One night while in Spain reporting on the news of the Civil War, French writer and journalist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, found himself with numerous pistol barrels shoved forcefully into his belly. Beneath the cloak of darkness, insurgent rebels had crept up and captured him only later to be saved by the miracle of a simple smile.

The soldiers and their captive descended into the poorly lit bowels of a basement where other militia were dozing with their guns propped up between their legs. Saint-Exupéry was searched and thrown into a cell. Although he did not speak Spanish, he understood sufficient Catalan to realize that his captors were demanding his identification. He attempted to communicate that his documents were at his hotel and that he was a journalist, but they merely handed around his camera, without expression. Following a tortuous interim of observing his abductors, Saint-Exupéry grew increasingly desperate. What occurred next in that place was driven by the simplest, most profound form of shared humanity.

As the Frenchman had no cigarettes and one of his Spanish guards was smoking, Saint-Exupéry requested through the use of gesture and ‘showing the vestige of a smile,’ if the guard would be willing to share one. His captor stretched, deliberately wiped his hand across his brow, raised his eyes to meet Saint-Exupéry’s, and, to his profound astonishment, the guard attempted to return his smile. For the journalist, ‘it was like the dawning of the day’: