A Time to Love and a Time to Die

NEXT day the landscape had changed. It rose clearly out of the soft morning mist. Graeber was now sitting by the window, his face pressed against the pane. He saw fallow land and fields still flecked with snow under which the even black furrows of the plow were visible, and the pale green shimmer of the young rye. No shell holes. No destruction. Flat, smooth plains. No trenches. No dugouts. Country.

Then came the first village. A church on which a cross gleamed. A schoolhouse on whose roof a weather vane was slowly turning, A tavern in front of which people were standing. The open doors of houses, maids with brooms, a wagon, the first reflection of the sun in unbroken windows. Roofs that were whole, undamaged houses, trees that had all their branches, streets that were streets, and children on their way to school. Graeber had not seen any children in a long time. He took a deep breath. This was what he had been waiting for. It was there'. There after all!