CHAPTER 8 – FLOWER
Chapter 8
When I was thinking how to repair my engine, the little prince said, “Do you actually believe that flowers have thorns only to upset others?”
“No, I don’t believe it! I answered you with the first idea which came to my mind. I am busy with serious things!”
He looked at me shocked.
“Serious things!”
He saw me with my dirty hands. I was trying to do something with the engine, an object which looked extremely ugly to him.
“You talk like the adults!”
I knew that I made a mistake. I didn’t feel OK about it. But then, with the same tone in his voice, he continued, “You confuse everything. You mix everything together!”
He was really angry. He shook his head.
“I know a planet with a gentleman with a red face. He doesn’t have a flower. He doesn’t look at stars. He doesn’t love anyone. He only counts numbers. And all day he repeats again and again, like you, ‘I am a serious man! I am a serious man!’ And he’s very proud. But he’s not a man, he’s a mushroom!”
“He’s a what?”
“A mushroom!”
The little prince was now very angry. His face was white.
“Flowers have thorns. Sheep eat flowers. And you think that it’s not good to try to understand why flowers have thorns. There is a war between the sheep and the flowers. And you think that it’s not important? You think that it’s not more important than the counting of the gentleman with a red face? And if I know a flower which is the only flower in the world, which exists nowhere, only on my planet, a flower which a little sheep can eat easily, you think that this is not important?”
His face was now red and he continued.
“If somebody loves a flower which is the only flower among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough for this person to be happy when he looks at the stars and he says to himself, ‘My flower is somewhere up there.’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if all the stars stopped shining. And you think that it’s not important?”
He couldn’t say another word. He started to cry. The night came. I left my tools on the ground. How important could my tools, my engine, my death be now? On one star, on one planet, on my planet, the Earth, there was a little prince who needed my attention. I took him in my arms. I held him gently. I said to him, “The flower which you love is not in danger. I will draw you something to protect your flower. I will draw you a fence. You can put the fence around you flower. I will…”
I didn’t know what to say to him. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to talk to him, how to be his friend again. It’s so mysterious, the moment when somebody cries.
