IA long time ago, when I was six, I came across a splendid picture while leafing through a book about the virgin forest entitled Tales of the Past. It depicted a boa constrictor about to swallow an animal.
In the book it said, “Boa constrictors devour their prey whole without chewing it. Unable to move afterwards, they sleep for six consecutive months, the time required for digestion.”
I was really interested in jungle adventures and so, with a colored pencil, I made my first drawing.
I showed my masterpiece to grown-ups, asking them if the drawing frightened them.
They replied, “Why would a hat scare anyone?”
My drawing did not, in fact, depict a hat, but rather a boa constrictor trying to digest an elephant.
To which he, as if this were a matter of extreme urgency, once again gently asked
“Please, can you draw me a sheep?”
When a mystery is this impenetrable, one lacks the courage to disobey.
Children must indulge grown-ups.
But certainly, we who understand life couldn’t care less about figures. I would have liked to have begun this account as a fairy tale. I would have liked to have said, “Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet barely larger than he was and who longed for a friend…” For those who understand life, this would have rung far more true.
Because I don’t want my book to be taken lightly. Revealing these memories is very painful to me. Six years have already passed since my friend went away with his sheep, and I am trying to describe him so that I don’t forget him. It’s sad to forget a friend. And I too may become like one of those grown-ups who are interested in nothing but figures. This was the reason why I bought a box of paints and pencils. It’s not easy to go back to drawing at my age, after not having tried to draw anything but a boa constrictor from the outside and a boa constrictor from the inside since the age of six. I will try hard to make the most accurate portrayals. But I am not at all sure I will succeed.
One drawing goes pretty well, but another does not come close to being an actual likeness. I also make mistakes in height. Here the little prince is too tall and there he is too short. I’m equally unsure about the color of his outfit. Then I make a stab at it and falter, for better or worse. And I will end up getting some of the most important details wrong. But I must be pardoned for this. My friend never offered me any explanations. Perhaps he believed that I was like him. Unfortunately, I did not know how to see sheep through the sides of boxes. It could be that I am a bit like grown-ups. I must be getting old.
b b
Oh, little prince, little by little I came to understand your melancholic little life. For a long time you had no other distraction than your delight in watching the sun set. I learned this new detail on the fourth day, in the morning, when you told me, “I so like sunsets. Let’s go watch a sunset…”
“But we have to wait…”
“Wait for what?”
“For the sun to set…”
At first you looked very surprised, but then you laughed at yourself and said to me, “I’m always thinking I’m at home.”
Yes, indeed. The whole world knows that when it’s noon in the United States, the sun is setting over France. If you could go to France in a minute you would be able to watch the setting sun. Unfortunately France is too far away. But on your tiny planet it is enough to move your chair a few steps. And from there you can look at the sunset as many times as you wish…
“One day I saw the sun set forty-three times!” And a little later you added, “You know…when one is really sad, one loves sunsets…”
“Were you that sad on the day of the forty-three sunsets?”
But the little prince did not reply.
But here she interrupted herself. She had arrived in the form of a seed. She could not know anything about other worlds. Mortified at having allowed herself to be caught telling such an ingenuous lie, she coughed two or three times in order to put the little prince in the wrong and said, “And the screen?”
“I was about to look for it but you were speaking to me!”
Then she forced her cough to make him suffer from a guilty conscience. Thus it was that the little prince, despite his good intentions and his love, began to have doubts about her. He had taken her trivial words to heart, which made him unhappy.
“I shouldn’t have listened to her,” he confided to me one day. “One should never listen to flowers. It’s enough to look at them and smell them. Mine filled my planet with fragrance, but I did not know how to let that make me happy. The story about the claws, which sent such chills down my spine, ought to have melted my heart.”
He went on with his confidences:
“I did not understand anything back then. I should have judged her by her acts, not her words. She brought me fragrance and inspiration. I should not have run away! I should have been aware of the affection behind her little ploys. Flowers are so full of contradictions! But I was too young to know how to love her.”
b b
XThe little prince found himself in the vicinity of asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330. He began visiting them to look for an occupation and to educate himself.
