“I am talking now with you, as I used in those happy hours when you were at my side, and when, after the reading of some book of the progressive school, we used to philosophise with each other about the contradictions of our times, so intimately, so entirely understanding and supplementing each other. In my circle there is no one—no one—with whom I could talk about matters of that kind. Doctor Bresser would have been the only one with whom ideas condemnatory of war could be exchanged; and he also is now gone—himself drawn into this horrible war—but with the purpose of healing wounds, not inflicting them; another contradiction really, this ‘humanity’ in war: an essential contradiction. It is about the same as ‘enlightenment’ in faith. One thing or the other; but humanity and war; reason and dogma, that will not do. The downright, burning hatred of the enemy, coupled with an entire contempt for human life, that is the vital nerve of war, exactly as the unquestioning suppression of reason is the fundamental condition of faith. But we live in a time of compromise. The old institutions and the new ideas are working with equal power. And so people, who do not wish to break entirely with the old and who cannot entirely comprehend the new, make an attempt to fuse the two together; and it is this which generates this mendacious, inconsistent, contradictory, half-and-half system under which spirits who thirst for truth, accuracy, and completeness so groan and suffer.
“Ah, why do I compose all this treatise! You will at the present time be scarcely disposed for such generalisations, as you used to be in our happy hours of chat. You hear raging round you a horrible reality, with which you have to reckon. How much better would it be if you could accept it with the simple assurance of ancient times, when the warlike life was to the soldier a proud pleasure and a delight. Better also would it be if I could write to you, as other wives do, letters full of wishes for prosperity, confident promises of victory, and incitements to your courage. Girls of the present day are educated in patriotism, so that at the proper time they might cry to their husbands: ‘Go on, die for your country—that is the most glorious of deaths’; or, ‘Come back with victory, and then we will reward you with our loves. In the meantime we will pray for you. The God of battles, who protects our army, He will hear our prayers. Day and night our intercession is rising up to heaven, and we are sure to take His favour by storm. You will come back crowned with fame. We never tremble for an instant, for we are worthy comrades of your valour. No! no! the mothers of your sons must be no cowards if they would raise up a new race of heroes; and even if we have to give up what is dearest to us—for king and country no sacrifice is too great!’
“That would be the right letter for a soldier’s wife, would it not? But not such a letter as you would wish to read from your wife—from the partner of your thoughts, from her who shares your disgust at the old blind delusion of mankind. Oh, such disgust—so bitter, so painful that I cannot describe it to you.” When I picture to myself these two armies, composed of individuals with the gift of reason, and for the most part kind and gentle men, how they are rushing on each other, to annihilate each other, desolating at the same time the unfortunate land, in which they cast aside the villages they have ‘taken’ like cards in their game of murder. When I picture all this, I feel inclined to shriek out: ‘Do bethink you!’ ‘Do stop!’ And out of the 100,000, 90,000 individuals would certainly be glad to stop; but the mass is compelled to go on in its fury.
But enough; you will prefer to hear the accounts and the news from home. Well, then, we are all well. My father is constantly in the highest state of excitement over present events. The victory of Custoza fills him with radiant pride. He behaves as if he had won it himself. In any case he regards the splendour of that day as so bright that the reflection which falls on him as an Austrian and a general makes him completely happy. Lori, too, whose husband, as you know, is with the Army of the South, writes me a letter of triumph about this same Custoza. Do you recollect, Frederick, how jealous I was for a quarter of an hour about this same good Lori? And how I came out after that attack with stronger love and stronger trust in you? Oh, if only you had betrayed me then; if only you had sometimes a little ill-treated me; then I should perhaps bear your absence now more easily. But to know that such a husband is in the storm of bullets! Let me go on with my news. Lori has offered to spend the remainder of her grass-widowhood in Grumitz, along with her little Beatrix. I could
