A happy feeling returned to the dining room then, and my young friend was able to enjoy his food, though he was frequently interrupted by the children’s shouts and laughter, and barks of delight from Wings, who now had five masters to play with him and satisfy his every need.
‘It’s quite wonderful that you were able to do that, especially with children who were laughing at you just this morning,’ I remarked, to see how he’d react.
But he replied, ‘You helped me realize that I provoked them with my strange appearance, and that it’s normal for children to react spontaneously. Also, I couldn’t stand the tension much longer and I felt I had to do something to relieve it. And I had Wings, who had brought me happiness when I most needed it. It feels right that he can make others glad now.’
With this heart-warming experience, the second day of our journey came to a close. Once again, I felt that the Young Prince had cut through all my wordy explanations.
Chapter Seventeen
I woke up a little later than usual, after a restorative night’s sleep. I looked over at my room-mate’s bed, but he wasn’t there. When I opened the curtains, I saw him down by the shore of the lake, standing alone and still as the water itself. The first rays of sunshine were drying up the last wisps of a cloud, like candyfloss melting in a child’s mouth. The whole landscape radiated a sense of immense peace.
We got on the road again after eating breakfast. As we left, we noticed that the noisy family’s car was no longer there. After a quarter of an hour driving down a dirt road in the shade of cedars, araucarias and fir trees, we were approaching the edge of the forest.
Quite without warning, the Young Prince shouted, ‘Stop, please!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Please stop the car!’ he repeated, clearly worried about something.
As soon as I did so, he got out and ran twenty yards or so into the wood without a word.
Oh, so that’s what it was about, I thought to myself with a sigh of relief, surprised that my friend’s bodily needs would assail him so suddenly.
But then I discovered bitterly that that wasn’t what had made him cry out. Unlike on the first day, when he had walked towards me with shining eyes, now it was with a look of pain and disappointment that he came back holding Wings curled up in his arms.
I could hardly believe that someone would abandon such a gentle creature.
Wings was nervous with fright, whimpering and trembling as he licked desperately at the Young Prince’s hands. It couldn’t have been clearer how happy he was to see us again.
‘It can’t have been the children,’ I offered, trying to guess how my friend would feel, faced with such cruelty. ‘I don’t understand why they didn’t leave him at the guest house so that we’d get him back. Just a note of thanks or apology would have been enough,’ I complained, while the Young Prince remained silent.
All the excitement had left the puppy weak, and as we drove off again he fell asleep in the Young Prince’s lap, where the boy carried on stroking him for a long time.
Once again the road left the valley and took us into a barren landscape that was more conducive to thought than conversation.
Neither of us dared to break the silence, as though there were no words appropriate for the situation.
Eventually I said, ‘Let’s be thankful that Wings is still alive. Let’s forgive them and put it behind us.’
The Young Prince was silent, as though he hadn’t heard me. He was melancholy and reserved.
After a long while, he said, ‘I abandoned a flower, too, and I can’t forgive myself for leaving her to wilt. And I feel guilty for having doubted my friend’s good intentions, although the tuft of grass is partly to blame for that.’
I understood then what had been keeping him trapped in the past, casting a shadow over his shining smile.
‘That’s the difficulty that’s preventing you from moving forwards,’ I announced, utterly convinced of my diagnosis. ‘Listen carefully, because I’m going to tell you the secret of happiness.’
‘You know the secret?’ asked the Young Prince, opening his eyes, scarcely believing that the answer humanity had been searching for for centuries was about to be revealed to him.
‘Well, yes, I think I do,’ I replied, knowing that in a situation like that it’s better to be sure than to feign modesty. ‘I haven’t deciphered some ancient manuscript or found my way into the forbidden chamber of a mysterious pyramid, but I’m convinced that this truth, like all great truths, is simple and self-evident.’
‘Then tell me what it is – please,’ begged the Young Prince.
‘You’ll be happy if you love and forgive, because then you’ll be loved and forgiven in turn. You can’t forgive if you don’t love, because your forgiveness will never outgrow your love. And finally, it’s impossible to love and forgive others without loving and forgiving yourself first.’
‘But how can you love yourself while knowing your own flaws?’ he objected.
‘The same way you love others while knowing theirs. People who wait for the arrival of a perfect being whom they can love go from one disappointment to another and end up loving no one. But to love and forgive yourself, it’s enough just to want to become a better person, and to accept that you have always done the best that you could.’
‘And how can I know that I truly love if I’ve never experienced love before?’ asked the Young Prince, quite logically.
‘Your love is true when you put someone else’s happiness before your own. True love is free and knows no limits. It doesn’t seek to satisfy its own needs, but concentrates on what’s good for the loved one.’
‘I still don’t understand how I can give that sort of love without ever having received it,’ he implored.
