At that time the major had composed this march with the patriotic intention of dedicating it to the victorious General Benedek, but the melancholy events of the brief summer campaign left him no desire to do so, and the march was never published; nevertheless, the major played it himself now and then, to his own immense satisfaction and to the horror of his really musical wife.
This wife, a Northern German by birth, fair and dignified in appearance, sat rocking comfortably in an American chair, reading the latest number of the German Illustrated News, while her husband amused himself at the piano.
The major banged away at the keys in a fury of enthusiasm, until a black poodle, which had crept under the piano in despair, howled piteously.
"Ah, Paul," sighed Frau von Leskjewitsch, letting her paper drop in her lap, "are you determined to make my piano atone for the loss of the battle of Königgratz?"
"Why do you have a foreign piano, then?" was the patriotic reply; and the major went on strumming.
"You make Mori wretched," his wife remarked; "that dog is really musical."
"A nervous mongrel--a genuine lapdog," the major muttered, contemptuously, without ceasing his performance.
"Your march is absolutely intolerable," Frau von Leskjewitsch said at last.
"But if it were only by Richard Wagner--" the major remarked, significantly: "of course you Wagnerites do not admit even the existence of any composer except your idol."
With this he left the piano, and, with his thumbs stuck into the armholes of his vest, began to pace the apartment to and fro.