The “new papa” was presented to son Rudolf too, and it was to me a moment of peculiar delight and joyful anticipation when the dear man took up my dear child in his arms, kissed him warmly, and said: “Of you, little fellow, we two will make a perfect man”.
In the course of the evening my father put his idea about quitting the service into words.
“You will give up your profession, Tilling, I suppose? As you are already not in love with war.”
Tilling threw his head back with a gesture of surprise.
“Give up my profession! Why, I have no other! And a man need not be in love with war to perform his military duty, any more than——”
“Yes, yes,” my father interposed, “that is what you said the other day—any more than a fireman need be an admirer of conflagrations.”
“I could bring forward more instances. No more than a physician need love cancer or typhus, or a judge be an especial admirer of burglaries. But to give up my way of life? What motive is there for that?”
“The motive,” said Aunt Mary, “would be to spare your wife the life of a garrison town, and to spare her anxiety in case of a war breaking out—though such anxiety is, to be sure, nonsense, for if it is decreed to any one to live to be old, he lives so, in spite of all dangers.”
“The reasons you have named would no doubt be weighty. To keep the lady who is to be my wife from all the unpleasantnesses of life, as far as possible, will certainly be my most earnest endeavour; but the unpleasantness of having a husband who would be without any profession or business would, I am sure, be even greater than those of garrison life. And the danger that my retirement might be charged against me by any one as laziness or cowardice would be even more terrible than those of a campaign. The idea really never occurred to me for a moment; and I hope not to you either, Martha?”
“But suppose I made a condition of it?”