It was he, Courtail des Pereires, who had obtained the second driving license for racing cars issued in France. Over the desk we had his diploma in a gold frame and his photograph as a young man at the wheel of a monster, with the date and the rubber stamps. The end had been tragic . . . He often told me about it.
"I was lucky," he admitted. "Take it from me. We were coming into Bois-le-Duc . . . the carburation was perfect . . . I didn't even want to slow down . . . I catch sight of the schoolteacher . . . she had climbed up on the embankment . . . She motioned to me . . . She'd read all my books . . . She waved her parasol . . . I didn't want to be rude . . . I threw on my brakes outside the school . . . In a minute I'm surrounded, fêted . . . I take a drink . . . I wasn't supposed to stop again before Chartres . . . another ten miles . . . The last control station . . . I invite the young lady to come along . . . 'Climb in, mademoiselle,' I say . . . 'Climb in beside me. Come along.' She was cute. She hesitated, she shilly-shallied, she coquetted some . . . I pressed her . . . So she sits down beside me and off we go . . . All day long, at every control station, there'd been cider and more cider . . . My machine as really humming, running fine . . . I didn't dare to make any more stops . . . But I needed to bad . . . Finally I had to give in . . . So I throw on the brakes . . . I stop the car, I stand up, I spot a bush . . . I leave the chick at the wheel. 'Wait for me,' I sing out, 'I'll be back in a second . . .' I'd hardly touched a finger to my fly when so help me I'm stunned! Lifted off my feet! Dashed through the air like a straw in a gale! Boom! Stupendous! A shattering explosion! . . . The trees, the bushes all around, ripped up! mowed down! blasted! The air's aflame! I land at the bottom of a crater, almost unconscious . . . I feel myself . . . I pull myself together . . . I crawl to the road . . . A total vacuum! The car? . . . Gone, my boy . . . A vacuum! No more car! Evaporated! Demolished! Literally! The wheels, the chassis . . . oak! Pitchpine! All ashes! . . . The whole frame . . . Oh well! . . . I drag myself around, I scramble from one heap of earth to the next . . . I dig . . . I rummage . . . A few fragments here and there . . . a few splinters . . . A little piece of fan, a belt buckle. One of the caps of the gast tank . . . A hairpin . . . That was all . . . A tooth that I've never been sure about . . . The official investigation proved nothing . . . explained nothing . . . What would you expect? . . . The causes of that terrible conflagration will remain forever a mystery . . . Almost two weeks later in a pond, six hundred yards from the spot, they found . . . after a good deal of dredging . . . one of the young lady's feet, half devoured by the rats.
"For my part, though I can't claim to be absolutely certain, I might in a pinch accept one of the numerous hypotheses advanced at the time to explain that fire, that incredible explosion . . . it's possible that imperceptibly, little by little, one of our 'long fuses' shook loose . . . When you come to think of it, it would suffice for one of those thin minium rods, shaken by thousands of bumps and jolts, to come into contact for only a second . . . for a tenth of a second . . . with the gasoline nipples . . . The whole shebang would explode instantly! Like melinite! Like a shell! Yes, my boy, the mechanism was mighty precarious in those days. I went back to the place a long time after the disaster . . . There was still a charred smell . . . At that critical stage in the development of the automobile, I might add, a number of these fantastic explosions were reported . . . almost as powerful! Everything pulverized! Horribly scattered in all directions! Propelled through the air for miles! . . . If pressed for a comparison, the only thing I can think of is certain sudden explosions of liquid air . . . And even there I have my reservations . . . Those things are commonplace! Perfectly easy to explain . . . from start to finish . . . beyond the shadow of a doubt. Whereas my tragedy remains an almost complete mystery . . . We may as well admit it in all modesty. But what importance has that today? None whatever. Fuses haven't been used in ages. Such speculation only impedes progress . . . Other problems demand our attention . . . a thousand times more interesting! Ah, my boy, that was a long time ago . . . Nobody uses minium anymore . . . Nobody!"
-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: New Directions, 1966), 335-37.