Madam,

   No doubt you are right, if my sons had not dreamed while looking up at the clouds, hoping to get to know them, if they had not read the Little Prince dreaming of meeting him, up there on his little planet, if they had not dreamed of freeing themselves from this gravity that oppresses us throughout the days, if they had not dreamed of going to see if the blue of the sky is as blue from above as we see it from below, if they had not dreamed of a Sunday at Orly where I led them, children, to see the planes take off, because it is beautiful a plane that takes off when each time we say to ourselves that it is a miracle of science and the will of men, if they had not dreamed as any man dreams of leaving elsewhere to discover other worlds, Other peoples, other lives, everything for me would probably have been different.

   No doubt you are right.

   Ah, Madam, if they had not dreamed, I would not cry every day thinking of my youngest, officer gone up there forever falling with his comrades one morning in May and their mother to worry again about his eldest whose function at Air France participates in this horror. Flying both of them a plane ! Horresco referens ! (1)

   Ah, yes Madam, everything would have been different.

   I would certainly not have tears, and their mother would still smile, but I would also not have the pride to tell myself that they have fulfilled their dream. And their mother for having been the guardian of this dream.

   Ah, Madam, if they had not dreamed no doubt we would have a serene mind, but no doubt we would also have in the ulterior motive this regret of not having known them as children. To not have experienced this joy in their eyes when they accessed, one after the other, the reality of their dream.

   Because a child must dream and no one must tell him what his dream should look like. From a plane, a train, a car, a horse, a bicycle, a caduceus, a code, a uniform, a clef de sol or a plumber, a fireman’s siren or a painter’s palette. What do I know? I don’t care. He’s dreaming. And his dreams transport him to those heights that are and will be forever inaccessible to you. And on these summits he discovers the infinite, the universe. And from this universe he makes his thing. And of this thing he models its contours, he embellishes it, modifies it, transposes it, improves it so that the world advances, evolves. Don’t regress as you seem to want. In no way does he impose on others his dream or to dream of something else.

   Do you have children, Madam ? I don’t know, but then leave them the dreams, they will thank you if by chance they make them come true. Even if they do not succeed, at least the happiness of remembering it will remain. The happiness of having dreamed. The happiness of having imagined. The happiness of having been able to emancipate oneself from reality. Like a child in front of a Christmas tree, unless he forbids it too.

   No doubt you are right, Madam. For you and the fear that commands you, the fear that governs you to see the world as a bad dream, a delirium. Reason for you, but not for them, children, who need the dream to fulfill themselves.

   Have you, Madam, never dreamed of it? Your too heavy soles will have been and are your nightmare.

(1) Virgil – The Aeneid – Canto II – c. 204