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Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances.
For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven.
By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind...
The everlasting battle stripped from us care of our own lives or of others'.
We had ropes about our necks, and on our heads prices which showed that the enemy intended hideous tortures for us if we were caught.
Each day some of us passed; and the living knew themselves just sentient puppets on God's stage...
The weak envied those tired enough to die...
Gusts of cruelty, perversions, lusts ran lightly over the surface without troubling us;
for the moral laws which had seemed to hedge about these silly accidents must be yet fainter than words.
We had learned that there were pangs too sharp, griefs too deep, ecstasies too high for our finite selves to register.
When emotion reached this pitch the mind choked; and memory went white till the circumstances were humdrum once more.
What now looks wanton or sadic seemed in the field inevitable, or just unimportant routine.
~ T.E. Lawrence |  |
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