In the music room of Wern­er Noth’s dwin­dling home, lit­tle Resi, a ten-year-old girl, sat with her dachs­hund on her lap, bun­dled in win­ter attire. While gaz­ing out at the walled orchard, she pre­pared for the impend­ing depar­ture of the wag­on train, sym­bol­iz­ing a harsh, cold real­i­ty devoid of warmth. Resi had removed her mit­tens to pet her dog, which, due to a wartime diet, was left hair­less and immo­bile, appear­ing almost amphibi­ous. Her affec­tion for the dog con­trast­ed sharply with her chill­ing acknowl­edg­ment of life’s grim cir­cum­stances.

Resi had pre­vi­ous­ly called the nar­ra­tor an Amer­i­can spy, which had made him uneasy around her, but as he observed her now, she bore a strik­ing resem­blance to his deceased wife, Hel­ga. The atmos­phere shift­ed when Resi blunt­ly stat­ed that it was time to kill her dog. The nar­ra­tor, caught off guard, expressed his reluc­tance and shared that her father had asked him to do the deed. Resi’s accep­tance of the sit­u­a­tion was unnerv­ing; she was almost apa­thet­ic about the impend­ing vio­lence.

Their con­ver­sa­tion high­light­ed a grim accep­tance of fate amidst war’s chaos. Resi antic­i­pat­ed her own death with a naive accep­tance, sug­gest­ing a mor­bid belief that noth­ing tru­ly hurt when one ceased to exist. With an unset­tling prag­ma­tism, she impart­ed that she had nev­er tru­ly liked the dog and it would be bet­ter off dead. Her impul­sive­ly admir­ing con­fes­sion of love toward the nar­ra­tor added an eerie weight to their dia­logue, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en her fix­a­tion on a future that was uncer­tain at best.

After this dis­con­cert­ing exchange, the nar­ra­tor took the dog out­side into the snow-cov­ered orchard and pre­pared to shoot it with a small pis­tol. As he exe­cut­ed the act, Resi and oth­ers watched in silence, embody­ing a rit­u­al­is­tic response to a loss of life that had become dis­turbing­ly ordi­nary in wartime. An old sol­dier present showed an unnerv­ing curios­i­ty about the act, illus­trat­ing the desen­si­ti­za­tion brought by con­flict. After shoot­ing the dog—who died quietly—the nar­ra­tor faced a grotesque real­i­ty, ques­tion­ing whether bur­ial was nec­es­sary to pre­vent pre­da­tion on its remains. This chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of inno­cence lost, the bru­tal­i­ties of war, and the dis­con­cert­ing accep­tance of death in those left behind.