It was long before his mother recovered her composure. "It is really frightful; it is to be hoped that Hildegarde's _fiancé_ will pay your debts also later. But supposing he doesn't, what are you going to do?" "Shoot myself. But he'll soon pay up, I'll see to that all right." "If you only had been something else but an officer," lamented his mother; "it's madness for a man who has no money to enter the army." "I quite agree with you," said Fritz; "but what's the use of lamenting? It's too late now, you should have thought of that before, when you sent me to the Military College. I wasn't asked." "You are quite right. The rascal is reproaching us now," laughed his father. "I didn't mean that at all, father. I have a very good time as a lieutenant; besides, I don't know what else I could have been. But you know, being a lieutenant has its drawbacks; one is never free from money difficulties, and then there is the constant fear of getting one's discharge much earlier than one expects. It's a horrible feeling. I really can't understand why fathers let their sons go into the army, and least of all can I understand why retired officers always do it. The old officers, you, father, most of all, and those whom I met to-day at the club, are always complaining of the injustice of being pensioned off so early; they lament that the army is no longer what it once was; they groan over their tiny pensions and their bodily ills, the results of long years of campaigning; they swear at the allowance they are obliged to make their sons. They know perfectly well, however, that he cannot manage on it, and that he, therefore, contracts debts; they know that, at best, their son will only be a staff-officer, and that then till his death he will lead the same miserable, embittered life as they have. And alas: they also know how a mistake on duty, a mis-spent evening, an impulsive blow may ruin a young soldier, and although they know all this they let him become a soldier. And when one day the young officer is at the end of his tether and has to leave the army, then there is lamentation and grieving, and, of course, no one is to blame but the son." "Everybody wouldn't find things as bad as you do," interposed the major.