Caracas again. It was with real pleasure that I walked the streets of this great living city once more.
I had been free twenty months now, and yet I still hadn't become a member of this community. It was all very well to say, "All you have to do is get a job," but besides not being able to find any suitable work, I had trouble speaking Spanish, and many doors were closed to me because of this. So I bought a textbook, shut myself in my room and determined to spend however many hours it took to learn Spanish. I grew angrier and angrier; I could not manage to hit the pronunciation, and after a few days I flung the book to the other end of the room and went back to the streets and the cafes, looking for someone I knew who could find me something to do.
More and more Frenchmen were coming over from Europe, sickened by its wars and political upheavals. Some were on the run from an arbitrary justice that varied according to the political climate of the moment; others were looking for peace and quiet-a beach where they could breathe without someone coming tip every other moment to take their pulse.
These people were not like Frenchmen, though they were French. They had nothing in common with Papa Charrière or any of the people I had known in my childhood. When I was with them, I found they had ideas so different and so twisted in comparison with those of my young days that I was quite at sea. Often I'd say to them, "I believe that maybe you shouldn't forget the past, but that you should stop talking about it. Is it possible that even now, after the war is over, there are supporters of Nazism among you? I'll tell you something: when you talk about the Jews, it's like seeing one race spew out hatred against another race.
"You're living in Venezuela, in the midst of its people, and yet you aren't capable of grasping their wonderful philosophy. Here there's no discrimination, either racial or religious. If anyone should be infected with the virus of revenge against the privileged classes, the poorest class should be because of their wretched conditions of life. Well now, _that virus doesn't even exist in this country_.
"You aren't even capable of settling down to living for the sake of living. Please, don't come here as Europeans filled with notions of the superiority of your race. True, you have had more intellectual training than the majority of the people here, but what of it? What good is it to you, since you're a more stupid bunch of clods than they are? As far as you're concerned education doesn't mean intelligence, generosity, goodness and understanding, but only learning things from books. If your hearts stay dry, selfish, rancorous and fossilized, what you've learned doesn't mean a thing.
"When I look at you and listen to you, it occurs to me that a world run by bastards like you will mean nothing but wars and revolutions. Because although you say you long for peace and quiet, you only long for it if it agrees with your point of view."
Every one of them had his list of people to be shot, proscribed or shoved into jail; and although it upset me, I couldn't help laughing when I heard these people, sitting in a café or the lounge of some third-rate hotel, criticizing everything and coming to the conclusion that they were the only ones who could really run the world.
And I was afraid, yes, I was afraid, because I had a very real feeling of the danger that these newcomers brought with them- the virus of the old world's fossilized ideological passions.
1947. I'd come to know an ex-con by the name of Pierre-Rene Deloifre. He had only one object of worship, and that was General Medina Angarita, the former president of Venezuela, who had been overthrown by the last military coup d'etat, in 1945. Deloffre was a high-powered character. Very active, but openhearted and enthusiastic. He summoned all his passion to persuade me that the people who had profited by this coup d'etat weren't worth Medina Angarita's bootlaces. To tell the truth, he did not convince me; but since I was in a tricky position I was not going to cross him.
He found me a job through a financier, a truly remarkable guy called Armando. He came from a powerful Venezuelan family; he was noble-minded, generous, intelligent, well educated, witty and unusually brave. There was only one drawback-he was burdened with a stupid brother, Clemente. (Some of this brother's recent capers have made it clear to me that he hasn't changed in these last twenty-five years.) Deloifre introduced me to the financier with no beating about the bush: "My friend Papillon, who escaped from the French penal settlement. Papillon, this is the man I was telling you about."
Armando adopted me right away, and with the directness of a real nobleman he asked me whether I was in need of money.
"No, Monsieur Armando; I'm in need of a job."
I wanted to see how the land lay first; it was better to take one's time. What's more, I was not really short of cash for the moment.
"Come and see me at nine tomorrow."
