The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre

Author:Jean-Paul Sartre [Sartre, Jean-Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1963-09-19T14:00:00+00:00

Monday, 26 September

FOUR-THIRTY. Everybody looks at the sky, and I look at the sky. ‘They’re not late,’ says Dumur. He has his Kodak ready, he looks up at the sky, and blinks in the blazing sunshine. The plane is a black speck that glitters now and again, it grows larger but the sound of it remains—a fine rich sound, very satisfying to the ear. ‘Don’t push,’ I say. They are all there, jostling round me. I turn: they tilt their heads back, they blink too. They look green in the sunlight, and they move with a sort of jerky indecision rather like decapitated frogs. Dumur said: ‘One day we’ll be standing like this in a field with our noses in the air: but we’ll be in khaki, and the plane will be a Messerschmitt.’ And I reply, ‘And pretty soon too, with such fatheads to look after our affairs.’ The plane circles round, then drops, bumps on the ground, rises, bumps again, runs jerkily over the grass, and comes to a standstill. We run towards it, fifty of us, Sarraut ahead of the rest, bent nearly double: a dozen gentlemen in bowler hats scurry across the turf, everybody stands still, the plane is lifeless, we eye it in silence, the cabin door stays shut, the occupants might be dead. A man in a blue tunic brings a ladder and puts it against the plane, the door opens, one man comes down the ladder, then another, then Daladier. My heart throbs inside my head. Daladier lifts his shoulders and lowers his head. Sarraut goes up to him and I hear him say: ‘Well?’

Daladier takes a hand out of his pocket and waves it vaguely. He hurries forward with head bent, and the crowd throngs round him. I don’t move, I know he will say nothing. General Gamelin jumps out of the plane, a brisk little man in elegant field-boots and with a bulldog head. He looks at the scene with a fresh and lively eye.

‘Well?’ said Sarraut. ‘Well, general? Is it war?’ My mouth dries up: I can’t bear it. I shout to Dumur: ‘I’m going, you must take your photographs alone.’ I dash to the exit and out on to the road, I hail a taxi: ‘ To the Humanité office!’ The driver smiles, I smile too, and he says: ‘Well, comrade?’

‘It’s comet’ I reply. ‘They’ve got it in the pants: they couldn’t dodge it this time.’

The taxi rattles along, I look at the houses and the people: they know nothing, they ignore the taxi, and the taxi rattles past them carrying a man who does know. I look out of the window, I want to shout—The day has come! I jump out of the taxi, I pay, I dash upstairs. There they all are—Dupré, Charvel, Renard, and Chabot: in shirt-sleeves, Renard smoking, Charvel writing, Dupré looking out on to the street. They look at me with astonishment. I say to them: ‘Come along out, boys, the drinks are on me.

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