Jena or Sedan? Part 50

"Expecting me?" she replied. "Who? Oh no, I don't suppose my husband is at home. But pray, colonel, don't punish him for that!"

This was rather painful. However, Frau von Gropphusen afterwards said good-bye to them so simply and naturally that no one thought anything more about it.

The colonel accompanied her to the gate, and the four in the arbour went over to the bal.u.s.trade. Guntz had put his arm tenderly round Frau Klare, and Reimers was standing beside Marie Falkenhein. They watched Hannah Gropphusen mount her bicycle and ride slowly away. She turned round in the saddle, waved her right hand, and shouted out a laughing "Good-night."

A little further along she looked back, and the white-gloved hand waved again, but they could no longer distinguish her features.

Then the rushing wheels disappeared in the darkness.

Frau von Gropphusen rode quietly home.

The servant was waiting at the door. He took the machine from her, asking if she would take tea.

"No," she answered. "I have had it. You can clear the things away."

She threw herself on the couch in her room just as she was, in her bicycling costume. She drew up the rug and wrapped herself in it.

And Hannah Gropphusen lay thus till far into the night, staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness of the room.

A few days later Marie Falkenhein came through the garden gate to Klare Guntz's house.

"Klare," she said, "I am going into the town to inquire after Frau von Stuckardt. Would you like me to call in at the chemist's and tell him he is to send you the sugar-of-milk for the baby?"

Frau Klare took stock of the young girl, and shook her finger at her laughingly.

"Mariechen! Mariechen!" she said. "I never would have believed you could become such an accomplished hypocrite, my child."

Marie turned crimson.

"Yes, yes," continued Klare. "Because you have heard me call vanity a vice, you were ashamed to show off your new dress and hat to me. But you hadn't quite the heart to pa.s.s by your old friend's house. Isn't that the way of it?"

The young girl nodded, her face scarlet.

Klare stroked her cheek caressingly, and went on: "You silly little goose! But really, you know, when one's as pretty as you are, a little vanity is excusable. And now tell me, where in the world did you get these things?"

"Oh, Klare," replied the girl, "not here, of course. Frau von Gropphusen went with me and helped me to choose them. I can tell you, Klare, she does understand such things."

The young woman stood in front of her friend and looked her over from head to foot. It would have been impossible to find any costume which lent itself more happily to Marie's dainty appearance than this of some light-grey soft silken material, trimmed with white, and with a little hat to match, the shape of which softly emphasised the delicate beauty of the young face.

Klare gave the girl a hearty kiss, and said: "You are as pretty as a picture, little one. Quite lovely. Well, and what did the stern father say to all this?"

Marie was quite flushed with pride.

"At first he said, 'By Jove!'" she answered. "Then I made him give me a kiss; and next he got quite anxious and wanted to know whether I hadn't been running into debt. I had to swear to him that the whole turn-out didn't cost me more than what he had given me for it."

"And is that the truth, dear child?"

"Well, I had just to add four marks from my pocket-money."

Klare shook her head smilingly. "Dear, dear! So young and already so depraved! Hypocrisy and perjury! Well, at least it is worth it."

Frau von Gropphusen now made quite a business of helping Marie von Falkenhein about her clothes. Hannah's slender hands were quicker and cleverer than those of the deftest maid, and she knew how to transform the young girl's plain boarding-school frocks into something quite pretty and original.

She did all this with a soft motherly tenderness, hardly in accordance with her own youthfulness. Marie Falkenhien's school-girl stiffness disappeared gradually, and a dainty young woman blossomed out.

"By Jove!" said Guntz to Frau Klare. "How Mariechen is coming on! She is getting a deuced pretty little girl!"

And Reimers looked at the young girl with eyes which no longer contained the brotherly indifference of past months.

Shortly before the departure of the troops for the practice-camp the regimental adjutant, Senior-lieutenant Kauerhof, had a fall from his horse, and injured one of the tendons of his knee-joint. This would probably keep him away from duty for about six weeks, so Lieutenant Reimers was appointed to take his work. Being the eldest lieutenant in the regiment his promotion to senior-lieutenant was expected any day.

The young officer was in the seventh heaven of delight at this mark of distinction. He embarked on his new duties with boundless and untiring zeal. He almost divined the wishes of Falkenhein; and sometimes it was not even necessary to give explicit directions as to the manner in which this or that order was to be carried out. The colonel knew that Reimers, with his powers of intuition, would do the right thing.

Falkenhein could not imagine a more painstaking adjutant, nor one who, when off duty, on the march, or at the practice-camp, could have looked after his colonel's comfort with more tender consideration. He had noticed that Reimers had of late paid his daughter attention, and the idea of some day entrusting his child to the care of this excellent young man--already like a beloved son to him--gave him real pleasure.

