Does this not embody the upspringing force of Guynemer's brilliant
youth?
Throughout France some sort of miracle was expected: Guynemer must
reappear--if a prisoner he must escape, if dead he must come to life.
His father said he would go on believing even to the extreme limits of
improbability. The journalist who signs his letters from the front to
_Le Temps_ with the pseudonym d'Entraygues recalled a passage from
Balzac in which some peasants at work on a haystack call to the postman
on the road: "What's the news?" "Nothing, no news. Oh! I beg your
pardon, people say that Napoleon has died at St. Helena." Work stops at
once, and the peasants look at one another in silence. But one fellow
standing on the rick says: "Napoleon dead! psha! it's plain those people
don't know him!" The journalist added that he heard a speech of the same
kind in the bush-region of Aveyron. A passenger on the motor-bus read in
a newspaper the news of Guynemer's death; everybody seemed dismayed. The
chauffeur alone smiled skeptically as he examined the spark plugs of his
engine. When he had done, he pulled down the hood, put away his
spectacles, carefully wiped his dirty hands on a cloth still dirtier,
and planting himself in front of the passenger said: "Very well.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287