The Battle (MM41) (2024) Pittura da Noël Van Hoof

Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain – Part 41

They hurl themselves down before projectiles howling toward them, only to leap up and rush on, shouting courage in brash, young voices – they have not been hit. Then they are hit, they fall, flailing their arms, shot in the head, the heart, the gut. They lie with their faces in the mire and do not stir. They lie, arched over their knapsacks, the backs of their heads buried in the soft ground, their hands clutching at the air like talons. But the wood keeps sending new men, who hurl themselves down, leap up, and, with a shout or without a word, stagger forward among those who have already fallen.
Youngsters with their backpacks and bayoneted rifles, with their filthy coats and boots – and in watching, one might also see them with a humanistic, beatific eye, might dream of other scenes. One might imagine such a lad spurring a horse on or swimming in a bay, strolling along the shore with a girlfriend, his lips pressed to his gentle beloved's ear, or in happy friendship instructing another lad to string a bow. And instead, there they all lie, noses in the fiery filth. That they do it with joy, and also with boundless fear and an unutterable longing for home, is both shameful and sublime, but surely no reason to bring them here to this.

(English translation by John E. Woods)

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