The nearby church bell struck the hour of seven as Captain Stark and his wife, as well as the colonel and his better half, climbed into the capacious vehicle that had been waiting for them at the door of the club-house for several hours. The horses had become stiff in the joints, and, with a cold and raw blustering wind to chill them, they were now forced to pull their heavy load on the miry highway leading toward town. The coachman had to use his whip freely to make the poor beasts break into a sorry trot; but at last the human load had been deposited before their doors.
Lieutenant von Meckelburg and First Lieutenant Specht could scarcely keep on their legs; but, nevertheless, they walked straight from the Casino to the barracks, where they were to give, each of them, an hour’s instruction to the recruits. They quickly doffed their fantastic gear—the organ had been left behind by the lieutenant; but when they appeared before their pupils the latter could scarcely suppress a shout of laughter. For Specht had in his hurry forgotten to remove his artificial moustache, and this gave him such an unusual appearance that it was only when his voice, somewhat shaken by alcoholic excesses, met the soldiers’ ears that they felt sure whom they had before them. The “instruction” he thus imparted was certainly very far from enlightening their minds on the duties falling to the share of a defender of the fatherland.
Most of the other officers preferred, however, a good long sleep, and simply ignored the work of the day. It was only towards noon when the first captain showed his face at the barracks.
Captain König and his faithful Lieutenant Bleibtreu were, in fact, the only officers of the whole regiment who attended to their duties in the forenoon, they having gone home at reasonable hours. Their principle was: first the work, and then the amusement.
Captain Hagemann showed himself in the streets, mounted on his favorite horse, as the noon hour struck. He had not yet recovered his equilibrium, and the horse seemed to appreciate that fact instinctively. He carried his master with such tender commiseration for the condition of the latter that he picked his way as carefully as if walking on ice.
Stark himself preferred to remain altogether at home. His “Kater”[15] was inexorable, and demanded a long, unbroken rest to find its way out of the muddled brain of its owner. His place in the regiment was, as usual, filled by his tireless lady. Holding her husband’s official note-book in her hand, she went her rounds, noticing the presence of all the men and non-commissioned officers, and making a black mark against the name of Lieutenant Kolberg, as he was absent without leave.
At 1.30 she received a visit from Hagemann, who came to make most elaborate and humble excuses because he had been audacious enough to indulge in gibes at the expense of the doughty lady during the ball. In fact, while in the enterprising stage which forms so interesting a part of the effects produced on human bipeds by champagne, he had been bold enough to pay her some strongly ironical compliments in her capacity of “mermaid.” He had told her incidentally that she was eminently fitted for her part, as it was a well-known physiological fact that fat kept afloat on water. Frau Stark, who was proof at all times both against flattery and against the insinuating allurements of the foamy liquid, and who was as much matter-of-fact to-day as she had been the night before, merely deigned to accept these excuses with a small nod and a dry “That will do!”
Leimann, on his part, likewise started out on a tour of visits, the sole purpose of which was to offer much-needed explanations and apologies to nearly every member of the club whom he had offended more or less seriously during the period of his “howling desolation.”
Night had come, in fact, when the larger number of the officers met at a solemn “Dämmerschoppen” at the Casino,—a process of applying hair of the dog that bit you to cure the injury. They discussed in voices still considerably husky and thick the doings and misdoings at the entertainment of the previous night. Criticism was applied freely to everybody who happened to be absent; but about Leimann judgment was unanimous: he was a beast.
It was Borgert’s part to report to the assembled “Corona,”[16] in his inimitable manner, about that part of the adventures of Kolberg and Frau Kahle which had come under his personal observation.