The first asteroid was inhabited by a king. The king, dressed in purple and ermine, sat on a very simple yet majestic throne.
“Ah! here’s a subject,” exclaimed the king as soon as he caught sight of the little prince.
And the little prince asked himself, “How can he recognize me if he’s never seen me?” He did not know that for kings the world is greatly simplified: all men are subjects.
“Come close so that I can see you better,” said the king, who was very proud of finally being a king over someone.
The little prince looked all around to see where he could sit, but the entire planet was occupied by the magnificent ermine robe. He had to remain standing, but was so tired that he yawned.
“Yawning in the presence of a king is contrary to protocol,” the monarch said to him. “I forbid you to do so.”
“I can’t help it,” replied the little prince, all confused. “I’ve been on a long journey and have not slept…”
“Well, then,” the king told him, “I command you to yawn. It’s been years since I’ve seen someone yawn, and I find yawns interesting. Go ahead! Yawn again. That’s an order.”
“You’ve frightened me…I can’t go on,” said the little prince, blushing.
“Hmm! Hmm!” the king replied. “Then I—I order you to yawn a little, and a little more…”
He mumbled something and seemed exasperated.
The king absolutely insisted that his authority be respected. He did not tolerate disobedience. He was an absolute monarch. But since he was very good, he gave reasonable orders.
“If I ordered,” he used to say, “if I ordered a general to turn into a sea bird and the general did not obey, it would not be the general’s fault. It would be my fault.”
b b
XV
The sixth planet was ten times larger. It was inhabited by an old gentleman who wrote enormous books.
“Look, an explorer!” he exclaimed when he caught sight of the little prince. “Where do you come from?” the old gentleman asked him.
“What’s that book?” asked the little prince, adding, “What is it that you’re doing?”
“I’m a geographer,” said the old gentleman.
“What’s a geographer?”
“A learned man who knows where seas, rivers, cities, mountains, and deserts are.”
“That’s very interesting,” said the little prince. “Here we finally have a real profession!” He took a look around the geographer’s planet. He had never seen such a majestic one. “Your planet is lovely. Are there any oceans?”
“I have no idea,” said the geographer.
“Ah!” The little prince was disappointed. “Mountains, cities, rivers, and deserts?”
“I have no idea about those either,” said the geographer.
“But you’re a geographer!”
“Precisely,” he said, “but I’m not an explorer. It’s not the geographer who counts cities, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans, and deserts. The geographer never leaves his office, but questions explorers and jots down their recollections. And if the recollections are interesting, the geographer orders an inquiry into the explorer’s moral character.”
“Why?”
“Because an explorer who lies would be a catastrophe for geography books. Likewise an explorer who drinks too much.”
“Why?”
“Because drunkards see double, and the geographer would end up noting down two mountains where there was only one.”
“I know some one,” said the little prince, “who would make a bad explorer.”
“That’s possible. So then, when the moral character of the explorer proves to be good, an inquiry regarding his discovery is held.”
So then, the seventh planet was Earth.
The Earth is not just any planet! Counted among its own are 111 kings, 7,000 geographers, 900,000 businessmen, 7.5 million drunkards, 311 million vain men, that is, approximately two billion grown-ups. To give you an idea of the Earth’s size, I want to point out that prior to the invention of electricity, a veritable army of 462,511 lamplighters had to be to maintained everywhere on all six continents to
light street lamps. Seen from a modest distance, this produced a splendid effect. The movements of this army were organized like those of an opera ballet. First it was the turn of the ones who lit the lamps in New Zealand and Australia. Once they had done this, they went to sleep. Then those of China and Siberia made their entrance on the stage. Then these too ran off into the wings. Then came the turn of the lamplighters from Russia and India. Then those of Africa and Europe. Then those of South America and, finally, those of North America. And no mistake ever occurred in the order of their appearance on stage. It was magnificent.
