The Little Prince

 

46 

"You know," he said, "I can tell you a way you can rest whenever you want 

to..."   

"I always want to rest," said the lamplighter.   

For it is possible for a man to be faithful and lazy at the same time.   

The little prince went on with his explanation:   

"Your planet is so small that three strides will take you all the way around it. 

To be always in the sunshine, you need only walk along rather slowly. When 

you want to rest, you will walk-- and the day will last as long as you like."   

"That doesn't do me much good," said the lamplighter. "The one thing I love in 

life is to sleep."   

"Then you're unlucky," said the little prince.   

"I am unlucky," said the lamplighter. "Good morning."   

And he put out his lamp.   

"That man," said the little prince to himself, as he continued farther on his 

journey, "that man would be scorned by all the others: by the king, by the 

conceited man, by the tippler, by the businessman. Nevertheless he is the 

only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is 

because he is thinking of something else besides himself."   

He breathed a sigh of regret, and said to himself, again:   

"That man is the only one of them all whom I could have made my friend. But 

his planet is indeed too small. There is no room on it for two people..."   

What the little prince did not dare confess was that he was sorry most of all to 

leave this planet, because it was blest every day with 1440 sunsets! 

 

 

 

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47 

 Chapter 15   

  the little prince visits the geographer 

　

   

The sixth planet was ten times larger than the last one. It was inhabited by an 

old gentleman who wrote voluminous books.   

"Oh, look! Here is an explorer!" he exclaimed to himself when he saw the little 

prince coming.   

The little prince sat down on the table and panted a little. He had already 

traveled so much and so far!   

"Where do you come from?" the old gentleman said to him.   

"What is that big book?" said the little prince. "What are you doing?"   

"I am a geographer," the old gentleman said to him.   

"What is a geographer?" asked the little prince.   

"A geographer is a scholar who knows the location of all the seas, rivers, 

towns, mountains, and deserts."   

"That is very interesting," said the little prince. "Here at last is a man who has 

a real profession!" And he cast a look around him at the planet of the 

geographer. It was the most magnificent and stately planet that he had ever 

seen.   

 

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48 

"Your planet is very beautiful," he said. "Has it any oceans?"   

"I couldn't tell you," said the geographer.   

"Ah!" The little prince was disappointed. "Has it any mountains?"   

"I couldn't tell you," said the geographer.   

"And towns, and rivers, and deserts?"   

"I couldn't tell you that, either."   

"But you are a geographer!"   

"Exactly," the geographer said. "But I am not an explorer. I haven't a single 

explorer on my planet. It is not the geographer who goes out to count the 

towns, the rivers, the mountains, the seas, the oceans, and the deserts. The 

geographer is much too important to go loafing about. He does not leave his 

desk. But he receives the explorers in his study. He asks them questions, and 

he notes down what they recall of their travels. And if the recollections of any 

one among them seem interesting to him, the geographer orders an inquiry 

into that explorer's moral character."   

"Why is that?"   

"Because an explorer who told lies would bring disaster on the books of the 

geographer. So would an explorer who drank too much."   

"Why is that?" asked the little prince.   

"Because intoxicated men see double. Then the geographer would note down 

two mountains in a place where there was only one."   

"I know some one," said the little prince, "who would make a bad explorer."   

"That is possible. Then, when the moral character of the explorer is shown to 

be good, an inquiry is ordered into his discovery."   

"One goes to see it?"   

"No. That would be too complicated. But one requires the explorer to furnish 

proofs. For example, if the discovery in question is that of a large mountain, 

one requires that large stones be brought back from it."   

The geographer was suddenly stirred to excitement.   

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49 

"But you-- you come from far away! You are an explorer! You shall describe 

your planet to me!"   

And, having opened his big register, the geographer sharpened his pencil. 

The recitals of explorers are put down first in pencil. One waits until the 

explorer has furnished proofs, before putting them down in ink.   

"Well?" said the geographer expectantly.   

"Oh, where I live," said the little prince, "it is not very interesting. It is all so 

small. I have three volcanoes. Two volcanoes are active and the other is 

extinct. But one never knows."   

"One never knows," said the geographer.   

"I have also a flower."   

"We do not record flowers," said the geographer.   

"Why is that? The flower is the most beautiful thing on my planet!"   

"We do not record them," said the geographer, "because they are 

ephemeral."   

"What does that mean-- 'ephemeral'?"   

"Geographies," said the geographer, "are the books which, of all books, are 

most concerned with matters of consequence. They never become 

old-fashioned. It is very rarely that a mountain changes its position. It is very 

rarely that an ocean empties itself of its waters. We write of eternal things."   

"But extinct volcanoes may come to life again," the little prince interrupted. 

"What does that mean-- 'ephemeral'?"   

"Whether volcanoes are extinct or alive, it comes to the same thing for us," 

said the geographer. "The thing that matters to us is the mountain. It does not 

change."   

"But what does that mean-- 'ephemeral'?" repeated the little prince, who 

never in his life had let go of a question, once he had asked it.   

"It means, 'which is in danger of speedy disappearance.'"   

"Is my flower in danger of speedy disappearance?"   

"Certainly it is."   

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