1、Little PrinceWritten By Antoine de SaiotExupery(19001944)PrefaceTo Leon Werthask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to agrownup.I have a serious reason:he is the best friend I have in the world.I haveanotherreason:this grownupunderstandseverything,even books abou
2、t children.I havea third reason:he lives in France where he is hungry and cold.He needs cheering up.Ifall these reasons are not enough,I will dedicate the book to the child from whom thisgrownup grew.All grownups were once children although few of them remember it.And so I correct my dedication:To L
3、eon Werthwhen he was a little boy Chapter1 we are introduced to the narrator,a pilot,and his ideas about grownupsOnce when I was six years old Isaw a magnificent picture in a book,called True Stories from Nature,aboutthe primeval forest.It was a picture ofaboaconstrictorintheactofswallowing an anima
4、l.Here is a copyof the drawing.Inthebookitsaid:Boaconstrictors swallow their prey whole,without chewing it.After that they are not able tomove,and they sleep throughthe six months that they need for digestion.I pondereddeeply,then,over the adventuresof the jungle.And after some work witha colored pe
5、ncil I succeeded in making my first drawing.My Drawing Number One.Itlooked like this:I showed my masterpiece to the grownups,and asked them whether the drawingfrightenedthem.But they answered:Frighten?Why should any one be frightenedby a hat?My drawing was not a picture of a hat.It was a picture of
6、a boa constrictor digestingan elephant.But since the grownups were not able to understand it,I made anotherdrawing:I drew the inside of the boa constrictor,so that the grownupscould see it clearly.They always need to have things explained.My Drawing Number Two looked like this:The grownups response,
7、this time,was to advise me to lay aside my drawings ofboa constrictors,whether from the inside or the outside,and devote myself instead togeography,history,arithmetic and grammar.That is why,at the age of six,I gave up whatmight have been a magnificent career as a painter.I had been disheartenedby t
8、he failureof my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two.Grownups never understandanything by themselves,and it is tiresome for children to be always and foreverexplaining things to them.So then I chose another profession,and learned to pilot airplanes.I have flown alittle over all parts of the
9、world and it is true that geographyhas been very useful to me.At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona.If one gets lost in the night,suchknowledge is valuable.In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great manypeople who have been concerned with matters of consequ
10、ence.I have lived a great dealamong grownups.I have seen them intimately,close at hand.And that hasnt muchimproved my opinion of them.Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clearsighted,I tried theexperiment of showing him my Drawing Number One,which I have always kept.I wouldtry to find
11、 out,so,if this was a person of true understanding.But,whoever it was,he,orshe,would always say:Thatis a hat.Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors,or primeval forests,orstars.I would bring myself down to his level.I would talk to him about bridge,and golf,and politics,and nec
12、kties.And the grownupwould be greatly pleased to have met such asensible man.Chapter2 the narrator crashes in the desert and makes the acquaintanceof thelittle princeSo I lived my life alone,without anyone that I could really talk to,until I had anaccident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara,six y
13、ears ago.Something was broken inmy engine.And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers,I set myself toattempt the difficult repairs all alone.It was a question of life or death for me:I hadscarcely enough drinking water to last a week.The first night,then,I went to sleep on the sand,a
14、thousand miles from any humanhabitation.I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of theocean.Thus you can imagine my amazement,at sunrise,when I was awakened by anodd little voice.It said:If you please draw me a sheep!What!Draw me a sheep!I jumped to my feet,completely t
15、hunderstruck.I blinked my eyes hard.I lookedcarefully all around me.And I saw a most extraordinary small person,who stood thereexamining me with great seriousness.Here you may see the best potraitthat,later,I wasable to make of him.But my drawing is certainly very much less charmingthan its model.Th
16、at,however,is not my fault.The grownups discouragedme in my painters career when Iwas six years old,and I never learned to drawanything,except boas from the outside and boasfromthe inside.Now I stared at this sudden apparition withmy eyesfairlystartingout ofmyheadinastonishment.Remember,I had crashe
17、d in thedeserta thousand miles from any inhabitedregion.And yet my little man seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands,nor tobe fainting fromfatigue or hungeror thirst or fear.Nothing abouthim gave any suggestionof a child lost in the middle of the desert,a thousand miles from any h
