'Use your butt ends, you donkeys!' I trembled before a hundred tyrants, now miserable ghosts in eternity like my own remarkable, lofty Ego. But why did I tremble before those ghosts and why could they compel me to do such a lot of unnecessary, idiotic, unpleasant things? How could they venture to annoy and insult my Ego--these miserable spectres?" Romashov sat down by the table, put his elbows on it, and leaned his head on his hands. It was hard work for him to keep in check these wild thoughts which raced through his mind. "H'm!--my friend Romashov, what a lot you have forgotten--your fatherland, the ashes of your sire, the altar of honour, the warrior's oath and discipline. Who shall preserve the land of your sires when the foe rushes over its boundaries? Ah! when I am dead there will be no more fatherland, no enemy, no honour. They will disappear at the same time as my consciousness. But if all this be buried and brought to naught--country, enemies, honour, and all the other big words--what has all this to do with _my Ego_? I am more important than all these phrases about duty, honour, love, etc. Assume that I am a soldier and my Ego suddenly says, 'I won't fight,' and not only _my own_ Ego, but millions of other Egos that constitute the whole of the army, the whole of Russia, the entire world; all these say, 'We won't!' Then it will be all over so far as war is concerned, and never again will any one have to hear such absurdities as 'Open order,' 'Shoulder arms,' and all the rest of that nonsense. "Well, well, well. It must be so some day," shouted an exultant voice in Romashov. "All that talk about 'warlike deeds,' 'discipline,' 'honour of the uniform,' 'respect for superiors,' and, first and last, the whole science of war exists only because humanity will not, or cannot, or dare not, say, 'I won't.'"