Archive for the ‘Antoine de Saint Exupéry’ Category

And a third brightly lit express train thundered past.

“Are they chasing the first travelers?” asked the little prince.

“They’re not chasing anything,” the switchman said. “They’re sleeping in there, or…”

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 cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart…

“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…

The fifth planet was very strange. It was the smallest of all. There was just enough room on it for a street lamp and a lamplighter. The little prince was not able to reach any explanation of the use of a streetlight and a lamplighter, somewhere in the heavens, on a planet which had no people, and not one house. But he said to himself, nevertheless…

“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…

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, ever be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late.

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

But they answered: “Frightened? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?”