You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on.

“One could not die for you. To be sure,

an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked

just like you—the rose that belongs to me. But in

herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds

of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered;

because it is she that I have put under the

glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered

behind the screen; because

it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars

(except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies);

because it is she that I have listened to, when she

grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.

Because she is my rose.”