All Quiet On The Western Front.

The Coffin, It Shall Protect Me, Though Death Himself Lies In It

Little By Little Things Began To Assume A New Aspect. The Sense Of Insecurity Vanished, Words Came Of Themselves, I Was No Longer So Painfully Conscious Of Everything I Said. I Drank On And Felt The Great Soft Wave Approach And Embrace Me; The Dark Hour Began To Fill With Pictures And Stealthily The Noiseless Procession Of Dreams Appeared Again Superimposed On The Dreary, Grey Landscape Of Existence.

Bombardment, Barrage, Curtain-fire, Mines, Gas, Tanks, Machine-guns, Hand-grenades - Words, Words, But They Hold The Horror Of The World.

Kat And Kropp Get In An Argument Over The War As They Rest From An Hour’s Worth Of Drill (occasioned By Tjaden’s Not Saluting A Major Properly). Kat Believes The War Would Be Over If Leaders Gave All The Participants “the Same Grub And The Same Pay,” As He Says In A Rhyme. Kropp Believes The Leaders Of Each Country Should Fight Each Other In An Arena To Settle The War; The “wrong” People Currently Do The Fighting.

For A Moment I Had A Strange Intuition That Just This, And In A Real, Profound Sense, Is Life; And Perhaps Happiness Even - Love With A Mixture Of Sadness, Reverence, And Silent Knowledge.