The written record
Marie: – “I’ve kept all of Antoine’s letters. He never stopped writing to me … They came from all over the world … I often read them again « .
Antoine: – « … Tell yourself, my dear mum, that you have filled my life with sweetness like no one else could have done. And that you are the most refreshing of memories, the one that awakens the most in me… »
Marie: – « My dear Antoine … Write and fly, carry these letters at all costs overseas, over deserts and mountains … Letters from a woman to her husband so far away, from a grandfather to his granddaughter who is so close to his heart, from a son to his mother whom he loves … and risk your life for that ..”
The flight
The Little Prince: – “I like sunsets. One day, I saw the sun set 43 times! You know, when you’re so sad, you love sunsets… »
Antoine: – « The day of the 43 times, were you really so sad? But the Little Prince didn’t answer. »
Marie: – « The Little Prince never answers questions and never stops asking questions! He is as stubborn as you were, Antoine ».
Antoine: – « You can’t imagine the loneliness you find at 4000 metres, face to face with your engine. I like that, the wind and the struggle, the duel with the storm”.
New-York
The Little Prince: – « Men… they run into the rapids, but they don’t know what they’re looking for. So they get agitated and they go around in circles… ».
Antoine: – « We forget in the cities what a man is. Humanity seems to me to be a termite mound … We can no longer live on the contents of our fridges, or by politics, card-games and crossword puzzles, don’t you see? We can no longer live without poetry, colour or love.
Marie: – « It is however in this big city and during this life of exile that you didn’t want, that your imagination gave shape to this Little Prince, blond as corn. The first time I saw the drawing of this little fellow, the memories of our house and its park filled with your smiling laughter flooded back.”
Childhood
Antoine: – “I am from a country, the country of my childhood. I have a large chest in Saint-Maurice. Since the age of seven, I have been putting in it everything I love, think and remember … It is only this large chest that is important in my life. ».
Marie: – » … and it is in this chest that you also locked up the faded sunsets. And the attic where you looked at the stars through the holes in the roof. Was it the stars you wanted to reach with your bicycle glider? Was it to get closer to them that you flew for the first time in an airplane at the age of 12, without my permission? There are passions that carry you beyond the clouds ».
The Little Prince: – » My star will be for you one of the stars, in that way, you’ll love to look at all the stars… They will all be your friends.”
The desert
Antoine: – “I’ve always loved the desert. You sit on a sand dune. You can’t see anything. You can’t hear anything. And yet something radiates silently … It is in the depths of the desert that one truly discovers what it is to be a man. There are mysterious moments that make us grow because we are bound together by a common purpose. It is what causes man to grow that makes man ».
The Little Prince: – « The men where you live grow five thousand roses in the same garden … And they don’t find what they are looking for … And yet what they are looking for could be found in a single rose or a little water … »
Marie: – « This water, you know how rare it is. I was so scared Antoine without news from you for four days when you crashed your plane in the desert. I thought I had lost you … for the first time … ».
The Little Prince: – « What beautifies the desert is that it hides a well somewhere…”
The disappearance
Antoine: – “The essential, most of the time does not carry any weight. The main thing here, on the surface, was only a smile. We are rewarded with a smile. We are motivated by a smile.
Fox: – “But if you tame me, we will need each other. You will be unique in the world for me. I will be unique in the world for you. … Here’s my secret. It’s very simple: you can only see well with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes. »
The Little Prince: – « The essential is invisible to the eyes, » repeated the Little Prince in order to remember.
Fox: – « It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important ».
The Little Prince: – « It’s the time I spent on my rose … «
Fox: – « Men have forgotten this truth, said the fox. But you must not forget it. You become responsible forever for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose. ».
The Little Prince: – « I am responsible for my rose… » repeated the Little Prince, in order to remember…»
The disappearance
Marie: – “And you went down the path of your duty as a man … and I never saw you again ».
Antoine: – “At the moment of my death, as today, there will be only one problem for me: what can we, what should we say to men?”
Marie: – « What you leave them, Antoine … … the rich example of a life of passionate pilot and writer who touches minds and hearts … This concern for others, this love of the earth, the stars and the desert … You leave for them in all your works the perspective of a visionary humanist and you leave to men a little fellow, blond as corn, he also went back to his little planet to take care of his rose … ».
The Little Prince: – “You’ll be sad. I’ll look like I’m dead but it won’t be true.”
The encounter
Marie: – “Antoine, you didn’t find the body of the Little Prince in the morning like we never found yours, but now I know where you are, I finally know who you are. I now understand the emotion I felt when I saw the first drawings of the Little Prince … this Little Prince is you. He’s the blond child who relentlessly judges the adult you’ve become, I’m so happy you’re friends. So now, when the clouds that you have flown over so many times leave a clear sky, I watch the stars reflect in the sea ».
The Little Prince: – “When you look at the sky at night, since I will be living in one of them, since I will be laughing in one of them, then it will be for you as if all the stars were laughing. You, you’re the one who will have stars that know how to laugh…”
