The aeroplanes were appearing at that time. We talked about them, and
saw photographs of them in the papers. One Sunday we saw one from our
window. We had heard the chopped-up noise of its engine expanding over
the sky; and down below, the townsfolk on their doorsteps, raised their
heads towards the ceiling of their streets. Rattling space was marked
with a dot. We kept our eyes on it and saw the great flat and noisy
insect grow bigger and bigger, silhouetting the black of its angles and
partitioned lines against the airy wadding of the clouds. When its
headlong flight had passed, when it had dwindled in our eyes and ears
amid the new world of sounds, which it drew in its train, Marie sighed
dreamily.

"I would like," she said, "to go up in an aeroplane, into the
wind--into the sky!"

One spring we talked a lot about a trip we would take some day. Some
railway posters had been stuck on the walls of the old tin works, that
the Pocard scheme was going to transfigure. We looked at them the day
they were freshly brilliant in their wet varnish and their smell of
paste. We preferred the bill about Corsica, which showed seaside
landscapes, harbors with picturesque people in the foreground and a
purple mountain behind, all among garlands. And later, even when
stiffened and torn and cracking in the wind, that poster attracted us.

One evening, in the kitchen, when we had just come in--there are
memories which mysteriously outlive the rest--and Marie was lighting
the fire, with her hat on and her hands wiped out in the twilight by
the grime of the coal, she said, "We'll make that trip later!"

Sometimes it happened that we went out, she and I, during the week. I