OFFICERS AT A MASQUERADE
During the last days of January the Casino was in an uproar. A number
of mechanics, painters, and florists were busy transforming the rooms
and corridors, even the veranda, with its adjoining conservatory, into
a suite of daintily decorated festal halls. Numerous booths and tents
were being erected, and all other preparations were made worthily to
receive Prince Carnival, whose coming was timed for the first week in
February.
Hundreds of potted plants and orange and laurel trees from the
conservatory gave a gay and summer-like appearance to the ballroom.
Placards painted and inscribed in suitable manner hung from the walls.
In the booths and tents the usual array of eatables and "wet goods" of
every description could be seen, to be sold by pretty womenfolk. One
stage had been fitted up for variety performances, while on another a
circus was to be seen, in which a number of private soldiers,
disguised as wild beasts, were to play leading parts under the eyes
and whip of the trainer--none other than Captain Kahle. These men had
been drilled for the purpose throughout the whole month.
There was also a stretch of natural greensward, laid down by the
Casino gardener. This was to produce the illusion of a small park.
Benches placed on it invited the guests to rest and to enjoy the music
of a band upon a suitable stand, while Pilsen beer was to be handed to
the audience by waiters. In an adjoining room mock marriages were to
be performed, the fee to the officiating justice of the peace to
consist in the purchase of a bottle of champagne. And, to complete the
scene, arrangements had also been made to obtain a quick decree of
divorce (by the same official) for all those couples who deemed
themselves mismated after a short experience of an hour or so.
The large dining-room represented picnic grounds. On a platform
wreathed in green there was room for an orchestra, and the trumpeters
of the regiment had been ransacking the whole town for weeks in order
to find ragged costumes and discarded garments of every kind, clad in
which they were to represent village musicians.
Even photographers were there, to ply their trade in several tents,
the outside of which showed a collection of ludicrous portraits and
prints of various kinds. The purpose of this stratagem was, of course,
to attract customers.
Naturally all these festivities, planned for weeks, formed the main
topic of conversation with the members of the club, and the whole
garrison was for the time being turned topsy-turvy. Every one intended
to appear in as original and amusing a guise as possible, and there
was much mutual consulting and guessing as to which particular rôle
was to be assumed by each person.
Thus the opening night of the fête drew near. During the afternoon a
crowd of hairdressers moved into the Casino, to assist members of the
club in getting themselves up properly. The regimental tailor, with
his aides, went from one officer's house to another, making
alterations or needed repairs on the uniforms and costumes to be
donned.
At seven in the evening the orderlies, in the black garments of
waiters, were expecting the guests and members, and half an hour later
these began to arrive in crowds.
It was a multi-colored, vivid picture, as all these persons, many of
them good-looking and picturesquely attired, in all sorts of
disguises, began to move in the brilliantly lighted halls, while the
several bands, placed at coigns of vantage, struck up lively and
inspiring airs. Dancing began at once, and champagne flowed in
streams. At a garden table under an orange tree one could see a
powerfully limbed peasant, his hawthorn stick between his knees,
devouring a plateful of caviare, while his neighbor, a circus clown,
was dissecting a lobster.
The most ludicrous figure, however, was Colonel von Kronau in his
Polish farmer's costume, wearing a fur cap on his head, and a tippet
around his neck. If he had appeared in this disguise at the hog market
in a Pomeranian town, every purchaser would have supposed him to be
the "genuine article," namely, a breeder of porkers. And it was quite
evident that he did not have to take much pains correctly to imitate
the manners and gestures of the person he represented.
The champagne was paid for out of a common fund specially raised by
all the members of the Casino. It was, therefore, not astonishing that
the Herr Colonel was, after the lapse of one brief hour, deep in his
cups.
His adjutant had not done well to disguise himself as a Polish Jew,
for in that way he looked indeed too much his part.
Frau König was charming as a chambermaid, and her blue eyes radiated
the pleasure she felt. As a young gamekeeper, Lieutenant Bleibtreu
paid assiduous court to the aforementioned chambermaid. He had already
proposed to her to visit the "marriage booth" in the adjoining room,
and the justice of the peace was getting ready his paraphernalia. Only
late at night, when the captain, her every-day husband, carried her
home, did the pretty maid relinquish her newer claims upon the
gamekeeper.
Frau Leimann presented herself as a peasant girl from the
"Vierlande,"--a district near Hamburg,--and her costume looked indeed
very picturesque, and became her well. Borgert noticed this fact with
great pleasure, and the dainty figure and small nimble feet made a
strong impression on his susceptible heart.
