Текст песни Антуан де Сент-Экзюпери - Маленький принц. Глава 15

XV

        The sixth planet was ten times the size of the previous one. On it lived an old man who wrote thick books.
        - Look! Here comes the traveler! he exclaimed, noticing the Little Prince.
        The little prince sat down on the table to catch his breath. He has traveled so much already!
        - Where are you from? the old man asked.
        - What is this huge book? asked the Little Prince. - What are you doing here?
        “I am a geographer,” the old man answered.
        - And what is a geographer?
        - This is a scientist who knows where the seas, rivers, cities, mountains and deserts are.
        - How interesting! - said the Little Prince. - This is the real thing!
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        And he looked around at the geographer's planet. He had never seen such a magnificent planet.
        “Your planet is very beautiful,” he said. - Do you have oceans?
        “I don't know that,” said the geographer.
        “Ohhh ...” the Little Prince said disappointedly. - Are there mountains?
        “I don't know,” the geographer repeated.
        - And cities, rivers, deserts?
        “And I don't know that either.”
        “But you are a geographer!”
        “Exactly,” said the old man. “I'm a geographer, not a traveler.” I'm terribly short of travelers. After all, geographers do not count cities, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans and deserts. The geographer is too important a person, he has no time to walk around. He does not leave his office. But he receives travelers and records their stories. And if any of them tells something interesting, the geographer makes inquiries and checks whether this traveler is a decent person.
        - What for?
        - Why, if a traveler starts to lie, everything will be mixed up in geography textbooks. And if he drinks too much, it’s also a disaster.
        - And why?
        “Because drinkers have double vision.” And where there is actually one mountain, the geographer will mark two.
        “I knew one man ... A bad traveler would come out of him,” said the Little Prince.
        “Very possible.” So, if it turns out that the traveler is a decent person, then they check his discovery.
        - How to check? Go and watch?
        - Oh no. This is too complicated. They simply require the traveler to provide evidence. For example, if he discovered a large mountain, let him bring large stones from it.
        The geographer was suddenly worried:
        “But you are a traveler yourself!” You came from far away! Tell me about your planet!
        And he opened a thick book and erased a pencil. Travelers' stories are first written in pencil. And only after the traveler presents evidence, you can write his story in ink.
        “I'm listening to you,” said the geographer.
        “Well, it’s not so interesting with me there,” said the Little Prince. - I have everything very small. There are three volcanoes. Two act, and one has long gone out. But you never know what can happen ...
        “Yes, anything can happen,” the geographer confirmed.
        - Then, I have a flower.
        “We don’t celebrate flowers,” said the geographer.
        - Why ?! This is the most beautiful!
        “Because the flowers are ephemeral.”
        “How are these ephemeral?”
        “Books on geography are the most precious books in the world,” the geographer explained. “They never get old.” After all, this is a very rare case for a mountain to budge. Or make the ocean dry. We write about things eternal and unchanging.
        “But an extinct volcano may wake up,” interrupted the Little Prince. - And what is "ephemeral"?
        “An extinct volcano or an action doesn’t matter to us geographers,” said the geographer. - One thing is important: the mountain. She does not change.
        - And what is "ephemeral"? - asked the Little Prince, because once asked a question, he did not back down until he received an answer.
        - This means: the one that should disappear soon.
        “And should my flower disappear soon?”
        - Of course.
        “My beauty and joy are short-lived,” the Little Prince told himself, “and she has nothing to defend herself against the world: she only has four thorns. But I left her and she was left on my planet all alone!”
        This is the first time he regretted an abandoned flower. But courage immediately returned to him.
        “Where do you advise me to go?” he asked the geographer.
        “Visit planet Earth,” the geographer replied. - She has a good reputation ...
        And the Little Prince set off, but his thoughts were about an abandoned flower.