II
Only a few months since the first day of the war, yet I cannot recall one thing about it.
What I know is, that until the end it will remain the outstanding day of my life, the day of days. No matter what happens later, we who have lived through it have drunk at one draught the dregs of all the centuries, we have borne all the thunder of the heavens on our shoulders. Those who ask "Why exactly us" do not know that misfortune is always waiting to extort its tax.
I do not speak of the older people, those of the other generation, of the other age: they have not been touched.
But we, we on that day!
After all, I can recall several words and impressions, but they are no more illuminating than the way my folks used to describe the day I was born. "You looked like a little red monkey, you didn't cry much, your grandmother was the first to kiss you, it was a dreadfully hot evening."
And I can also recall Mr. Barret's gray stony face, his huge, petrified figure, when he entered the office where we were talking and regaining a little hope. "It's here!" he discharged from the doorway. None of us gave any sign of understanding. "It's posted on the bulletin boards!" he shouted, and advanced into the room like a weapon about to descend.
As a field of wheat catches fire stalk by stalk until the whole is in a blaze, so we caught fire in our stupor, each spiked to the ground by his own flame.
Fire! Fire! Moments of scarlet, strangled breathing, souls cowering in bosoms, horror, too much horror already, wide-open eyes staring into space....
I remember I had to lean against the wall, and other trifling incidents, but my impotent dismay, my realization of all the folly let loose upon the world no more come back to me than the taste of the first gulp of life at birth.