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two old papers with writing on them sitting next to each other
Ader

400 - Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY (1900–1944).
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Estimate €4,000 - €5,000
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Description
Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY (1900–1944). Autograph manuscript, [‘Hey! Sergeant!’, June 1937]; 11 pages in-4 on 11 sheets of buff-coloured paper. A first draft and working manuscript, heavily crossed out and corrected, containing significant variations and unpublished passages, from a report on the Spanish Civil War published in *Paris-Soir* on 3 July 1937 with the note ‘Carabancel Front, June 1937’ (Complete Works, Pléiade, vol. I, pp. 418–423), and which was later reworked to form a chapter in the conclusion of *Terre des hommes* in 1939 (VIII, ii). The manuscript begins as follows: ‘For they have all emerged from the depths of darkness. And I gaze intently at these men who have begun a new life […] I look especially at Sergeant R., the one who was to go out first and who went off to sleep before the attack. I witnessed his awakening, that of a man condemned to death’… The scene is set in the trenches at Carabancel, which Saint-Ex describes in a gripping manner; he then calls out to the sergeant: ‘Hey! Sergeant! ’ The attack has been called off, and Saint-Ex wants to question the sergeant: ‘Sergeant! Sergeant! What are you doing with the gift of life?’, and above all that unutterable question: ‘Sergeant, why are you willing to die?’; he will ask him ‘little questions that seem to mean nothing… – Deep down… why did you leave?’ It is an exploration of commitment through this office clerk who feels ‘that imperious call that compelled him to leave’. And Saint-Exupéry draws a comparison with the migrations of wild ducks and geese, and ‘that inner migration’ which man sometimes feels. …‘One must live a long time to become a man. One slowly weaves the web of friendships and affection. One learns slowly. One slowly crafts the essence of one’s work, and if one dies too soon, one feels as though one has been deprived of one’s store. One must live a long time to fulfil oneself’... The final page is very different from the final version, and concludes: ‘He reaches that point where all loves have but one common measure. And even if he were not happy, he gains love. That day when one regains all women and all men’. On the back of the penultimate page is this note: ‘Caravancel / fraternisation / Pascal’.
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part II
Auction location
Auction time 10/14/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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