Here’s my introduction to all of this.
For those of you who are St.-Ex fans, or fans of flying, or fans of WRITING – the following excerpts from Anne Lindbergh’s journals are for you.
August 4th 1939
C. [Ed: Charles Lindbergh – she always refers to him as “C” in her journals] hands me a letter and preface by Antoine de Saint-Exupery to my (French) edition of Listen! The Wind, just sent here. I start to read it through supper. The letter says that he had agreed to write a one-page preface before he had read the book but after reading it he had written nine pages, and here it was. I read it haltingly; the French is very subtle and full of meaning. I am much absorbed, not only with the importance he attaches to the book and his analysis of it — which is intensely beautiful — but I am startled by what he has seen of me.
“Il est ainsi une petite fille qui court moins vite que les autres. La-bas les autres jouent. ‘Attendez-moi! Attendez-moi!’ mais elle est un peu en retard, on va se lasser de l’attendre, on va la laisser en arriere, on va l’oublier seule au monde. Comment la rassurerait-on? Cette forme d’angoisse est inguerissable.” (“There is a little girl who runs more slowly than the others. Over there the others are playing. ‘Wait for me! Wait for me!’ Already she is late, they will get tired of waiting for her, they will leave her behind, she will be forgotten and left alone in the world. How can she be reassured? This kind of anguish is incurable.”)
Did I so strip myself in that book? I had no idea that was there — or even in my life — that “angoisse legere”. But it is, of course, that feeling of pressure (that C. tries to cure), inner pressure, that I have not learned to harness. “Chariots at the breast.” But it has colored the book. It has crept out. I am rather upset.
The note from the publisher says that St.-Exupery would like to meet me. C. is going to call the hotel tomorrow. I am rather afraid to meet him.
I get down Wind, Sand and Stars. It is incredibly beautiful and gripping. It is all I ever wanted to say and more of flying and time and human relationships.
