“What was the second occasion? Oh, yes. The second was even more startling. You need to know that in that cultural organization a lecture would last at least an hour and a half. Professor Dr. Blutholz, privy councillor and well-known philosopher, was lecturing on his favorite topic, a very popular one in Germany, On the First-Order Metaphysical Roots of the Intelligible World and Their Four Metaphysical Determinants; he was warming a little to his excitingly attractive exposition and had been speaking for two whole hours without pause. At that point the president opened his misty eyes. Like a man rising from the deepest metaphysical depths, he didn’t know where he was, didn’t know whether the concluding speech came next, and just looked at the lecturer and the audience like visions in a nightmare. Fortunately, however, Professor Dr. Blutholz announced at that moment that after that brief introduction he would at last move on to his subject proper. That sentence had the effect on the president of the chloroform that merciful anesthetists promptly drip onto the mask of the restlessly moaning patient, strapped down on the operating table, who regains consciousness in the course of the operation. He too instantly subsided, he too ‘moved on to his subject proper’: he slept on, nice and evenly.
“What did he dream of at such times? On this point opinions differed. The German women, who — as I’ve hinted — are sensitive and romantic, said that in his dreams he obviously saw little roe deer, and ran about in the meadows of his long-past childhood, butterfly net in hand. Zwetschke, who was interested in psychoanalysis at the time, considered it likely that the president was weaving a dream which would advance his sleeping, and as his sole desire was to sleep, according to him the dream could only reflect the fulfilment of that desire in alluring little images: the lecturer would crash down from the rostrum, split his skull, and die horribly, the audience would rush upon one another in blind panic, a war of extermination would break out among them, they would shriek and die, covered in blood, the chandeliers would go out, darkness would enfold it all, the walls of the Germania would collapse, and the president would finally close the session and go home to sleep in his feather bed. In principle I agreed with this interpretation. The only thing that hurt me was that the distinguished psychiatrist had such a role in mind for the president, whom I knew to be one of the gentlest men in the world. I suggested that even in his dream he would refrain from thoughts of murder and violence. I put it to my friend that the president’s interest was not in the closing of the session but its continuation. I rather imagined, therefore, that in his dream the president constantly saw Count Leo Tolstoy visiting his humble Darmstadt society, there to read the three fat volumes of War and Peace from beginning to end, which in the first place would be a great honor to German culture, and second would guarantee the president of the Germania at least a week of uninterrupted slumber. To this day I feel proud that the excellent Zwetschke accepted my explanation.
“I repeat, the president was a kindly man, noble, tolerant, and broad-minded. It was because of his broad-mindedness that he slept. What else could he have done? I, a young man of twenty, fit as a fiddle, with nerves of steel, who had listened only for nine months, day after day, to those lectures which he as president must have listened to for fifty-seven years, I went to pieces and developed alarming symptoms. As a result of the nauseating stupidity and eccentric bragging generally called lyric poetry, the dull and insipid nonsense which generally passed for science, that man-pleasing hairsplitting, that hodgepodge of theories generally called politics, one night in my student room I suffered a fit of rage, suddenly began to go crosseyed and shout, and bellowed at the top of my voice for two hours until the faithful Zwetschke hurried to my bedside and administered scopolamine, which — as you will know — is usually used to calm raving lunatics. Imagine what would happen to that respectable president, who truly deserved a better fate, if he had not discovered in early life the sole solution, and his healthy spirit had not taken the stand that it had against injury. It must have been simply his instinct for self-preservation that suggested it to him. By it, however, he saved not only himself but also culture, science, and literature too, saved his nation, and also humanity as it strove toward progress.
“Yes, his sleep was the very fulfillment of national and human obligation. As he slept objectively, impartially, apolitically and without bias, to left and right equally, toward men as toward women, toward Christians and Jews alike, in brief, as he slept without regard to distinctions of age, sex, or religion, it appeared that he closed his eyes to all human failings, and not only did it ‘appear,’ but it was in fact so. Believe me, that sleep was veritable approval. The sleeper nods, thereby approving everything. I’ll venture to state that at times in the honorable paneled lecture hall of the Germania, even the most forbearing member of the audience wished the lecturer to Hell, wished that he might have a seizure, that cancer of the tongue might render him dumb, distend his revolting mouth — and only one single person showed himself at all times tolerant toward him, the president, who was always asleep. Like outspread angelic wings, his sleep fluttered above millions upon millions of foolishnesses and vanities of the human spirit, above sterile ambition and paltry attention-seeking, the St. Vitus’ dance of envy and meanness, all the nastiness and futility that is public life, science, and literature. Qui tacet consentire videtur.* He that is silent agrees to everything. But is there so true an agreement as sleep? His sleep was a bulwark against vandalism, it was reassurance, the saving of society; it was understanding itself, forgiveness itself.
“My friends, a sleeper is always understanding and forgiving. A sleeper can never be hostile to us. The moment he goes to sleep he turns his back on the world, and all hatred, all wickedness cease to be as far as he is concerned, as they cease for the dead. The French have a saying, ‘To go away is to die a little.’ That I’ve never believed, because I love traveling, and every time that I get on a train I feel revitalized. To sleep, however, is certainly to die a little, and not a little but a lot, as much as departing life (which, when all’s said and done, is nothing more than awareness of the self), as much as dying completely for a short time. This is precisely why the person who is asleep leaves the field, turns his will — with its sharp, damaging point — inward, and behaves toward us with the indifference of one who began long ago to decay. Who wants a greater benevolence on this earth? I have always insisted on respect for those who are asleep, and will not allow them to be disturbed in my presence. ‘Nothing but good of the sleeper’ has been my slogan. Frankly, I don’t understand why we don’t occasionally celebrate sleepers, why we don’t toss onto their beds at least a flower, why we don’t organize a minor, heartwarming wake after they go off, because we are for a while free of their often burdensome, often dull company, and why, when they wake, we don’t play children’s toy trumpets and so proclaim our daily resurrection. That’s the least they deserve.