Little
Prince Table of Contents
I believe that for his escape he took advantage of the migration
of a flock of wild birds. On the morning of his departure he put
his planet in perfect order. He carefully cleaned out his active
volcanoes. He possessed two active volcanoes; and they were very
convenient for heating his breakfast in the morning. He also had
one volcano that was extinct. But, as he said, "One never knows!"
So he cleaned out the extinct volcano, too. If they are well cleaned
out, volcanoes burn slowly and steadily, without any eruptions.
Volcanic eruptions are like fires in a chimney.
On
our earth we are obviously much too small to clean out our volcanoes.
That is why they bring no end of trouble upon us. The little prince
also pulled up, with a certain sense of dejection, the last little
shoots of the baobabs. He believed that he would never want to
return. But on this last morning all these familiar tasks seemed
very precious to him. And when he watered the flower for the last
time, and prepared to place her under the shelter of her glass
globe, he realised that he was very close to tears. "Goodbye,"
he said to the flower. But she made no answer. "Goodbye," he said
again. The flower coughed. But it was not because she had a cold.
"I
have been silly," she said to him, at last. "I ask your forgiveness.
Try to be happy..." He was surprised by this absence of reproaches.
He stood there all bewildered, the glass globe held arrested in
mid-air. He did not understand this quiet sweetness.
"Of
course I love you," the flower said to him. "It is my fault that
you have not known it all the while. That is of no importance.
But you, you have been just as foolish as I. Try to be happy...
let the glass globe be. I don't want it any more."
"But the wind..." "My cold is not so bad as all that... the cool
night air will do me good. I am a flower."
"But
the animals..." "Well, I must endure the presence of two or three
caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.
It seems that they are very beautiful. And if not the butterflies
and the caterpillars who will call upon me? You will be far away...
as for the large animals, I am not at all afraid of any of them.
I have my claws."
And,
naively, she showed her four thorns.
Then
she added: "Don't linger like this. You have decided to go away.
Now go!"
For
she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower...
Go
to Chapter 10
