（外文电子版资料）Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five.docVIP

OR THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE A Duty-dance with Death Copyright 1969 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1970 A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, The Florence of the Elbe, a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace. for Mary OHare and Gerhard Müller The cattle are lowing, The Baby awakes, But the little Lord Jesus No crying He makes. ll this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasnt his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. Ive changed all the names. I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than I went back there with an old war buddy, Bernard V. OHare, and we made friends with a taxi driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Müller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasnt much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes. He sent OHare a postcard at Christmastime, and here is what it said: I wish you and your family also as to your friend Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I hop