But immediately the wave floods over me anew, a mingled sense of shame, of remorse, and yet at the same time of security. I raise myself up a little to take a look around.
My eyes burn with staring into the dark. A star-shell goes up;—I duck down again.
I wage a wild and senseless fight, I want to get out of the hollow and yet slide back into it again, I say: “You must, it is your comrades, it is not any idiotic command,” and again: “What does it matter to me, I have only one life to lose———”
That is the result of all this leave, I reproach myself bitterly. But I cannot convince myself, I become terribly faint. I raise myself slowly and reach forward with my arms, dragging my body after me and then lie on the edge of the shell-hole, half in and half out.
There I hear sounds and drop back. Suspicious sounds can be detected clearly despite the noise of the artillery-fire. I listen; the sound is behind me. They are our people moving along the trench. Now I hear muffled voices. To judge by the tone that might be Kat talking.
At once a new warmth flows through me. These voices, these few quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound from the ter-
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