The Little Prince | 小王子

喜马拉雅
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《小王子》是法国作家安托万·德·圣·埃克苏佩里于1942年写成的著名儿童文学短篇小说。本书的主人公是来自外星球的小王子。书中以一位飞行员作为故事叙述者，讲述了小王子从自己星球出发前往地球的过程中，所经历的各种历险。作者以小王子的孩子式的眼光，透视出成人的空虚、盲目，愚妄和死板教条，用浅显天真的语言写出了人类的孤独寂寞、没有根基随风流浪的命运。同时，也表达出作者对金钱关系的批判，对真善美的讴歌。

  1. Apr 29

    The Little Prince-Chapter 27 | 小王子-第27章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 27 (Final Chapter) It has been six years now. I have never told anyone this story. But when I came back, I was comforted a little—though not entirely. I knew he had gotten back to his planet; for at dawn, his body was gone. It was not really so heavy a body, after all. And now I love to listen to the stars at night. They are like five hundred million little bells. But there is one extraordinary thing: when I drew the muzzle for the little prince, I forgot to add the leather strap. So he could never have fastened it on the sheep. And now I wonder: "What is happening on his planet? Perhaps the sheep has eaten the flower..." At one time I say to myself: "Surely not! The little prince shuts his flower under its glass globe every night, and he watches over his sheep very carefully..." Then I am happy. And all the stars laugh sweetly. But at another time I say to myself: "At some moment or other one is absent-minded, and that is enough! If one evening he forgot the glass globe, or if the sheep slipped out without making any noise during the night..." Then all the little bells are changed to tears... Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has—yes or no?—eaten a rose. Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: Is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes... And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance! This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page. I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and then disappeared. Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognize it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.

    3 min

  2. Apr 28

    The Little Prince-Chapter 26 | 小王子-第26章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 26 Beside the well there was the ruin of an old stone wall. When I came back from my work, the next evening, I saw from some distance away my little prince sitting on top of a wall, with his feet dangling. And I heard him say: "Then you don't remember. This is not the exact spot." Another voice must have answered him, for he replied to it: "Yes, yes! It is the right day, but this is not the place." I continued my walk toward the wall. At no time did I see or hear anyone. The little prince, however, replied once again: "—Exactly. You will see where my track begins, in the sand. You have nothing to do but wait for me there. I shall be there tonight." I was only twenty metres from the wall, and I still saw nothing. After a silence the little prince spoke again: "You have good poison? You are sure that it will not make me suffer too long?" I stopped in my tracks, my heart torn asunder; but still I did not understand. "Now go away," said the little prince. "I want to get down from the wall." I dropped my eyes, then, to the foot of the wall—and I leaped into the air. There before me, facing the little prince, was one of those yellow snakes that take just thirty seconds to bring your life to an end. Even as I was digging into my pocket to get out my revolver I made a running step back. But, at the noise I made, the snake let himself flow easily across the sand like the dying spray of a fountain, and, in no apparent hurry, disappeared, with a light metallic sound, among the stones. I reached the wall just in time to catch my little prince in my arms; his face was as white as snow. "What is this?" I said to him. "What are you doing talking with snakes?" I loosened his golden scarf that was always about his neck; I moistened his temples with a little water, and I made him drink some. Now I dared not ask him any more questions. He looked at me very gravely, and put his arms around my neck. I could feel his heart beating like the heart of a bird dying after being shot by a bullet. He said to me: "I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine. Now you can go back home—" "How do you know about that?" I had just come to tell him the good news: that, contrary to all expectations, I had been able to repair my machine. He made no answer to my question, but added: "I too, am going back home today..." Then he said sadly— "It is much farther... it is much more difficult..." I realized clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him... His look was very serious, like someone lost far away. "I have your sheep. And I have the sheep's box. And I have the muzzle..." And he gave me a sad smile. I waited a long time. I could see that he was reviving little by little. "Dear little man," I said to him, "you are afraid..." He was afraid, and there was no doubt about that. But he laughed lightly. "I shall be much more afraid this evening..." Once again I felt myself frozen by the sense of something irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the thought of never hearing that laughter any more. For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert. "Little man," I said, "I want to hear you laugh again." But he said to me: "Tonight, it will be a year... my star, then, can be found right above the place where I came to the Earth, a year ago..." "Little man," I said, "tell me that it is only a bad dream—this affair of the snake, and the meeting-place, and the star..." But he did not answer my plea. He said to me, instead: "The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen..." "Yes, I know..." "It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are abloom with flowers..." "Yes, I know..." I looked at the sands stretching away into the darkness. We were not far from the well. "I am going to have," he said, "look at the snake again. I am afraid of its teeth..." I felt a pang of anguish. But he added: "You understand. It is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy." I said nothing. "But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells..." I said nothing. He was a little discouraged. But he made one more effort: "You know, it will be very nice. I, too, shall look at the stars. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out fresh water for me to drink..." I said nothing. "That will be so amusing. You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water..." And he too said nothing more, because he was crying. Here it is. Let me go on by myself." He sat down because he was afraid. He still hesitated a little. Then he got up. He took one step. But I could not move. There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle. After that he stood there motionless, and did not make any sound; then he fell gently to the ground, as softly as a tree falls, without even making a sound from the sand. I have never since found the place where he fell.

