fatally sick man. He was
walking alone, feebly moving his feet, and like everybody else bent to
kiss the hand of the priest, but he hardly knew what he was doing, and
his kiss was strangely indifferent and meaningless. He was evidently
wounded in his arm, which he held stretched out. Several fingers were
wrapped up, the others, which were not injured, were covered with a
crust of dirt and blood. But on his coat, on the back, there was a
large brown blotch of blood, a very large one, covering almost half of
his back and in the midst of the soft cloth it bulged stiffly as if
starched. And this horrible spot told the simple story of the battle
and the wound. But it was not the stain that made him so peculiarly
conspicuous--other soldiers had similar blotches--it was rather his
unusual pallor, thinness and smallness, and, above all, an expression
of peculiar timidity, as if he was not at all sure whether his
behaviour was appropriate and whether he had come to the right place.
The faces of the other wounded soldiers, non-Jews, expressed nothing
of the kind. These men were confused, but not afraid, and walked
straight ahead, into the ward.

And then I recollected how a military sanitarian, whose duty it is to
escort a train of wounded soldiers, had told me that the wounded Jews
actually try not to moan. It was hardly credible, and at first I did
not believe it; how was it possible, that a wounded soldier, freshly
picked up from the battlefield and lying among wounded soldiers should
try not to moan, as all do? But the sanitarian confirmed his statement
and added: they are afraid to attract attention to themselves.

The Jewish soldier entered the ward after the others, and the door was
closed, but his image, sorrowful and disquieting, lingered before my
eyes. Of course, he, too, tried not to attract attention--and therein
is the cause of his shyness; and when his wound will be dressed and he
will be put into bed, he will also try not to moan. For, what right
has he to moan aloud?

It is very possible, that he has no right of settlement in Petrograd
and is allowed to stay there only as one of the wounded; a rather
precarious right! And that which is home for others is nothing but a
kind of honourable imprisonment for him; he will be kept for a while,
then they will let him go, saying: "Go away, you must not be here."

And what if his mother, or sister, or father, who also have no right
of settlement, will desire to come to