Certainly, I have every reason to thank a benevolent fate which has long kept me far from the front. But I don’t know if I’m not perhaps too dazed to be fully conscious of it as a blessing; and sometimes — imagine! — I feel as if I might occasionally have breathed more freely out there, in danger, than here in safety. In that I may be deluding myself, or if not, that may be because, at the front, the will to live strangely stirs the blood, while here I am paralysed by the fear that my weariness of life could become second nature to me. As far as that is concerned, I can only say that the horrors of the war machine — at least, in a figurative sense — never affected me as deeply as my current torment, relegated as I am to a circle of officers — mainly Hungarian Jews — who on closer inspection reveal themselves to be a consortium of black-marketeers in uniform. Add to that the desolate look of the camp — a veritable symbol of our misery — which puts our own repatriated prisoners of war on show behind a rusty barbed-wire fence as if they were some barbaric tribes, while wretched figures with fixed bayonets guard the entrances and especially the main gate, which, adorned with fluttering flags and garlands, bears the heart-warming inscription “Welcome home!” Good God, the embarrassment is painful and almost touching, as in so many other instances, but it is understandable, as the result of the whole-scale ruin into which the nations of Europe have been plunged by the war, our own to the fore. If you were standing on the outside — outside the gates — you could, at a pinch, see the humour of the situation (especially now that the returnees opt to do a quick about-turn at the border and flee back to the chaos of Russia). But if you are, so to speak, a forced labourer in the bustling funfair which is our Administration, and if, penetrating to the core of the enterprise, you come across a cartel of wheeler-dealers taking foodstuffs, laboriously acquired by hand and intended to alleviate the hunger of some poor devils, and making them disappear into a shadowy hinterland that knows no hunger — except hunger for money; and if, further, you are under orders from some export clerk, from whose lips, when he recently surprised me reading your Fackel, burst the cry of astonishment: “You don’t mean to tell me he’s still trying to set the world alight?!”—then you get in a cold sweat, and now and then you want to escape, not just from this cage, but from the universal monkey cage of these times and this world!
And now imagine that an exclamation like the one just mentioned is spat out in front of you, on the off chance, while you are reading “On Eternal Peace” and other poems! Perhaps at a moment when I was starting to think what I can only dare suggest with an image here: Never before was your heart so laid bare and so hallowed! How its tempest subsides in the roar of the deep, in the song of the heavens! Like some distant shining shore it rises into view through the veil of your verses: the dawn of childhood — the dawn of humanity! And suddenly, today appears like all our yesterdays. God’s world, young and old!
That, in some measure, was how the face of your creation appeared to me, before the brute defiled it. Only in writing to you do I now feel once more suffused with the will to live. Those of us denied immortality through our own intellect must make do with the satisfaction of our earthly desires and destiny; even if the birth of a son in the natural course of things immortalizes only our fated mortality. Perhaps my love for my son (who sends me the most touching drawings and letters — he recently wrote “we’re doing fine, so far”) — perhaps it is so painful and profound for that reason alone. For just as in your sonnet “Half Asleep”, one way or another, the unborn son is everywhere at hand.
But for now, farewell! Wait, one thing more: you quote Goethe writing that letter to Frau von Stein about his affection for ordinary people! How true I found his words in my dealings with the returnees! In my last posting, for instance, I had a company consisting of people from every imaginable nationality. The only service I could render them was to take it upon myself to improve their food rations, and instead of exercising with them, I took them out to a meadow and had them tell me of their life in captivity and, when they needed it, helped them a bit with their letters to their relatives. And how touchingly they paid me back! When the company was ready to move off, two men of each nationality — Germans, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Italians, Bosnians — stepped forward and thanked me in the name of their compatriots. After a few words of farewell on my part, they gave me three cheers, a Viennese compositor quickly stepped out from his column and asked if he might send me a card from Vienna, and waving their caps, the company marched off into the beautiful spring evening to the railway station. Our lieutenant-colonel, who had been watching from a distance, then said: “They gave three cheers for the Emperor, of course”, which I naturally confirmed.—
(Change of scene.)
Scene 37
In freezing conditions after the winter offensive in the Sette Communi on the Italian Front. A parade ground at the rear. The remnants of a regiment, each man emaciated to a skeleton. With their uniforms in tatters, their boots torn apart, their filthy underclothes, they look at first sight like a pack of sick, bedraggled beggars. They drag themselves to their feet, practise arms drill and saluting.
FIRST WAR CORRESPONDENT How their eyes will light up when they hear their commander in chief, currently visiting his gallant troops at the front, has deigned to inspect the victorious regiment.
SECOND WAR CORRESPONDENT He’s still at the front, at Gries near Bolzano, but will be here any minute. I’d say they sense it.
FIRST SOLDIER (to another) Now he’s coming, that pathetic wimp!
SECOND SOLDIER Never shows his nose where the action is!
FIRST WAR CORRESPONDENT The young Emperor enjoys the blind confidence of his men.
SECOND WAR CORRESPONDENT All he has to do is smile at them, and they’re happy, the gallant lads.
CAPTAIN Snakes alive, get a move on, His Majesty will be here any second! Thought you would get some leave while the regiment is re-forming? Hard shit! His Majesty is coming to inspect his glorious regiment, so it’s every man present and correct, you rotten rabble!
FIRST WAR CORRESPONDENT Oh look! That’s interesting — what’s happening now! They’re changing clothes — getting fitted out with new uniforms, head to toe.
SECOND WAR CORRESPONDENT What’ll they do with the old rags?
FIRST They’ll get them back after the Emperor has left.
SECOND The companies are reduced to between 15 and 60 men, they’re going to have to top up numbers, of course—?
FIRST What d’you mean: “going to”? They’re at it already. Think they’d show the Emperor losses of 2,500 men?! Not a chance!
SECOND Where’ll they get the human raw material from?
FIRST Oh, cobblers, tailors, orderlies, cooks, mule drivers, grooms, whoever’s on the sick list, and so on — they’ve all got their rifles already and have been doing drill. I wish he’d show up soon! I’m perished with cold!
SECOND Look what they’re doing now — what is it?
FIRST That’s obvious, those with decorations and the better looking ones are being put in front, they’re changing places.
SECOND I can see that, but what are they doing to their faces?
FIRST What they’re doing to their faces? Don’t you know? What an ignoramus! They’re rubbing snow in so that everyone, including the sick ones, turns a healthy colour.