There was a silence all round, everybody nodding as to approve. "Why then," continued the fat man, "should we consider the feelings of our children when they are twenty?  Isn't it natural that at their age they should consider the love for their Country (I am speaking of decent boys, of course) even greater than the love for us?  Isn't it natural that it should be so, as after all they must look upon us as upon old boys who cannot move any more and must sit at home?  If Country is a natural necessity like bread of which each of us must eat in order not to die of hunger, somebody must go to defend it.  And our sons go, when they are twenty, and they don't want tears, because if they die, they die inflamed and happy (I am speaking, of course, of decent boys).  Now, if one dies young and happy, without having the ugly sides of life, the boredom of it, the pettiness, the bitterness of disillusion...what more can we ask for him?  Everyone should stop crying; everyone should laugh, as I do...or at least thank God as I do because my son, before dying, sent me a message saying that he was dying satisfied at having ended his life in the best way he could have wished.  That is why, as you see, I do not even wear mourning..." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app