The rich man opens the door and kicks the poor man, who sprawls on the sidewalk.

The rich man shuts the door, sits down in front of a plate of soup, and says, joining his hands:

"I give thanks to Thee, Lord Jesus, for all Thy blessings."

The Air Raids

When we arrived at Grandmother's, there were very few air raids in the Little Town. Now there are more and more of them. The sirens start to wail at all hours of the day and night, exactly as in the Big Town. People run for shelter, hide in cellars. Meanwhile, the streets are deserted. Sometimes the doors of houses and shops are left open. We take advantage of this to go in and quietly steal whatever we like.

We never hide in our cellar. Grandmother either. During the day, we keep doing whatever we're doing, and at night we go on sleeping.

Most of the time, the planes only fly over our town on their way to bomb the other side of the frontier. But sometimes a bomb falls on a house anyway. In which case we locate the spot by the direction of the smoke and go see what has been destroyed. If there's anything left to take, we take it.

We have noticed that the people in the cellar of a bombed house are always dead. On the other hand, the chimney is almost always standing.

Sometimes, too, a plane goes into a dive to machine-gun people in the fields or in the street.

The orderly has taught us that we must be very careful when a plane is moving toward us, but that as soon as it is over our heads, the danger is past.

Because of the air raids, it is forbidden to light lamps at night unless the windows are completely blacked out. Grandmother thinks it is more practical not to light them at all. Patrols circulate all night to make sure the regulation is obeyed.

During a meal, we mention a plane we saw fall in fiâmes. We also saw the pilot parachute from it.

"We don't know what happened to him, the enemy pilot."

Grandmother says:

"Enemy? They are friends, our brothers. They'll be here soon."

One day, we are out walking during an air raid. A terrified man dashes up to us:

"You shouldn't be out during air raids."

He grabs our arms and pulls us toward a door:

"Go in, get inside."

"We don't want to."

"It's a shelter. You'll be safe there."

He opens the door and pushes us in front of him. The cellar is full of people. Complete silence reigns there. The women are clutching their children to them.

Suddenly, somewhere, bombs go off. The explosions get nearer. The man who brought us to the cellar runs over to a pile of coal in one corner and tries to bury himself in it.

Several women snigger contemptuously. An elderly woman says:

"His nerves are shot. He's on leave because of it."

All of a sudden we find it difficult to breathe. We open the cellar door; a big fat woman pushes us back and shuts the door again. She shouts:

"Are you crazy? You can't go out now."

We say:

"People always die in cellars. We want to go out."

The fat woman leans against the door. She shows us her Civil Defense armband.

"I'm in charge here! You'll stay!"

We sink our teeth into her fleshy forearms; we kick her in the shins. She screams and tries to hit us. People laugh. In the end, all red with anger and shame, she says:

"Get out! Beat it! Go get yourselves killed outside! It'll be no great loss."

Outside, we can breathe. It's the first time we have been afraid.

The bombs continue to rain down.

The Human Herd

We have come to the priest's house to get our clean clothes. We are eating bread and butter with the housekeeper in the kitchen. We hear shouts coming from the street. We put down our bread and butter and go out. People are standing in front of their houses; they are looking in the direction of the station. Excited children are running around shouting: "They're coming! They're coming!" At a bend in the road an army jeep full of foreign officers appears. The jeep is moving slowly, followed by soldiers carrying their rifles on their shoulders. Behind them is a sort of human herd. Children like us. Women like our mother. Old men like the cobbler.

Two or three hundred of them pass by, flanked by soldiers. A few women are carrying small children on their backs, on their shoulders, or cradled against their breasts. One of them falls; hands reach out to catch the child and the mother; they must be carried, because a soldier has already pointed his rifle at them.

No one speaks, no one cries; their eyes are fixed on the ground. The only sound is the noise of the soldiers' hobnail boots.

Right in front of us, a thin arm emerges from the crowd, a dirty hand stretches out, a voice asks:

"Bread."

The housekeeper smiles and pretends to offer the rest of her bread; she holds it close to the outstretched hand, then, with a great laugh, brings the piece of bread back to her mouth, takes a bite, and says:

"I'm hungry too."

A soldier who has seen all this gives the housekeeper a slap on the behind; he pinches her cheek, and she waves to him with her handkerchief until all we can see is a cloud of dust against the setting sun.

We go back into the house. From the kitchen we can see the priest kneeling in front of the big crucifix in his room.

The housekeeper says:

"Finish your bread and butter."

We say:

"We aren't hungry anymore."

We go into the room. The priest turns around:

"Do you want to pray with me, my children?"

"We never pray, as you know very well. We want to understand."

"You cannot understand. You are too young."

"You are not too young. That's why we are asking you. Who are those people? Where are they being taken? Why?"

The priest gets up and comes toward us. Closing his eyes, he says:

"The Ways of the Lord are unfathomable." He opens his eyes and places his hands on our heads: "It is unfortunate that you were forced to witness such a spectacle. You are trembling all over." "So are you, Father." "Yes, I am old, I tremble."

"As for us, we're cold. We came here stripped to the waist. We're going to put on the shirts your housekeeper has washed."

We go into the kitchen. The housekeeper hands us our parcel of clean clothes. We each take a shirt. The housekeeper says:

"You're too sensitive. The best thing you can do is to forget what you've seen."

"We never forget anything." She pushes us to the door:

"Off you go, and don't worry! None of that has anything to do with you. It'll never happen to you. Those people are only animals."

Grandmother's Apples

We run from the priest's house to the cobbler's house. His windowpanes are broken; his door is smashed in. Inside, everything has been ransacked. Filthy words are written on the walls.

An old woman is sitting on a bench in front of the house next door. We ask her:

"Has the cobbler gone away?"

"A long time ago, the poor man."

"He wasn't among those who went through town today?"

"No, the ones who went today came from somewhere else. In cattle trucks. Him, he was killed here, in his workshop, with his own tools. Don't worry. God sees everything. He will recognize His Own."

When we get home, we find Grandmother lying on her back in front of the garden gate, her legs apart, apples scattered all around her.

Grandmother doesn't move. Her forehead is bleeding.

We run to the kitchen, wet a cloth, and take the brandy down from the shelf. We put the wet cloth on Grandmother's forehead and pour brandy into her mouth. After a while she opens her eyes and says:

"More!"

We pour more brandy into her mouth.

She raises herself up on her elbows and starts shouting:

"Pick up the apples! What are you waiting for, sons of a bitch?"