I believe in the virtue of the common people. I believe in the virtue of the small number.
The world will be saved by a few.
1 Lecture given in Bayrouth in April and in Brussels in June 1946.
1a d’Urien, a pun on the words du rien, all about nothing. Translator’s note.
2 Just translated by Dorothy Bussy and published under the title Fruits of the Earth. Translator’s note.
1b Egoism. Translator’s note.
1c Thoughts. Translator’s note.
23 PREFACE TO VOL DE NUIT1
FOR the airplane companies, it was a question of vying in speed with the other means of transportation. That is what Rivière, the admirable figure of a captain in this book, will explain: “For us it is a question of life or death, since each night we lose the advantage gained over the railroads and the ships during the day. This nightly service, much criticized at first, then accepted, and become practical after the risk of the first experiments, was still, at the time of this story, very dangerous; to the impalpable perils of the aerial routes strewn with surprises, can now be added the treacherous mystery of the night. However great the risks still are, I hasten to say that they become less and less each day, each new trip facilitating the next one and making it a little safer. But just as there is a first heroic period for the exploration of unknown lands, so there is for aviation, and Vol de Nuit, which depicts for us the tragic adventure of one of those pioneers of the air, naturally takes on an epic tone.
I like Saint-Exupéry’s first book, but this one even more. In Courrierr-Sud2 a sentimental intrigue, which brings the hero close to us, is mingled with the memories of the aviator and noted with striking exactitude. Ah! how human we feel him to be, how vulnerable, in his susceptibility to tenderness. The hero of Vol de Nuit, not dehumanized to be sure, rises to superhuman courage. I think that what especially pleases me in this thrilling story, is its nobility. The weaknesses, the abandons, the downfalls of man, we know only too well, and the literature of our times is only too skillful in denouncing them; but this transcendence of oneself, obtained only by a straining of the will, is what we need above all to have someone demonstrate to us.
Still more astonishing than the character of the aviator appears to me that of Rivière, his captain. He does not act himself; he makes others act, breathes courage into his pilots, demands from them their best, and constrains them to valor. His relentless determination does not tolerate weakness, and, by him, the slightest flinching is punished. At first glance, his severity appears inhuman, excessive. But it is to the imperfections that it is applied, not to the man himself, that Riviere intends to form. Throughout this picture can be felt the admiration of the author. I am particularly grateful to him for throwing light on this paradoxical truth that, for me, is of considerable psychological importance: that the happiness of man is not in liberty, but in the acceptance of a duty. Everyone of the characters in this book is ardently, totally devoted to what he ought to do, to that dangerous task in whose accomplishment alone he will find the repose of happiness. And one perceives that Riviere is by no means callous (nothing more touching than the story of the visit he received from the wife of the lost pilot) and that it requires no less courage for him to give orders than for his pilots to execute them.
“To make oneself loved,” he will say, “pity is sufficient. I do not pity very much, or I conceal it.… I am surprised at my power sometimes.” And again: “Love those whom you command, but without telling them so.”
Thus it is that the sentiment of duty dominates Rivière; “the hidden sentiment of duty, greater than that of loving.” Let not man’s aim be himself, but subordination and sacrifice to something which dominates him and lives on him. And I like to find here again that “hidden sentiment” that made my Prometheus say, paradoxically: “I do not love man, I love what devours him.” That is the source of all heroism: “We act,” thought Riviere, “as though something surpassed human life in value.… But what?” And again: “Perhaps something else to save, something more durable, exists; perhaps it is to save that part of man that Rivière works.” We do not doubt it.
At a time when the idea of heroism tends to desert the army, since the manly virtues risk remaining without employment in to-morrow’s wars of which the chemists invite us to foresee the future horror, is it not in aviation that we see courage displayed most admirably and usefully? The pilot, who risks his life continuously, has some right to smile at the idea that we generally have of “courage.” Will Saint-Exupéry permit me to quote one of his letters, already old; it goes back to the time when he was flying over the Mauritania to ensure the service between Casablanca and Dakar:
“I do not know when I shall return, I have so much work to do: searching for lost comrades; repair service for planes fallen in disaffected territories, and some mail services for Dakar.”
“I have just succeeded in a little exploit: passed two days and two nights with eleven Moors and a mechanic to save a plane. Various and serious alerts. For the first time, I have heard bullets whistling over my head. At last I know what I am in this atmosphere: much calmer than the Moors. But I have come to understand too, something that had always surprised me: why Plato (or Aristotle?) puts courage in the last line of virtues. It is not made up of very fine feelings: a little anger, a little vanity, a great deal of obstinacy and an ordinary sporting pleasure. Above all the excitement of physical strength which, nevertheless, has nothing to do with it. You cross your arms over your open shirt and take a deep breath. It is rather agreeable. When that takes place at night, there is mixed with it the feeling of having committed a great stupidity. Never again will I admire a man who is merely courageous.”
I could add, as an epigraph to that quotation, an apothegm taken from the book of Quinto (that I am far from approving always):
“One conceals one’s bravery like one’s love”; or better said: “The brave hide their acts as upright people their charity. They disguise them or make excuses for them.”
Everything that Saint-Exupéry relates, he speaks of “in full knowledge of the facts.” The personal facing of frequent danger gives his book an authentic and inimitable flavor. We have had numerous war stories or imaginary adventures in which the author sometimes gives evidence of versatile talent, but which makes real adventurers or combatants who read it smile. This tale, whose literary merit I admire also, has, besides, documentary value, and these two qualities, so unexpectedly united, give to Vol de Nuit its exceptional importance.
1 Night-Flight. Translator’s note.
2 Southern Mail. Translator’s note.