فصل هفدهم

Chapter seventeen

Trying to be witty leads to lying, more or less. What I just told you about the lamplighters isn’t completely true, and I risk giving a false idea of our planet to those who don’t know it.

Men occupy very little space on Earth. If the two billion inhabitants of the globe were to stand close together, as they might for some big public event

they would easily fit into a city block that was twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. You could crowd all humanity onto the smallest Pacific islet.

Grown-ups, of course, won’t believe you. They’re convinced they take up much more room. They consider themselves as important as the baobabs.

So you should advise them to make their own calculations - they love numbers, and they’ll enjoy it. But don’t waste your time on this extra task. It’s unnecessary. Trust me.

So once he reached Earth, the little prince was quite surprised not to see anyone. He was beginning to fear he had come to the wrong planet when a moon-colored loop uncoiled on the sand.

“Good evening,” the little prince said, just in case.

“Good evening,” said the snake.

“What planet have I landed on’’ asked the little prince.

“On the planet Earth, in Africa,” the snake replied.

“Ah!… And are there no people on Earth?”

“It’s the desert here; There are no people in the desert; Earth is very big,” said the snake.

The little prince sat down on a rock and looked up into the sky.

“I wonder,” he said, “if the stars are lit up so that each of us can find his own, someday. Look at my planet - it’s just overhead. But so far away!”

“It’s lovely,” the snake said. “What have you come to Earth for?”

“I’m having difficulties with a flower,” the little prince said.

“Ah” said the snake.

And they were both silent.

“Where are the people” The little prince finally resumed the conversation. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…”

“It’s also lonely with people,” said the snake.

The little prince looked at the snake for a long time. “You’re a funny creature,” he said at last, “no thicker than a finger.”

“But I’m more powerful than a king’s finger,” the snake said.

The little prince smiled.

“You’re not very powerful…” You don’t even have feet. You couldn’t travel very far.”

“I can take you further than a ship,” the snake said. He coiled around the little prince’s ankle, like a golden bracelet.

“Anyone I touch, I send back to the land from which he came,” the snake went on. “But you’re innocent, and you come from a star…”

The little prince made no reply.

“I feel sorry for you, being so weak on this granite earth,” said the snake. “I can help you, someday, if you grow too homesick for your planet. I can-“

“Oh, I understand just what you mean,” said the little prince, “but why do you always speak in riddles?”

“I solve them all,” said the snake.

And they were both silent.