Anna
Petrovna herself would certainly have been of that opinion. Or one
might select Sister K---- and prove from her case that the effect of
war was to display the earthly failings and wickedness of mankind,
that it was a punishment hurled by an irate God upon an unrepentant
people and that any one who saw beauty or courage in such a business
was a sham sentimentalist. Sister K---- would take a gloomy joy in
such a denunciation. Or if one selected the boy Goga it would be
simply to state that war was an immensely jolly business, in which one
stood the chance of winning the Georgian medal and thus triumphing
over one's schoolfellows, in which people were certainly killed but
"it couldn't happen to oneself"; meals were plentiful, there were
horses to ride, one was spoken to pleasantly by captains and even
generals. Moreover one wore a uniform.
Or if Molozov, our chief, were questioned he would most certainly say
that war, as he saw it, was mainly a business of diplomacy, a business
of keeping the people around one in good temper, the soldiers in good
order, the generals and their staffs in good appetite, the other Red
Cross organisations in good self-conceit, and himself in good health.
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