ut his arms around my neck. I felt his heart beating like the heart of a dying bird, shot with someone's rifle…
"I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine," he said. "Now you can go back home--""How do you know about that?"I was just coming to tell him that my work had been successful, beyond anything that I had dared to hope.He made no answer to my question, but he added:"I, too, am going back home today…
"Then, sadly--"It is much farther…it is much more difficult…
"I realised clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him…
His look was very serious, like some one lost far away."I have your sheep. And I have the sheep's box. And I have the muzzle…
"And he gave me a sad smile.I waited a long time. I could see that he was reviving little by little."Dear little man," I said to him, "you are afraid…
"He was afraid, there was no doubt about that. But he laughed lightly."I shall be much more afraid this evening…
"Once again I felt myself frozen by the sense of something irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the thought of never hearing that laughter any more. For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert."Little man," I said, "I want to hear you laugh again."But he said to me:"Tonight, it will be a year…
my star, then, can be found right above the place where I came to the Earth, a year ago…""Little man," I said, "tell me that it is only a bad dream-- this affair of the snake, and the meeting-place, and the star…
"But he did not answer my plea. He said to me, instead: "The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen…
""Yes, I know…""It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers…
""Yes, I know…""It is just as it is with t
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