The Tale of the Rose by Consuelo de Saint-Exupery Page A

same route as your husband,” Guerrero explained. “By chance I had a problem with my leg, so I stayed over in Cisneros to rest up. Saint-Ex was looking very careworn to me. ‘Well, old man,’ I said to myself, ‘for a young newlywed, you look positively papal.’ But we don’t actually say anything to each other. Suddenly, Saint-Ex shouts, ‘Fantastic! Eggs in aspic are fantastic, don’t you think, Guerrero?’
    “‘What about eggs in aspic?’ I asked. ‘Would you please explain?’
    “‘All right,’ he said. ‘I had my first fight with my wife over eggs in aspic. We were eating out, at the Roi de la Bière. I come home dead on my feet after a night of flying and she wants me, nonetheless, to have dinner at the Roi de la Bière. I don’t say much at home, you know, I don’t open my mouth. . . . At the café, the waiter asks me what I’ll have, and my wife looks at me, worried. I answer, “Eggs in aspic”; there was a dish of them right there in front of us. I hadn’t thought about ordering a full meal. “Are you sick? Are you upset?” she asks me.
    “‘I don’t answer. They bring me two eggs in aspic.
    “‘And then, Monsieur, what will you have as a main course?” the waiter asks.
    “‘Two eggs in aspic.”
    “‘My wife didn’t say a thing. I wanted to laugh. But for the second time, they brought me eggs in aspic. And for dessert, the same story.
    “‘I didn’t want to say anything. Or think. It was all the same to me if I ate six eggs in aspic or anything else. But it irritated Consuelo. She was sitting there on the banquette, and then, right there in the middle of all the other customers, she stood up and shouted, “Look at them, your eggs in aspic . . . I like eggs in aspic, too!”
    “‘She took all the eggs that were on the table and crushed them between her fingers right there in front of everyone, made a purée of them, and then ran home crying.
    “‘I couldn’t keep a straight face. I burst out laughing. The waiter and the woman at the cash register looked so funny, watching Consuelo attacking the eggs. After a few minutes I left, too. Go tell her that the scene is forgotten, Guerrero. Tell her I’m not angry and I’m coming home tomorrow for my birthday. I’m sending her these lobsters to make her happy. And most of all, tell her she shouldn’t mistake their claws for eggs in aspic.’”

    T HE PILOTS’ LIVES were simple and orderly, like those of all men of action. My husband flew the mail route between Casablanca and Port-Etienne. * A few years earlier a single pilot had been responsible for the entire route from Casa to Dakar, but Monsieur Daurat had persuaded the government to make some improvements. The pilots had changed, and the planes had been partially modernized.
    Staying over in Port-Etienne was no fun: there were hardly more than a dozen men there, including the Arab laborers who were slaves of the Maures. My husband often told me, “One day I’ll take you to see Madame la Capitaine. She’s French, and she has a garden there, in that country where nothing green grows. She gets fresh-water in by boat from Bordeaux and soil from the Canary Islands. In a little wooden box, she’s growing three lettuces and two tomato plants. She washes her hair in fresh-water from Bordeaux, then waters her garden with the same water. To shelter her little vegetable patch from the desert sands, she has the box lowered to the bottom of a well. . . . When we stop over on our way through, she invites us to dinner; we always have canned food to eat, but she has her garden pulled up out of the well and displays it on the table. Her two miserable tomato plants, her three lettuces . . . It’s touching!”
    When he came back, Saint-Ex told me, “You can understand that after spending time out in the desert sands like that, I come home a little wild. Down there, I think crudely; I’m a big bear, as you call me. It makes life easier. . . . I’m a bear, I tell myself, and I