第十章[第2页/共9页]

Chapter 10

"But there is nobody here to judge!""We do not know that," the king said to him. "I have not yet made a complete tour of my kingdom. I am very old. There is no room here for a carriage. And it tires me to walk.""Oh, but I have looked already!" said the little prince, turning around to give one more glance to the other side of the planet. On that side, as on this, there was nobody at all...

“噢！但是我已经看过了，”小王子探身朝星球的那一侧看了看，“那边也和这边一样，没有一小我……”

小王子迷惑：“他向来也没有见过我，如何会熟谙我呢？”

"Certainly they do," the king said. "They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination."Such power was a thing for the little prince to marvel at. If he had been master of such complete authority, he would have been able to watch the sunset, not forty-four times in one day, but seventy-two, or even a hundred, or even two hundred times, with out ever having to move his chair. And because he felt a bit sad as he remembered his little planet which he had forsaken, he plucked up his courage to ask the king a favor:"I should like to see a sunset... do me that kindness... Order the sun to set...""If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong" the king demanded. "The general, or myself""You," said the little prince firmly.