Luxury is an odd thing. You don’t know you have it until confronted with someone else’s lack.
Nancy’s husband—Henri—teaches her three important things in the novel: how to drink, how to curse in French, and how to ride a bike. True to history, Nancy did not learn how to ride a bike until she was an adult. All three of those skills later become vital tools for Nancy as she leads seven thousand French Resistance soldiers in the Auvergne forests. But in the moment, when Henri presents her with her first bicycle, he cannot fathom how a woman could grow into her twenties and not know how to ride. But isn’t that how it always is? The things we take for granted can be unimaginable luxuries for someone else.
Cindi Chipping and 21 other people liked this
