Explore "Road Back" by Erich Maria Remarque on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We had pictured it all otherwise. We thought that with one accord a rich, intense existence must now set in, one full of the joy of life regained-and so we had meant to begin. But the days and the weeks fly away under our hands, we squander them on inconsiderable and vain things, and when we look round nothing is done. We were accustomed to think swiftly, to act on the instant-another minute and all might be out for ever. So life now is too slow for us; we jump at it, shake it, and before it can speak or resound we have already let go again. We had Death too long for companion; he was a swift player, and every second the stakes touched the limit. It is this that has made us so fickle, so impatient, so bent upon the things of the moment; this that now leaves us so empty, because here it has no place. And this emptiness makes us restless; we feel that people do not understand us, that mere love cannot help us. For there is an unbridged gulf fixed between soldiers and non-soldiers.
We must fend for ourselves.