第八章

但她没有说下去。她来的时候是颗种子。她那里见过甚么别的处所。如此天真的谎话差点被小王子拆穿，她有点羞怒，立即假装咳嗽了两三声。这么做是要小王子处于有不对的职位，她说：“屏风呢？”

以是，小王子本来诚恳诚意地喜好这朵花，但是，这一来，却使他顿时对她产生了思疑。小王子对一些无关紧急的话看得太当真，这让他很忧?。

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.

“哦，你真标致！”

小王子这时再也节制不住本身的倾慕表情：

小王子很不美意义，从速拿来喷壶，打来了一壶清清的凉水，灌溉着花儿。

"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.

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.

有一天他奉告我说：“我不该把她的话当真，不该听信那些花儿的话。我们只要赏识花的模样，看看花，闻闻它就得了。我的花让我的星球充满芳香，可我却不为此欢畅，不会享用它。花说的关于老虎爪子的事让我很活力，实在她只是在撒娇，却反而使我恼火……”

“你刚才跟我说的时候，我就筹办去拿……”

"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..."

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.

Chapter 8

“我当时甚么也不懂！我应当按照她的行动，而不是听她的话来判定她。她芳香四溢，让我的糊口芳香多彩，我真不该分开她跑出来。我早该猜到，在她那令人垂怜的小把戏前面埋没着多少柔情啊。花的苦衷多么自相冲突！我当时太年青，还不晓得爱她。”

半晌以后，她弥补说道：“我想现在该是吃早点的时候了吧，不知您是否能够帮我……”

小王子非常轻易地就能看出这花儿不太谦善，但是她确切标致动听。

“我并不是草呀。”花儿娇柔地说。

“真对不起……”

她已经邃密地做了那么长的筹办事情，却打着哈欠说道：“真不美意义呀……我方才起床……瞧我的头发还是乱蓬蓬的……”

小王子思忖着：“讨厌风……这对一株植物来讲，真不交运，这朵花儿的苦衷太庞大了……”

“我并不怕甚么老虎，可我讨厌风产生的气流。你有没有屏风？”

"The screen"

"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 naive untruth, she coughed two or three times, in order to put the little prince in the wrong.

Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself.

“在我这个星球上没有老虎。”小王子轻声反对说，“并且，老虎是不会吃草的。”

很快我就进一步体味了这朵花儿。在小王子的星球上，畴昔一向都发展着一些只要一圈花瓣的很浅显的花。这些花非常小，一点也不占处所，向来也不会去打搅任何人。她们凌晨在草丛中开放，早晨就安静地干枯了。但是俄然有一天，不知从那里来了一颗种子，长出了一种新的花朵。小王子特别细心地监督着这棵与星球上其他任何植物都分歧的小苗，它说不定是一种新的猴面包树。

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 colours with the greatest care. 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.

但是，这棵小苗不久就不再长了，而是开端冒出了花苞，孕育了一个花朵。看到花苞长出一个很大的花蕾，小王子信赖它必然会开出一朵出奇标致的花。但是这朵花藏在它那绿茵茵的房间里，迟迟不肯暴露斑斓的容颜，她用了很长的时候来打扮本身。她经心遴选她将来的色彩，慢腾腾地打扮着，一片片地调剂花瓣的位置，她不但愿本身仿佛野地里的虞美人那样一出世就满脸皱纹。她要让本身光艳夺目地来到人间。是的，她是非常在乎标致的。她用很多天时候天仙般地打扮打扮。然后，在一天的凌晨，刚幸亏太阳升起的时候，她暴露了本身的真脸孔。

他还奉告我说：

因而花儿放开嗓门咳嗽了几声，就是要使小王子悔怨本身的不对。

因而，就如许，这朵花儿就以她那有点敏感多疑的虚荣心开端折磨着小王子。比方，有一天，她对小王子讲起她身上长的四根刺：“老虎要来就来吧，我可不怕它的爪子！”

"Please excuse me..."

"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!

“早晨我但愿您能把我放到一个玻璃罩内里。你这处所太冷。我本来住的阿谁处所……”

“当然了，”花儿悠然得意地回应说，“我是与太阳同时出世的……”

"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.

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!"