The next day Lothar Pütz came riding up in his light-blue fatigue uniform.
"Still holding on to your commission, my boy?" I asked.
"My resignation has not yet gone into effect," he answered, looking at me grimly, but avoiding my eyes, as if I were the cause of all his trouble. "At any rate, my leave has expired. I have to go to Berlin."
I asked if he could not get an extension. But I noticed he did not want it--was suffering with homesickness for the club. We all know what that is. Besides, he had to sell his furniture, he explained, and arrange with the creditors.
"Well, then, go, my boy," I said, and hesitated an instant whether I should confide my new joy to him. But I was afraid of the silly face I'd make while confessing, so I refrained. Another thing that kept me was a feeling stowed away deep down at the bottom of my heart--I was counting on a rejection. I feared it, and I hoped for it, too.
The feeling was something like--but what's the use of delving into feelings? The facts will tell the story.
Exactly a week later in the morning the postman brought me an envelope addressed in her handwriting.
At first I was dreadfully afraid. Tears sprang into my eyes. And I said to myself:
"There, old man, now you've been relegated to the scrap heap."
At the same time a peaceful renunciation came over me, and while opening the envelope I almost wished I might find in it just a plain mitten.