Henri Guillaumet, my comrade,
I dedicate this book to you
The earth helps us understand ourselves in a way that no books can help. For
the earth resists us. A person learns about himself in the fight against obstacles. But
for this struggle he needs tools. You need a plane or plow. Peasant,
cultivating his field, little by little he wrests from nature the answer to some of her secrets and
obtains universal truth. Likewise, an airplane is a weapon that lays
airways - introduces a person to eternal questions.
I will never forget my first night flight - it was over Argentina,
the night became dark, only twinkling like stars scattered across the plain
rare lights.
In this sea of darkness, every light announced the miracle of the human spirit. At
in the light of that lamp someone is reading, or deep in thought, or believing
the most secret things to a friend. And here, perhaps, someone is trying to cover
the vastness of the Universe or struggles with calculations, measuring the nebula
Andromeda. And they love it there. Lonely lights are scattered in the fields, and everyone needs
food. Even the most modest ones - those that shine for a poet, a teacher, a carpenter. Burning
living stars, and how many still closed windows there are, how many extinct stars,
how many people have fallen asleep...
Let each other know. I would like to call you, lights scattered in
fields - perhaps others will respond.
This was in 1926. I then became a pilot for an airline company
Latecoer, which, even before Aeropostal and Air France, established
connection between Toulouse and Dakar. Here I learned our craft. Like
my other comrades, I had an internship, without which a newcomer will not be trusted
mail. Test flights, Toulouse - Perpignan flights, tedious lessons
meteorology in a hangar, where no teeth were met. We were still afraid
mountains of Spain unknown to us and looked at the “old people” with respect.
We met the “old men” in the restaurant - they were gloomy, perhaps even
closed, condescendingly giving us advice. It happened that one of them
returning from Casablanca or Alicante, he arrived later than everyone else, in a leather jacket, still
wet from the rain, and one of us would timidly ask how the flight was, and
behind the short, meager answers we saw an extraordinary world, where everywhere
traps and traps lie in wait, where a steep cliff suddenly rises in front of you
a rock or a whirlwind blows up, capable of uprooting mighty cedars. Black
dragons block the entrance to the valleys, mountain ranges are crowned with sheaves of lightning.
The “old men” skillfully kept us in awe. And then someone
did not return from them, and the living remained forever to honor his memory.
I remember how Bury, an old pilot, returned from one such flight,
crashed later in Corbières. He sat down at our table and ate slowly, without
saying not a word; the weight of the exorbitant tension still weighed on his shoulders.
What is it about the collection of essays “Planet of People” that readers remember, a brief summary of which will be discussed in this article?
First of all, because this work is devoted to such important issues for every person as the meaning of life on earth, a sense of honor and duty, the meaning of love, and an understanding of one’s purpose.
The work was published in the distant but alarming year of 1939 (remember that for the French this date was tragic; it was in 1939 that the Second World War began, in which France found itself under the yoke of Hitler’s Germany for several years).
Let us briefly consider the main plot lines of this collection of essays, as well as its ideological concept.
The story of one pilot
As we all know, the profession of a pilot appeared at the beginning of the last century. In all countries where airplanes began to appear, it was extremely popular. Courageous and courageous young men dreamed of soaring into the sky on their iron birds to make discoveries, overcoming obstacles.
So was the author of the collection of essays, who talks about his travels by plane. The book “Planet of Humans” tells us, on the whole, a very simple story about how a pilot, who is also the narrator, does his job every day - transporting mail from Spain to Africa and back.
The collection of essays is autobiographical in nature, but it can hardly be called an adventure work; rather, we have philosophical reflections presented in the form of a work of art. Moreover, the author often moves away from the external outline of his narrative, paying more attention to the internal reflections of his characters (this technique was generally more characteristic of French literature of that time; Marcel Proust called it the use of a “stream of consciousness” to characterize the mental experiences of his heroes).
However, let’s return to the collection of essays by Exupery “Planet of People” itself (a summary of the chapters of this work will be presented below).
Storyline of the collection of essays
So, we have decided that in the collection of essays the author talks about the fate of a pilot who, like a peasant, interferes with the laws of nature. But if the farmer conquers the soil and forces it to produce a harvest, then the lord of the heavens tries to overcome space, like birds soaring into the sky.
However, the work of a pilot is very dangerous. Exupery, with sad irony, talks about the adventures that awaited the protagonist both in heaven and on earth. First of all, this concerned aircraft breakdowns, which were inevitable. Such breakdowns often happened in the desert, where there was not a single living soul. The main character himself more than once had to find himself in situations from which he might not get out alive.
Man’s struggle with nature, with himself, with external circumstances is the central idea of this work.
Fates of comrades
Finding himself in an airline that is engaged in rather dangerous postal transportation, the main character talks about the fate of his comrades. The summary of “Planet of People” is precisely the stories of each person with whom the pilot had to meet.
For example, the collection of essays tells the story of a brave man named Mermosa. He founded a new route between Europe and Africa, and he had to fly over the Sahara Desert, which was very dangerous.
However, Mermoza showed miracles of fearlessness. He encouraged others by his example. He suggested flying over the desert at night, because the hot sand made it impossible to do this during the day. But one day his radio station went silent forever, most likely, this brave man crashed over the ocean.
And many more such examples can be given...
Guillaume's Way
Exupery's "Planet of Men" tells the story of the disappearance of Guillaume's plane. They looked for him and waited for five long days. The comrades decided that Guillaume died either during the landing or could not withstand the harsh climatic conditions. However, exactly 5 days later the news came that the pilot was able to miraculously survive. He had to go through inhuman trials, but he overcame everything and returned to conquer the sky again.
Vocation and life
In Exupery's "Planet of People", quotes from which every French schoolchild knows, there are many reflections on the role of man in the life of the Universe. On the one hand, the author points out that human civilization is incomparably small compared to the greatness of the natural world and the infinity of outer space. But on the other hand, the author himself claims that human civilization is like gilding that adorns our Universe. And although people often do not think about why they came into this world, the world around them is full of secrets, mysteries and majestic inspiration.