The next day he took me to a garage, the Franco-Venezuelan it was called, and there he introduced me to his associates, three young men full of life, ready to break into a furious gallop at the drop of a hat. Two of them were married. One to Simone, a magnificent Parisienne of twenty-five; the other to Dédée, a twentyyear-old blue-eyed girl from Brittany, as delicate as a violet and the mother of a little boy called Cricri.
They were good-looking, open people, frank and unreserved. They welcomed me with open arms, as if they'd known me for ever. Right away they made me a bed in a corner of the big garage, more or less curtained off and close to the shower. They were my first real family for seventeen years. This team of young people liked, cherished and respected me; and it made me all the happier because although I was a few years older I had just as much zest for life, just as much joy in living without rules and without limits.
I asked no questions-I didn't really have to-but I soon saw that not one of them was a genuine mechanic. They had a vague, a very vague notion of what a motor was: but even less than a notion as far as the motors of American cars were concerned, and American cars were the main or indeed the only customers. One of them was a lathe operator, and that explained the presence of a lathe in the garage-they said it was for correcting pistons. Pretty soon I found that what the machine was really used for was changing gas bottles so they would take a detonator and a Bickford fuse.
For the swarm of newly arrived Frenchmen, the Franco-Venezuelan garage repaired cars, more or less; but for the Venezuelan financier it prepared bombs for a coup d'etat. I didn't altogether care for this.
"Hell," I said. "Who's it in support of and who's it against? Tell me about it." It was evening; we were sitting there under the lamp and I was questioning the three Frenchmen-their wives and the kid had gone to bed.
"That's none of our business. We just fix the tubes Armando gives us. And that's fine by us, mac."
"Fine for you, maybe. But I have to know."
"Why? You earn a fat living and you have fun, don't you?"
"Sure. As far as fun goes, we have fun. But I'm not like you. They've given me asylum in this country: they trust me and they let me walk about as free as air."
Hearing me talk like this in my position struck them as very odd. Because they knew what I had in the back of my mind; they knew all about my obsession-I'd told them. But one thing I hadn't told them was about the pawnshop job. So they said to me, "If this business comes off, you can make the money you need to carry out what you have in mind. And of course we don't intend to spend the rest of our lives in this garage. Certainly we have fun, but it brings in nothing like the solid cash we'd dreamed of when we came to South America."
"And what about your wives and the kid?"
"The women know all about it. A month before D-Day they leave for Bogota."
"They know all about it, then. Just as I thought; so they aren't too surprised at some of the things that go on."
That same evening I saw Deloifre and Armando, and I had a long talk with them. Armando said to me, "In this country of ours, it's Betancourt and Gallegos who run everything, under the cover of the phony AD (Acción Democrática). The power was put into their hands by simpleminded soldiers who no longer really know why they overthrew Medina -he was a soldier, too, and he was more liberal and far more humane than the civilians. I see the former Medina officials being persecuted, and there's nothing I can say; and I try to understand how it comes about that men who carried out a revolution with slogans like 'Social justice and respect for all without the least exception' can become worse than their predecessors once they're in power. That's why I want to help bring Medina back."
"Fine, Armando. I quite see that what you want above all is to stop the party now in power from going on with their persecution. And as for you, Deloifre, you've got just one God, and that's Medina, your protector and your friend. But listen to me, now: the people who let me, Papillon, out of El Dorado were this very party now in power. Straight after the revolution, the minute the new chief arrived, he stopped the savage reign of terror in the settlement, stopped it dead. He's still there, I believe-Don Julio Ramos, a lawyer and a distinguished writer, the guy who let me out. And you want me to join in a coup against these people? No: let me go. You know you can count on my keeping my mouth shut."
Armando knew the tough spot I was in, and like a real gentleman he said to me, "Enrique, you don't make the bombs; you don't work at the lathe. All you do is look after the cars and pass the tools when the boss asks for them. So stay a little longer. I ask it as a favor; and if we make a move I promise you'll know a month ahead for sure."
