"Thank you, Batjuschka, but I am not hungry," I said, for my little ones do not mind being teased. "Neither are they hungry who lately wore them," was the quick answer. "Where are those seven Austrians?" I asked, looking about in pretended stupidity. "With God," said my gallant Cossack, as he reverently crossed himself. "Ah," I said, "afterwards you went back and with your bayonet skewered each Austrian cap where it lay beside its dead owner." "No," he replied gravely, "with my bayonet I skewered each cap with the same thrust that sent its owner to God." And again he crossed himself.
It was all true—there were witnesses of the encounter—seven to one, and all the seven now "with God."
Do you shudder when I write to you of these things? Do you say to yourself that "this terrible war" has robbed me of all my estimable "woman's weaknesses?" Do you picture me brazenly calloused to scenes of human agony and violent deaths for thousands in a single engagement which probably has no effect upon the final outcome?
You would be wrong. It is simply that if you are a soldier it is your duty to kill, and perhaps to be killed, in defense of your country. No matter how dreadful the things that happen, they are inseparable from war and you must get used to them. Gradually you do get used to them. If you did not your services to your country would be of no value. You would not be a true soldier, who must be able always to shrug his shoulders and say to himself, "Well, such things happen," and then go on faithfully with his soldier's work.
But believe me, these duties performed as well as I am able to perform them, promotions, honors—afterward they will be as nothing compared with what is dear to me as a woman. Through all this violence and carnage and misery I know that I shall have gained in all that becomes a woman—in faithfulness, tenderness, pity for the poor and unfortunate, and in charity.
AN ITALIAN SOLDIER'S LAST MESSAGE TO HIS MOTHER
Translated by Father Pasquale Maltese