Slave story
Exupery tells his readers a lot about what the heroes of “Planet of People” always turn out to be either an example to follow or to be reprimanded.
The story of a slave whom the main character ransomed from the Arabs is interesting. He remained in slavery for a very long time, but he remembered his real name, his distant family, and the business he had once been involved in. When the slave received his long-awaited freedom, he behaved in an unusual way. I bought sweets and gifts and began giving them to the children. This is how he celebrated his release after many decades of captivity, this way this man was able to preserve both his will and his dignity.
The book “Planet of People” reveals many more similar stories to readers.
Doomed Mozarts
Continuing his thoughts, the author turns to another picture that he happened to see in one of the 3rd class carriages. It carried Polish workers who were evicted from France by order of the authorities. These uneducated people, exhausted by hard physical labor, were similar to each other. To the author, they resembled lumps of clay, which a heavy press turns into a kind of lifeless material. The author looked at these workers and thought that in each such person, perhaps, was hidden a Mozart, whose talent was not realized because he found himself in life circumstances that were completely incompatible with his gift.
Exupery's "Planet of People" tells many such life stories. All of them contain the fates of people who can either still fight for their right to remain human, or are already ready to surrender to the mercy of fate.
History of water
Therefore, the falling rains were perceived by the natives as a real miracle of God. The author laughs about the fact that some of the indigenous inhabitants of Africa, who accidentally found themselves in France, were amazed not by the beauty of its cities, but by the abundance of water sources. Moreover, they were even ready to accept the faith of the French, naively deciding that the God of the French was stronger and more powerful if he gave people so much water.
The author compares the mentality of his compatriots with these seemingly wild peoples. The conclusion he draws is not comforting for the French: the inhabitants of Africa seem much more reasonable to the main character. After all, they are very careful about the natural environment that surrounds them.
“Planet of People” by Exupery: reviews from contemporaries
The collection of essays by the writer turned out to be in demand among his contemporaries. During the period between the two world wars, Europe was rocked by contradictions. The old world order was collapsing before our eyes, a new one was born in the pain and blood of World War II.
New writers were needed, new literature that would offer a pure and unclouded view of the events taking place in the country and in the world.
The collection of essays “Planet of People”, a brief summary of which we reviewed in this article, became such a fresh breath of clean air.
It should be noted that even today this collection of essays attracts readers with its simplicity and deep meaning.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944) legendary French author and no less legendary pilot. A participant in the Second World War, awarded the Military Cross of the French Republic, laureate of international literary awards. His books - “Southern Post Office”, “Night Flight”, “Planet of People”, “Military Pilot” and even “The Little Prince” - grew out of the personal experience of a civilian and military pilot, journalist, traveler, person...
My acquaintance with the incredible works of this amazing author began with “The Little Prince”. Not even from a book, but from a cartoon - the latest film adaptation, which, by the way, is the most complete and accurate. The director of the film revived the author's illustrations and even took a risk and composed an ambiguous, but very close to the original, continuation of the world-famous story. The book turned out to be even more amazing. Prose is like thunder, here every sentence has value and weight. Just like The Prince (which most readers consider a fairy tale), this is a very adult book.
“Planet of People” turned out to be even stronger, deeper, more assertive. This is the prose that rushes at you, screams in your face. The author traveled all his life and accomplished many feats. Having become interested in his biography, I learned that he crashed, like most of his Comrades “... the engines were unreliable then.” But even before the disaster, he again and again faced mortal threats (in war and during flights) and therefore knew the value of life. Her taste.
The novel is small, only eight chapters on 190 pages, but it was not easy to get through, despite the fact that the dense and powerful prose is difficult to put down. I want to quote whole pages of the work, which I re-read several times. Still, this is one of the author's main books. One of the most valuable is the one containing truth. Before his final crash in 1944, Exupery was repeatedly trapped in the war and in other plane crashes... In complete despair and loneliness, he shared his thoughts and experiences. From most of these recordings a novel was born.
The novel is voluminous in content. Lifelong. All-encompassing, absorbing and transformative. Yes, yes, Antoine is one of those writers who can give you a good shake, and when you think you are lost, at the very bottom or have lost your bearings, he will point the way in the right direction. Sometimes, while reading, there was a feeling that the author rejoiced, admired and mourned all of humanity.
So, what is this “Planet” about?
“You comprehend the meaning of the visible world through culture, rank and your craft. The sea of clouds is visible to the inhabitants of the mountains, but they do not see the enemy’s curtain in them.”
About the aviators who marked on the map not the city, but three orange trees growing on its edge and a shepherdess with a herd of sheep, which every now and then suddenly rush under the wheels. For all the delights and joys of life consist of such little things.
About responsibility. Along with letters to the pilot, people entrusted their experiences and emotional impulses.
About the demands of craft that transform the world.
About nature. It would seem that the plane distances a person from her, but no - her laws become even more commanding. The stormy sky calls the pilot to the court of the elements, and alone, he defends the right to his cargo.
II. COMRADES
“When you fly through a night in which a hundred thousand stars are burning, and your soul is clear, and your mind is clear, and for that moment you are omnipotent!”
About courage. The pilots began a battle with an unknown enemy and, not knowing whether it was possible to come out of such a fight alive, paved the air route for others. “They conquered sands and mountains, the night and the sea swallowed them up. But they returned and hit the road again.”
About real friends who exist somewhere - silent, forgotten, but always faithful. And when their paths cross, how happy they are to each other. And to wait for these rare meetings... “...they are used to waiting”
About the greatness of any craft, because it unites people.
About memories that give hope, because after being shipwrecked in the Sahara there is nothing left but memories. And if you have someone to share them with, they become real treasures!
