually became intolerable to him.

But suddenly, without his having done anything to bring it about, the day came that granted him escape from his degrading entanglement. The imperial order arrived, promoting him to the grade of First Lieutenant and transferring him to another garrison, far in the interior of the country.

She was the first person he informed of it.

“Farewell! We shall not see each other again!” He spoke quite coolly, almost callously, and he left her cowering on the sofa and weeping hysterically. He felt a free man again. The abominable shackles had fallen from him.

If he had seen Frau Kahle five minutes after he had left her he would not even have retained for her a vestige of that first tenderness that had swept over him that night in the Casino garden. For when he had retired, and she had heard his step on the flagging of the hall below, she had quickly risen and peered, from behind the lace curtains, into the street after his vanishingfigure. Then she had sat down at the piano and intoned a merry Strauss waltz.

But then she reflected that they might call her heartless. So she had indited a long, passionate farewell letter to him. He showed it, the night before his going, to Borgert at the Casino. They were all his guests that night. Borgert had screamed with laughter.

“What a devilish smart little woman she is, after all,” he had exclaimed. And then, poising in mid-air his champagne glass, he said, nodding to Pommer:

“Here’s to her and her simpleton!”

He spoke from experience.

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