Eight Stories

Tales of War and Loss

Erich Maria Remarque, Larry Wolff

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781479826919
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias norteamericanas

A compelling set of short stories from the author of World War I classic, All Quiet on the Western Front German-American novelist Erich Maria Remarque captured the emotional anguish of a generation in his World War I masterpiece, All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as in an impressive selection of novels, plays, and short stories. This exquisite collection revives Remarque’s unforgettable voice, presenting a series of short stories that have long ago faded from public memory. From the haunting description of an abandoned battlefield to the pain of losing a loved one in the war to soldiers’ struggles with what we now recognize as PTSD, the stories offer an unflinching glimpse into the physical, emotional, and even spiritual implications of World War I. In this collection, we follow the trials of naïve war widow Annette Stoll, reflect on the power of small acts of kindness toward a dying soldier, and join Johann Bartok, a weary prisoner of war, in his struggle to reunite with his wife. Although a century has passed since the end of the Great War, Remarque’s writing offers a timeless reflection on the many costs of war. Eight Stories offers a beautiful tribute to the pain that war inflicts on soldiers and civilians alike, and resurrects the work of a master author whose legacy – like the war itself – will endure for generations to come.

1

The Enemy

When I asked my school-fellow Lieutenant Ludwig Breyer what was the most vivid experience of all his war service, I expected to hear of Verdun, of the Somme or of Flanders; for he had been on all three fronts during the worst months. But instead of that he told me the following:

Not the most vivid, but the most enduring of my impressions began as we lay resting in a little French village far behind the lines. We had been in a nasty place, where the shelling had been extremely severe, and had come farther back than usual, because we had suffered heavily and needed to be brought up to strength again.

It was a glorious week in August, a marvelous St. Luke’s summer, and it went to our heads like the rich, golden wine we once found in a cellar in Champagne. We had been deloused; a few of us had even come by clean linen; the others were boiling their shirts thoroughly at small fires; everywhere was an atmosphere of cleanliness—the magic of which only a mud-caked soldier knows—friendly as a Saturday evening in the far-off days of peace, when, as children, we were bathed in the big tub and Mother brought out the fresh linen, smelling of starch, Sunday and cake, from the cupboard.

You know, of course, it is no fairy tale when I say that the sense of this declining August afternoon moved, sweet and strong, in my veins. A soldier has a far different relationship with nature from that of most men. All the thousand inhibitions, the barriers and constraints fall away before the hard, the terrible existence on the borders of death; and during the minutes and the hours of respite, in the days out resting, the idea of life, the mere fact of being still there, of having come through, would sometimes swell into sheer joy at being able to see, and to breathe and to move freely about.

A field under the evening sun, the blue shadows of a wood, the rustle of a poplar, the clear flood of running waters, were then a joy beyond naming; but deep down in it, like a whip, like a thorn, lay the sharp pain of the knowledge that in a few hours, in a few days, all this must be left behind, changed once more for the seared landscapes of death. And this feeling, so strangely compounded out of happiness, pain, melancholy, grief, desire and hopelessness, was the common experience of a soldier out resting.

After supper I walked with some comrades a short distance beyond the village. We did not talk much; for the first time in weeks we were perfectly content, and warmed ourselves in the slanting rays of the sun as it shone full into our faces. Thus we came at length on a small, stark factory standing in the middle of a large enclosure, around which sentries were posted. The yard was full of prisoners, awaiting transport into Germany.

Without ceremony the sentries allowed us in and we were able to look about us. Several hundreds of Frenchmen were assembled there. They sat or lay about, smoked, talked and dozed. It was an eye-opener to me. Until that time I had had only rapid, fleeting glimpses—single, phantom-like—of the men that held the opposing trenches. A helmet, perhaps, rising for a moment above the level of the parapet; an arm, that flung and disappeared again; a patch of gray-blue cloth, a figure springing up into the air—almost abstract things they were, lurking behind fire of rifles, behind hand grenades and wire entanglements.

Here for the first time I saw prisoners, lots of them, sitting, lying, smoking—Frenchmen without weapons.

I felt a sudden shock; then a moment later I had to laugh at myself. It had shocked me that they should be just men like ourselves. But the fact was—strange enough, God knows—I had simply never thought about it before. Frenchmen? They were enemies who were to be killed, because they wanted to destroy Germany. But in that August evening I learned the baleful secret, the magic of weapons. Weapons transfigure men. And these harmless fellows, these factory hands, laborers, tradesmen, schoolboys, now sitting around so quiet and resigned, had they but weapons, on the instant would turn once again into enemies.