    6 min

  3. Apr 27

    The Little Prince-Chapter 25 | 小王子-第25章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 25 "Men," said the little prince, "set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round..." And he added: "It is not worth the trouble..." The well that we had come to was not like the wells of the Sahara. The wells of the Sahara are mere holes dug in the sand. This one was like a well in a village. But there was no village here, and I thought I must be dreaming... "It is strange," I said to the little prince. "Everything is ready for use: the pulley, the bucket, the rope..." He laughed, touched the rope, and set the pulley to working. And the pulley moaned, like an old weathervane which the wind has long since forgotten. "Do you hear?" said the little prince. "We have wakened the well, and it is singing..." I did not want him to tire himself with the rope. "Leave it to me," I said. "It is too heavy for you." I hoisted the bucket slowly to the edge of the well and set it there—happy, tired as I was, over my achievement. The song of the pulley was still in my ears, and I could see the sunlight shimmer in the still trembling water. "I am thirsty for this water," said the little prince. "Give me some of it to drink..." And I understood what he had been looking for. I raised the bucket to his lips. He drank, his eyes closed. It was as sweet as some special festival treat. This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present. When I was a little boy, the lights of the Christmas tree, the music of the Midnight Mass, the tenderness of smiling faces, used to make up, so, the radiance of the gifts I received. "The men where you live," said the little prince, "raise five thousand roses in the same garden—and they do not find in it what they are looking for." "They do not find it," I replied. "And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water." "Yes, that is true," I said. And the little prince added: "But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart..." I had drunk the water. I breathed easily. At sunrise the sand is the color of honey. And that honey color was making me happy, too. What brought me, then, this sense of grief? "You must keep your promise," said the little prince, softly, as he sat down beside me once more. "What promise?" "You know—a muzzle for my sheep. I am responsible for this flower." I took my rough drafts of drawings out of my pocket. The little prince looked them over, and laughed as he said: "Your baobabs—they look a little like cabbages." "Oh!" I had been so proud of my baobabs! "Your fox—his ears look a little like horns; and they are too long." And he laughed again. "You are not fair, little prince," I said. "I don't know how to draw anything except boa constrictors from the outside and boa constrictors from the inside." "Oh, that will be all right," he said, "children understand." So then I made a pencil sketch of a muzzle. And as I gave it to him, my heart ached. "You have plans that I do not know about," I said. But he did not answer me. He said, instead: "You know, my fall to earth was a year ago." He was silent again, and then added: "I fell down near here." And he blushed. For some reason, I felt a strange and sorrowful emotion. But I thought of something else. "Then it was not by chance that on the morning when I first met you—a week ago—you were wandering, all alone, a thousand miles from any inhabited region! You were on your way back to the place where you fell?" The little prince blushed again. And I added, hesitatingly: "Perhaps because of the anniversary?" The little prince blushed once more. He never answered questions—but when one blushes, does that not mean "Yes"? "Ah!" I said. "I am afraid..." But he answered me: "You must work. You must go back to your engine. I am waiting for you here. Come back tomorrow evening..." But I was not reassured. I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed...

    5 min

  4. Apr 26

    The Little Prince-Chapter 24 | 小王子-第24章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 24 It was now the eighth day since I had had my accident in the desert, and I had listened to the story of the merchant as I was drinking the last drop of my water supply. "Ah," I said to the little prince, "these memories of yours are very charming; but I have not yet succeeded in repairing my plane; I have nothing more to drink; and I, too, should be very happy if I could walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water!" "My friend the fox—" the little prince said to me. "My dear little man, this is no longer a matter that has anything to do with the fox!" "Why not?" "Because I am about to die of thirst…" He did not follow my reasoning, and answered me: "It is a good thing to have had a friend, even if one is about to die. I, for instance, am very glad to have had a fox as a friend…" "He has no way of guessing the danger," I said to myself. "He has never been either hungry or thirsty. A little sunshine is all he needs…" But he looked at me steadily, and replied to my thought: "I am thirsty, too. Let us look for a well…" I made a gesture of weariness. It is absurd to look for a well, at random, in the immensity of the desert. But nevertheless we started walking. When we had trudged along for several hours, in silence, the darkness fell, and the stars began to come out. Thirst had made me a little feverish, and I looked at them as if I were in a dream. The little prince's last words came reeling back into my memory: "Then you are thirsty, too?" I demanded. But he did not reply to my question. He merely said to me: "Water may also be good for the heart…" I did not understand this answer, but I said nothing. I knew very well that it was impossible to cross-examine him. He was tired. He sat down. I sat down beside him. And, after a little silence, he spoke again: "The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen." I replied, "Yes, that is so." And, without saying anything more, I looked across the ridges of sand that were stretched out before us in the moonlight. "The desert is beautiful," the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams… "What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well…" I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it made the house itself enchanting. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart… "Yes," I said to the little prince. "The house, the stars, the desert—what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!" "I am glad," he said, "that you agree with my fox." As the little prince dropped off to sleep, I took him in my arms and set out walking once more. I felt deeply moved, and as if I were carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all Earth. In the moonlight I looked at his pale forehead, his closed eyes, his locks of hair that trembled in the wind, and I said to myself: "What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible…" As his lips opened slightly with the suspicion of a half-smile, I said to myself, again: "What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower—the image of a rose that shines through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep…" And I felt him to be more fragile still. I felt the need of protecting him, as if he himself were a flame that might be extinguished by a little puff of wind… And, as I walked on so, I found the well, at daybreak.

