All my efforts subside like froth into the one desire to be able just to stay lying there. My limbs are glued to the earth. I make a vain attempt;⁠—they refuse to come away. I press myself down on the earth, I cannot go forward, I make up my mind to stay lying there.

But immediately the wave floods over me anew, a mingled sense of shame, of remorse, and yet at the same time of security. I raise myself up a little to take a look round.

My eyes burn with staring into the dark. A star-shell goes up;⁠—I duck down again.

I wage a wild and senseless fight, I want to get out of the hollow and yet slide back into it again; I say, “You must, it is your comrades, it is not an idiotic command,” and again: “What does it matter to me, I have only one life to lose⁠—”