The Air a Library: A Pre-Sunday Sentence from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This post contains spoilers for those who haven't read All the Light We Cannot See.  You've been warned.

I considered saving this selection from Anthony Doerr's novel, All the Light We Cannot See , for tomorrow's Sunday Sentence , but decided against that because:

      a)  It's a long paragraph full of more than one sentence;
      b)  I already have a good candidate for this week's SS.

As you already know, All the Light We Cannot See is one of my favo...