Officer Factory. Hans Hellmut Kirst

and looked past the Major at Felicitas. She waited.

      “Barbara,” said Felicitas imperiously, “what was the matter when you were helping the officers into their overcoats just now? You let out a shriek and then giggled like an idiot. Why?”

      “Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” said Barbara, blushing.

      “Aha!“ cried Frau Felicitas. “Lieutenant Krafft was standing just beside you. Did this man pinch you by any chance? And if he did, where?”

      “It was nothing,” Barbara insisted. “Really nothing.” She looked down.

      “That’ll do,” said Felicitas Frey. “You can go back to your work now.”

      Barbara left with visible relief. The Major watched her go, thoughtfully. She did indeed have a remarkably fine figure. And Krafft had noticed the fact on the very first evening, the depraved fellow.

      “Well?” asked Felicitas insistently. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it? It may be too late by to-morrow.”

      Major Frey nodded gloomily. Then with an air of determination he picked up the telephone and had he put through to the barracks. When after a slight delay the switchboard at the training school answered, he gave his name and rank. Then, clearing his throat, he asked to be put through to the General.

      “Modersohn,” said a clear, quiet voice almost at once.

      “I’m terribly sorry to trouble you at such a late hour, General . . .”

      “Don’t waste time explaining,” said the General. “Get to the point.”

      “General, on mature reflection I have decided to request you most earnestly to countermand your appointment of Lieutenant Krafft to be section officer of my Number Six Company.”

      “Request refused,” said the General, and hung up.

      “What always fascinates me,” said Captain Ratshelm, “is the elegance and sophistication one finds in Major Frey's house.”

      “And what fascinates me,” said Feders, “is the colossal narrow-mindedness that prevails there.”

      They were walking up the hill towards the barracks, a picture of harmony, it might have been thought. In the center walked Captain Ratshelm, to his right Captain Feders, to his left Lieutenant Krafft—men engaged in the training of officers, striding easily along, in amiable conversation.

      It was a bright, clear night and the snow crunched beneath their feet. Everything around them seemed mildly enchanted—the sharp outlines of the trees, the houses like dolls' houses, a sky full of twinkling stars. A typical German winter's night, thought Ratshelm. Then he turned to Feders again and said cordially: “You’ve got it all wrong, Feders my dear fellow. Our Major and his worthy wife are cherishing eternal values. They are upholding all those things that it is so essential to preserve—home, dignity, social intercourse.”

      “Nonsensical sham, nauseating twaddle, an eye on the main chance!“ declared Feders. “These people are living in a mad world of their own, and of course they're not the only ones.”

      “Excuse me, Feders,” said Captain Ratshelm indulgently but in a mild tone of rebuke, “you’re talking about your own Major, you know.”

      “I’m talking about a state of mind that I call narrow-mindedness,” said Feders stubbornly. “It’s a widespread defect, like short sight. No one with it sees further than his own limited horizon.”

      “My dear Feders,” said Ratshelm, trying to calm him down, “we should strive to live our lives in a spirit of loyalty, humility and unselfishness.”

      “Tripe ! “ cried Feders abruptly. “What we should do is keep our eyes and ears open and see this world as it really is, with all the muck that's in it, and all the blood. What matters is to be able to see beyond the horizon. Over there behind Hill Two Hundred and One lies Berlin, and a few thousand human beings die there almost every night, torn to shreds, suffocated, burning and bleeding to death. A few hundred miles further on is the eastern front. While we're busy kissing hands and grinning inanely, thousands of men are dying there, crushed by tanks and burned by flame-throwers—and here we are entertaining ourselves with polished social conventions.”

      “You’re a bitter man, Captain Feders,” said Ratshelm. “I can understand why.”

      “If you're going to harp on my marriage, then I'll really go to town on you.”

      “I shall take care not to do that, Feders,” Ratshelm hastened to reassure him. “I merely wanted to try and explain my point of view. But sometimes, you know, you really are a difficult person to get along with.”

      “Only sometimes, unfortunately,” said Feders. “Most of the time I am paralyzed by weakness, fatigue and disgust. Above all I am quite unlike our friend Krafft here, who seems able to walk in his sleep. Or do you have a melancholy streak in you?”

      “A streak of something or other,” said the Lieutenant, “but I'm afraid it doesn't run very deep. Do you remember that girl Barbara—how she laughed!”

      “So she did!” said Feders, suddenly recovering his spirits. “I’d almost forgotten about it. The little thing squealed like some kitchen slut who's had her bottom pinched.”

      “I don't understand,” said Ratshelm in bewilderment. “I imagine you two gentlemen are talking about Fräulein Barbara Bendler-Trebitz, Frau Frey's niece. She laughed, certainly, but what's so special about that?”

      “The point is why she laughed,” declared Feders. “She laughed because our friend Krafft did in fact pinch her bottom.”

      With a sense of outrage Ratshelm said: “How could you do such a thing, Lieutenant Krafft? I find that downright vulgar. And in that house, too!”

      “Well,” said Krafft, “maybe you do, but the little girl enjoyed it! In that house too. Quite instructive, really. Or don't you think so?”

      “` Request refused,' was all the General said. Nothing else.”

      Major Frey, man of the world and hero of many battles, sat there shattered. A curt rejection of this sort from the General could have quite unforeseeable consequences. The General had always been a difficult man to approach, yet he, Frey, had never before known him quite so hard and uncompromising.

      “I’m afraid,” muttered the Major, “that I've just made a mistake that's going to be almost impossible to put right. And it's all the fault of this Lieutenant Krafft!”

      “I had a feeling,” said his wife, with undertones of triumph in her voice, “that this man's appearance was going to lead to little good.”

      “Maybe,” said the Major uneasily, racking his brains for some way out of the situation, “but at all events it would have been better if you hadn't interfered!”

      “But you know my reasons for doing so,” she said in astonishment. “And you've accepted them up to now.”

      “Perhaps I shouldn't have,” said the Major suddenly. Yet he quickly saw that it was pointless. He avoided his wife's eyes, for he felt that she had let him down badly.

      His glance wandered restlessly over the rose-patterned carpet. He just hadn't been sufficiently on the alert. He should have taken her idiosyncrasies into account more. She was inordinately sensitive about certain things. She could talk for hours on end about illness, wounds and death, but the simplest physical contact was sometimes enough to bring her to the verge of unreason. There was nobility about her, of course, unmistakable nobility; the Major was in no doubt of that. But on the delicate subject of sex, what she liked was tenderness, the shimmer of romance, chivalrous