But this was an optical illusion.... The
plane simply flew higher, having without doubt heard the sound of the
fusillade and the bullets having perhaps whistled too close to the
pilot's ears. When he was almost over my post, a light white cloud
appeared under its wings and, in the ten ensuing seconds, there
followed a terrible series of sounds, for a bomb had just fallen and
exploded very near at hand. But so entrancing was it to observe the
flight of this pirate who, in spite of everything, continued in his
audacious course, that I gazed at the heavens, trying to determine
whether or not I saw once more the little white cloud, the precursor
of the machine of death.
And everyone who was near me--workmen, passers-by, women,
children--stayed there too, their feet firmly on the ground, their
glances lost in the limitless sky. No one ran away; no one hid; no one
sought refuge behind a door or in a cellar. It's a characteristic of
airplane bombs that they frighten no one, even when they kill. The
machine you see does not frighten you; only the machine you can't see
upsets your nerves.
However that may be, the curiosity of Paris was insatiable. Even in
the tragic hours we were living through at that time, this curiosity
remained as eager, ardent and amused as ever.
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