Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Something Incomprehensible?
From Count Harry Kessler's Diaries (published as Journey to the Abyss, The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918), translated by Laird M. Easton):
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Oekoermezoe [Galicia], February 6, 1915 (on the German Eastern Front): "... Niedner says that the numerous psychoses among the officers and men coming here from the west is striking. Recently of ten newly arrived officers, three had nervous breakdowns. He spoke as well of a hospital case where a man sat in the antechamber, a common soldier, his rifle on the ground between his knees, looking at the ground, and murmuring something incomprehensible. He came up to him and asked him what he wanted. The man didn't answer, however, but only continued to murmur in the same tone. He soon noticed that something wasn't right psychologically, listened, and to his astonishment suddenly recognized that the man was reciting long passages of The Odyssey in Greek."Hat tip: John Strang.
