【正文】 rs as toothless a s carp. They were irregulars, armed and clothed fragmentarily with junk taken from real soldiers who were newly dead. So it goes. They were farmers from just across the German border, not far away. Their manander was a middleaged corporalredeyed., scrawny, tough as dried beef, sic k of war. He had been wounded four timesand patched up, and sent back to war. He was a very good soldierabout to quit, about to find somebody to surrender to. His bandy legs were thrust into golden cavalry boots which he had taken from a dead Hungarian colonel on the Russian front. So it goes. Those boots were almost all he owned in this world. They were his home. An anecdote: One time a recruit was watching him bone and wax those golden boots, and he held one up to the recruit and said, 39。If you look in there deeply enough, you39。ll see Adam and Eve.39。 Billy Pilgrim had not heard this anecdote. But, lying on the blac k ice there, Billy stared into the patina of the corporal39。s boots, saw Adam and Eve in the golden depths. They were naked. They were so innocent, so vulnerable, so eager to behave decently. Billy Pilgrim loved them. Next to the golden boots were a pair of feet which were swaddled in rags. They were crisscrossed by canvas straps, were shod with hinged wooden clogs. Billy looked up at the face that went with the clogs. It was the face of a blond angel of fifteenyearold boy. The boy was as beautiful as Eve. Billy was helped to his feet by the lovely boy, by the heavenly androgyne. And the others came forward to dust the snow off Billy., and then they searched him for weapons. He didn39。t have any. The most dangerous thing they found on his person was a twoinch pencil stub. Three inoffensive bangs came from far away. They came from German rifles. The two scouts who had ditched Billy and Weary had just been shot. They had been lying in ambush for Germans. They had been discovered and shot from behind. Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the color of raspberry sherbet. So it goes. So Roland Weary was the last of the Three Musketeers. And Weary, bugeyed with terror, was being disarmed. The corporal gave Weary39。s pistol to the pretty boy. He marveled at Weary39。s cruel trench knife, said in German that Weary would no doubt like to use the knife on him, to tear his face off with the spiked knuckles, to stick the blade into his belly or throat. He spoke no English, and Billy and Weary understood no German. 39。Nice playthings you have, the corporal told Weary, and he handed the knife to an old man. 39。Isn39。t that a pretty thing? Hmmm? He tore open Weary39。s overcoat and blouse. Brass buttons flew like popcorn. The corporal reached into Weary39。s gaping bosom as though he meant to tear out his pounding heart, but he brought out Weary39。s bulletproof Bible instead. A bulletproof Bible is a Bible small enough to be slipped into a soldier39。s breast pocket, over his heart. It is sheathed in steel. The corporal found the dirty picture of the woman and the pony in Weary 39。s hip pocket. 39。What a lucky pony, eh?39。 he said. Hmmmm? Hmmmm? Don39。t you wish you were that pony?39。 He handed the picture to the other old man. 39。Spoils of war! It39。s all yours, you lucky lad.39。 Then he made Weary sit down in the snow and take off his bat boots, which he gave to the beautiful boy. He gave Weary, the boy39。s clogs. So Weary and Billy were both without decent military footwear now39。 and they had to walk for miles and miles, with Weary39。s clogs clacking, with Billy bobbing upanddown, upanddown, crashing into Weary from time to time. 39。Excuse me,39。 Billy would say, or 39。I beg your pardon.39。 They were brought at last to a stone cottage at a fork in the road. It was a collecting point for prisoners of war. Billy and Weary were taken inside, where it was warm and smoky. There vas a fire sizzling and popping in the fireplace. The fuel was furniture. There were about twenty other Americans in there, sitting on the floor w ith their bac ks to the wall, staring into the flamesthinking whatever there was to think, which was zero. 32 Nobody talked. Nobody had any good war stories to tell. Billy and Weary found places for themselves, and Billy went to sleep w ith his head on the shoulder of an unprotesting captain. The captain was a chaplain. He was a rabbi. He had been shot through the hand. Billy traveled in time, opened his eyes, found himself staring into the glass eyes of a jade green mechanical owl. The owl wa s hanging upside down from a rod of stainless steel. The owl was Billy39。s optometer in his office in Ilium. An optometer is an instrument for measuring refractive errors in eyesin order that corrective lenses may be prescribed. Billy had fallen asleep w hile examining a female patient who was m a chair on the other side of the owl. He had fallen asleep at wor k before. It had been funny at first. Now Billy was starting to get worried about it, about his mind in general. He tried to remember how old he was, couldn39。t. He tried to remember what year it was. He couldn39。t remember that, either. 39。Doctor,39。 said the patient tentatively. 39。Hm?39。 he said. 39。You39。re so quiet.39。 39。Sorry.39。 39。You were talking away thereand then you got so quiet39。 39。Um.39。 39。You see something terrible?39。 39。Terrible?39。 39。Some disease in my anslated by David Lewis The elderly man stroked the dogpillar39。s head. This fellow here, I wonder what he was called before he became a dogpillar. No calling a dogpillar by its original name, I said. Isn39。t that a strange law? The man gave me a quick glance, then replied casually. Didn39。t they just extend the laws concerning people to dogs? That39。s why they lose their names when they bec ome dogpillars.