Unto All Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

endless to his youth, a long highway bordered with delightful pleasures and interesting events, and losing itself dimly on the horizon.
    But now he was forced to think of death in immediate connection with himself. It seemed incredible to him. He looked at the face of death, appalled, rebellious, repudiate. Death to Tomas Slivak, who was scarcely twenty-one! His cigarette fell from his lips as full realization struck him to the heart. His young flesh turned cold with horror as though it suddenly understood for the first time. His blood seemed to stand still in his veins, chilling him with a mortal stagnation.
    Death! For what? Last night in the firelight, out in the cool odorous forest, it had appeared that death was a small thing, not to be counted before that bitter grief and shame. But now it was no small thing, but a terrible one, stony with horror. He felt as a criminal feels before his execution. Now an icy sweat broke out all over him. He stood up abruptly. He found himself glancing about, as a man does who frenziedly looks for escape. There was the door. He had only to go to it, to lift its bolt, and step out, free and alive, into the sunshine. No one would mock him or blame him, or call him coward. He would not even feel that he was a coward, himself. For the others, no decorations. Czechoslovakia herself would be forced to disown and disclaim them, as trouble-makers who had threatened to destroy her precarious and loathsome peace. The Germans would throw their mutilated bodies in some roadside ditch, toss the hasty earth over them. No one would ever know where they lay, nor would they be remembered by a shaft of marble or a passing glance. And Tomas’ father would be left alone, in his elegant silver and curio shop. Tomas could see him greeting his customers, bowing to them, beaming on them. But there would be only a glazed anguish in his eyes. He would not even have the poor recompense, the agonized pride of saying: “My son! He died in honorable combat, fighting with his comrades in defense of his country!”
    Tomas stared at the door. But he saw only death and his father’s face He took a step towards the door. His comrades glanced up quickly, saw him take the step, saw his expression, the lax way in which he held his gun. They did not move nor speak. Standing near the shutter, Old Hardheel slowly turned his head and watched the young man. His face did not change.
    Tomas had always been a realist. Had he read a story like this, of eight men dooming themselves voluntarily to death, he would have laughed, and called them sentimental fools. Love of country? The honor of one’s country? What were they? The shibboleths of politicians and statesmen, the duplicity of schemers for power. Like religion, they were witch-words to emasculate the strength of the people, to keep them in entranced subjection. No people in spite of their governments were worse than another people. Even governments tended to equalize themselves, to take on the flavor and coloring of neighbor-governments, no matter how strange and unorthodox they appeared in the beginning. Everything leveled itself in time to the common denominator. Therefore, it was foolish to hate another government, to long to destroy it, to decide to die to overthrow it.
    Tomas remembered these former thoughts of his. He examined them with passionate intensity. No matter how he turned them about and went over them, he could find nothing wrong with their logic. They had been weighed in the scale of history, and they had balanced. They were entirely valid. And yet, he finally turned away from them.
    He knew now that there were things that it was necessary for a man to do for himself, even though he died in the doing. He knew that if he lived, went home, he would have no honor in himself. How foolish! Exclaimed his reason. Your death will solve nothing!
    But all at once he knew this was not true. News had a way of leaking out. There was a possibility that the news of their