So I stayed there with those three young guys; they are still alive and they would be easily recognizable, so I will put the initials P.I., B.L. and J.G. instead of their names. We made up a splendid team, and we were always together, living it up at such a pitch that the French of Caracas called us the three musketeers-as everybody knows, there were four of them. Those few months were the finest, the happiest and the liveliest I ever spent in Caracas.
Life was one long laugh. On Saturdays we kept some elegant car belonging to a customer for our own use, saying it wasn't ready yet, and we drove down to one of the gorgeous beaches lined with flowers and coconut palms to swim and have fun all day long. Sometimes, of course, we would meet the owner, far from pleased at seeing the car he thought was in the garage filled with all these people. Then gently, gently, we would explain that we were doing this for his sake-that we could not bear the idea of giving him back a car not in perfect condition, and so it had to be tried out. It always worked, and no doubt the ravishing smiles of the girls helped a great deal.
On the other hand, we did get into some very awkward situations. The Swiss ambassador's gas tank leaked; he brought the car in for us to solder the joint. I carefully emptied the tank with a rubber pipe, sucking out the very last drop. But apparently that wasn't enough, because as soon as the flame of the blowpipe touched it, the damn tank blew up, setting fire to the car and roasting it to a frazzle. While the other guy and I groped about, covered with black oil and smoke and just beginning to grasp that we had escaped from death, I heard B.L.'s calm voice saying, "Don't you think we ought to tell our partners about this little mishap?"
He phoned the brothers, and the half-wit Clemente answered. "Clemente, can you give me the number of the garage's insurance?"
"…"
"What for? Oh yes, I was forgetting. Because the Swiss ambassador's car caught fire. It's just a heap of cinders now."
I don't have to tell you that five minutes later Clemente appeared at a brisk run, waving his arms about and hopping mad because in fact the garage was not covered in any way at all. It took three stiff whiskies and all the charm of Simone's amply displayed legs to quiet him down. Armando only turned up the following day; he was perfectly calm, and this was his charming way of taking it-"Things happen only to people who work. Anyhow, don't let's talk about it anymore; I've fixed everything with the ambassador."
The ambassador got another car, but for some reason we lost his business.
From time to time, while we were living this zestful life, I thought about my little treasure lying there hidden at the foot of a tree in a republic well known for its frozen meat. And I put money aside for the fare there and back when the time came to go and fetch it. The knowledge that I had almost enough to satisfy my revenge had completely transformed me. Because I no longer worried about making money, I could plunge wholeheartedly into our musketeering life-plunge into it so deep that one Sunday afternoon at three o'clock there we were, all of us, bathing in a fountain in one of the Caracas squares, with nothing on but our drawers. This time, at least, Clemente rose to the occasion and had his brother's partners released from the police station where they had been shut up for indecent exposure. By now a good many months had gone by, and at last it seemed to me safe to go and pick up my treasure.
So fare you well, buddies,. and thanks for all your kindness. Then I was on my way to the airport. I got there at six in the morning; I hired a car, and at nine I reached the spot.
I crossed the bridge. Christ above, what had happened? Had I gone mad, or was it a mirage? I stared around, but my tree was not there. And not only my tree but hundreds of others. The road had been made much wider, and the bridge and the stretch leading up to it had been entirely changed. Working it out from the bridge, I managed to more or less pinpoint the place where my tree and my wealth must have been. I was flabbergasted. Not a trace!
A kind of madness came over me, a stupid fury. I ground my heels into the asphalt, just as though it could feel anything. I was filled with an enormous rage and I looked around for something to destroy: all I could see was the white lines painted on the road-I kicked them, as if knocking off little bits of paint could destroy the road.
I went back to the bridge. The approach road on the other side had not been altered, and judging from that I reckoned they must have shifted the earth to a depth of more than twelve feet. And since my loot had not been buried deeper than a yard, it couldn't have lasted long, poor thing.
