In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

“It’s always hard once they’ve done something human.”

It seems awfully untoward to go about demanding people’s Christian names like a child or an American.

“We haven’t got much time,” said Sandys, and Gaunt didn’t know if he meant that he would have to sneak out again in a minute, or if he meant it in a wider sense. That there wasn’t much time before Oxford and Cambridge, before marriage and respectability and the putting aside of boyish, immature desires.

that. I actually believed that the principles of our civilisation, our civilisation that has developed further than any other in the history of the world, giving us telephones and trains and flying, for God’s sake, we can fly, I thought, surely such a civilisation, that prides itself on conquering the beast in man and seeks only to bend towards beauty and prosperity, surely, surely, surely, it would not shatter in such a vile and disgusting way.

We had reached a point in history where we believed it was possible to make war humane.

I wish to God I could see you again before I die.

And it was a magical thing, to love someone so much; it was a feeling so strange and slippery, like a sheath of fabric cut from the sky.

If Ellwood were a girl, he might have held his hand, kissed his temple. He might have bought a ring and tied their lives together. But Ellwood was Ellwood, and Gaunt had to be satisfied with the weight of his head on his shoulder. Loos

I may not see you again; things over my end are rather bloody. I’ll make an appointment with you by the pearly gates, how’s that?

It was difficult to strike the right balance with the men—if you did not know them and care for them, you could not lead them, but if you loved them, their constant deaths were devastating.)

His brief joy was transfigured into the horror of discovering something new about Gaunt, and knowing there was a limit to how many more discoveries could be made. Perhaps this was his last one.

each society blindly throwing its tragedies and flaws onto foreign shores.

I hear the breaking bodies scream. Thankful I have hit my mark, I slither through the trenching dark. You bleed to death in all my dreams.

He felt oddly clear-headed, despite the pain in his chest. It was much easier to be brave for your friends than for yourself.

Gaunt reflected that it did not feel like loving Ellwood. It felt like loving a brittle impostor, one who had stolen Ellwood and would not return him. And yet, Gaunt was powerless: he loved every part of Ellwood, changed or not. If there was a lonelier feeling, Gaunt could not imagine it.

Ellwood had been unkind to his mother when he last saw her. Cold and standoffish. He had counted on having decades in which to learn how to love her again.

She was, and remains, my first and most important teacher.