Wars I Have Seen by Gertrude Stein Read Free Book Online Page A

for being, that begins at fifteen thatand that enemies are not what they seem, that all belongs at fifteen. At fifteen overbearing that is the need to be the one that has to dominate the other one by not studying, by studying, by fighting, by not fighting, by war, red war, white war, green war and black war. Black war is fighting, red war is war, white war is exciting and green war is disappointing. And at fifteen war has begun, and every one knows that with the sun or without the sun war has begun.
    What happened. She Lucy Lilly Lamont, wanted what she wanted and she was not stupid she was overbearing and crazy and not nervous but obstinate and she felt superior. That can make enemies even if nobody is your enemy. It is just like this but not in a way. In a war anybody can forget about Lucy Lilly Lamont. Why not when she is of no importance in a war. And this is what made us feel as we did about the Boer war, it was the first war that made us feel that wars were wars but that they were not important because nothing changed. We only know now that we felt that way then now in 1943, but we did we most certainly did begin to feel that way then.
    Lucy Lilly Lamont was fifteen all her life, they have a way of saying it here, they say she never left the primary grades, it is that that makes her the other side of fifteen all her life, and it is very interesting, war is and is not like that, a good deal of war is like that and then when everybody is tired of war then it is not at all like that.
    Fifteen.
    Every time I watch them I ask them how old they are. They are usually younger than fifteen or older, it is not very often that they are just fifteen and when they are it is very special. Being fifteen is very special, being eleven or thirteen is not so special, being seventeen or nineteen is not so special. Being fifteen is very special.
    And now it is June 1943 and two of the young men who are twenty-one have come to say good-bye, they hope they are not going to die right away but all who are twenty-one have to go toGermany as hostages to be put in a pen, they say to work in factories but there is no work, and if they go into hiding well it would be all right if it were not for the winter but will it be over before the winter, they ask me to tell them but can any one tell them, do I know, well anyway I can say that they might amuse themselves by learning and reading German and they might amuse themselves by saying that they are going traveling as students, and say they, if we do not consider them as enemies will the Americans like it, will they, might it not displease them, but said I you can learn their language and read their literature and contemplate them as if you were travelers and still know them to be enemies. Why not. Well said they why not. Anyway they said you have cheered us, and I kissed them each one of them and wished them well, and one of them came back to shake hands again and I kissed him again and said be prudent and he said I will and they went away up the hill. Oh dear me one cannot sleep very well.
    But from fifteen on you can think about enemies, quite certainly think about enemies.
    The idea of enemies is awful it makes one stop remembering eternity and the fear of death. That is what enemies are. Possessions are the same as enemies only less so, they too make one forget eternity and the fear of death.
    So many things begin around fifteen. Money, possessions eternity, enemies, the fear of death, disappointments begin a long time before and sorrow, but around fifteen you can begin to write them down, which makes the depth and consolation of disappointment and sorrow. All this can and does begin around fifteen and then a little later came the Boer war, and war as no longer something that belonged to others and to history and to stories but something that was going on now and was a disillusion and disappointing. I did not know anybody who was fighting or any of their relations, but it was the time when