So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt her. He had taken seriously words that were without importance, and it had made him unhappy.
"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should only look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity".
And he continued his confidence:
"The fact is that I didn't know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was so young to know how to love her . . . "
