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  The Little Prince

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Little Prince

To Leon Werth

To Leon Werth

I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up. I have a serious reason: he is the all-time friend I have in the world. I take another reason: this grown-upward understands everything, fifty-fifty books virtually children. I have a third reason: he lives in France where he is hungry and cold. He needs cheering upwards. If all these reasons are not enough, I volition dedicate the book to the child from whom this grown-up grew. All grown-ups were once children -- although few of them remember it. And so I correct my dedication:

To Leon Werth

when he was a little boy.

I

Once when I was 6 years quondam I saw a magnificent flick in a book, called True Stories from Nature, most the primeval forest. It was a pic of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.

In the book information technology said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. Later that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the vi months that they need for digestion."

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first cartoon. My Cartoon Number One. It looked something similar this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a chapeau?"

My drawing was not a motion picture of a chapeau. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the within of a boa constrictor, and then that the grown-ups could run across it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Cartoon Number Two looked similar this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to propose me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the exterior, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the historic period of six, I gave upwardly what might take been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number Ane and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never sympathize anything by themselves, and it is boring for children to be ever and forever explaining things to them.

And so then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a trivial over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.

In the class of this life I have had a corking many encounters with a great many people who accept been concerned with matters of result. I have lived a great bargain among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, shut at paw. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.

Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I accept always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true agreement. But, whoever information technology was, he, or she, would e'er say:

"That is a hat."

Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him nearly bridge, and golf game, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-upwardly would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

II

And then I lived my life lonely, without anyone that I could actually talk to, until I had an accident with my airplane in the Desert of Sahara, six years agone. Something was broken in my engine. And every bit I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to try the hard repairs all lone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely plenty drinking water to final a calendar week.

The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from whatsoever human habitation. I was more than isolated than a shipwrecked crewman on a raft in the centre of the body of water. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened past an odd fiddling vocalism. Information technology said: "If you please -- draw me a sheep!"

"What!"

"Draw me a sheep!"

I jumped to my anxiety, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my optics hard. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a well-nigh extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with not bad seriousness. Here you may see the best portrait that, later, I was able to make of him. But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model.

That, however, is non my error. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter's career when I was six years quondam, and I never learned to depict annihilation, except boas from the outside and boas from the within.

At present I stared at this sudden bogeyman with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a g miles from whatever inhabited region. And all the same my little human being seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear. Zip about him gave any proffer of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human home. When at terminal I was able to speak, I said to him: "But -- what are you doing hither?"

And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a affair of great consequence: "If you delight -- draw me a sheep..."

When a mystery is besides overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd equally it might seem to me, a thousand miles from any human habitation and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain-pen. But then I remembered how my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic and grammar, and I told the piffling chap (a little crossly, as well) that I did not know how to draw. He answered me: "That doesn't affair. Draw me a sheep..."

Just I had never drawn a sheep. Then I drew for him ane of the two pictures I had drawn so oftentimes. It was that of the boa constrictor from the exterior. And I was astounded to hear the footling fellow greet it with: "No, no, no! I do non desire an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous fauna, and an elephant is very cumbersome. Where I live, everything is very small. What I demand is a sheep. Draw me a sheep."

So and so I fabricated a cartoon.

He looked at it carefully, so he said: "No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make me another."

And so I made some other drawing.

My friend smiled gently and indulgently.

"You encounter yourself," he said, "that this is non a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns."

And then and so I did my drawing over over again.

Merely information technology was rejected too, just like the others.

"This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time."

By this fourth dimension my patience was exhausted, because I was in a hurry to first taking my engine apart. So I tossed off this drawing.

And I threw out an explanation with information technology.

"This is only his box. The sheep yous asked for is inside."

I was very surprised to run into a light intermission over the confront of my young approximate: "That is exactly the way I wanted it! Do y'all think that this sheep volition accept to take a neat deal of grass?"

"Why?"

"Considering where I live everything is very small-scale..."

"At that place will surely exist plenty grass for him," I said. "Information technology is a very small sheep that I accept given you."

He bent his caput over the drawing.

"Not so small that -- Look! He has gone to sleep..."

And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.

3

It took me a long time to larn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. It was from words dropped by risk t

hat, little by fiddling, everything was revealed to me.

The first time he saw my airplane, for case (I shall not draw my plane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me: "What is that object?"

"That is non an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane."

And I was proud to have him learn that I could wing. He cried out, and then: "What! You dropped down from the sky?"

"Yeah," I answered, modestly.

"Oh! That is funny!"

And the picayune prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously. And then he added: "So you, too, come from the sky! Which is your planet?"

At that moment I defenseless a gleam of lite in the impenetrable mystery of his presence; and I demanded, abruptly: "Do yous come from another planet?"

Just he did not respond. He tossed his caput gently, without taking his optics from my airplane: "It is true that on that yous can't take come up from very far away..."

And he sank into a reverie, which lasted a long fourth dimension. Then, taking my sheep out of his pocket, he buried himself in the contemplation of his treasure.

Yous tin can imagine how my curiosity was aroused past this half-confidence about the "other planets." I made a great effort, therefore, to discover out more on this field of study.

"My niggling homo, where practise you come from? What is this 'where I live,' of which you speak? Where exercise y'all desire to take your sheep?" Subsequently a cogitating silence he answered: "The thing that is so good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use information technology as his house."

"That is then. And if yous are good I will give yous a string, too, so that you can tie him during the day, and a post to tie him to." But the fiddling prince seemed shocked by this offer: "Tie him! What a queer thought!"

