Before-the-war pacifists will all come out of their
holes, and be found at their posts, with touching demonstrations of
joy, while their old leaders who have been beating the drum in the
rear for over five years will reappear with olive branches in their
hands, smiling and talking of brotherly love. The men who swore
never to forget when they were in the trenches will accept all the
explanations and congratulations that are offered them. It is such a
bore not to forget! Five years of exhausting fatigue make you accept
anything through sheer weariness or boredom, or the wish to finish
it all, so the flourishes of triumph will drown the cries of the
vanquished. The one thought of most people will be to go back to their
sleepy before-the-war habits; first they will dance on the graves, and
then lie down and go to sleep on them, till after a while the war will
be only something to boast about in the evening. Perhaps they will
succeed in forgetting it so entirely, that the Dance of Death can be
resumed;--not all at once, of course, but later when we have had a
good rest. So there will be peace everywhere, till the time when it
will be war everywhere again. In the meaning that is now given to the
words, my friends, peace and war are just different labels for the
same bottle.
Pages:
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344