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Appointment in Samarra Quotes Showing of That was in the summer of , one of the most unimportant years in the history of the United States, and the year in which Caroline Walker was sure her life had reached a pinnacle of uselessness. You pull the pin out of a hand grenade, and in a few seconds it explodes and men in a small area get killed and wounded.
That makes bodies to be buried, hurt men to be treated. It makes widows and fatherless children and bereaved parents. It means pension machinery, and it makes for pacifism in some and for lasting hatred in others. Again, a man out of the danger area sees the carnage the grenade creates, and he shoots himself in the foot. Another man sees human brains for the first time and locks up the picture until one night years later, when he finally comes out with a description of what he saw, and the horror of his description turns his wife away from him It was not poisonous, and it got you tight, which was all that was required of it and all that could be said for it.
He was not thinking of the glory of having a son who hopped freight trains. And that was his reward: Upstairs was a girl who was a person.
That he loved her seemed unimportant compared to what she was. He only loved her, which really made him a lot less than a friend or an acquaintance. Other people saw her and talked to her when she was herself, her great, important self. It was wrong, this idea that you know someone better because you have shared a bed and a bathroom with her.