The Battle of Materials

Originally they were no enemies; not until they got weapons did they become so. It made me ponder, though I knew well enough that my logic was perhaps not perfectly sound. But the idea dawned on me that it was weapons that had forced the war on us. There were so many weapons in the world that in the end they got the upper hand over men and turned them into enemies. . . .

And then much later, up in Flanders, I perceived the same thing once more: while the battle of materials raged on, there was practically no use whatever for men any more. The materials just hurled themselves against one another in mad fury. A man could not help feeling that when everything that lay between the weapons was dead, the weapons themselves would go on of their own accord to the utter annihilation of the world.

But here in the factory yard I saw only men like ourselves. And for the first time I understood that it was against men I was fighting; men, bewitched like ourselves by strong words and weapons; men, who had wives, children, parents and callings, and who, perhaps—if the suggestion had come to me from them—must even now be awakening also and looking about them in just the same way and asking: “Brothers, what is it we are doing here? What is all this?”

Some few weeks later we were back on a very quiet sector. The French line came up fairly close to our own, but both the positions were well fortified and, as I say, there was almost nothing doing at all. Punctually at seven each morning the artillery would exchange a few shots by way of greeting; then at noon would come another little salute, and at nightfall the usual benediction. We used to take sun-baths in front of our dugouts and would risk taking off our boots at night to sleep.

One day, on the other side of No Man’s Land, there appeared suddenly over the parapet a placard with this inscription: “Attention!” As you may imagine, we just stared at it in astonishment. Then at last we decided they just wanted to warn us there was to be an extra artillery strafe, over and above the usual program; so we held ourselves in readiness to disappear down into the dugouts at the sound of the first shot.

But all remained quiet. The placard vanished. Then a few seconds later up came a spade, and resting on the blade we could make out a large box of cigarettes. One of our fellows who had some idea of the language, painted the word “Compris” on the back of a cardboard box in boot polish. We hoisted up the box. Then on the other side they waved the box of cigarettes to and fro. And we waved our box in response. Then up came a piece of white cloth.

In all haste we seized Lance Corporal Bühler’s shirt from off his knees as he sat delousing himself, and waved it.

A Private Peace

After a time the white cloth on the other side rose up and a helmet appeared. We waved our shirt harder, till the lice must have rained out of it. An arm was thrust up, holding a packet. And then a man clambered slowly out through the barbed wire; on hands and knees he crawled towards us from time to time waving a handkerchief and laughing excitedly. About the middle of No Man’s Land he came to a halt and put down his packet. He pointed to it several times, laughed, beckoned and crawled back.

We were in a rare state of excitement. Mingled with the almost boyish feeling of doing something that was forbidden, the feeling of snapping our fingers at somebody, and the mere crude desire to get possession of the good things set there in front of us, was a breath of freedom, of independence, of triumph over all the mechanism of death. I had the same feeling as when I stood there among the prisoners, as though something human had burst victoriously through the bare concept of “the enemy,” and I wanted to contribute my share to the triumph.

Hastily we collected a few gifts, sorry things they were indeed, for we had far less to give than the fellows over yonder. Then we renewed our signals with the shirt and were duly answered. Slowly I heaved myself up; my head and shoulders stood clear. It was a damned awful minute, that I can tell you, standing there unprotected, clear above the parapet.

Then I crawled right out; and now my thoughts changed completely as though they had suddenly been thrown over into reverse gear. The strange situation took hold on me; I felt a strong, exuberant gayety rise up in me; happy and laughing I scampered swiftly across on all fours. And I was aware of one prodigious minute of peace—a solitary, a private peace, peace through the whole world for my sake.

I set down my things, picked up the others and crept back. And in that moment the peace collapsed. I was conscious again of a hundred rifle barrels pointed at my back. A terrible fear laid hold on me and the sweat poured out of me like water from a spring. But I regained the trench unharmed and lay down panting.

Friendly Meetings

By next day I was quite used to the business; and subsequently we simplified it, so that we no longer went out one after the other, but both of us climbed out of our trenches at the same moment. Like two dogs left off the chain, we crept over to each other and exchanged our gifts.

The first time that we came face to face we just smiled at each other in embarrassment. The other fellow was a young chap like myself, twenty years of age perhaps. You could see in his face how good a joke he thought it. “Bonjour, camarade,” said he; but I was so taken aback that I said, “Bonjour, bonjour,” repeating it, twice, three times, and nodded and hastily turned back.

