In a black chest found in a village in Grasse, people counted hundreds of letters, manuscripts, a camera and many books. These were artifacts left by Saint-Exupéry and his wife, Consuelo, treasured them until her death (May 28, 1979). However, it was not until 20 years after Consuelo's death (1999) that people could access the mountains of precious documents that she had never allowed anyone to touch during her lifetime.
In September 1930, Consuelo Suncin traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to attend a number of meetings in memory of her second husband, who had died after only 11 months of marriage. One afternoon, after a cocktail party, a close friend came to her and said:
Vol de Nuit (Night Flight - 1931), one of Saint-Exupéry's most famous works
- I would like to introduce you to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He is a pilot.
Saint-Exupéry reached out to take Consuelo's coat and gently pushed her into an armchair:
- You came a long time ago, but I just arrived. Please stay a few minutes…
And before the beautiful young widow could react, the gallant pilot continued:
- Come on my plane and see the clouds over Rio de la Plata. You will see the sunset like never before.
Consuelo refused because she was not going alone, but Saint-Exupéry invited her friends to come along.
So Consuelo boarded the plane and sat in the cockpit with Saint-Exupéry. A curtain separated them from the passengers sitting behind.
As soon as the plane took off, Saint-Exupéry took Consuelo's hand:
- Do you want to hug and kiss me?
To her surprise, he clenched his fist tighter:
- Hug me, or I'll crash the plane into the ground… Hurry, or we'll all die.
Consuelo bit her handkerchief in anger. She told the pilot that her husband had just died and that his behavior would get her nowhere.
But perhaps what Consuelo did not expect was that at that moment, tears fell down Saint-Exupéry's cheeks:
- I know. You think I'm ugly.
With that, he turned the engine switch to stop the engine. The plane lurched downward. Consuelo, horrified, quickly offered her lips to the reckless man. Behind them, passengers vomited and moaned as the plane continued to swoon in the whirlwind of love.
As soon as the plane landed, Saint-Exupéry proposed to Consuelo. And shortly after, she received a 40-page love letter from the pilot. She knew that from then on their lives were linked together.
Saint-Exupéry and Consuelo Suncin
They began their life together in a small house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Consuelo locked her Tonio (her nickname for Saint-Exupéry) in a room while he wrote his immortal Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) . She herself chose the title for the book.
In 1943, they settled into a house in Northport, in rural New York, while World War II was raging.
Then one day Tonio was preparing to go to war, he said to Consuelo:
- Don't cry anymore. Don't look into my eyes, I'm crying because of the joy of being about to carry out my mission, as well as the pain of seeing your tears.
On April 20, 1943, Tonio left New York on a submarine. For a long time, the couple wrote to each other incessantly, and at one point Tonio wrote:
- Consuelo, I need your letter like I need bread. I just want to say simply that I love you…
And just a few weeks after Tonio's disappearance, Consuelo received a letter from him (by post ) that read like a prayer he prayed every night before going to bed:
- Dear God, please protect my wife, for without her I would feel so lost.
Since that fateful day of July 31, 1944 (the day Tonio disappeared), Consuelo kept his letters and other things related to him in locked chests, out of the reach of anyone. With the royalties from the novel Oppède, which she dedicated to Tonio, she bought a village in Grasse, not far from Cabris, where Tonio's mother lived.
One day, on the streets of Paris, at a used bookstore, Consuelo burst into tears when she happened to see the first edition of The Little Prince that Saint-Exupéry, aka Tonio, had written for her.
She died on May 28, 1979, after redrawing the photo the writer took of her after their night of lovemaking, because the original photo was already in his shirt pocket when he disappeared with his plane. (to be continued)
(Excerpt from Daily Lives of Famous People in the World , recently published by Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House)
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