French Tale

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Children books – All American fairy tales – The Little Prince – Table of contents
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Chapter IV > > >

III

It took me ages to work out where the little prince came from. He asked me lots of questions but never seemed to hear mine. I gradually pieced his story together from odd things he said. For instance, when he first caught sight of my plane (I shall not draw my airplane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me:

“What’s that thing?”

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

And I was proud to tell him that I was a pilot and I flew planes.

Then he exclaimed: “What! You fell out of the sky!”

“Yes”, I replied modestly.

“Oh! That’s funny.”

And the little prince gave a tinkling laugh which I found extremely annoying. I expect people to take my troubles seriously.

Then he added: “So you came out of the sky too! What planet are you from?”

It suddenly dawned on me that he was giving me an important clue as to his mysterious appearance, and I said:

“You’re from another planet, aren’t you?”

But he did not reply. Still staring at my plane, he gently nodded his head:

“Of course, you can’t have come from very far away in that thing.”

And he stood lost in thought for a while. Then, taking my lamb out of his pocket, he examined his treasure. You can imagine how intrigued I was by his allusion to other planets.

So I tried to find out more: “Where do you come from, little man? Where is ‘your place’? Where do you want to take my lamb?”

He pondered for a while and replied: “The good thing about the crate is that at night it can be his house.”

“Exactly. And if you behave, I’ll give you a rope to tie him up during the day. And a stake.”

The little prince was shocked: “Tie him up? What a strange thing to do!”

“But if you don’t tie him up, he’ll wander all over the place and get lost.”

And my little friend burst out laughing again: “But where would he go?”

“Anywhere. Straight ahead of him.”

Then the little prince remarked solemnly: “It wouldn’t matter, my place is so tiny!”

And he added wistfully: “Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far.”

Children books – All American fairy tales – The Little Prince – Table of contents

< < < Chapter II
Chapter IV > > >

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