18、uman habitation.When at last I was able to speak,I said to him:But what are you doing here?And in answer he repeated,very slowly,as if he were speaking of a matter of greatconsequence:If you please draw me a sheep.When a mystery is too overpowering,one dare not disobey.Absurd as it might seemto me,a
19、 thousand miles from any human habitation and in danger of death,I took out ofmy pocket a sheet of paper and my fountainpen.But then I rememberedhow my studieshad been concentrated on geography,history,arithmetic,and grammar,and I told thelittle chap(a little crossly,too)that I did not know how to d
20、raw.He answered me:Thatdoesnt matter.Draw me a sheep.But I had never drawn a sheep.So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawnso often.It was that of the boa constrictor from the outside.And I was astounded to hearthe little fellow greet it with,No,no,no!I do not want an elephant inside a
21、boa constrictor.A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature,and an elephant is very cumbersome.Where I live,everythingis very small.What I need is a sheep.Draw me a sheep.So then I made a drawing.He looked at it carefully,then he said:No.This sheep isalready very sickly.Make me another.So I made
22、anotherdrawing.My friend smiled gently and indulgenty.You see yourself,he said,that this is not a sheep.This is a ram.It has horns.So then I did my drawing over once more.But it was rejected too,just like the others.This one is tooold.I want a sheep that will live a long time.By this time my patienc
23、e was exhausted,because I was in ahurry to start taking my engine apart.So I tossed off this drawing.And I threw out an explanationwith it.This is only his box.The sheep you asked for isinside.I was very surprisedto see a light break over the face of my young judge:That is exactly the way I wanted i
24、t!Do you think that this sheep will have to have agreat deal of grass?Why?Because where I live everything is very small.There will surely be enough grass for him,I said.It is a very small sheep that Ihave given you.He bent his head over the drawing:Not so small thatLook!He has gone to sleep.And that
25、 is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.Chapter3 thenarrator learns more aboutfrom where thelittle prince cameIt took me a long time to learn where he came from.The little prince,who asked meso many questions,never seemed to hear the ones I asked him.It was from wordsdroppedby chance th
26、at,little by little,everything was revealedto me.The first time he saw my airplane,for instance(I shall not draw my airplane thatwould be much too complicated for me),he asked me:What is that object?That is not an object.It flies.It is an airplane.It is my airplane.And I was proud tohave him learn t
27、hat I could fly.He cried out,then:What!You dropped down from the sky?Yes,I answered,modestly.Oh!That is funny!And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter,which irritated me very much.I like my misfortunesto be taken seriously.Then he added:So you,too,come from the sky!Which is your pl
28、anet?At that moment I caught a gleam of light in the impenetrablemystery of his presenceand I demanded,abruptly:Do you come fromanother planet?But he did not reply.He tossed his head gently,without taking his eyes from myplane:It is true that on that you cant have come from very far away.And he sank
29、 into a reverie,which lasted a long time.Then,taking my sheep out ofhis pocket,he buried himself in the contemplationof his treasure.You can imagine how my curiosity was aroused by this halfconfidence about theother planets.I made a great effort,therefore,to find out more on this subject.My little m
30、an,where do you come from?What is this where I live,of which youspeak?Where do you want to take your sheep?After a reflective silence he answered:The thing that is so good about the box youhave given me is that at night he can use it as his house.That is so.And if you are good I will give you a stri
31、ng,too,so that you can tie himduring the day,and a post to tie him to.But the little prince seemed shocked by this offer:Tie him!What a queer idea!But if you dont tie him,I said,he will wander off somewhere,and get lost.My friendbroke into anotherpeal of laughter:But where do you think he would go?A
32、nywhere.Straight ahead of him.Then the little prince said,earnestly:That doesnt matter.Where I live,everything isso small!And,with perhaps a hint of sadness,he added:Straight ahead of him,nobody cango very far.Chapter4 thenarrator speculatesas to whichasteroid from whichthe little princecameIhadthus
33、learnedasecondfactofgreatimportance:this was that theplanet the little prince camefrom was scarcely any largerthan a house!But that didnot reallysurprise me much.I knewvery well that in addition tothe great planets such astheEarth,Jupiter,Mars,Venus to whichwe havegiven names,there are alsohundreds
