Chapter Twenty-One

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

     On the next evening, Fritz rode over to Reckenstein, he wanted to say goodbye to Edith and to the old man.  He met them both still at dinner and sat down with them.

     "Well, what do you say, captain?" the old man askt.

     "It will start, Major!"  He never called him by anything other than his military rank, he knew that the old man liked it.

     "Thank God that once once again hears a masculine word!  With the woman it is

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not tolerable now, they are still scared of going."

     "Hey, Father, I have never had fear," Edith objected, laughing.

     "No, no, not fear, that's not quite it.  But even you always act as if it were a disaster when we [draufschlügen] now, while I hope, confidently hope.  It is the highest time."

     "I just spoke with my uncle.  But he wants to know nothing of my suggestion to go to Berlin with his brother in case the war breaks out."

     "To Berlin?  Why?  What should he do there?"

     "Only on account of the uneasiness that such a close war would bring with it.  And after all, it would not be impossible that we would receive a little Russian visit."

     "Is it impossible, captain, are you joking?  Should the Sulphur Band come this far?  Well, we will really tell it what's what!  Our East Prussians - nothing of it!  That would suit them so well!"

     "We are not too far from the border."

     "If this far, why not also to Berlin?  Your uncle is right:  he is as safe here as in Abraham's bosom."

     "Major, you are, of course, also staying here peacefully?"

     Then the old man jumpt up from his chair.  His bushy eyebrows contracted, his eyes shot lightning:  "Stay here... I?  What do you mean by that, captain?"

     "Do you want to return to Rodenburg?"

     "I?  In that crazy dump?  I'm going along, that goes without saying, captain."

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     "He says that every day now," Edith threw in and directed a glance to Fritz, looking for help, "it's not for him to drive out."

     "You hear how the women chatter!  You will better understand, won't you, that a Prussian officer who has faithfully served his fatherland for so long that it made him a major, will not now sit around at home when his entire people are pulled into the war."

     "Certainly, I understand that well.  But Major, you are already sixty years old."

     "Sixty-three," Edith threw in again.

     "Yes, sixty-three.  Is that an old man?  Kluck and the other generals who will lead our army to victory are much older than I.  I can ride my five hours on horseback.  To parade in uniform in peacetime and to chicken out when it becomes serious, the cowards want to do that, but not the Reckensteiner."

     "But you are not healthy, dear father."

     "What?  Not healthy!  Don't I have my arms for beating, so that no pepper grows where they hit?  Have I no eyes to see and no ears to hear?"

     "But you were undergoing treatment in Rodenburg all last winter."

     "Certainly, in order to be healthy, if it works!  Otherwise, I really wouldn't have suffered the vertigo.  There is not being ill at all.  That is a concern for peace time.  No German man becomes ill when the enemy stands at the gate.  Why do we have our fatherland?  Why has our East Prussia done so much good for us, nurtured and cared for us, if we are not also able to defend it as soon as it is in danger?  Old or young, we must all get to it!  And now something

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else tells me.  I am going with, that is clear as day.  And if they can no longer use me as a major at the front, they will still have a post for me, you can be sure of that!"