Airman's Odyssey

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

The Trilogy

Copyright

Introduction

Wind, Sand and Stars

I. The Craft

II. The Men

III. The Tool

IV. The Elements

V. The Plane and the Planet

VI. Oasis

VII. Men of the Desert

VIII. Prisoner of the Sand

IX. Barcelona and Madrid (1936)

X. Conclusion

Night Flight

Preface

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

Flight to Arras

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

About the Author

Copyright 1939 by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Copyright renewed 1967 by Lewis Galantière
Copyright 1942, 1932 by Harcourt, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 1984 by Harcourt, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900–1944.
Airman’s odyssey
Translation of 3 stories from French.
Reprint. Originally published: New York:
Reynal & Hitchcock, [1943]
Contents: Introduction—Wind, sand and stars—
Night flight—Flight to Arras.
1. Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900–1944—Translations, English. 2. Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900–1944—Biography. 3. Authors, French—20th century—Biography. 4. Air pilots—France—Biography. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, French. I. Title.
PQ2637.A274A2 1984 848'.91209 84-10497
ISBN 978-0-15-603733-4 (pbk.)

eISBN 978-0-544-12808-8
v2.0113

He was expecting that his death would be the end of him. “The individual is a mere path,” he had written in Flight to Arras. “What matters is Man, who takes that path.” Had he stood clear and watched the Focke-Wulf fighter slide behind his unarmed reconnaissance plane that last day of July, had he seen the gunfire and the flames and his crash into the sea, he might have said, “Poor old Saint-Ex. Not a bad life, but now it’s done.”

Given a chance, he might have told us what it felt like, those last moments; his words shaped and timed and brushed to match the colors of the sky and the sea and the fire rolling and pouring around him, his plane a comet trailing a scarf of night to meet a larger night, waiting. He didn’t have the chance, though, and the words never made it to print. As far as he knew, he was dead.

***

Buffing alone in the airport sun ten years later, coaxing a gray aluminum Luscombe 8E training plane into mirrors and flying lessons, I was swept in wonderment. This wing, this very metal under my cloth, it’s been above the clouds! This whole entire airplane, it’s flown so high it’s been out of sight from earth ...