Explore Chapter 13 of 'The Little Prince' with the original English text, English translation, detailed IELTS vocabulary and explanations, and audio of the English original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
Three plus two is five. Five plus seven is twelve. Twelve plus three is fifteen. Good morning. Fifteen plus seven is twenty-two. Twenty-two plus five is twenty-seven. Twenty-six plus five is thirty-one. Phew! That makes five hundred and one million, six hundred twenty-two thousand, seven hundred thirty-one.
"Huh? Are you still there? Five hundred and one million—I can't stop... I'm just talking nonsense to keep myself busy. Two plus five is seven."
He never let go of a question once he had asked it.
"In the fifty-four years I've lived on this planet, I've only been bothered three times. The first time was twenty-two years ago, when some dizzy bird fell from who knows where. It made a terrible noise that echoed everywhere, and I made four mistakes in my counting. The second time, eleven years ago, I was bothered by a rheumatism attack. I don't get enough exercise. I have no time to waste. The third time—well, this is it! I was saying, five hundred and one million—"
The businessman suddenly realized he wouldn't be left alone until he answered the question.
"Millions of those little things," he said, "that you sometimes see in the sky."
"Oh, no. Little shiny things."
"Oh, no. Little golden things that make lazy people daydream. As for me, I care about important matters. There's no time for daydreaming in my life."
"And what do you do with five hundred million stars?"
"Five hundred and one million, six hundred twenty-two thousand, seven hundred thirty-one. I care about important matters: I am precise."
"Kings don't own, they rule over. It's very different."
"It lets me buy more stars, if any are ever found."
"Who do they belong to?" the businessman snapped back, annoyed.
"Then they belong to me, because I was the first to think of it."
"Of course. When you find a diamond that belongs to no one, it's yours. When you find an island that belongs to no one, it's yours. When you have an idea before anyone else, you patent it: it's yours. So with me: I own the stars, because no one before me ever thought of owning them."
"Yes, that's true," said the little prince. "And what do you do with them?"
"I manage them," replied the businessman. "I count them and count them again. It's hard. But I'm a man who cares about important things."
"If I owned a silk scarf," he said, "I could put it around my neck and take it with me. If I owned a flower, I could pick it and take it with me. But you can't pick the stars from the sky..."
"It means I write the number of my stars on a little paper. Then I put the paper in a drawer and lock it with a key."
"It's amusing," thought the little prince. "It's quite poetic. But it's not very important."
On important matters, the little prince had very different ideas from grown-ups.
"I myself own a flower," he went on talking to the businessman, "which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I clean every week (I clean the extinct one too; you never know). It's useful to my volcanoes, and useful to my flower, that I own them. But you are not useful to the stars..."
The businessman opened his mouth but found nothing to say. And the little prince left.
"Grown-ups are certainly very strange," he said simply, as he continued on his way.