The hours pass quickly if a man broods. I pull myself together, and go with my sister to the slaughterhouse to get a pound or two of bones. That is a great favour and people line up early in the morning and stand waiting. Many of them faint.

We have no luck. After waiting by turns for three hours the queue disperses. The bones have not lasted out.

It is a good thing that I get my rations. I bring them to my mother and in that way we all get something decent to eat.

The days grow ever more strained and my mother’s eyes more sorrowful. Four days left now. I must go and see Kemmerich’s mother.

I cannot write that down. This quaking, sobbing woman who shakes me and cries out on me: “Why are you living then, when he is dead?”⁠—who drowns me in tears and calls out: “What are you there for at all, child, when you⁠—”⁠—who drops into a chair and wails: “Did you see him? Did you see him then? How did he die?”