Unit 4: Powerful Openings: "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses.

They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses.

They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses.

Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles.

Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say.

Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say.

On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half – dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouth of mortars.

On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half – dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouth of mortars.

On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half – dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouth of mortars.

Soon enough, the navigators can discern the low moonlit lumps of islands ranged along the horizon.

On an outermost island, panicked sheep run zigzagging between rocks.

To the bombardiers, the walled city on its granite headland, drawing ever closer, looks like an unholy tooth, something black and dangerous, a final abscess to be lanced away.

To the bombardiers, the walled city on its granite headland, drawing ever closer, looks like an unholy tooth, something black and dangerous, a final abscess to be lanced away.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within, and contains scale replicas of hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. there is a Cathedral with its perforated spire, in the bulky old Château de Saint du Môle; a delicate, reticulated atrium vaults over the seafood market; minute benches, the smallest no larger than Apple seeds, dot the tiny public squares.

Marie-Laure runs her fingertips along the centimeter–wide parapet crowning the ramparts, drawing in an even star shape around the entire model.

“Rue des Cordiers. Rue Jacques Cartier.”
in a corner of the room stand to galvanized buckets filled to the rim with water.

Her fingers travel back to the cathedral spire.

And now it is night again, another revolution of the clock, and the whole block is quiet, and she cannot sleep.

A mounting static.

Otherwise, the night is dreadfully silent: no engines, no voices, no clatter.

Something addling softly, very close.

Marie-Laure hesitates at the window in her stocking feet, her bed-room behind her, seashells arranged along the top of the armoire, pebbles along the baseboards.

The drone of the airplanes grows.

Five streets to the north, a white-haired eighteen-year-old German private named Werner Pfennig wakes to a staccato hum.

From the direction of the sea come whistles and booms; flak is going up.

An anti-air corporal hurries down the corridor, heading for the stairwell.

An anti-air corporal hurries down the corridor, heading for the stairwell.

Not so long ago, the Hotel of Bees was a cheerful address, with bright blue shutters on its facade and oysters on ice in its cafe and Breton waiters in bow ties polishing glasses behind its bar.

Parisians on weekend holidays would drink aperitifs here, and before them the occasional emissary from the republic--ministers and vice ministers and abbots and admirals--and in the centuries before them, windburned corsairs: killers, plunderers, raiders, seamen.

Parisians on weekend holidays would drink aperitifs here, and before them the occasional emissary from the republic--ministers and vice ministers and abbots and admirals--and in the centuries before them, windburned corsairs: killers, plunderers, raiders, seamen.

Parisians on weekend holidays would drink aperitifs here, and before them the occasional emissary from the republic--ministers and vice ministers and abbots and admirals--and in the centuries before them, windburned corsairs: killers, plunderers, raiders, seamen.

The crests above the door lintels still have bumblebees carved into the oak; the ivy-covered fountain in the courtyard is shaped like a hive.

Werner’s favorites are five faded frescoes on the ceilings of the grandest upper rooms, where bees as big as children float against blue backdrops, big lazy drones and workers with diaphanous wings--where, above a hexagonal bathtub, a single nine-foot-long queen, with multiple eyes and a golden-furred abdomen, curls across the ceiling.

Werner’s favorites are five faded frescoes on the ceilings of the grandest upper rooms, where bees as big as children float against blue backdrops, big lazy drones and workers with diaphanous wings--where, above a hexagonal bathtub, a single nine-foot-long queen, with multiple eyes and a golden-furred abdomen, curls across the ceiling.

Over the past four weeks, the hotel has become something else: a fortress.

The royal acht acht, a deathly monarch meant to protect them all.

The walls reverberate all the way down into the foundation, then back up.

Werner can hear the Austrians two floors up scrambling, reloading, and the receding screams of both shells as they hurtle above the ocean, already two or three miles away.

Werner can hear the Austrians two floors up scrambling, reloading, and the receding screams of both shells as they hurtle above the ocean, already two or three miles away.

The big gun detonates a third time, and glass shatters somewhere close by, and torrents of soot rattle down the chimney, and the walls of the hotel toll like a struck bell.

The big gun detonates a third time, and glass shatters somewhere close by, and torrents of soot rattle down the chimney, and the walls of the hotel toll like a struck bell.

The big gun detonates a third time, and glass shatters somewhere close by, and torrents of soot rattle down the chimney, and the walls of the hotel toll like a struck bell.