It was wearisome work, answering the same questions over and over again; and once more he had proof of the fact that against certain conditions time seems powerless. Some of the young married women had during his absence become mothers; but most of the ladies of the regiment presided without change over the solid domestic comfort of their house-holds. The main thing noticeable was that they had sacrificed themselves with greater or less success to fashion, which was just now in favour of slender figures.
The course of their conversation was almost literally the same as of yore, and in each case the curiosity shown was of exactly the same degree, except that Captain Heuschkel's wife, who was president of the Red Cross Society, inquired as to the care of the wounded in South Africa; while the lady who presided over the Home Missions wished to know if the Boers were really as pious as they were represented to be.
This monotony was, to a certain extent, the result of natural selection. Most of the officers had chosen their wives very carefully, and this had brought about a fine similarity in their views, a similarity which even found expression in the rather unattractive arrangement of their dwellings, in which the upholsterer's hand was but too evident.
Only two ladies, the wives of Captains von Stuckardt and von Gropphusen, differed from this type.
Frau von Stuckardt was unjustly considered haughty. She was merely unfortunate in being unable to adapt herself to the mental atmosphere of the other ladies. She had been placed for a couple of years in an institution for the daughters of the nobility, and was just preparing to enter a convent when Stuckardt, who was a distant cousin of hers, proposed to her. In her heart she regretted the worldly emotion to which she had then yielded; she believed that, by her marriage, she had defrauded the Church, and felt her conscience constantly oppressed by this grave offence. The interests of the other officers' wives puzzled her, doubly separated from them as she was by creed and by education; and when, under social compulsion, she gave a coffee-party, she sat among her guests like a being from a strange world, a pale and slender figure, always dressed in dark colours and wearing a cap of old lace upon her smoothly parted black hair; a striking contrast to the other fair, rosy, lively women in their gay gowns.
Frau von Gropphusen's parties were much more amusing. You could not be quite sure that she was not making fun of you; but you were certain to carry away on each occasion a supply of gossip which would last for weeks.
Externally, Gropphusen and his wife were exceedingly well matched. He was of medium height, with slender limbs and a pale, finely chiselled face, vivacious eyes, wavy dark hair, and a small black beard. She was one of those dainty blondes who remind one of iced champagne, with a marvellously graceful figure, a droll little nose, and steel blue eyes under dark eyebrows.
When first married they were madly in love with each other; but when the fire burnt out, Gropphusen went back to his old habits.
Truth to tell, he was a rake, who, even after marriage, thought nothing of spending dissipated nights week after week in the capital, returning by the early morning train. He seemed to have cast-iron nerves; for even the envious had to admit that his official work did not suffer. He had a clever head, and was an artist into the bargain, an excellent painter of horses; experts advised him to hang up his sword on a nail and devote himself to the brush. But he had not yet made up his mind to that.
Irregular in all other departments of life, he was regular only in his excesses. He was very rich, so that he could give the rein to almost all his whims. Indeed, reports of a rather fantastic kind, somewhat recalling Duke Charles of Brunswick, were current about him, the most extravagant being of a ballet he had had performed for him by fifty naked dancing girls. There was a certain amount of exaggeration about this, perhaps. In any case he troubled himself no longer about his young wife.