Free Youth Without God by Odon Von Horvath Page A

slipped the diary back into the box and tried to lock it. I turned the wire this way and that. No good. It wouldn’t click. I’d broken the lock.
    They’d be back in a moment now. I put the box, still unlocked, back into the sleeping-bag and left the tent. There was nothing else for it. The regiment had returned.
    Z was marching in the fourth row.
    You’ve got a girl now, Z, called Eve. And you know your beloved is a thief, and yet you swear you’ll defend her to the last.
    I smiled again. These boys!
    The regiment halted and dismissed …
    And now your innermost thoughts are familiar things to me, I thought. But I couldn’t smile any longer. For I saw the case coming into court—the public prosecutor going over his notes: an indictment for theft and connivance at theft. Adam would have to answer questions, besides Eve. Z would be arrested.
    I ought to tell the sergeant and notify the police—or should I have a talk with Z alone first?
    He had gone over to the kitchen quarters to see what there was for supper. He’d have to leave the high school and the girl would be sent back to an institution.
    Or prison—for both. Good-bye to your fair future, Z.
    Better men than you have found a stumbling-block in love, that is a necessity of nature, and hence willed by God.
    I heard the priest’s words again: “God is the most terrible thing in the world”—and another sound fell on my ears—a terrific up-roar of shouting and screaming. Every one was rushing to one of the tents—the tent that housed that box. Z and N were fighting so savagely that the others could hardly tear them apart. N’s face was smeared with blood from his broken lips. Z’s was blanched with fury.
    “N’s broken his box open!” the sergeant shouted over to me.
    “I didn’t!” yelled N. “I didn’t, it wasn’t me.”
    “Who else was it, then?” shouted Z. “Who could it have been, sir, if it wasn’t N?”
    “Liar!”
    “He did it. Nobody else would. He always threatened he’d smash it open.”
    “But I didn’t—”
    “Quiet!” roared the sergeant.
    Quiet came suddenly.
    Z’s eyes had never left N. Whoever broke open his box should die. As I remembered that last entry of his, involuntarily I looked upwards.
    There was no storm in that soft sky.
    Yes, Z could kill N, I was sure. As if N was thinking the same thing, he turned, a little frightened, to me.
    “Sir, I’d like to sleep in another tent.”
    “Very well.”
    “Really, sir, I haven’t read it—I haven’t read his diary. Help me to prove it, sir!”
    “I’ll do all I can for you.”
    Z glanced at me. How can you help him, his glance seemed to say. For I knew. I had doomed N.
    But still I wanted to know if Z himself took part in the thieving. I didn’t want to throw suspicion on him without cause—and it was I who had broken that lock.
    Why didn’t I tell him that it was I who had read his diary?
    No, not yet. Not there and then, in front of everybody. I couldn’t. I’d be too ashamed. Later, yes, but not yet.
    I’d tell him when we were alone. And I’d have a talk with the girl too, to-night, when he met her. I’d tell her never to show her face again, and I’d give Z a pretty straight talking to. And that would be the end of the whole thing.
    Guilt, like a vulture, hovers over us, ready to swoop.
    But I’d absolve N. He should be right out of this. He’d done nothing. And I’d pardon Z and the girl too. I wouldn’t let myself be doomed for nothing.
    God might be terrible, but I, with my free will, would frustrate His plans, I’d save all of us. In the midst of my thoughts, I felt that someone’s eyes were staring at me.
    T’s—two glazed, round eyes, still and lustreless.
    The Fish—the Age of the Fish. I’d seen them at the funeral of little W.
    And T seemed to smile—quietly, scornfully. A fixed, mocking smile. Did he know that my hand had broken that lock?

19. THE MAN IN THE MOON
    THE DAY WORE ON SLOWLY.
    Sundown came at last.
    In the