Given that it is Christmas Eve, and I am in Belgium, the title of this short play caught my eye. (A few years ago I read the same author's The Last Man aka No Other Man.) I really should not have bothered. Written and set in occupied Belgium in 1915, it's a straight cut and paste from the author's Rada, which was set during the Balkan war of 1913, to the extent that the central character keeps her own name and the others generally sound more Balkan than Belgian. Rada is the unwilling hostess of two German soldiers, fresh from visiting atrocity on her village; it all ends badly. Here's the third speech of the play:

Tarrasch [one of the soldiers]: This is war, this is! And you can’t expect war to be all swans and shining armour. No—nor smart uniforms either. Look at the mud my friend and I have already annexed from Belgium. Brander, you know it’s a most astonishing fact; but I have remarked it several times. Those women whose eyes glitter at the sight of a spiked helmet are the first to be astonished by the realities of war. They expect the dead to jump up and kiss them and tell them it is all a game, as soon as the battle is ended. No, no, my dear; it’s only in war that one sees how small is one’s personal happiness in comparison with greater things. Isn’t it? (He fills a glass and drinks. Brander [the other soldier] lights a cigar.)

The German soldiers are improbably interested in Schopenhauer and high culture. Meanwhile the old man who lives with Rada is convinced that it is Christmas every day. There is also some tedious poetry. The whole thing is dreadfully earnest and utterly predictable. The Atheneum liked it a lot more than I did. You can get it for free from Project Gutenberg.