第6章
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.
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: “What is that object?”
“That is not an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane.” And I was proud to have him learn that I could fly.
He cried out, then: “What! You dropped down from the sky?”
“Yes,” I answered, modestly.
“Oh! That is funny!”
And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.
Then he added: “So you, too, come from the sky! Which is your planet?”
At that moment I caught a gleam of light in the impenetrable mystery of his presence; and I demanded, abruptly: “Do you come from another planet?”
But he did not reply. He tossed his head gently, without taking his eyes from my plane: “It is true that on that you can't have come from very far away…”
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.
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.
“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?”
After a reflective silence he answered: “The thing that is so good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use it as his house.”
“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.”
But the little prince seemed shocked by this offer: “Tie him! What a queer idea!”
“But if you don't tie him,” I said, “he will wander off somewhere, and get lost.”
My friend broke into another peal of laughter: “But where do you think he would go?”
“Anywhere. Straight ahead of him.”
Then the little prince said, earnestly: “That doesn't matter. Where I live, everything is so small!”
And, with perhaps a hint of sadness, he added: “Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far…”
我费了好长的时间才搞清楚小王子来自什么地方。他似乎从不听我的问话，倒是不断地向我提出种种问题。正是从他时不时说的只言片语中，我得知了有关他的一切。
当他第一次见到我的飞机（这里我不想把我的飞机画出来，对我来说，画飞机实在是太难了）的时候，就曾问过我：“这是什么东西呀？”
“这不是一件东西，这是一架飞机，是我的飞机，它会飞。”我还得意扬扬地告诉他我是开飞机来的。
他一听，就惊叹地说：“怎么？你是从天上掉下来的？”
“是的。”我谦虚地承认。
“啊，这可真是有趣呀……”
小王子乐得大笑起来，这使得我很恼火，我期望别人对我飞机出事的遭遇抱同情的态度。
接着他又补充了一句：“这么说，你也是从天上来的！你从哪颗星球来的？”
我立刻感到，这是解开他身世之谜的好机会，可以打听打听他是怎么来到我眼前的。于是，我猛然发问：“你是从别的星球上来的吧？”
但他并不回答我的问题，只轻轻地晃动着脑袋，望着我的飞机说：“说真的，光靠这东西，你不可能是从很远很远的地方来的……”
接着，他沉浸在自己的幻想之中，足有好一阵子。然后，他从口袋里掏出我给他画的那只绵羊，观赏起他的这个宝贝来了。
你们可以想象出，他问话中关于“其他星球”那种模棱两可的含义，是多么使我感到惊讶啊！因此，我要问个明白：
“我的小宝贝，你是从什么地方来的？你的家在哪儿？你要把我的绵羊带到什么地方去？”
他静静地沉思了一小会儿之后，答道：“多好呀，你给我的那只箱子，夜晚就可以给绵羊当房子住。”
“当然啦。你要是乖乖的话，我再给你画一根绳子，好让你白天把绵羊拴住。再给你画一根木桩。”
我的这个建议使得小王子很不高兴。“把绵羊拴住？多么荒唐的想法！”
“可你要是不拴住它，它会到处乱跑的，它会走丢的呀……”
我的小朋友又咯咯笑了起来。“但是，你想让它往哪里跑呢？”
“随便哪里，一直往前跑……”
小王子一本正经地指出：“没有关系，我那个地方实在是小得很！”
他似乎略带忧伤地又说了一句：“它一直往前跑，也跑不了多远……”