Read Online Youth Without God by Odon Von Horvath - Free Book Online

Courage, Lies with Uprightness, Wretchedness with Strength, Malice with Valour. Only Reason and Understanding did not join in the dance. Reason and Understanding were wretchedly drunk. They had lost their virtue. But the dance went on, and I listened to the music.
    A song of the streets—the song of filth.
    According to language, race, or nation, we set ourselves apart, and each pile up our filth to overtower the other’s.
    Filth—for manure—for the earth, so that something may grow. Not flowers, but rather bread. Yes! But do not worship it—the filth of which you’ve eaten.

16. Z AND N
    MY JOB WAS TO SIT SILENTLY IN THE SHADOW of the haystack, and keep an eye on the sentries. I was forgetting it.
    I glanced round at them.
    Everything in order, on all sides. But wait—something there—
    The North sentry. He was talking to some one. The North sentry—Z. But I must have imagined it—the shadow of a fir-tree, nothing more.
    I looked again. No shadow stood there, but a figure. At that moment the moon sailed out of a cloud. I saw a youngster—some one strange to the camp. He seemed to be giving something to Z—and then he disappeared again.
    Z stood motionless for a second or two. Listening?
    Cautiously he looked round before taking the letter out of his pocket. So it was a letter!
    He pulled it open and read it by the moon-light. Then put it into his pocket again.
    Who could be writing to Z …?
    Next morning, the sergeant asked me if I had seen anything worth noting. Nothing, I told him. The sentries had done their jobs properly. That was all. I didn’t say a word about the letter, for I wasn’t sure yet whether it had anything to do with the theft of the camera. That would comeout later: I wouldn’t bring Z under suspicion before anything was proved.
    If only I could have read that letter!
    The youngsters were quite taken aback to see us returning to camp. When had we left it?
    “At midnight,” lied the sergeant. “We just strolled out, but none of your sentries saw us. You want sharper eyes. With such a poor night-watch as you boys provide, anybody could sneak off with the whole camp, flags, guns, and everything that matters to us.”
    He then assembled the regiment, and asked if any of the boys had had his suspicions roused. He got no answer.
    My eyes were on Z. He stood there, motionless as a stone. Was he carrying that letter in his pocket?
    What did it say? I knew I should have to read it, that I should find myself forced to read it. Should I ask him for it straight away? No, that wouldn’t do the trick. He’d lie his way out and take the first opportunity of burning the letter—and then I’d never see it.
    Perhaps he’d destroyed it already.
    Who could its author have been—a strange youngster who turned up in the small hours, an hour’s distance away from the town? Perhaps he lived in the cottage with the old blind woman. And then it struck me, more and more forcibly, that he must belong to the robber band. The weeds.
    Could Z be one of them too?
    Nothing for it but to read that letter. My fingers were itching to open it. It became a fixed idea: my mind dwelled on it …
    Boom! Boom!
    I looked round: the boys were shooting for the first time.
    Boom! Boom! Boom!
    In the afternoon, R came up to me.
    “Sir!”
    “Well, R, what is it?”
    “I’d like very much to sleep in another tent, sir. The two men I’ve got with me are scrapping the whole time, and you can’t get any sleep.”
    “Who’ve you got with you?”
    “N and Z.”
    “Z?”
    “Yes, but it’s always N that starts it.”
    “Send N to me at once.”
    He went, and brought back N.
    “Why d’you spend your time fighting Z?” I asked him.
    “Well, sir, he won’t let me get to sleep. If I do, he’s always waking me. He often lights his candle in the middle of the night.”
    “Why?”
    “To write his silly trash.”
    “What does he write, then? Letters?”
    “No! He keeps a diary, sir!”
    “A diary?”
    “Yes.