34、of others,some ofwhich are so small that onehas a hard time seeing themthrough the telescope.Whenan astronomer discovers oneof these he does not give it aname,but only a number.Hemight callit,forexample,Asteroid 325.I have serious reason to believe that the planetfrom which the little prince came is
35、 the asteroidknown as B612.This asteroid has only once beenseen through the telescope.That was by a Turkishastronomer,in 1909.On making his discovery,the astronomer hadpresented ittotheInternational AstronomicalCongress,in a great demonstration.But he was inTurkish costume,and so nobody would believ
36、ewhat he said.Grownupsare like that.Fortunately,however,for the reputation ofAsteroid B612,a Turkish dictator made a law thathis subjects,under pain of death,should changeto European costume.So in 1920 the astronomergave his demonstration all over again,dressedwith impressive style and elegance.And
37、this timeeverybody acceptedhis report.If I have told you these details about the asteroid,and made a note of its number foryou,it is on account of the grownups and their ways.When you tell them that you havemade a new friend,they never ask you any questions about essential matters.Theynever say to y
38、ou,What does his voice sound like?What games does he love best?Does he collect butterflies?Instead,they demand:How old is he?How many brothershas he?How much does he weigh?How much money does his father make?Only fromthese figures do they think they have learned anythingabout him.If you were to say
39、to the grownups:I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick,withgeraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,they would not be able to get any ideaof that house at all.You would have to say to them:I saw a house that cost$20,000.Then they would exclaim:Oh,what a pretty house that is!Just so,you mig
40、ht say to them:The proof that the little prince existed is that he wascharming,that he laughed,and that he was looking for a sheep.If anybody wants asheep,that is a proof that he exists.And what good would it do to tell them that?Theywould shrug their shoulders,and treat you like a child.But if you
41、said to them:Theplanet he came from is Asteroid B612,then they would be convinced,and leave you inpeace from their questions.They are like that.One must not hold it against them.Children should always showgreat forbearancetoward grownup people.But certainly,for us who understandlife,figures are a ma
42、tter of indifference.I shouldhave liked to begin this story in the fashion of the fairytales.I should have like to say:Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely anybigger than himself,and who had need of a sheep.To those who understandlife,that would have giv
43、en a much greaterair of truth to mystory.For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly.I have sufferedtoo much griefin setting down these memories.Six years have already passed since my friend wentaway from me,with his sheep.If I try to describe him here,it is to make sure that I shallnot for
44、get him.To forgeta friend is sad.Not every one has had a friend.And if I forget him,I may become like the grownupswho are no longer interested in anythingbut figures.It is for that purpose,again,that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils.It ishard to take up drawing again at my age,when I h
45、ave never made any pictures exceptthose of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside,since I was six.I shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life as possible.But Iam not at all sure of success.One drawing goes along all right,and another has noresembl
46、ance to its subject.I make some errors,too,in the littl e princes height:in oneplace he is too tall and in another too short.And I feel some doubts about the color of hiscostume.So I fumble along as best I can,now good,now bad,and I hope generally fairtomiddling.In certain more important details I s
47、hall make mistakes,also.But that is somethingthat will not be my fault.My friend never explained anything to me.He thought,perhaps,that I was like himself.But I,alas,do not know how to see sheep through t he walls ofboxes.Perhaps I am a little like the grownups.I have had to grow old.Chapter5 we are
48、 warned as to the dangers of the baobabsAs each day passed I would learn,in our talk,something about the little princesplanet,his departure from it,his journey.The information would come very slowly,as itmight chance to fall from his thoughts.It was in this way that I heard,on the third day,about th
49、e catastropheof the baobabs.This time,once more,I had the sheep to thank for it.For the little prince asked meabruptlyas if seized by a grave doubt It is true,isnt it,that sheep eat little bushes?Yes,that is true.Ah!I am glad!I did not understand why it was so important that sheep should eat little
50、bushes.Butthe little prince added:Then it follows that they also eat baobabs?I pointed out to the little prince that baobabs were not little bushes,but,on thecontrary,trees as big as castles and that even if he took a whole herd of elephants awaywith him,the herd would not eat up one single baobab.T