We had a definite time for meeting, and the preliminary signaling was dropped, because both sides observed the unwritten peace treaty. And an hour later we were blazing away at one another again as before. Once, with a slight hesitation, the other fellow stretched out his hand to me and we shook hands. It was queer.

At that time similar incidents were taking place on other parts of the front also. The High Command got wind of it, and orders had already been issued to the effect that such things were absolutely forbidden; on some occasions it had even interfered with the daily round of hostilities. But that did not bother us.

One day a major turned up in the line and gave us a personal lecture. He was very officious and energetic and told us that he meant to stay up in the line until nightfall. Unluckily he took up his post close by our sally point, and demanded a rifle. He was a very young major, itching for action.

We did not know what we should do. There was no possibility of giving the fellows over there a signal; and besides, we thought we might get shot there and then on the spot for having dealings with the enemy. The minute hand of my watch advanced slowly. Nothing happened, and it almost looked as though things might go off smoothly.

No doubt the major only knew of the general fraternization that had been going on along the front, but nothing definite as to what we had been up to here; it was nothing but sheer bad luck that brought him here just now and gave him that job to do.

I meditated whether I should say to him, “In five minutes there will be someone coming from over there. We must not shoot; he trusts us.” But I did not dare; and anyway what would have been the use? If I did he might, perhaps just stay on and wait, whereas now there was always a chance he would go. Besides, Bühler whispered to me how he had crept behind one of the breastworks and waved a “wash-out” with his rifle (the way one signals a miss on a rifle range), and they had waved back. They had understood they must not come.

Fortunately the day was dull; it was raining a little and darkness was coming on. Already it was a quarter of an hour past the time fixed for our meeting. We were beginning to breathe again. Then suddenly my eyes stared; my tongue lay like a lump in my mouth; I wanted to cry out and could not; rigid and horrified I stared across No Man’s Land and saw an arm slowly show itself, then a body. Bühler dashed around the breastwork and tried desperately to signal a warning. But it was too late. The major had already fired. With a thin cry the body sank back again.

To Drown the Cry

For a moment there was a weird stillness. Then we heard a bellow and a withering fire set in. “Shoot! They are coming,” yelled the major.

Then we opened fire also. We loaded and fired like madmen, loaded and fired simply to put that awful moment behind us. The entire front was roused, the guns even joined in, and it went on the whole night. By morning we had lost twelve men, the major and Bühler amongst them.

From that time on the hostilities were satisfactorily maintained; cigarettes changed hands no more; and the casualty figures were larger. Many things happened to me after that. I saw many a man die; I myself killed more than one; I became hard and insensible. The years went by. But in all the long time I have not dared think on that thin cry in the rain.

2

Silence

No man can say exactly when it begins: but suddenly the smooth, gently rounded lines of the horizon alter; the red and brown, the bright burning colors of the leaves of the forest take on all at once a queer tone, the fields fade and wither to ocher tints; something strange, still, pallid is in the landscape, and one is at a loss to explain it.

It is the same range of hills, the same woods, the same fields and meadows as before, still the same countryside as an hour ago; there runs the road, white and endless far out across it, and the golden light of late autumn is still poured out on the earth like sweet wine—and yet, invisible, inaudible, something has come into it out of the distance; vast, solemn and powerful, suddenly it stands there, and overshadows all.

It is not those crosses that show up every moment, thin and dark at the roadside. Lopsided and very tired they stick up there in the turf, wasted by many winds, weary of flying clouds, the crosses of the war of 1870. Slender saplings planted beside them in those days have long since grown into trees with great branches full of twittering birds. These old trenches are no longer hideous, there is scarcely the suggestion of death about them now—already they are like parkland, picturesque and lovely, good earth and country.

It is not the character of this fair, fearful region, that has always been a battle-ground and where for centuries war has cast its deposit, like the separate strata in a rock, deposit on deposit, layer upon layer, war upon war, discernible even today, from the struggles of the French kings up to the trenches of Mars la Tour and the serried cemeteries of Douaumont.

Nor is it the mysterious twofold spirit of this ground, where the soft, blue lines on the horizon are not hills and woodlands simply, but concealed forts; the smooth summits in front of them not just chains of hills, but strong, fortified heights; idyllic valleys serving also as entrenchments, death’s valleys, rendezvous, battle approaches; and the little hillocks are concrete gun-emplacements, nests of machine guns, honeycombed with magazines and tunnels; for here everything has...