Promise at Dawn Read online

  Sometimes, too, I give up listening, and just lie there, breathing. It is a well-earned rest: I have done my best, all that I could do.

  In my left hand I clasp the silver medal of the ping-pong championship which I won at Nice in 1932.

  I can still be seen stripping off my coat, thrusting out my chest, lifting weights, jumping, swinging from ropes, then suddenly flinging myself down, bending, twisting, rolling—but my body keeps me well bottled and I never succeed in breaking free, in pushing back my walls. Most people think that I am merely indulging in keep-fit exercises, and a big American weekly, Sports Illustrated, has actually gone so far as to print a doublepage photograph of me in action, as an example worth following by all middle-aged men.

  I have kept my promise and I shall continue to do so as long as I live. I have served France with all my heart, since that is all that I have left of my mother, except for a small snapshot. I have also written books, made a career, and my clothes are made in London, much though I dislike the English cut. I have even rendered great services to humanity. Once, for example, in Los Angeles where, at the time, I was Consul General of France—a post which obviously imposes certain obligations—I found, one morning, a hummingbird in my living room; it had come there trustingly, knowing that it was my house, but a gust of wind had slammed the door and it had been held prisoner all night between four walls. It was perched on a cushion, minuscule and incapable of understanding, all courage gone, no longer trying to fly, weeping in one of the saddest voices I have ever heard, for one never hears one’s own voice. I opened the window, it flew out and I have seldom felt happier, and I knew that I had not lived in vain.

  On another occasion, in Africa, I was in time to kick in the teeth of a sportsman who was aiming at a gazelle feeding its young in the middle of the road. I could mention other similar cases, but I do not want to boast about what I have been able to accomplish for my fellow beings. I mention these matters only to show that I really have done my best, as I said I would. I have never become a cynic, nor even a pessimist: on the contrary, I have frequently had moments of great hope and anticipation. In 1951, in a desert of New Mexico, I was sitting on a block of lava, when two little lizards, entirely white, started clambering over me. They explored every nook and cranny of my person with complete assurance and not a trace of fear, and one of them, having quite calmly pressed his front feet against my face, approached his muzzle to my ear and stayed like that for several moments. One can well imagine with what fervent hope I waited, my whole body tensed by a feeling of imminence, of grace. But he said nothing or, at least, I heard nothing. It is strange, all the same, that only man is entirely visible, entirely revealed to the creatures he loves. I should not like anyone to imagine that I am still expecting a message or an explanation: far from it. Besides, I do not believe in reincarnation, nor in any such nonsense. But I must admit that I did experience then an almost violent feeling of hope. I was quite ill after the war, unable to walk the earth from fear of treading on an ant, or to bear the sight of a bug drowning in water, and then I wrote a big book, The Roots of Heaven, urging human beings to take the protection of nature into their own hands. What it is I see in the eyes of animals I do not quite know, but there is in their gaze a dumb look of incomprehension which reminds me of something and completely shatters me. I keep no animal with me, though, as I become attached very easily and, all things considered, I prefer to attach myself to the ocean, which does not die quickly. My friends say that I have the strange habit of stopping in the street, raising my eyes obediently to the light, and striking a pose, as if trying to please someone.

  It is done, now. Very soon it will be time for me to leave the shore where I have lain so long, listening to the ocean. There will be a touch of mist tonight over Big Sur: it will be chilly and I have never learned how to light a fire and to keep myself warm. I shall try to stay here a little longer, listening, for the feeling never quite leaves me that I am just about to understand what the ocean is trying to tell me. I close my eyes, I smile, and listen. . . . I still have some curiosity left. The emptier the beach around me, the more densely peopled it appears to me. The seals on their rock are silent, and I lie here, with my eyes shut, smiling, imagining that one of them is swimming quietly toward me, and that suddenly I shall feel, against my cheek or in the hollow of my shoulder, a friendly nudge . . . I have lived.

  The last letter

  My dear, my beloved Romouchka!

  I give you my blessing, and I swear to you that your departure did not sadden me. Just as you never saddened me but gave me only joy. Be tough, be strong.

  MAMA

  Revived Modern Classics

  Mikhail Bulgakov

  The Life of Monsieur de Molière. Trans, by Mirra Ginsburg. A vivid portrait of the great French 17th-century satirist by one of the great Russian satirists of our own century. Cloth & NDPaperbook 601.

  Joyce Cary

  “Second Trilogy”: Prisoner of Grace. Except the Lord. Not Honour More. “Even better than Cary’s ‘First Trilogy,’ this is one of the great political novels of this century.”—San Francisco Examiner. NDP606, 607, & 608. A House of Children. Reprint of the delightful autobiographic novel. NDP631.

  Maurice Collis

  The Land of the Great Image. “. . .a vivid and illuminating study written with the care and penetration that an artist as well as a historian must exercise to make the exotic past live and breathe for us.” —Eudora Welty. NDP612

  Ronald Firbank

  Three More Novels. “. . .these novels are an inexhaustible source of pleasure.”—The Village Voice Literary Supplement. NDP614

  Romain Gary (as Émile Ajar)

  The Life Before Us (Madame Rosa). Trans. by Ralph Manheim. “You won’t forget Momo and Madame Rosa when you close the book. ‘The Life Before Us’ is a moving reading experience, if you don’t mind a good cry.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch. NDP604.

  Henry Green

  Back. “. . . a rich, touching story, flecked all over by Mr. Green’s intuition of the concealed originality of ordinary human beings.” —V.S. Pritchett. NDP517

  Siegfried Lenz

  The German Lesson. Trans. by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins. “A book of rare depth and brilliance. . .” —The New York Times. NDP618

  Henri Michaux

  A Barbarian in Asia. Trans. by Sylvia Beach. “It is superb in its swift illuminations and its wit. . .”—Alfred Kazin, The New Yorker. NDP622

  Raymond Queneau

  The Blue Flowers. Trans. by Barbara Wright. “. . . an exuberant meditation on the novel, narrative conventions, and readers.” —The Washington Post. NDP595

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  Copyright © 1961 by Romain Gary

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This translation of La Promesse de l’Aube by John Markham Beach was first published by Harper & Brothers in 1961.

  First published as New Directions Paperbook 635 in 1987 as part of the Revived Modern Classics Series

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited

  eISBN 978-0-8112-2223-5

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation,

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

 

 

 
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