The Storm of Steel: Original 1929 Translation by Ernst Jünger

Author:Ernst Jünger [Jünger, Ernst]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1696237726
Google: CBHvygEACAAJ
Amazon: 1696237726
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2019-10-04T23:00:00+00:00

LANGEMARCK

Cambrai is a quiet, sleepy little town whose name calls up many historical associations. The narrow, old-world streets twist about round the mighty town-hall, the weathered gates, and the many churches. Ponderous towers rear themselves from a maze of gables. Broad avenues lead to the park, which is adorned by a monument to the aviator Bléroit.

The inhabitants are peaceful, friendly folk who lead a comfortable bourgeois life in the large houses which are simple to look at but richly furnished. Many retired people settle here. The town is rightly called ‘la ville des millionaires,’ for there were over forty millionaires there just before the war.

The war broke its enchanted sleep with brutal suddenness and turned it into a focus of mighty battles. A new life hurried and rattled over its unevenly paved streets and clattered against the little windows where anxious faces were on the watch. Foreigners drank the treasured cellars dry, flung themselves on the great mahogany beds, and upset the contemplative civilians with something fresh every day. Now in their changed surroundings they could do no more than collect at corners or in doorways and hold whispered consultations over the latest fairy-tales of an eye-witness and the most certain news of the final and speedy victory of their fellow-countrymen.

The men lived in barracks and the officers in the Rue des Liniers. While we were there this street had the appearance of a students’ quarter. Conversation carried on from one window to another, nightly sing-songs, and little romantic adventures were the order of the day.

We went every morning for training to the great square near the village of Fontaine, which was later to become famous. My job was a very interesting one, for Colonel von Oppen had entrusted me with the training of the storm troop.

My billet was extremely comfortable. It was in the house of a jeweler named Plancot-Bourlon, and he and his wife were both very friendly. They seldom allowed my mid-day meal to pass without sending me up something good from their own table. At night we drank tea together, played cards, and talked. One of the questions we most often discussed, naturally enough, was the very difficult one, why there had to be wars.

On these occasions M. Plancot used to tell stories of the citizens of Cambrai, who are never too busy for a joke. In peace time these stories sent streets, wineshops, and markets into roars of laughter, and they reminded me very forcibly of Tillier’s wonderful uncle Benjamin.

A wicket fellow once sent to all the hunchbacks of the district requesting them to call on a certain solicitor with reference to an important inheritance. At the appointed hour he and some of his friends watched from the window of the opposite house and enjoyed the delightful comedy—seventeen outraged and weeping hobgoblins storming the office of the unfortunate lawyer.

There was the story, too, of an old spinster who lived opposite, and who was distinguished by a long and slender neck strangely bent to one side. Twenty years before she had been notoriously eager to marry.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.