I went to Bertha's house. I found her alone; her husband was at his post, busy day and night. It had suddenly been discovered that the troops were not fully prepared.
I had not been there long, before her friend Annette entered, from whom as usual I was obliged to endure much praise. Annette found it quite--she was about to say "patriarchal," but checked herself in time--that I had come to assist Bertha.
"Only think of it," she continued, putting all her remarks in the form of questions, as was her wont: "Would you have thought that Bertha would be much less resigned than I? I have always wished that I might be so gentle and self-controlled as Bertha; and now I am the quieter of the two. Have I not as much love for my husband as any woman can have for hers? Have I not given up everything for his sake? Now I say to myself, 'Did you not know what you were doing when you married a soldier? Is the uniform merely for the parade and the court ball? Therefore, rest content. In this world everything must be paid for. It is necessary to accept the consequences of one's actions.' Am I right or wrong?"
Annette always closed with a note of interrogation, and of course I was obliged to respond affirmatively.
Bertha smiled sadly, and said in a weary voice: "Yes, father, I must admit it; I have always thought that war was one of those things of which one only learned in the hour devoted at school to history. I only knew of the Punic wars and the Peloponnesian war--for we never got as far as modern history--and thought of these things as of what had once been. But I honestly admit that I did not think they would come to pass again in our time."
"Just think of it, Bertha," said Annette, while she drew a thick volume from her satchel, "this is the Bible. You know that I never take quotations at second-hand, but prefer looking them up myself. This morning while the hairdresser was with me, it occurred to me that the Bible says the wife should leave her father and her mother for his sake. So I sent for the Bible, the very one that the dowager princess presented me with when I was christened. I hunted up the passage, but what did I find? Why, that for this the 'man would leave his father and mother,'--the man. Now just look, it says the man; and why should it say the man? He is not a domestic plant, like us girls!"
The vivacity of the pretty and graceful woman cheered me, and I must admit that from that time my opinion of Annette changed. She seems imbued with much of that power of self-reliance which is a peculiar characteristic of the Jews; they are nothing by inheritence, and are obliged to make themselves what they are.
But Annette seemed to guess at my silent thoughts, and continued, "Do not praise me, I beg of you! I do not deserve it. I am quite different when I am alone; then I am tormented with horrible fancies. And let me tell you, Bertha, when our husbands leave, you must keep me with you. I cannot be alone. I am beginning to hate my piano already. I do not go into the room in which it stands. Ah, here come our husbands!"
We heard advancing steps. The Major entered, and greeted me politely, but seemed quite gloomy.
I told him that I had brought Ernst.