The Little Prince
If only I could paste the whole book here…
In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don’t dare disobey.
[…] It’s already been six years since my friend went away, taking his sheep with him. If I try to describe him here, it’s so I won’t forget him. It’s sad to forget a friend. Not everyone has had a friend. […] My friend never explained anything. Perhaps he thought I was like himself. But I, unfortunately, cannot see a sheep through the sides of a crate. I maybe a little like the grown-ups. I must have grown old.
“One day I saw the sun set forty-four times!”
And a little later you added, “You know, when you’re feeling very sad, sunsets are wonderful…”
“On the day of the forty-four times, were you feeling very sad?”
But the little prince didn’t answer.
“[…] Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing - that isn’t important?” His face turned red now, and he went on. “If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”
[…]
I didn’t know what to say. How clumsy I felt! I didn’t know how to reach him, where to find him… It’s so mysterious, the land of tears.
“We don’t record flowers,” the geographer said.
“Why not? It’s the prettiest thing!”
“Because flowers are ephemeral.”
“Where are the people?” The little prince finally resumed the conversation. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…”
“It’s also lonely with the people,” said the snake.
The little prince looked at the snake for a long time. “You’re a funny creature,” he said at last, “no thicker than a finger.”
“But I’m powerful than a king’s finger,” the snake said.
The little prince smiled.
“You’re not very powerful… You don’t even have a feet. You couldn’t travel very far.”
“I can take you further than a ship,” the snake said.
[…] It doesn’t make me much of a prince… And he lay down in the grass and wept.
“The only thing you learn are the things you tame,” said the fox. “People haven’t time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!”
“What do I have to do?” asked the little prince.
“You have to be very patient,” the fox answered. “First you’ll sit down a little ways from me, over there, in the grass. I’ll watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you won’t say anything. Language is the source of misunderstandings. But day by day, you’ll be able to sit a little closer…”
“[…] If you come at four in the afternoon, I’ll begin to be happy by three. The closer to gets to four, the happier I’ll feel. By four I’ll be all excited and worried; I’ll discover what it costs to be happy!”
“It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It’s the time I spent on my rose…,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose…”
“I’m responsible for my rose…,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
“What a hurry they’re in,” said the little prince. “What are they looking for?”
“Not even the engineer on the locomotive knows,” the switchman said.
And another brightly lit express train thundered by in the opposite direction.
“Are they coming back already?” asked the little prince.
“It’s not the same ones,” the switchman said. “It’s an exchange.”
“They weren’t satisfied, where they were?” asked the little prince.
“No one is ever satisfied where he is,” the switchman said.
“If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked,” the little prince said to himself, “I’d walk very slowly toward a water fountain…”
“The desert is beautiful,” the little prince added.
And it was true. I’ve always loved the desert. You sit down on a sand dune. You see nothing. You hear nothing. And yet something shines, something sings in that silence…
“What makes the desert beautiful,” the little prince said, “is that it hides a well somewhere…”
[…] And I realised he was even more fragile than I had thought. Lamps must be protected: A gust of wind can blow them out…
[…] And the pulley groaned the way an old weather vane groans when the wind had been asleep a long time.
“Hear that?” said the little prince. “We’ve awakened this well and it’s singing.”
I raised the bucket to his lips. He drank, eyes closed. It was as sweet as a feast. That water was more than merely a drink. It was born of our walk beneath the stars, of the song of the pulley, of the effort of my arms. It did the heart good, like a present.
You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.
“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!”
And he laughed again.
“And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll always be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me.”
There was nothing but a yellow flash close to his ankle. He remained motionless for an instant. He didn’t cry out. He fell gently, the way a tree falls. There wasn’t even a sound, because of the sand.
It’s all a great mystery. For you, who love the little prince, too. As for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten a rose…