This gratifying prospect made him more unreserved than was usually his custom. It was well known that the colonel was not exactly delighted with the hundred and one innovations that had been introduced into the army at the accession of the young emperor. And now, feeling that he could trust his acting adjutant implicitly, and that not a word of misrepresentation or misconstruction would ever reach the ears of any evil-disposed person, he freely unburdened his mind of the cares and anxieties that weighed upon it.

Some of these confidential communications struck Reimers with amazement. He had expected to find in Falkenhein an officer who would entirely dissipate all the doubts that Guntz had awakened in his mind; and now he discovered that this honoured superior also was filled with the gravest views as to the thoroughness and efficiency of the organisation of the German army. The more important of these conversations he noted down each evening in the following manner:--

_June 2nd._

The colonel happened to talk about the supply of officers for the German army. In his opinion, the best material to draw from is the so-called "army n.o.bility"--that is to say, those families (not necessarily n.o.ble) members of which have in many successive generations been German officers--German meaning Prussian, Saxon, Hanoverian, &c.--(examples: the colonel himself, Wegstetten, and also my humble self). These families are mostly of moderate means, and often intermarry. That conscientious devotion to their calling as officers is thus ingrained in their flesh and blood must be self-evident. It is born in them; and by their simple, austere up-bringing, with their profession ever in view, they become thoroughly imbued with it. But there is a danger that in such a mental atmosphere their range of observation may be so restricted that they cannot view the life of the world around them with intelligence or comprehension. Therefore it is of immense importance that the corps of German officers should be strengthened by the infusion of fresh blood from the middle and lower-middle cla.s.ses, whose members, having been brought up and educated according to modern ideas, are of great service to the other officers in enlarging their range of view. They provide unprejudiced minds and clear intellects capable of dealing with the more advanced technical problems of modern warfare (Guntz, for instance).

The most! unsatisfactory material consists of those officers who, on account of inherited wealth, look upon their profession as a kind of sport, attractive, abounding in superficial honours, and for that reason very agreeable. They generally spring from well-to-do middle-cla.s.s families (Landsberg), or, in the smart regiments of Guards, from the families of large landed proprietors and wealthy manufacturers. These latter are apt to regard court ball-rooms and racecourses as more important fields of action than drill-grounds and barracks. They are wholly without ambition, because they only intend to spend a few years in the army, and then retire to the comforts of private life on their own estates. They are neither good officers because to be that demands a man's whole attention and energies; nor, subsequently, good citizens--because the proper management of a large estate needs training and experience, which cannot be acquired during their years of military life.

"Yet sometimes these very officers become generals in command, or something of the sort!" said he. "That's the worst of it!"

_June 3rd._

The colonel continued the conversation of yesterday. We talked about the aristocracy and the middle-cla.s.s in the army. He admits without hesitation that the middle-cla.s.s element is despised, from the staff-officers downwards, owing to causes originating in the reflected glory of the old personal relations between the monarch and his feudal lords, now somewhat modified by the indiscriminate giving of t.i.tles--the acceptance of which t.i.tles, moreover, on the part of the middle-cla.s.ses, he utterly condemns. He wound up by saying: "If only it were always members of the aristocracy who were really the most efficient, and attained the highest eminence!"

Just as the colonel had argued before that there was danger of one-sidedness from the prevailing influence of the "army n.o.bility," he now pointed out that, on the other hand, an advantage arose: a kind of acc.u.mulation of specific military qualities of a bodily as well as of a mental kind. He may be quite right.

_June 6th._

Yesterday and to-day the Crown Prince lunched at the mess. He came for these two days in order to inspect the regiment of dragoons here, which belongs to his brigade. An amiable, good-tempered fellow (although our cooking did not give him entire satisfaction), and one who likes to sit over his wine a little.

As we rode after dinner his Highness told us some most racy and amusing stories in capital style. Then the conversation turned upon questions of tactics during the last campaign, and at this juncture the colonel became quite grave. These visits of exalted personages to regimental officers, which are to a certain extent of a social character, may, he says, bring about serious consequences. Such exalted persons are apt to regard any intellectual cypher as a great military genius if he happens to be an agreeable and versatile talker, and then the military authorities have not always the courage to disturb the preconceived notions of their sovereign. Result: Society-generals for dinners and b.a.l.l.s; after whom rank next the petticoat-generals. And then he referred to the female ascendency in the reign of the third Napoleon.

_June 11th._

There is in the Reuss regiment of infantry an amusing little adjutant, Senior-lieutenant Schreck. He was with the expedition in China, and for that was awarded a medal. He is never to be seen without his little red and yellow ribbon. In fun the colonel asked him: "Have you got a ribbon like that on your night-shirt too?"

"You are pleased to jest, sir!" answered the little fellow indignantly, from the back of his long-legged bay mare.