do you bother me?"—And the medical officer looked him over. "You look as fit as a fiddle and your waist line has diminished." But Diederich stood to attention and remained sick. The officer in charge had to come and make an examination. When the foot was uncovered the latter declared that if he did not light a cigar he would be ill. Still, he could find nothing wrong with the foot. The doctor pushed him impatiently from the chair. "Fit for duty, that's all, dismissed"—and Diederich was released. In the middle of drill he gave a sudden cry and collapsed. He was taken into the sick ward for slight cases where there was nothing to eat and a powerful smell of humanity. In this place it was difficult for the volunteers to procure their own food, and he got none of the other men's rations. Driven by hunger he reported himself cured. Cut off from all human protection, and from all the social privileges of civil life, he wore a gloomy look. But one morning, when he had lost all hope, he was called away from drill to the room of the surgeon-major-general. This important official wished to examine him. He spoke in an embarrassing, human kind of way, and then broke again into military gruffness which was not any more calculated to put one at one's ease. He too seemed to find nothing definite, but the result of his examination sounded somewhat different. Diederich was only to carry on "temporarily" until further notice. "With a foot like that…"
A few days later a hospital orderly came to Diederich and took an impression of this fateful foot on black paper. Diederich was ordered to wait in the consulting-room. The surgeonmajor happened to be passing and took the opportunity to express his complete contempt. "The foot is not even flat! all it wants is to be washed!" Just then the door was pushed open and the surgeon-major-general made his entry with his cap on his head. His step was firmer and surer than usual, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, stood silently in front of his subordinate, and glared gloomily and severely
