He had been with his mother in the byre, his nostrils were full of the heavy odour of the stalls, then they stepped out into the cold wintry air and saw Uncle Bernhard coming towards them across the yard. Uncle Bernhard still carried a stick; for after being wounded one was allowed to carry a stick, all convalescents carried sticks even when they had ceased to limp badly. His mother had remained standing, and Joachim had gripped Uncle Bernhard’s stick and held it fast. Even to-day he still clearly remembered the ivory crook carved with a coat of arms. Uncle Bernhard said: “Congratulate me, cousin; I’ve just been made a major.” Joachim glanced up at the Major: he was even taller than Joachim’s mother and had drawn himself up with a little jerk, proudly yet as if at the word of command, and looked still more warrior-like and straight than usual; and perhaps he had actually grown taller; in any case he was a better match for her than Joachim’s father. He had a short beard, but one could see his mouth. Joachim wondered whether it was a great honour to hold a major’s stick, and then decided to be slightly proud of it. “Yes,” Uncle Bernhard went on, “but now it will mean an end of these lovely days at Stolpin.” Joachim’s mother replied that it was both good news and bad news, and this was a complicated response which he could not quite understand. They were standing in the snow; his mother had on her brown fur coat which was as soft as herself, and under her fur cap her fair hair escaped. Joachim was always glad when he remembered that he had the same fair hair as his mother, for it meant that he too would become taller than his father, perhaps as tall as Uncle Bernhard; and when Uncle Bernhard nodded to him now, saying, “We’ll soon be comrades in the King’s uniform,” for a moment he felt pleased at the thought. But as his mother only sighed and made no objection, submitting herself just as if she were standing before his father, he let go the stick and ran away to Jan.

He could not discuss the matter with Helmuth; for Helmuth envied him and talked like the grown-ups, who all said that a future soldier should be proud and happy. Jan was the only one who was neither a hypocrite nor a deceiver; he had only asked if the young master was glad, and had not behaved as if he believed it. Of course Helmuth and the others probably meant well and perhaps only wanted to comfort him. Joachim had never got over the fact that at that time he had been secretly convinced of Helmuth’s treachery and hypocrisy; for though he had tried to make it good immediately by presenting all his toys to Helmuth, yet he could not have taken them with him into the cadet school, and so it was not a real expiation. He had given Helmuth also his half of the pony which the two boys shared in common, so that Helmuth possessed a whole horse to himself. These weeks had been pregnant with trouble, and yet good; never, before or afterwards, had he been so intimate with his brother. Then, it is true, came the accident with the pony. For the time being Helmuth had renounced his new rights, and Joachim was given full control of it. But of course that did not mean very much, for in these weeks the ground had been soft and heavy, and there was a standing prohibition against riding in the fields when the ground was in that state. But Joachim felt the superior right of one who would soon be going away, and as Helmuth was agreeable, rode out into the fields on the pretext of giving the pony exercise. He had only started on a quite short canter when the accident happened; the front leg of the pony was caught in a deep hole; it fell and could not get up again. Helmuth came running, and after him the coachman. The pony lay with its dishevelled head in the mire, its tongue hanging sideways out of its mouth. Joachim could still see Helmuth and himself kneeling there and stroking the pony’s head, but he could not remember any longer how they had got home and only knew that he had found himself in the kitchen, which had suddenly become very still, and that everybody was staring at him as if he had committed a crime. Then he had heard his mother’s voice: “Your father must be told.” And then he was suddenly in his father’s study, and it seemed to him that the punishment which his mother had menaced him with so often in that hateful sentence, was now, after being stored up and accumulated, about to fall on his head. But nothing happened. His father only kept on walking up and down the room in silence, and Joachim tried to stand straight, gazing at the antlers on the wall. Still nothing happened, and his eyes began to wander and remained fixed on the bluish sand in the frilled paper that covered the polished brown hexagonal spittoon beside the stove. He had almost forgotten why he was there; but the room seemed vaster than ever and there was an icy weight on his chest. Finally his father stuck the monocle into his eye: “It’s high time that you were out of the house”; and then Joachim knew that they had all been duping him, even Helmuth himself, and at that moment he was glad that the pony had broken its leg; for his mother, too, had been telling tales on him so as to get him out of the house.