III. AIRPLANE
“Compared to the history of mankind, which is two hundred thousand years old, 100 years of a machine is such a small thing! We are just beginning to settle in among the mines and power plants. We are barely starting to settle into this house. We haven't even finished building it yet. Everything around is changing so quickly: relationships between people, customs. And our inner world is shaken to its very core. Although the words remained – separation, absence, distance, return – their meaning became different.”
About perfection. Wanting to achieve it, the attractiveness of inventions is lost. Exupery flew in the rain with an open cockpit and every flight seemed like a feat. But, “at the time of conquest we thought like soldiers, now the time has come for settlers” and modern aircraft can no longer see how they were created...
IV. PLANE AND PLANET
“I tried to excite you, open your eyes to the vast world, tried to seduce you with stories about my adventures, about mortal dangers!”
About loneliness, in which only people tend to isolate themselves.
About the inner world that separates us from each other. “Dreams stand between me and this girl. How to overcome such an obstacle?
And the magic that is present in every craft. One day Antoine landed on a virgin plateau. I have been measuring untouched sand with my feet since the beginning of time. He poured it into his palms and was the first to break the silence here. And collected meteorites! About one per hectare “all of them, like drops of frozen lava, are as hard as black diamond” – the author’s language is immensely expressive!
“The girls looked at me searchingly, like judges guarding the entrance to the forbidden kingdom; the youngest, slightly pouting her lips, tapped a freshly cut twig on the floor...”
Exupery writes that behind the fence of some garden there are more secrets than behind the Chinese Wall, and silence protects our soul, more reliably than the endless sands of the Sahara protect a lonely oasis.
A whole world lives in each of us. Each of us is a whole universe.
VI. IN A DESERT
“To understand the Sahara, it’s not enough to visit an oasis, you have to believe in water as in God.”
Here Antoine talks about the deep detachment that the Saharawis experienced. The music in the hut of one such wanderer spoke in a half-forgotten language, awakening a vaguely insatiable sadness. And these renegades spent their nights alone with the winds and stars.
About the silence that has reigned in the desert for centuries. Deep and indestructible, it can drive a traveler crazy.
Of course, about water... When there is light rain in the Sahara at least once a year, all of it begins to move. The tribes move 300 kilometers away, to where the grass grows...
VII. IN THE HEART OF THE DESERT
“Night approaches and you become a recluse in it, immersed in the secrets of inevitable rituals, in doubts that no one will resolve...”
This is one of the most difficult parts to understand. Exupry describes here the most terrible plane crash and long wanderings in the desert that he experienced.
“Again I touched the truth and, without understanding, passed by. I already thought - this is death, the limit of despair, and then, having abandoned all hope, I found peace of mind.”
Here Antoine will talk about a miraculous rescue. About how our destinies are intertwined and influence each other. We are all for one thing, carried away by the same planet. Crew of one ship.
And about spiritual fullness and peace of mind, which most of us strive for. And nothing compares to them. The eternal wanderer – Comrade Bonnafou – knew this spiritual clarity, as did the author of “Planet of Humans” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Rating: 10
I read “The Little Prince” as a child, and now I’ve gotten to “Planet of Humans”. This is the first, after the previous two novels I read by Exupery, in which I finally begin to recognize him as a deep philosopher and a Man with a capital M, familiar to me from The Little Prince. The book is rich in thoughts that torment every person whose soul has not yet died. Some thoughts are not suitable for quotation for only one simple reason - they are expressed in a relatively large amount of text. Here are some of the most striking fragments, the length of which allows them to be quoted:
“The earth helps us understand ourselves in a way that no books can. For the earth resists us. A person discovers himself in the fight against obstacles. But for this fight he needs tools. We need a plane and a plow.”
“By working only for material benefits, we are building a prison for ourselves. And we lock ourselves in alone, and all our riches are dust and ashes, they are powerless to give us something worth living for.”
“His main greatness lies in the consciousness of responsibility. He is responsible for himself, for the post office, for his comrades who hope for his return. Their grief or joy is in his hands. He is responsible for everything new that is created there, below, among the living, he must participate in creation. He is responsible for the destinies of humanity - after all, they also depend on his work.”
“Being human means feeling that you are responsible for everything.”
“It seems to us that a machine is destroying a person, but perhaps our lives are simply changing too quickly, and we cannot look at these changes from the outside.”
“The one who works with a pickaxe wants there to be meaning in every blow. When a convict uses a pickaxe, each blow only humiliates the convict, but if the pickaxe is in the hands of a prospector, each blow elevates the prospector. Hard labor is not where they work with a pickaxe. It's not terrible because it's hard work. Hard labor is where the blows of a pickaxe are meaningless, where labor does not connect a person with people.”
The previous quote is especially close to me now. It happens that you do the same work, but the meaning is put into it differently. It's one thing when there are people for whom you do this work. Only they will be able to appreciate it, and one “Thank you” is enough to make the fatigue go away. It’s another matter when they begin to approach the evaluation of work from a formal point of view, measuring its value in the hours spent on it. This approach does not involve setting goals and achieving them, it involves a never-ending process without progress.
“You can dig up forgotten wooden idols, you can resurrect old, old myths that, for better or worse, have already shown themselves, you can again instill in people faith in Pan-Germanism or the Roman Empire. You can fool the Germans with arrogance because they are Germans or Beethoven's compatriots. This can turn the head of the last chimney sweep. And this is much easier than awakening Beethoven in a chimney sweep.”
Well, of course, I can’t ignore the famous quote:
“Why should we hate each other? We are all at the same time, carried away by the same planet, we are the crew of one ship. It’s good when something new, more perfect, is born in a dispute between different civilizations, but it’s monstrous when they devour each other.”
“To free us, you just need to help us see the goal to which we will go side by side, united by the bonds of brotherhood - but then why not look for a goal that will unite everyone?”
