The Coffin, It Shall Protect Me, Though

We Were All At Once Terribly Alone; And Alone We Must See It Through.

The Crowd, Still Shouting, Gives Way Before Us. We Plough Our Way Through. Women Hold Their Aprons Over Their Faces And Go Stumbling Away. A Roar Of Fury Goes Up. A Wounded Man Is Being Carried Off.

Do I Walk? Have I Feet Still? I Raise My Eyes, I Let Them Move Round, And Turn Myself With Them, One Circle, One Circle, And I Stand In The Midst. All Is As Usual. Only The Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky Has Died. Then I Know Nothing More.

We Are Forlorn Like Children, And Experienced Like Old Men, We Are Crude And Sorrowful And Superficial—i Believe We Are Lost.

Sometimes I Used To Think That One Day I Should Wake Up, And All That Had Been Would Be Over. Forgotten, Sunk, Drowned. Nothing Was Sure - Not Even Memory.