The vicar was the first of my family to visit me. He came to offer his services as chaplain to the troops. Julius followed soon after. It had gone hard with him to leave his wife, but he was happy to know that he could at last serve his country. It moved me deeply when he told me of the courage and resignation his wife had shown at parting. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, the lieutenant, who joyously confessed that he was filled with hopes of glory and rapid advancement. He drew his sword a few inches from its scabbard, and said, "This blade has lost patience--it is all athirst."
My grandson Wolfgang returned from the forester's school.
"Grandfather, have my pine-seeds sprouted?" was his first question.
"They do not grow so fast, my child; the bed is still covered with brushwood."
He wanted to enter the army as a volunteer, and was quite sad when we told him that foreigners would not be accepted, and that it would, moreover, take a good while before he could learn the drill. He could with difficulty reconcile himself to the fact that he was not permitted to take part in the war, and with a voice full of emotion, exclaimed, "Although my name is growing on its soil, I am not allowed to fight for Germany!"
Wolfgang was accompanied by Annette's nephew, the son of Offenheimer the lawyer. He desired to offer his services as a volunteer. He was a comrade of Wolfgang's, and a student in the agricultural department of the forester's school. His face was marked by several scars, and although he was not of a quarrelsome disposition, he had been in several duels. He had served in the Young Guard, which, during the past few years, had been recruited from the students of Gymnasiums and polytechnic schools.
I inquired whether his father consented to his entering the service, and he answered me in the affirmative.
Shortly afterward, his father entered the room. In a few words he told us that he had expected this war, and then, turning to his sister, he remarked that his son Alfred had entered the regiment which had formerly been the Captain's, as Colonel Karsten could not take him in his regiment. He also told me that he had fully determined, in case the war resulted in our favor, to withdraw from practice, and to devote himself to public affairs.
Offenheimer was an able, clear-minded man, of liberal opinions, and free from prejudice; and yet it seemed as if this vow of his had been made in order to assure himself of the success of our cause and the preservation of his only son.
Annette had always observed a certain distance with her kindred, and was, indeed, kinder to Martella than to her own nephew. But now, the war and the unanimity of feeling which it had induced, seemed, even in her case, to awaken new sympathies.