A Little Garrison Part 18

Borgert's specious eloquence succeeded in a short while in dispelling the clouds from Kolberg's face, for to his callous perceptions all that the other had said was true. That there were heartless and vulgar sentiments contained in Borgert's words he neither understood nor cared about.

So these worthy twain proceeded to their hotel, donned citizens'

clothes, and then repaired to a fashionable restaurant. The waiters received them with sleepy eyes, being just engaged in putting the place to rights; for it was still very early in the day, and they looked at their guests with something of amazement.

The two officers started in on their round of dissipation with several gla.s.sfuls of neat brandy, and wound up, late at night, in a resort of doubtful repute. Whoever might have observed them throughout the day, joking and jesting, could not have helped the conclusion that these two had clearly forgotten the events of the morning, and that they had recovered, together with their peace of mind, that superficial good humor which so often distinguishes the conscienceless rascal from the man of finer mould.

Next day, at noon, our two heroes arrived at their garrison. They were received with open arms by a number of their comrades, for the rumor of what had occurred had preceded them.

A group of officers, in fact, stood on the platform of the little station as they left their train, and after much handshaking and congratulations, all of them accompanied Kolberg to his dwelling, there to celebrate his triumph in a "drop" of choice wine.

But there were some of the officers, especially the elder ones, who censured Kolberg for his heartless behavior. Several of them even went so far as to say that it would have been more fitting for him to have remained alone just at this time, and to make amends for his past follies by a term of undisturbed self-inspection; this new orgy they thought, above all, indecent and coa.r.s.e.

Two days afterward the confirmation of the sentence p.r.o.nounced in his case by the Council of Honor arrived from Berlin. With it came likewise the permission for Kolberg to enter the army anew as a junior lieutenant. That, however, meant his transference to another garrison, for in this one there was no room for him. Before he could start his career afresh in a beautiful city by the Rhine, Kolberg had to comply with one other little formality, and that took him to a fortress where he had to undergo confinement of an easy description, and lasting only for a couple of months, because he had been guilty of "partic.i.p.ation in a duel with deadly weapons," as his Majesty's decree read.

The major recovered very slowly. The difficult operation undertaken by two regimental surgeons of removing the bullet imbedded near the spinal column had not entirely succeeded. The bullet had indeed been removed, but inflammation of the affected parts had set in, and this had been accompanied with great pain and a high fever.

It was only towards the close of winter that the major was dismissed from the hospital as a convalescent. His health and his energy were both gone, and he was compelled to resign his commission in the army, his strength being insufficient to discharge the duties of his post.

He also had been sentenced to a three months' term in a fortress in consonance with the invariable custom followed in such cases by the Kaiser, which makes no distinction between offender and offended, between victim and aggressor. But in this instance a confinement of a few days was considered ample, and at the expiration of this brief term the imperial pardon reached the broken-down man, and he was permitted to depart to wherever his inclination might take him.

Kahle thus saw his life's labor destroyed. As a man who had scarcely reached forty, yet with his physical strength nearly spent, he had to face the question how and where he was to carve out a new field of activity for himself. His small pension was wholly insufficient to enable him to even eke out an existence on it, and he had, besides, by the decree of the court, been intrusted with the sole custody of his child. This, while it gave him at least an object in life, was for a man in his circ.u.mstances an additional grave burden; for his little son was still of that tender age to require a woman's constant ministrations.

The small fortune which his divorced wife had brought into their marriage had, of course, been handed back to her by the law.

And why had all this misfortune overtaken him?

Because the army code and social conventions had bidden him to save as much of the "honor" of his wife as he could. To this mistaken idea he had been sacrificed.

And Kolberg was domiciled by the vine-clad borders of the Rhine, and in his new garrison led a life as dissipated and as free of care as he had in his former one.

CHAPTER VII

AN AIRY STRUCTURE COLLAPSES

Seated at his desk in his elegantly furnished apartments, we see First Lieutenant Borgert.

Before him lay a large sheet of paper covered with rows of figures, and all around him whole mountains of doc.u.ments, bills, and vari-colored envelopes.

One after another he took up these bits of paper, and from them noted down amounts on the big sheet. He had already reached the third column when he suddenly ceased his labors and threw the pencil disgustedly away. Then he grasped the whole pile and threw it into the fire, where in a few moments it was consumed in the leaping flame and reduced to a tiny ma.s.s of ashes.

His laudable purpose had been to go through all the claims against him, so far as they had been presented. Usually his simple method was to throw bills, as they reached him, into the stove; but for once he had been curious to find out how much he really owed in the world, or at least to gain an approximate idea of his indebtedness.

