English
the little prince visits the king
He found himself in the neighborhood of the asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330. He began, therefore, by visiting them, in order to add to his knowledge.
The first of them was inhabited by a king. Clad in royal purple and ermine, he was seated upon a throne which was at the same time both simple and majestic.
“Ah! Here is a subject,” exclaimed the king, when he saw the little prince coming.
And the little prince asked himself:
“How could he recognize me when he had never seen me before?”
He did not know how the world is simplified for kings. To them, all men are subjects.
“Approach, so that I may see you better,” said the king, who felt consumingly proud of being at last a king over somebody.
The little prince looked everywhere to find a place to sit down; but the entire planet was crammed and obstructed by the king’s magnificent ermine robe. So he remained standing upright, and, since he was tired, he yawned.
“It is contrary to etiquette to yawn in the presence of a king,” the monarch said to him. “I forbid you to do so.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself,” replied the little prince, thoroughly embarrassed. “I have come on a long journey, and I have had no sleep…”
“Ah, then,” the king said. “I order you to yawn. It is years since I have seen anyone yawning. Yawns, to me, are objects of curiosity. Come, now! Yawn again! It is an order.”
“That frightens me… I cannot, any more…” murmured the little prince, now completely abashed.
“Hum! Hum!” replied the king. “Then I– I order you sometimes to yawn and sometimes to–”
He sputtered a little, and seemed vexed.
For what the king fundamentally insisted upon was that his authority should be respected. He tolerated no disobedience. He was an absolute monarch. But, because he was a very good man, he made his orders reasonable.
“If I ordered a general,” he would say, by way of example, “if I ordered a general to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not obey me, that would not be the fault of the general. It would be my fault.”
“May I sit down?” came now a timid inquiry from the little prince.
“I order you to do so,” the king answered him, and majestically gathered in a fold of his ermine mantle.
But the little prince was wondering… The planet was tiny. Over what could this king really rule?
“Sire,” he said to him, “I beg that you will excuse my asking you a question–”
“I order you to ask me a question,” the king hastened to assure him.
“Sire– over what do you rule?”
“Over everything,” said the king, with magnificent simplicity.
“Over everything?”
The king made a gesture, which took in his planet, the other planets, and all the stars.
“Over all that?” asked the little prince.
“Over all that,” the king answered.
For his rule was not only absolute: it was also universal.
“And the stars obey you?”
“Certainly they do,” the king said. “They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination.”
Such power was a thing for the little prince to marvel at. If he had been master of such complete authority, he would have been able to watch the sunset, not forty-four times in one day, but seventy-two, or even a hundred, or even two hundred times, with out ever having to move his chair. And because he felt a bit sad as he remembered his little planet which he had forsaken, he plucked up his courage to ask the king a favor:
“I should like to see a sunset… do me that kindness… Order the sun to set…”
“If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?” the king demanded. “The general, or myself?”
“You,” said the little prince firmly.
“Exactly. One much require from each one the duty which each one can perform,” the king went on. “Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.”
“Then my sunset?” the little prince reminded him: for he never forgot a question once he had asked it.
“You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But, according to my science of government, I shall wait until conditions are favorable.”
“When will that be?” inquired the little prince.
“Hum! Hum!” replied the king; and before saying anything else he consulted a bulky almanac. “Hum! Hum! That will be about– about– that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight. And you will see how well I am obeyed.”
The little prince yawned. He was regretting his lost sunset. And then, too, he was already beginning to be a little bored.
“I have nothing more to do here,” he said to the king. “So I shall set out on my way again.”
“Do not go,” said the king, who was very proud of having a subject. “Do not go. I will make you a Minister!”
“Minister of what?”
“Minster of– of Justice!”
“But there is nobody here to judge!”
“We do not know that,” the king said to him. “I have not yet made a complete tour of my kingdom. I am very old. There is no room here for a carriage. And it tires me to walk.”
“Oh, but I have looked already!” said the little prince, turning around to give one more glance to the other side of the planet. On that side, as on this, there was nobody at all…
“Then you shall judge yourself,” the king answered. “that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”
“Yes,” said the little prince, “but I can judge myself anywhere. I do not need to live on this planet.
“Hum! Hum!” said the king. “I have good reason to believe that somewhere on my planet there is an old rat. I hear him at night. You can judge this old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. Thus his life will depend on your justice. But you will pardon him on each occasion; for he must be treated thriftily. He is the only one we have.”
“I,” replied the little prince, “do not like to condemn anyone to death. And now I think I will go on my way.”
“No,” said the king.
But the little prince, having now completed his preparations for departure, had no wish to grieve the old monarch.
“If Your Majesty wishes to be promptly obeyed,” he said, “he should be able to give me a reasonable order. He should be able, for example, to order me to be gone by the end of one minute. It seems to me that conditions are favorable…”
As the king made no answer, the little prince hesitated a moment. Then, with a sigh, he took his leave.
“I made you my Ambassador,” the king called out, hastily.
He had a magnificent air of authority.
“The grown-ups are very strange,” the little prince said to himself, as he continued on his journey.
