"When you are young you do not understand how different then and now are because you have lived only in now and it feels as if that is where you will always live. You do not realize that your now -and you- are becoming then. And when you realise how completely now has become then, how different it is, it is like the fall of the axe. It splits you off from all these younger people, who, however much they think they know or understand, cannot feel life as it was then. The pulse if it, that was the thing, always, with everything, and that is what cannot be conveyed."
This quote represents one of the first in-depth discussions between the Kaiser and the SS Officer Krebbs. Although both start off on opposite sides at first, with Krebbs investigating the Kaiser for treachery, this dialogue is the stepping stone to further discussions between the two men and the creation of a strange yet strong bond and relationship. The main point discussed in this quote is about age differences and how a difference in age leads to various viewpoints and understandings. This topic is brought up because of the significant age difference between the two men and it relates to the text because the Kaiser is explaining how people change their ideologies and way of thinking as they experience more of life. He is essentially trying to sway Krebbs from his strong loyalty to Nazism.
“Things happened, as soon as they had they were in the past, once they were, there was nothing you could do. Days and nights followed in a seamless phantasmagoria of action and inaction, of weariness, privation, duty, routine and waiting, always so much waiting. What had happened yesterday might have been in another life, as remote from today as the unknowable events of tomorrow.”
This quote really sets the opening setting and theme for the novel and provides a way for Alan Judd to open a door into the World War II world he has created with his writing. In this quote, we begin with a description of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the anguish, impatience, and bitterness he feels in his exile. He has been exiled in Holland for 26 years and his days passed by one after the other without so much as a pause in between, and the Kaiser felt like he was repeating the same thing over and over again everyday. We get to know many more details about the subtle characteristics of the Kaiser's personality as well as the background that leads up to his role in the novel.
"I'm ashamed to say that before and after my first marriage I, myself, fathered at least two illegitimate children: one with an Austrian countess, another with a French prostitute who was known in court circles as Madame L'Amour. Both of them, incidentally, blackmailed me for huge sums of money, the Countess and the prostitute."
Here is an extremely intimate and deep conversation held between the Kaiser and Krebbs, both of whom are starting to stick together more and more as their ideas change and their characters build blocks upon their connection. In this quote the reader is also shown some of the Kaiser's flaws and darker aspects, his weakness to blackmail due to him cheating on his wife multiple times and eventually losing massive amounts of money due to those blackmails. These details about the Kaiser's life create an intricate web connecting his character and the plot as well as Krebbs's character, making the novel that much deeper and interesting to read. This quote creates a lot of texture in the book that make sure it isn't a shallow war story.
