Fritz had been listening to his father with astonishment, and now he said: "But what sort of a life do you think we ought to live? Without amusements or social intercourse we could not exist, we should grow stupid and dull." "Don't you imagine it, my boy," laughed the old man. "Confess, honestly, do you ever talk about anything sensible at these entertainments? You speak, and that is all, you whisper sweet words, or talk gossip to one another, but have you ever talked about one serious subject at any place where you have been to? You could not indeed do that, for you are far too stupid. Don't be offended at my harsh words, but I am quite right in what I say. No one, however, ought to reproach you with your stupidity. The majority of officers have been cadets, and what do you learn in the army? Drill, riding, how to judge a horse, manners and behaviour, but what else? What is added in the way of knowledge is not worth talking about, but it's considered quite sufficient for an officer. I have been in the army and I can tell you that I have often felt horribly, horribly ashamed when I saw how little I knew that an educated man ought to know. It is the rarest thing in the world nowadays for a young officer to go on with his education. If he ever does study it's simply military subjects, and except for this he is only too delighted when his duties are over to take his ease or to fill himself with alcohol, and I must say the last occupation is by no means the worst. Pass along the wine, my boy," and again the glasses clinked. "Let me see, what was I just saying?" asked the major. "Oh, yes, I remember. Well, you see, your intellectual education ought not to be of a kind to make you long to go to entertainments and festivities; on the contrary, if you were better educated you would feel how boring it is to dine to-day at the Mullers, to-morrow at the Schulzes, and to dance about with young girls; you could easily dispense with the _conversation_, I'll be bound, but not with the dinners and the girls." "But what do you want, then, father? I really don't understand you. Almost every week one reads in the papers of some scandal or other that has taken place in a little garrison town. Either two drunken lieutenants have boxed each other's ears, or have carried on with each other's wives, or there is some other addition to the _Chronique Scandaleuse_. And as excuse it is always said, with complete justice: 'The men there have nothing but the public-houses to go to, they ruin morals; if they had the society which their brother officers enjoy in the large towns these things would not happen.' We should simply die if we couldn't go to these little entertainments, and now you want to deprive us of them."