... People are always doing something to confuse the issue,
nowadays; talking about Right, Justice, Liberty. But that trick is
played out. Good enough to die for, but you can't live for things like
that."
"How about the present?" asked Clerambault.
"Now? There is no going, back, but I often think that if I had to
begin over again--"
"When did you change your mind about all these things?"
"That was the funniest thing of all. It was as soon as I was wounded.
It was like getting out of bed in the morning. I had hardly slipped a
leg out of life than I wanted to draw it in again. I had been so well
off, and never thought of it, ass that I was! I can still see myself,
as I came to. The ground was all torn up around me, worse even than
the bodies themselves lying in heaps, mixed pell-mell like a lot of
jack-straws; the ground simply reeked, as if it was itself bleeding.
It was pitch dark, and at first I did not feel anything but the cold,
except that I knew I was hit, all right.... I didn't know exactly what
piece of me was missing, but I was not in a hurry to find out; I was
afraid to know, afraid to stir, there was only one thing I was sure
of, that I was alive. If I had only a minute left, I meant to hold
on to it.... There was a rocket in the sky; I never thought what it
meant, I didn't care, but the curve it made, and the light, like a
bright flower.
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