Afloat (Sur l'eau)

by Guy de Maupassant

A stranger utters a cry, and behold! a sort of frenzy takes possession of all, and all, with the same impulse, which no one tries to resist, carried away by the same thought, which instantaneously becomes common to all, notwithstanding different castes, opinions, beliefs, and customs, will fall upon a man, murder him, drown him, without a motive, almost without a pretext, whereas each one of them, had he been alone, would have precipitated himself, at the risk of his life, to save the man he is now killing.

And in the evening, each one on returning home, will ask himself what passion or what madness had seized him, and thrown his nature and his temperament out of its ordinary groove; how he could have given way to this savage impulse?

The fact is, he had ceased to be a man, to become one of a crowd. His personal will had become blended with the common will, as a drop of water is blended with and lost in a river.

His personality had disappeared, had become an infinitesimal particle of one vast and strange personality, that of the crowd. The panics which take hold of an army, the storms of opinion which carry away an entire nation, the frenzy of dervish dances, are striking examples of this identical phenomenon.

In short, it is not more surprising to see an agglomeration of individuals make one whole, than to see molecules, that are placed near each other form one body.

To this mysterious attraction, must without doubt be attributed the peculiar temperament of theatre audiences, and the strange difference of judgment, that exists between the audience of general rehearsals, and that of the audience of first representations, and again between the audience of a first representation, and that of the succeeding performances, and the change in the telling effects, from one evening to another; and the errors of judgment condemning a play like Carmen, which, later on, turns out an immense success.

What I say about crowds, must be applied to all society, and he who would carefully preserve the absolute integrity of his thought, the proud independence of his opinion, and look at life, humanity and the universe as an impartial observer free from prejudice, preconceived belief and fear, must absolutely live apart from all social relations; for human stupidity is so contagious, that he will be unable to frequent his fellow-creatures, even see them, or listen to them, without being, in spite of himself, influenced on all sides by their conversations, their ideas, their superstitions, their traditions, their prejudices, which by their customs, laws and surprisingly hypocritical and cowardly code of morality, will surely contaminate him.

Those who strive to resist these lowering and incessant influences, struggle in vain amidst petty, irresistible, innumerable and almost imperceptible fetters; and through sheer fatigue soon cease to fight.

But a backward movement took place in the crowd; the newly-married couple were coming out. And immediately I followed the general example, raised myself on tip-toe to see,—and longed to see,—with a stupid, low, repugnant longing, the longing of the common herd. The curiosity of my neighbours had intoxicated me; I was one of a crowd.