The Antichrist by Joseph Roth, Richard Panchyk Read Free Book Online Page B

only for generals and other high military officers) while he turned the crank on a black box that had a round glass eye in the middle. This eye swallowed all of our shadows. So now I knew that many years before the shadows of the Russian and Japanese soldiers had been bought with chocolate and cigarettes. And I could already envision our shadows on the screens of theatres throughout the land.
    Shortly before Christmas a black automobile came and stopped just behind the battlefield where dead soldiers lay, and several gentlemen stepped out of the car. Among them was one who seemed especially kind and dignified. We all liked him immediately, mainly because of his reassuring grey beard. We had halted, that is to say, in the parlance of war, that we could rest before beginning once again to shoot and to die. We were marched not far from the black automobile. The kind-looking gentleman spoke to us. And what he said pleased us because of his gentle and agreeable voice.He ordered a number of large leather sacks to be fetched, and it took twenty of us to lug these sacks, from which chocolate and cigarettes were distributed to the soldiers. At this time an aviator began to circle over our heads. And since the aviator was one of the enemy (called in the language of war ‘an enemy pilot’) he dropped a bomb. And then the black automobile vanished, smoke and stench rising from the place where it had stood. The kind gentleman turned around and left, accompanied by the others, who were somewhat more rigid-looking. Then a large grey car owned by the general pulled up and took away these gentlemen, whom we never saw again.
    And when we returned to the battlefield, which in the language of war is known as ‘the trenches’, on the night that Jesus Christ was born, many of us died with pockets full of cigarettes and chocolate. These good gifts were taken by the survivors from the pockets of the fallen. And the guns made from bells continued to launch their thunder over our heads and towards those who, in the language of war, were known simply as ‘the enemy’.
    While we are speaking about the bells, I must explain how I was reminded of them after the war when I was poor and searching for work. There was employment to be had in the large red-brick building where we had once unloaded the metal and the bells, a place called the arsenal. We went there in search of work. In the great hall lay cannon, some whole, some damaged, some broken in pieces. There stood the gentle, grey-bearded man with the mild golden-brown eyes, and he directed us what to do. We loaded the broken weapons on to iron carts, and some of us smashed the undamaged ones with hammers. Outside, a large covered wagon was waiting. We loaded the cannon remnants on to it, and when itwas so full that it could hold no more we drove it to a large factory, and there we unloaded the remains of cannon and guns.
    The factory supervisor (who looked like our sergeant) made sure that everything was unloaded.
    â€˜What are you going to make with it?’ I asked the supervisor.
    â€˜All kinds of useful things,’ said the supervisor. ‘The war is finished, my friend! We’re going to make latches, locks, doors, candlesticks, mortars and bells – yes, church bells.’

THE CANNON AND THE BELLS
    Since that time, whenever I hear the song of the bells, it seems as if gun barrels are swaying over the roofs and the towers of the churches, as if they are being swung not by worthy sextons or cheerful boys but by the one of whom I am speaking in this book. Has he not already so confused the ears of men that they find the thundering of cannon pleasant, even sweet, but the song of the bells unbearable? And has he not he apparently given these men the right to have perverted hearing and to be proud of it?
    Ask the people in that expansive country where fools call themselves ‘godless’ before God has abandoned them (and only because they think they have