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Updated: May 25, 2025
Regardless of exaggeration, he spoke of that week's leave as if it were an extremely rare mark of distinction unheard of for years. And on the whole he gained his object. As Vogt and Klitzing stood before their commanding officer blushing with pride, they had the feeling that they must thank him, and promise to go on doing their duty. They only did not know how.
The rough village maidens suited him better; but one evening he had an experience which raised grave doubts in his mind as to the virtue of even those rustic beauties. A woman's voice shrieking for help had suddenly resounded from a little shady hollow not far from where Vogt was strolling, smoking his evening pipe.
He thought it must be a mistake, but there were his name and address sure enough: "Gunner Heinrich Klitzing, 6th Battery, 80th Regiment, Eastern Division, Field Artillery." He looked at the label, the sender was Friedrich August Vogt; and on the back was written, "To my boy's best friend, for Christmas!"
The oppressive sense of captivity stirred him to eloquence that fired his own imagination, and finally even inflamed the sober judgment of Vogt. The peasant nodded: "Yes, yes. That would be fine!" He could form no clear picture of that brilliant future. All men brothers? No more quarrelling and no more war? No one who would give orders to others? No one who would demand taxes and rent?
"We must go," he said, turning to the others; "the gunner will remain with his comrade for the present." Vogt followed the doctor with his eyes. When the door closed he turned them towards the pale face of his dear friend. It was true then? Klitzing had given his life for him. And no one could do anything to help.
Nothing had been moved from its place, and every picture hung as usual on the wall. But it seemed to Vogt as if the rooms were empty and the walls bare. He shuddered with cold and with the sense of loneliness. In the living-room his father's plain easy-chair was pushed up to the table, and beside it the stool on which the son had usually sat.
For Vogt and Wolf it was a meeting after a long separation. The peasant recounted the particulars of his father's death; not without a certain pride in the unusual circumstances under which the old man had met his end in self-appointed loneliness. "A true man to the last!" said Wolf. But he could not even press his friend's hand in sympathy. Then Vogt began to speak of the day of release.
To make things worse, that blockhead Truchsess had hurt himself in removing the wheel that had been "destroyed," so that only four men were left. Vogt rolled up the spare wheel, but it was almost impossible to fix it; the heavy wheel was too cumbersome for a single man.
Five months' imprisonment! It struck the old turnpike-keeper like a blow. He staggered, and the captain was obliged to support him. But the weakness soon passed, and Vogt begged the officer's pardon. He could not, however, listen to Wegstetten's explanation of the harsh verdict. The disproportion between crime and sentence was incomprehensible to his mind.
The weather was beautiful and the whole party dined every day on the terrace below our windows, which was very amusing to Miss Campbell and your sisters, who distinctly heard the speeches. I was invited to dinner and the wife of the celebrated Professor Vogt was asked to meet me; I declined dining, as it lasted so long that I should have been too tired, but I went down to the dessert.
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