A Little Garrison. Fritz Oswald Bilse
frowzy morning gown.”
“I saw worse than that,” interrupted Leimann. “Last week they had in my presence one of their frequent matrimonial disagreements, and the fat one, her husband, clinched the matter by shouting at her: ‘Hold your tongue, woman!’ A nice, lovable couple, those two!”
“Anyway, it seems as if she lorded it over him pretty effectually,” broke in the adjutant. “Day before yesterday Stark had had his fill at the White Swan, and when he became a trifle noisy and quarrelsome his wife arrived on the scene and behaved simply disgracefully. Finally she tucked him under her arm and took him home amidst the shouts and laughter of the other guests. I don’t think their meeting at home can have been an angelic one.”
“That sort of thing happens every little while,” remarked Pommer; “at least at the Casino[5] she appears whenever he does not depart punctually at mealtime, and calls him hard names before the very orderlies.”
“Well, she is keeping a sharp eye on him just now,” said Captain König, good-humoredly, “for he wants to get his promotion as major, or, rather, it is her ambition to become Frau Major.”
“Why, there can be no idea of that,” interjected Borgert, with a great show of righteous indignation. “If this totally incapable idiot becomes major I ought to be made at least a general. Though it is queer that the colonel is evidently moving heaven and earth in his behalf.”
“Good reason why,” retorted Leimann, calmly.
“How so?”
“Don’t you know the story? And yet it is in everybody’s mouth.”
“Then tell us, please, because we know not a word of it, and I scent something fiendishly interesting!” And Borgert rubbed his hands in anticipation.
“Why, last year the colonel had, with his usual want of tact, insulted a civilian—a gentleman, you know. The latter sent him a challenge. Our good colonel began to feel queer, for while he is constantly doing heroic things with his mouth, he is by no means fond of risking his skin. So after some talk with her, this Stark woman went to see the gentleman in question as peacemaker. She told him that the colonel was really innocent in the whole matter, and that she herself had been the cause of the trouble, having spread a false report under an erroneous impression. She managed to tell her yarn with so much plausibility as entirely to deceive and bamboozle the other party, who thereupon withdrew his challenge with expressions of his profound regret. So, you see, she saved the colonel’s life, for the civilian is known as a dead shot. Since then she has the colonel completely in her power, and no matter what she tells him to do, he executes her orders like a docile poodle dog—a fact which we all see illustrated every day.”
“Well, that explains the whole mystery, of course,” delightedly shouted Borgert. “Don’t you know any more such stories? For it is really high time to call a halt. He has manners like a ploughboy’s, and she like a washerwoman’s. I’ll collect a few more tales of the sort. It is simply shameful that one must submit to the dictation of this woman.”
“There are rumors that she had peculiar relations with a well-known nobleman in her younger days; but I know nothing positive, mind you.”
“Where in the world did you hear that now?”
“My military servant told me. He happens to hail from the neighborhood she comes from.”
During this delectable interchange of gossip the wife of First Lieutenant Leimann had listened with gleaming eyes and heightened color; it seemed wonderfully interesting to her. Captain König, on the other hand, sucked his cigar thoughtfully, and his wife toyed with the embroidered border of the table-cover.
“Why so lost in thought, my gracious lady?” Borgert said.
“I was merely wondering what stories you gentlemen might hatch against us,” she said with some dignity.
He was about pathetically to disclaim any such fell designs, when it was noticed that Frau Kahle had risen to bid farewell, and with her Lieutenant Pommer, whose escort home she had accepted, her husband being off on a short official trip.
They were barely gone, when Borgert remarked:
“I think we ought to subscribe for this poor Kahle woman, just enough to enable her to buy a new dress. I don’t think she has anything to wear besides this faded, worn-out rag of hers. I am sick of seeing it.”
“But you ought to see her at home,” interjected Müller, in a minor key of disdain. “There she looks worse than a slovenly servant girl. And she doesn’t seem to find time to patch up her dirty gown, while her boy, the only child she has, runs about the streets like a cobbler’s apprentice from the lower town. One thing, though, that urchin does know—he can lie like Satan.”
“Inherited from his mother, of course,” remarked Borgert, when a cold and reproachful look out of Frau Clara’s eyes made him stop in the middle of his sentence. There was an embarrassed silence for a minute, and when the talk was resumed it no longer furnished such “interesting” material. Captain König’s yawning became more pronounced, and Leimann was leaning back in his chair, dozing, with mouth half open. His wife, too, showed unmistakable signs of ennui, now that the scandal she loved no longer poured forth. Her features, a moment ago smooth and animated, now looked worn and aged, losing all their charm. Müller was still digesting audibly, and hence it seemed the proper moment for adjourning.
Amid unanimous assurances that “this has been the most enjoyable evening this season,” the leave-taking was finally effected, and the captain accompanied his last guests down the stairs, and returned after shooting the strong bolt at the house door.
As he turned off the gas in the drawing-room, he said to Frau Clara: “Quite interesting, this evening! These are two gentlemen we shall have to be on our guard against.”
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