> from this we pass on to other, more familiar forms of survival. in the preceding chapters there has been frequent mention of killing. a man is confronted by the enemy. it may be a single enemy, whom he can ambush or fight an open duel with; it may be a pack which he feels closing in on him; or it may be a whole crowd. in this last case he will not be fighting alone, but together with his own people. the higher his rank, however, the more he will feel that survival is his sole right: it is generals who "win". but, since many of his own people as well as of the enemy will have fallen, the heap of the dead is a mixed one, consisting of friends and enemies alike; in this respect battles are "neutral", like epidemics. > at this point we pass from killing to dying, dying on the most colossal scale known, that is, in epidemics and other natural catastrophes. in these anyone who survives, survives all who are mortal, friend and foe alike. all normal ties are dissolved, and dying becomes so universal that no-one even knows who it is that is being buried. of great significance in this context are the continually recurring stories of people who come back to life in the midst of a heap of the dead, who wake amongst the dead. such people tend to think of themselves as invulnerable, plague-heroes as it were. > the satisfaction which follows individual deaths is more moderate and more concealed. the victims may be friends or relatives and there is no question of active killing and no sense of being attacked. nothing is done to hasten death, but it is waited for. the young survive the old; sons their fathers. a son finds it natural that his father should die before him. filial duty hurries him to the death-bed, to close his father's eyes and carry him to his grave. during this period, which may last for days, he has his father lying dead before him.
Israel