Little
Prince Table of Contents
"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 was torn.
"You
have plans that I do not know about," I said. But he did not answer
me. He said to me, instead: "You know, my descent to the earth...
Tomorrow will be its anniversary." Then, after a silence, he went
on: "I came down very near here." And he flushed.
And
once again, without understanding why, I had a queer sense of
sorrow. One question, however, occurred to me: "Then it was not
by chance that on the morning when I first met you-- a week ago--
you were strolling along like that, all alone, a thousand miles
from any inhabited region? You were on the your way back to the
place where you landed?"
The
little prince flushed again. And I added, with some hesitancy:
"Perhaps it was because of the anniversary?" The little prince
flushed once more. He never answered questions, but when one flushes
does that not mean "Yes"?
"Ah,"
I said to him, "I am a little frightened..."
But
he interrupted me. "Now you must work. You must return to your
engine. I will be 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...
Go
to Chapter 26
