talk, to stay awake with one another, it is too hard.
She sits long into the night although she is in pain and often writhes. At last I can bear it no longer, and pretend I have just wakened up.
“Go and sleep, Mother, you will catch cold here.”
“I can sleep enough later,” she says.
I sit up. “I don’t go straight back to the front, Mother. I have to do four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from there one Sunday, perhaps.”
She is silent. Then she asks gently: “Are you very much afraid?”
“No, Mother.”
“I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women out in France. They are no good.”
Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child—why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted, too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang my short, boy’s trousers—it is such a little time ago, why is it over?
“Where we are there aren’t any women, Mother,” I say as calmly as I can.
“And be very careful at the front, Paul.”
Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in
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