But we have seen that he gave it up as an impossible task. To tread the mazes of these bundles of dunning letters, plaints, simple bills, and formal orders issued to him by the colonel to discharge certain debts submitted to his authority, was more than Borgert felt himself equal to, especially as the conviction had very soon dawned on him that his was labor lost. This much had become quite clear: to pay his debts was impossible, for their total rose far and away above his surmises. When he had left off in sheer disgust, the neat little sum of eleven thousand marks had been reached, and to that had to be added the other mountain of bills which he had just consigned to the flames.

Most of all, the seven hundred marks which he owed to Captain Konig lay on his conscience; but there were some other items that pressed him hard, for they were "debts of honor," contracted with his equals in the social scale; and the first of these, amounting to two thousand three hundred marks, was due in about six weeks. How and where should he raise these large amounts?

He began to reflect. The furniture had already been saddled with a chattel mortgage, one of his horses even been mortgaged twice, and for the other, his former charger, he probably would not get more than three hundred marks, and that was nothing but a drop on a hot stone.

Of his comrades there was none remaining with whom an attempt to borrow would have had the slightest prospect of success,--possibly Konig alone excepted. But should he go to him again with such a request? It could not be easily done,--at least not before the old item of seven hundred marks had been paid back. The only safety anchor he could think of was a formal request for a large loan from a Berlin usurer with a large clientele in the army. In fact, he had tried it; but the fellow had not yet been heard from, although three weeks had gone since this same individual had been furnished with a surety given by First Lieutenant Leimann, and with a life insurance policy in the amount of twenty thousand marks.

For the moment nothing could be done. He would try to pacify in some way the most pressing of his creditors, and to pay in small instalments only those who either should begin legal proceedings against him, or lodge their complaints with the regiment. Perhaps--who could tell?--an undiscovered source might open somewhere; perhaps luck at the cards, so long unfaithful to him, would return, or one of his many tickets in various state lotteries would draw a big prize. And who could tell but what the biggest prize of all, a wealthy bride with a good fat dowry, might not fall to his share? He had formal applications of the kind on file with several of the most prominent and successful marriage agencies at the capital and elsewhere, and only recently one of these centres for the radiation of connubial bliss, so much in vogue with his kind throughout the empire, had been heard from to some apparent purpose.

"Quite a bundle of bright hopes," he said to himself, and with that his plastic mind resumed its equilibrium. His good humor returned, he lit himself a cigarette, and whistled a gay tune, while pacing the thick Smyrna rugs in the centre of his study.

His alert ear heard a whispering in the corridor. He discerned the soft tread of nimble feet on the hall carpet, and then there was a knock at his door.

That must be Frau Leimann, he thought to himself, for she frequently paid him hasty visits at the afternoon tea hour, because at that time her husband used to go to the "_Dammerschoppen_."

To his "Come," however, a poorly clad woman with a basket on her arm stepped over the threshold. Her youthful face showed already the unmistakable stamp which care and sorrow had imprinted on it, and she gazed shyly at the officer who had remained standing in the centre of the room, whence he eyed his visitor with undisguised displeasure.

"And what is it you want again, Frau Meyer?" he blurted. "I've told you once before that I will give you no more washing to do."

"I beg the Herr First Lieutenant will excuse me, but I wanted to ask whether I cannot have to-day those forty marks, or at least a part of them. I badly need money, for my husband has been lying sick for three weeks past and is unable to work."

"Oh, bother!" replied Borgert, roughly. "Come back to-morrow night; I have no small change about me, and I haven't any time to spare."

"But I hope you will keep faith with me this time, Herr First Lieutenant; you have promised so often to pay me."

With that she diffidently opened the door and left, but Borgert undid one of the windows and let the pure autumn air stream in. The odor of these poverty-stricken wretches was insupportable to him. Disgusting!

He took from a carved cabinet on the wall a large perfume bottle, and sprinkled a good portion of its contents upon the costly rugs and the upholstery of his furniture. Then he rang the bell for his servant.

The man stepped in briskly. It was Private Rose, whom the captain no longer wanted in the front, since he had proven unreliable, and with his deficient conceptions of military discipline would only be an injury to the squadron.

"What did I order you to do, you swine?" the officer shouted.

"I was to let n.o.body in without being announced," answered Rose with diffidence; "but the woman pa.s.sed me by, and I could not hinder her from going in."

"Then throw the carrion out, thou sloppy beast! The first time somebody is let in again without my consent, I'll cowhide you within an inch of your life!"

In saying which, he struck Rose with both fists in the face, then thrust open the door and kicked him out.

"If the hag should come back to-morrow night, you tell her I've just gone out!" he called after him.

Borgert had just seated himself, with a newspaper, by the window when the floor bell once more sounded. It was a short, energetic tinkle.

The servant came in and announced, with a face still wet with tears:

"A gentleman would like to see the Herr First Lieutenant!"

"What is his name? I told you always to get the name first."

The man left the room, but immediately returned.

"He will not give me his name, but he says he must speak with the Herr First Lieutenant in any event."

"Then ask him in!"