Louis-Ferdinand Céline  1915

Every bit of that bay is dear to me, the bells and
the ruins, and the belfry that's gone now and the
Corsairs' palaces...Ah, I suspected as much, all
right...we all did...things of such Grandeur are
jinxed...I can still hear the "Achtung" alerts!...
a sort of giant phonograph. We had one of them
on our roof...never stopped, night or day...Bébert
spent hours under it...he wanted to figure it out...
of course it happened finally! everything was
blasted, crushed to bits, in flames sky high!...I'd
be surprised if old René, his coffin, his cradle,
his cherished memories, didn't all go crackling
up in smoke! passed into dust!

From Céline's
Fable for Another Time
Translation Mary Hudson