And then a spectral vision rises before my eyes ... I see red Death standing outside there on the plain ... the clouds reveal a face grinning down on the symphony ... and suddenly a clear note detaches itself from the darkness--a tune which enraptured Death is playing to himself till his fiddle splits ... is that a human being coming up, running, here?... he is coming with a rush ... he will leap upon our backs ... halt! halt! halt! He stumbles upright into the trenches, and tumbles sobbing and howling, among our rifles. He strikes out at us with hands and feet ... he is crying and struggling like a child, and yet no man dares go up to him ... for now he is rising on his knee ... and then we see! Half his face has been torn away ... one eye gone ... the twitching muscle of the cheek is hanging down ... he is kneeling, and opening and closing his hands, and is howling to us for mercy. We gaze at him horror-stricken and are paralyzed ... then at length the yokel--and our eyes thank him for it--raises the butt of his rifle and places the muzzle against the sound temple ... bang!... and the maimed wreckage falls over backward and lies still in his blood.... And again the darkness casts up shapes ... they run up and reel about like drunken men ... they fall over and pick themselves up anew ... they race forward through the night in zigzags, until they at last collapse exhausted, and lie still under our very eyes and make an end of it.... And at length some one comes crawling toward us ... he is crawling up on all fours ... he is dragging something behind him with his body, and all the time he is whining like a sick dog, and is howling shrilly in long-drawn tones ... he is still crawling along I fast--and when he has reached us we see--I and the blood stands still in our hearts--they are his entrails hanging out of his body ... his belly has been ripped up from below ... he is crawling, he is crawling up on his entrails ... he is coming ... the entrails are coming ... horror breaks out from every pore ... for hardly three paces away from me he lies still ... and then ... May God forgive me!... he raises himself slowly on his hands ... he succeeds for a moment ... and looks ... Merciful God!... he looks at me, and refuses to let my eyes go again ... I can see nothing except these great, death-stricken eyes.... Merciful God! ... his eyes, those eyes! Those are a mother's eyes looking down on me unspeakably ... that is a son of his mother lying there before us butchered.... I will break out of my fastness.... I will throw myself on him, sobbing, and kiss his face, and bathe his anguish away in my tears.... I will do it! I will! ... and cannot stir myself from my rigid tension.... Then the monstrous strain relaxes--his arms give way ... he falls forward on his face and sinks down on his tortured body. His hands twitch once more ... then he lies still and kisses Mother Earth, who has slain her children so horribly....