back to Russia, I will teach you some of the local dialect.
Those glowing bands that furrow the eastern sky just before sunrise – I saw them again this morning – are called
bars of daylight
. Those little blue clouds that stand out against the blue of the sky are
jay
wings
(what you call
Häher
or
Holzschreier
). A whirlwind is called a
folly
. The weather is
fattening
or
slimming
, depending on whether there’s a threat of rain or the sky is clearing. In the same circumstances, you can also say that the weather is
grieving
or that the sun is
laughing
.
When the soil turns easily, we say it’s
obedient
. When a wall or a building is in disrepair, it’s
going mad
. Trees can either be
virtuous
, that is, vigorous;
stunned
, stunted or withered; or
furious
when they grow too fast. Very often, they are seen to be
ailering
, or suffering. A good belt of woodland is said to be
bawdy
because it is bold and strapping. Plants that flower magnificently are sometimes called
prideful
, or
cheeky
. The rapid growth of vegetation in the month of May is compared to boiling liquid: the woods
burl
; the explosive growth of the hedgerows is a
burling
.
The spring of 1940 was wonderfully early and beautiful. Was it the same on your side of the Rhine? I don’t recall. Here in Normandy and all across France, the sun laughed and our parched hedges did little burling compared to previous years, while without Marguerite to keep it up, the garden slowly died under my exhausted gaze. Day after day,neither bars nor jay wings streaked or speckled the absurdly blue sky, although the thunder of weapons began suddenly to rumble to the north, and later to the east. It had been so hot and dry that the rivers had been reduced to trickles and the fish died belly up in the lukewarm waters of the channels alongside our islands, which could be reached practically without the use of a boat. Such weather greatly favoured your lightning war.
You know more about the breakthrough at Sedan than I do, so I won’t bother going over it. Split into two sharp prongs, ten German armoured and six motorised divisions sped westward along a road that our command had deemed unworthy of defending. Seven of those ten Panzer divisions crossed the Ardennes and reached the Meuse in three days. Having so poorly defended the sector, General Corap was stripped of his command and replaced by Giraud, who was captured along with his entire general staff. On 20 May, General Von Kleist’s tank corps reached the mouth of the Somme in an almost unimaginable burst of speed, attacking our troops in Belgium from the rear. I listened to this awful news on the wireless. I was humiliated by the collapse, which had, of course, been predictable, but like a few others I had come to hope for a brief and apocalyptic campaign for France that, in bringing Marianne to her festering knees, would lay the foundations for a National Rebirth with the long-awaited return of the Victor of Verdun.
Maréchal Pétain, recalled from Spain in mid-May, was appointed Vice-President by Paul Reynaud, and Weygand replaced Gamelin as Supreme Commander. Wladimir d’Ormesson wrote in
Le Matin
: ‘The Pétain–Weygand partnership exudes a sense of immense calm. Their names represent such a wealth of experience, wisdom, knowledge, resolve and, ultimately, glory, that they inspire confidence in and of themselves.’ In fact, however, the two men despise one another; while their political ideas and their hatred of Bolshevism are as one,they are temperamental opposites. The Maréchal is a wise, serene and prudent man, and above all a miserly spender of French blood, as he demonstrated countless times during the Great War, for instance in 1917 when he put an end to the pointless Nivelle offensive and spared so many mutineers from the firing squad. Weygand, by contrast, is restless – the very picture of that dry, martial and impetuous French officer whose recklessness can lead his troops just as easily to victory
Those glowing bands that furrow the eastern sky just before sunrise – I saw them again this morning – are called
bars of daylight
. Those little blue clouds that stand out against the blue of the sky are
jay
wings
(what you call
Häher
or
Holzschreier
). A whirlwind is called a
folly
. The weather is
fattening
or
slimming
, depending on whether there’s a threat of rain or the sky is clearing. In the same circumstances, you can also say that the weather is
grieving
or that the sun is
laughing
.
When the soil turns easily, we say it’s
obedient
. When a wall or a building is in disrepair, it’s
going mad
. Trees can either be
virtuous
, that is, vigorous;
stunned
, stunted or withered; or
furious
when they grow too fast. Very often, they are seen to be
ailering
, or suffering. A good belt of woodland is said to be
bawdy
because it is bold and strapping. Plants that flower magnificently are sometimes called
prideful
, or
cheeky
. The rapid growth of vegetation in the month of May is compared to boiling liquid: the woods
burl
; the explosive growth of the hedgerows is a
burling
.
The spring of 1940 was wonderfully early and beautiful. Was it the same on your side of the Rhine? I don’t recall. Here in Normandy and all across France, the sun laughed and our parched hedges did little burling compared to previous years, while without Marguerite to keep it up, the garden slowly died under my exhausted gaze. Day after day,neither bars nor jay wings streaked or speckled the absurdly blue sky, although the thunder of weapons began suddenly to rumble to the north, and later to the east. It had been so hot and dry that the rivers had been reduced to trickles and the fish died belly up in the lukewarm waters of the channels alongside our islands, which could be reached practically without the use of a boat. Such weather greatly favoured your lightning war.
You know more about the breakthrough at Sedan than I do, so I won’t bother going over it. Split into two sharp prongs, ten German armoured and six motorised divisions sped westward along a road that our command had deemed unworthy of defending. Seven of those ten Panzer divisions crossed the Ardennes and reached the Meuse in three days. Having so poorly defended the sector, General Corap was stripped of his command and replaced by Giraud, who was captured along with his entire general staff. On 20 May, General Von Kleist’s tank corps reached the mouth of the Somme in an almost unimaginable burst of speed, attacking our troops in Belgium from the rear. I listened to this awful news on the wireless. I was humiliated by the collapse, which had, of course, been predictable, but like a few others I had come to hope for a brief and apocalyptic campaign for France that, in bringing Marianne to her festering knees, would lay the foundations for a National Rebirth with the long-awaited return of the Victor of Verdun.
Maréchal Pétain, recalled from Spain in mid-May, was appointed Vice-President by Paul Reynaud, and Weygand replaced Gamelin as Supreme Commander. Wladimir d’Ormesson wrote in
Le Matin
: ‘The Pétain–Weygand partnership exudes a sense of immense calm. Their names represent such a wealth of experience, wisdom, knowledge, resolve and, ultimately, glory, that they inspire confidence in and of themselves.’ In fact, however, the two men despise one another; while their political ideas and their hatred of Bolshevism are as one,they are temperamental opposites. The Maréchal is a wise, serene and prudent man, and above all a miserly spender of French blood, as he demonstrated countless times during the Great War, for instance in 1917 when he put an end to the pointless Nivelle offensive and spared so many mutineers from the firing squad. Weygand, by contrast, is restless – the very picture of that dry, martial and impetuous French officer whose recklessness can lead his troops just as easily to victory
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