On the morning of 10 May 1924, Madeleine Ivernol had a shock when discovering among the laundry which her new neighbour had just hung out of his window, an aviator’s shirt perfectly identical to the one that her dear fiancé was wearing when he was shot down in mid flight. At the sight of the floating arms of the shirt flapping in the wind, Madeleine trembled at the thought of the undone body of her beloved in his fall; never had she experienced the impression of being able to seize with such truth the ultimate moments of such a short life.
After a few weeks, she observed with emotion that her neighbour (who seemed to be an illustrator), had been gallant enough to keep his shirt hanging outside, as if he had understood everything that it signified to her.
But with time and the passage of pigeons, the shirt became stiff, discoloured, winding up in such a condition that little by little Madeleine Ivernol contemplated it solely as a faithful mirror of her own decrepitude.