Elena’s Reviews > Testament of Youth > Status Update

Fate might have allowed him the little, sorry compensation of survival, the chance to make his lovely music in honour of their memory. It seemed indeed the last irony that he should have been killed by the countrymen of Fritz Kreisler, the violinist whom of all others he had most greatly admired. [2/2]

Long after the family had gone to bed and the world had grown silent, I crept into the dining-room to be alone with Edward's portrait. . .I turned on the light and looked at the pale, pictured face, so dignified, so steadfast, so tragically mature. He had been through so much–far, far more than those beloved friends who had died at an earlier stage of the interminable War, leaving him alone to mourn their loss. [1/2]

Two orderlies, hastily summoned from adjacent wards by one of my few convalescent patients, finally rescued my 5-foot-3 from its predicament, and as they strapped the insane giant into bed I sat by my table with a beating heart, listening to his fury exploding in a torrent of such expressive language as had not yet assailed my innocent ears even in 2.5 years of Army life. [2/2]

The world was mad and we were all victims; that was the only way to look at it. These shattered, dying boys and I were paying alike for a situation that none of us had desired or done anything to bring about.

After barely a second's hesitation I took the pale fingers [of an injured German officer's] in mine, thinking how ridiculous it was that I should be holding this man's hand in friendship when perhaps, only a week or two earlier, Edward up at Ypres has been doing his best to kill him.

Waiting, watching, suspense, mourning–will there never be anything else in life. I am so weary of it all–but I bow my head before the storm now, I don't try to fight it any more. I no longer expect things to go well for me; I don't know that I even ask that they shall. All I ask is that I may fulfill my own small weary part in this War in such a way as to be worthy of Them, who die and suffer pain.

I have got used to facing the long empty years ahead of me if I survive the War, but I have always before me the realization of how empty they are and will be, since he will never be there again.