It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They have faces that make one think- honest peasant faces, broad foreheads, broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, and thick hair. They ought to be put to threshing, reaping, and Apple piking. They look just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland. It is distressing to watch their movements, to see them begging for something to eat. They are all rather feeble, for they only get enough nourishment to keep them from starving.
Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. 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-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?
