Читать книгу All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque - Страница 19

13

we were trained in the army for ten weeks and in this time more profoundly influenced than by ten years at school.

at first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent, we recognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill.

kropp, mu ̈ller, kemmerich, and I went to No. 9 platoon under Corporal himmelstoss. he had the reputation of being the strictest disciplinarian in the camp and was proud of it. he was a small, undersized fellow with a foxy, waxed mustache, who had seen twenty years’ service and was in civil life a postman.

we became soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they have done everything to knock that out of us.

he had a special dislike of kropp, tjaden, westhus, and myself, because he sensed a quiet defiance.

unacceptable...

...make that bedagain!

prepare to advance, advance......lie

down!