They were no better than heathens. “Heathens” is the best term for someone who opposes the determinations of a government.

It was a warm Sunday morning in April, and Andreas Pum was sitting on one of the crude white wooden benches that had been put out on the lawn in front of the hospital shacks. Almost all of the other benches were occupied by two or three convalescents, sitting together and talking. Only Andreas was on his own, rejoicing in the designation he had come up with for his comrades.

They were heathens, no less than people who were sent to prison for perjury, theft, assault, or murder. What possessed people to kill, steal, swindle, and desert? The fact that they were heathens.

If someone had happened to ask Andreas just then what heathens are, he would have replied: criminals who are in prison, or perhaps still at large. Andreas Pum was highly delighted with his notion of “heathens.” The word satisfied him; it answered his swirling questions and solved many riddles. It absolved him of the necessity of continuing to reflect and to think about the others. Andreas was happy with his word. At the same time, it gave him a feeling of superiority to his comrades chattering away on the other benches. Some of them were more badly hurt and had no medals. Was that unjust? Why were they cursing? Why were they complaining? Were they worried about their future? If they continued to be so obdurate, they really would have every reason to worry. They were digging their own graves! Why should the government look out for its enemies? Himself, though, Andreas Pum, it surely would look out for.

And—while the sun moved briskly and confidently toward its zenith in the cloudless sky, becoming ever more radiant and even a little summery—Andreas Pum contemplated the years ahead. The government will have found him a little postage stamp concession or a place as an attendant in a shady park or a cool museum. So there he sits, with his cross on his chest; soldiers salute him, a passing general gives him a pat on the back, and little children are terrified of him. Not that he does them any harm, he just makes sure they don’t go running around on the grass. Or visitors to the museum buy their catalogs and postcards from him, though to them he is not an ordinary tradesman, but more like a kind of state official. It’s not beyond possibility that a widow may present herself, childless or maybe with a child, or a spinster. A well-situated invalid with a pension is not a bad match, and after a war men are in short supply.

The jangle of a bell skipped across the lawn in front of the shacks, announcing lunch. The invalids got up with difficulty and staggered, propped up on one another, toward the long wooden refectory building. Andreas swiftly bent down to pick up his crutches, and hobbled away in pursuit of his comrades. He wasn’t quite convinced by their pain. He, too, had to suffer. But see how quickly he can move when the lunch bell summons!

Naturally, he overtakes all the halt and the blind, and those men whose shattered spines are so crooked that their backs are parallel to the ground they walk on. They call out after Andreas Pum, but he has no intention of waiting for them.

There was gruel, as there always was on Sundays. The invalids intoned their regular Sunday complaint: gruel is boring. But Andreas didn’t find it at all boring. He raised the bowl to his lips and drank it down, having vainly trawled through it with his spoon a couple of times. The others looked on, and hesitantly followed his example. He kept the bowl at his lips a long time, and peered over the edge of it at his comrades. He saw that they liked the gruel, too, and their complaining had been all for show.