Page:The forerunners.djvu/101

Rh We are now face to face with ourselves, perhaps more fully awakened, certainly more sincere and more disillusioned, for we have secret wounds to heal and great sufferings to lull in the shade! The passing of the days is like wormwood in the mouth.… How painful will be the transition, and how numerous will be the waifs! Already a fresh anguish oppresses our minds; it is this that will afflict when the day comes for the return of those who are still fighting. Terrible will be the anguish as we gaze upon the ruins and the dead encumbering the battlefields! How it will cramp the young wills and annihilate the fine courage of their souls! Troubled and confused epoch, wherein men will be doggedly seeking safer roads and less cruel idols! …

"Young man of my generation, it is you of whom I think as I write these lines, you whom I do not know, though I know that you are still fighting or that you have returned broken from the trenches. I have met you in the street, wearing an almost shamefaced air, doing your best to conceal some infirmity; but in your eyes I have read the intensity of your inward agony. I know the terrible hours through which you have lived, and I know that those who have endured like trials end by having like souls.… I know your doubts; I share your uneasiness. I know how you are obsessed with the question, 'What next?' You, too, are asking what can be seen from the heights, and what is going to happen. I understand your 'What next?'—'To live!' You sing this straight to the hearts of all of us. 'To live!' You embody the cry of our cruel epoch. I have heard this cry, simple yet tremendous, from the lips of the wounded who were aware of the oncoming footsteps of victorious death. I have heard it in the trenches, murmured low like a prayer.—Young man, this is a grievous hour. You are a survivor from the ghastly war; your vitality must affirm itself; you must live. Stripped of all falsehoods, freed from every mirage, you find yourself alone in your nakedness; before you stretches the great white road. Onward, the distance beckons. Leave behind you the