"Yes, the effort to leave is all the greater."

"Well?--"

"I like the effort, _Maman_."

His Antigone forced herself to keep her bargain with him. The sun never
shone above the forest in vain, but nevertheless she detested the sun.
What a strange Romeo this boy would have made! Without the least doubt
he would have charged Juliet to wake him to go to battle, and would
never have forgiven her for confounding the lark and the nightingale.

On his return to the aviation camp, in the absence of his own
longed-for victories, he took pleasure in describing those of others. He
knew nothing of rivalry or envy. He wrote his sister Odette the
following description of a combat waged by Captain Brocard, who
surprised a Boche from the rear, approached him to within fifteen meters
without being seen, and, just at the moment when the enemy pilot turned
round his head, sent him seven cartridges from his machine-gun: "Result:
one ball in the ear, and another through the middle of his chest. You
can imagine whether the fall of the machine was instantaneous or not.
There was nothing left of the pilot but one chin, one ear, one mouth, a
torso and material enough to reconstitute two arms. As to the "_coucou_"
(burned), nothing was left but the motor and a few bits of iron. The
passenger was emptied out during the fall...." It cannot be said that he
had much consideration for the nerves of young girls. He treated them as
if they were warriors who could understand everything relating to
battles. He wrote with the same freedom that Shakespeare's characters
use in speech.