The Frau Major jumped up. She had seen the landsturm officer brought to
the hospital strapped fast to the stretcher, because his sobbing
wrenched and tore his body so that the bearers could not control him
otherwise. Something inexpressibly hideous--so it was said--had half
robbed the poor devil of his reason, and the Frau Major suddenly dreaded
a fit of insanity. She pinched the cavalryman's arm and exclaimed with a
pretense of great haste:

"My goodness! There's the gong of the last car. Quick, quick,"
addressing the sick man's wife, "quick! We must run."

They all rose. The Frau Major passed her arm through the unhappy little
woman's and urged with even greater insistence:

"We'll have a whole hour's walk back to town if we miss the car."

The little wife, completely at a loss, her whole body quivering, bent
over her husband again to take leave. She was certain that his outburst
had reference to her and held a grim deadly reproach, which she did not
comprehend. She felt her husband draw back and start convulsively under
the touch of her lips. And she sobbed aloud at the awful prospect of
spending an endless night in the chilly neglected room in the hotel,
left alone with this tormenting doubt. But the Frau Major drew her
along, forcing her to run, and did not let go her arm until they had
passed the sentinel at the gate and were out on the street. The
gentlemen followed them with their eyes, saw them reappear once again on
the street in the lamplight, and listened to the sound of the car
receding in the distance. The Mussulman picked up his crutches, and
winked at the Philosopher significantly, and said something with a yawn