中文
小王子拜见了国王
他发现自己来到了第325、326、327、328、329、330号小行星附近。于是，他决定从拜访这些小行星开始，以增长自己的见识。
第一颗小行星上住着一位国王。他身着象征皇权的紫色貂皮长袍，端坐在一张既简洁又庄严的宝座上。
当他看见小王子时，喊了起来：
“啊，来了一个臣民。”
小王子心想：“他从来也没有见过我，怎么会认识我呢？”
他并不知道，在那些国王的眼里 ，世界是非常简单的：所有的人都是臣民。
国王对自己终于拥有了一个臣民而欣喜不已。 他对小王子说道：“ 走近些，让我好好看看你 。”
小王子环顾四周想找个地方坐下，可整个星球都被国王华丽的貂皮长袍塞得满满当当，连个落脚的空隙都没有。于是他只好站着——而且他已经有些疲倦了，便打了个呵欠。
“在国王面前打哈欠是违反礼仪的，”国王严厉地说，“我禁止你这样做。”
“我实在忍不住，”小王子回答说，“我走了很远的路，而且没有睡觉……”
“那么，”国王说，“我命令你打呵欠。已经有好多年没人打呵欠了，我觉得这倒挺新鲜。来吧，再打一个！”
“这倒叫我有点紧张……我打不出哈欠来了……”小王子红着脸说。
“嗯！嗯！”国王回答道，“那么我就命令你—忽而打哈欠，忽而……”
他说了几句，显得有些恼火。
因为国王非常在意的一点是：他的命令必须得到遵守。他是个绝对主义者。不过他并不愚蠢，他的命令总是合情合理的。
“如果我命令一位将军变成一只海鸟，”他说，“而将军没有服从，那并不是将军的错，而是我的错。”
小王子腼腆地试探道：“我可以坐下吗？”
“我命令你这样做，”国王回答道，同时威严地收拢了一角他的貂皮大衣。
可是小王子感到很奇怪。这么小的行星，国王他对什么进行统治呢？
他对国王说：“陛下……请原谅，我想问您……”
国王急忙抢着说道：“我命令你问我。”
“陛下……你统治什么呢？”
国王非常简单明了地说：“我统治一切。”
“一切？”
国王轻轻地用手指着他的行星和其他的行星，以及所有的星星。
小王子说：“统治这一切？”
“统治这一切。”
原来他不仅是一个绝对的君主，而且是整个宇宙的君主。
“那么，星星都服从您吗？”
“那当然！”国王对他说，“它们立即就得服从。我是不允许无纪律的。”
这样的权力使小王子惊叹不已。如果掌握了这样的权力，那么，他一天就不只是看到四十三次日落，而可以看到七十二次，甚至一百次，或是二百次日落，也不必要去挪动椅子了！而当他想起自己已经离开的那颗小小星球时，心里不免有些忧伤。于是，他鼓起勇气向国王提出了一个请求：
“我想看日落，请求您……命令太阳落山吧……”
国王说道：“我若命令一位将军像蝴蝶那样在花丛间飞舞，或是写一部悲剧，或是变成一只海鸟，这位将军拒不执行，那么错的是他还是我？”
“是您”小王子毫不犹豫地说。
“正是如此。”国王接着说，“应该要求每个人去完成他力所能及的职责。被接受的权威，首先建立在理性之上。如果你命令你的人民跳进大海，他们就会起来造反。我有权要求服从，因为我的命令是合理的。”
“那我的日落呢？”小王子提醒他说。他一旦问过的问题，从来不会忘记。
“你会看到日落的。我会下令。”国王说，“不过，按照我的治国之道，我要等到条件成熟的时候。”
“那是什么时候呢？”小王子问。
“嗯！嗯！”国王回答着，在开口之前翻看了一本厚厚的年鉴。“嗯！嗯！大约——大约——今晚七点四十分左右吧。你会看到我是多么地被服从。”
小王子又打起哈欠来了。他很遗憾没有看到日落。他有点厌烦了，他对国王说： “我没有必要再呆在这儿了。我要走了。”
这位因为刚刚有了一个臣民而十分骄傲自得的国王说道：
“别走，别走。我任命你当大臣。”
“什么大臣”
“嗯……司法大臣！”
“可是，这儿没有一个要审判的人。”
“这一点还不能确定，”国王对他说，“我还没有把我的王国巡查完毕。我已经很老了，这里又没有地方可以坐马车，而走路又太累人。”
“噢！可是我已经看过了。”小王子说道，并探身朝星球的那一侧看了看。 那边也没有一个人……
“那么你就审判你自己吧！”国王回答他说。“这可是最难的了。审判自己比审判别人要难得多啊！你要是能审判好自己，你就是一个真正有才智的人。”
“是的，”小王子说，“可我在哪儿都能审判自己。我并不一定要住在这颗星球上。”
国王又说：“嗯……嗯……我想，在我的星球上有一只老耗子。夜里，我听见它 的声音。你可以审判它，不时地判处它死刑。因此它的生命取决于你的判决。可是，你要有节制地使用这只耗子，每次判刑后都要赦免它，因为只有这一只耗子。”
“我不喜欢判任何人死刑，”小王子回答说，“而且我想，现在我要继续上路了。”
“不”，国王说。
可小王子已经准备好离开了，他并不想让这位年迈的君主伤心。 说道：
“如果国王陛下想要不折不扣地得到服从，你可以给我下一个合理的命令。 比如说，你可以命令我，一分钟之内必须离开。我认为这个条件是成熟的……”
由于国王没有回答，小王子犹豫了一会儿。接着，他叹了口气，起身离开了……
“我封你为我的大使！”国王急忙喊道。
国王显出非常有权威的样子。
“小王子一边继续他的旅程，一边在心里想着：‘大人们可真奇怪。’”
一部分内容摘录自《小王子》。 如有侵权， 请联系作者删除
