Chapter 6

Ah, little prince! So it was, gradually, that I came to understand your melancholy little life! For a long time your only pleasure had been to watch the gently setting sun. I learned this new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:

'I am very fond of sunsets. Let's go this moment and look at a sunset.'

'But we shall have to wait. . .'

'Wait for what?'

'Wait until it's time for the sun to set.'

At first you seemed very taken aback. Then you laughed at yourself and said:

'I still keep thinking I'm at home!'

Just so. For as everyone knows, when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could get to France in a twinkling, you could watch a sunset right now. Unfortunately France is rather too far away. But on your tiny planet, little prince, you had only to move your chair a few steps. You could watch night fall whenever you liked.

'One day,' you said, 'I watched the sunset forty-three times!'

And a little later you added:

'You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the sunset.'

'Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three sunsets?'

But the prince made no answer.