“It is not the ugliness of this shapeless, crumpled human clay that is painful. But in each of these people, perhaps, Mozart has been killed.”
“The Spirit alone, touching clay, creates Man from it.”
The novel, or rather a collection of essays, is designed for leisurely and thoughtful reading. As far as I understand, Exupery's novels are autobiographical. This novel is no exception. I recommend reading it to all people who consider themselves thoughtful, whatever that means :)
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Planet of People
Henri Guillaumet, my comrade,
I dedicate this book to you.
Preface
The earth helps us understand ourselves in a way that no books can help. For the earth resists us. A person learns about himself in the fight against obstacles. But for this fight he needs tools. You need a plane or plow. The peasant, cultivating his field, little by little wrests from nature the solution to some of its secrets and obtains the universal truth. Likewise, an airplane - a tool that paves air routes - introduces a person to eternal questions.
I will never forget my first night flight - it was over Argentina, the night was dark, only rare lights scattered across the plain twinkled like stars.
In this sea of darkness, every light announced the miracle of the human spirit. By the light of that lamp over there, someone is reading, or deep in thought, or confiding their most secret secrets to a friend. And here, perhaps, someone is trying to cover the vastness of the universe or struggling with calculations, measuring the Andromeda nebula. And they love it there. Lonely lights are scattered in the fields, and everyone needs food. Even the most modest ones - those that shine for the poet, the teacher, the carpenter. Living stars are burning, but how many still closed windows are there, how many extinguished stars, how many sleeping people...
Let each other know. If only I could call you, the lights scattered in the fields, perhaps others will respond.
I. LINE
This was in 1926. I then became a pilot for the Latecoer airline, which, even before Aeropostal and Air France, established a connection between Toulouse and Dakar. Here I learned our craft. Like my other comrades, I underwent an internship, without which a newcomer would not be trusted with mail. Test flights, Toulouse-Perpignan flights, tedious meteorology lessons in the hangar, where no teeth were met. We were afraid of the still unknown mountains of Spain and looked at the “old people” with respect.
We met “old men” in a restaurant - they were gloomy, even, perhaps, withdrawn, and condescendingly gave us advice. It happened that one of them, returning from Casablanca or Alicante, arrived later than everyone else, in a leather jacket still wet from the rain, and one of us timidly asked how the flight was - and behind the short, meager answers we saw an extraordinary a world where traps and snares lie in wait everywhere, where a sheer cliff suddenly rises in front of you or a whirlwind blows in, capable of uprooting mighty cedars. Black dragons block the entrance to the valleys, mountain ranges are crowned with sheaves of lightning. The “old men” skillfully kept us in awe. And then one of them did not return and the living remained to forever honor his memory.
I remember how Bury, an old pilot who later crashed in Corbières, returned from one such flight. He sat down at our table and ate slowly, without saying a word; the weight of the exorbitant tension still weighed on his shoulders. It was in the evening, on one of those vile days, when along the entire route, from end to end, the sky seemed rotten, and the pilot seemed as if the mountain peaks were rolling in the mud - just like on ancient sailing ships, guns were torn from their chains and furrowed the deck , threatening death. I looked at Bury for a long time and finally, swallowing, I dared to ask if the flight was difficult. Buri was gloomily bending over the plate; he did not hear. In an airplane with an open cockpit, the pilot leans out from behind the windshield in bad weather in order to see better, and the air flow continues to lash his face and whistle in his ears for a long time. Finally Bury seemed to wake up and hear me, raised his head and laughed. It was wonderful - Bury did not laugh often, this sudden laughter seemed to illuminate his fatigue. He did not talk about his victory and silently began to eat again. But in the intoxication of the restaurant, among the petty officials who were consoling themselves here after their miserable everyday worries, in the guise of a comrade whose shoulders were weighed down by fatigue, an extraordinary nobility suddenly revealed itself to me: from the rough shell, for a moment, an angel who defeated the dragon appeared.
Finally, one evening they called me into the boss’s office. He said briefly:
- You are flying tomorrow.
I stood and waited for him to let me go now. But after a pause he added:
- Do you know the instructions well?
In those days, engines were unreliable, not like today. Often, for no apparent reason, they let us down: suddenly there was a deafening roar and ringing, as if dishes were breaking into pieces, and we had to go to land, while the prickly rocks of Spain grinned towards us. “In these places, if the engine is finished, it’s the end of the plane!” - we said. But the plane can be replaced. The most important thing is not to crash into a rock. Therefore, under pain of the most severe punishment, we were forbidden to go above the clouds if there were mountains below. In the event of an accident, the pilot, while descending, could crash on some peak hidden under the white wool of clouds.
That is why that evening, at parting, a slow voice once again insistently inspired me:
- Of course, it’s not bad - to go over Spain by compass, over the sea of clouds, it’s even beautiful, but... - And even more slowly, with the arrangement: - ... but remember under the sea of clouds - eternity... .
And now the peaceful, serene expanse that opens up to the eye when you emerge from the clouds immediately appeared before me in a new light. This meek calm is a trap. “I already imagined a huge barking trap lurking far below. It would seem that beneath it the bustle of people, the noise, the restless life of cities was boiling - but no, there is silence even more complete than above, an indestructible and eternal peace. A white viscous mess became for me the boundary* separating existence from non-existence, the known from the incomprehensible. Now I realized that you comprehend the meaning of the visible world only through culture, through knowledge and your craft. The sea of clouds is also familiar to the inhabitants of the mountains, But they do not see a mysterious veil in it.
I left the boss proud, like a boy. At dawn, my turn will come, they will entrust passengers and African mail to me. What if I'm not worth it? Am I ready to take on such responsibility? There are too few landing sites in Spain; if even a small breakdown occurs, will I find shelter, will I be able to land? I bent over the map as if over a barren desert, and could not find the answer. And so, on the eve of a decisive battle, overcome by pride and timidity, I went to Guillaume. My friend Guillaume already knew these routes. He learned all the tricks and tricks. He knows how to conquer Spain. Let him let me in on his secrets too. Guillaume greeted me with a smile.
