All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque [9]
Hospital-orderlies go to and fro with bottles and pails. One of them comes up, casts a glance at Kemmerich and goes away again. You can see he is waiting, apparently he wants the bed.
I bend over Franz and talk to him as though that could save him: "Perhaps you will go to the convalescent home at Klosterberg, among the villas, Franz. Then you can look out from the window across the fields to the two trees on the horizon. It is the loveliest time of the year now, when the corn ripens; at evening the fields in the sunlight look like mother-of-pearl. And the lane of poplars by the Klosterbach, where we used to catch sticklebacks! You can build an aquarium again and keep fish in it, and you can go without asking anyone, you can even play the piano if you want to."
I lean down over his face which lies in the shadow. He still breathes, lightly. His face is wet, he is crying. What a fine mess I have made of it with my foolish talk!
"But Franz"-I put my arm round his shoulder and put my face against his. "Will you sleep now?"
He does not answer. The tears run down his cheeks. I would like to wipe them away but my handkerchief is too dirty.
An hour passes. I sit tensely and watch his every movement in case he may perhaps say something. What if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. This is the most disturbing and hardest parting that I ever have seen, although it was pretty bad too with Tiedjen, who called for his mother-a big bear of a fellow who, with wild eyes full of terror, held off the doctor from his bed with a dagger until he collapsed.
Suddenly Kemmerich groans and begins to gurgle.
I jump up, stumble outside and demand: "Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?"
As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold of it: "Come quick, Franz Kemmerich is dying."
He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: "Which will that be?"
He says: "Bed 26, amputated thigh."
He sniffs: "How should I know anything about it, I've amputated five legs to-day"; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly "You see to it," and hurries off to the operating room.
I tremble with rage as I go along with the orderly. The man looks at me and says: "One operation after another since five o'clock this morning. You know, to-day alone there have been sixteen deaths-yours is the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether---"
I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again.
We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The face is still wet from the tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons. The orderly pokes me in the ribs, "Are you taking his things with you?" I nod.
He goes on: "We must take him away at once, we want the bed. Outside they are lying on the floor."
I collect Kemmerich's things, and untie his identification disc. The orderly asks about the pay-book. I say that it is probably in the orderly-room, and go. Behind me they are already hauling Franz on to a waterproof sheet.
Outside the door I am aware of the darkness and the wind as a deliverance. I breathe as deep as I can, and feel the breeze in my face, warm and soft as never before. Thoughts of girls, of flowery meadows, of white clouds suddenly come into my head. My feet begin to move forward in my boots, I go quicker, I run. Soldiers pass by me, I hear their voices without understanding. The earth is streaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of my feet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums. My limbs move supplely,