The Little Prince

‘But now you are going to cry!’ said the little prince. ‘Yes, that is so,’ said the fox. ‘Then it has done you no good at all!’ ‘It has done me good,’ said the fox, ‘because of the colour of the wheat fields.’ And then he added:

‘It may well be that this man is absurd. But he is not so absurd as the king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the tippler. For at least his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beaut

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 which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.

‘It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true…’ I said nothing. ‘You understand…it is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy.’ I said nothing. ‘But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells…’ I said nothing.

The little prince looked everywhere to find a place to sit down; but the entire planet was crammed and obstructed by the king’s magnificent ermine robe. So he remained standing upright, and, since he was tired, he yawned. ‘It is contrary to etiquette to yawn in the presence of a king,’ the monarch said to him. ‘I forbid you to do so.’ ‘I can’t help

‘One only understands the things that one tames,’ said the fox. ‘Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready-made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore. If you want a friend, tame me…’

His face turned from white to red as he continued: ‘If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darke

Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has—yes or no?—eaten a rose… Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes… And no g