- I already heard the news. Are you happy? He took a bottle of port and glasses from the closet and, still smiling, came up to me.
- Such an event needs to be sprayed down. You'll see, everything will be fine!
Confidence emanated from him, like light from a lamp. A few years later, he, my friend Guillaume, made record flights with mail over the Cordillera and the South Atlantic. And that evening, sitting under the lamp, which illuminated his shirt, his crossed arms and a smile that immediately perked me up, he said simply:
- You will have troubles - thunderstorm, fog, snow - you cannot do without it. And you think like this: others have flown, they went through it, so I can do it too.
I nevertheless unfolded my map and asked him to look over the route with me. He leaned over the illuminated map, leaned on his friend’s shoulder—and again felt calm and confident, as in his school days.
It was a strange geography lesson! Guillaume did not give me information about Spain, he gave me its friendship. He did not talk about water basins, population or livestock. He was not talking about Guadiz, but about three orange trees that grow on the edge of a field not far from Guadiz. “Beware, mark them on the map...” And from that hour on, three trees occupied more space on my map than the Sierra Nevada. He was not talking about Lorca, but about a small farm near Lorca. About the life of this farm. About her owner. And about the hostess. And this couple, lost in the vastness of the earth more than a thousand kilometers away from us, grew immeasurably in my eyes. Their house stood on a mountain slope, their windows shone from afar, like stars - like lighthouse keepers, these two were always ready to help people with their fire.
This is how we retrieved from oblivion, from the unimaginable distance, the smallest details that no geographer has any idea about. After all, geographers are interested only in the Ebro, whose waters quench the thirst of large cities. But they don’t care about the stream that hides in the grass west of Motril, the breadwinner and waterer of three dozen wildflowers. “Beware of this stream, it spoils the field... Put it on the map too.” Oh yes, I will remember about the Motril snake? She looked so harmless, with her soft murmur she could only lull a few frogs to sleep, but she herself slept with half an eye. Hidden in the grass hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away, she lay in wait for me at the edge of the saving field. At the first opportunity, she would turn me into a sheaf of fire...
I was also ready to meet the pugnacious sheep that always graze over there, on the hillside, and the next moment they would rush at me. “You look - the meadow is empty, and suddenly - bam! - all thirty sheep rush right under the wheels...” And I smiled in amazement at such an insidious threat.
So little by little Spain on my map, under Guillaume’s lamp, became some kind of fairy-tale country. I marked landing sites and dangerous traps with crosses. I noticed a farmer on the mountain and a stream in the meadow. I carefully mapped a shepherdess with thirty rams, just like in the song - a shepherdess who is neglected by geographers.
Then I said goodbye to Guillaume, and I wanted to walk a little, breathe in the frosty evening air. Having raised my collar, I walked among unsuspecting passers-by, young and zealous, I was surrounded by strangers, and I was proud of my secret. They don’t know me, poor fellows, but at dawn with a load of mail they will trust me with their worries and emotional impulses. They will put their hopes into my hands. And, buried in my collar, I walked among them as a protector and patron, and they knew nothing.
The signs that I caught in the night did not reach them either. Now, if a snow storm is brewing somewhere and will interfere with my first flight, my life may depend on it. One by one, the stars go out in the sky, but what do passers-by care about? I was the only one who understood what this meant. Before the battle they sent me news about the enemy's location...
Meanwhile, I received these signals, filled with such meaning for me, near brightly lit windows where Christmas gifts sparkled. It seemed that that night all earthly goods were on display there, and I was intoxicated by the proud consciousness that I was giving up all this. I am a warrior, and I am in danger, what do I need sparkling crystal to decorate evening feasts, what do I need lampshades and books? I was already enveloped in fog; flight pilot, I have already tasted the bitter fruit of night flights.
At three o'clock they woke me up. I opened the window, saw that it was raining outside, and concentrated and earnestly got dressed.
Half an hour later I was sitting, straddling my suitcase, on the shiny wet sidewalk, waiting for the bus. How many comrades before me experienced the same endless minutes on the day of initiation, and their hearts sank in the same way? Finally, he turned around the corner, this antediluvian, rattling carriage, and after his comrades it was my turn to rightfully take a place on a cramped bench between a sleep-deprived customs officer and two or three officials. The bus smelled of a musty and dusty office, an old office where human life gets bogged down, like in a swamp. Every five hundred meters the bus stopped and picked up another clerk, another customs officer or inspector. The new arrival said hello, and the sleepy passengers muttered something incomprehensible in response; he squeezed himself between them and also fell asleep. As if in some kind of sad train, they were shaking on the uneven Toulouse pavement, and at first the regular pilot was indistinguishable from all these office workers... But street lights floated past, the airfield was approaching - and the old, shaky bus became just a gray cocoon, from from which a person will come out transformed.
There was such a morning in the life of every comrade, and he also felt that in him, in his subordinate, whom every inspector could still poke with impunity, was born the one who would soon be in charge of the Spanish and African mail: the one who, in three hours, among lightning, he will fight with the dragon of Hospitalet, and four hours later he will emerge victorious from this battle;
and then he will be free to choose any path - a detour over the sea or an attack, straight through the Alkoi Ridge - he will argue with the thunderstorm, and with the mountains, and with the ocean.
There was such a morning in the life of every comrade, and he, lost in a faceless and nameless group of people under the gloomy sky of winter Toulouse, just felt how a ruler was growing within him, who in five hours would leave behind winter and the north, rains and snows and, able Having set the speed, it will slowly descend into summer, into Alicante, bathed in the dazzling sun.
