小王子 Le Petit Prince‧Chap6

啊！小王子，我慢慢地了解關於你小小生命裡憂傷的秘密。有很長的一段時間，你唯一的娛樂是寧靜悠然地欣賞落日。

我知道這件事是在第四天早上，你對我說：「我很喜歡落日，我們來看落日吧...」


「可是我們要等等...」我說。

「等什麼？」小王子說。

「等太陽下山。」我說。

一開始你很像很驚訝，之後你自己笑了起來。你對我說：「我一直以為我還在家！」

事實上大家都知道，當美國正中午的時候，在法國是夕陽西下。如果你能在一分鐘之內趕到法國就可以看到落日，不幸的是法國太遠了。可是小王子，在你那小小的行星上面，你只要把椅子挪個幾步，只要你想，什麼時候都可以看到落日餘暉。

「有一天，我看了四十四次落日！」你告訴我。

又說：「你知道...人憂鬱的時候會喜歡落日。」

「所以看四十四次落日那天你很憂鬱？」我問。

小王子沒有回答。

Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life . . . For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:

"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."

"But we must wait," I said.

"Wait? For what?"

"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."

At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me:

"I am always thinking that I am at home!"

Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.

If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .

"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"

And a little later you added:

"You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."

"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"

But the little prince made no reply.

註：《小王子》是法國童話，法文原書名為Le Petit Prince，作者是聖艾修伯里，1943年在紐約出版，被譯成超過 180種語言，銷售量超過8千萬冊，還有拍成電影和動畫片、改編成話劇和音樂劇演出。
圖片出處：http://www.odaha.com