原文
We remained cowering in a trench when the trumpet sounded from the oppressive, lead-plated sky. We furtively glanced out of the corners of our eyes, having learned long ago not to look at such things directly. We saw it all the same. The angel stepped down from the sky in a burning catastrophe of light.
It spoke words like thunder, vast and inscrutable, like glimpsing only a fragment of some titanic buried machine and trying to understand its ancient purpose. Our minds broke upon the surface of those words, leaving us gasping. We could not endure such relentless purity.
I stared dumbfounded at my friends as they cast themselves into the mud. They crawled like rats, uttering the most desolate sounds. One beat his face against a wooden post until his mouth was a slick red cavity bristling with broken teeth. Another, shrieking, clutched his service pistol in one trembling hand and shot himself again and again.
I pulled myself up out of the trench, scrabbling over the sandbags and crosses, and the words of the angel filled my head with a buzzing pressure that made my eyes bulge in their shrinking sockets. I fell to my knees, made obeisance, and as I stared into the blazing, dominating light, I could not even feel my head catch fire.
We remained cowering in a trench when the trumpet sounded from the oppressive, lead-plated sky. We furtively glanced out of the corners of our eyes, having learned long ago not to look at such things directly. We saw it all the same. The angel stepped down from the sky in a burning catastrophe of light.
It spoke words like thunder, vast and inscrutable, like glimpsing only a fragment of some titanic buried machine and trying to understand its ancient purpose. Our minds broke upon the surface of those words, leaving us gasping. We could not endure such relentless purity.
I stared dumbfounded at my friends as they cast themselves into the mud. They crawled like rats, uttering the most desolate sounds. One beat his face against a wooden post until his mouth was a slick red cavity bristling with broken teeth. Another, shrieking, clutched his service pistol in one trembling hand and shot himself again and again.
I pulled myself up out of the trench, scrabbling over the sandbags and crosses, and the words of the angel filled my head with a buzzing pressure that made my eyes bulge in their shrinking sockets. I fell to my knees, made obeisance, and as I stared into the blazing, dominating light, I could not even feel my head catch fire.
