Chapter 9
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 realized 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...