Читать книгу 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? - Franz Adam Beyerlein - Страница 5

Heppner's voice would sometimes sound quite good-humoured during riding instruction; he would then relax somewhat. He knew that his men would ride well when it came to the point; for that the sixth battery must have the best horsemen was an understood thing.

Thus it will be seen that the brutality Heppner displayed at home he could successfully repress when on duty. But the most remarkable thing about this man, who behaved like a brute to his wife, and had no affection for his comrades, was the metamorphosis he underwent if the horses were in question. Towards those beautiful animals he showed an almost womanly tenderness. They all knew him, and he loved them all, though naturally he had his favourites among them. There was Udo, a light-brown gelding, who could kneel down. And Zulu, almost black, would shake his head when asked if he were French, but nodded when one said, "A German artillery-man, aren't you?" Heppner would take them sugar every day, or other tit-bits, which he would divide among them with scrupulous fairness.

If by chance a horse fell ill, Heppner's devotion amounted to actual self-sacrifice, and he would anticipate the orders of the vet. with marvellous acuteness. Once only had he mal-treated a subordinate, a driver whom as a rule he particularly liked. He gave him a blow which caused the blood to spurt from both nose and mouth, because he had, when on stable duty, allowed Dornröschen to get caught in her chain. Dornröschen was Heppner's own riding-horse, and the very apple of his eye.

It was chiefly among these beautiful and intelligent animals that the more human element in Heppner's nature came out, and his love for them almost amounted to superstition. There must always be a goat about the stables, for it was an old belief that the strong smell of that animal was a preventive of disease, and the long-bearded Billy was the special protégé of the deputy sergeant-major. Now and then there were difficulties concerning him; as, for instance, when an unexpected attack in the rear knocked the major down in the dust before the whole corps. It was only by desperate entreaty that Heppner succeeded in saving the life of the bleating culprit, and then a curious chance led to his reinstatement. The very first night that the goat was turned out of the barracks, two of the horses began to cough the vet. hinted at bronchitis--four weeks only from the manœuvres, and bronchitis!--Billy was at once restored to his place in the stables, and both horses ceased to cough.

The deputy sergeant-major would have found it difficult to answer had he been asked which he preferred: to play cards in a beerhouse with a buxom Bohemian waitress beside him, or to be in the neat stables amid the chain-rattling, snorting, stamping company of the horses. Both were to his taste; but perhaps on the whole he was really happiest walking up and down before the stalls, with the goat trotting after him, and the horses turning their heads to follow him with their sagacious eyes.

But as soon as the stable-door closed behind him the soft look would vanish; and as he opened the door of his own quarters an evil expression would overspread his face, as if he were ready at once to fall upon his defenceless wife.

Through grief and illness the unfortunate woman became at last incapable of attending to her domestic duties. She cast about for an assistant, and at last wrote to her sister Ida, who was in service in Lusatia. Ida willingly threw up her situation, came to her brother-in-law's dwelling, and immediately took over the management of the little household and of the invalid.

For a time it seemed as if the loathsome atmosphere of hate and squalor must disappear in presence of the tall fresh country girl; the deputy sergeant-major put a restraint upon himself before his sister-in-law, and the sickly wife found comfort and relief in talking to her. But eventually the presence of this third party transformed the house into a veritable hell.

The eyes of hatred are as keen as those of love. Julie Heppner soon discovered that her husband loved her sister with his usual coarse passion, as he had loved so many others before. She recognised the ardent fixed gaze that rested lustfully on the young girl, following her every movement. This, then, was to be the last, bitterest, deadliest drop in her cup; this betrayal, in her own home, under her very eyes.

The sick woman watched her sister's conduct in agonised suspense. At first Ida had been honestly indifferent to the behaviour of her brother-in-law; after a while, however, a faint embarrassed flush would sometimes overspread her pretty youthful countenance. From the fugitive glances which she now and then intercepted between the two, the invalid foresaw the most sinister results.

Heppner himself, not being particularly quick-witted, and being used only to coarse associates, did not quite know what to make of his sister-in-law. Of only one thing was he certain, this beautiful girl must be his. He was even prepared, if he could not otherwise succeed, to resort to violence.

