- the little prince discovers a garden of roses

but it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. and all roads lead to the abodes of men.

"good morning," he said.

he was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.

"good morning," said the roses.

the little prince gazed at them. they all looked like his flower.

"who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.

"we are roses," the roses said.

and he was overcome with sadness. his flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. and here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!

"she would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that... she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. and i should be obliged to pretend that i was nursing her back to life-- for if i did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die..."

then he went on with his reflections: "i thought that i was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all i had was a common rose. a common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees-- and one of them perhaps extinct forever... that doesn't make me a very great prince..."

and he lay down in the grass and cried.

在沙漠、岩石、雪地上行走了很长的时间以后，小王子终于发现了一条大路。所有的大路都是通往人住的地方的。

“你们好。”小王子说。

这是一个玫瑰盛开的花园。

“你好。”玫瑰花说道。

小王子瞅着这些花，它们全都和他的那朵花一样。

“你们是什么花？”小王子惊奇地问。

“我们是玫瑰花。”花儿们说道。

“啊！”小王子说…。

他感到自己非常不幸。他的那朵花曾对他说她是整个宇宙中独一无二的一种花。可是，仅在这一座花园里就有五千朵完全一样的这种花朵！

小王子自言自语地说：“如果她看到这些，她是一定会很恼火…她会咳嗽得更厉害，并且为避免让人耻笑，她会佯装死去。那么，我还得装着去护理她，因为如果不这样的话，她为了使我难堪，她可能会真的死去…”

接着他又说道：“我还以为我有一朵独一无二的花呢，我有的仅是一朵普通的花。这朵花，再加上三座只有我膝盖那么高的火山，而且其中一座还可能是永远熄灭了的，这一切不会使我成为一个了不起的王子…”于是，他躺在草丛中哭泣起来。