08 - Chapter 8. All Quiet on the Western Front.

08 - Chapter 8. All Quiet on the Western Front.  
Considered by many to be the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is the chronicle of a German soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, including the severe physical suffering and emotional trauma that will leave many unable to readjust to civilian life afterward.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eight of All Quiet on the Western Front by
Eric Maria Remark, translated by Arthur Wesley Ween. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Chapter eight. I already
know the camp on the moors. It was here that
Himostos gave Chodden his education. But now I know hardly

(00:23):
anyone here. As ever, all is altered. There are only
a few people that I have occasionally met before I
go through the routine mechanically. In the evenings, I generally
go to the soldier's home, where the newspapers are laid out,
but which I do not read. Still, there is a
piano there that I am glad enough to play on.

(00:44):
Two girls are in attendance, one of them is young.
The camp is surrounded with high barbed wire fences. If
we come back late from a soldier's home, we have
to show passes, but those who are on good terms
with the guard can get through. Of course, Between the
junipers and the birch trees on the moor, we practice
company drill each day. It is bearable if one expects

(01:07):
nothing better. We advance at a run, fling ourselves down,
and our panting breath moves the stalks of the grasses
and the flowers of the heather to and fro. Looked
at so closely, one sees the fine sand as composed
of millions of the tinest pebbles, as clear as if
they have been made in a laboratory. It is strangely

(01:28):
inviting to dig one's hands into it. But most beautiful
are the woods, with their line of birch trees. Their
color changes with every minute. Now the stems gleam purest white,
and between them airy and silken hangs the pastel green
of the leaves. The next moment all changes to an

(01:49):
opaless and blue, as the shivering breezes pass down from
the heights and touch the green. Lightly away, and again
in one place, it deepens almost to black, as a
clouds over the sun. And this shadow moves like a
ghost through the dim trunks and passes far out over
the moor to the sky. Then the birches stand out again,

(02:11):
like gay banners on white poles, with their red and
gold patches of autumn tinted leaves. I often become so
lost in the play of soft light and transparent shadow
that I almost fail to hear the commands. It is
when one is alone that one begins to observe nature
and to love her. And here I have not much companionship,

(02:32):
and do not even desire it. We are too little
acquainted with one another to do more than jocobits and
play poker or nap in the evenings. Alongside our camp
is the big Russian prison cap It is separated from
us by a wire fence, but in spite of this,
the prisoners come across to us. They seem nervous and fearful.

(02:53):
Though most of them are big fellows with beards, they
look like meek, scolded Saint Bernard dogs. They slink about
our camp and pick over the garbage tins. One can
imagine what they find there. With us. Food is pretty scarce,
and none too good at that. Turnips cut into six
pieces and boiled in water, and unwashed carrot tops molded

(03:16):
potatoes are tit bits. And the chief luxury is a
thin rice soup in which float little bits of beef sinew.
But these are cut up so small that they take
a lot of finding. Everything gets eaten. Notwithstanding, and if
ever any one is so well off as to not
want all his share, there are a dozen others standing by,
ready to relieve him. Of it. Only the dregs that

(03:39):
the ladle cannot reach are tipped out and thrown into
the garbage tins. Along with that sometimes go a few
turnip peelings, moldy bread crusts, and all kinds of muck.
This thin, miserable, dirty garbage is the objective of the prisoners.
They pick it out of the stinking tins greedily and
go off with it under their blouses. It is strange

(04:01):
to see these enemies of ours so close up. They
have faces that make one think honest peasant faces, broad foreheads,
broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, and thick hair. They
ought to be put to threshing, reaping and apple picking.
They look just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland.