I leaned on the parapet and for a while I watched the water flow by. Gradually I calmed down, but still the thoughts whirled about inside my head. Was I always going to lose out like this? Should I give up trying to pull things off? What was I going to do now? My knees sagged. But then I got hold of myself and I said, "How many times did you fail before you brought off your break? Seven or eight times, right? Well, it's the same thing in life. You lose one banco, you go and win another. That's life, when you really love it."
I didn't stay long in this country that felt called upon to change its roads so fast. It made me sick to think that a civilized nation didn't even respect ancient trees. And why, I ask you, why widen a road that was quite broad enough for all the traffic it had to carry?
In the plane taking me back to Caracas, I laughed to think that men can suppose they are the masters of their fate, that they imagine they can build the future and foresee what they'll be doing the next year or the year after. All so much bullshit, Papi! The brightest calculator, the cleverest imaginable organizer of his life is no more than a toy before fate. Only the present is certain: all the rest is something we know nothing about-something that goes by the name of luck, misfortune, destiny or indeed the mysterious and incomprehensible hand of God.
Only one thing really matters in life, and that is never to admit you're beaten and to start up again after every flop. That was what I was going to do.
When I'd left, I'd said good-bye for keeps. Because once I'd dug up the loot I meant to go to other countries, not Venezuela, alter the jewels so they could not be recognized, sell them and move on to Spain. From there it would be easy to go and pay a call on Prosecuting Counsel and Co. So you can imagine the terrific uproar when the musketeers saw me turn up at the garage door. Dinner and a party cake to celebrate my return, and Dédée put four flowers on the table. We drank to the re-formed team, and life started off again at full throttle. But still, I was no longer as carefree as I had been.
I felt sure Armando and Deloifre had designs on me that they were keeping back, probably something to do with the coup d'etat, although both knew my position as far as that was concerned. They often asked me to come and have a drink or to eat at Deloifre's place. Wonderful food, and no witnesses. Deloifre did the cooking, and his faithful chauffeur Victor waited table. We talked about a great many things, but in the end the conversation always came round to the same subject-General Medina Angarita. The most liberal of all Venezuelan presidents; not a single political prisoner during his régime; no one persecuted because of his ideas; a policy of coexistence with all other states, all other regimes, even to the point of setting up diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union; he was good, he was noble, and the people so loved him for his simplicity that one day, during a celebration at El Paralso, they carried him and his wife in triumph, like toreros.
Constantly telling me about this wonderful Medina, who walked around Caracas with just one aide-de-camp and went to the cinema like an ordinary citizen, Armando and Deloifre almost persuaded me that only a man with his heart in the right place would do anything to bring Medina back to power. They painted a very dark picture of the present government's injustice and its vengeful attitude towards a whole section of the population; and to make me like their marvelous president even more, Deloifre told me Medina lived it up with the very best of them. On top of that, he was a personal friend, although he knew Deloifre had escaped from jail.
At last, almost won over-mistakenly, as I learned afterward- I began to think of taking part in the coup d'etat. My hesitation vanished entirely (I have to say this because I want to be honest) when I was promised the money and all the facilities I needed to set my plan of revenge in motion.
So this is how it was that one night Deloffre and I were sitting there at his place, me dressed as a captain and Deloffre as a colonel, ready to go into action.
It began badly. To identify one another, the civilian conspirators were supposed to wear a green armband, and the password was Aragua. We were supposed to be at action stations at two in the morning. But about eleven that night four guys turned up in the one horse-drawn cab left in Caracas; they were totally plastered, and they were singing at the top of their voices, to the accompaniment of a guitar. They stopped just in front of the house, and to my horror I heard them singing songs full of allusions to tonight's coup d'etat-allusions as obvious as an elephant. One of them bawled out to Deloifre, "Pierre! Tonight the nightmare comes to an end at last! Courage and dignity, arnigo! Our Papa Medina must return!"
