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960 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 2006
Killing was a terrible thing; the reaction of the officers was a good proof of that, even if they didn鈥檛 all draw the consequences of their own reactions; and the man for whom killing was not a terrible thing, killing an armed man as well as an unarmed man, and an unarmed man as well as a woman and her child, was nothing but an animal, unworthy of belonging to a community of men. But it was possible that this terrible thing was also a necessary thing; and in that case we had to submit to this necessity. Our propaganda repeated over and over again that the Russians were Untermenschen, sub-humans; but I refused to believe that.
鈥淪o what鈥檚 the most atrocious thing you鈥檝e seen?鈥� He waved his hand: 鈥淢an, of course!鈥濃€斺€淚 meant medically.鈥濃€斺€淢edically, atrocious things don鈥檛 interest me in the least. On the other hand one does see extraordinary curiosities, which completely revise our notions of what our poor bodies can endure.鈥濃€斺€淲hat, for example?鈥濃€斺€淲ell, a man will catch a tiny piece of shrapnel in the calf that will slice through the peroneal artery and he鈥檒l die in two minutes, still standing, his blood emptied into his boot without his noticing. Yet another man might take a bullet through the head, from one temple to the other, and will get up on his own to walk to the first-aid post.鈥濃€斺€淲hat an insignificant thing we are,鈥� I commented.鈥斺€淧recisely.鈥�
The swift current created whirlpools that soon carried me away under the ice. All kinds of things were passing by me, which I could clearly make out in this green water: horses whose feet the current was moving as if they were galloping, fat and almost flat fish, bottom-feeders, Russian corpses with swollen faces, entwined in their curious brown capes...Above me, the ice formed an opaque screen, but the air lasted in my lungs, I wasn't worried and kept swimming, passing sunken barges full of handsome young men sitting in rows, their weapons still in their hands, little fish threading through their hair agitated by the current. Then slowly in front of me the water grew lighter, columns of green light plunged down from holes in the ice, became a forest, then melded into each other as the blocks of ice drifted farther apart.
"Os fil贸sofos pol铆ticos t锚m feito notar muitas vezes que em tempo de guerra o cidad茫o, do sexo masculino pelo menos, perde um dos seus direitos mais elementares, o de viver (...) Mas raramente notaram que o mesmo cidad茫o perde ao mesmo tempo um outro direito, igualmente elementar e talvez ainda mais vital, no que diz respeito 脿 ideia que faz de si pr贸prio enquanto homem civilizado: o direito de n茫o matar."2. Allemandes
"Os que me l锚em nunca poder茫o dizer: N茫o matarei, 茅 imposs铆vel; poder茫o dizer quando muito: Espero n茫o matar."
"Se nasceram num pa铆s ou numa 茅poca em que n茫o s贸 ningu茅m aparece para matar as vossas mulheres, os vossos filhos, mas em que ningu茅m aparece tamb茅m para vos dizer que matem as mulheres e os filhos dos outros, d锚em gra莽as a Deus e v茫o em paz."