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 who had spread the worst reports about each of us in number 60 etc.

It was possible, who could tell? On the Monday nothing more was said about him.

And again a new man entered. A corporal of the defence-corps, with two medals on his breast. For murdering his wife, it was said. Absurd. A wretch like that, he declared, you can at the most thrash or beat black and blue, but kill her? He had been fond of her, the beast, he had married her two months before the war, had joined the army, had written to her. Sweetheart, dear wife, when a man is in the trenches and the bullets are whistling and buzzing over his head, he thinks differently of the woman he likes than in civil life. He wrote whenever he had the chance, death raged around him, but he wrote. And today he would box her ears for every word which he had sent her, for every sigh when he had thought of her. The bitch, the bitch! Now and then she let him know that she could not write,—there was the farm, the vineyard, always something or other. Suddenly he received a letter, looked at it,—no signature. When the master of the house, it said, does not look after the farm, another must see to it, and when a bed is made for two, one alone cannot lie in it. And more such allusions He went to his captain, told him what had been sent him, and asked for leave. He had obtained none since the beginning of the war, he had performed his duties efficiently,—he was granted leave instantly. And the captain urged him not to let himself he carried away by anger, and not to commit any folly. He travelled day and night. And it was night when he arrived. He knocked, beat at the window,—for a long time there was no answer. At last she opened the peep-hole and asked who was there. It was he, she was to come down and open the door. A while passed, a considerable while, before he got into the room. She was much taken aback and, as it