Word: died
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Dying. While he got ready for the flight, a deep longing possessed Saint-Exupéry to survive into the night, wherein "I might discover why it is I ought to die." He felt "like a Christian abandoned by grace." He knew he was about to do a job "honorably," but "as one honors ancient rites when they have no longer any significance...
...strive with all his heart, the significance of his striving must be unmistakable. The significance of the ashes of the village must be as telling as the significance of the village itself. But the ashes of our villages are meaningless. . . . Our dead die in a charade. The enemy's hundred and sixty divisions are not impressed by our burnings and our dead...
Revelation. He began also, dimly still, to realize why he was flying into death. "I do not die to preserve my honor, since I deny that my honor is at stake, and I challenge the jurisdiction of my judge. Nor do I die out of desperation. . . . You know nothing at all about defeat if you think there is room in it for despair. . . . "Piloting now my plane, I feel no love; but if this evening something is revealed to me, it will be because I shall have carried my heavy stones towards the building of the invisible structure...
...flames of the house, of the diving plane strip away the flesh; but they strip away the worship of the flesh too. Man ceases to be concerned with himself: he recognizes of a sudden what he forms part of. If he should die, he would not be cutting himself off from his kind, but making himself one with them. He would not be losing himself, but finding himself...
Saint-Exupéry brought plane and crew safely back. His gas and oil tanks were pierced, but the rubber lining sealed them. He also brought back a personal proof of the profoundest of Christian texts: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit...