MILITARY SERVICE
"They look as if they'd enough of me!"
So I think to myself, as I give a glance at my two great top-boots, my wide trousers, and my shabby green uniform, in which there is no whole part left.
I take a bit of looking-glass out of my box, and look at my reflection. Yes, the military cap on my head is a beauty, and no mistake, as big as Og king of Bashan, and as bent and crushed as though it had been sat upon for years together.
Under the cap appears a small, washed-out face, yellow and weazened, with two large black eyes that look at me somewhat wildly.
I don't recognize myself; I remember me in a grey jacket, narrow, close-fitting trousers, a round hat, and a healthy complexion.
I can't make out where I got those big eyes, why they shine so, why my face should be yellow, and my nose, pointed.
And yet I know that it is I myself, Chayyim Blumin, and no other; that I have been handed over for a soldier, and have to serve only two years and eight months, and not three years and eight months, because I have a certificate to the effect that I have been through the first four classes in a secondary school.
Though I know quite well that I am to serve only two years and eight months, I feel the same as though it were to be forever; I can't, somehow, believe that my time will some day expire, and I shall once more be free.
I have tried from the very beginning not to play any tricks, to do my duty and obey orders, so that they should not say, "A Jew won't work—a Jew is too lazy."