Эрих Ремарк - All Quiet on the Western Front / На Западном фронте без перемен. Книга для чтения на английском языке

No one is allowed across the bridge without a permit, so we shall just have to swim over after dark. We are in a state of great excitement and it doesn’t subside. We can’t sit still and wait in one place, so we go to the canteen. They have beer in, and there is also some kind of punch.

We drink the punch and tell each other fantastic lies about our experiences. Everyone is happy to believe everyone else, and we all wait impatiently for our chance to trump the last story with an even taller one. We can’t keep our hands still, we smoke cigarette after cigarette until Kropp says, ‘I suppose we could take them a few cigarettes as well.’ Then we put them into our caps to save them.

The sky turns pale green, like an unripe apple. There are four of us, but only three can go – we have to get rid of Tjaden, so we buy him so much of the punch and so much rum that he is staggering. When it gets dark we go back to our quarters, Tjaden in the middle. We are hot and more than ready for the adventure. I’m having the slim, dark girl – we’ve already sorted that out.

Tjaden collapses on to his palliasse and starts to snore. At one point he wakes up and grins at us so wickedly that we get quite a fright in case he was just shamming, and we bought him all that punch for nothing. Then he falls back and goes to sleep again.

The three of us take a whole loaf each, and we wrap them in newspaper. We put the cigarettes in as well, and three good portions of the sausage we were given this evening. It’s a very respectable present.

For the moment we put all the stuff into our boots; we have to take boots with us so that we don’t step on barbed-wire or glass over on the other side. Since we have to swim first, we can’t take any other clothes. Anyway, it is dark, and we aren’t going far.

We set off, boots in hand. We slip quickly into the water, turn on to our backs and swim that way, holding the boots and their contents up over our heads.

We climb out carefully when we get to the other side, take out the packages, and put on our boots. We stick the things we’ve brought under our arms. And off we trot, wet, naked, wearing nothing but our boots. We find the house at once. It stands dark in the bushes. Leer trips over a tree root and takes the skin off his elbow. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says cheerfully.

There are shutters on the windows. We creep around the house and try to look through the gaps. Then we get a bit impatient. Kropp is suddenly hesitant, ‘What if some major is in there with them?’

‘Then we’ll just have to bugger off’ says Leer with a grin. ‘He can always read off our rank and number down here,’ and he smacks himself on the bottom.

The main door of the house is open. Our boots make a bit of a noise. A door opens and there is light, a woman gives a frightened scream. ‘Sssh, sssh,’ we say, ‘camarade, bon ami…’ [177] camarade, bon ami… (фр.) – товарищ, друг… and we lift up the packages in supplication.

By now we can see the other two as well, the door opens wide and we have the light on us. They recognize us, and all three of them collapse into fits of laughter at our get-up. They double up and hold their sides for laughing there in the doorway. How supple their movements are.

‘Un moment —’ [178] Un moment (фр.) – минуточку They disappear and then throw us various bits and pieces of clothing and we wrap them round ourselves as best we can. Then they let us in. There is a small lamp burning in the room, it is warm, and smells a little of perfume. We unpack our parcels and hand them over to the girls. Their eyes shine, and you can see that they are hungry.

Then we all become a bit embarrassed. Leer mimes eating and things liven up again – they fetch plates and knives and fall upon the food. They hold every single slice of the sausage up to admire it before they eat it, and we sit there proudly watching them.

They babble away at us in their own language – we don’t understand a great deal, but we can hear that the words are friendly ones. Perhaps we look very young to them. The slim dark one strokes my hair and says what all French women always say – ‘La guerre – grand malheur – pauvres garcons…’ [179] La guerre – grand malheur – pauvres garcons… (фр.) – Война – большое несчастье – бедные мальчики…

I catch her arm and press my mouth to her palm. Her fingers hold my face. Her fascinating eyes are above me, the pale brown of her skin, her red lips. From her mouth come words that I can’t understand. I can’t fully understand her eyes, either – they are saying more than we expected when we came here.

There are rooms nearby. As we go out, I catch sight of Leer, who is having a fine old time with the blonde. He knows what he is about, of course. But me – I am lost in feelings of remoteness and quiet turmoil, and I give way to them. My wishes are a curious mixture of desire and abandonment. I become dizzy – there is nothing here that I can hold on to. We left our boots at the door, and they gave us slippers, so that there is nothing there any more that could give me back the soldier’s confidence and boldness; no rifle, no belt, no battledress, no cap. I let myself sink into the unknown, let whatever will happen, happen – because in spite of everything, I am afraid.

The slim dark girl moves her eyebrows when she is thinking, but they are still when she talks. Even then, the sounds are sometimes not quite words and they die away or pass half-formed over me in an arc, a path, a comet. What have I ever known about all this – what do I know now? The words of this foreign tongue which I can barely understand lull me to sleep, down into a quietness in which the room dissolves, brown and dimly lit, and only her face above me is alive and clear.

There are so many different things you can see in a face, when only an hour ago it was still that of a stranger, but it now has taken on a tenderness that comes not from inside it, but from the night, the world and the blood – they seem to come together and shine out from it. The objects in the room are touched and transformed by it, they become special, and I can almost respect my own pale skin when the lamp shines on it and it is caressed by that cool, brown hand.

How different all this is from the business in the other-ranks’ brothels [180] other-ranks’ brothel – бордель для рядовых служащих , the ones we have permission to visit and where you have to stand in long queues. I don’t want to think about them; but they come into my head anyway, and it gives me a jolt, because it’s possible that you can never get that sort of thing out of your mind.

But then I feel the lips of the slim, dark girl, and push myself against them, close my eyes and try as I do so to wipe it all out, the war and the horror and the pettiness, so that I can wake up young and happy. I think of the girl on the poster and I believe for a moment that my life depends on getting her – and so I press myself deeper into the arms that close around me, hoping that a miracle will happen.

Somehow or other we find ourselves all together again. Leer is very lively. We say our passionate goodbyes and slip on our boots. The night air cools our heated bodies. The poplars loom up huge in the darkness and make a rustling noise. The moon is in the sky and in the waters of the canal. We don’t run, we stride along side by side.

‘That was worth a loaf of bread,’ [181] That was worth a loaf of bread – Это стоило буханки хлеба says Leer.

I can’t bring myself to speak. I don’t even feel happy.

Then we hear footsteps, and duck down behind a bush.