Everybody scattered

No dia 15 de Abril de 1912, na sua viagem inaugural, afundava-se    o maior navio transatlântico alguma vez  construído. Augurava-se a era do catastrofismo tecnológico e findava assim, ominosa, a visão prometeica da tecnociência e da inovação tecnológica como o caminhar jubiloso do espírito humano. Transcorridos dois anos iniciava-se a Primeira Guerra Mundial, e nunca um naufrágio, naufrágio com muitos espectadores, terá tido tamanha potência metafórica e parabólica outorgada pelo devir histórico. (Hans Blumenberg, no ensaio Naufrágio com Espectadores, escreveu com detença sobre as virtudes metafóricas do naufrágio).

Em 1920, John dos Passos publicava Three Soldiers, novela ímpar sobre a Primeira Guerra Mundial, e aí um provável duo toca e canta uma canção popular sobre o drama do Titanic (as  suas famosas folk songs, cujas letras, "newsreels",  são a expressão e parábola do espírito do tempo)  .

Mesmo antes de acabarem a canção, a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody scattered.

One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the guitar.

"No, give us the 'Titanic.'"

The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high.

"Dis is de song ob de Titanic,

 Sailin' on de sea."

The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him curiously.

"How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg,

 How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg

 Sailin' on de sea."

His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the strumming faster.

"De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue,

 Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue,

 Sinkin' in de sea.

O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,

O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea,

Roun' dat cole iceberg,

Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'

Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee.'"

The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.

A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.

The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro sang in low confidential tones.

"O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,

 O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea,

 Roun' dat cole iceberg."

Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody scattered.

John dos Passos, Three Soldiers