CHAPTER 10 – VOLCANOES

“It wasn’t right to listen to her,” the little prince told me one day. “You must never listen to flowers. You must look at them and smell them. My flower made my planet beautiful. She smelled so good, but I didn’t know how to enjoy it. The story about the tigers made me so angry, but it wasn’t right to take it so seriously. What was right, was to love the flower for her beauty and smell. But I wasn’t able to do it.

He then continued, “At that time I didn’t understand anything. I listened to her words but I didn’t see her actions. She made my planet more beautiful. It wasn’t correct to leave her. I didn’t see the love that was behind her little tricks. Flowers are so complicated. But I was too young to know how to love her.”

I believe that for his departure from the planet, the little prince used the migration of wild birds.

On the morning of his departure he put his planet in perfect order. He carefully cleaned his active volcanoes. There were two active volcanoes on his planet. And they were very good for warming his breakfast in the morning.

He also had one volcano which wasn’t active. But, as he said, “You never know!” So he cleaned this volcano too. If they are correctly cleaned, there are no eruptions.

Of course, on our Earth we are very small to clean our volcanoes. That’s why they’re causing us a lot of trouble.

The little prince also pulled, a little sadly, the last little baobabs. He thought that this was his last day on his planet. He didn’t plan to come back.

He gave water to his flower one last time, then he put her under glass. At that moment, he felt that he was very close to tears.

“Goodbye,” he said to the flower. But she didn’t answer him.

“Goodbye,” he repeated. The flower coughed. But it wasn’t because she had a cold.

“I was stupid,” she said at last. “I want to apologize. Try to be happy.”

He was surprised that she didn’t complain. He stood there quite confused. He was holding the glass in his hand. He didn’t understand this calm kindness.

“Of course, I love you,” the flower told him. “It was my mistake that you didn’t feel it. It doesn’t matter. But you were also as studid as I was. Try to be happy. Put that glass down. I don’t need it.”

“But the wind…”

“The wind isn’t that bad. The night air will do me good. I am a flower.”

“But the animals…”

“I have to be able survive two or three caterpillars if I want to see the butterflies. I think that they are very beautiful. If there are no butterflies here, who will visit me? You will be far away. And I am not afraid of big animals. I have my thorns.” And she showed all of her four thorns to the little prince.

Then she added, “Don’t stand here. It makes me angry. You decided to leave. So, now go!”

She said it because she didn’t want to show her tears. She was such a proud flower.