Frau Kahle, as a flower girl, was flirting desperately with the
younger men. She also played her part very well, for the champagne in
which she had liberally indulged began to exert its effects.
Lieutenant Kolberg, as a modish dandy, had already purchased nearly
her entire supply of flowers, and when, soon after, the remnant had
gone, he claimed and obtained her as his partner for the dance.
Frau Captain Stark alone did not seem to belong in this _milieu_. The
choice of a costume, to begin with, had occasioned her deep and
anxious thought. She felt that to follow her inclinations and appear
at the masquerade in either the guise of a ballet dancer or of a
flower girl would too markedly invite criticism. Her fifty years and
her towering shape would really have made her too conspicuous in such
parts. On the other hand, to show herself as a peddler woman or
fishwife would have, so she feared, made her look "too natural."
Having, therefore, discarded these notions, her fancy roved in the
realms of the beautiful and fantastic, until it settled down upon a
costume which, bespangled and with its garland of rushes, she declared
to be that of a "mermaid of middle age." Nobody was in a condition to
contradict her, inasmuch as nobody recollected ever having seen a
"middle-aged" mermaid before. She floated, as a matter of fact, in a
cloud of pink and sea-green laces. The capacious bosom this cloud
concealed from view rolled and heaved quite realistically, thus
producing the effect of ocean waves, and her enormous arms were
awe-inspiring enough to keep away all evening those in the crowd who
had not got their sea-legs,--and that meant practically all the
younger officers. At all other times her most dutiful slaves, these
young men seemed to have conspired to leave the dreaded chief of the
regiment's nominal chief severely alone. Of course she felt this as an
unpardonable offence, and this all the more as the colonel at an early
hour was in an irresponsible condition, and hence listened to her
violent plaint with stolid equanimity.
There was a male trio, too, that claimed some attention. They
represented to the life merry, devil-may-care vagabonds, and so well
did they act their parts that one would have supposed they had just
been picked up on the miry highway outside. They deemed it, of course,
strictly within their privileges to get drunk with all due speed,--an
endeavor in which they admirably succeeded. From that hour on they
became an unmitigated nuisance, not even atoned for by some humor or
merry pranks. After midnight they were always seen in a bunch,
steadying each other as they lurched along.
Lieutenant von Meckelburg, during the earlier part of the evening,
stuck resolutely and almost silently to his assigned duty, it being
that of an organ-grinder. He had picked up somewhere a villainous
specimen of this instrument of torture, and with it had retired into a
corner, wearing the ragged and faded clothes of an impecunious veteran
of the wars, with his visorless, crumpled cap pulled over his eyes,
and with a face which for unadulterated melancholy could not be
duplicated. Hardly any one took notice of him, and his physiognomy
grew sadder and sadder. At last, however, he left his organ in its
corner, and visited the various bars where champagne could be had.
With each generous libation his features cleared, and finally he got
himself into a decidedly hilarious condition, and not only moved with
his organ into the centre of the greensward, where he placed it on one
of the benches, but accompanied its shrill and squeaking notes with a
mellow basso of his own.
The bands meanwhile played their best and merriest, and as several
casks of beer and some dozen bottles of cheap spirits had been
provided for them, the members, both trumpeters of the regiment and
civilian musicians hired for the night, devoted no inconsiderable
portion of the intervals between their playing to frequent and
prolonged visits to that small side-room where these drinkables had
been placed ready for use. After a while they dispensed even with such
formalities. They rolled the remaining casks up the steps of their
podium, and shortly the faucet could be espied from among the
greenery, and the musicians hovering about it. As a matter of course,
their playing soon showed the effects of all this tippling. One man
particularly, one of the flageolets, became quite unmanageable,--or
rather the instrument on which he was performing,--so that it usually
was the space of a second or two ahead of the others. This weird music
only ended with the removal of flageolet and man from the scene.
At eleven began the festal performance on the small stage constructed
for the purpose.
One of the lieutenants led off with two topical songs rather too
outspoken in the lessons they tried to convey. He was disguised as a
prima ballerina for the purpose, and as a windup he danced, with great
skill and abandon, a can-can. The ladies tittered and the men
guffawed. After more of the same kind there was enacted a parody on
Shakespeare's "Hamlet." The gentleman responsible for this version had
employed radical means to clear the stage of all the _dramatis
personæ_, at the end. Murder, suicide, poison, dagger, lightning even
decimated their ranks, and when the curtain dropped there was not a
soul of them left alive. The crowning effect of this parody was the
appearance of the prompter himself before the footlights. In a few
tear-choked words he informed the audience that after seeing the
actors all die, and nothing but corpses around him, he could and would
not survive, and so he made an end of himself, too, using a rope for
the purpose.