The old bus is long gone, but it is still alive in my memory, hard, cold and uncomfortable. It was precisely a symbol of indispensable preparation for the harsh joys of our craft. Everything here was imbued with strict restraint. I remember, three years later, on the same bus (not even a dozen words were spoken) I learned of the death of Lecrivan, one of our many comrades who, on a foggy day or foggy night, retired forever.
It was just as early - three o'clock in the morning, and the same sleepy silence, when suddenly our boss, indistinguishable in the semi-darkness, called out to the inspector:
- Lecrivan did not land in Casablanca at night.
-- A? - the inspector responded.
Suddenly torn from sleep, he shook himself with effort, trying to show his zealous interest in the service.
-- And what? Did he fail to pass? Did you turn back? From the depths of the bus they only answered:
-- No.
We waited, but didn't hear another word. The seconds fell heavily, and little by little it became clear that after this “no” nothing more would be said and that these “nos” were a cruel and final verdict: Lecriven not only did not land in Casablanca - he would never land anywhere again .
So that morning, at the dawn of my first postal flight, I, like all my fellow craftsmen, submitted to the unshakable order, and looked out the window at the asphalt glistening in the rain, in which the lights of the lanterns were reflected, and felt that I was not too confident in myself . The wind caused ripples across the puddles, similar to palm branches. “Yes... I’m not very lucky for the first flight...” I thought. And he said to the inspector:
— Does the weather seem unimportant? The inspector glanced wearily at the window.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he grumbled, hesitating.
How then can you tell whether the weather is bad or good? The night before, Guillaume, with his one smile, destroyed all the unkind prophecies with which the “old men” oppressed us, but then they came to my mind again: “If the pilot did not study the entire route by heart and ends up in a snowstorm. - I can say one thing, I feel sorry for him, poor guy!" They needed to maintain their authority, so they shook their heads, and we shivered in embarrassment under their sympathetic glances, feeling like pathetic simpletons.
Indeed, for many of us, this bus turned out to be our last resort. How many were there - sixty? Eighty? Everyone was driven by the same silent driver on a stormy morning. I looked around: fiery points were glowing in the darkness, each one flared up and then faded in time with the smoker’s thoughts. The wretched thoughts of aging officials... For how many of us have these satellites replaced the funeral cortege?
I listened to the conversations in a low voice. They talked about illnesses, about money, and confided boring household chores to each other. Behind all this stood the walls of a sad prison where these people imprisoned themselves. And suddenly I saw the face of fate.
Old official, my neighbor on the bus, no one ever helped you escape, and it’s not your fault. You built your quiet little world, tightly walled up all the leads to the light, like termites do. You curled up in a ball, took refuge in your philistine well-being, in your inert habits, in your musty provincial way of life; you erected this wretched stronghold and hid from the wind, from the sea surf and the stars. You don’t want to bother yourself with great tasks; you already had to work hard to forget that you are a human being. No, you are not an inhabitant of a planet rushing through space, you do not ask questions that have no answer: you are simply an ordinary citizen of the city of Toulouse. No one grabbed you or held you in time, and now it’s too late. The clay from which you were molded has dried and hardened, and nothing in the world will be able to awaken in you the sleeping musician, or poet, or astronomer who, perhaps, once lived in you.
I'm no longer offended by the rain that pours into the windows. The magical power of my craft opens up another world before me: in just two hours I will fight with black dragons and mountain ranges crowned with a mane of blue lightning, and with the onset of night. Having broken free, I will make my way through the stars.
This is how our baptism of fire took place, and we began to work on the line. Most of the time the flights went smoothly. Calmly, like experienced divers, we plunged into the depths of our possessions. Today they are no longer an unknown element. The pilot, flight mechanic and radio operator no longer set off at random; the plane is a laboratory for them. They obey not the landscape sliding under the wing, but the trembling of the arrows. Behind the walls of the cabin, mountains are drowning in darkness, but these are no longer mountains, these are invisible forces whose approach must be calculated. The radio operator, by the light of a lamp, diligently writes down numbers, the mechanic makes notes on the map, and if the mountains are blown to the side, if the peaks that the pilot intended to go around to the left turn silently right in front of him, like an enemy army in ambush, he simply straightens the course.
And on the ground, the radio operators on duty, listening to the voice of their comrade, all diligently write down at once: “0 hours 40 minutes. Course 230. All is well on board.”
This is how the crew of an airship travels these days. He doesn't even notice that he's moving. Like at night at sea, he is far from any landmarks. But the engines fill everything with a continuous shudder, and this makes the cabin no longer just an illuminated room. And time goes by. And behind all these dials, radio tubes, hands, there is a certain invisible alchemy at work. Second by second, mysterious gestures, muffled words, concentrated attention are preparing a miracle. And at the appointed hour, the pilot can confidently look outside. Gold is born from nothingness, it sparkles with landing lights.
And yet, this has happened to each of us: on a flight two hours from the airfield, you think and suddenly feel such loneliness, such isolation from everything in the world, which you would not experience even in the very heart of India, and it seems there will be no return.
This was the case with Mermoz when he first crossed the South Atlantic in a seaplane and approached Pot-au-Noir in the evening. With every minute the tails of the hurricanes converged closer and closer in front of him, as if a wall was being erected before his eyes, then night fell and hid these preparations. And an hour later he turned out from under the clouds and found himself in an enchanted kingdom.
Tornadoes rose in front of him, they seemed motionless - the black columns of an unprecedented temple. At the top they widened, supporting the low, gloomy vault of the storm, but through the gaps in the vault they fell wide. streaks of light, and the full moon shone between the columns, reflected in the cold slabs of water. And Mermoz made his way through these ruins, where not a single soul had ever entered, slid along the lunar channels, among the buoys of light that marked the winding fairway, skirted the giant rattling columns of the ocean standing on end - he walked for four hours to the exit from the temple. This formidable grandeur was stunning, and only when Pot-au-Noir was left behind did Mermoz suddenly realize that he had not even had time to be afraid.
