“What can one do? I was at the front for forty-four months. I was wounded three times. I’m ill and I’m tired. And in other places it’s even worse than here. In Berlin they are shooting in the streets. Officers, loyal to the Kaiser, and the Red Guards cut each other’s throats in Unter den Linden. Machine-guns fire from the roofs of the houses. Red sailors have occupied the imperial palace, and corpses lie between the barricades. Here, they rarely knock a man down, and they only take his watch once.” He laughed painfully. “You know I was buried by a shell in my trench. They had to dig for some time before they found me, and the earth was heavy. Since then....” Horror showed in his eyes and he shivered. “It’s no good struggling. We can’t get out. It was all in vain.” He turned his head away, and we went on side by side for some time without a word; then he saluted clumsily and turned down a dark little street. But although he had gone his voice remained with me, and as I went on I could hear it over and over again; it came towards me, followed me, kept pace with me: “It’s no good struggling ... we can’t get out ... it was all in vain....” Those who suffer, those who are cold and hungry, those who are beggars and cripples, those who had their orders torn from their chests and the stars from the collars of their uniforms, all think alike. Those who did the tearing had not seen the war, had stayed at home, had lived in plenty and got rich; their numbers increased while ours grew less; they won the war that we lost. “We are done for, it’s no good struggling.” Is that what I see written in people’s eyes? Exhaustion and the endless “I’m ill and tired?”... Now I understand. The best have fallen, and those who have come back are wounded, though there be no wound on their bodies. Neither generals nor statesmen can remedy this. I went home. The staircase was in darkness, the electric light had gone wrong a few days ago and no workman could be found to repair it; all had joined the unemployed’s bargaining federation. The front door bell was out of order too. The electrician who always kept it in order had been deserted by his men and had to attend to his shop himself. One has to knock at one’s own door nowadays, for it cannot be left unbolted. Loafing soldiers pay visits to houses. One hears of nothing but burglaries. As I went upstairs impressions of the streets of the decaying town passed through my mind: the furious struggling crowd of crammed electric trams; the ‘new rich’ in fur coats; dirty flags, the remains of last month’s posters on grimy walls; coffee-houses with music within, crude noises and lewd conversations; people loafing in front of coal merchants’ cellars. The horror of the foul streets was still with me when I reached my room. My mother called to me. She was sitting in her room with a shaded lamp on the table, and on the green velvet table-cloth the kings and queens of a pack of little patience cards promenaded as if in a field.