the arrangement of the six war episodes. The first is entitled "Off to
War"; the last, "Home Again." Between, we have "Baptism of Fire," a
picture of wounded men; and "A Hero's Death." The centre piece is
devoted to "The Victor," the great general, the master of the feast, the
responsible and beflattered chief. In the last three stories, physical
pain exposes its hideous countenance like that of Medusa mutilated. The
two opening stories deal with mental pain. The hero of the centre piece
sees neither the one nor the other; his glory is throned on both; he
finds life good, and war even better. From the first page to the last,
revolt mutters. But on the last page revolt culminates in a murder; a
soldier, back from the front, kills a war profiteer.

I give an analysis of the six stories.

"Off to War" (Der Abmarsch) has for its scene the garden of a war
hospital in a quiet little Austrian town thirty miles from the front. It
is an evening late in autumn. The tattoo has just sounded. All is quiet.
From afar comes the sound of heavy guns, as if huge dogs were baying
underground. Some young wounded officers are enjoying the peace of the
evening. Three of them are talking gaily with two ladies. The fourth, a
Landsturm lieutenant, in civil life a well-known composer, sits gloomily
apart. He has had a severe nervous shock, and is utterly prostrated, so
that not even the arrival of his fair young wife enables him to pull
himself together. When she speaks to him, he is unmoved. When she tries
to touch him, he draws irritably away. She suffers, and cannot
understand his enmity. The other woman takes the lead in the
conversation. She is a Frau Major, a major's wife, who spends all her
time at the hospital and has acquired there "a peculiar, garrulous
cold-bloodedness." She is surfeited with horrors; her endless curiosity
gives the impression of hardness and hysterical cruelty. The men are
discussing, what is "the finest thing" in the war. According to one of
them the finest thing is to find oneself, as this evening, in women's
company.

"....For five months to see nothing but men--and then all of a sudden to
hear a dear woman's clear voice! That's the finest thing of all. It's
worth going to war for."

One of the others rejoins that the finest thing is to have a bath, a
clean bandage, to get into a nice white bed, to know that for a few
weeks you are going to have a rest. Number three says:

"The finest thing of all, I think,