Letter to a Hostage by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Author:Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography, Classics, Personal Memoirs, Philosophy, Essays
ISBN: 9781507166369
Google: zUDnDQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B06XSVF2VJ
Publisher: Babelcube Inc.
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

IT WAS WHILE REPORTING on the Civil War in Spain. I had unwisely been watching, disguised, the loading of secret material in a goods yard towards three o’clock in the morning. The movement of the squads and a certain darkness seemed to favour my indiscretion. But I must have looked suspicious to some anarchist militia.

It was very simple. I had not the faintest notion of their stealthy and silent approach, before they had closed in on me, gently, like the fingers of a hand. The barrels of their guns pressed tightly against my stomach, and there was a solemn silence. At last I put up my hands.

I noticed that they were staring, not at my face, but at my tie (such luxury was not fashionable in an anarchist area). My skin tightened. I waited for the shot, for this was the time of quick trials. But there was no shot. After a complete blank of a few seconds, during which the shifts at work appeared to dance in another universe––a kind of dream ballet––my anarchists, slightly nodding their heads, bid me precede them, and we set off, without hurry, across the lines of the junction. The capture had been done in perfect silence, with an extraordinary economy of movement. It was like a game of creatures of the ocean bed.

I soon descended to a basement transformed into a guard post. Badly lit by a poor oil lamp, some other militia were dozing, their guns between their legs. They exchanged a few words, in a neutral voice, with the men of my patrol. One of them searched me.

I can speak Spanish, but I do not know Catalan. Yet I understood that my papers were requested. I had left them at the hotel. I replied: “Hotel … journalist …” without knowing whether my words meant anything to them. My captors handed round my camera as evidence to convict me. Some of those who were yawning, lounging on their rickety chairs, stood up with a bored expression, and propped themselves against the wall.

For the dominant impression was that of boredom. Boredom and sleep. The power of concentration of these men seemed to be exhausted. I almost wished for a sign of hostility, as a human contact. But even they did not grant me any sign of anger, not even of reprobation. Several times I attempted to protest in Spanish. But my protestations came to naught. They gazed at me without any reaction, as if they were looking at a Chinese fish in an aquarium.

They were waiting. What were they waiting for? The return of a companion? The dawn? I thought: “Perhaps they are waiting for hunger.” I also thought: “They are going to do a silly thing. It is absolutely ridiculous …” My feeling then, more than anguish, was a disgust of absurdity. I thought: “If they wake up, if they want to act, they will shoot!”

Was I really in danger? Did they still ignore the fact that I was neither a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.