The daily worker., 1926-01-16
Continued From Last Saturday.


TlHf day of the altitude contest-the Zenith
Cup. Fine weather All is well.
Eight o'clock. / am on my way to the fly
ing field, where my plane awaits me, and
have notion to arrive at the last minute
The city, fairy-like in the limpid light is
animated. Busy, noisy in the full happy sun
light which bathes everything Ocean Avenue,
planted with plane-trees, seems to squirm un-
der it's shell of automobiles The vast hotels
and the scintillating shop-fronts, trimmed with
gold, filed with every Partisan luxury, rush
by on either hand. Behind the plate glass
enormous cargoes of candied fruits decked out
in ribbons overwhelm the stomach of the
passer-by and drug-stores bring back ones
thoughts to the skeleton of invalidism in this
winter resort. The Casino, manufactury of
new fortunes is silhouetted against the sky.
And then the edge of the sea, dense azure
Rocks, aloes. palm-trees and umbrella-pines:
the smell of eucalyptus, at the same time
gamey and medicinal, the myrtle and mastic
bushes as solid and dry as lamps, the heavy
smells of vegetation outlined in space a sort
of cubism of OdOrs.
-Sumptuous villas with columns, focks of
gulls in great crowds like fans, the endless
bells of the larks A wall where the morning
sunlight sketches a tapestry of black leaves
with the shadows of neighboring trees. A
cabin and field transigured in the sun:
salad field half salad and half silver.
barbarous shell of posters one on top of
the other covers the vast wooden gateway: a
gigantic funnel of automobiles and crowds: the
f1ying-feld.
On foot worm my way through the crowd
elbowed by friendliness. The grand-stand
that grew out of the ground in two days is
crowded with personages, beaded gowns, red
draperies, and the flags of all nations
Carla. there she is, with her mother, in
the first row. She comes to me and we talk
to each other awhile, little apart from the
others Nothing exists for me but Carla dur
ing that moment beside the hangar. All the
rest around us, nothing but neat picture out
of an Illustrated weekly. She is exquisite
timid Her gaze comes up to me with an ap-
pealing fervor. My hand rests on her gracious
shoulder, a kiss coming at the same moment
from myself and from her, kiss abated into
gesture. She does not speak, but in her throat
there is a cooling sound
There isn't any doubt that am more excited
today than usual: The final hustle of departure
passes like dream-I can't remember how
and here | am hurled into the air. Ringing
in my head, shrill as little bells, are my last
words with my mechanic: "Goodby little
Renaudp', Thanks, boss, good-byw, and
Carla's lifted face which falls, falls into the
depths, drowned by the harsh wind gushing
past me, and the loud noise of the engine.
All the while that take in in a flash of the
eye the ant-hill that is the flying field, the flags
of many colors already fading in the distance,
and the white and rose town spread out in one
view think about the engine. 1t is every
thing. It is in me. am all around my engine.
| sense it deeply, deeply, as sense my lungs
and heart-in the oblique tunnel of the hur-
ricane.
must make the maximum of height in the
total time, two hours. l stretch out invisible
spires, dizzy aspirations, fall toward the rom
dure of the sky as if the world were upside
down. Through the smallest crack in my
armor the sharp wind claws its way and chills
mo IN ha 10 frrrn foot