The Washington times., 1931-12-22

while. 1hen we SET OH.
The chauffeur is waiting fer
us. The car glides softly through
the slowly gathering twilight.
We are already approaching
the town and the first lights
have shown up when there
mingles with the crunching and
grinding Of the tires a long
drawn, hoarser, throaty sound,
in an easterly direction across
the evening sky there moves a
wedge-shaped flight-a flock
of wild geese!
We look at it-Kosole is
about to say something, but
then is silent. We are all
thinking the same thing. Then
comes the town with streets
and noise. Valentin climbs
out. Then Willy. Then Kosole.
In the Wood
I was the whole day in the
wood. Weary now, I have
turned in at a little country
inn and taken a room for the
night. The bed is already
open, but I do not want to
sleep, yet. I sit down in the
window and listen to the stir
rings of the spring night.
Shadows fit about among
the trees and up from the
woods come cries, as though
wounded we're lying there. I
look quietly and composedly
out into the darkness, for
am afraid of the past no
longer. I. look into it's
quenched eyes without finch
ing. I even go out to meet it,
I send my thoughts back into
the dugouts and shell holes
but when they return they
bring back neither fear nor
horror with them, but only
strength and will.
I have awaited a storm that
should deliver me, pluck me
away and now it has come
softly, even without my knowl-
edge. But it is here. While I
was despairing. thinking every
thing lost, it was already
quietly growing. I had thought
that division was always an
end. Now I know that growth
also is division. And growth
m cans relinquishing. And
growth has no end.
One part of my life was given
over to the service of destruc-
ton: it belonged to hate, to
enmity, to killing. But life re-
manned in me. And that in it.
self is enough, of itself almost
a purpose and a way. I will
work in myself and be ready;
I will bestir my hands and my
thoughts. I will not take my
self very seriously, nor push on
when sometimes I should like
to be still. There are many
things to be built and almost
everything to repair; it is
enough that I work to dig out
again what was buried during
the year of shells and machine
guns. Not cveryone need be a
poineer; there is employment
for feebler hands, lesser powers.
It is there mean to look for
my place. Then the dead will
be Silenced and the past not
pursue me any more; it will as
siSt me instead.
Very Simple
How simple it is-but how
long it has taken to arrive
there! And I might still be
wandering in the wilderness,
haYe fallen victim to the wire
snares and the detonatorS, had
Ludwig's death not gone up be-
fore us like a rocket, lighting
to us the way.
We despaired when we saw
how that great stream of feel
ing common to us all-that
will to a new life shorn of
follies, a life recaptured on the
confines Of death-did not
sweep away before it all surviv-
ing half-truth and self-interest,
so to make a new course for
itself, but instead Of that
merely trickled away in the
marshes of forgetfulness, was
lost among the bogs Of fine
phrases, and dribbled away
along the bitches Of social ac-
tivities, Of cares and occupa-
tions. But today ! know that
all life is perhaps only a get
ting ready, a ferment in the in
dividual, in many cells, in many
channels, each for himself; and
if the cells and channels of a
tree but take up and carry