the last book I ever read (If This is a Man by Primo Levi, excerpt three)

from If This is a Man by Primo Levi:

Null Achtzehn is very young, which is a grave danger. Not only because it’s harder for boys than for men to withstand fatigue and fasting but, even more, because long training in the struggle of each against all is needed to survive here, training that young people rarely have. Null Achtzehn is not even particularly weak, but all avoid working with him. He is indifferent to the point where he doesn’t trouble to avoid labor or blows or to search for food. He carries out every order he is given, and it’s predictable that when they send him to his death he will go with the same total indifference.

He doesn’t even have the rudimentary cunning of a draft horse, which stops pulling just before it reaches exhaustion; he pulls or carries or pushes as long as his strength allows, then gives way suddenly, without a word or warning, without lifting his sad, opaque eyes from the ground. He reminds me of the sled dogs in books by Jack London, who labor until their last breath and die on the track.

But, since the rest of us try by every possible means to avoid excess effort, Null Achtzehn is the one who works more than anybody. Because of this, and because he is a dangerous companion, no one wants to work with him; and since, on the other hand, no one wants to work with me, because I am weak and clumsy, it often happens that we find ourselves paired.