    5 min

  5. Apr 26

    The Little Prince-Chapter 23 | 小王子-第23章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 23 "Good morning," said the little prince. "Good morning," said the merchant. This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need of anything to drink. "Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince. "Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week." "And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?" "Anything you like..." "As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water."

    1 min

  6. Apr 24

    The Little Prince-Chapter 22 | 小王子-第22章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 22 "Good morning," said the little prince. "Good morning," said the railway switchman. "What do you do here?" the little prince asked. "I sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand," said the switchman. "I send off the trains that carry them; now to the right, now to the left." And a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder. "They are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "What are they looking for?" "Not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman. And a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction. "Are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince. "These are not the same ones," said the switchman. "It is an exchange." "Were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince. "No one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman. And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express. "Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince. "They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes." "Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry..." "They are lucky," the switchman said.

    2 min

  7. Apr 23

    The Little Prince-Chapter 21 | 小王子-第21章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 21 And then the Fox appeared. "Hello," said the Fox. "Hello," replied the little prince politely, who turned around but saw nothing. "I am here," said the voice, "under the apple tree." "Who are you?" asked the little prince. "You are very pretty." "I am a fox," said the Fox. "Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy." "I cannot play with you," said the Fox. "I am not tamed." "Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But after some thought, he added: "What does that mean—'tame'?" "You do not live here," said the Fox. "What is it that you are looking for?" "I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean—'tame'?" "Men," said the Fox, "they have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?" "No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean—'tame'?" "It is an act too often neglected," said the Fox. "It means to establish ties." "Establish ties?" "Yes," said the Fox. "To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. And to you, I am nothing more than a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world." "I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me." "It is possible," said the Fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things." "Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince. The Fox looked at him with interest. "On another planet?" "Yes." "Does that planet have hunters?" "No." "That is interesting. Does it have chickens?" "No." "Nothing is perfect," sighed the Fox. But the Fox came back to his idea. "My life is very monotonous," the Fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look—you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..." The Fox gazed at the little prince for a long time. "Please—tame me!" he said. "I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand." "One only understands the things that one tames," said the Fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..." "What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince. "You must be very patient," replied the Fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..." The next day the little prince came back. "You ought to come back at the same hour," said the Fox. "If you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..." "What is a rite?" asked the little prince. "Those also are actions too often neglected," said the Fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all." So the little prince tamed the Fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near— "Ah," said the Fox, "I shall cry." "It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..." "Yes, that is so," said the Fox. "But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince. "Yes, that is so," said the Fox. "Then it has done you no good at all!" "It has done me good," said the Fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields. And now I want you to go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret." The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my Fox when I first knew him. He was only a Fox like a hundred thousand other Foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you—the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose." And he went back to meet the Fox. "Goodbye," he said. "Goodbye," said the Fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." "It is the time I have wasted for my rose—" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember. "Men have forgotten this truth," said the Fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..." "I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

    8 min

  8. Apr 22

    The Little Prince-Chapter 20 | 小王子-第20章

    The Little Prince — Chapter 20 But it happened that the little prince, having long walked through sands, rocks, and snows, finally found a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men. "Good morning," he said. He was standing before a garden, all abloom with roses. "Good morning," said the roses. The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower. "Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck. "We are roses," the roses said. And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden! "She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that… she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should have to pretend to nurse her back to health—for I should hate to let her really die, just to humiliate me too…" Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees—and one of them perhaps extinct forever… that doesn't make me a very great prince…" And he lay down in the grass and cried.

    2 min
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About

《小王子》是法国作家安托万·德·圣·埃克苏佩里于1942年写成的著名儿童文学短篇小说。本书的主人公是来自外星球的小王子。书中以一位飞行员作为故事叙述者，讲述了小王子从自己星球出发前往地球的过程中，所经历的各种历险。作者以小王子的孩子式的眼光，透视出成人的空虚、盲目，愚妄和死板教条，用浅显天真的语言写出了人类的孤独寂寞、没有根基随风流浪的命运。同时，也表达出作者对金钱关系的批判，对真善美的讴歌。

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