Chapter 7 🔊✎
On the fifth day, and again thanks to the sheep, the secret of the little prince’s life was revealed. 🔊✎ He asked me suddenly, out of the blue, as though it were something he had been silently thinking about for a long time: 🔊✎
“If a sheep eats bushes, does that mean it eats flowers as well?” 🔊✎
“A sheep eats anything it finds.” 🔊✎
“Even flowers with thorns?” 🔊✎
“Yup. Even flowers with thorns.” 🔊✎
“But then what use are the thorns?”
I didn’t know. I was busy trying to remove a bolt from my motor, and it was stuck. 🔊✎ I was very worried, because the problem started to look extremely serious, and with my water running low I feared the worst. 🔊✎
The little prince never let go of a question once he had asked it. 🔊✎ My bolt was driving me crazy, and I said the first thing that came into my head: 🔊✎
“The thorns are no use at all. The flowers just do it to be mean.”
“Oh!” 🔊✎
But after a silence, he said resentfully:
“I don’t believe you! 🔊✎ Flowers are weak. They are naïve. 🔊✎ They try to make themselves believe that their thorns are terrible weapons…” 🔊✎ I didn’t answer. At that moment, I was saying to myself: “If I really can’t unscrew this bolt, I guess I’ll have to knock it out with a hammer.” 🔊✎ The little prince once again interrupted my thoughts:
“Then do you believe that the flowers…”
“No! No! I don’t believe anything! I wasn’t even thinking about what I said. I’m doing something important!” 🔊✎ He looked at me, stunned.
“Doing something important!” 🔊✎
He saw me, my hammer in my hand, my fingers black with grease, bent over an object that to him must have appeared very ugly. 🔊✎
“You talk like the grown-ups!” 🔊✎
That made me feel a bit ashamed. But pitilessly, he continued. 🔊✎
“You get everything wrong… you mix everything up!” 🔊✎
He was furious. His golden hair shook in the wind.
“I know a planet where there’s a gentleman with a red face. 🔊✎ He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved anyone. All he has ever done is add up numbers. 🔊✎ And the whole day he carries on like you: “I’m doing something important! I’m doing something important!” and that makes him swell up with pride. 🔊✎ But he’s not a man, he’s a mushroom! 🔊✎
The little prince was now white with rage. 🔊✎
“For millions of years, flowers have been making thorns. 🔊✎ For millions of years, sheep have been eating flowers all the same. 🔊✎ And you don’t think it’s important to understand why the flowers take so much trouble to make thorns which never help them? 🔊✎ The war of the sheep and flowers isn’t important? 🔊✎ It’s not more serious and more important than some red-faced gentleman’s sums? 🔊✎ And if I know a flower, a unique flower that exists nowhere in the whole universe but on my planet, and a little sheep could eat it one morning, in one bite, without even knowing what it’s done, you don’t think that’s important!” 🔊✎ He blushed, then continued:
“If someone loves a flower of which there is only a single one in all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at them. 🔊✎ He tells himself: ‘My flower is up there somewhere…’ 🔊✎ But if the sheep eats the flower, for him it’s like suddenly all the stars have been switched off. And that’s not important!” 🔊✎
He couldn’t say any more. 🔊✎ He began to sob. 🔊✎ Night had fallen. 🔊✎ I had dropped my tools. 🔊✎ I no longer cared about my hammer or my bolt, about thirst or death. 🔊✎ Somewhere on a planet, on my planet, on the Earth, there was a little prince to console. 🔊✎ I took him in my arms. 🔊✎ I rocked him. 🔊✎ I told him: “The flower you love is in no danger… I’ll draw a muzzle for your sheep… I’ll draw a cage for your flower… I…” 🔊✎ I didn’t know what to say. 🔊✎ I felt very stupid. 🔊✎ I didn’t know how to reach him, where to find him. 🔊✎ It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.
