A Little Garrison: A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day

by Fritz Oswald Bilse

The most ludicrous figure, however, was Colonel von Kronau in his Polish farmer’s costume, wearing a fur cap on his head, and a tippet around his neck. If he had appeared in this disguise at the hog market in a Pomeranian town, every purchaser would have supposed him to be the “genuine article,” namely, a breeder of porkers. And it was quite evident that he did not have to take much pains correctly to imitate the manners and gestures of the person he represented.

The champagne was paid for out of a common fund specially raised by all the members of the Casino. It was, therefore, not astonishing that the Herr Colonel was, after the lapse of one brief hour, deep in his cups.

His adjutant had not done well to disguise himself as a Polish Jew, for in that way he looked indeed too much his part.

Frau König was charming as a chambermaid, and her blue eyes radiated the pleasure she felt. As a young gamekeeper, Lieutenant Bleibtreu paid assiduous court to the aforementioned chambermaid. He had already proposed to her to visit the “marriage booth” in the adjoining room, and the justice of the peace was getting ready his paraphernalia. Only late at night, when the captain, her every-day husband, carried her home, did the pretty maid relinquish her newer claims upon the gamekeeper.

Frau Leimann presented herself as a peasant girl from the “Vierlande,”—a district near Hamburg,—and her costume looked indeed very picturesque, and became her well. Borgert noticed this fact with great pleasure, and the dainty figure and small nimble feet made a strong impression on his susceptible heart.

Frau Kahle, as a flower girl, was flirting desperately with the younger men. She also played her part very well, for the champagne in which she had liberally indulged began to exert its effects. Lieutenant Kolberg, as a modish dandy, had already purchased nearly her entire supply of flowers, and when, soon after, the remnant had gone, he claimed and obtained her as his partner for the dance.

Frau Captain Stark alone did not seem to belong in this milieu. The choice of a costume, to begin with, had occasioned her deep and anxious thought. She felt that to follow her inclinations and appear at the masquerade in either the guise of a ballet dancer or of a flower girl would too markedly invite criticism. Her fifty years and her towering shape would really have made her too conspicuous in such parts. On the other hand, to show herself as a peddler woman or fishwife would have, so she feared, made her look “too natural.” Having, therefore, discarded these notions, her fancy roved in the realms of the beautiful and fantastic, until it settled down upon a costume which, bespangled and with its garland of rushes, she declared to be that of a “mermaid of middle age.” Nobody was in a condition to contradict her, inasmuch as nobody recollected ever having seen a “middle-aged” mermaid before. She floated, as a matter of fact, in a cloud of pink and sea-green laces. The capacious bosom this cloud concealed from view rolled and heaved quite realistically, thus producing the effect of ocean waves, and her enormous arms were awe-inspiring enough to keep away all evening those in the crowd who had not got their sea-legs,—and that meant practically all the younger officers. At all other times her most dutiful slaves, these young men seemed to have conspired to leave the dreaded chief of the regiment’s nominal chief severely alone. Of course she felt this as an unpardonable offence, and this all the more as the colonel at an early hour was in an irresponsible condition, and hence listened to her violent plaint with stolid equanimity.

There was a male trio, too, that claimed some attention. They represented to the life merry, devil-may-care vagabonds, and so well did they act their parts that one would have supposed they had just been picked up on the miry highway outside. They deemed it, of course, strictly within their privileges to get drunk with all due speed,—an endeavor in which they admirably succeeded. From that hour on they became an unmitigated nuisance, not even atoned for by some humor or merry pranks. After midnight they were always seen in a bunch, steadying each other as they lurched along.

Lieutenant von Meckelburg, during the earlier part of the evening, stuck resolutely and almost silently to his assigned duty, it being that of an organ-grinder. He had picked up somewhere a villainous specimen of this instrument of torture, and with it had retired into a corner, wearing the ragged and faded clothes of an impecunious veteran of the wars, with his visorless, crumpled cap pulled over his eyes, and with a face which for unadulterated melancholy could not be duplicated. Hardly any one took notice of him, and his physiognomy grew sadder and sadder. At last, however, he left his organ in its corner, and visited the various bars where champagne could be had. With each generous libation his features cleared, and finally he got himself into a decidedly hilarious condition, and not only moved with his organ into the centre of the greensward, where he placed it on one of the benches, but accompanied its shrill and squeaking notes with a mellow basso of his own.

The bands meanwhile played their best and merriest, and as several casks of beer and some dozen bottles of cheap spirits had been provided for them, the members, both trumpeters of the regiment and civilian musicians hired for the night, devoted no inconsiderable portion of the intervals between their playing to frequent and prolonged visits to that small side-room where these drinkables had been placed ready for use. After a while they dispensed even with such formalities. They rolled the remaining casks up the steps of their podium, and shortly the faucet could be espied from among the greenery, and the musicians hovering about it. As a matter of course, their playing soon showed the effects of all this tippling. One man particularly, one of the flageolets, became quite unmanageable,—or rather the instrument on which he was performing,—so that it usually was the space of a second or two ahead of the others. This weird music only ended with the removal of flageolet and man from the scene.