Directly I had written those words, I felt ashamed. I could not stay in the cinema. I wandered about between the benches, went out into the little village, walked round its chapels—every window of which was smashed; and gathered a bunch of forget-me-nots from a ditch by the cemetery. On returning to the crowded cinema I noticed that the box in which I had been sitting was empty; presently an officer entered it; sat down leisurely to enjoy the pictures; read what I had written; and all at once became a different man. I had injected a deadly poison, he left the box. I walked out after him. He went straight in the direction of the chapel. Ah, I had done a cruel thing!
I had written of a blonde with blue eyes; and I went out, saw her, and awaited her—I who had written the message. It seemed as though hundreds of instruments were making music within me, yet my heart was sad and weighed down with oppresion—it felt crushed. More than anything, more than anything in the whole world, I loved and awaited a blonde who did not exist, to whom I would have surrendered all that was most beautiful within me.
I could not stay in the cinema, but crawled through the trenches. On the hill towered the two huge crosses; sitting down beneath their shadow, I clenched my hands, and murmured:
"Darling, darling, darling! Beloved and tender one! I am waiting."
Far in the distance, the green rockets soared skyward, the same as those we used to send up over the river Oka. Then the gargantuan fingers of a searchlight began to sweep the area, my uniform appeared white in its gleam, and all at once a shell fell by the crosses. I had been observed, I had become a target.
The bullets fell zip-zip-zip into the earthworks. I lay in my bunk and buried my head in the pillow. I felt horribly alone as I lay there, murmuring to myself, and breathing all the tenderness I was capable of into my words:
"Darling, darling, darling!…"
III
Love!
Can one credit the romanticists that—across the seas and hills and years—there is so strange a thing as a single-hearted love, an all- conquering, all-subduing, all-renovating love?