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Poems-Part5_Alan Seeger(1888-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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A piece of difficult trench work was allotted to the men,

to be finished in one night. "Each was given the limit,



that he was supposed to be able to complete in the time.

It happened that Rif Baer was ill, and, after working a while,



his strength gave out. Alan completed his own job and R. B.'s also,

and although he was quite exhausted by the extra labour,



his eyes glowed with happiness, and he said he had never done

anything in his life that gave him such entire satisfaction."



Summing up the results of the battle, Alan wrote (still in the same letter,

October 25): "It was a satisfaction at least to get out of the trenches,



to meet the enemy face to face and to see German arrogance

turned into suppliance. We knew many splendid moments,



worth having endured many trials for. But in our larger aim,

of piercing their line, of breaking the long deadlock,



of entering Vouziers in triumph, of course we failed." Then he proceeds:

==



This affair only deepened my admiration for, my loyalty to, the French.

If we did not entirely succeed, it was not the fault of the French soldier.



He is a better man, man for man, than the German. Anyone who had seen

the charge of the Marsouins at Souain would acknowledge it.



Never was anything more magnificent. I remember a captain,

badly wounded in the leg, as he passed us, borne back on a litter



by four German prisoners. He asked us what regiment we were,

and when we told him, he cried "Vive la Legion," and kept repeating



"Nous les avons en. Nous les avons en." He was suffering, but,

oblivious of his wound, was still fired with the enthusiasm of the assault



and all radiant with victory. What a contrast with the German wounded

on whose faces was nothing but terror and despair. What is the stimulus



in their slogans of "Gott mit uns" and "Fuer Koenig und Vaterland"

beside that of men really fighting in defense of their country?



Whatever be the force in international conflicts of having justice

and all the principles of personal morality on one's side, it at least



gives the French soldier a strength that's like the strength of ten

against an adversary whose weapon is only brute violence.



It is inconceivable that a Frenchman, forced to yield,

could behave as I saw German prisoners behave, trembling, on their knees,



for all the world like criminals at length overpowered and brought to justice.

Such men have to be driven to the assault, or intoxicated.



But the Frenchman who goes up is possessed with a passion

beside which any of the other forms of experience that are reckoned



to make life worth while seem pale in comparison.

==



A report appeared in the American newspapers that he had been killed

in the battle of Champagne. On learning of it, he wrote to his mother:



==

I am `navre' to think of your having suffered so.



I should have arranged to cable after the attack, had I known

that any such absurd rumours had been started. Here one has



a wholesome notion of the unimportance of the individual.

It needs an effort of imagination to conceive of its making



any particular difference to anyone or anything if one goes under.

So many better men have gone, and yet the world rolls on just the same.



==

After Champagne, his regiment passed to the rear and did not return



to the front until May 1916. On February 1st he writes: "I am in hospital

for the first time, not for a wound, unfortunately, but for sickness."



Hitherto his health, since he joined the army, had been superb.

As a youth he had never been robust; but the soldier's life



suited him to perfection, and all remnants of any mischief left behind

by the illness of his childhood seemed to have vanished.



It was now a sharp attack of bronchitis that sent him to hospital.

On his recovery he obtained two months `conge de convalescence',



part of which he spent at Biarritz and part in Paris. About this time,

much to his satisfaction, he once more came into the possession



of "Juvenilia". On April 13th he wrote to his mother:

==






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