(04:23):
It is distressing to watch their movements, to see them
begging for something to eat. They are all rather feeble,
for they only get enough nourishment to keep them from
starving ourselves. We have not had sufficient to eat for
long enough. They have dysentery furtively, many of them displayed
the blood stained tails of their shirts, their backs, their

(04:45):
necks are bent, their knees sag, their heads droop as
they stretch out their hands and beg in a few
words of German that they know. Beg with those soft,
deep musical voices that are like warm stoves and cozy
rooms at home. Some men there are who give them
a kick so that they fall over, but those are
not many. The majority do nothing to them, just ignore them. Occasionally,

(05:10):
when they are too groveling, it makes a man mad,
and then he kicks them. If only they would not
look at one So what great misery can be in
two such small spots, no bigger than a man's thumb.
In their eyes, they come over to the camp in
the evenings and trade. They exchange whatever they possess for bread.

(05:31):
Often they a fair success because they have very good
boots and ours are bad. The leather of their knee
boots is wonderfully soft, like swede. The peasants among us
who get tit bits sent from home can afford to trade.
The price of a pair of boots is about two
or three lows of army bread, or a loaf of
bread and a small tough ham sausage. But most of

(05:54):
the Russians have long since parted with whatever things they had.
Now they wear only the most pity clothing and try
to exchange little carvings and objects that they have made
out of shell fragments and copper driving bands. Of course,
they don't get much for such things, though they may
have taken immense pains with them. They go for a
slice or two of bread. Our peasants are hard and cunning.

(06:18):
When they bargain. They hold the piece of bread or
sausage right under the nose of the Russian till he
grows pale with greed and his eyes bulge, and then
he will give anything for it. The peasants wrap up
their booty with the utmost solemnity, and then get out
their big pocket knives and slowly and deliberately cut off

(06:38):
a slice of bread for themselves from their supply, and
with every mouthful take a piece of the good, tough sausage,
and so reward themselves with a good feed. It is
distressing to watch them take their afternoon meal. Thus one
would like to crack them over their thick pates. They
rarely give anything away. How little we understand one another.

(07:01):
I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness,
one sees their forms move like sick storks, like great birds.
They come close up to the wire fence and lean
their faces against it, their fingers hook round the mesh.
Often many stand side by side and breathe the wind
that comes down from the moors and the forest. They

(07:23):
rarely speak, and then only a few words. They are
more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems
to me, than we are. But perhaps that is merely
because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us. Anyway,
the war is over so far as they are concerned.
But to wait for dysentery is not much of a

(07:43):
life either. The territorials who are in charge of them
say that they were much more lively at first. They
used to have intrigues among themselves, as always happens, and
it would often come to blows with knives. But now
they are quite apathetic and listen. Most of them do
not masturbate anymore. They are so feeble, though occasionally it

(08:05):
is so bad that they do at barracks fashion. They
stand at the wire fence. Sometimes one goes away, and
then another at once takes his place in the line.
Most of them are silent. Occasionally one begs a cigarette,
but I see their dark forms. Their beers move in
the wind. I know nothing of them except that they

(08:28):
are prisoners, and that is exactly what troubles me. Their
life is obscure and guiltless. If I could know more
of them, what their names are, how they live, what
they are waiting for, what are their burdens, then my
emotion would have an object, and might become sympathy. But
as it is, I proceed behind them only the suffering

(08:49):
of the creature, the awful melancholy of life, and the
pitilessness of men. A word of command is made. These
silent figures our enemies. A word of command might transform
them into our friends at some table, a document assigned
by some persons whom none of us knows, and then,
for years together, that very crime in which formerly the

(09:11):
world's condemnation and severest penalties fell becomes our highest aim.
But who can draw such a distinction when he looks
at these quiet men, with their childlike faces and apostles beards.
Any non commissioned officer is more of an enemy to
a recruit, any schoolmaster, to a peopil, than they are
to us. And yet we would shoot at them again,

(09:34):
and they at us if they were free. I am
frightened I dare think this way no more. This way
lies the abyss. It is not now the time, but
I will not lose these thoughts. I will keep them,
shut them away until the war is ended. My heart
beats fast. This is the aim, the great, the sole

(09:57):
aim that I have thought of in the trenches, that
I have looked for as the only possibility of existence
after this annihilation of all human feeling. This is a
task that will make life afterward worthy of these hideous years.
I take out my cigarettes, break each one in half
and give them to the Russians. They bow to me,

(10:19):
and then they light the cigarettes. Now red points glow
in every face. They comfort me. It looks as though
there were little windows in dark village cottages, saying that
behind them are rooms full of peace. The days go by.
On a foggy morning, another of the Russians is buried.
Almost every day one of them dies. I am on guard.

