English
the narrator and the little prince, thirsty, hunt for a well in the desert
It was now the eighth day since I had had my accident in the desert, and I had listened to the story of the merchant as I was drinking the last drop of my water supply.
“Ah,” I said to the little prince, “these memories of yours are very charming; but I have not yet succeeded in repairing my plane; I have nothing more to drink; and I, too, should be very happy if I could walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water!”
“My friend the fox–” the little prince said to me.
“My dear little man, this is no longer a matter that has anything to do with the fox!”
“Why not?”
“Because I am about to die of thirst…”
He did not follow my reasoning, and he answered me:
“It is a good thing to have had a friend, even if one is about to die. I, for instance, am very glad to have had a fox as a friend…”
“He has no way of guessing the danger,” I said to myself. “He has never been either hungry or thirsty. A little sunshine is all he needs…”
But he looked at me steadily, and replied to my thought:
“I am thirsty, too. Let us look for a well…”
I made a gesture of weariness. It is absurd to look for a well, at random, in the immensity of the desert. But nevertheless we started walking.
When we had trudged along for several hours, in silence, the darkness fell, and the stars began to come out. Thirst had made me a little feverish, and I looked at them as if I were in a dream. The little prince’s last words came reeling back into my memory:
“Then you are thirsty, too?” I demanded.
But he did not reply to my question. He merely said to me:
“Water may also be good for the heart…”
I did not understand this answer, but I said nothing. I knew very well that it was impossible to cross-examine him.
He was tired. He sat down. I sat down beside him. And, after a little silence, he spoke again:
“The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen.”
I replied, “Yes, that is so.” And, without saying anything more, I looked across the ridges of sand that were stretched out before us in the moonlight.
“The desert is beautiful,” the little prince added.
And that was true. 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…
“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”
I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart…
“Yes,” I said to the little prince. “The house, the stars, the desert– what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!”
“I am glad,” he said, “that you agree with my fox.”
As the little prince dropped off to sleep, I took him in my arms and set out walking once more. I felt deeply moved, and stirred. It seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all Earth. In the moonlight I looked at his pale forehead, his closed eyes, his locks of hair that trembled in the wind, and I said to myself: “What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible…”
As his lips opened slightly with the suspicious of a half-smile, I said to myself, again: “What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower– the image of a rose that shines through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep…” And I felt him to be more fragile still. I felt the need of protecting him, as if he himself were a flame that might be extinguished by a little puff of wind…
And, as I walked on so, I found the well, at daybreak.
中文
叙述者和小王子口渴了，他们在沙漠中寻找一口水井
我在沙漠中出事已经第八天了。当我听完那个商人的故事时，正喝下我最后的一滴水。
“啊，”我对小王子说，“你这些回忆确实很迷人，但我还没修好我的飞机，我已经没水喝了。如果我也能悠哉游哉地向一潭清泉走去，我也会感到非常幸福的！”
“我的狐狸朋友……”小王子对我说。
“我的小家伙，现在这事儿已经跟狐狸没关系了！”
“为什么没关系？”
“因为我快要渴死了……”
他并不理解我的逻辑，他回答我：
“即便快要死了，有过一个朋友也是件好事。 比如我，就很开心曾有过一只狐狸当朋友……”
“他根本无法预料到危险，”我心想，“他从不知道什么是饥饿，什么是干渴。他只要有一点阳光就够了……”
但他静静地看着我，仿佛看穿了我的心思，回答道：
“我也渴了。我们去找口水井吧……”
我做了一个疲惫的手势。在茫茫无际的沙漠中漫无目的地寻找一口水井，这简直是荒唐。然而，我们还是起程了。
当我们沉默地跋涉了几个小时后，夜幕降临，繁星开始闪现。干渴让我有些发烧，我看着那些星星，仿佛身处梦境。小王子最后说的那些话，在我记忆中摇晃着浮现出来：
“那么，你也渴了吗？”我追问道。
但他没有回答我的问题。他只是对我说：
“水，对心也是有好处的……”
我不明白这个回答，但我什么也没说。我很清楚，你是没办法对他打破砂锅问到底的。
他累了，坐了下来。我也在他身边坐下。沉默了一会儿，他又开口说话了：
“星星是美丽的，因为那里有一朵看不见的花。”
我回答说：“是的，确实如此。”我没有再多说什么，只是望着月光下延展开去的层层沙脊。
“沙漠也是美丽的，”小王子补充道。
确实如此。我一直很喜欢沙漠。人坐在沙漠的沙丘上，什么也看不见，什么也听不到。然而，在寂静中，却有什么东西在跳动着，闪耀着……
“沙漠之所以美丽，”小王子说，“是因为在某个角落，藏着一口井……”
我突然理解了沙砾中那股神秘的光芒的含义，这让我感到十分惊讶。。当我还是个小男孩时，我住在一座老房子里。传说那里埋藏着一份宝藏。当然，从来没有人知道该如何找到它，甚至可能根本没人去找过。但它为那座房子笼罩了一层迷人的魔力。我的家，在它的心灵深处，隐藏着一个秘密……
“是的，”我对小王子说，“无论是房子、星星，还是沙漠——赋予它们美丽的东西，是看不见的！”
“我很高兴，”他说，“你和我的狐狸想到一块儿去了。”
当小王子沉睡时，我把他抱在怀里，重新出发了。我感到心潮澎湃，激动不已。我觉得自己正抱着一件极其脆弱的宝贝。在我看来，甚至全世界都没有比这更脆弱的东西了。在月光下，我看着他苍白的额头、紧闭的双眼，还有那在风中颤动的发丝，我对自己说：“我所看到的只是一个躯壳。最重要的东西，是看不见的……”
当他的双唇微启，带着一抹若有若无的微笑时，我再次对自己说：“这个沉睡的小王子最让我深切感动的，是他对一朵花的忠诚——那朵玫瑰的形象，像一盏灯的火焰，即便在他熟睡时，也穿透他的整个生命散发着光芒……”我感到他更加脆弱了。我觉得有必要保护他，就像保护一盏会被微风吹灭的火苗……
就这样走着，黎明时分，我发现了那口井。
一部分内容摘录自《小王子》。 如有侵权， 请联系作者删除
