Good Or Ill, Life Is Life; You

The War Has Ruined Us For Everything.

At School Nobody Ever Taught Us How To Light A Cigarette In A Storm Of Rain, Nor How A Fire Could Be Made With Wet Wood-nor That It Is Best To Stick A Bayonet In The Belly Because There It Doesn't Get Jammed, As It Does In The Ribs.

I Am Often On Guard Over The Russians. In The Darkness One Sees Their Forms Move Like Stick Storks, Like Great Birds. They Come Close Up To The Wire Fence And Lean Their Faces Against It. Their Fingers Hook Round The Mesh.

I Had The Feeling Of Slipping Down A Smooth Bottomless Pit. It Had Nothing To Do With Breuer And The People. It Had Nothing To Do With Pat Even. It Was The Melancholy Secret That Reality Can Arouse Desires But Never Satisfy Them; That Love Begins With A Human Being But Does Not End In Him; And That Everything Can Be There: A Human Being, Love, Happiness, Life — And That Yet In Some Terrible Way It Is Always Too Little, And Grows Ever Less The More It Seems.

Anything You Can Settle With Money Is Cheap.