A Little Garrison Part 16

"But how can you say so, Max? I don't suppose she...."

"Certainly she will! That is just what she is doing."

Both became silent when the servant girl stepped in. She placed the teapot on the table, and then took a folded piece of paper from her pocket, and handed it to Weil with a peculiar smile.

"Has this perhaps been dropped by either the Herr First Lieutenant or the gracious lady?"

And as Minna had again retired, the officer first gazed at the paper with eyes wide open, then he gave a scornful laugh and held it open to his wife.

"Here, my dear, will you not convince yourself? There it is in black and white."

Frau Weil hesitatingly took the slip of paper from his hands and read:

"Am expecting you to-day at 4.30, since I shall be engaged to-morrow in the service."

Signature and address were wanting, but the writing was unmistakably Kolberg's.

"Here it is," said Weil. "That is her way of thanking us for offering her our hospitality,--just lying to us, and trying to befool us for no other purpose than to permit her to continue her disgraceful conduct.

Didn't I at once say it would be better not to have her come? But you, of course, insisted on inviting her. If you had listened to me, we should now be spared the disagreeable necessity of throwing that woman out."

"But for heaven's sake, Max, that you can't do. Throw the note into the fire!"

"I'll do nothing of the kind," her husband flared up. "I shall certainly throw her out of the house! Or do you suppose I'm going to make our home a convenient shelter for depraved women? Let her see where she will find another refuge. As for me, I respectfully decline the honor of harboring her any longer as our guest; and this note will not go into the fire, but, instead, where it belongs,--before a Council of Honor!"

The young officer was in a great state of excitement. With rapid strides he measured the room, burying his hands in his pockets. His dark look betrayed indignation and resolve.

"If you will take my advice," his soft-hearted spouse said, with some trepidation, "you will put that bit of paper into the stove and keep quiet about the whole matter. She is to join her husband in another two days, anyway, and then there would be an end to her intrigues in any case. Do me the favor, my dear Max, and leave your fingers out of that pie, for there will be nothing but disagreeable consequences awaiting you if you don't. And then, another thing, think of the poor major!" And the little woman had actually tears in her eyes.

But that stubborn husband of hers proved inexorable.

"I shall do what I said I was going to do, and that's all there is about it. These are matters you don't understand. I won't quietly look on while this person continues her miserable intrigue with that scoundrel, Kolberg,--at least not while she is in my house. She ought to have had enough decency remaining to have left off meeting him while being the guest of honest people. That is beastly; it's worse than beastly,--hoggish, I may say!"

Frau Weil did not insist any longer. She knew her husband, knew his strictness in such matters, and also knew that the more she would plead with him the more fixed his purpose would become; but her forehead became rumpled with unpleasant thoughts, and she sat down before the glowing coal in the grate, in a brown study.

Her husband meanwhile continued to pace the carpet, reflecting on what steps he had best decide.

At last the maid came into the room once more, and said, with a mien of ill-concealed curiosity:

"Madam is served!"

"Tell us, Minna, where did you find that letter?" said the officer to her.

"I found it lying in the hall under the hat-rack; I presume it must have dropped out of somebody's pocket."

"Very well; you may go."

Silently the couple sat down to table. Weil's face was clouded, and his wife scarcely looked up from her plate. She lifted her glance to him, however, with considerable anxiety when the hall door was heard to open, and Frau Kahle's voice became audible.

"She is coming, Max! Now, for pity's sake, don't make a scene! Think of the servants who will be sure to listen and to spread everything that's said."

But Weil did not answer, neither did he look at the door when it now opened and gave admission to the Frau Major. Her face was rosy with excitement, and her eyes were gleaming in humid tenderness.

"Good evening, both of you!" she cried gayly, her voice trembling with suppressed agitation. "I hope you will pardon the delay; but Frau Pastor Klein pressed me so much to drive with her over to the city that I could not resist, and that is how it became so late. But it was delightful,--my afternoon with her. We were at a cafe, and made a number of purchases."

Weil arose stiffly and faced his guest.

"Madam," said he, with quiet dignity, "it is useless for you to try to deceive us as to the purpose of your absence this afternoon. The letter which reached you while at table with us, and which has come into our hands by accident, proves in the most unmistakable manner that you have abused our hospitality most grossly. May I request you to leave this house as soon as ever you can, but certainly no later than to-morrow morning? I must beg that you will leave us undisturbed for the remainder of the evening."

He ceremoniously bowed, and then took his seat once more at table.

Frau Kahle remained for a moment as if petrified in the semi-obscurity of the room. Then she hastily seized her chatelaine bag. Her hand tremblingly fingered its contents, and then she turned to the door and went out, slamming it behind her. The footfall of her retreating steps could be heard in the direction of her own room.

After supper the first lieutenant stepped up to his writing-desk, lit the green shaded lamp, and sat down on a stool before it. Next he selected a large sheet of official note-paper, dipped his pen, and leaned back and reflected.

For some time he thus concentrated his thoughts, and at last began to write.

His spouse, meanwhile, with anxious aspect, sat on the sofa near a small table, busy with some embroidery, her fingers mechanically travelling to and fro; but every little while she cast a troubled glance towards her husband, whose pen went scratch, scratch, over the paper.

