“I always think that I am at home!”
Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.
If you fly to France in one minute, you will go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, you can just move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight whenever you like.
“One day,” you said to me, “I saw the sunset forty-four times!”
And later you added:
“You know—one loves the sunset, when one is so sad.”
“Were you so sad, then?” I asked, “On the day of the forty-four sunsets?”
But the little prince made no reply.
7
On the fifth day—again, as always, thanks to the sheep—the secret of the little prince’s life was revealed to me. Abruptly he demanded:
“A sheep—if it eats little bushes, does it eat flowers, too?”
“A sheep,” I answered, “eats anything.”
“Even flowers that have thorns?”
“Yes, even flowers that have thorns.”
“Then the thorns—what use are they?[14]”
I did not know. At that moment I was very busy: I was trying to unscrew a bolt in my engine. I was very much worried; the breakdown of my plane was extremely serious. And I had so little drinking water.
“The thorns—what use are they?” The little prince insisted. As for me, I was upset over that bolt. And I answered with the first thing that came into my head:
“The thorns are of no use at all. Flowers have thorns just for spite![15]”
“Oh!”
There was a moment of complete silence. Then the little prince said:
“I don’t believe you! Flowers are weak creatures. They are naive. They believe that their thorns are terrible weapons.”
I did not answer. At that instant I was saying to myself: “If this bolt still won’t turn, I am going to knock it out with the hammer.” Again the little prince disturbed my thoughts:
“And you actually believe that the flowers—”
“Oh, no!” I cried. “No, no, no! I don’t believe anything. I answered you with the first thing that came into my head. Don’t you see—I am very busy with matters of consequence[16]!”
He looked at me, thunderstruck.
“Matters of consequence!”
He looked at me there, with my hammer in my hand, my fingers black with engine-grease.
“You talk just like the grown-ups!”
I was a little ashamed. But he went on, relentlessly:
“I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He never smelled a flower. He never looked at a star. He never loved anyone. He never does anything in his life, he just adds up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: ‘I am busy with matters of consequence!’ And he is very proud. But he is not a man—he is a mushroom!”
“A what?”
“A mushroom!”
The little prince was now white with rage.
“The flowers have thorns. It lasts for million years. And they eat them all the time. And is it not a matter of consequence to try to understand why the flowers have so much trouble to grow thorns which are never of any use to them? Is the war between the sheep and the flowers not important? Is this not more important than a fat red-faced gentleman’s sums? And if I know—I, myself—one flower which is unique in the world, which grows nowhere but on my planet, but which one little sheep can destroy some morning—Oh! You think that is not important!”
His face turned from white to red. He continued:
“If someone loves a flower, 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 darkened. And you think that is not important!”
He did not say anything more. He began to sob.
The night came. My tools dropped from my hands. What does it matter—my hammer, my bolt, or thirst, or death? On one star, one planet, my planet, the Earth, there was a little prince. I took him in my arms. I said to him:
“The flower that you love is not in danger. I will draw you a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw you a railing for your flower. I will—”
I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward. It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
8
I soon knew this flower better. On the little prince’s planet flowers were very simple. They had only one ring of petals; they were a trouble to nobody. One morning they appeared in the grass, and at night they faded away peacefully. But one day, from a seed, a new flower came up; and the small sprout was not like any other small sprouts on his planet.
The shrub soon stopped to grow, and began to produce a flower. And the flower was preparing her beauty in the shelter of her green chamber. She chose her colours with the greatest care. She dressed herself slowly. She adjusted her petals one by one. She wished to appear in the full radiance of her beauty. Oh, yes! She was a coquettish creature!
Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself. She yawned and said:
“Ah! I am scarcely awake. I think that you will excuse me. My petals are still all disarranged.”
But the little prince could not restrain his admiration:
“Oh! How beautiful you are!”
“Am I not?” the flower responded, sweetly. “And I was born at the same moment as the sun.”
The little prince guessed easily that she was not very modest. But how exciting she was!
“I think it is time for breakfast,” she added an instant later.
And the little prince, completely abashed, brought a sprinkling-can[17] of fresh water. So, he watered the flower.
So, too, she began very quickly to torment him with her vanity. One day, for instance, when she was speaking of her four thorns, she said to the little prince:
“Let the tigers come with their claws!”
“There are no tigers on my planet,” the little prince objected. “And, anyway, tigers do not eat weeds.”
“I am not a weed,” the flower replied, sweetly.
“Please excuse me.”
“I am not at all afraid of tigers,” she went on, “but I have a horror of drafts[18]. I suppose you have a screen for me?”
“A horror of drafts—that is bad luck, for a plant,” remarked the little prince, and added to himself, “This flower is a very complex creature.”
“At night, please put me under a glass globe. It is very cold where you live. In the place I came from—”
But she interrupted herself at that point. She came in the form of a seed. She did not know anything of any other worlds. Embarassed, she coughed two or three times.
“So, the screen?”
“I was just going to look for it when you spoke to me.”
So the little prince, in spite of all the good will, soon came to doubt her. He took seriously words which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.
“There was no need to listen to her,” he told me one day. “No need to listen to the flowers. One can simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. My flowers perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to enjoy her grace.”
And he continued his confidences:
“The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! Judge by deeds[19] and not by words[20]. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. But I ran away from her. Flowers are so inconsistent! I was too young to know how to love her.”
9
The little prince decided to travel with a flock of wild birds. On the morning of his departure he put his planet in perfect order. He carefully cleaned out his active volcanoes. He had two active volcanoes; and they were very convenient to heat his breakfast in the morning. He also had one volcano that was extinct. But, as he said, “One never knows!” So he cleaned out the extinct volcano, too. If they are well cleaned out, volcanoes burn slowly and steadily, without any eruptions. Volcanic eruptions are like fires in a chimney.