I used to live in hell

Another one I don't really remember making. Definitely remember how I felt at the time though

~~~~~

It is strange that all the memories that come have these two qualities. They are always completely
calm, that is predominant in them; and even if they are not really calm, they become so. They are
soundless apparitions that speak to me, with looks and gestures silently, without any word-and it is
the alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandon
myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilate and gently pass away into
the still forces that lie behind these things.

They are quiet in this way, because quietness is so unattainable for us now. At the front there is no
quietness and the curse of the front reaches so far that we never pass beyond it. Even in the remote
depots and rest-areas the droning and the muffled noise of shelling is always in our ears. We are
never so far off that it is no more to be heard. But these last few days it has been unbearable.
Their stillness is the reason why these memories of former times do not awaken desire so much as
sorrow-a vast, inapprehensible melancholy. Once we had such desires-but they return not. They are
past, they belong to another world that is gone from us. In the barracks they called forth a
rebellious, wild craving for their return; for then they were still bound to us, we belonged to them
and they to us, even though we were already absent from them. They appeared in the soldiers'
songs which we sang as we marched between the glow of the dawn and the black silhouettes of the
forests to drill on the moor, they were a powerful remembrance that was in us and came from us.
But here in the trenches they are completely lost to us. They arise no more; we are dead and they
stand remote on the horizon, they are a mysterious reflection, an apparition, that haunts us, that
we fear and love without hope. They are strong and our desire is strong-but they are unattainable,
and we know it.

And even if these scenes of our youth were given back to us we would hardly know what to do. The
tender, secret influence that passed from them into us could not rise again. We might be amongst
them and move in them; we might remember and love them and be stirred by the sight of them.
But it would be like gazing at the photograph of a dead comrade; those are his features, it is his
face, and the days we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory; but the man himself it
is not.

We could never regain the old intimacy with those scenes. It was not any recognition of their
beauty and their significance that attracted us, but the communion, the feeling of a comradeship
with the things and events of our existence, which cut us off and made the world of our parents a
thing incomprehensible to us-for then we surrendered ourselves to events and were lost in them,
and the least little thing was enough to carry us down the stream of eternity. Perhaps it was only
the privilege of our youth, but as yet we recognised no limits and saw nowhere an end. We had
that thrill of expectation in the blood which united us with the course of our days. To-day we
would pass through the scenes of our youth like travellers. We are burnt up by hard facts; like
tradesmen we understand distinctions, and like butchers, necessities. We are no longer untroubled-
we are indifferent. We might exist there; but should we really live there? We are forlorn like
children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial-I believe we are
lost. My hands grow cold and my flesh creeps; and yet the night is warm. Only the mist is cold, this
mysterious mist that trails over the dead and sucks from them their last, creeping life. By morning
they will be pale and green and their blood congealed and black.

~~~~~