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Updated: May 11, 2025
She shook her head energetically: "No, no!" and whispered wearily: "But if you would only stay just a little while, Herr Heimert!" The sergeant nodded, and remained sitting silently beside her. It was some time before Julie Heppner had the strength to explain to him what had happened to her. While so doing she looked at him more attentively, and was almost frightened by his ugliness.
Heimert was somewhat reassured by this. When Heppner rose to take leave Heimert would fling his arm confidently about Albina's waist, with a gesture which seemed to say: "You see, my wife is my own. I have her and hold her, and you won't get her, however much you may covet her. That's the right of possession. And so it will be, no matter how much you may hate and envy me.
He did not wish to see him until the evening, or, better still, till night, so that the duel might follow immediately upon their interview. He knew the sergeant-major would not flinch, but would fall in with his arrangements. Heppner was no coward. Albina behaved just as usual during the day, and said nothing to her husband about the kiss.
Through the open door came the shrill hoarse voice of his wife. "Ida, who is there?" "Who else should it be but Otto?" answered the girl. Again the shrill voice called, yet more insistently, "Why does he not come in?" Heppner finished his glass, put it down, and said: "Because I won't. Because I'm better off here. Because Ida's a pretty girl, and you're an old crone."
"And so you have got to fight it out with me," continued the other. "Man against man. Are you agreed?" Again the sergeant-major nodded stolidly. Why not? Their betters acted thus. "Shall we settle the thing now at once?" Heppner nodded for the third time. It was all one to him, so long as he could get to rest at last.
The whole scene had been unspeakably revolting to him; he was seized with a grim horror on his own account too. Half unconsciously the sight of the big imposing-looking man clamouring and petitioning on his knees made Trautvetter suddenly realise how near he himself stood to a similar degradation. The next morning he gave the sergeant-major back his notes-of-hand. Heppner coloured.
When Captain von Wegstetten entered the orderly-room on the morning of April 1st, he at once said to the deputy sergeant-major, "What is the matter with you? You look quite green." Heppner answered, "Excuse me, sir, my wife has had a very bad night." "Indeed!" drawled Wegstetten. "I am sorry to hear it."
There were only a few silver pieces in it. "You can see for yourself, Herr Heppner," he said. "I am not the sort of fellow to leave you in the lurch like that." But Heppner could not yet believe him. He begged and threatened. At last the great big fellow threw himself on the ground and clung round Trautvetter's knees: "Just this once, just this once!" The volunteer pushed him roughly away.
Heppner watched the cloud. He tried to think how he came to be in this place, up on the hill in the wood, in the middle of the night, like this. He could not quite make it out. More than all there weighed on him a leaden feeling of weariness. He would have liked to throw himself down on the bare earth. The seconds dragged on slowly.
Heimert ran to her anxiously. He gave her his hand, which she seized and held convulsively, spoke to her soothingly, and wiped the drops of sweat from her brow with his handkerchief. He quietly gave her time to recover from her exhaustion, then said to her gently: "Frau Heppner, would you like me to send to find your own people?"
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