For goddamned utter foolishness you could not have asked better. The time between some joker's telling the pigs and the cops' coming to call on us would be very short. I was hopping mad, and I had every reason to be: we had three bombs there in the car, two in the trunk and one on the back seat, covered with a rug.
"Well, they're a terrific bunch, your friends. If they're all like this, we needn't bother: we might just as well go straight to prison."
Deloifre howled with laughter, as calm as if he were going to a ball; he was delighted with himself in his colonel's uniform, and he kept admiring his reflection in the mirror. "Don't you worry, Papillon. Anyhow, we aren't going to hurt anyone. As you know, these three gas bottles have got nothing but powder in them. Just to make a noise, that's all."
"And what's going to be the point of this little noise of yours?"
"It's merely to give the signal to the conspirators scattered about the town. That's all. There's nothing bloody or savage about it, you see-we don't want to hurt anybody. We just insist on their going away, that's all."
Okay. Anyhow, whether I liked it or not I was up to the neck in this. It was not my job to quiver with alarm or be sorry: all I had to do was wait for the given time.
I refused Deloffre's port-it was the only thing he drank: two bottles a day at least. He tossed back a few glasses.
The three musketeers arrived in a command car transformed into a crane. It was going to be used to carry off two safes, one belonging to the airline company and the other to the Model Prison; one of the governors-or maybe the man in command of the garrison-was in the plot. I was to have 50 percent of what was inside and I had insisted on being there when the prison safe was grabbed: they had agreed. It would be a sweet revenge on all the prisons in the world. This was a job very near to my heart.
A dispatch rider brought the final orders: arrest no enemies; let them escape. Carlotta, the civilian airport right in the middle of the city, had already been cleared so that the chief members of the present government and their officials could get away in light planes without a hitch.
It was then that I learned where the first bomb was to be let off. Well, well, well: this Deloffre certainly went about things in style. It was to go off right in front of the presidential palace, Miraflores. The others were to explode one in the east and the other in the west of Caracas, to make it look like things were breaking out everywhere. I smiled to myself at the idea of the alarm and despondency we were going to cause in the palace.
This big wooden gate was not the official entrance to the palace. It was the back of the building; the military trucks used it, and big shots and the president would sometimes come and go this way when they wanted to avoid being noticed.
Our watches were all set to the same time. We were to be at the gate at three minutes to two. Someone inside was going to open it a crack for just two seconds, long enough for the driver to make the noise of a toad with a little child's toy that imitated it very well. That was how they would know we were there. What was the point? Nobody told me. Were President Gallegos's guards in the plot and would they take him prisoner? Or would they be put out of action right away by other conspirators already inside? I knew nothing about that.
One thing was certain: at two o'clock precisely I had to light the fuse leading to the detonator on the gas bottle I had between my knees and then toss it out of the door, giving it a good shove so it would roll toward the palace gate. The fuse lasted exactly one minute thirty seconds. So I was to light it with my cigar, and the moment it started to fizz, shift my right leg and open the door, counting thirty seconds as I did so. At the thirtieth, start it rolling. We had worked out that the wind would make it burn faster as it rolled along, and that there would be only forty seconds before the explosion.
Although the bottle had no bits of iron in it, its own splinters would be extremely dangerous, so we would have to shoot straight off in the car to take shelter. That would be VIctor the chauffeur's job.
I'd persuaded Deloffre that if there were any soldiers or cops nearby, he, in his colonel's uniform, would order them to run to the corner of the street. He promised me he'd do just that.
We reached this famous gate at three minutes to two without any difficulty. We drew up along the opposite pavement. No sentry, no cop. Fine. Two minutes to two.. – one minute to two… two o'clock.
The gate did not open.
I was all tensed up. I said to Deloifre, " Pierre, it's two o'clock."
"I know. I've got a watch, too."
"This stinks."
"I don't understand what's going on. Let's wait another five minutes."
