The daily worker., 1926-01-16
THE BEYOND-By Henri Barbusse


emptiness
AT six hundred metres, in the cataract Of
wind, the ground is nothing but a card Three
square little boxes on the fying-field. The
town is one house, melted into cloth on the
geographic contour of the country. The sea
is the sea.
Little spots: the other contestants starting
at intervals of one minute. Atoms of airplanes
leaping toward me as though | drew them
along the cavernous miles. These mosquitoes
have the same organs and the same hopes as I.
rs vi. ea
FOR long time climb higher. There comes
the moment of monotony, when dishearten-
ment fastens me in its wise. / never escape it.
Then it passes, drowned in mounting space
| rise higher II aso t
But the earth rises with me!
What is it? All, ah! what's the matter?
Absurd. Everything has become dark down
below fantastic floor of clouds is built in
the twinkling of an eye, and bright points
CLEAN in it. Here l am transported above
planet of night and storm. Good God! dis
tinctly see the planes of Jean Minor, Ralph
Tuck and Cartesimo capsize in furious and
fiery mist!
am lifted up, tossed, even though am well
above the universal inky pail which has leapt
up from below in a flash. | navigate in
tangled torrent of wind. A scattering of light
enings. Then silence, and calm which sets
me again in equilibrium. The thick fog falls
again, hiding from view the terrestrial depths,
like swamp of mud.
My plane descends like corpse. There is
something wrong with it, something isn't
working Help!.. No, it's taking hold Be-
tween two moments of cramping anguish
have time to think: "Too bad, had a good
start"
After falling kilometers, sIssee the earth 1t
his strewn with high columns-ef smoke
My eyes search the seene.- The great han
gar is shattered. The grand-stand is burning
The crowd? / do not see it yet l do not
see it. All the time l am falling straight down,
dizzily, see the trees growing There is no.
body.
land fairly easily, in an absolute silence
An earthquakei They have had them here
in the past And then panic the people have
disappeared.
land two hundred yards behind the wooden
grand-stand, corner of which is going up in
flames and black plumes of smoke l round
the corner of the high iag-trimmed structure.
1t is full of people, walled with headsi Men,
women, standing in groups, sitting in their
places, conversing, turned toward one another
Anguish, like solid thing seizes upon my
stomach. approach and nobody moves.
Someone is standing in front of me- cane in
hand. l speak to him as / come nearer-my
voice breathless, hoarse.
"Eh! you there. Pardon me!''
What, is the fellow deaf? go up to him.
He doesn't move, is looking the other way
put my hand on his arm. He doesn't move .
he doesn't move. A little harder he falls
over backward. Dead deadl He was stand
ing there, but he was dead.
turn my haggard eyes here, there, in the
thick crowd ..not the slightest movement
anywhere. M
These are not people, these are mannikins. :.
these are corpses. 3fs7et s,sfse-~s4 s.
Killed, every one of them, killed instanta-
neously by the explosion. y, .,s.
i take faltering steps, attracted, repulsed, by
each figure. The nearest now there, in the
blue coat within reach of my hand: Morel,
the mechanic He looks up in the air, leaning
His fixed and blinded eye, this tranquil eternal
grimace, the stubborn rigidity of his shoulder