"Why on earth are you not in bed?" he inquired.
Gähler answered respectfully, "Beg pardon, sir, on such occasions the count used sometimes to need me; he often went out again."
"Well, I don't. So remember that in future," enjoined Reimers.
Gähler still waited, and asked, "Would you like some tea, sir?"
Reimers looked up. Not a bad idea that! He was too much excited to sleep, for he had been obliged to pledge his comrades far too often, and a cup of tea would be just the thing. After that he would read a few pages, and only then try to go to sleep.
"Yes, make me some tea," he assented, "but not too strong."
He put on a comfortable smoking-jacket. Gähler brought his tea almost immediately, and with it a plate of anchovy sandwiches.
Reimers smiled. It certainly paid to have for one's servant the quondam groom of an elegant cavalry officer. He gave Gähler a friendly nod, and said, "I think, Gähler, that we shall get on capitally together."
Reimers ate a few mouthfuls as he walked up and down the room; then he carried the green-shaded lamp to his writing-table, and took down a volume of the official history of the great Franco-Prussian War.
He spread out the marvellously accurate maps, and began, as he had done so often before, to follow the various phases of his favourite battle, the three days' fight on the Lisaine. That was the only great defensive battle of the campaign, clearer and easier to follow than any other in its simple tactics, almost suggesting the typical example of a textbook, and yet what a living reality! Almost at the same moment when the German Empire was being proclaimed at Versailles, Bavarians were fighting shoulder to shoulder with East Prussians, regiments from Schleswig next those from Upper Silesia, soldiers from the Rhine-provinces side by side with soldiers from Saxony: a glorious demonstration of the newly achieved unity.
His admiration for the valiant defenders was no greater than his pity for the tragic fate of the attacking army, which, almost dying of starvation, had fought with the wild courage of despair, and had deserved a more honourable reward than to be driven along that terrible path of suffering to the Swiss frontier. Not less tragic was the fate of its commander; a fate, indeed, which Bourbaki shared with the other military leaders of the Republic. All those generals, Aurelle de Paladines, Chanzy, Faidherbe, Bourbaki, who at the brave but somewhat futile summons of the Committee of National Defence tried to arrest the victorious advance of the German army, were inevitably doomed to defeat; and even the inspiration of a military genius could not have got over the fundamental mistake that had been made, of considering the impossible possible.