From the time of his promotion Heimert troubled himself little about Albina. His behaviour towards her became shy and odd; he avoided as much as possible being alone with her. He preferred to sit at his desk in the orderly-room, while she on her side felt no regret in being relieved from the too particular attentions of her unloved husband.
Käppchen came to the conclusion that the sergeant-major must have a screw loose somewhere. Heimert exhibited certain strange whims. He would become perfectly furious if the many-coloured penholder which Heppner had used were offered him, and he strictly forbade the corporal ever to put it on his desk. Käppchen would sometimes for fun hand him this penholder "by mistake" if a signature were wanted in a hurry. The sergeant-major looked so comic with his blazing eyes and crimson face, his nose shining reddest of all.
But the days were always too long for the sergeant-major. Even his writing came at last to an end, and there was still time left on his hands. He was not long in finding an occupation.
In the mounted exercises he had hitherto led the third column, but as sergeant-major he now had to take an entirely different place in the formation. His work was, as a matter of fact, much easier than formerly; but he seemed to find it twice as difficult to understand. He often did not know where he ought to be, and when Wegstetten found fault with him he took it much to heart. What sort of an impression would it give, if even the sergeant-major did not know his work, the senior non-commissioned officer of the battery?
When he went over his book, puzzling out the regulations with his fingers in his ears, his thoughts seemed to become more and more wildly confused. He could form no clear picture of all these evolutions. He therefore took his pen-knife, and with endless trouble made little wooden figures, roughly representing the guns, the ammunition waggons, and the individual mounted men. He coloured these figures so that they might be perfectly distinguishable: the commander of the battery, the leader of the column, the sergeant-major, the trumpeter, and the corporal in the rear. And then he made them exercise on the table, advance and retire, form into line, and wheel round; but his chief care was always to keep the yellow-striped sergeant-major in his right position.
Soon Wegstetten had no complaint to make of his sergeant-major, but Heimert still went on playing with his little figures. For these wooden guns and horsemen he was now the commander of the battery, and he would not be contented till his miniature troop was brought to as great a state of perfection as reigned under the captain of the sixth battery.
Albina shook her head over her husband's conduct. The man was ill, of that she was convinced. She spoke to him once of consulting the doctor, but Heimert repulsed her roughly.
"Thank God!" he said; "there's nothing the matter with me. I wish everybody were as healthy as I am!"
After this she left him in peace. In her opinion some insidious disease was advancing upon him, and sooner or later the trouble would break out.
Heimert's appetite began to fail at last; he hardly ate any-thing. He had always been extremely ugly, but people now shrank back at the sight of his face. His eyes had become sunken, and had acquired an unnatural brilliancy, while his hideous nose jutted out prominently from the middle of his ashy countenance.