...of blinded soldiers

Imagine a rectangular tent, pure white, standing on the verdant banks of an idyllic little river splendidly appropriate for a picture postcard. This tent is an Italian field-hospital. Along the bank are thirty-two (I counted them) thirty-two young men seated in a long row on the soft grass, beneath aspens whose birdsong and rustling foliage provide a refreshing chatter. The men have their legs stretched out toward the current, which flows by them quickly, happily. All are dressed in hospital blues, and all have a black bandage bound tightly around their eyes.
They listen in silence as the water sings beneath their sandals, the trees and birds converse high above their heads. Their hands caress the grass, or grope with short pitiful movements in an attempt to fill a pipe. One of them strikes a match and continues to hold it absent-mindedly while the flame approaches his fingers and burns them; then with sudden fright he tosses the match into the river and licks his fingers urgently, bathing them in saliva. Occasionally one of these men moves his lips, but we are too far away to distinguish any words. Occasionally one of them smiles pleasantly. All are handsome olive-skinned sons of Italy with raven-black hair and childlike mouths. And all have been blinded by tear gas. All those black eyes beneath he pathetic bandages are dead now, and will perhaps remain so indefinitely...
It was then I understood why they sat there in silence, or if they did move their lips, why they spoke in an undertone as if in the sanctuary of a cathedral. They were listening, listening nostalgically with every portion of their bodies, as the secret whisperings of life in all its sweetness told them tales about light and water, about women (who are like fruit, like roses), about the sun and the flowers that they would perhaps never see again. With their sightless eyes they were gazing in horror at a frigid truth hidden to our sight because our eyes are still in intact.

[Life in the Tomb, Myrivilis, S.]