"... et les avions foncer, charger, fendre ces flots ! les "forteresses" ! aller et retour !"

Autograph manuscript signed by Louis-Ferdinand Céline written in blue ballpoint pen on a sheet of white paper numbered 565 in the left corner. One transverse fold. Some pin holes in the upper margin, evidence of the organization of Céline manuscripts in "bundles".
« torrents de phosphore jaillir des brèches ! ... et les avions foncer, charger, fendre ces flots ! les "forteresses" ! aller et retour ! et que c'est le Jules le crime » ["torrents of phosphorus gushing from the breaches! ... and the planes rushing, charging, cleaving these waves! the "fortresses"! back and forth! and that it's Jules who's the crime"]
The passage on our sheet conforms to the published version.
Published in 1954, Normance is a direct sequel to Féérie pour une autre fois which appeared two years earlier. Both parts were written during Céline's years of exile and imprisonment in Denmark. Upon his return to France in 1951, Céline undertook a work of "polishing" and published these two titanic texts independently, originally conceived as one. "Céline, while working on it, thought of this novel as a second Voyage au bout de la nuit, capable twenty years later of astonishing the public as much as the 1932 novel." (Henri Godard)