Histoire

- 1938, 21x27cm, 1 page sur un feuillet. - 1938, 21 x 27cm, 1 page on one leaf. "We were branches of the same tree" Original autograph manuscript by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, one page written in black ink on a leaf of white paper, several crossings out, corrections and re-writings. Remarkable working manuscript for one of the most beautiful passages in Terre des Hommes. Emblematic page of Saint-Exupéry's great humanist and romantic adventure, which celebrates the fortuitous union of beings constrained by the elements and by history. Magnificent example of the writer-aviator's narrative dialogues, mixing his memories of the Spanish war and his rough landings with Henri Guillaumet in the Sahara, pondering the bonds of camaraderie, "cette unité qui n'a plus besoin de langage" "this unity that no longer needs language", that speak for themselves when on the brink of death together. The leaf, testimony of the writing process of this text, presents several crossed out passages different to the published text, in the final chapter of Terre des Hommes (chapter 8 "Les Hommes"), following the account of his famous accident in Libya and his rescue by the Tuaregs. In this passage between adventure story and meditation, the desert nights are accompanied by a portrait from his stay in the heart of "Espagne ensanglantée " "bloody Spain": the writer addresses a sergeant he met on the Madrid front, "petit comptable quelque part à Barcelone" "little accountant somewhere in Barcelona", waking up from a final assault that will surely cost him his life. This largely crossed out passage highlights Saint-Exupéry's intense questioning of the power of this unfailing commitment, beyond that of life and death, that he himself had experienced in the heart of the western Sahara: "Que trouvais-tu ici, sergent, qui t'apportât le sentiment de ne plus trahir ta destinée ? Peut-être ce bras fraternel qui souleva ta tête endormie, peut-être ce sourire tendre qui ne plaignait pas, mais partageait ? [...] nous avons connu cette union quand nous franchissions, par équipe de deux avions, un Rio de Oro insoumis encore " "What did you find here, Sergeant, that brought you the feeling of no longer betraying your destiny? Perhaps that brotherly arm that lifted your sleepy head, perhaps that tender smile that did not pity, but shared? [...] we experienced this union when we crossed, in teams of two planes, a still disobedient Rio de Oro". The life of this anonymous fighter, a symbol of universality, is crossed with his own memories of a chaotic expedition in the Mauritanian desert "in 1926" - the date was not retained in the final text: "At that moment we discover this unity that did not need language. I understood your leaving. If you were poor in Barcelona, alone perhaps after work, if your body itself was no refuge, here you felt the feeling of accomplishing yourself." Without naming him, Saint-Exupéry refers here to Henri Guillaumet, this aviation giant and bad-tempered mentor with whom he flies in tandem to deliver mail to Dakar: "Mais il existe une altitude des relations où la reconnaissance comme la pitié perdent leur sens. C'est là que l'on respire comme un prisonnier délivré. [...] Je n'ai jamais entendu le naufragé remercier son sauveteur. Le plus souvent, même, nous nous insultions, pendant l'épuisant transbordement d'un avion à l'autre, des sacs de poste : « Salaud ! si j'ai eu la panne, c'est ta faute, avec ta rage de voler à deux milles, en plein dans les courants contraires ! Si tu m'avais suivi plus bas, nous serions déjà à Port Étienne ! » et l'autre qui offrait sa vie se découvrait honteux d'être un salaud. De quoi d'ailleurs l'eussions nous remercié ? Il avait droit lui aussi à notre vie." "But there is an altitude of relations where gratitude and pity lose their meaning. It is there that one breathes like a freed prisoner. [...] I have never heard the shipwrecked man thank his rescuer. Most often, even, during the exhausting transfer from o