Маленький принц / The Little Prince. Антуан де Сент-Экзюпери

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.

      On our earth we are too small to clean out our volcanoes. That is why they bring us so much trouble.

      The little prince also pulled up the last little shoots of the baobabs. He did not want to return. And he watered the flower for the last time, and prepared to place her under the shelter of her glass globe.

      “Goodbye,” he said to the flower.

      But she made no answer.

      “Goodbye,” he said again.

      The flower coughed. But it was not because she had a cold.

      “I was silly,” she said to him, at last. “Forgive me. Try to be happy.”

      He was surprised. He stood there bewildered. He did not understand.

      “Of course I love you,” the flower said to him. “It is my fault that you don’t know it. But this is not important. But you—you are as foolish as I. Try to be happy. Take the glass globe. I don’t want it any more.”

      “But the wind—”

      “My cold is not so bad. The cool night air will do me good[21]. I am a flower.”

      “But the animals—”

      “Well, I must meet two or three caterpillars if I wish to see the butterflies. It seems that they are very beautiful. And if not the butterflies—and the caterpillars—who will come to me? You will be far away. As for the large animals—I am not at all afraid of any of them. I have my claws.”

      And she showed her four thorns. Then she added:

      “Don’t hesitate. You decided to go away. Now go!”

      She was a proud flower.

      10

      He found himself[22] in the neighborhood of the asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330. He began, therefore, to visit them.

      The first of them was inhabited by a king. The king was in royal purple and ermine, and was sitting upon a throne which was at the same time both simple and majestic.

      “Ah! Here is a subject[23],” exclaimed the king, when he saw the little prince.

      And the little prince asked himself:

      “How does he recognize me?”

      He did not know how the world is simple for kings. To them, all men are subjects.

      “Approach, so that I may see you better,” said the king. He was very proud to be a king over somebody.

      The little prince looked everywhere to find a place to sit down; but the entire planet was obstructed by the king’s magnificent robe. So he was 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.”

      “Sorry, I can’t stop myself,” replied the little prince, embarrassed. “I came on a long journey, and I had no sleep.”

      “Ah, then,” the king said. “I order you to yawn. Come, now! Yawn again! It is an order.”

      “That frightens me. I cannot yawn any more,” murmured the little prince.

      “Hum! Hum!” replied the king. “Then I—I order you sometimes to yawn and sometimes to—”

      He seemed vexed. The king hated disobedience. He was an absolute monarch. But, because he was a very good man, he made his orders reasonable.

      “If I ordered a general,” he said, “if I order a general to change himself into a bird, and if the general does not obey me, that is not the fault of the general. It is my fault.”

      “May I sit down?” came a timid inquiry from the little prince.

      “I order you to do so,” the king answered him.

      But the little prince was wondering. The planet was tiny. Over what did this king really rule?

      “Your majesty,” he said to him, “may I ask you a question—”

      “I order you to ask me a question,” the king assured him.

      “Your majesty, over what do you rule?”

      “Over everything,” said the king, with magnificent simplicity.

      “Over everything?”

      The king made a gesture, which pointed at his planet, the other planets, and all the stars.

      “Over all that?” asked the little prince.

      “Over all that,” the king answered.

      For his rule was not only absolute: it was also universal.

      “And the stars obey you?”

      “Certainly they do,” the king said. “They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination.”

      Such power was marveling. “If I am so powerful,” the little prince thought, “I will be able to watch the sunset, not forty-four times in one day, but seventy-two, or even a hundred, or even two hundred times.” And because he remembered his little planet, he asked the king a favor:

      “I want to see a sunset. Do me that kindness. Order the sun to set.”

      “If I order a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a bird, and if the general does not carry out the order[24], which one of us is wrong?” the king demanded. “The general, or myself?”

      “You,” said the little prince firmly.

      “Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform,” the king said. “If you order your people to go and throw themselves into the sea[25], they will make a revolution. My orders are reasonable.”

      “And what about my sunset?” the little prince reminded him.

      “You will have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait until conditions

19

by deeds – по делам

20

by words – по словам

21

will do me good – пойдёт мне на пользу

22

found himself – оказался

23

a subject – подданный

24

to carry out the order – выполнить приказ

25

to throw themselves into the sea – броситься в море