So huge was the protest thus rousing them in revolt that it
choked them.
"We're made to live, not to be done in like this!"
"Men are made to be husbands, fathers--men, what the devil!--not
beasts that hunt each other and cut each other's throats and make
themselves stink like all that."
"And yet, everywhere--everywhere--there are beasts, savage beasts or
smashed beasts. Look, look!"
I shall never forget the look of those limitless lands wherefrom the
water had corroded all color and form, whose contours crumbled on
all sides under the assault of the liquid putrescence that flowed
across the broken bones of stakes and wire and framing; nor, rising
above those things amid the sullen Stygian immensity, can I ever
forget the vision of the thrill of reason, logic and simplicity that
suddenly shook these men like a fit of madness.
I could see them agitated by this idea--that to try to live one's
life on earth and to be happy is not only a right but a duty, and
even an ideal and a virtue; that the only end of social life is to
make easy the inner life of every one.
"To live!"--"All of us!"--"You!"--"Me!"
"No more war--ah, no!--it's too stupid--worse than that, it's
too--"
For a finishing echo to their half-formed thought a saying came to
the mangled and miscarried murmur of the mob from a filth-crowned
face that I saw arise from the level of the earth--"Two armies
fighting each other--that's like one great army committing suicide!"
* * * * * *
"And likewise, what have we been for two years now? Incredibly
pitiful wretches, and savages as well, brutes, robbers, and dirty
devils.
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