‘That’s a very good point. Some humans are lucky enough to get the unconditional love of their parents. Others, through meditation, will realize that we possess immortal souls, and will sense the love of the Creator. There are people who read the gospels and feel that Jesus loved the whole of the human race with absolute perfection, so much so that He gave His life to free us from our fear of death and teach us that we are all spiritual beings rooted in our human experience. Others still will discover, through the words of enlightened teachers, a total compassion for all living creatures. If you search truthfully, you will end up finding a reason to love yourself, and you will discover that you are a unique and wonderful being.’
I was talking with great conviction, putting all the energy I could find into my words, aware that there is no mission more complex, but also none more sublime, than healing a sick heart. He listened, absorbed in a deep and respectful silence.
‘We could learn a lot from children,’ I went on. ‘They are quick to forgive – if they weren’t, life would be one long stream of hatred and endless feuds. Anyway, what’s so terrible that you need to blame yourself for? Doubting? Even the people with the firmest faith in the world have experienced doubt. Accept your mistakes and trust in God’s mercy, because He has already forgiven you. And if you’re not sure God exists, ask yourself what you gain by not forgiving yourself. What’s more, you followed the voice inside you, just as you should, when you went in search of your aviator friend to ask him why he gave you a box that couldn’t possibly fit a sheep inside.’
The boy remained silent. He was quite still, his eyes half closed. He had even stopped stroking Wings.
‘And I don’t think you should judge yourself too harshly for neglecting your flower. Flowers wilt with the end of the summer and bloom again in spring. Perhaps she managed to push you away, subtly, so you wouldn’t see her petals wrinkle up and fall.’
I felt the full force of the Young Prince’s gaze on me, as if his very life depended on each word.
‘OK, so you may have left your world behind, but you did it so you could explore a bigger one. Every choice is a death, as they say. Any change means leaving a part of ourselves behind: it’s the only way to grow and make progress. It’s
painful, but we know that the experience will enrich us. As we go, little by little we let go of everything dispensable and hold on only to what is essential, like pilgrims on their way to the shrine feeling weighed down by anything they don’t truly need.’
The words came tumbling out, guided by some mysterious certainty in me.
‘And as for the tuft of grass, don’t forget that you were going to pull her up. Your prejudices made you believe that all grasses are weeds because they invade the territory of flowers and men. Can you be sure that the tuft of grass was bad in herself? You can’t, because she was doing no more than what she was created for – being grass. Can you blame a creature for resorting to any method of survival when its existence is threatened?’
This time the boy looked at me in amazement, but his lips were pressed shut.
‘I don’t think that things are good or bad in themselves, except in relation to our needs and how we use them. But if I had to choose, I would say that, given they exist, they must be good. In the universal design of creation, it’s possible that a lot of things that happen have a meaning we still haven’t understood. Could it be that weeds grow so that we have to pull them up, and so avoid becoming lazy? Might there be pain in the world so that we can love and value our happiness? Does hate perhaps exist so that we can experience the spiritual fulfilment of forgiveness? The truth is that without difficulties along the way, it would be impossible to make progress as human beings and discover our true nature. It is at really critical moments that the best of us comes to light.’
I took a deep breath and allowed our morning’s journey to continue in silence.
It takes time for us to experience fully a true wish to forgive. Some think, paradoxically, that when they forgive, they are bestowing a benefit on someone else, when in fact the person who benefits most is the person forgiving. Negative sentiments will always turn against the person who harbours them, meaning that when we fail to forgive, when we envy and hate others, it is ourselves that we are hurting.
Suddenly, a saying of the Buddha’s leapt into my mind like a hare running across a road: ‘He who hurts me will receive in return the protection that comes from my love; and the greater his cruelty, the greater will be the kindness he receives.’
Chapter Eighteen
At around midday we arrived in a city well known for its leading hotel and conference centre.
They had built it to boost tourism in the region and show off the attractions of the area with business and arts conventions. We’d stopped there to have lunch, and on our way to the cafeteria we saw through an open doorway that the main conference hall was packed with people.
I looked with faint interest towards the stage, and saw to my surprise that the speaker was the father of the family we’d met the day before. He was rounding off a speech to put himself forward as a candidate, although we couldn’t tell what post or duty it was for. His words struck us when he said, ‘You can trust me. I won’t let you down.’
Then his eyes met the clear, piercing gaze of my friend the Young Prince.
I was overcome with an almost irresistible desire to unmask him in public, to tell everyone that he had let us down that very morning when he abandoned a defenceless little puppy.
I noted with disgust that the man’s face showed neither guilt nor shame – perhaps because those feelings require a scrap of humanity.
There was no trace of resentment or hardness in the Young Prince’s expression, though – only a glow so bright that no shadow could have eclipsed it.
We decided to slip quickly into the cafeteria in case their polite applause got the audience’s appetite up.
We were about to start eating when the man came in and, seeing us, headed straight for our table. Surprised that he had the nerve to address us, I felt myself becoming tense.