XXI b b
At that moment a fox appeared. “Good morning,” said the fox.
“Good morning,” the little prince politely replied, turning around; but he saw no one.
“I’m here,” said the voice, “under the apple tree…”
“Who are you?” asked the little prince. “You’re very pretty.”
“I’m a fox,” said the fox.
“Come play with me,” the little prince suggested. “I’m so sad…”
“I can’t play with you,” said the fox. “I’m not domesticated.”
“Ah! I’m sorry,” said the little prince. “What does ‘domesticated’ mean?”
“You’re not from around here, are you,” said the fox. “What are you looking for?”
“I am looking for men,” said the little prince. “What does ‘domesticated’ mean?”
“Men,” said the fox, “have guns and hunt. It’s terribly annoying! They also raise chickens.
That’s all they’re interested in. Are you looking for chickens?”
“No,” said the little prince. “I’m looking for friends. What does ‘domesticated’ mean?”
“It’s something that has been forgotten by many. It means ‘to establish ties’…”
“Establish ties?”
“Exactly,” said the fox. “You’re just a boy to me. And I don’t need you. Nor do you need me.
To you I am nothing more than a fox. But if you domesticate me, then we will need one another.”
“There’s a flower…I believe she has domesticated me,” said the little prince.
“It’s possible,” said the fox. “All sorts of things happen on Earth…”
“Oh! This is not on Earth,” said the little prince.
The fox seemed perplexed. “On another planet?”
“Yes.”
“Are there hunters on that planet?”
“No.”
“Now that is interesting. And chickens?”
“No.”
“Nothing’s perfect,” sighed the fox.
“What’s a rite?” asked the little prince.
“It’s what makes one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite among hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a marvelous day! I can go as far as the vineyard. But if the hunters were to dance any day, all days would be alike, and I would never have a vacation.”
So the little prince domesticated the fox. And then the hour of his departure drew near. “Ah!” said the fox, “I’m going to cry.”
“It’s your fault,” said the little prince. “I never wished to do you any harm, but you wanted me to domesticate you...”
“That is true,” said the fox.
“But you are going to cry!” said the little prince.
“Of course,” said the fox.
“But then what have you gained from it?”
“I have gained the color of wheat,” said the fox. Then he added, “Go look at the roses again. You’ll understand that yours is unique in the whole world. When you come back to say goodbye to me, I’ll tell you a secret.” The little prince left to take another look at the roses.
“You do not resemble my rose in the least,” he said. “No one has domesticated you, and you have domesticated no one. You are like my fox once was. He was merely a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I have made him my friend and now for me he is unique.”
And the roses were embarrassed.
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “A passerby would think that my rose resembles you, but she alone is more important than you because she’s the one I have watered. She’s the one that I have put under the bell jar. She’s the one I have sheltered behind a screen. It was on her account that I killed caterpillars (except the two or three that I saved so they could turn into butterflies). Because she’s the one I listened to when she complained or boasted, or sometimes even said nothing. Because she’s my rose.”
And he returned to the fox. “Goodbye,” he said.
“Goodbye,” said the fox. “Here’s my secret. It’s very simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eye.”
“The essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated in order to remember.
“It’s the time you’ve wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It is the time I have wasted on my rose…” said the little prince in order to remember.
“Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget. You are responsible forever for what you have domesticated. You are responsible for your rose…”
“I am responsible for my rose…” repeated the little prince in order to remember.
For me this is the most beautiful and saddest landscape in the world.
It’s the same landscape as the one on the previous page, but I drew it one more time so that you could have a good look at it. It’s here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and then disappeared.
Look closely at this landscape to make sure that you will be able to recognize it if one day you should take a trip to Africa, in the desert. And should you happen to pass that way, I beg you, do not rush by; stop for a moment under the stars! And then, if a child appears before you, one who laughs, one with golden hair, one who does not answer your questions, you will certainly understand who he is. If you do, please relieve me of my sadness: write to me immediately to tell me that he has returned.
