The civilian clothes did not please him at all. Every other minute his hand was up at his neck, feeling for a collar-band which seemed to be much too loose, but which, in reality, was not there at all.
His wife came in, busy as ever, in her hat and cloak, a little leather bag and an umbrella in her hand. She was to start at noon for the little mountain railway-station, where she would get the house ready for the furniture, which should arrive during the day. The sergeant-major, or rather the station-master's assistant, had some money matters to settle in the garrison town, and would not follow her until the next morning.
Frau Schumann was quite out of breath. Those stupid gunners had been so disagreeable when she wished to have her flowers put in the furniture van. She began excitedly: "Thank God, Schumann, the van is ready. Here are the keys. It's quite time for me to go to the station, isn't it?"
Schumann looked at his watch and growled: "Certainly, quite!"
"Then I'll be off," said the little woman.
But she remained standing in the middle of the room, seemingly unable to tear herself away.
"Dear, dear!" she said, "for years I have wished to leave this place, and now that we are really going I feel quite sad; don't you, Schumann?"
The sergeant-major muttered something unintelligible. If it had depended on him the house would not now have been empty and the furniture-van before the door. It was his wife who had worried him into it, and yet now probably she would begin to snivel.
Indeed, she had just taken her handkerchief out of her pocket and raised it to her eyes, when suddenly her face changed: "Good gracious! our bean-poles are still in the garden! I'm not going to leave them behind. Fancy it's only occurring to me now!"
She was hurrying out. But the sergeant-major got in the way and held up his watch in her face.