Let us make room. Let us fill the holes. Or let us spread and open our arms to let the newcomers into our circle. No matter what we do, it will be a Dance of Death.
I have been living for too long already.
Yet I still want to experience the arrival of the contemporary, of the new middle ages, and not miss the atomic era. I even held on to my seat on the first train leaving for the moon!…
Blaise Cendrars, Bourlinguer [1948] (Paris: Folio, 2016), 337–338. My translation. My emphasis.