At last he had finished the letter. Weil reclined pensively in his chair, and slowly read over and over what he had written. He made no alterations, but folded Frau Kahle's note up with his own, and then enclosed both in a large yellow envelope, sealing it in the proper way.

Then he locked up the doc.u.ment in a drawer of his desk, blew out the lamp, and took a seat on the sofa next to his wife, perusing attentively a newspaper.

Frau Kahle departed the following morning by an early train. n.o.body, not even the orderly, knew her destination. He had taken her trunk to the station, but she had not told him a word as to her future intentions. And neither by letter nor by word of mouth had she left a word of thanks or apology for her late hosts.

At noon of the same day Lieutenant Kolberg, whose mind not even the faintest suspicion of these latest developments of his intrigue had crossed, was ordered to appear forthwith before the commander. The latter, dryly and without comment, informed him that proceedings had been begun against him before the Council of Honor, and that until further notice he would be excused from service.

There was much excitement within the body of officers. In their secret hearts every one of them was glad that in the deadening monotony of their garrison life this affair, painful as it was, was now a.s.suming tangible proportions. For not a single one of them had any kindly feeling for Kolberg, whose secretive disposition and whose absence from nearly all joint festivities at the Casino had rendered him unpopular, and Frau Kahle herself was scarcely better liked, desperate flirt as she was.

It was because of this that none of the officers, least of all Borgert, refrained from criticising in a most uncompromising spirit both Kolberg and his paramour. And Weil's proceedings were unanimously adjudged perfectly correct. The remarks made in regard to this whole matter were by no means couched in such terms as might have been expected from his Majesty's officers of the army when applied to comrades. In fact, hard names were used, and everybody proclaimed aloud his intention severely to cut "the vulgar beast" and "that coa.r.s.e woman."

Colonel von Kronau had had a great fright when Captain Stark, as president of the Council of Honor, had handed him in the morning that doc.u.ment which had given Weil so much anxious thought. He ruminated and lugubriously pondered what had best be done in this unfortunate affair in order to end it with the least amount of scandal; but his cogitations were in vain. The matter had been brought formally to the attention of the Council of Honor, and, according to the strict wording of the instructions provided, there was no squelching or modification of the proceedings possible. He had to be satisfied, therefore, to curse most heartily the author of the fatal doc.u.ment,--First Lieutenant Weil,--and to give him in his thoughts a big black mark in the next conduct list.

A most unwelcome business, indeed. Already he saw himself superintending the unloading of hay-carts on that estate of his, far off in the eastern, semi-civilized districts of the realm.

But it was poor Major Kahle who would suffer most of all. After attaining at last the goal of his desires, all his aspirations were to be nipped in the bud by the misdemeanor of his wife. He had no idea where she was now; she had preferred not to venture near him in leaving the garrison, since she did not feel sure of a cordial reception on his part. Hence she had sent her little son to her parents, while she herself had taken up quarters in Berlin. Her chief amus.e.m.e.nt just now consisted in the inditing of innumerable letters to Kolberg, full of reproaches for "having succeeded by his diabolical arts in alienating her affections from her husband," while the leisure she could spare from these epistolary efforts was devoted to roaming that broad international thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, which presented to her, after her long "exile" close to the frontier, a striking and highly appreciated contrast.

Kahle was firmly resolved to show the door to his faithless wife if she should dare present herself before him; meanwhile he took preliminary steps to obtain a legal separation from her.

But there was another thought heavy on his mind. It was the unavoidable duel. Because his wife had deceived him, the army code forced him to next expose himself to the bullet of her seducer, instead of simply expelling the latter from the army and giving him a much-needed period of reflection in jail.

He was expected to "save the honor of his wife" by mortal combat.

What an absurdity! he thought to himself. Is there any honor left in a wife who deceives her husband? A coquette she was, heartless and honorless, nothing more, and yet he must risk his life in defence of a thing which did not exist any longer, and which, he now strongly suspected, had from the first been nothing but a delusion on his part--her honor! What a ludicrous farce!

And he began to reflect whether there was not some way in which he could escape this impending duel. Not because he was a coward or afraid of death; no, he was brave enough, but he could not see why he should expose to blind chance not only the fruits of his own arduous life, but also the future of his son, merely because another man had acted in a despicable manner. It was quite possible that his adversary might kill him in this duel. In that case he, the innocent party, would suffer the supreme penalty which man can suffer,--death,--and the criminal himself would go off scot-free.

But reflection showed him clearly that there was no way to avoid mortal combat, for, if he refused or neglected to send a challenge to the other, the Council of Honor was bound under the code to dismiss him from the army, because, forsooth, he did not know how to "protect the honor of the profession." On the other hand, if he did this prescribed duty of "honor," and fought this duel and escaped being wounded or killed, a term of confinement in a fortress awaited him.

The latter seemed to him the lesser of two evils, but he now made up his mind to show no consideration to the man who had destroyed the peace of his home, and who was likely to destroy his existence. He would demand the most severe conditions for this duel, and he would not scruple to send a bullet cras.h.i.+ng into his antagonist's brain if his arm were steady enough, or else let the scoundrel deprive him of his life as well,--a life which would hereafter be a burden to him.