His wife's face was in shadow, but her eyes blazed at her sister and rested with an uncanny expression of hatred on the strong, well-developed beauty of the young girl.
There was a knock at the door. The battery tailor had brought the sergeant-major's tunic, on the sleeve of which he had stitched the double stripes. Ida took it from him and hung it up silently.
The invalid watched her indifferently. A short time before she had been mildly excited with joy at her husband's promotion; he had quite spoilt this feeling for her. Now she was callous to everything.
Suddenly she pressed her lips together and clenched her hands feverishly.
Had not her sister just handled his tunic lingeringly with a kind of furtive tenderness?
Julie Heppner believed that she would die betrayed and forsaken by all; but during her last days she gained a sympathetic friend in the newly appointed deputy sergeant-major Heimert.
Heimert had taken possession of the Schumanns' empty house. True that at the time he was still single; but as his marriage was to take place in a few weeks, the captain had at once allotted married quarters to him. Now the deputy sergeant-major was furnishing the rooms and decking the bare walls and windows with touching care. He would arrange and rearrange the furniture, and would drape a curtain a thousand different ways, and yet nothing was ever beautiful enough for him.
On holidays he was seldom able to visit his sweetheart, Albina Worzuba. At other times he devoted every spare hour to her; but she was the barmaid of a small tavern in the town, and had no time to spare for him on holidays. Besides, Heimert did not like watching how the guests would go up to the counter for glasses of beer, and joke with Albina, or even dare to pinch her cheeks. He had on several occasions made scenes about this till the landlord had almost forbidden him the place. Albina herself, too, advised him to come as seldom as possible. She considered that as long as she was a barmaid she must be friendly, and not too sensitive to the chaff of the guests; and if it pained him to see this, it was better that he should remain away. And with an ardent glance she added that when she was his wife he would have her all to himself. Heimert had constrained himself to agree to this.