"Okay."
Two minutes past two… the gate shot open; soldiers came running out and took up their positions, weapons at the ready. It was as clear as gin: we had been betrayed.
"Get going, Pierre. We've been betrayed!"
It took more than that to knock Pierre off his perch; he seemed not to have grasped the situation at all. "Don't talk bullshit. They're on our side."
I brought out a forty-five and rammed it against the back of Victor's neck. "Get going, or I kill you!"
I was certain of feeling the car leap forward as Victor stamped on the accelerator with all his force, but all I heard was this unbelievable remark: "_Hombre_, it's not you who gives orders here: it's the boss. What does the boss say?"
Hell: I'd seen some guys with guts, but never one like this halfcaste Indian. Never!
There was nothing I could do because there were soldiers three yards away. They'd seen the colonel's stars on Deloifre's epaulet up against the window, so they came no closer.
" Pierre, if you don't tell Victor to get going, it's not him I'll put the chill on but you."
"Little old Papi, I keep telling you they're on our side. Let's Wait a little longer," said Pierre, turning his head toward me. As he did so I saw his nostrils were shining with white powder stuck to them. I got it: the guy was stuffed full with cocaine. An appalling fear came over me, and I was putting my gun to his neck when he said with the utmost calm, "It's six minutes past two, Papi. We'll wait two more. We've certainly been betrayed."
Those hundred and twenty seconds lasted forever. I had my eye on the soldiers; the nearest were watching us, but for the moment they were making no move. At last Deloifre said, "_Vamos_, Victor: let's go. Gently, naturally, not too fast."
And by a positive miracle we came out of that mantrap alive. Phew! Some years later there was a film called _The Longest Day_. Well, you could have made one called _The Longest Eight Minutes_ out of that party of ours.
Deloifre told the driver to make for the bridge that runs from El Paralso to the Avenida San Martin. He wanted to let his bomb off under it. On the way we met two trucks filled with conspirators who didn't know what to do now, having heard no explosion at two o'clock. We told them we had been betrayed; but saying this made Deloifre change his mind and he ordered the chauffeur to drive back to his place, fast. A mistake the size of a house, because, since we had been betrayed, the pigs might very well be there already. Still, we went: and as I was helping Victor put my bomb into the trunk I noticed that it had three letters painted on it: P.R.D. I couldn't help roaring with laughter when PierreRené Deloifre told me the reason for them; we were taking off our uniforms at the time. "Papi, never forget that whenever the business is dangerous you must always do things in style. Those initials were my calling card for the enemies of my friend."
Victor went and left the car in a parking place, forgetting of course, to leave the keys as well. The three bombs were not found until three months later.
No question of hanging around at Deloifre's. He went his way, I went mine. No contact with Armando. I went straight to the garage, where I helped carry away the lathe and the five or six bottles of gas that were lying about. At six o'clock the telephone rang and a mysterious voice said, "Frenchmen, get out, all of you. Each in a different direction. Only B.L. must stay in the garage. You get it?"
"Who's that?"
He hung up.
Dressed as a woman and driven in a jeep by a former officer of the French Resistance, I made my way out of Caracas with no trouble at all and reached Rio Chico, about a hundred and twentyfive miles away on the coast. I was going to stay there for a couple of months with this ex-captain and his wife and a couple of friends from Bordeaux.
B.L. was arrested. No torture: only a stiff, thoroughgoing but correct interrogation. When I heard that, I decided the Gallegos and Betancourt régime was not as wicked as they said; at least not in this case. Deloifre took refuge that same night in the Nicaraguan embassy.
As for me, I was still full of confidence in life, and a week later the ex-captain and I were driving the RIo Chico Public Works Department's truck. Through a friend we'd got ourselves taken on by the municipality. We made twenty-one bolIvars a day between us, and on that we lived, all five of us.
