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“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on. “One couldn’t die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”
. . . “Yes,” I said to the little prince, “whether it’s a house or the stars or the desert, what makes them beau-tiful is invisible!”
“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden . . . yet they don’t find what they’re looking for . . .” “They don’t find it,” I answered. “And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water . . .” “Of course,” I answered. And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!”
“And it’ll be fun! You’ll have five-hundred million little bells; I’ll have five-hundred million springs of fresh water . . .” And he, too, said nothing, because he was weep-ing.
IT’S ALL A GREAT MYSTERY. For you, who love the little prince, too. As for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten a rose . . .
Look up at the sky. Ask yourself, “Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?” And you’ll see how everything changes. . . . And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!
