The Little Prince

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The fact is, I don’t want my book to be taken lightly. Telling these memories is so painful for me. It’s already been six years since my friend went away, tak-ing his sheep with him. If I try to describe him here, it’s so I won’t forget him. It’s sad to forget a friend. Not everyone has had a friend. And I might become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but numbers. Which is still another reason why I’ve bought a box of paints and some pencils. It’s hard to go back to drawing, at my age, when you’ve never made any at-tempts since the one of a boa from inside and the one of a boa from outside, at the age of six

“You talk like the grown-ups!”

“You confuse everything . . . You’ve got it all mixed up!” He was really very annoyed. He tossed his golden curls in the wind. “I know a planet inhabited by a red-faced gentleman. He’s never smelled a flower. He’s never looked at a star. He’s never loved anyone. He’s never done anything except add up numbers. And all day long he says over and over, just like you, ‘I’m a serious man! I’m a serious man!’ And that puffs him up with pride. But he’s not a man at all—he’s a mushroom!” “He’s a what?” “A mushroom!” The little prince was now quite pale with rage. “For millions of years flowers have been pro-

ducing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It’s not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It’s no more se-rious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world ex-cept on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing—that isn’t important?” His face turned red now, and he went on. “If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere . . .’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”

“I shouldn’t have listened to her,” he confided to me one day. “You must never listen to flowers. You must look at them and smell them. Mine perfumed my planet, but I didn’t know how to enjoy that. The business about the tiger claws, instead of annoying me, ought to have moved me . . .” And he confided further, “In those days, I didn’t understand anything. I should have judged her accord-ing to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away!

I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.”

“I wonder,” he said, “if the stars are lit up so that each of us can find his own, someday.

One sees clearly only with the heart. Any-thing essential is invisible to the eyes.

“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden . . . yet they don’t find what they’re looking for . . .” “They don’t find it,” I answered. “And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water . . .” “Of course,” I answered. And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”

“People have stars, but they aren’t the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for schol-ars, they’re problems. For my businessman, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else.” “What do you mean?” “When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!” And he laughed again. “And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll al-ways be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me.