At first, in spite of the sensation of the bombardment, I was disappointed with everything. Formerly I had often wondered why people so seldom were able to live for an ideal. Now I saw that many, yes, all men, are capable of dying for an ideal, provided that such an ideal is not personal, not chosen of their own free will. For them it had to be an ideal accepted by and common to a great number. But with time I saw that I had underestimated men. Although service and a common danger renders them uniform, I saw many, living and dying, approach fate magnificently. Not only in an attack, but the whole time, many, very many of them had a fixed, far-away look, rather like that of a person possessed, a look which indicates entire ignorance of the end pursued, and a complete surrender of self to the unknown. No matter what they might believe and think they were ready, they were there in case of need, out of them would the future be formed. And, however strongly the world’s attention appeared to be focused on war and heroic deeds, on honor and other old ideals, however distantly and unnaturally sang the voices of humanity--all this was merely the surface, just as the question with regard to the foreign and political aims of the war was superficial. Deep down, below the surface of human affairs, something was in process of forming. Something which might be a new order of humanity. For I could see many--many such died at my side--to whom the understanding was brought home that hate and rage, murder and destruction had no connection with the real object of the war. No, the object, just as the aims in view, was purely a matter of chance. Their deepest and most primitive feelings, even their wildest instincts were not actually directed against the enemy, their murderous and bloody work was an expression of their own inner being, of their cleft soul, which wished to rave and kill, to destroy and die, in order to be able to be born anew. A giant bird was fighting its way out of the egg, and the egg was the world, and the world had to go to ruin. One night in early spring I was doing sentry duty in front of a farm we had occupied. The wind was blowing in fitful gusts, shrieking and moaning according to the vagaries of its mood; over the high Flanders sky rode an army of clouds, somewhere or other behind was a suspicion of moon. I had been restless throughout the whole of that day, troubled by cares which I could not precisely define. Now, at my dark post, I thought with fervor of the picture of my life up to that time, of Mother Eve, of Demian. I stood leaning against a poplar, staring into the agitated sky, the mysterious quivering brightness of which soon resolved itself into a series of pictures. I felt by the odd slowness of my pulse, by the insensibility of my skin to wind and rain, by the lively wakefulness of my inner being, that a guide was near me.