This sword had remained with me after "_L'ag Beomer_." And although I had carried it with me when I had gone with my comrades to do battle outside the town, yet I could swear to you, though you may believe me without an oath, that the sword had not spilled one drop of blood. It was one of those weapons that are carried about in times of peace. There was not a sign of war. It was quiet and peaceful around and about. I carried the sword because I wanted to. For the sake of peace, one must have in readiness swords and guns and rifles and cannon, horses and soldiers. May they never be needed for ill, as my mother used to say when she was making preserves. * * * It is the same all the world over. In a war, one aims first at the leaders, the officers. It is better still if one can hit the general. After that the soldiers fall like chaff, in any event. Therefore you will not be surprised to hear that, first of all, I fell upon Goliath the Philistine. I gave him a good blow on the head with my sword, and a few good blows from the back. And the wicked one was stretched at my feet, full length. After that I knocked over a good many more wicked ones. I pulled the stalks out of the ground, and threw them to the devil. The short, fat green enemies I attacked in a different manner. Wherever I could, I took the green heads off. The others I trampled down with my feet. I made a heap of ashes of them. During a battle, when the blood is hot, and one is carried away by excitement, one cuts down everything that is at hand, right and left. When one is spilling blood, one loses one's self, one does not know where one is in the world. At such a time, one does not honour old age. One does not care about weak women. One has no pity for little children. Blood is simply poured out like water.... When I was cutting down the enemy, I felt a hatred and a malice I had never experienced before, immediately after I had delivered the first blow. The more I killed the more excited I became. I urged myself to go on. I was so beside myself, so enflamed, so ecstatic that I smashed up, and destroyed everything before me. I cut about me on all sides. Most of all the "little ones" suffered at my hands--the young peas in the fat little pods, the tiny cucumbers that were just showing above ground. These excited me by their silence and their coldness. And I gave them such a share that they would never forget me. I knocked off heads, tore open bellies, shattered to atoms, beat, murdered, killed. May I know of evil as little as I know how I came to be so wicked. Innocent potatoes, poor things, that lay deep in the earth, I dug out, just to show them that there was no hiding from me. Little onions and green garlic I tore up by the roots. Radishes flew about me like hail. And may the Lord punish me if I even tasted a single bite of anything. I remembered the law in the Bible forbidding it. And Jews do not plunder. Every minute, when an evil spirit came and