CHAPTER XX
THE ESTATE OF SOLDIERY
(The Cruelty of Man.)
We then enter the last street, and on the first market-place I see no few men clothed in red; approaching them, I hear that they are deliberating among themselves as to how they could give wings to Death, so that she could in a moment penetrate everywhere both near and far; item, how that which had been built during many years could be destroyed in an hour. And I become afeard on hearing such speech, for hitherto, wherever I had looked at the deeds of men, the education and the increase of mankind, and the furthering of the comforts of human life, had alone been talked of and striven for. But these men deliberated on the destruction of the lives and of the comforts of men. Then the interpreter said: "The endeavours of these men also tend to that purpose, but by a somewhat different path—to wit, they remove that which is harmful. Later thou wilt understand this."
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