Here a man who has lost both of his legs makes his way down the street as grotesque characters point and stare at his irrevocably marked physique. His absolute alienation is emphasized by the composition. Behind him the onlookers form a kind of single mass, while he heads alone toward nothing. With the title Perpetual Pain, Heinrich Hoerle made clear that although the war had ended, soldiers returning home would be forever impacted—physically, socially, and psychologically. At every step, this wounded man is reminded of his otherness in the world to which he has returned.