XV.
I thought about this time of nothing but my desire to become a competent soldier of my country. There was nothing I wanted more, but I felt physically very weak. When the first news of the battles of Midsunde and Bustrup arrived, I was very strongly inclined to follow Julius Lange to the Reserve Officers' School. When tidings came of the abandonment of the Danevirke my enthusiasm cooled; it was as though I foresaw how little prospect of success there was. Still, I was less melancholy than Lange at the thought of going to the war. I was single, and delighted at the thought of going straight from the examination-table into a camp life, and from a book-mad student to become a lieutenant. I was influenced most by the prospect of seeing Lange every day at the Officers' School, and on the field. But my comrades explained to me that even if Lange and I came out of the School at the same time, it did not follow that we should be in the same division, and that the thing, moreover, that was wanted in an officer, was entire self-dependence. They also pointed out to me the improbability of my being able to do the least good, or having the slightest likelihood in front of me of doing anything but quickly find myself in hospital. I did not really think myself that I should be able to stand the fatigue, as the pupils of the military academy went over to the army with an equipment that I could scarcely have carried. I could not possibly suppose that the conscription would select me as a private, on account of my fragile build; but like all the rest, I was expecting every day a general ordering out of the fit men of my age.
All this time I worked with might and main at the development of my physical strength and accomplishments. I went every day to fencing practice, likewise to cavalry sword practice; I took lessons in the use of the bayonet, and I took part every afternoon in the shooting practices conducted by the officers--with the old muzzle-loaders which were the army weapons at the time. I was very delighted one day when Mr. Hagemeister, the fencing-master, one of the many splendid old Holstein non-commissioned officers holding the rank of lieutenant, said I was "A smart fencer."