United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He had noticed that when Heppner threw his arm around her she had shrunk from him. In such a case Heppner, no doubt, would have scolded his wife for not confessing. By right she ought certainly to have told her husband. But Heimert found a thousand excuses for her. Albina knew his jealousy, and desired, possibly, to avoid scandal, which would have been inevitable had she told him.
Ida was happy beyond measure, and there could not have been a tenderer or more careful mother. Motherhood awoke in her much that had hitherto been unapparent in her somewhat stolid nature. Heppner thought her little occupations silly and tiresome. The first sight of his boy at the healthy young mother's breast seemed to him charming enough.
At this, as though in fun, he put his arm round the girl and pressed her to him. Ida kept still for a moment. She shivered. Then she shook him off: "Let go, stupid! Go to your wife." Heppner let her go. The single moment that she had permitted his embrace convinced him that here, too, he would conquer. How she had quivered in his arms! He understood such signs.
Amidst the panting and snorting of the frantic animals could be heard the groans of Sickel, who was lying somewhere under one of them. Heppner had recovered his self-possession in a moment. He called the four gunners to him, and was himself the first to jump down into the hollow. Vertler, the gun-leader, was close by on his horse, but scarcely seemed able to grasp what had happened.
Instead of himself, Heppner marched in the sergeant-major's place, and Keyser, as the senior non-commissioned officer present, led the file of drivers instead of the deputy sergeant-major. All was thoroughly well done, there was not a hitch anywhere. And he, Schumann, had believed that he was indispensable, he had thought things could not go on without him!
The sight of the blubbering giant revolted him. "Stand up, Heppner!" he insisted. "All this is no good. I would give you the money, but God knows I have none at the moment. Let us consider how we can get out of this." The sergeant-major stood up again, and looked at him in suspense. Suddenly Trautvetter pointed to the canteen: "He must lend us something," he whispered.
Once, when Albina chanced to meet him in the corridor, she said: "When I first met you, Herr Heppner you remember that day at Grundmann's you were perfectly different ever so much smarter and livelier! Really, I almost think you must be ageing, Herr Heppner!" And she burst into a shrill, affected laugh, which rang rather unpleasantly in his ears.
Heimert asked suspiciously. "Do you want to cut me out with her?" Heppner laughed at him. "The devil!" he said. "I have two women in the house myself, and that's more than enough. Surely one may make the acquaintance of a comrade's sweetheart?" "And," he added craftily, "have you so little confidence in her, then?" Heimert burst out: "Oh, that's not the reason!"
The doctor declared her case to be hopeless from the first, and gave her but a short time to live. But even the approach of death did not silence her evil tongue. Once the wretched wife went to Wegstetten, the captain of their battery, in the vain hope that he might be able to help her. "Just consider a little, Frau Heppner," he suggested, "whether you yourself may not be somewhat to blame.
He consulted the calendar: in two days there would be a full moon, so they would have light enough to see each other clearly at ten paces. The moon rose shortly before ten o'clock; she would be high in the heavens by midnight. At daybreak the deputy sergeant-major went about his duty, cool and punctual as usual, only taking pains to avoid meeting Heppner.
Word Of The Day