Chapter 20 🔊✎

But in the end, after the little prince had walked for a long time through the sand and the rocks and the snow, he found a road. And roads always lead to people.

“Hello,” he said. 🔊✎

He had arrived in a garden full of roses. 🔊✎

“Hello,” said the roses. 🔊✎

The little prince stared at them. They looked exactly like his own flower. 🔊✎

“Who are you?” he asked, stunned. 🔊✎

“We’re roses,” said the roses. 🔊✎

“Ah!” said the little prince. 🔊✎

He felt very unhappy. 🔊✎ His flower had told him she was the only one of her kind in the whole universe. And here were five thousand more of them, all alike, in a single garden! 🔊✎

“She’d be so upset,” he said to himself, “if she could see this… she’d start coughing and coughing and pretend she was dying to escape the shame of it. 🔊✎ And I would have to pretend to look after her, otherwise she’d pay me back by dying for real…” 🔊✎

Then he said to himself: “I thought I was rich. 🔊✎ I thought I had a unique flower, and I just had an ordinary rose. 🔊✎ Her and three volcanoes that reached up to my knees, and one of them might be extinct forever. 🔊✎ It doesn’t make me a very great prince…” And he lay down in the grass and cried. 🔊✎