There is less sleep in the world today; longer are the nights and longer the days.
But let us reflect, over and again, on the vastness of time and the fact that what is occurring now has no equal in history, reflect on what it means to be only awake, unceasingly awake. Never since it came into being has the whole world been so communally seized by nervous energy. Until now a war was only an isolated flare-up in the immense organism that is humanity, a suppurating limb which could be cauterized and thus healed, whilst all the remaining limbs were free to perform their normal functions without the least hindrance. There were always places that remained untouched, villages which no message from the restless activity ever reached, villages which calmly continued to divide their life between day and night, between labour and rest. Somewhere there was still sleep and silence, people who awoke at daybreak amidst gentle laughter and whose sleep was untrammelled by disturbing dreams. But due to its steady conquest of the globe, humanity forged ever-closer links, so today a fever quivers within its whole organism; horrors easily traverse the entire cosmos. There is not a workshop, not an isolated farm, not a hamlet deep in a forest from which they have not torn a man so that he might launch himself into the fray, and each of these beings is intimately connected to others by myriad threads of feeling; even the most insignificant among them has breathed so much of the feverish heat, his sudden disappearance makes those that remain that much colder, more alone and empty. Each fate leads inexorably to another fate, little circles which grow and expand in the vast sea of feeling; in this profound connection, in this mutual reinforcement of experience, no one goes into his death as into a vacuum, each takes something from others along with him. Each is pierced through by the gaze of those behind him, and this constant looking and seeing, magnified millionfold and woven into the destiny of whole nations, has created the world’s current state of nervous agitation. All humanity listens keenly, and through the miracle of technology even responds at the same moment. Ships transmit messages across boundless waves, whilst the radio transmitters of Nauen and Paris fire off a message in minutes to the West African colonies and the shores of Lake Chad, as at the same moment the Indians receive it on their scrolls of hemp and lace, then the Chinese on their silk, and so on to the farthest reaches of humanity, the same feverish anxiety arrives and stifles the peaceable course of life. Each keeps watch, each remains at the open window of his senses to receive the slightest message, swallowing reassuringly the word of the heroes and dreading the doubts of the despairing. Prophets, both the genuine and the false, have assumed power over the masses, who now obey and obey again, advancing resolutely into the fever, day and night, the interminably long days and nights of this epoch which demands that each remain in perpetual wakefulness.
These days had scant respect for those who stood apart, and even those remotest from the battlefield could not disengage from it. Without exception our lives were shaken to the core, and no one, whoever he was, had the right to unmolested sleep in this monstrous excess of agitation. We were all dragged through this enforced migration of nations and peoples, which we either affirmed or denied according to our will. Each became gradually enmeshed in the great event; no one could remain cool in the fiery delirium of the world. Constancy is helpless when realities are utterly transformed; none could stand aloof, secure on his rock above the waves, looking down and smiling knowingly at a world wracked with fever. Whether aware of what was happening or not, all were borne on the current, with no idea where it was leading. No one could cut himself adrift, for our blood and spirit made us part of the river of the nation and each quickening of the current merely drew us farther on, each change in the pulse disrupted further the rhythm of our own life. What new values will exist when this fever has finally dissipated and all that appeared to remain the same will be so entirely different? The German cities, what feelings will they experience when they reflect on themselves after the war? And how different and strange will Paris seem to our new sensitivity! I know myself that from now on, in Liège say, in the same old guest house, I shall hardly be in a position to sit alongside my European friends indulging in the usual sentiments now that a load of German bombs has rained down on the citadel; for between so many friends, from whichever side of the conflict, the shadows of the fallen will be stood and their icy breath will kill any warmth of the spoken word. We will all need to relearn how to proceed from yesterday to tomorrow by way of this indecipherable today, whose violence we only perceive through still more horror, learn how to heal ourselves by finding a new structure of life beyond this ferment which turns our days white-hot and makes our nights so stiflingly oppressive. Another generation are rising undaunted behind us whose feelings have been emboldened by this inferno; they will be quite different, those who saw victories in these years where we only saw retreats, hesitation and lassitude. The pandemonium of these times will give rise to a new order, and our primary concern must be to assist in vigorously shaping it for the better.
A new order—for the sleepless fever, the restlessness, the hope and the waiting, which now consume the repose of our days and nights, surely cannot last. Even though mass destruction appears omnipresent today, monstrously spreading across a terrorized world, it is in the end nothing compared to the more powerful energy of life, which, after each interval of anguish, instills a period of recovery to ensure existence becomes stronger and still more beautiful. A new peace—oh how its light wings seem so distant today, beating through the dust and gun smoke!—will one day return and reconstruct the old order of life, labour in the day and rest at night; in thousands of living rooms now on permanent watch, in a state of nervousness and anxiety, silence will return at the moment of restful sleep regained and the stars, reassured, will once more rest their gaze on a Nature breathing easefully and returned to a state of contentment. What now wears the mask of horror already conceals the grandeur of a noble transformation; with regret and almost with a certain wistfulness we will recall those interminable nights when, through some miraculous transformation in our self, we sensed a new destiny forming in our blood and time’s warm breath upon our waking lids. Only he who has lived through sickness knows the joy of the man in good health, only the insomniac knows the relief of sleep regained. Those who have returned and those who have stayed behind will be more content with life than those who have passed on: they will be able to weigh its true value and inherent beauty more precisely and accurately, and we might almost talk of a sense of anticipation for the new order, were it not for the fact that today, as in ancient times, the tiles of the temple of peace are splashed with sacrificial blood and this new blessed sleep of the world has only been bought with the death of millions of its noblest creations.
THE MOST ANCIENT legends of humanity tend to be inspired by our earliest origins. The symbols of these origins harbour a wonderful poetic force, announcing as they do the great moments of a later history in which peoples renew themselves and the most significant epochs have their roots. In the books of the Bible, from the very opening pages, just after the chaos of creation, one of the most impressive myths of humanity is told.
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