Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
From Wind, Sand and Stars
Having returned from a grueling ordeal in
the Sahara Desert, Saint-Exupéry has been
visiting Madrid at the time of the Spanish
Civil War. As he writes, he is on a train
that is filled with Polish workers who are
being sent back from France to Poland
because of the upheaval of the impending
war in Europe.
“I sat down face to face with one couple.
Between the man and the woman a child
had hollowed himself out a place and
fallen asleep. He turned in his slumber,
and in the dim lamplight I saw his face.
What an adorable face! A golden fruit had
been born of these two peasants. Forth
from this sluggish scum had sprung this
miracle of delight and grace.
“I bent over the smooth brow, over those
mildly pouting lips, and I said to myself:
This is a musician’s face. This is the child
Mozart. This is a life full of beautiful
promise. Little princes in legends are not
different from this. Protected, sheltered,
cultivated, and what could not this child
become?
“When by mutation a new rose is born in a
garden, all the gardeners rejoice. They
isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there
is no gardener for men. This little Mozart
will be shaped like the rest by the common
stamping machine. This little Mozart will
love shoddy music in the stench of night
dives. This little Mozart is condemned.”
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