I was offended. Such ungrateful indifference I had never met with before. How was I to go on? I had calculated that when the despairing consort had wept and sobbed her fill, I should hasten to console her.
"It is true," said I, "that his wound is not sufficiently dangerous to prevent him from continuing in the field."
"I can easily believe it," replied the lady, with a shrug of the shoulders.
Now this was a want of feeling worthy of an alligator! Surely she had the nerves of a rhinoceros! I was not prepared for this reception. "I can easily believe it!" Was that all?
Well, then, if our tender feelings are so hermetically sealed, we must try what more drastic means will do. We must appeal to other sentiments. Vanity, for instance, is a sentiment which never can be blunted.
So I moved forward my heavy artillery.
"Lieutenant Kvatopil," I said, "was called to the front and made a captain straight off for heroic valour in the field."
But even at this the lovely lady did not fling herself on my neck. She did not even utter a sound, but contracted the corners of her mouth. What did that mean? When you tell a lieutenant's wife that from to-day she has a right to the title Mrs. Captain; that every one who meets her in the street and congratulates her will address her as, "Frau Rittmeisterin," while the other lieutenants' wives naturally burn with secret envy; that she may now print her corresponding rank on her visiting cards—when you tell her all this, and even then no impression is produced, and the cherry lips do not expand with joy, revealing the sparkling, pearly teeth and the dimples on the sunbright face; when, instead of that, she purses up her mouth so nastily and gives herself a double chin—what are you to think? There is nothing so hideous as a pretty woman with a double chin. A double chin makes a woman look absolutely old.
I was quite confused. What am I to do to amuse her now? Should I talk about the weather?