The thought of Marie Falkenhein weighed on him the least heavily. When he had once got over the first bitter sorrow at his ill fortune he thought of her, strangely enough, with no desperate longing, but rather with a feeling of shame. The young girl did not represent the immediate necessity of his life which he now found lacking. That lay in a different sphere. For this reason he was glad that Falkenhein and Güntz had left the garrison. No one should be there to see how the guiding star which he had followed so ardently all his days was now setting in diminished glory: no one should be by when his whole life suffered shipwreck. The regiment was now under orders to march to the practice-camp. A few days before the departure Reimers ordered his man to bring him his portmanteau. He wanted to see if the faithful old trunk, which had accompanied him on all his travels, was still in proper condition. It needed no attention. "Shall I take off the labels?" asked his servant. "Then perhaps, I could freshen it up a little with varnish." The trunk displayed a vast number of hotel and luggage labels. His journey to Egypt, in particular, had left brightly-coloured traces. Reimers stood buried in thought. Suddenly he observed the waiting servant. "Yes, of course," he said; "see to it." He had been thinking of his return from that long furlough. What renewed vigour he had then felt in every limb! With what exhilaration he had set foot on the quay at Hamburg, his first step on German soil after a whole long year in foreign lands! He would have liked to fall on the neck of the first gunner he met; and he could hardly wait for the moment when he might again don the unpretending coat that outshone in his eyes the most gorgeous robe of state in the world, attired in which he might again perform the dear old wearisome duty. Were those high hopes to end in this sordid fashion? He recollected how, amidst the jubilation of his home-coming, he had been disquieted by a presentiment of evil, a visionary dream that now confronted him in such cruel reality. It was during his first visit to Frau von Gropphusen that the shadow had fallen upon him. He saw the room again before him in the dim light from its darkened window, and it seemed to him filled with gloom and hopelessness. The suffering woman lay wearily on the big sofa under the picture of the "Blue Boy." She drew up the silken covering with her fair white hands, leant her chin on her knees, and gazed at him with her wonderful sad eyes. Suddenly he became aware of the reason why he only thought of Marie Falkenhein with gentle resignation, with that fugitive feeling which seemed to himself scarcely compatible with grief for a real attachment: he had never ceased to love Hannah Gropphusen. Had his eyes been struck with blindness?