Fráňa Šrámek

“ We have just been awakened so that we may fully understand our nullity, and just when we wanted to sleep to forget everything. This day, whose sorrow exists in us, has begun too soon. The thing which was awaiting us was a four hours’ escalade of the rude sides of the mountain, a panting charge of the hostile trenches, a grim endurance of the sweat, the rain and the lice, and a painful effort to keep our ears pricked up at certain sounds which make the air swell as goose-flesh thickens human skin. ”

“ Now, a full canteen is no mere chance or commonplace acquaintance. You don’t drink that down at a gulp, and standing up. The full canteen will be a comrade for a time, who makes his presence felt and who attracts attention. It’s a rough joker, a frightful tease and, if I had to paint its portrait. I’d put in the joyous eyes of a vagabond, and a very bristly chin, and I’d expect to have people recognize, from this picture, a good old character ready to break into poetry at a moment’s notice.
So, one day, we were holding out our canteens, myself and our sergeant. ”

“ You force your jaws open in a painful yawn, and a shiver runs over your bones, which shake like gravel in a bag. God and the world were great, there in the far-away land, and, somewhere in the vast world dogs were asleep in their kennels, the cattle were drowsing near the manger in the warm stable, and the forest guard was sheltering himself from the rain below some gable end, his hands buried in his great sleeves. ”

“ It isn’t our fault, old fellow, but you see we can hardly celebrate Sundays very well. Sundays and everything that goes with them, and we well know why.
I have to smile when I chance to remember one of my war comrades. It isn’t you, Pancrace, forest warden of the village near Kladno—you, who so beautifully proved in your own person the truth that a forest warden is best made from a poacher! Nor am I thinking of other comrades, who equally, incarnated many other truths. The comrade I mean incarnated a sort of deception, or lie, which was very agreeable, and which did us all much good. ”

“ But what sort of men! Worn down almost to the bone—no! having nothing but bones, and creaking and shivering at every joint. Somewhere in the middle part of us there was a dilapidated stomach which painted for itself in lively colors the fine mouthfuls swallowed long ago, in the calm quiet of the days when there was peace. ”

“ There was something new about it, though, after all, for along this road peace was approaching and we were the only ones who would see it come.
Suddenly, the air above us was covered with a resounding dome-like canopy. Against a big rock jutting out over the road, a grenade had violently burst. Pebbles fell all about us, and the sergeant grew pale. His beard was shaken like a forest through which a horde of frightened wild boars are racing.
“Why—it’s a mistake! You know very well that it can’t stop all at once over the whole front! Wait! We’ll try the telephone. You’re crazy! It’s all over! ”

“ Should a choice and fine Sunday-school word be let fall in the conversation, this pearl always drops before some swine who rolls it about in his mouth with joy, merely because it is a Sunday-school word. When it ceases to be bandied about, every one feels, as it were, the pricking of a thorn under his nails or in his heart, and sorrow gnaws again at every soul. ”

“ As you grow accustomed to your new life, you are quite willing to borrow a louse now and then, to be returned with interest. Grief is handed about from one man to another, as an ardent woman of the camp-fire allows herself to be infested with insects by any one, without a protest. ”

“ Or, if he was a man of dire destiny, a doer of shady deeds—if he had killed his father that night, for example—that man was fleeing beneath the flood of rain, through little obscure lanes, or across the fields. ”

“ It is inexpressible. It is—— Oh, thunder! Come along, let’s join our comrades! They surely know more than we do about it!”
We took the road at a good pace. Our thoughts helped our legs along. We ceased to halt when we reached those little rocky seats. As we went along, we lifted our canteens to our lips. Whenever we met any soldiers, the sergeant threw to them, as we hastened by, his radiant vision of peace. ”

“ IN war-time one has to accept a very mixed and dubious society, for there is no way of picking and choosing. You are thrown pellmell among old, wornout clothes and messmates, and you must do your best with all of them. ”

“ You can cut up the old clothes and use them over again, but as for the comrades, you must trim yourself to fit them. And usually in so doing you must use large shears. The soldiers’ shoes are big, rather than small, and the same is often true of the comradely hearts which one encounters, though this fact is not always perceived. ”