Antoine was born in Lyon, in the ancient knightly family of origin, although his father was only an insurance inspector, they lived in the ancestral castle of Saint-Maurice-de Reman (Saint-Maurice-de-Remens).
In 1932 the family for a symbolic sum sold the crumbling family nest local school. In the end the castle fell into disrepair. Fortunately, ten years ago, it was decided to organize the Museum Exupery – the last knight of the twentieth century.
His armor was aluminum siding light post aircraft. And covers of books. All of his novels about the Crusades of the heart. Freedom to stay where hard. With those who are ill.
crashes in the Libyan desert, where people without water evaporates over nineteen hours, Antoine said to his companion in misfortune, the mechanics of the Provost: “It is not we are in distress. Distress those who are waiting for us”.
Going to the front of the Second world war, he charged the doctors of aviation in age and state of health, writes to his wife: “I know only one way to be in harmony with his own conscience: this way not to evade suffering.”
His favorite time of day was early morning when mechanics RUB your eyes and uncover the screws of aircraft, and the pilot goes to forecasters for the weather. 31 July 1944 at eight o’clock forty-five minutes the plane of the major de Saint-Exupery rose into the air and went in the direction of Lyon.
In recent letters Exupery a lot of thought, addressed to posterity. He knew what kind of chaos we will face.
Visibility of kindness on Earth decreased to a critical level. Life has become like a landing blind. The soul does not see where it land.
But near – Exupery. He is no stranger.
– what a pathetic representation of the culture of the spirit the one who believes that it is based on the knowledge of formulas, the memorization of the results achieved. The mediocre pupil of the Polytechnic school, finished the course last, he knows about nature and its laws more than Descartes, Pascal and Newton. But never he never will come such a turn of mind which occurred to Descartes, Pascal and Newton. For those first brought up his soul.
– For me, it’s better to be sold a hundred copies of the book for which I do not blush than six million copies of some text. It is not that other, as properly understood selfishness, because one hundred copies will work harder than six million. The deification of the number – another modern myth.
– Ah, General, the whole world is set before one, one. To restore people’s spiritual significance. Spiritual anxiety. It is impossible to continue to live for refrigerators, politics, games, cards and crossword puzzles! It’s unbearable. Unbearable to live without poetry, without color, without love. Yes, one has only to listen to a country song of the FIFTEENTH century, to measure the depth of our fall! All we are left with is a voice that broadcasts the robot propaganda. Two billion do not hear anything, except the robot. And they turn themselves into robots.
– the life of the spirit begins where the visible existence is born out of something that is above constituent elements.
– I hate the era, made man, quiet, polite and obedient beast. And we are forced to recognize this moral progress.
– Fools are very dangerous. And even intelligent people, when they gather together. Intelligence is the road. A hundred roads at once – has the market square. It has no meaning. Leads to despair.
– there’s nothing I can buy with the money such that would have cost more than a pleasure to say what I wanted.
Antoine Exupery
Beat in the sky springs and after the death
Of them flows a silent world.
it in His hands, as if in an envelope,
Bear where light does not.
And let him for a long time is not enough,
But only prick beam of a he the heart of darkness
And immediately the night of the universe will melt,
until dawn we will not perish.
Nikolai Zabelin
Moscow
Write to Dmitry Shevarov: dmitri.shevarov@yandex.ru
