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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Ah, how happy I was!" repeated Hannah, with a sigh. "But the serpent lurked in my Paradise. I came to know the pangs of jealousy, and I hated Marie Falkenhein hated her from the bottom of my soul. Ah, beloved! it hurts, hurts deeply, to see the glance of the man one loves passing one over for another woman. Do you remember the night of Kläre's birthday, when you sat in the Falkenheins' garden?
At first it was difficult to recognise them in the thick dust; but Sergeant-major Heppner announced that he saw the colonel's big sorrel horse. It was in fact the colonel and his adjutant. Güntz galloped up to them and gave his report. Falkenhein thanked him. "I only wanted to watch you for a little," he said simply.
Falkenhein could not imagine a more painstaking adjutant, nor one who, when off duty, on the march, or at the practice-camp, could have looked after his colonel's comfort with more tender consideration.
And as the colonel went on chatting gaily about his little daughter, Reimers, so silent hitherto, became quite talkative. Falkenhein turned and glanced at him now and then. The young man threw his heart and soul into his subject, and his eyes shone as he related various little instances of Marie Falkenhein's amiability and charm. Suddenly Reimers paused.
So Reimers went, but left unusually early, and when he returned to his quarters Gähler handed him a letter from Falkenhein. The colonel wrote as follows: "MY DEAR REIMERS, I return from Kühren about eleven o'clock, and I beg of you to look me up this evening without fail. "Yours, "v. Here was a glimmer of hope! Perhaps this wretched duel might yet be avoided!
My daughter also thanks you very much for your kind message; and I was to give you her kind remembrances, and to thank you heartily for taking such excellent care of her old papa." Reimers thanked him in a low voice. "It is wonderful," continued Falkenhein pleasantly, "what a change a little creature like that girlie of mine can make in one's home.
Frau von Gropphusen now made quite a business of helping Marie von Falkenhein about her clothes. Hannah's slender hands were quicker and cleverer than those of the deftest maid, and she knew how to transform the young girl's plain boarding-school frocks into something quite pretty and original. She did all this with a soft motherly tenderness, hardly in accordance with her own youthfulness.
But heaven knows what commanding officers won't sometimes get their backs up about! Colonel von Falkenhein received him very cordially. "My dear friend," he said, "I congratulate you! You could not have wished for a better début as the youngest officer in command of a battery." "Thank you very much, sir," replied Güntz; and then went straight to the point about the mysterious affair.
From thenceforth Marie Falkenhein became dear to me; it was as though I were you, I felt an involuntary yearning towards her, warmer, apparently, than your own.
No question of anything beyond just a suitable and satisfactory marriage in the service. From this time onward the matter was almost regarded as settled; and in the garrison gossip Marie von Falkenhein and Lieutenant Reimers were soon spoken of as though their betrothal had been already announced.
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