Читать книгу All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque - Страница 33

the sentence has the sharpness of a bayo-net. we march up, moody or good-natured soldiers--we reach the zone where the front line begins and become on the instanthuman animals.

to me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. to no man does the earth mean so much as the soldier. when he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother.

we press on to the pioneer dump. some of us load our shoulders with pointed and twisted iron stakes, others with rolls of wire.

the burdens are awk-ward and heavy.

the ground becomes more broken. from ahead comes warnings.

...I can feel it in my bones.

mind,trenches...

look out!deep shell holes on the left.

there’ll be abombardment tonight...

earth! -- Earth! -- earth!

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