Follow Your Heart [antikvár]

Opicina, 16 November 1992 You have been away for two months, and for two months I have heard nothing from you apart from a postcard telling me that you were still alive. This morning I stood in the garden for a long time looking at your rose. Although we are well into autumn, it still stands out - crimson, proud and solitaiy - from all the other plants which are now faded and dead. Do you remember the day we planted it? You were ten years old and had just finished reading The Little Prince, a present from me for passing your exams. You were enchanted by the story. Your favourite characters were the rose and the wolf; but you did not like the baobab tree, the snake, the airman or the little, empty, pretentious men floating around on their minuscule planets. So one morning over breakfast, you said, 'I want a rose.' And when I argued that we already had a great many roses, you replied, 'But I want one that is all mine, I want to look after it and make it grow tall.' NaturaUy, you wanted a wolf as well as a rose, and with childish cunning you had expressed the more easily gratified wish before the almost impossible one. Having agreed to the rose, how could I deny you a wolf? After discussing the matter at length, we arrived at the compromise of a dog. 'I M i 1