Some photographs are tricky. We see in them what we want to see, what we are conditioned to see. Adamantly they refuse to yield their own secrets. Looking at World War II photographs of wounded soldiers, one American, one German, our hearts go out to the American who was wounded in defense of freedom. The German's wounds don't encourage our sympathy. Lacking a deeper knowledge of the two soldiers, a knowledge only words could impart, our response is shaped by the tendentious constraints of patriotism. If the American is a psychopath, the German a saint, we'll never know. Like the wings of birds fluttering against closed windows, photographs brush vainly against the surface of things.