He, on the other hand, seemed calm and relaxed. He smiled when he reached us and, putting a hand on the Young Prince’s shoulder, said, ‘That was a wonderful thing you did last night. And I understand quite well why you might have regretted your decision – he’s a very special dog. Although I admit that the children were very disappointed this morning when they found he was gone…’
‘I don’t understand…’ I said, shooting a quick look at the Young Prince, who stayed where he was sitting, steady and still. ‘What d’you mean, they found he was gone?’
But the father, ignoring the interruption, went on. ‘If you’d at least left a note saying, I don’t know, how much you love the puppy, it would have been much easier to explain to the children that –’
‘Look here,’ I said in a more forceful tone, unable to comprehend why he was being kind and understanding, when that role should have fallen to us. ‘My friend here didn’t regret a thing. This morning, after you left, we found the dog in a wood and assumed you’d…’
‘That we’d abandoned him?’ The father completed the sentence that I hadn’t dared to.
‘Abandon this lovely, vulnerable, little puppy? How could you think we’d do something so cruel?’ The man was defiant, and let his indignation show.
I didn’t know what to say, and after an uncomfortable silence, the father continued. ‘You may have seen me being strict with my sons, but I am not an insensitive person and I try never to be unjust. I simply think a bit of discipline is better than having no limits at all.’ He thought about it a moment, and added, ‘I don’t know how it could have happened – unless the puppy managed to open the door of our room in the night, and got lost in the wood.’ Then he turned to the Young Prince and said, ‘Kuvaszes are restless dogs, did you know that? You’re lucky you found him.’
I seemed to have lost my ability to speak, and anyway could think of nothing to say. I felt like a child caught red-handed.
‘Well, I’ll leave you. Have a good trip,’ he said, excusing himself.
As he was walking away, the Young Prince’s voice stopped him. ‘Where can I find the boys?’ he asked.
‘In rooms 301 and 311. They’ll be so pleased to see you,’ he said over his shoulder, and continued towards a huge table, where people were waiting to celebrate something to do with his candidacy.
Even though I’d only known the Young Prince for a short time, I could see what was going to happen. His generosity was even greater than his love for Wings.
A few minutes later, the door to room 311 was opening and the children’s shouts mixed with the puppy’s cheerful yelping once more. He had got his five boisterous friends back.
At the wheel that afternoon, I promised myself that the next time I had doubts about someone, I would try and think the best of them instead of the opposite. I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter how many times people disappoint you, because every time I decide that the next person I meet will deserve my trust and my love, I am a happier person, and the world seems a better place.
My positive expectations of people and circumstances have drawn me towards good people and good circumstances. It’s as if reality wanted to gratify us, whether we expect the best or fear the worst. So perhaps the saying is true: if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it.
I glanced at the Young Prince out of the corner of my eye, and he looked quite serene. I realized that he hadn’t uttered a single negative thought about that family that whole morning.
When I assumed that the children hadn’t done anything, I had blindly condemned the father from the outset. And worse still, when I saw him on the stage I realized that, in spite of all my pretty words about forgiveness, I hadn’t forgiven him at all.
At one point it occurred to me that the boy might have suspected the truth from the start, and had done nothing to deliver me from my mistake – but I put the thought out of my mind. Just then, the Young Prince’s lips curled upwards into a bright, peaceful smile…
Soon we were rejoining the road that would take us across one more valley and into the city. Some friends were expecting me there, to make me godfather to their first son.
On that third day, the Young Prince
scarcely said a word. He would listen to me and then sink back into his thoughts, as though he could feel the end of the journey coming and wanted to absorb all of my stories.
‘Talk to me about happiness and love,’ he asked suddenly.
‘That’s quite a topic!’ I exclaimed with a sigh. ‘I could talk more about that than Scheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights. I’ll try to give you an idea of what life would be with and without love and happiness, and then you can find your own way through. Experience has taught me,’ I began, ‘that there is no happiness without love, if you think of love as an enduring passion for life and an endless amazement at everything we perceive through our senses – whether that’s a colour, a movement, a sound, a smell or a form.’
‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that we should put our love into everything we do?’
‘Exactly,’ I replied. ‘And do it with passion, too, whether it’s work, art, friendship, sport or helping others. Happiness,’ I went on, ‘is a balancing act that requires the satisfaction of a lot of human needs, from the most basic – such as food, shelter, activity and company – to the highest – like the quest for transcendence, love, altruism and the search for the meaning of life itself – passing by others, such as creativity, gratitude, productivity and change. Only our intelligence can satisfy these needs in a harmonious way, in line with our personalities and our purpose in life.’
‘And how will I know I’ve attained it?’ asked the Young Prince.
‘Happiness,’ I explained, ‘isn’t so much the final objective, like the terminus of a train line, as a way of travelling – in other words, a way of living.’
The Return of the Young Prince Page 6
