they were prepared to pay the price. They knew the facts, too - the strength of the enemy and their own weakness.
But here it seems to be a different matter. It is no problem talking about conquest if you are editing a newspaper or sitting in the office of a party. It is easy to compose the text of a poster, when those who write it haven’t the slightest idea what it is like at the front or how vie-tories are really won.
But those who paid that price or who are going to pay it - their voices are not to be found among this noisy chorus. They don’t speak from the tribune, they don’t write placards, they don’t formulate headlines. They are at the front.
The soldier reflects. Yes, he thinks. We are at the front. And that is far away. Maybe that is the root of the problem? The front is too far away. And the frontline soldiers, on the occasions they come to the city, are submerged in the sea of neatly ironed uniforms that is the military in town. Earlier on, when the front still ran through the Hatikva quarter and Yasur,2 it was quite a different matter ...
Fatigue suddenly overcomes the soldier. I’ll head for home, he decides. The clicking of his crutches fills the street with echoes. Pity that Mishka isn’t around any more. He would have known how to put it.