The Little Prince
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 -we are introduced to the narrator, a pilot, and his ideas about grown-ups.
Chapter 2 -the narrator crashes in the desert and makes the acquaintance of the little prince.
Chapter 3 -the narrator learns more about from where the little prince came.
Chapter 4 -the narrator speculates as to which asteroid from which the little prince came.
Chapter 5 -we are warned as to the dangers of the baobabs.
Chapter 6 -the little prince and the narrator talk about sunsets.
Chapter 7 -the narrator learns about the secret of the little prince's life.
Chapter 8 -the rose arrives at the little prince's planet.
Chapter 9 -the little prince leaves his planet.
Chapter 10 -the little prince visits the king.
Chapter 11 -the little prince visits the conceited man.
Chapter 12 -the little prince visits the tippler.
Chapter 13 -the little prince visits the businessman.
Chapter 14 -the little prince visits the lamplighter.
Chapter 15 -the little prince visits the geographer.
Chapter 16 -the narrator discusses the Earth's lamplighters.
Chapter 17 -the little prince makes the acquaintance of the snake.
Chapter 18 -the little prince goes looking for men and meets a flower.
Chapter 19 -the little prince climbs a mountain range.
Chapter 20 -the little prince discovers a garden of roses.
Chapter 21 -the little prince befriends the fox.
Chapter 22 -the little prince encounters a railway switchman.
Chapter 23 -the little prince encounters a merchant.
Chapter 24 -the narrator and the little prince, thirsty, hunt for a well in the desert.
Chapter 25 -finding a well, the narrator and the little prince discuss his return to his planet.
Chapter 26 -the little prince converses with the snake; the little prince consoles the narrator; the little prince returns to his planet.
Chapter 27 -the narrator's afterthoughts.
Chapter 1
Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion."
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this:
I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.
But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say:
"That is a hat."
Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.
Chapter 2
So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in my engine. And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last a week.
The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice.
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