WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CASINO DANCE
"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 tablet on which was marked in
chalk the _ordre 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 the parole 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 that the 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 captain had 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 had thrust
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 gentlemen as 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, for the 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 concerned so 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 substantial but 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 wind carried 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 a _gratis_ performance 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 to himself. "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 the _basso profundo_ of 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, who was 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 French leave. 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 the _Armee-Verordnungsblatt_.
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 one comrade 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 the youngest 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 frighten every 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 better than
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 of mercenaries, 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.