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

Things like that are problems for us, we take them seriously, and we couldn’t do otherwise. Life here on the very edges of death follows a terribly clear line, it restricts itself to what is absolutely necessary, everything else is part of a dull sleep – it is our crudeness but also our salvation. If we were to make finer distinctions we would long since have gone mad, deserted or been killed. It is like a Polar expedition – every activity is geared exclusively to survival, and is automatically directed to that end. Nothing else is permissible, because it would use up energy unnecessarily. That is the only way we can save ourselves, and I often look at myself and see a stranger, when in quiet hours the puzzling reflection of earlier times places the outlines of my present existence outside me, like a dull mirror image; and then I am amazed at how that nameless active force that we call life has adapted itself to all this. Everything else is in suspended animation, and life is constantly on its guard against the threat of death. It has made us into thinking animals so that we can have instinct as a weapon. It has blunted our sensitivities, so that we don’t go to pieces in the face of a terror that would demolish us if we were thinking clearly and consciously. It has awakened in us a sense of comradeship to help us escape from the abyss of isolation. It has given us the indifference of wild animals, so that in spite of everything we can draw out the positive side from every moment and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of oblivion [249] reserve against the onslaught of oblivion – средство защиты от натиска пустоты . And so we live out a closed, hard existence of extreme superficiality, and it is only rarely that an experience sparks something off. But when that happens, a flame of heavy and terrible longing suddenly bursts through.

Those are the dangerous moments, the ones that show us that the way we have adapted is really artificial after all, that it isn’t a simple calmness, but rather a desperate struggle to attain calmness. In our way of life we are barely distinguishable from bushmen as far as the externals are concerned; but while bushmen can always be that way because that is the way they are, and they can at least develop their capacities by their own efforts, with us it is exactly the other way about: our inner forces are not geared to development, but to regression. The attitude of the bushmen is relaxed, as it should be; ours is completely tense and artificial.

And in the night you realize, when you wake out of a dream, overcome and captivated by the enchantment of visions that crowd in on each other, just how fragile a handhold, how tenuous a boundary separates us from the darkness – we are little flames, inadequately sheltered by thin walls from the tempest of dissolution and insensibility in which we flicker and are often all but extinguished. Then the muted roar of battle surrounds us, and we creep into ourselves and stare wide-eyed into the night. The only comfort we have comes from the breathing of our sleeping comrades, and so we wait until the morning comes.

Every day and every hour, every shell and every dead man wear down that thin handhold, and the years grind it down rapidly. I can see how it is already giving way around me.

Take the stupid business with Detering. [250] Take the stupid business with Detering – Вот, скажем, эта глупая история с Детерингом

He was one of those who keep themselves very much to themselves. The unlucky thing for him was seeing a cherry tree in someone’s garden. We had just come back from the front, and this cherry tree was suddenly there in front of us in the early morning light, just as we came around a bend in the road near our new quarters. It didn’t have any leaves, but it was a single mass of white blossoms.

That evening Detering was nowhere to be found. Eventually he turned up, and he had a few twigs with cherry blossom in his hand. We had a laugh, and asked him if he was going courting. He didn’t answer, and just lay down on his bed. That night I heard him moving about, and he seemed to be packing his things. I thought there might be trouble brewing, and went over to him. He acted as if nothing was the matter, and I said to him, ‘Don’t do anything daft [251] Don’t do anything daft – Не наделай глупостей , Detering.’

‘ Course not – I just can’t get to sleep —’

‘Why did you pick the cherry blossom?’

‘I can pick cherry blossom if I want, can’t I?’ he said sullenly – and then he added after a while, ‘I’ve got a big orchard with cherry trees back home. From the hayloft they look like one huge bed-sheet when they are in blossom, that’s how white they are. It’s at this time of the year.’

‘Maybe you’ll get leave. You might even be demobbed [252] demob (разг.) – демобилизоваться (сокр. от demobilise) and sent home because you are a farmer.’

He nods, but his mind is elsewhere. When country people like him get into a state they have a peculiar expression on their faces, a bit bovine, but also with an almost numinous look of yearning, half idiocy and half rapture [253] a bit bovine, but also with an almost numinous look of yearning, half idiocy and half rapture – не то как у коровы, не то как у тоскующего божества, немного глупое, но в то же время волнующее . To try and get him out of himself I ask him for a chunk of bread. He gives it to me without question. That’s suspicious, because he is usually pretty stingy. So I keep an eye on him. Nothing happens, and in the morning he is his usual self.

He had probably realized that I was watching him. Two mornings later, and he is missing after all. I notice, but keep quiet about it so as to give him a bit of time – perhaps he’ll make it. A few men have got through to Holland.

But at roll call his absence is spotted. A week later we hear that the military police, or rather the special battle police everyone hates, have picked him up. He was heading for Germany – that was obviously completely hopeless, and it was equally obvious that everything else he had done was simply stupid. Anyone could have worked out that he had only deserted out of homesickness and a momentary aberration. But what does a court martial miles behind the lines know about things like that? Nothing more’s been heard of Detering.

But they break through in other ways as well, those dangerously dammed-up feelings – like steam escaping from an over-heated boiler. It’s worth reporting how Berger met his end, for example.

Our trenches have long since been shot to pieces, and the front is so fluid that trench warfare is not really possible any more. Once an attack and a counter-attack have come and gone, all that remains is a ragged line [254] ragged line – рваная линия окопов and a bitter struggle from one bomb crater to the next. The front line has been broken, and little groups have dug themselves in everywhere, fighting from clusters of foxholes.

We are in one shell hole, with English troops already on one side of us – they are turning our flank and getting round behind us. We are surrounded. It is not easy to surrender. There is fog and smoke all around, and nobody would realize that we were trying to give ourselves up, and perhaps we don’t even want to – no one is quite sure in times like this. We can hear the explosions of hand-grenades getting closer. Our machine-gun sweeps the sector in front of us. The water in the cooling system evaporates and we pass the container round quickly – everyone pisses into it and we have water again and can go on firing. But behind us the explosions are getting closer. In a few minutes we’ll be done for.