I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...

But silence continued in the layers of the earth, and this density that I could feel at my shoulders continued harmonious, sustained, unaltered through eternity. I lay there pondering my situation, lost in the desert, and in danger, naked between sky and sand and stars, withdrawn by too much silence from the poles of my life.

Mais voici qu’aujourd’hui nous avons éprouvé la soif. Et ce puits que nous connaissons, nous découvrons, aujourd’hui seulement, qu’il rayonne sure l’étendue. Une femme invisible peut enchanter ainsi toute une maison. Un puits porte loin, comme l’amour.

I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.

Good morning," said the little prince.

Good morning," said the merchant.

This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink.

Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince.

Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week."
And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?"

Anything you like..."

As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.