英语小说网

And I was proud to have him learn that I could fly.

At that moment I caught a gleam of light in the impenetrable mystery of his presence; and I demanded, abruptly:

It took me a long time to learn 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 chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me.

He cried out, then:

Then he added:

"Oh! That is funny!"

"What! You dropped down from the sky?"

But he did not reply. He tossed his head gently, without taking his eyes from my plane:

The first time he saw my airplane, for instance (I shall not draw my airplane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me:

And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.

"That is not an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane."

"So you, too, come from the sky! Which is your planet?"

"Yes," I answered, modestly.

"Do you come from another planet?"

"What is that object?"

My friend broke into another peal of laughter:

You can imagine how my curiosity was aroused by this half-confidence about the "other planets." I made a great effort, therefore, to find out more on this subject.

"It is true that on that you can't have come from very far away…"

But the little prince seemed shocked by this offer:

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

After a reflective silence he answered:

"But where do you think he would go?"

"The thing that is so good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use it as his house."

"Tie him! What a queer idea!"

"My little man, where do you come from? What is this 'where I live,' of which you speak? Where do you want to take your sheep?"

"But if you don't tie him," I said, "he will wander off somewhere, and get lost."

"That is so. And if you are good I will give you a string, too, so that you can tie him during the day, and a post to tie him to."

"Anywhere. Straight ahead of him."

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

Then the little prince said, earnestly:

"Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far…"

And, with perhaps a hint of sadness, he added: