““In an unforgettable scene from All Quiet on the Western Front, a young German soldier examines the body of a Frenchman he has just killed: No doubt his wife still thinks of him; she does not know what happened. He looks as if he would have often written to her—she will still be getting mail from him—Tomorrow, in a week’s time—perhaps even a stray letter a month hence. She will read it, and in it he will be speaking to her.... I speak to him and say to him: “. . . Forgive me, comrade.... Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony?” . . . “I will write to your wife,” I say hastily to the dead man. . . . “I will tell her everything I have told you, she shall not suffer, I will help her, and your parents too, and your child—” Irresolutely I take the wallet in my hand. It slips out of my hand and falls open.... There are portraits of a woman and a little girl, small amateur photographs taken against an ivy-clad wall. Along with them are letters.132 Another””
