Book//mark – The Twenty-Fifth Hour | Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, 1949

0
Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu The Twenty Fifth Hour 1949

Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, 1916-1992 / Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, The Twenty-Fifth Hour, 1949

“I feel that something of immense import is taking shape around us. I know neither when it started nor where it first broke out, nor how long it will last, but I am conscious of its presence. We are caught up in a vortex, and it will tear away the flesh from our limbs and crush every bone in our bodies. I feel this thing coming, as rats feel it when they abandon a sinking ship. But we cannot swim ashore; for us there is no shore.”

“It’s not regret for staying. It is nostalgia for something that we believe is true in our illusion, something we will never have. And if we touched it, we would soon realize that it was not what we dreamed of.”

“Class is the most brutal and most terrible deception of all opinions that have ever invaded the human mind. We must not forget that our enemy is a person, not a class.”

“The world is about to enter its twenty-fifth hour, after which the sun will never shine on human civilization, and after which a new day will not come. It is the hour when human beings will turn into a thoughtless minority with no job other than managing, maintaining and cleaning the hordes of machines.”

“The mechanical slave,” answered Traian Koruga. “You know him, too, George. The mechanical slave is the servant who waits on us daily in a thousand ways. He drives our car, switches on our light, pours water on our hands when we wash, gives us massage, tells us funny stories when we turn on the radio, lays out roads, breaks up mountains.”

He knew the women had been sent to make love with the prisoners. The Germans maintained that the level of production was increased when the prisoners made love. And the Germans wanted efficiency. The reason why they had sent the women along was so that the men should work more efficiently in the button factory, the rope factory, and in the foundry on the outskirts of the town.

“The human being is losing its existence, since its thirst for freedom and justice has become a symbol of its madness.”

“The Twenty-fifth Hour, the hour when mankind is beyond salvation – when it is too late even for the coming of the Messiah. It is not the last hour; it is one hour past the last hour. It is Western Civilization at this very moment. It is now.”

Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, The Twenty-Fifth Hour, 1949

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *