reading
excerpt 1
"The parachute-lights soar upwards -- and I see a picture, a summer evening, I am in the cathedral cloister and look at the tall rose trees that bloom in the middle of the little cloister garden where the monks lie buried. Around the walls are the stone carvings of the Stations of the Cross. No one is there. A great quietness rules in this blossoming quadrangle, the sun lies warm on the heavy grey stones, I place my hand upon them and feel the warmth. At the right-hand corner the green cathedral spire ascends into the pale blue sky of the evening. Between the glowing columns of the cloister is the cool darkness that only churches have, and I stand there and wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of love.
The image is alarmingly near; it touches me before it dissolves in the light of the next star-shell.
I lay hold of my rifle to see that it is in trim.
...It is strange that all the memories that come have these two qualities. They are always completely calm, that is predominant in them; and even if they are not really calm, they become so. They are soundless apparitions that speak to me, with looks and gestures silently, without any word -- and it is the alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandon myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilate and gently pass away into the still forces that lie behind these things.
They are quiet in this way, because quietness is so unattainable for us now. At the front there is no quietness and the curse of the front reaches so far that we never pass beyond it. Even in the remote depots and rest-areas the droning and the muffled noise of shelling is always in our ears. We are never so far off that it is no more to be heard.
...And even if these scenes of our youth were given back to us we would hardly know what to do. The tender, secret influence that passed from them into us could not rise again. We might be amongst them and move in them; we might remember and love them and be stirred by the sight of them. But it would be like gazing at the photograph of a dead comrade; those are his features, it is his face, and the days we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory; but the man himself it is not."
excerpt 2 (graphic)
"Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades -- words, words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.
...We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is at an end.
Still the little piece of convulsed earth in which we lie is held. We have yielded no more than a few hundred yards of it as a prize to the enemy. But on every yard there lies a dead man.
We have just been relieved...It was summer when we came up, the trees were still green, now it is autumn and the night is grey and wet. The lorries stop, we climb out -- a confused heap, a remnant of many names. On either side stand people, dark, calling out the numbers of the brigades, the battalions. And at each call a little group separates itself off, a small handful of dirty, pallid soldiers, a dreadfully small handful, and a dreadfully small remnant.
...And we hear the number of our company called again and again. He will call a long time, they do not hear him in the hospitals and shell-holes.
Once again, 'Second Company, this way!' And then more softly, 'Nobody else, Second Company?'
He is silent, and then huskily he says: 'Is that all?' he gives the order: 'Number!'
The morning is grey, it was still summer when we came up, and we were one hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze, it is autumn, the leaves rustle, the voices flutter out wearily: 'One--two--three--four---' and cease at thirty-two. And there is a long silence before the voice asks: 'Anyone else?'--and waits and then says softly: 'In squads---' and then breaks off and is only able to finish: 'Second Company---' with difficulty: 'Second Company--march easy!'
A line, a short line trudges off into the morning.
Thirty-two men."
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front , 1928