(10:42):
During the burial. The prisoners sing a corral. They sing
in parts, and it sounds almost as if there were
no voices but an organ far away on the moor.
The burial is quickly over. In the evening, they stand
again at the wire fence, and the wind comes down
to them from the beech woods. The stars are cold.

(11:05):
I now know a few of those who speak a
little German. There is a musician amongst them. He says
he used to be a violinist in Berlin. When he
hears that I can play the piano, he fetches his
violin and plays. The others sit down and lean their
backs against the fence. He stands up and plays. Sometimes

(11:25):
he has that absent expression which violinists get when they
close their eyes. Or again, he sways the instrument to
the rhythm and smiles across to me. He plays mostly
folk songs, and the others hum with him. They are
like a country of dark hills that sing far down
under the ground. The sound of the violin stands like

(11:46):
a slender girl above it, and is clear and alone.
The voices cease, and the violin continues alone in the night.
It is so thin it sounds frozen. One must stand
close up. It would be much better in a room
out here. It makes a man grow sad because I

(12:06):
have already had a long leave. I get none on Sundays.
So the last Sunday before I go back to the front,
my father and eldest sister come over to see me.
All day we sit in the soldier's home. Where else
could we go? We don't want to stay in the camp.
About midday we go for a walk on the moors.

(12:28):
The hours are a torture. We did not know what
to talk about, so we speak of my mother's illness.
It is now definitely cancer. She is already in the
hospital and will be operated on shortly. The doctor's hope
she will recover. But we have never heard of cancer
being cured. Where is she, then, I ask? In the

(12:50):
Louisa hospital, says my father. In which class third? We
must wait till we know what the operation costs. She
wanted to be in the third herself. She said that
then she would have some company, and besides, it is cheaper.
So she is lying there with all those people. If

(13:10):
only she could sleep properly. My father nods. His face
is broken and full of furrows. My mother has always
been sickly, and though she has only gone to the
hospital when she has been compelled to, it has cost
a great deal of money, and my father's life has
been practically given up to it. If only I knew

(13:32):
how much the operation costs, says he. Have you not asked,
not directly. I cannot do that. The surgeon might take
it amiss, and that would not do. He must operate
on mother. Yes, I think bitterly. That's how it is
with us, and with all poor people. They don't dare
to ask the price, but worry themselves dreadfully beforehand about it.

(13:56):
But the others, for whom it is not important, they
set up the price first as a matter of course,
and the doctor does not take it amiss from them.
And the dressings afterwards are so expensive, says my father.
Doesn't the invalid's fund pay anything toward it? Then I ask, Mother,

(14:16):
has been ill too long? Have you any money at all?
He shakes his head no, But I can do some overtime.
I know. He will stand at his desk folding and
pasting and cutting until twelve o'clock at night. At eight
o'clock in the evening, he will eat some of the
miserable rubbish they get in exchange for their food tickets.

(14:39):
Then he will take a powder for his headache and
work on. In order to cheer him up a bit,
I tell him a few stories soldiers, jokes and the
like about generals and sergeant majors, Afterwards, I accompany them
both to the railway station. They give me a pot
of jam and a bag of potato cakes that my

(14:59):
mother is made for me. Then they go off and
I return to the camp. In the evening. I spread
the jam on the cakes and eat some, but I
have no taste for them, so I go out to
give them to the Russians. Then it occurs to me
that my mother cooked them herself, and that she was
probably in pain as she stood before the hot stove.

(15:22):
I put the bag back in my pack and take
only two cakes to the Russians. End of chapter eight