One evening Heppner had been exercising Walküre, Wegstetten's charger, for an hour. Having seen her wisped down in the stable and covered with a horse cloth, he went towards the canteen for a drink, when he remembered that there was a bottle of beer in his own kitchen. He strolled slowly and somewhat stiffly towards his quarters.

Ida was washing in the kitchen. He said briefly, "Good evening," poured out the beer, and drank it in great gulps. Then he shook the last drops in the glass to make them froth up, silently watching his sister-in-law the while. She had round white arms; and as she bent over the tub, the outline of her hips showed broad and firm.

Through the open door came the shrill hoarse voice of his wife.

"Ida, who is there?"

"Who else should it be but Otto?" answered the girl.

Again the shrill voice called, yet more insistently, "Why does he not come in?"

Heppner finished his glass, put it down, and said: "Because I won't. Because I'm better off here. Because Ida's a pretty girl, and you're an old crone."

At this, as though in fun, he put his arm round the girl and pressed her to him.

Ida kept still for a moment. She shivered. Then she shook him off: "Let go, stupid! Go to your wife."

Heppner let her go. The single moment that she had permitted his embrace convinced him that here, too, he would conquer. How she had quivered in his arms! He understood such signs.

Meanwhile Sergeant Schumann, only separated from the Heppners by a partition wall, sat at the round table by the sofa with his wife.

Their room, with its antimacassars, its upholstered furniture, its flower-pots and canary-bird, its sewing-machine in the window, was more like an old maid's best parlour than a soldier's sitting-room. The small, neat-featured mistress herself, who was not very strong, and always, even in summer, wore a little shawl round her shoulders, suited her surroundings admirably.

She had a thousand small cares, and one great grief: that they were childless. But she never troubled her husband with her sorrow, taking care to bear it alone. He had bothers enough in the service; how often did she not hear his voice storming outside! He should have peace at home. One thing only she could not bear without complaining to him: the terrible quarrellings of their neighbours. She shuddered whenever she heard the strife begin afresh; and gradually out of this had grown an aversion from all this noisy life. She became a most zealous advocate of her husband's plans for retiring; and could scarcely find patience to await the moment when he would put off the richly-laced coat beside which she had formerly been so proud to walk. In her heart she had always been rather against the martial calling, and would take Schumann's sword from him as though it dripped blood.

All this would cease when he changed his military coat or the handsome dark uniform of a railway-official; all this discomfort would come to an end; above all, this noise: the shouts and curses with which recalcitrant recruits had to be knocked into shape, the trampling of nailed boots on the stone stairs, the bellowing of commands on the parade-ground, and--last, but not least--the hideous racket next door.

The sergeant-major had almost finished his time of service. A post awaited him as assistant at a small railway-station in the neighbourhood; and once when Schumann was away at the practice-camp, she had not been able to resist the temptation to see the place for herself. It was on a branch-line, which wound up among the hills. The station was a little distance from the village in a green plantation. She yearned after the peaceful spot.

And now Schumann had again begun to speak of remaining on in the army!

His wife let him talk, listening patiently. She sat quietly opposite to him, giving him his supper as usual, as busy and attentive as though he were only speaking on indifferent topics. But when he had finished she spoke out, saying that, as a rule, she was not the woman to meddle in her husband's affairs, but that this was a matter which concerned herself as well. His notion that to quit the service now would make him feel like a deserter and a scoundrel seemed to her utter unpractical nonsense. He would be sacrificing a couple of years to a mere fancy.

Finally she produced her trump-card. She knew that the rural quiet of the little station had wound itself round her husband's heart during the week of trial he had already passed there. So she confessed her own secret journey.

And she conquered.

Each could describe as well as the other the charms of the unassuming little retreat. What one omitted the other supplied. Thus the picture in the sergeant-major's mind was revived afresh, and in such vivid colours that it regained its old power over him, dissipating the cloud of self-reproachful doubt. He saw before him a calm bright future in the narrow valley between wooded heights, and it came over him suddenly that there in the stillness, where one could live in touch with nature, he would for the first time begin really to live.