I also remember such hours when you leave the real world: that night all the radio bearings sent from the airfields of the Sahara were incredibly distorted and completely confused me and my radio operator Neri. Suddenly, through a gap in the fog below us, water flashed, and I turned sharply towards the shore, but it was impossible to understand how far we had gone above the sea.
How do we know if we will reach the shore now? Maybe there won't be enough fuel. And even if we get there, we still need to find a landing site. Meanwhile, the moon was already setting. It became increasingly difficult to measure the drift - and we, already deaf, gradually became blind. The moon was fading into the fog, like a smoldering coal in a snowdrift. The sky above us was also covered with a cloudy veil, and we floated between the clouds and fog, in a dim, dead emptiness.
The airfields that responded to our call could not determine where we were. “We can’t give a bearing... We can’t give a bearing...” they repeated, because our voice reached them from everywhere and nowhere.
And suddenly, when we were already despairing, a fiery point flashed ahead, to the left on the horizon. I was overjoyed. Neri leaned towards me, and I heard him sing! Of course, this is an airfield, of course, a lighthouse!
After all, there is nothing else to shine here - at night the entire huge Sahara plunges into darkness, it all seems to be dying out. But the light flickered a little and went out. It was a setting star; it appeared just for a few minutes above the horizon, between the clouds and a veil of fog, and we set course towards it...
And then more and more lights appeared in front of us, and with vague hope we set course for each new light. And if it did not fade away immediately, we put it to the test.
“We see a fire,” Neri reported to the airfield in Cisneros. “Extinguish and light the beacon three times.”
Cisneros extinguished and relit his beacon, but the cruel light that we eagerly followed, the incorruptible star, did not blink.
And even though the fuel was running low, we always fell for the golden hook: now there was a real lighthouse ahead! Now this is an airfield - and life!.. And again we changed the star.
That’s when we felt that we were lost in space, among hundreds of inaccessible planets, and who knows how to find that real, that only planet of ours, on which there remained familiar fields and forests, and a beloved home, and everyone who is dear to us...
The only planet... I'll tell you what kind of picture I saw then, although perhaps you will consider it childish. But even in a moment of danger you remain a human being with all human worries, and I was hungry and thirsty. If only we get to Cisneros, I thought, we’ll fill the tanks with fuel and hit the road again, and then early in the morning we are in Casablanca. It is done! Neri and I will go to the city. Some small bistros are already open at dawn... We sit down at a table, they serve us fresh bagels and coffee with milk, and we laugh at the dangers of the past night. Neri and I will accept the morning gifts of life. So it would be difficult for an old peasant woman to feel God if she did not have a bright icon, a naive amulet, a rosary; In order for us to hear, we must be spoken to in simple and understandable language. So the joy of life was embodied for me in the first sip of a fragrant, burning drink, in a mixture of coffee, milk and wheat - in these bonds that connect us with peaceful pastures, with exotic plantations and mature fields, with the whole Earth. Among the great many stars, only one filled the cup of our morning meal with this fragrant drink in order to become closer and more understandable to us.
But between our airship and that inhabited planet, insurmountable distances widened. All the riches of the world remained on a tiny grain of sand, lost among the constellations. And the astrologer Neri, trying to recognize her, still in vain conjured the luminaries.
Suddenly he hit me on the shoulder. The cuff was followed by a note. I read: “Everything is fine, I receive an excellent message.” With my heart beating, I waited for him to finish the few words that would save us. And finally this gift from heaven is in my hands.
Casablanca contacted us from where we had flown out the night before. The message was delayed on the way and unexpectedly overtook us two thousand kilometers away, when we were lost somewhere over the sea, between clouds and fog. It came from the state controller of the airport in Casablanca. The radiogram said: “Mr. de Saint-Exupéry, I have to ask Paris to impose a penalty on you: when taking off from Casablanca, you turned around too close to the hangars.” Yes, it’s true, I turned around too close to the hangars. It is also true that this man scolded me simply out of duty. And in the airport office I would humbly listen to the reprimand. But where it overtook us, it was out of place. It sounded wildly among these rare stars, in the thick fog, over the sea, which breathed menace. We were handed the fate of the mail, and the plane, and our own fate; It was not an easy task to stay alive, and here the man was taking out petty anger on us. But Neri and I were not at all indignant; on the contrary, we suddenly became cheerful and even rejoiced. He helped us make a discovery: here we are our own masters! So, this corporal didn't notice by our stripes that we were promoted to captain? He interrupted our thoughts halfway from Ursa Major to the constellation Sagittarius, and was it worth worrying about little things when the only thing that could alarm us was the betrayal of the moon...
The duty of the planet from which this man spoke was direct and its only duty was to provide us with accurate data so that we could calculate our path among the stars. And these data turned out to be incorrect. And she should keep quiet about everything else for now. And Neri writes to me: “Rather than fool around, it would be better if they led us somewhere...” They - this meant: the entire population of the globe, all peoples with their parliaments and senates, with armies, fleets and emperors. And, rereading the message of the fool who decided to settle scores with us, we turned to Mercury.
An amazing accident saved us. No longer hoping to reach Cisneros, I turned at right angles to the shore and decided to stay on this course until my fuel ran out. Then maybe we won't fall into the sea. Unfortunately, the imaginary beacons lured me God knows where. And, unfortunately, at best, we will have to dive into thick fog in the middle of the night, so most likely we will crash upon landing. But I had no choice.
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry is an outstanding French writer and professional pilot. This man miraculously combined two completely dissimilar crafts, managing to achieve significant success in both fields.
Exupery put his memories and thoughts about his favorite activity - flying - in literary form. The sky inspired the writer’s story “The Pilot”, the story “Military Pilot”, the novels “Southern Postal”, “Night Flight” and “Planet of People”.
His creations became not just informative chronicles or memoirs of a pilot, but the first works about flights from a professional pilot with deep philosophical reasoning and vivid artistic images.