This road-construction life lasted two months, long enough for the storm raised by our plot to die down in Caracas and for the police to turn their minds to the reports about a new one that was cooking. Very wisely they concentrated on the present and left the past to itself. I asked nothing better, because I had made up my mind not to let myself be dragged into another job of that kind. For the moment, by far the best thing to do was to live here quietly with my friends, drawing no attention to myself.
In the late afternoon I often went fishing, to add to our daily rations. That evening I had hauled out a huge _robalo_, a kind of big sea bream, and I was sitting on the beach, scaling it in no particular hurry and admiring the wonderful sunset. A red sky means hope, Papi! And in spite of all the flops I had had since I was let out, I began to laugh. Yes, hope must make me live and win: and it was going to do just that. But exactly when was success going to come along? Let's have a look at things, Papi: let's add up the results of two years of freedom.
I wasn't broke, but I didn't have much: three thousand bolivars at the outside, the sum total of two years on the loose.
What had happened during this time?
One: the heap of gold at El Callao. No point in brooding over that: it was something you gave up voluntarily so the ex-cons there could go living in peace. You regret it? No. Okay, then forget the ton of gold.
Two: craps at the diamond mines. You nearly got yourself killed twenty times for ten thousand dollars you never cashed in on. Jojo died in your place: you came out alive. Without a cent, true enough; but what a terrific adventure! You'll never forget all those nights, keyed up to the breaking point, the gamblers' faces under the carbide lamp, the unmoved Jojo. Nothing to regret there either.
Three: the tunnel under the bank. Not the same thing at all; there really was no luck about that job. Still, for three months you lived at full blast twenty-four hours a day. Even if you got no more out of it than that, you don't have to be sorry for yourself. Do you realize that for three months on end, even in your dreams, you felt you were a millionaire with never a doubt about getting your hands on the dough? Doesn't that mean anything? Of course, just a trifle more luck might have given you a fortune; but on the other hand you might have been much more unlucky. Suppose the tunnel had caved in while you were at the far end? You'd have died like a rat or they would have caught you like a fox in its earth.
Four: what about the pawnshop and its refrigerators? No complaints, except for the Public Works Department of that damnable country.
Five: the plot. Frankly, you were never really wholehearted about that business. These political jobs and those bombs that might kill anybody-it's not your line. What it really comes to is that you were taken in first by the sales pitch of two very nice guys and then by the promise of being able to carry out your plan. But your heart wasn't in it, because you never felt it was quite legit to attack the government that had let you out.
Still, on the credit side you had four months of fun with the musketeers, their wives and the kid; and you aren't likely to forget those days full of the joy of life.
Conclusion: You were unjustly imprisoned for fourteen years and almost all your youth was stolen from you. But you've been free the last two years, and in those two years you've had countless experiences and terrific adventures. You've had wonderful love; you've known men of every kind who've given you their friendship-men you've risked your life with; and after all this, do you still keep moaning? You're broke, or nearly broke? What does that matter? Poverty's not a difficult disease to cure. So glory be to God, Papil You're fit, which is the really important thing.
Let's wipe it all out and begin again, gentlemen. The chips are down! Make your last bets-this is it! Banco lost, banco again: banco again and again and again. Banco right along the line. But let your whole being thrill and quiver, singing a song of hope that one day you'll hear, "Nine on the nose! Rake it in, Monsieur Papillon! You've won!"
The sun was almost touching the horizon. Red in the evening, that meant hope. The breeze had freshened, and with a calmer mind I stood up, happy to be free and alive; my feet sank in the wet sand as I went back toward the house, where they were waiting for what I had caught for the evening meal. As I walked back, I gave myself over to all the colors, the countless touches of light and shade playing on the crests of the little waves stretching out forever. They stirred me so deeply, what with my remembering past dangers overcome, that I couldn't help thinking of their creator, of God. "Good night, Big Guy, good night! In spite of all these flops, I still thank You for having given me such a beautiful day full of sun and freedom and, to finish it off, this marvelous sunset!"