The effort of rage exhausted him; he fought the temptation of a collapse back onto the four-poster bed. Instead, he forced his muscles into movement walking to the dresser and splashing himself with water from the jug, pouring more from the spirit-heater and beginning to shave. Sometimes he thought she was more trouble than she was worth, that he should find a good orderly, and only send for her when he needed a woman. You expected an untermensch to be stupid, but it was that, five months now since he had grabbed her out of that burning schoolhouse in Tula, and she still couldn’t speak more then a few words of German. His Russian was better. And she was supposed to have been a teacher!

S. M. Stirling, The Domination (63)