ed
mankind in the enjoyment of a juicy frog. Through the labyrinth of a
fallen-down barn limps a big black cat, tousled and scratched, already
half-maddened from hunger, vicious like a wounded panther. Along what
had been once streets run packs of dogs gone wild, restlessly smelling
at dirt and corpses, growing bolder day by day until finally they have
to be shot down.

"Only few people can stand it on this God-forsaken stage of misery.
Occasionally a few thin Jews in their long coats walk across the ruins
of the market place, which look like a stage setting. On their
shoulders they carry in a bundle their few belongings, like pictures
of the Wandering Jew. Their families live for a short time from
whatever they can scratch together from the ruins or out of the
trampled-down fields. They cook and bake on one of the stoves standing
everywhere right out in the open road and offer their poor wares for
exhibition and sale on a few boards, a last effort to support life by
trade. In the case of the women, no matter what the nationality, it
always seems as if they had saved out of the horrible destruction only
their best and brightest clothes. At a distance their colors shine and
smile as if nothing at all had happened. But upon coming up closer,
one can easily see how little these unfortunate beings carry on their
poor backs.

"More than once we stand perplexed before the touching picture of a
short rest on the 'flight to Egypt.' A little family--is it the only
one that has remained behind when everybody else wandered away, or
have they already come back home because there was nothing better to
be found out in the world? In the garden of a plundered farmhouse they
have put up a poor imitation of a stable out of charred boards, and in
it they live more poorly than the poorest gypsies. Their lean cow has
been tied to a bush; among the trampled-down vegetables their equally
lean mule grazes. The mother squats on the ground, nursing a child,
while father and son are stirring up a heap of glowing ashes and
roasting a handful of potatoes that they have dug up somewhere.

"The return pilgrimage of the natives has already begun at an
extensive rate. The advancing Germans are met everywhere by long lines
of them, on foot and in wagons, carrying with them carefully and
lovingly the few remnants of their herds. What has been their
experience?

"One nice day the Cossacks had appeared at their farms and had told
them: 'Not a soul is