可是這棵灌木很快的停止生長，然後開始開花。小王子親眼看著她生出第一個巨大的花蕾，當時他覺得好像奇蹟就要誕生，可是那朵花還沒有為她的美麗裝扮做好準備，她關在綠色花萼的房室裡，小心翼翼的挑選顏色，慢慢地穿上衣服，她逐一地整理自己的花瓣，不願意自己來到這世界時，像紅罌粟花那樣皺巴巴地。
她希望自己出現時美侖美奐。哦! 是的，她美豔極了！她神祕地裝扮了許多天，然後一天早上，事實上是太陽升起的時候，她突然出現了。
小王子壓抑不住對她的欽慕，讚美的說：「喔！妳多美啊！」
「可不是？」那朵花甜甜地答。「我和太陽一起誕生呢...」
小王子早就料到她一點也不謙虛，但她是那麼動人！那麼令人興奮！
一會之後，她接著說：「我想現在是早餐時間了。如果你瞭解我的需要...」
就這樣那朵花開始用她的虛榮心折磨他。比方說，有一天談到她那四根刺時，她跟小王子說：「那些有爪的老虎會來吧！」
小王子否認道：「我的行星上面沒有老虎，而且老虎又不吃草。」
「我不是草。」那朵花甜甜地回答。
「喔！對不起...」小王子說。
花接著說：「其實我一點也不怕老虎，但我怕風，我在想，你能不能給我屏風？」
小王子說：「怕風？...對一棵植物來說，這真是件不幸的事！」接著自忖道：「這朵花真是複雜的生物。」
花說：「晚上你把我放在玻璃罩裡，你住的這裡很冷。我來的地方...」
講到這時，她停了下來，她來自於種子。她對任何其他的世界毫無所悉，她對於自己扯了這樣差點被識破的謊感到有點不好意思，於是咳嗽了兩三聲，並怪罪到小王子身上。
「屏風呢？」花說。
「我正要去找，但你在跟我說話...」
接著她又乾咳了幾聲，算是對他再一次的譴責。
就這樣，儘管小王子因為愛而全心全力對待她，但卻也很快的懷疑她。他把不重要的話想得太認真，這讓他變得不快樂。
有一天小王子私下對我說：「我實在不該聽她的話。人不該理會花講的話，應該單純地欣賞她們、聞聞她們。這朵花讓我的星球充滿香氣，但是我卻不去享受她帶來的恩典。這個故事本來應該讓我的心充滿溫情和憐憫的，但卻如此擾亂我的心。」
接著小王子又對我坦裎說：「當時我不知道要怎樣了解事情！我應該根據她的行為而不是言語來評斷她。她讓我充滿香氣，充滿光。我不應該逃離她！我應該發覺在她那些小詭計背後蘊藏的感情。花是這麼的自我矛盾！可是當時我太年輕了，不懂得如何愛她。」
I soon learned to know this flower better. On the little prince's planet the flowers had always been very simple. They had only one ring of petals; they took up no room at all; they were a trouble to nobody. One morning they would appear in the grass, and by night they would have faded peacefully away. But one day, from a seed blown from no one knew where, a new flower had come up; and the little prince had watched very closely over this small sprout which was not like any other small sprouts on his planet. It might, you see, have been a new kind of baobab.
The shrub soon stopped growing, and began to get ready to produce a flower. The little prince, who was present at the first appearance of a huge bud, felt at once that some sort of miraculous apparition must emerge from it. But the flower was not satisfied to complete the preparations for her beauty in the shelter of her green chamber. She chose her colors with the greatest care. She dressed herself slowly. She adjusted her petals one by one. She did not wish to go out into the world all rumpled, like the field poppies. It was only in the full radiance of her beauty that she wished to appear. Oh, yes! She was a coquettish creature! And her mysterious adornment lasted for days and days.
Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself.
And, after working with all this painstaking precision, she yawned and said:
"Ah! I am scarcely awake. I beg that you will excuse me. My petals are still all disarranged . . ."
But the little prince could not restrain his admiration:
"Oh! How beautiful you are!"
"Am I not?" the flower responded, sweetly. "And I was born at the same moment as the sun . . ."
The little prince could guess easily enough that she was not any too modest--but how moving--and exciting--she was!
"I think it is time for breakfast," she added an instant later. "If you would have the kindness to think of my needs--"
And the little prince, completely abashed, went to look for a sprinkling-can of fresh water. So, he tended the flower.
So, too, she began very quickly to torment him with her vanity--which was, if the truth be known, a little difficult to deal with. One day, for instance, when she was speaking of her four thorns, she said to the little prince:
"Let the tigers come with their claws!"
"There are no tigers on my planet," the little prince objected. "And, anyway, tigers do not eat weeds."
"I am not a weed," the flower replied, sweetly.
"Please excuse me . . ."
"I am not at all afraid of tigers," she went on, "but I have a horror of drafts. I suppose you wouldn't have a screen for me?"
"A horror of drafts--that is bad luck, for a plant," remarked the little prince, and added to himself, "This flower is a very complex creature . . ."
"At night I want you to put me under a glass globe. It is very cold where you live. In the place I came from--"
But she interrupted herself at that point. She had come in the form of a seed. She could not have known anything of any other worlds. Embarassed over having let herself be caught on the verge of such a naďve untruth, she coughed two or three times, in order to put the little prince in the wrong.
"The screen?"
"I was just going to look for it when you spoke to me . . ."
Then she forced her cough a little more so that he should suffer from remorse just the same.
So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt her. He had taken seriously words which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.
"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity."
And he continued his confidences:
"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her …"
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
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