How long have I been running?... I hear how my lungs are whistling ... and hear how my temples are beating ... my breath is choked.... I am done.... I stagger backwards ... am falling dead to the ground ... no! I am sinking back on something soft, and sit still motionless, and listen intently to the night.... I can hear nothing except the blood in my ears ... all of a sudden there is a light in my eyes like bright, clean daylight ... the sun is shining ... then I realize it, it is my own head ... visions are teeming in my brain, and are teeming out of my head, one unwearyingly on the heels of the other.... I see the regiments marching out ... they are passing by in the bright sunshine ... the Blues from over there, the Reds from over here; they are marching against each other in long array.... Now they halt, and are standing drawn up against each other on a huge front ... ready for the fray ... then our captain's voice on this side rings out.... "Ready?" ... and the rifles on both sides are raised. I see the black mass of the muzzles ... they are scarcely ten paces apart ... they are aiming straight for the chest.... "Stop!" I am trying to cry out, "Stop! You ought to attack in open order with seven paces intervals." ...
Then our captain's voice rings out again, "Fire!" ... the volley crashes, and behold! not a man is hit ... they all are standing there unscathed ... they have fired into the air ... and with shouts of joy the ranks dissolve ... they rush toward one another ... the rifles fall to the ground ... but they rush into one another's arms, and fondle one another, and laugh aloud as children laugh ... then they fall back into line ... they shoulder their rifles ... right about turn!... the bands strike up a joyous march, they march off with bands playing—every regiment to its own home....
And now I catch myself singing an accompaniment to it aloud.... I am beating time with my right hand, and supporting myself on my seat with my left ... and something trickles oddly across my hand—something like warm water.... I raise my hand to my eyes ... it is red and moist ... blood is flowing over my white hand ... then I realize it, the white thing under me is not a heap of sand.... I have been sitting on a corpse ... horror-stricken, I rush about ... and one is lying over there, too ... and there, and there!... Merciful God! I see it plainly now; there are only dead to-night ... the human race died out this very night ... I am the last survivor ... the fields are dead—the woods dead—the villages dead—the cities dead—the Earth is dead—the Earth was butchered to-night, and I, only I have escaped the slaughter-house.
And it comes over me as a great thing, a pathetically great thing—now I know what my destiny is—lowering, I watch my own actions, and wait to see how I shall accomplish it—I mark how I am slowly putting my hand into my pocket—before I left home I took my pocket-pistol with me. I am holding the toy in my hand—the steel is looking up at me and blinking at me—I am gazing with a smile into its black, confiding muzzle—I am holding it against my temples—I pull the trigger, and fall over backward—the last of mankind on this dead earth!
EPILOGUE
WE POOR DEAD
They have now covered up our hot breath with earth. Why are you blinking at me with your bleared eyes, my brother? Are you not glad? Don't they envy us our sweet death? They have laid us out in a picturesque row, and you need only turn your head to rub against human flesh at once, and if you turn your yellow eyeball, you can see nothing but corpses in the twilight. One beside the other, that is how they are sleeping. And corpse upon corpse, ever more of them, through the whole length of the loose soil of the potato-field, and we even fill the whole adjoining field of roots.
Wonder whether the sun still goes on shining above us?—whether they still know how to laugh in the towns as we used to in our time? Wonder whether my wife still goes on remembering her dead husband—and my two kiddies—whether they have already forgotten their father? They were so tiny at the time—another man'll come along—they will call another fellow father—and my wife is still so young and fair.
We poor dead heroes! So do not disturb our last sleep any longer. We had to die to enable the others to live. We died for our native land in its straits. We are victorious now, and have won land and fame, land enough for millions of our brothers. Our wives have land, our children, our mothers, our fathers have land. And now our poor native land has air to breathe. It need no longer be stifled. They have cleared the air of us. They have got rid of us, of us who were far too many. We are no longer eating the bread away from other folks' mouths. We are so full-fed, so full-fed and quiet. But they have got land! Fertile land! And ore! Iron mines! Gold! Spices! And Bread!