MY COMRADE

(_A Diary_)


This world war has given me a comrade, too. You couldn't find a better
one.

It is exactly fourteen months ago that I met him for the first time in a
small piece of woods near the road to Goerz. Since then he has never
left my side for a single moment. We sat up together hundreds of nights
through, and still he walks beside me steadfastly.

Not that he intrudes himself upon me. On the contrary. He
conscientiously keeps the distance that separates him, the common
soldier, from the officer that he must respect in me. Strictly according
to regulations he stands three paces off in some corner or behind some
column and only dares to cast his shy glances at me.

He simply wants to be near me. That's all he asks for, just for me to
let him be in my presence.

Sometimes I close my eyes to be by myself again, quite by myself for a
few moments, as I used to be before the war. Then he fixes his gaze upon
me so firmly and penetratingly and with such obstinate, reproachful
insistence that it burns into my back, settles under my eyelids, and so
steeps my being with the picture of him that I look round, if a little
tune has passed without his reminding me of his presence.