n't sleep in peace: I dream all night
that they are waking me at three o'clock, and I start up bathed in a
cold sweat.

Drill does not begin before eight in the morning, but they wake us at
six, so that we may have time to clean our rifles, polish our boots and
leather girdle, brush our coat, and furbish the brass buttons with
chalk, so that they should shine like mirrors.

I don't mind the getting up early, I am used to rising long before
daylight, but I am always worrying lest something shouldn't be properly
cleaned, and they should say that a Jew is so lazy, he doesn't care if
his things are clean or not, that he's afraid of touching his rifle, and
pay me other compliments of the kind.

I clean and polish and rub everything all I know, but my rifle always
seems in worse condition than the other men's. I can't make it look the
same as theirs, do what I will, and the head of my division, a corporal,
shouts at me, calls me a greasy fellow, and says he'll have me up before
the authorities because I don't take care of my arms.

But there is worse than the rifle, and that is the uniform. Mine is
_years_ old--I am sure it is older than I am. Every day little pieces
fall out of it, and the buttons tear themselves out of the cloth,
dragging bits of it after them.

I never had a needle in my hand in all my life before, and now I sit
whole nights and patch and sew on buttons. And next morning, when the
corporal takes hold of a button and gives a pull, to see if it's firmly
sewn, a pang goes through my heart: the button is dragged out, and a
piece of the uniform follows.

Another whole night's work for me!

After the inspection, they drive us out into the yard and teach us to
stand: it must be done so that our stomachs fall in and our chests stick
out. I am half as one ought to be, because my stomach is flat enough
anyhow, only my chest is weak and narrow and also flat--flat as a board.

The corporal squeezes in my stomach with his knee, pulls me forward by
the flaps of the coat, but it's no use. He loses his temper, and calls
me greasy fellow, screams again that I am pretending, that I _won't_
serve, and this makes my chest fall in more than ever.

I like the gymnastics.

In summer we go out early into the yard, which is very wide and covered
with thick grass.

It smells delightfully, the sun warms us through, it feels so pleasant.

The breeze blows from the fields, I open my mouth and swallow the
freshness, and