Chapter Twenty-Four

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

     After the service, the Lord's Supper was held in the church.  Again a large congregation gathered at the high altar:  men whom Hans knew only in their peacetime occupations, salesmen, civil servants, craftsmen, workers.  Now all in uniform, prepared for marching off:  officers, sergeants, corporals, privates.  And beside them their wives.  Then mothers and fathers to the side of their very young son who was going to war.  The women wept softly, even the eyes of the men shimmered with a trace of tears.  And yet everyone's composure was calm and strong.  How filled and loaded by the force of the moment.

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     And he, who so many times had carried bitter lamenting in his despondent heart that humanity had broken away from God's gentle purpose, he distributed bread and wine and in this hour experienced what to him only a few days ago would have appeared impossible.

     But when he came home after uninterrupted work, he felt that he was at the end of his strength.  The hasty trip with its unpleasant incident, the sleepless night with its rushing thoughts, but more than that:  this morning with its great elevation and spiritual excitement had surely exhausted his delicate and soft-voiced organism.  He was annoyed at himself, he did not want to let it arise.  He spoke thoroughly and warmly with the people who waited for him in his study, he went into the church several times in order to hold war marriages and to baptize children whose fathers were going into the field.  And there he never did anything superficially but did everything with his whole soul, so that this all touched his heart.

     When, around two o'clock in the afternoon, he went out of the church for the last time and into his apartment, he suddenly felt such an intense, black flickering before his eyes that he had to hold on to the banisters in order not to collapse.  But he fought like a champion, took off his cassock, proceeded to the dining room, where Else already waited for him, showed a cheerful face, and forced himself to eat.

     "You have had a desperately hard day," she said.

     "But a great, a wonderful day!  I have experienced what I longed for with the entire fervor of my soul, on whose fulfillment I already despaired; now I have seen it with my own eyes.  This war has worked wonders in one day!"

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     "Were there even many people with you?"

     "A few men who wanted to say goodbye before they go in the field.  They must leave behind business and work and part from wife and children.  But you should have heard with what confidence and joy they went, all of them!  One took his boys with, whom I had just confirmed; and when his wife cried, he said, 'Mudder, laß jut sein... 's is Anstandspflicht jejens Vaterland.'"

     After the meal, he lay down and immediately fell into a death-like sleep.

     He must have rested for a long time because it was already softly getting dark when Else step into his room.  He could barely pull himself together, he didn't know where he was.  All of a sudden, it occurred to him:  "Oh, yes, it is war!"  Then he was very awake.

     "I have disturbed you reluctantly, but Seydelmann was just here.  A few more people have come who move out to-morrow morning and wish Holy Communion."

     He stood up immediately and put on his cassock.

     "The one asked for you specifically, he is a son of Bärwalder Kutscher."

     "What?  Of old Schikorr himself?  I married him here only in May - and now also with!"

     Two couples stood in the sacristy, in which he distributed Holy Communion at such a late hour:  the young Schikorr, who in his civilian occupation was a locksmith and now made a martial impression as a cavalryman, and then an-other.  In the dim twilight, he couldn't recognize the uniform.  But he stood so quietly and calmly at the side of the pale blonde woman

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that he thought:  "Perhaps one who must not go directly into the fire, a military officer or something like that."

     After the ceremony, he approached him, as he was in the habit of doing.  Now he saw that he belonged to the navy.  "Chief engineer on a submarine."  He answered so quietly and firmly, as if it were a small trial run.  And the young blond woman at his side brushed away a tear, as if she was ashamed of herself.

     Hans had also said a few friendly words to young Schikorr.  When he left the sacristy, he saw that his left foot was dragging.

     "What's wrong, Schikorr?  Something with your leg?"

     "Yes, but, Pastor, it is nothing."

     "But you are limping."

     A bright smile.

     "Pastor," the young woman who had kept silent until then reported to Hans, "my husband has laid in the city hospital for three weeks with an open leg wound.  Even now it is not well yet."

     "Will you be quiet, Tine!  I don't need to walk, I come by horse," the young soldier dismissed, annoyed.

     But Tine did not pay attention to him:  "The doctor did not want to let him go.  But there was no holding him back.  His bad leg, his salary, his wife, nothing matters to him, he must go to the war!"

     "It is also rightly so.  Now there is no salary and no sickness.  Now there is only the Fatherland, which is in need - Bye, Pastor and thanks a lot!"

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     When Hans came home, again someone was waiting for him.  "A young man," said Else," who still wanted to speak to you under any circumstances."

     "A face that was known to him beamed opposite him.  "The pastor doesn't know me any more.  Fritz Mattern.  I was here once with Pastor and askt him for his kind recommendation because I wanted to join the navy."

     "I remember, but you were not taken, and you received a much better position in a business here as an electrical engineer, with which you were very satisfied."

     "Yes," answered the young man, his mouth formed a joyful smile, triumph shone in his small eyes, "but now I have indeed achieved it!  I am become a stoker on a warship.  It leaves to-morrow!  And I still wanted to tell you about it!"

     "A people of heroes!" said Hans to his sister.  "Man for man!  This one a chief engineer on a submarine!  Under the water, he goes into the deepest dark, sees not sky and earth, always in difficult stations full of responsibility, ready for death, certain of death, in which the blonde wife waits for him, prays for him.  The other has an open leg wound!  But he jumps on his horse because his Fatherland is in need.  The third is proud and overjoyed because he gives up a good position so that he may do stoker service deep underwater in the night and blazing heat of a giant ship.  And they all rush into danger and death with beaming smiles, with firm confidence of victory!  Dear Fatherland may be calm!"

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