He has the equable temper and regulated life of a sage. Precise but never punctilious, he fulfils here the duties of postmaster, money-changer, censor of correspondence, headmaster, major-domo—and does it all without irritability and without giving the impression that he is lowering himself in any way. In his bold, firm, regular, almost heraldic handwriting, he registers the arrival and departure of letters; he enters in the account-book payments we make for haberdashery; he keeps memoranda of the interminable series of money-orders. He works deliberately, making neat rows of figures, using a ruler whenever he wishes to draw a line, and taking great care not to ink his long white fingers or to make blots on the large folios of ministerial paper. There is not a speck of dust on his writing-table; everything is neatly laid out in squares, as in a French garden. Behind him, on the top of the closed wash-hand stand, a lemon, cut in two exactly equal halves, a loaf of ration bread, cut with precision, and a glass of fresh water, combine to form a picture as definite and sober as a scene of still life by Chardin. The casemate is well-lighted, vast, and in keeping with its tenant. A narrow iron bedstead, a trunk, a clothes-hanger upon which are seen a _Mütze_, a long grey cape, and a sword; two deal tables standing end to end, one for himself and the other for d’Arnoult, his secretary; a small dressing-table, three chairs—this comprises all the furniture. In this formal, cold, geometrical environment sits the huge man (much too large for his table, so that his arms and legs are cramped), writing all day. Humble work, well within the capacity of any honest “swivel-officer” of the reserve. But Baron von Stengel, bending his long back to it, infusing it with his air of refinement, stamps it with an almost hieratic character. It is possible that he would prefer to be in command of a park of artillery upon the Warthe or upon the Ypres canal. Perhaps he envies his two sons, captains in the army of Lorraine, who have just announced to him almost simultaneously the receipt of the iron cross. But this much is certain, that it is not without sadness that he recalls the last war. He thinks of the 1870 campaign, which, as _Oberleutnant_, he spent at Ulm, employed, as to-day, in guarding prisoners. He thinks of his young colleagues of those days, of the interminable conversations when they were all intoxicated with the glorious news that streamed in, the news of Wörth, Borny, Gravelotte, Metz, and Sedan. He recalls the ardency of those years, and the cheerful noise of his steps as he walked beside the Danube in the beautiful night-time. He remembers seeing in the river the reflection of the cathedral spire, graceful and ornate, a silent witness of the ancient German glories then renascent—victory, love.