It was a celebate villager who wrote, "We know not where we are. Besides, we are all sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have established order on the surface." Such a surface makes possible human combinations and moments of tender regard. It is a mad thing, to be alive. Villages exist to moderate this madness--to hide it from our children, to bottle it for private use, to smooth its imperatives into habits, to protect us from the darkness without and the darkness within.