The humor of the whole audience after that grew rapidly boisterous,
and by midnight the tone of this carnival fête given by officers and
their ladies could scarcely be distinguished from that rampant at a
village kermess. If anything, it was a trifle more unconventional.
Lieutenant Kolberg had in the meantime found a cosy arbor into which
to retire with Frau Captain Kahle, and more effectually to exclude
intruders had placed a tall screen before the entrance.
A little "flirtation," more or less serious, was something he could
not do without, and since the garrison with its staid citizens and
their staider wives and daughters did not furnish the material
required for him, he had made up his mind to lay violent siege to the
heart of the lady. He knew that it was a susceptible one, and from
Pommer he had heard, in hours of bibulous intercourse, that siege in
her case meant speedy surrender. He had already progressed with her
beyond mere preliminary skirmishes, and in their conversations with
nobody near they had begun to use the intimate "thou," and to call
each other by their given names.
For his purpose, then, no better time could have been found than this
very festivity, with all the allurements which champagne, music, the
dance, and the hurly-burly of a huge crowd afforded. Shielded against
indiscreet spies by the interlacing vines creeping all over this
arbor, his love-making had proceeded at such a rapid pace that within
an hour the little woman did not thrust her gallant wooer aside when
he dared imprint a kiss on her swelling lips.
In another arbor, more in proximity to the champagne bar, First
Lieutenant Leimann sat in lonely misery and shed rivulets of tears.
His intoxication, in its more advanced stage, always took that form
known technically as "howling desolation." On this occasion it had
seized him promptly after the ninth glassful.
His condition was in ludicrous contrast with the magnificence and dash
of his attire, for he was dressed, regardless of expense, as a
Hungarian magnate of the first water, and he rejected with sombre
scorn all attempts made by friends to commiserate him. His nearer
acquaintances knew for a certainty that he would thus remain seated on
top of an empty wine cask until the very close of the ball. For
whenever the black devils of drink cast their spell over him in this
fashion it required from four to six hours to emerge into a saner and
somewhat soberer frame of mind. Just now his sobs shook his whole bony
body. The divers orderlies who passed him held their sides with
laughter, but he heeded them not.
His wife found the situation very annoying, and she therefore resolved
to get one of her sudden attacks of headache. She retired, with signs
of disgust on her pretty face, to another corner, and when Borgert
joined her soon afterward, she requested him in mellifluous tones to
escort her home.
As they reached the door of the house in which she with her husband
occupied the upper part, while Borgert had his smaller lodgings on the
ground floor, she sighed with some satisfaction and said in a low
voice:
"The air has done me good; I feel much better now."
"Then may I take you back to the Casino?" was Borgert's answer, and
the tone of his voice was full of disappointment.
"No, no, we will go up and have a cup of coffee; that will do us good,
and I really do not feel like returning to that crowd of drunken
people; it is simply disgusting!"
"Just as it pleases you, my most gracious lady!"
With that he inserted the key into the lock, opened the door, and both
of them silently scaled the rather steep stairs, dark as Erebus.
When they had reached her cosy parlor, Borgert brought the lamp and
lit it. He knew exactly the spot where he would find it in the dark,
for his acquaintance with every nook of the apartments had come in the
course of time with their mutual intimacy. Then he took up a newspaper
and sat down in the sofa corner.
Frau Leimann had disappeared in the adjoining room; but it took her
only a very few minutes to return, bearing in her hands the Vienna
coffee machine, and presenting, now that she had resumed a
comfortable and coquettish kimono in lieu of her masquerade costume, a
most seductive picture.
"So," said she, letting the heavy window curtains down, "now at last
we are again where we can have a comfortable, undisturbed chat
together."
* * * * *
The first rosy dawn showed on the horizon as a heavy, lurching step
was heard on the stone stairs outside. Frau Leimann blew out the lamp,
and then resumed her seat on the sofa, leaning her head against the
soft cushions.
Meanwhile Leimann had noisily opened the door leading into the
corridor, and now stepped into the room where his wife was waiting.
For a moment he halted at the door. He thought he discovered the scent
of cigarette smoke. Then he felt his way towards the table, found a
box of matches, and lighted a candle. Then he saw his wife recumbent
on the sofa.
The sight touched him. Had this faithful soul awaited his coming so
long, in order to offer him a cup of coffee? Doubtless sleep had
overtaken her, and she had not heard his step. So he cautiously
approached her and imprinted a kiss on her forehead.
