The Little Prince E-Book

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.

Leseprobe

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

THE LITTLE PRINCE

Copyright

First published in 1943

Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris

Chapter 1

When I was six years old, I saw, once, a splendid picture, in a book about the virgin forest called Stories of Life. It represented a boa snake that swallowed a wildcat. This is the copy of the drawing.

The book said: “Boa snakes swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. Then they can no longer move and they sleep during the six months of their digestion.”

Then, I thought a lot about the adventures in forest and, on my turn, I managed, with a colored pencil, to make my first drawing. My drawing number 1. It was like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups and I asked them if my drawing frightened them.

They answered: “Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?”

My drawing did not represent a hat. It represented a boa snake that digested an elephant. Then, I drew the inside of the boa snake, so that the grown-ups could understand. They always need explanations. My drawing number 2 was like this:

The grown-ups advised me to put aside the drawings of open or closed boa snakes, and to become rather interested in geography, history, calculation and grammar. That is how I gave up, at the age of six, a magnificent career as a painter. I had been discouraged by the failure on my drawing number 1 and my drawing number 2. The grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and, for children, it’s tiresome always giving them explanations…

So I had to choose another profession and I learned how to pilot airplanes. I flew around the world. And geography, that’s right, helped me a lot. I recognized, at the first glance, China and Arizona. This is useful, if you are lost at night.

So I had, in my lifetime, a lot of contacts with a lot of serious people. I’ve lived a lot at the house of grown-ups. I saw them very closely. It has not improved my opinion very much.

When I met one who seemed a bit lucid, I experienced it on my drawing No. 1 that I always kept. I wanted to know if that person had really understood. But the person always answered: “It’s a hat.” Then, I did not talk to that person about boa snakes, neither virgin forests, nor stars. I put myself on the same level. I talked about bridge, golf, politics, and neckties. And the grown-up was glad to know another rational man…

Chapter 2

Thus, I lived alone, without anyone to talk to indeed, until a crash in the Sahara desert, six years ago. Something had broken in my engine. And as I had neither a mechanic nor passengers with me, I prepared to try to do, by myself, a difficult repair. For me, it was a matter of life or death. I had scarce water to drink for eight days.

The first night, I went to sleep on the sand thousand miles far from any inhabited land. I was much more isolated than a shipwreck on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So, you can imagine my surprise, at the sunrise, when a funny little voice woke me up. It said:

“Please… draw a sheep for me!”

“What!”

“Draw a sheep for me…”

I jumped on my feet as if I had been struck by lightning. I rubbed my eyes. I looked attentively. And I saw a quite extraordinary little fellow who looked at me seriously. This is the best portrait that, later, I managed to make of him.

But, my drawing, of course, is much less charming than the model. It is not my fault. I had been discouraged in my career as a painter by the grown-ups, at the age of six, and I did not learn how to draw, except closed boa snakes and open boa snakes.

I looked at that apparition with wide eyes and astonished. Do not forget that I was thousand miles far from any inhabited region. My little fellow did not seem lost, neither dead tired, nor hungry, thirsty or scared to death. He did not have the appearance of a child lost in the middle of the desert, thousand miles far from any inhabited region at all. When I was finally able to speak, I told him:

“But, what are you doing here?”

And then he repeated, very slowly, as if it was a very serious thing:

“Please… draw a sheep for me…”

When a mystery is too impressive, we do not dare to disobey. As absurd as that seemed to me a thousand miles far from all the inhabited places and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a piece of paper and a stylograph. But I remembered that I had studied mainly geography, history, calculation and grammar and I tell the little fellow (with a bit of bad mood) that I did not know how to draw. He answered me:

“It doesn’t matter. Draw a sheep for me.”

As I had never drawn a sheep, I remade for him one of the only two drawings that I was able. That one of the closed boa snake. And I was stunned to hear the little fellow answer me:

“No! No! I do not want an elephant in a boa snake. A boa snake is very dangerous, and an elephant is very cumbersome. At home, everything is tiny. I need a sheep. Draw a sheep for me.”

So I drew it.

He looked carefully, then:

“No! This one is already very sick. Make another.”

I draw:

My friend smiled kindly, with indulgence:

“See… it’s not a sheep, it’s a ram. It has horns…”

So, I remade my drawing again:

But it was refused, as the previous ones:

“This one is too old. I want a sheep that lives long.”

Then, with no patience, as I was eager to start disassembling my engine, I scribbled this drawing here:

And I threw:

“This is the box. The sheep you want is inside it.”

But I was very surprised to see my young judge’s face light up:

“That’s quite like I wanted! Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?”

“Why?”

“Because at home, everything is tiny…”

“That is probably enough. I gave you a little sheep.”

He tilted his head to the drawing:

“Not so little… Hey! It fell asleep!”

And that is how I met the little prince.

Chapter 3

It took me a long time to understand from where he came. The little prince, who asked me a lot of questions, never seemed to understand mine. The words spoken by chance, little by little, are the ones revealing me everything. Thus, when he saw my plane for the first time (I will not draw my plane, it’s a too complicated drawing for me) he asked me:

“What is that thing there?”

“That is not a thing. It flies. It’s a plane. It’s my plane.”

And I was proud to explain him that I flew. Then he exclaimed:

“How! Did you fall from sky?”

“Yes”, I said modestly.

“Ah! It is funny…”

And the little prince had a very nice burst of laughter that irritated me a lot. I want my misfortunes to be taken seriously. Then, he added:

“Then, you also come from the sky! What planet are you from?”

I immediately saw a gleam, in the mystery of his presence, and I asked abruptly:

“So, do you come from another planet?”

But he did not answer me. He nodded softly while watching my plane:

“It’s true that, on that, you can’t come from far away…”

And he sank into a daydream that lasted long. Then, taking my sheep out of his pocket, he immersed himself in the contemplation of his treasure.

You imagine how much I had been intrigued by this [...]