The sky attracted Antoine De Saint-Exupéry from a very young age. It had some inexplicable power over him, so the boy could look at the endless expanses of heaven for a long time. For this oddity, little Antoine was nicknamed Lunatic by his peers.
Exupery made his first flight at the age of 12. Of course, he was not the one driving the car then. At the helm was the famous pilot Gabriel Wrablewski. After a kind of baptism of fire, Antoine did not take to the skies for nine years. Having been drafted into the army in 1921, Exupery was assigned to a fighter aviation regiment. This event played a decisive role in the further choice of profession. Antoine fell selflessly and forever in love with the sky.
He reports this in letters to his mother (“I adore this profession!”) and shares it with readers on the pages of his works. It was the love of flying and dedication to professional duty that became the main reasons why, during the war, Exupery took to the skies, becoming a military pilot. Despite the persuasion of his friends, who highly valued his literary talent, he did not want to sit out in the rear and met his death at the controls of a combat aircraft.
The body of the pilot Exupery was never found. For a long time he was considered missing. Fragments of the aircraft, allegedly controlled by Saint-Exupéry, were recovered from the seabed only in 2000. But this is just a formality - the glory of literary works has long since resurrected its creator.
"Planet of People"
The novel "Planet of Men" (1939) is one of the most autobiographical. The author and the main character merge into one person. The work is a collection of memories, reports, philosophical reflections, and therefore lacks traditional plot.
Talking about the events experienced during the years of his pilot’s career, Saint-Ex (Exupéry’s friendly nickname) talks about such realities as duty, responsibility, and human destiny. The author describes two worlds in which he was lucky enough to live. This is the space of heaven and the space of earth. Polarly different, they are in close interaction with each other, creating a single universe - the Planet of People.
"Line", "Comrades"
The memoirs of the author-protagonist begin in 1926, when he, a young pilot, had just joined the Latecoer company. The task of Exupery and his colleagues was to deliver mail from France to Africa. Latecoer was the first to establish connections between Toulouse and Dakar (the westernmost city in Africa), so many of the airline's pilots were pioneering reconnaissance aircraft.
The narrator talks about how difficult the work of a research pilot is, how important it is to know the route you are flying by heart, and what dangers await the person at the helm. It allows the reader to look at the world through the eyes of a pilot. So, for an airplane passenger, clouds are nothing more than a dull white mess; for a pilot, they are an important landmark, a map of the area, a rich source of information. Mountains for an ordinary person are a majestic example of beauty and inspiration, but for a pilot they are a mortal danger.
Saint-Ex recalls with reverent awe the “old men,” experienced pilots. Even though they were a little arrogant towards the youngsters, they always helped with practical advice and were treasure troves of invaluable experience, which can sometimes cost one’s life.
A young pilot talks about his comrades. He remembers the scout Mermoz, who conquered the sands and snow. He died without returning from another reconnaissance flight. He admires the feat of Guillaume, who, having suffered a shipwreck, walked through the snow for days on end, despaired a thousand times, prepared to face death, but still did not give up and survived.
This "terrible" technological progress
Technological progress has its supporters and opponents. The latter believe that machines destroy people. The author is sure that the machine itself is not terrible, it is only a means. There is nothing harmful in it if it is used to achieve a good purpose. However, people, Exupery ironically, are just “young savages” who “are not tired of marveling at new toys.”
Thus, the technical improvement of aircraft has turned into a race between companies, countries, and individual inventors. Driven by the excitement of competition, humanity has completely forgotten why the aircraft actually needs to be improved. And so that cargo is delivered to remote corners of the planet, so that there is communication between countries, so that pilots and passengers do not die.
It is this miracle machine that turns the pilot into a wanderer, into an explorer of new worlds. The most impressive discovery for the pilot Exupery was the Sahara.
"Oasis", "In the Desert", "In the Heart of the Desert"
Before describing the desert, the narrator shares his impressions of the oasis - one of the most mysterious wonders of the world. The pristine garden, surrounded by desert sands, hides more secrets than the Great Wall of China.
The author recalls one of his stops. This happened near Concordia. He became a guest of a secluded house in which one family led their quiet life. In the middle of the desert, the stone structure seemed like a real fortress, and inside it was a new earthly paradise. The hospitable owner invites the guest into the house. The rooms smell of old books, and this aroma permeates all objects, like church incense.
The pilot meets two beautiful inhabitants of the “fortress” - the daughters of the owner. Young girls are afraid of the stranger. Their spontaneity, modesty, and virginal beauty delight the pilot Exupery. He calls the girls fairies of the oasis and sadly imagines how they will grow up and “some idiot will take them into slavery.”
The oasis is behind. Acquaintance with the desert begins. Due to his duty, Exupery spent three long years in the Sahara. During this time, he learned to read the desert, feel its mood, recognize sand signals of danger. He knew the painful taste of thirst and believed in water as in God.
Sahara is conducive to philosophy. The narrator talks about loneliness and the transience of time. Usually people don't notice how time passes. They squander its precious grains on trifles, while the best earthly gifts slip through their fingers. Being in the Sahara, far from the bustle of the world, Exupery thinks with horror about how quickly life goes by. The scary thing is not that youth is fading, but that there, far away, the whole world is aging.
Fascinating but dangerous
Sahara is not only bliss and tranquility. Its sands are fraught with many dangers. The pilots have to deal more than once with rebels from unconquered tribes who are in the habit of executing captured Europeans. Fortunately, for Exupery and his comrades, the meetings with the savages were quite peaceful and even educational.
And one day the desert almost destroyed Saint-Ex. Having crashed, Exupery and the mechanic Prevost found themselves captive in sand hundreds of kilometers from civilization. For several days they suffered from thirst and went crazy from mirages. And when the sticky breath of death was already constricting the throat, the unfortunate ones were saved by a local Bedouin.