May 11
This mysterious world makes me chilly. It is chilly to be alive among ghosts in a nightmare of calamity. This Titanic war reduces me to the size and importance of a debilitated housefly. So what is a poor egotist to do? To be a common soldier is to become a pawn in the game between ambitious dynasts and their ambitious marshals. You lose all individuality, you become a “bayonet” or a “machine gun,” or “cannon fodder,” or “fighting material.”