"But if you lot don't necktie him," I said, "he will wander off somewhere, and go lost."

My friend broke into some other peal of laughter: "But where do you think he would get?"

"Anywhere. Directly alee of him."

Then the piddling prince said, earnestly:

"That doesn't matter. Where I live, everything is so small!"

And, with mayhap a hint of sadness, he added: "Straight ahead of him, nobody can become very far..."

4

I had thus learned a second fact of great importance: this was that the planet the little prince came from was scarcely whatever larger than a firm!

Simply that did not really surprise me much. I knew very well that in improver to the great planets -- such as the Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus -- to which we accept given names, there are also hundreds of others, some of which are so small that one has a hard time seeing them through the telescope. When an astronomer discovers ane of these he does not give it a name, but only a number. He might call it, for case, "Asteroid 325".

I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is the asteroid known as B-612.

This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909.

On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented information technology to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, so nobody would believe what he said.

Grown-ups are like that...

Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator fabricated a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. And then in 1920 the astronomer gave his sit-in all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report.

If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a annotation of its number for you, it is on business relationship of the grown-ups and their ways. When you lot tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask y'all whatsoever questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "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 brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they retrieve they have learned anything about him.

If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house fabricated of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to become any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $xx,000." So they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!"

Just and so, yous might say to them: "The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists." And what good would it do to tell them that? They would shrug their shoulders, and care for y'all similar a child. Simply if you lot said to them: "The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612," and so they would be convinced, and get out you in peace from their questions.

They are like that. One must not hold it against them. Children should always show bang-up forbearance toward grown-up people. But certainly, for usa who empathize life, figures are a thing of indifference. I should have liked to brainstorm this story in the fashion of the fairy-tales. I should have similar to say: "Once upon a time in that location was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely any bigger than himself, and who had need of a sheep..."

To those who sympathize life, that would have given a much greater air of truth to my story.

For I do not desire any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered also much grief in setting downward these memories. Vi years accept already passed since my friend went abroad from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything simply figures...

It is for that purpose, once again, that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to have upwards drawing once again at my age, when I accept never fabricated any pictures except those of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside, since I was 6. I shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life equally possible. But I am not at all sure of success. One cartoon goes forth all right, and another has no resemblance to its subject. I make some errors, likewise, in the lilliputian prince'southward height: in ane identify he is too alpine and in another besides short. And I feel some doubts about the color of his costume. And so I fumble along equally all-time I can, now good, now bad, and I hope generally off-white-to-middling.

In certain more important details I shall brand mistakes, as well. Merely that is something that volition non be my fault. My friend never explained anything to me. He thought, maybe, that I was like himself. But I, alas, practice not know how to see sheep through the walls of boxes. Perhaps I am a piddling similar the grown-ups. I accept had to grow old.

Five

Every bit each twenty-four hours passed I would learn, in our talk, something nearly the little prince'due south planet, his deviation from information technology, his journey. The information would come very slowly, as it might run a risk to fall from his thoughts. It was in this way that I heard, on the third twenty-four hours, nigh the catastrophe of the baobabs.

This time, once more, I had the sheep to thank for it. For the picayune prince asked me abruptly -- as if seized by a grave doubtfulness -- "It is true, isn't information technology, that sheep eat little bushes?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Ah! I am glad!"

I did not understand why it was and then of import that sheep should eat little bushes. But the niggling prince added:

"Then it follows that they also swallow baobabs?"

I pointed out to the trivial prince that baobabs were not fiddling bushes, merely, on the contrary, trees as big as castles; and that even if he took a whole herd of elephants away with him, the herd would not eat up one single baobab. The thought of the herd of elephants made the niggling prince laugh.

"We would have to put them one on top of the other," he said.

But he made a wise annotate:

"Before they grow and then big, the baobabs start out past being little."

"That is strictly correct," I said. "But why exercise you want the sheep to eat the fiddling b

aobabs?"

He answered me at once, "Oh, come, come!", as if he were speaking of something that was self-axiomatic. And I was obliged to make a not bad mental endeavour to solve this problem, without whatsoever assistance.

Indeed, equally I learned, in that location were on the planet where the little prince lived -- as on all planets -- good plants and bad plants. In consequence, there were expert seeds from skillful plants, and bad seeds from bad plants. But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the centre of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. And so this piddling seed will stretch itself and begin -- timidly at first -- to push a charming petty sprig inoffensively upward toward the dominicus. If it is only a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rosebush, one would let information technology abound wherever it might wish. But when it is a bad institute, ane must destroy information technology as presently as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it.

Now at that place were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the niggling prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you volition never, never exist able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the unabridged planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too pocket-size, and the baobabs are also many, they split it in pieces...

"Information technology is a question of bailiwick," the piddling prince said to me after on. "When you've finished your ain toilet in the morning time, and so it is time to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest intendance. You must see to it that you pull up regularly all the baobabs, at the very outset moment when they can be distinguished from the rosebushes which they resemble so closely in their earliest youth. Information technology is very tedious piece of work," the little prince added, "just very easy."

And one twenty-four hour period he said to me: "Y'all ought to make a cute drawing, so that the children where you alive tin run into exactly how all this is. That would exist very useful to them if they were to travel some twenty-four hours. Sometimes," he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until some other day. Just when it is a affair of baobabs, that always ways a ending. I knew a planet that was inhabited by a lazy human. He neglected iii little bushes..."

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