The colonel had the gift of making people open their hearts to him by means of a few judicious questions, and could very well distinguish between genuine and spurious sentiment.
Reimers answered with a candour which astonished himself most of all, and Falkenhein listened with a pleased attention. Here was a man after his own heart, possessed by a manly seriousness, and with a deliberate lofty aim in life; not merely dreaming of substituting a general's epaulettes for the simple shoulder-knots of a lieutenant. Here, too, was a fine enthusiasm, which touched the veteran of fifty and warmed his heart. It recalled the old warlike days and the cry: "Only put us to the proof! and rather to-day than to-morrow!" Ah! since those days he had learnt to judge such things rather differently; but nevertheless it was the right way for youth to regard them. Such enthusiasm was a little exaggerated, at any rate as things stood at present, and also a trifle shortsighted. It was now no longer as in the days of 1870 and after, when the watch on the Rhine had to be kept for fear of vengeance. He could not join as heartily as he might then have done in the proud joy of the young officer.
He felt inclined to take himself to task for this, and on no account would he pour cold water on this fine flame of enthusiasm. It was the very thing in which the present time was most lacking: patriotism as a genuine conviction rooted firmly and deep in the breast, not venting itself in mere cheering and hurrahs; and accompanied by a steady comprehension of the soldier's profession as simply a constant readiness for war.
From the time of this conversation, Reimers began to feel heartily enthusiastic about his colonel. He was almost ashamed to find that his good friend Güntz was thus slightly forgotten; but this was not really the case--the two might safely share in his affection without wrong to either of them. The honest, faithful fellow in Berlin remained his dear friend; the colonel he began to look on as a second father.
Falkenhein's partiality was not, of course, openly expressed; but by many little signs he let the young man see how much he thought of him. Reimers, fully aware of the fatherly sympathy, was happy in the knowledge of it. His comrades were, indeed, surprised to find how lively and almost exuberant the hitherto staid Reimers could become; and particularly was this so during the artillery practice and the autumn manœuvres, when--garrison and parade drills at an end for a time--conditions were somewhat akin to those of real warfare.
Then the even course of things was broken by his illness.
When, before his enforced furlough, he took leave of the colonel, the latter's hearty liking for the first time broke through the barriers of official form. His clear eyes became dim, and his voice slightly trembled as he said: "Come back well, my dear Reimers--come back to me. Be sure and do all you can to get cured!"
Now, when at last Reimers found himself once more standing face to face with this honoured colonel, joy overpowered him, and he kissed the hand of his fatherly friend.
The colonel tolerated this altogether unmilitary excess with a good-natured smile. He would have been delighted to clasp in his arms this young man, who was as dear as a son to him; but he, an old soldier, could not allow his feelings to get the better of him as the lieutenant had done, rejoiced though he had been by the latter's outburst.
Out on the parade-ground Reimers looked about him with interest. Everything seemed to have become different and delightful; even the bare, prosaic yard of the barracks appeared no longer devoid of charm. He passed through the gate and went slowly along the high road towards the town. Then it was that the glad feeling of being in his native country asserted itself in full force. He realised that it was just the tender green of those beeches and alders edging the brook that he had longed to see when, in Cairo, the fan-like palm-leaf hung motionless at his window; just this slope of meadow land that he had remembered on the arid veldt of South Africa. It was this mild sunshine of his native land, this blue German sky that he had pined for in the glowing furnace of the Red Sea. The tiny engine which puffed along asthmatically up the valley, dragging its little carriages and ringing its bell from time to time when a browsing sheep strayed between the rails, had been ever present in his mind during his journeyings to and fro.