A nervous cry escaped her, and she quickly rose.
"Oh, it is you, Franz. Where did you stay so long?"
"Do not be angry with me, my angel, that I kept you awake so long; but
I really never dreamed that you would do this. Why did you not retire
long ago?"
The words sounded so full of affection,--almost like an excuse, like a
prayer for forgiveness,--but they did not touch her; she simply yawned
with some affectation, and stretched her arms as if dying for a sound
sleep.
"Why, you know, Franz, that I had to wait for you; you were again in a
fearful condition. When I saw you sitting in that way I felt so
miserable that I could bear it no longer, and went home."
"Alone,--so late at night? Why did you not have one of the orderlies
escort you?"
"Borgert took me as far as the door; he offered to be my escort."
"Well, I'll have to thank him for that to-morrow, and, come to think
of it, he is always very attentive to you. Where did he go afterwards;
I never set eyes on him again the whole night."
"He complained of a headache, and seemed to have had enough of the
whole show. I suppose he went to bed long ago."
"Why didn't you offer him a cup of coffee?"
"But, Franz, what would the servants think if they heard me coming
home with a gentleman so late at night? That would never do. Our maid,
Marie, anyway, is listening and spying continually, and one has to
take care not to let her hear things. I presume she has been telling
tales out of school as it is."
"Send her away then, if you have no confidence in her."
"I would have done it long ago, but I can't let her go until we have
paid her wages. We're several months behind with her."
"Then pay her to-morrow."
"What with? Have you any money?"
"I? What an idea. You know perfectly well that the few marks of my pay
could never keep this household running. Hasn't your mother sent the
allowance this month?"
"No, she hasn't anything to spare this time."
"Oh, of course,--the old story."
"Is that meant for reproach? You knew yourself that we were not rich.
Do me the favor, therefore, to spare me your hints and complaints. I
find them tactless and inappropriate at this late time."
"Yes, you never want to hear about that. You ought to have known
before you married me that to keep house without money is a beastly
nuisance. Now we have this ceaseless dunning every day: one day it's
the butcher, the next the baker, and the day after the laundress,--and
they all want money. I can't cut it out of my hide."
"But wasn't it yourself who kept on urging and urging me until I
promised to marry you? Didn't you gainsay all my objections and insist
on our marriage?"
"True enough; but you and your mother ought to have known better. You
never ought to have consented, even if I was fool enough to insist on
it. Your mother knew how much it costs to keep house, and I didn't.
And now it is too late."
"That I know myself, and you needn't drive me crazy by constantly
nagging at me. And it isn't my fault, either; for if everything had
turned out the way my mother desired, you would not have had to
complain to-day that you are married to a woman without money. You
were not the only one from whom I had proposals."
"That you ought to have told me then," replied her husband, with an
ugly sneer. "I'm awfully sorry if I have interfered with your fine
prospects."
"You are more vulgar, Franz, than I thought you."
"Oh, yes, women can never bear the truth. If one doesn't flatter you
the whole time and play on the tuneful lyre of love, you at once begin
to find fault."
"Well, I haven't been surfeited with terms of affection by you."
"That is merely because I don't know how you have deserved them of me.
Is it perhaps because I don't know how to pay my shoemaker, or how to
meet a whole bunch of bills that have come in the last fortnight? Oh,
what a fool I have been! Instead of leading this dog's life with you,
I might to-day attend the Academy of War and lead a decent existence."
"Hold your tongue, you vulgar brute; you have no right to insult me!
Leave my room, or I shall leave the house!"
"Instantly, and with the greatest pleasure, my gracious lady! Pleasant
dreams to you!"
So saying, Leimann violently slammed the door behind him so that the
windows shook, and then went to his own bedroom.
But his wife buried her face in the sofa cushions and sobbingly sought
relief in tears. That gave a vent to her feelings of hatred and rage
against her heartless husband. Her whole soul rebelled against this
brutal man whom she had married because he had sworn on his knees to
her that he could not live without her. And now he roughly stamped
into the ground the affection which she once had borne him. He
desecrated all those recollections which are so dear to a woman's
heart, and which at critical points in her life are meant to be a stay
and a comfort, and to make the burden of misfortune lighter to her.
And if, a short time before, when she had hastily parted from Borgert,
she had felt something like remorse,--something of shame in having
abused the confidence placed in her by her husband,--she now regarded
herself as a victim, and her fault only in the light of a just revenge
for his heartless conduct.
For at no time is the heart of woman more susceptible to temptation
than at the moment when she feels herself betrayed and outraged in her
best feelings.